CHP50

Sael sat up, his neck stiff as he peeked about and grumbled. “She was so warm and comfortable,” he said to himself, twisting his lips in thought. “I better work on finding someone for us, yes?” Then, he winced as a strange sensation bit back at him for the threat. Fearfully, Vrahiel warred against his thoughts and he dismissed the angered spirit.

He stretched, spotting his father on one of his stumps draining his mana in meditation. He must have been anxious for a while. Likewise sat Seneya, her green fires dusting over her skin.

Every few seconds, though, a blink of another fire flickered through, and his heart clenched.

“That’s not normal.” A coarse voice eked out from behind Sael.

“No, it’s not.” Sael rested his face in his palm.

“I’m doing a little math here.” Dee whispered.

Sael cut his eye towards Dee. “And I assume that you’re getting the correct answer. Now leave before this gets ugly.”

The teeming motes of darkness welled within him, mind slipping away, black fire boiling at his core as he fought against the rising notes of the creature in his soul. Dee stared between the three and thought about intervening for a moment.

“Go! You can tell them I said goodbye!” Sael shouted, his breathing growing harsh. Sai’s mana flooded the glade, setting his passenger on edge, riling him up into a storm of emotion. Dee didn’t wait to be told again and scrambled off towards the rim of the woods and into the town. Kael’s eyes flew open at the noise

“Sael?” He asked, halting as he saw the fractal fires of Seneya pulsing to the tune of other colors and Kael wilted, all composure gone. “Gaff ryel nah…”

“Yes…” Sael said, his ragged breath growing uneven.

Kael rubbed a hand over his forehead as he pulled from his post and sank to his knees before her, breathing slowly.

“Leave, Sael. You don’t need to be around her anymore. If you have any love for her, you’ll leave.” Kael closed his eyes and trembled as Sael ignored him and strolled in closer to Seneya, his irises going darker still. Kael tensed and stood, halting him in his path.

“You’d stop me? You, who is at fault for why I know her soul?” Sael scathed, and the voice that came from him turned strained and hoarse, not his own.

“I love you, but I will not let you hurt her.” Kael forced his own fires over his arms in a slow threat.

“Do you love her enough to tell her the truth, though? You’ve had your suspicions for a while, no?” Sael asked, his lip curling into a sneer. He raised his dark eyes to meet the open and weary ones of Seneya’s as she took in the standoff before her.

“She doesn’t need to know that truth yet… and yes, from the moment I noticed how fast her hair grew. It was Sai’s hallmark.” Kael sighed and Seneya whimpered in her soft squeak. Freezing, Kael turned as his hackles raised, focusing on her as green eyes met his own.

“Starling?” He asked in a quiet whisper.

“Kael, what do you mean?” She asked, pulling her arms to her breast in a defensive posture, the one she twisted herself into in her most stressed moments.

“Seneya…” Kael whispered; his voice weak with regret.

“Kael? Am I this Esca person?” She pleaded with a whisper, staring at her palms as if for the first time.

“And many others before that, little Starling,” Kael said in a soft breath.

Sael bypassed Kael and stretched a hand out, wreathed in his flames as he stared down at her, a pleading expression in his eyes.

Seneya tightened her fists to herself and shook her head, “Vrahiel…” Her whisper came off sad, disappointed as he sat there waiting, eyes still begging.

“Sister?” He begged.

“No. No. No!” she breathed, shaking her head sharply as she brought her knees up and buried her face against them. Her tail wrapped around her protectively and Sael reached his other hand out to touch it, brushing his fingers over the baby fine softness of the skin there.

“NO!” she bleated, bunching tighter. “Don’t touch me. Please.” Her voice, a whimper, stuck in her throat.

She peered over her arms at the tatsuli that adorned her and the fearful face of Kael, then to Sael with his pleading hand still waiting for her. She drew a deep breath that shook in her lungs and closed her eyes.

“You took my fires once in this life,” Sael told her, a chided expression sliding over his features as he went a step back with childish hurt.

“In this life? How many lives have I lived?” she wavered, and Kael closed in on Sael, slipping around him to kneel at her side.

“So many, little Starling.” Kael said as she bunched tighter still, shaking.

“How hard is it for you to just come to me for one life, Sai Laynir, alt naia,” Sael said. ‘The distance between a star and its shine.’

“As hard as it was for me to come to you that first time,” she choked, fisted hands moving to her head to clutch at her buzzing mind as the memories teemed in her.

“Vrahiel Sahm alt frit,” she whispered. ‘born of emptiness and time’s black poison.’

“Just come with me, sister.” He pleaded, and she shook her head.

“I AM NOT HER… not now, not this life, not like that,” she denied, letting her confused aura buck within herself.

“Shh, Starling, calm yourself, please,” Kael pleaded, reaching up to take one of her drawn arms, stroking her wrist with gentle touches, trying to coax her out of the state. Kael turned his head to give Sael a fierce look. He didn’t flinch and a sharp expression dominated Sael, one that left none of his familiarity within.

“You are losing her to Sai. How does it feel knowing all three children of your children buckled into our cycle?” Sael asked, staring down at Kael.

“Three?” Kael gazed up and searched Sael’s eyes. The empty blackness of them told him nothing.

“Three,” Sael spoke back in haunting, hollow tones.

“I’ve lost you, but I’ve not lost her. She is Seneya, and I knew Esca,” Kael said, standing. “I know not of a third person in my li—”

“Briel Lightwing of Afryth,” Sael said. “Go ahead, ask her what Acryan looks like. I imagine those dreams of hers have been so confusing.” Sael’s laugh turned cruel and Seneya’s eyes lifted to stare at him, and the bewildered relief that spread across her face at Kael’s sidelong glance told him a painful truth he wasn’t ready to hear.

“Too bad, though,” Sael said, sauntering up to Kael with a braced posture. His arms tensed and Seneya saw a second too late as Sael let his black fires flare up along his arms and concentrate at his fists. He drew back and slammed his fist into Kael’s face, and the spray of blood that came from him spattered over Seneya’s pink cheeks.

“Sael, please stop!” Seneya pleaded as Kael hit the ground. Sael peered at her for an empty, trembling moment before watching Kael lay motionless.

“There’s no Sael here anymore, Starling. Soon, there won’t be any more Starling, just Sai. Come with me, please. I’ll stop the pain, the change. I’ll keep you whole.” Sael’s hollow words brought memories of betrayal back, lives long lost, when she lay before him a broken thing with pleading eyes, wanting nothing more than his company, and him leaving her alone and abandoned, blind in the dark.

Stories are only that, stories. The truth in them, though, the actual truth…

“I cannot trust you, brother,” Seneya whimpered.

“You cannot trust me? I am the only thing that has stayed by you in this life! I keep coming back and showing you this affection, though I knew who you were, Sai. I see you in there, saw you in there. Kael, see him?” Sael kneeled and pulled Kael up by his hair, shaking him as the blood trickled from the side of his broken mouth. “If I leave him alive, he’ll go back to the bottle and will never look you in the eye. I am doing him a kindness, and I’ll send him to his bondmate.” Sael drew his fist back once more and charged his fires. Kael caught the fist with two hands right as it approached his face, black fire in his own eyes.

Kael diverted the swing and slammed Sael’s fist to the ground, rolling atop him with flexing thighs, locking wings against his back and waist in a tight clasp. “No!” The rasping voice of Kael seethed.

Sael cocked his wing bases and thrust Kael off of him, moving on unsteady legs to stand over his scrambling father.

“I am firstborn of the Seraph, in his direct line. By your soul’s actions, my mother conceived me, and I have thus inherited that power. You have none of my blood and the Seraph’s influence in your form goes far too long back. You may overpower me, but you will not outlast me,” Kael promised as he cocked his thick legs up to his chest and kicked Sael straight in the diaphragm with both feet. His winded noise echoed in a solitary sound of impact before Kael stood once more, trembling.

Sael flew back after him, wings cocked, fires roaring, and Seneya scrambled from her stump as the two fought with a flurry of fists and feet. Blood ran the length Kael’s throat and chest, teeth scattered, both of them. She gasped in horror, the two snarling and biting at one another like animals without form. Their upright stance abandoned as they collapsed, wrestling themselves to the ground as their tails whipped, fingers clawed, and fists struck with blinding black fire, the likes of which Kael would never show her. It put into immense perspective the lengths to which Kael went to protect and train her.

“STOP!” she shouted, her heart trembling. “ADA’NA! SAEL!” Then, tears stung at her eyes as she realized what she needed to do. The hurt welled within her. Although shee and Kael only lived together for for a few seasons, she considered them the best months of her life, and she wanted to keep them forever. Seneya had never let herself get this attached before, and it made her heart physically ache.

“I’ll go.” Seneya whimpered. “Just stop, Sael, and I’ll go with you.” She stepped forward and watched as Kael and Sael separated, Kael in horror and Seneya in whimpering fear as she charged her fire over her shaking hand and stretched it toward the bloody form of her once-friend.

“Starling… no!” Kael coughed as he struggled up to his feet and halted in his step. Sael extended his flaming hand to her, grinning past his busted mouth, cracked lips, and flaming eyes.

“I’ll not abandon you like Acryan has. I’ll stay with you,” he said as he flared his fires and grasped onto her hand.

They melded for a flash, black and green fires swarming in a satisfying flick that halted and spluttered. Then, their mana warred with one another, strange cuts slicing up Seneya’s arms with a rending series of slices. Similarly, Sael’s arm burned with a hideous hissing sizzle.

She fed into it, pushing her fires against him as the roaring burn spread, blistering his skin in swollen lines of twisting flesh.

“No! Why!?” Sael fought to draw his hand back, but Seneya held his fingers in a death grip.

“You think we’d still be compatible after you did what you did to me? After you threatened to take the only happiness I’ve had in this life? My ada’na, the people I’m coming to know?” Seneya whimpered, shaking as his black fire kept raging against her.

“They’ll leave you like everyone else. Give it time.” He snarled out as he wrenched his hand away from her own. Shaking, he clutched the scarred appendage to himself and stared at her own sliced-up arm. As expected, it drizzled crimson blood.

“But can’t I enjoy my life, just a little longer while it lasts?” A sob caught in her chest. Tears ran liberally, trailing through Kael’s blood. She wanted to run to his incapacitated form, to soothe him, but her every move and twitch made Sael tense up and shift, anticipating her movement.

“It was never yours to begin with. Kael has lived his life, and it’s time you live yours, right at my side. I will give you all that Acryan has denied you. I will stay with you, even until the end, and come again to find you. There will be no stopping me, and I will not have to hear of your death like that again. You waste away so horribly every life for him.” Sael pleaded with her, and she walked back, shaking her head.

The tears kept coming, her chest bucking under the sobs. Beneath her emotions, anger boiled. Something hot in her belly seethed and rose.

She clutched to her breast, her breath growing heavier when her fires twitched. Then, though her eyes always shone a vivid green, they glowed brighter.

“Yes! Stop fearing me. Come! Come Sai!” He called to her, and she walked back again, another hiccup of a sob as synapses and parts of her mind flashed and broke through not unlike the sensations that took her back on the trains, when Troi hesitated to tell her those things.

She screamed.

Seneya staggered as her hands flew to her head, the pain unending, swarming inside her buzzing mind, connecting pieces of her brain long silenced. Simultaneously, English swears smattered her lips until Sael rushed forward, grasping around her rib cage to pull her to himself. Her mana activated as her healing fires consumed her hard.

“Remember me, Sai! REMEMBER ME!” He said, mistaking her utter panic. Sai boiled within her, anger shared between Seneya’s weaker self and the defensive nature of the seraphim that rode within her.

“STOOOOOOOOOOOOP!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, the shrill shriek of her cry echoing around the lands in a barking shout. Birds escaped from trees in the distance, and she clenched her fists, her mind summoning something, a deeper memory, a mottled metal knife amid a slender sharp blade.

“LET ME GO. STOP TOUCHING ME!” she shrieked, struggling in panic, English now as Sael grasped her tighter.

“Sai, I know you’re in there! Stop this nonsense!” he barked at her, and the impending sense of coarselight rose over his tightening grip. His arms draped around her chest as he leaned lower, face closing into the side of hers, hot breath whispering over her ear and clasping her in, her aura running rampant.

“Sister. Be mine. Come with me.” He pleaded as her mind rejected him, his longing aura spilling over her, overcoming her as an intense sensation of desperate magic bubbled over her right at the apex of the flash of light that accompanied coarselight.

Seneya reeled as his grasp tightened, her body going slack. “Sister… you’ll be fine here. I’ll take care of you. Sleep sister, sleep.” He whispered, and she drooped, slack and empty in his arms, his magic twitching inside her. If her fires had matured and her mana stabilized, she might have resisted, but terrified darkness filled with nightmares took her by storm.

Sael slumped back, sitting on the floor of his office, glancing around at the sparse features of the dark stone walls and up into the vaulted slanted ceiling.

“You won’t keep her from me this time, father,” He spat before staggering to drunken feet and wiping his lips with his left hand. His right hung limp, skin blistered and torn.

“SERFRIT!” Sael shouted out.

Scratching and scrambling came from the other side of his mahogany doors as a panicking narrow-jawed man came in, viewing the scene before him, his master in tatters and the girl strewn out, abused by his fires.

“Bring me a healer and take this girl to the harem. Lock her in and let her go hungry for a few days.”

Sael wiped his bleeding mouth on his sleeve and swore as Serfrit bustled to pick Seneya’s limp form from the floor. “She’s very young…”

“And I am patient.” Sael sneered, the black of his fire consuming his eyes, spurring Serfrit to run.