The master bedroom with its attached balcony, as well as the storeroom, was on the second floor of the villa. As the car turned into the grove, Ruban swept out of the room and into the hallway. If his uncle was here, Ruban would meet him. He wanted some answers, and he wanted them now. He was not going to run away like some thief, not when he was the one who had been betrayed.

A few paces down, the latticed wall on one side of the hallway rounded into a wide staircase leading down to the ground floor. The front door clicked – the sound of a key turning in a lock – just as Ruban reached the top of the staircase. Raised voices could be heard from the other side of the door. Someone was having an argument.

Ashwin’s hand shot out to wrap around Ruban’s bicep in a vicelike grip that belied his slender appearance. His wrists looked like they would snap at the slightest pressure, but he pulled the struggling man away from the stairs and pressed him against the latticed wall with the ease of someone manhandling a small child.

And then the front door burst open, throwing a man and a woman into the entrance hall.

Squinting through the latticework, Ruban recognised his uncle, his hair askew and hands balled into white-knuckled fists. He was breathing heavily, a thunderous expression on his face. With him was a young woman in a short green dress, unusually fair for these parts, her lustrous brown hair done up in an intricate coiffure atop her head, held in place by a pair of sunglasses. Her face was turned away from Ruban, but then he wasn’t looking at her anyway. All his attention was focused on Subhas.

“Let me go, dammit. I need to talk to him,” he hissed at Ashwin, struggling in the latter’s unrelenting grip.

“And what?” Ashwin snapped back, irritation evident in his tone. “Get fried alive by my mother? If you’re that eager to die, I promise you there are easier ways.”

“Your…mother?” Ruban whipped around just in time to see the young woman turn towards the staircase. Even if he had not recognised her face, there was no mistaking those unnaturally luminous eyes, silver flecks dancing against the black like starlight.

As they watched, Subhas slammed the front door shut and latched it from within, his movements abrupt and rather more aggressive than the task warranted. Then he too turned around, training stormy eyes on his companion. His voice, when he spoke, was brittle with suppressed fury.

“What more do you want from me, Tauheen?” he all but snarled at the young woman.

Despite the eyes, Ruban was having a hard time thinking of her as Ashwin’s mother. For one, they both looked to be about the same age – late teens to early twenties, if that. And dressed like this in human guise, she looked oddly girlish, like the thousand other young girls milling around Ibanborah in cocktail dresses and injudicious heels, weighed down by overstuffed shopping bags.

“You know exactly what I want from you,” Tauheen said. She had not raised her voice, she didn’t even look agitated, but something about her melodic timbre made Ruban feel an icy blade slash through his veins. It was the same feeling he got when listening to Safaa talk, or to a lesser extent Ashwin – perhaps because he was pretending to be human, perhaps because Ruban was so used to him by now – a vague sensation of underlying, otherworldly power. Only, in Tauheen’s case, it was somehow corrupted, twisted into something more chilling than awe-inspiring. Tauheen wasn’t shouting, but Ruban sensed repressed malice within every syllable that she uttered.

Subhas expelled a frustrated breath, turning away from her. “The Aeriel is dead, isn’t it? You killed it yourself with a single throw – an X-class at that! That proves that it works. The experiment was successful. What more do you want?”

“But it fought back!” Tauheen hissed, rounding on Subhas, her eyes flashing. “It was able to fight back. That proves the exact opposite – the experiment was an utter failure. We need more raw materials. More sif-ore. If I am to take Vaan, I don’t just need effective sifblades that kill quickly, I need infallible ones! I need weapons that give the enemy no opportunity to fight back; weapons that kill on contact. Instantaneously.” She smirked. The expression sat oddly on her face, like a stolen countenance. “Nothing less will kill my darling daughter.”

Subhas scoffed. “Well then you’ll have to find another way, won’t you? Do you think I have a sif mine in my basement? It is a precious commodity you ask for, Tauheen. More precious than my life, several times over. Do you think people haven’t noticed that I have redirected multiple consignments of enhanced sif-ores with no explanation? That these consignments are yet to reach any known treatment facilities or labs? How long do you think I can keep doing that without risking discovery? Without risking everything? Even now, my colleagues are starting to get suspicious. They’re asking questions. My hands are tied, Tauheen. I can’t get you any more of the ores than we already have.”

Subhas sank into a nearby sofa, looking exhausted. After a moment’s silence, Tauheen sidled up to him, folding herself next to his body. Her voice went soft, cajoling; so much so that Ruban had to strain his ears to hear what she was saying.

“I understand what you have done for me, my love,” she said softly, her voice like warm honey, as her lips pressed momentarily against Subhas’s exposed neck. “But you have to do this one last thing, not just for me but for us. You must.

“We must win. We must defeat her, make her pay for what she has done to us. Both of us. You cannot abandon our cause, my love. Not now. Not after we have come so far.”

Subhas snarled, rounding on Tauheen and almost throwing her lithe form off the sofa. “I have sacrificed enough for your cause, Tauheen. Enough! I have allowed my own brother to die. Have in fact led your disgusting henchwoman to his door myself. I have done things for which I can never forgive myself. And now, now I almost lost my only daughter, my Hiya, to your blighted cause! So don’t you dare tell me what I must do, you damned witch. I will not do anything that’ll put my daughter at risk. Never again, do you understand me?”

Catching herself in one graceful move before she hit the ground, Tauheen whirled, fury etched into every line of her face. Then, as soon as it had appeared, the anger dissipated, leaving behind a tranquil mask that chilled Ruban’s blood in his veins. “It was a necessary risk, and you know it,” she whispered, her tone hypnotic. “We risked everything on this, both of us. And it is not only for me that you are doing this. It is for them too. Your wife and your daughter. Or have you forgotten it? Have you forgotten your vow of revenge?

“Besides, Reivaa repaid your debt when she sacrificed her own life to protect your daughter from Safaa’s soldiers. Can you imagine what they would have done to her had they taken her? What she would have done to her? Safaa would have torn her apart, Subhas. Torn her apart and used her mangled corpse to coerce you into betraying me. If that had happened, we would have had no choice but to go to war immediately, facing almost certain defeat because you were too much of a coward to bring me what I need to kill Safaa, to bring peace to earth and Vaan once more. To make both the realms safe again and to avenge those whom we lost.

“Reivaa’s sacrifice might have protected Hiya this time, but I know my daughter. She won’t stop until she has what she wants. She will try, and then she will try again. As long as she lives, neither you nor anyone you love will ever be safe.”

From behind the latticework, Ruban could see his uncle shaking on the sofa, his face a jumble of emotions the Hunter couldn’t read. He was too far away. And in that moment, he would have given almost anything to break free of Ashwin’s hold and rush down the stairs to the entrance hall, if only to see for himself, just this once, what his uncle was thinking. What lies, what treachery had driven him to do what he had done.

Even as they watched, however, Tauheen continued to speak, her lips spilling venom in an endless cascade. “Safaa murdered your wife nine years ago for the formula, because she had access to it at SifCo. What makes you think she’d refrain from doing the same to your daughter today, for much greater gains? You do remember how Misri died, don’t you? What my daughter did to her before ending her life. How many times have I told you?” Her lips twisted in a malicious little smile even as Subhas all but whimpered, his face turned away from the Aeriel. It was a sound born of pure agony; as basic as the wail of an animal in pain.

Tauheen continued, relentless. “Or do you just not care anymore? Do you not care that the creature that murdered your wife in cold blood, that tortured her until she begged for death; the creature that would do the same to your daughter, your only child, in a heartbeat…do you not care that she is still alive? That she rules one realm and prepares to rule the other even as we speak? As you act like a coward and refuse to bring me what I need to destroy the evil that is my own child. Because if that is the case, I don’t need you anymore. I never want to see you again. If that is the case, then Reivaa died in vain. She should have let Safaa’s soldiers do with Hiya as they pleased.”

As Tauheen stopped speaking, an oppressive silence enveloped the house. Ruban was almost afraid to breathe, fearing the echoes of his breath would be heard down the stairs. Beside him, Ashwin stood stock-still, like someone had replaced him with a sculpture in his likeness.

At length, Tauheen closed her unnatural eyes, releasing a shuddering breath in a way that was so human it almost fooled Ruban for half a second. Then she turned and folded herself on the sofa like an overlarge cat, draping half her body over Subhas’s motionless form. Gently, she ran a finger down the side of his face – part soothing, part seductive. Caressing him, she spoke in a voice that was – disorientingly – the tenderness of a mother wrapped in the sultry desire of an eager lover. It made Ruban’s skin crawl with the sheer wrongness of it, like a mannequin trying to mimic human emotions and getting it all wrong, mixed up and mangled beyond recognition.

“Safaa killed your wife, Subhas. And she tried to kill your daughter. And Reivaa may have stopped her this time but she will try again. Again and again until she has succeeded. Until she has destroyed you, destroyed the whole world and brought humanity to its knees. And the only way to stop her is to wage war on Vaan. To defeat her and to kill her before she can realise her dark vision. I made you an offer after your wife died, Subhas. I gave you a choice, and you chose of your own volition, did you not? You swore to kill Safaa, to avenge your wife no matter what the cost. Will you go back on that promise now? Will you betray your family, leave your daughter at Safaa’s mercy, to do with as she pleases now that no one remains to stop her?

“Will you watch as she rips your only child to shreds, my love? As she destroys all that you care about? Or will you stand up and fight? That’s the only question you need to ask yourself. And you should ask it now.”

***

Ruban jerked, almost involuntarily, in Ashwin’s grip as Tauheen uttered the last few words, gave Subhas her ultimatum. At some point during her speech, Ashwin’s hold on him had slackened without him noticing. Now, his arm slipped easily out of Ashwin’s unresisting fingers. The Aeriel looked transfixed.

Ruban didn’t know when he had decided to do what he did next. He didn’t think he had – not consciously anyway. But then, his ability for logical reasoning had deserted him the moment Tauheen brought Hiya up in her venomous diatribe. Rationality had never been his strong suit when it came to those he loved, and this situation was so far beyond the realm of any logic that Ruban felt as though he was stuck in an alternate reality.

One moment he stood behind the latticework, peeking out at the entrance hall below, the next he was flying down the stairs like a man possessed, with every intention of lunging straight for Tauheen’s throat. His sifblade hung forgotten from his belt, everything he had learned at Bracken taking a backseat to the sheer, primal need for violence, for vengeance. He craved the satisfaction of feeling the Aeriel’s life snuffed out under his bare hands.

Ashwin, apparently resuscitated from his stupor, raced down after him, grabbing him from behind moments before he had reached his target. “Get off me!” he snarled, thrashing in the confines of the Aeriel’s stranglehold as he fought to get close to Tauheen. Close enough to kill. “Get off me you bastard! I’m going to kill her. I’m going to fucking end her. Make her pay for what she did to Baba, to Miki, to Aunt Misri. For what she almost did to Hiya. Dammit Ashwin, she has to die!”

“And how would that noble purpose be accomplished by your untimely demise, pray tell?” Ashwin snapped behind him.

“Ruban!” Subhas exclaimed, stumbling to his feet. He looked like the earth had burst open under him. “Ruban, what are you doing here?”

“Don’t you dare talk to me, you bastard!” Ruban roared, turning fiery eyes on his uncle, the Aeriel Queen momentarily forgotten. He felt like someone had reached into his chest and torn his heart out. It hurt, the pain almost physical in its intensity. But even more potent, more immediate than the pain was the fury, and he let it take control. “You betrayed me! You killed my father, burned my home to the ground. Almost killed me! Hell, you’d wanted to kill me, hadn’t you? That was the plan. To destroy us all. And for what? So you could sleep with some Aeriel whore? You left your own daughter to die for this wretched harlot–” at this, he turned blazing eyes on Tauheen – pure, unadulterated hatred suffusing every pore of his being. “If it hadn’t been for a random stroke of luck, Hiya would be dead now! Dead like Baba, like Aunty Misri and everyone else these foul creatures have murdered. And after all that, you have the fucking audacity to say my name, to talk to me like nothing’s changed!”

When he spoke, Subhas’s voice sounded wrecked, defeated. He looked like a man awaiting his own execution. “Ruban,” he said again, and it came out in a broken sob. “Gods, Ruban, it’s not like that. It wasn’t like that. You don’t understand. I-I don’t expect you to understand, but I was only doing what had to be done. I had no choice. Safaa needs to be defeated, needs to be killed. She killed your aunt; she was the one who tried to kill Hiya. And she will kill us all, destroy the earth if she’s not stopped. I had no choice but to do what I did,” he blanched, as if burned by his own words. “It’s unforgivable, what I have done to you. And I don’t expect you to forgive me, to understand. But it had to be done. This is bigger than you or me or any of us. It’s about the fate of the entire world.”

For a moment, Ruban just stared at Subhas, as if he was seeing him for the first time. Then his lips parted, and a broken, jagged little laugh seemed to tear itself out of his throat – a bitter, humourless thing. “You really believe that, don’t you?” he finally gasped, wiping tears from his eyes. He supposed someone who saw him now would think he had recently escaped an asylum. “You really believe all the ridiculous lies she’s been telling you. Safaa didn’t kill Aunt Misri, uncle, Reivaa did. By Tauheen’s command. She said so herself, moments before she died. Moments before we killed her to save Hiya, whom she had abducted, also at Tauheen’s command. Do you know what she said? Do you know what she said before we finally put the blade in her gut? She said that Hiya had her mother’s eyes, and that she would die screaming like her mother did, when she’d killed her and made it look like an accident. By Tauheen’s orders!”

Subhas was shaking his head, refusing to meet Ruban’s eyes. His entire body shook like a leaf in a storm, and he looked like he was about to retch his guts out. Shoulders slouched, eyes bloodshot, he looked nothing like his usual, commanding self. Ruban could almost believe this was a different man he was looking at, a stranger wearing his uncle’s face.

“No-no, that’s not how it happened. Not how it happened,” he was saying, repeating the words over and over again like a personal mantra, an anchor in a thunderstorm.

“That’s exactly how it happened,” Ruban snarled, unrelenting. Some part of him, something deep within the dark crevices of his mind, was deriving a perverse, twisted kind of pleasure from this; from seeing Subhas as broken as he felt. From being the one to break him. “You don’t have to trust me. Why would you? I am the son of the man you murdered in cold blood.

“Call Hiya, why don’t you? Call her right now and ask her what it looked like – the creature that kidnapped her from school. The creature we killed at Zikyang to rescue her. Ask her if that Aeriel had two red marks on its wings. Ask her what it called itself. Ask her what it said about her mother.

“For once in your life, stop being a bloody coward and face the truth that’s right in front of you. Call your daughter and ask her who took her. Ask her what happened at Zikyang. Ask her who tried to kill her, and who was there to fight for her life. You would trust your own child, wouldn’t you, you fucking hypocrite?”

Subhas looked as though each one of Ruban’s words was a blade piercing his body. He was still shaking his head, flinching at every word that left his nephew’s mouth. A small, distant part of Ruban, a kinder part, thought that it would perhaps be a mercy to kill him. A larger part of him revelled in his suffering, in the pain etched clearly on his broken face.

In his fury, he had almost forgotten about Tauheen, who still stood, unruffled, beside his uncle. When she spoke, her voice jerked him out of his frenzy like cold water splashed on his face, raw and disorienting.

“He’s lying, love,” she murmured, a hypnotic quality to her dulcet tones that made Ruban’s blood boil. “He’s lying, trying to turn you against me. They’re Safaa’s agents, all of them. He has betrayed you. Betrayed humanity. We have to kill him.”

For a moment, Ruban thought his uncle looked conflicted, torn. Like a rag doll pulled in too many directions at once – battered and helpless. Trembling, he turned pleading eyes on the Aeriel.

“We have to kill him, my darling,” she said, touching a gentle hand to his cheek.

Subhas snarled, “You keep your hands off him, you lying bitch!” He lunged at Tauheen, unarmed, a madman rushing to his own death. “You keep your hands off my family. I will kill you myself before you so much as lay a finger on him.”

And for a moment, despite everything, Ruban thought that he really would. Subhas’s fingers closed around Tauheen’s delicate, exposed throat and for a split second Ruban was sure – against all logic – that she would die. That he would kill her.

And then Tauheen raised one delicate, slender hand and flicked her wrist like she was swatting a fly. Subhas’s eyes widened, going almost comically round, before he went flying across the room like a broken doll thrown away by a bored child.

His body crashed against the opposite wall – more than twenty paces away – and he crumpled limply to the floor, unmoving.

***

As Tauheen turned her unnerving eyes on them, Ruban noticed her hands: they were aglow, long fingers enveloped in an incandescent light.

He had barely had time to shout out a warning before a shell crashed into the spot where they had been standing seconds ago. If they had leapt out of the way a moment later, they would have been a black, incinerated splotch on the white marble floor.

Instinctively, Ruban reached for his sifblade, the familiar weight in his hand an anchor in the storm. He let his body relax, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders as he dropped into a defensive stance, his movements fluid with years of practice. The Aeriel Queen’s radiant eyes followed his every move even as she recovered from the last attack. She must have already been drained for such an inconsequential effort to tire her.

As he gazed into her twisted beauty, Ruban felt fire course through his veins. It was like all the injustices of centuries past – both personal and global – weighed upon his heart, his soul, demanding recompense. Demanding vengeance.

His voice sounding oddly calm even to his own ears, he breathed: “It’s over, you know. Whatever you thought you were going to accomplish through all this bloodshed, all the lies and the treachery, it ends now. I am going to kill you. For what you did to my family, for what you did to the world. You’re going to die – tonight.”

Tauheen laughed, her voice ringing through the house, rich and mellifluous. “Kill me, will you? Idiot child. You say I am a liar and a traitor? Very well. And yet it isn’t me that has been lying to you all this time. I’m not the one who has betrayed you. Stupid, naïve boy. You’ve been played by my daughter just like the rest of them, don’t you see that? No, of course you don’t. That’s the whole point.

“She’s good at it, you know. At manipulating people, tricking them into doing her bidding. Corrupting the most honest intentions to fit her twisted purposes.”

Her gaze flicked to Ashwin and she sneered. “Sweet boy, isn’t he? Your little foreign friend. Very handy in a fight, I’d wager. He’s not what you think he is, though. Not a foreigner. Not your friend. Not human. He’s an Aeriel, my dear Ruban. And not just any Aeriel. He’s my son, Safaa’s brother. The prince of Vaan. And my daughter’s second-in-command. Another instance of her ability to corrupt all that is pure.

“He’s not here to help you, Ruban. He’s here to kill you. By Safaa’s orders. I’m not the liar, nor the traitor you need to be worrying about. You have bigger problems right now, haven’t you? You’ve been manipulated by an Aeriel all this time, my idiot boy. Manipulated and used by Vaan and my daughter to further their agenda. And all of it without your knowledge or consent. Don’t you see? That’s what they do. Twist honest, honourable men and women into performing evil deeds for their amusement.

“The question is, will you take that betrayal lying down, or will you be a man, stand up and get revenge?”

Ruban smiled. The irony of it was: it wasn’t a lie. None of what she had said was really untrue. Ashwin had manipulated him, and had done so to further Safaa’s agenda of foiling their mother. And yet, to Ruban, her implication couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Even a few weeks ago, the reminder of his naïveté would have stung, would have raised his hackles and made him defensive. Now, all it did was make him want to laugh. “Ah yes, your son. Shwaan – that’s what you call him, right? Shwaan and Safaa, quite the symmetry to it. I’ve met her too, just by the way. Wants your head on a pike, she does. Can’t say it’s much different with the boy, either. Kids these days,” he sighed, mocking, looking right into the Aeriel’s eyes. “Still, you’ve got to be a really shitty mother if both your children want you dead. That’s just a bit too much of a generation gap, wouldn’t you agree? Not in the running for any ‘Mom of the Year’ awards, are you?”

Tauheen snarled, face contorting in some nameless combination of rage and hatred; and even as Ruban watched, her form blurred, moving faster than his eyes could follow. Between one breath and the next, she was upon him. This time, she had not even bothered with an energy shell. Eyes burning, inches from his face, she raised a hand to strike him. She didn’t just want to kill him, he realised – she wanted to do it with her bare hands.

Tauheen’s hand came down in a wide arc, gathering momentum as it descended on its target. Moments before it connected with the side of his head, Ruban ducked, pressing his palm into her gut, the touch almost gentle.

His attacker staggered, her hand stopping mid-strike before falling limply to her side. Moments later, her knees buckled, leaving her prostrate at Ruban’s feet, heaving like a spent horse. Her eyes, what he could see of them, were wide with something like terror.

The enhanced sif ore – a harmless little rock to the unobservant eye – fell out of the folds of her green dress, where Ruban had pressed it into her belly, and rolled on the floor between them.

***

Ashwin’s wings flared out as Tauheen rolled away from under Ruban’s oncoming sifblade, which screeched on contact with the cold marble floor where the Aeriel’s body had been moments ago. Within seconds the Aeriel Queen was back on her feet, the tips of her fingers cackling with condensed energy. Ruban tensed, preparing to dodge whatever she threw at him this time. It was harder than he had imagined, fighting within the confines of a house. It was far from the worst terrain he had ever Hunted in, though. At least there weren’t any civilians to worry about here.

The next blast to rock the building did not originate from Tauheen, however. With a few flaps of his wings, Ashwin was directly above his mother. Tauheen’s own wings manifested behind her, lifting her up into the air, but before she could be level with her son an energy shell ripped through the air between them and struck her square in the chest, detonating with a blinding flash.

It knocked her back. By the time Ruban’s eyes had recovered from the flash blindness, however, she was back on her feet, seemingly undamaged apart from her ruined dress, which now hung off her in charred rags. Ashwin landed a few steps in front of Ruban, directly facing his mother, his wings almost obscuring the Hunter from her line of sight.

Over the mass of silver feathers blocking his view, Ruban saw Tauheen’s eyes widen as they landed upon Ashwin. She took a halting step forward, then swayed on her feet as if she were about to fall. Then her eyes narrowed into two glimmering slits, gaze shifting from her son to Ruban and then back.

“He did it, didn’t he?” she hissed, her voice almost feral, staring straight at the feathery appendage shielding Ruban from her death glare. “He attacked you. With that cursed blade. Tore your wing apart, didn’t he?” she screamed, her voice rising with every word. Body stiff with suppressed fury, she took another step towards her son.

“And yet you fight for him. Fight for them,” she spat. “Trying to protect them. And for what? So he can have another chance at driving that blade through your heart? So he can finally finish what he started and kill you? Kill one of us. Again?

“It doesn’t matter what you do, my child,” she said with something like pity in her voice. “He will never trust you. He can’t, being what he is. He’ll kill you the moment he’s done using you for his own ends.

“That’s what they do, humans. They never learned to trust us, not really. They’ve always hated us, since the very beginning. No matter what you do, how much you give them, it will never be enough. All they know is to take and to never give back what they’ve stolen. Since the time of Zeifaa, that is how it has been.”

Like strings pulled on a marionette, her expression sobered. “It’s what they are, Shwaan. It’s in their blood. They can’t help it. They crave blood and death like we crave the sun.

“I tried, you know. Tried to save them from their own savagery. Uplift them from their misery, show them the light. And what did I get for it?” she snarled, eyes swivelling back to Ruban. “Betrayal. Rebellion.” She took a deep breath, her breast heaving. “Exile.

“When all I’d tried to do was to drag them out of their own ignorance and give them a better life. You can’t save humans, Shwaan. Not even your little pet here. They’re all the same. Mad dogs that can’t be tamed. The best thing you can do for them is to put them down; put them out of their misery. Because all they know how to do is bark and bite. And if you’re not careful, they’ll bite your hand off as you feed them.

“But you don’t need me to tell you any of this, do you? You’ve seen first-hand the evidence of their savagery. You’ve borne it. He didn’t just attack you, my child. He attacked you where you were the most vulnerable, when you were trying to help him. What do you think he would do if you ever stood against him?”

“If we’re dogs, what do you call your own daughter?” Ruban growled, shaking with the urge to plant his blade deep into the Aeriel’s gut. “She hates you as much as we do, perhaps more. Wants you dead with a passion that’d do a human proud.” He sneered, “Or has she gained honorary membership into the canine club as well?”

With a jerk of her chin, Tauheen looked down her nose at Ruban as if he were an insect on her boot. “My daughter,” she spat, like the word left a foul taste in her mouth. “Has been tainted by her human blood. She has allowed herself to be overcome by it. She cannot accept subservience to her superiors.”

Her eyes flicked over to Ashwin, a smile touching her luscious, scarlet lips. “But you’re pure,” she crooned, her eyes shining. “Unmarked by humanity’s taint – in blood and being. My beautiful, taintless child. I love you, you know. I always loved you. Wanted you with me, even when I had lost everything. But she wouldn’t allow it. Safaa took you away from me, stole you, when she had no right!” Her eyes flashed. “But all of that doesn’t matter, not anymore. I have you now, and I’ll never let her take you from me again.”

She lifted both her hands, holding them out before her, her dark eyes locked with Ashwin’s silver ones. “Come to me, Shwaan, and we will rule earth and Vaan together. Regain all that we lost all those centuries ago, and more. Do you truly believe these pathetic, untamed creatures–” she said it begrudgingly, like she barely considered them even that. “Deserve your fealty? Your life? It is madness, what Safaa is doing. And you know it. Come with me, and together we can set the universe to rights once again. Reshape the world into what it should be. Undo the mistakes of those who came before us to create a better cosmos for those who come after.”

She released a soft breath, playing the exasperated mother with a flair that surprised Ruban. Couldn’t be easy, trying to appear motherly in nothing but a half-charred dress barely clinging to your torso. “Come with me, my child, and you’ll never have to fear a human again.”

Ashwin’s feet moved towards Tauheen as if of their own accord. Ruban wanted to say something, anything, to stop him. To call him back. But what could he say? Tauheen was manipulating the truth, twisting it for her own use. But she wasn’t lying. Nothing she had said so far had been an actual falsehood, and Ashwin knew it as well as he did. What could he say to make Ashwin turn back, when his own mother beckoned him with truth, if not with honesty?

Inches away from his mother’s outstretched arms, a shell nearly the size of Ruban’s head shot out of Ashwin’s hand, the momentum throwing him back even as the ball of energy crashed against Tauheen’s unprotected abdomen.

Eyes wide, mouth curled in a snarl cut off midway by the force of the attack, she crashed into the staircase with a force that splintered wood and bent metal, the railing folding in on itself with a deafening screech.

Landing next to Ruban, Ashwin folded his wings primly against his back, smirking as if at a private joke. “It wasn’t Safaa who was blinded by her human side, you know,” he said, fluffing his feathers to get the splinters out of his wings. “She was never the one who let her human blood overwhelm her. She wasn’t driven by their passions, overcome by their vices. That was you, mother. Always you.”

He shook his head, indulgent. “You’ve lived on mortal lands too long, you know. Your impassioned speeches and farcical eloquence might appeal to a human audience, perhaps even a few vankrai. But as you just said, I’m untainted by human blood. Did you really believe I would be swayed by that?” he chuckled. “Come now, mother. You used to be good at this. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were losing your touch.”

With a shriek that surpassed inhuman by a league and a half, Tauheen flew at her son, her body streaking through the air like a shimmering bullet as she zeroed in on her target. Moments before she reached him, a long blade flew out of the air and embedded itself into her shoulder, slowing her momentum just enough for Ashwin to grab Ruban and fly out of the way, leaving her to crash into the wall behind them.

As Ruban’s feet touched the ground once more, he could feel the house convulse around him, the walls shuddering in their very foundations.

A minute passed, then two. Tauheen lay collapsed against the nearly dilapidated wall, unmoving. Light spilled from her shoulder, casting long shadows over the floor scattered with debris. Cautiously, Ruban took a step towards her, keeping his eyes open for any sign of movement from the Aeriel. There was none. Tauheen lay still as a marble sculpture – pale, flawless and utterly unmoving. Had she been human, Ruban would have bet good money that she was dead.

She wasn’t human, though. And from what he had seen of her so far, it would take more than a sifblade to the shoulder to kill her. He was sure of that. Still, even a moment’s respite was an immeasurable asset on a Hunt, and Ruban did need to get his blade back.

Eyes boring into her listless form, he inched towards her. Finally within touching distance, he reached a hand out, fingers curling around the hilt of the blade sticking out of her shoulder.

For a heart-stopping second, the blade stuck in the Aeriel’s shoulder, as immobile as its host. Swearing under his breath, Ruban cursed his own stupidity for not thinking to arm himself better before coming to the villa. After everything that had happened in the past few months, he should have known that something like this was going to come to pass. Things never went according to plan where royalty was concerned, human or Aeriel.

Then, finally, something gave and the blade leapt into his hand, free of the flesh it had embedded itself into. Rubbing the gore off onto the plaster of the nearest wall, Ruban readjusted his grip on the handle and straightened.

An aborted cry from somewhere behind him made his head snap back – a moment’s error – before he realised what he had done and turned back to the smashed wall.

Nothing.

Tauheen was gone.

Ruban blinked, trying to process what had just happened, when a bright light filtered into the peripheries of his vision. He turned around, already knowing what he was about to see.

A few inches behind him, Tauheen floated above his head on outstretched wings. She held one hand out before her, fingers enveloped in the luminescent glow of a newly formed energy shell. If she attacked now, the range was all but point blank. No chance in the universe that she would miss this time.

Ruban was dead. And he knew it.

***