It was warm against my fingertips, that harrowing band of carefully melded silver.  Familiar intricacies are woven around the moonstone at its eyed centre forcing mine to narrow upon its surface.  A gift from once upon a time.  Found beside the corpse of a beast.  Lycan.  Its silver prongs bit into the calloused skin of my battle-worn palm as I held it tightly.  My fingers became its cage - the sting barring the emotions it evoked as if I could will it all away with a simple thought.  Close my eyes and it’d all vanish.  The pang in my chest; the tightness strangling my throat.  The searing salt threatened the rim of golden lashes.  Grief.  It plucked the fibres of my aching heart and chilled writhing viscera down to the soles of my feet.  The pain I felt when I stared at her name etched upon stone...one I knew to be inevitably carved in the coming days.  Did it make it easier?  Watching her decay, knowing the outcome.  Naive hope was blind to the signs but I knew - deep in my mind, I always knew I’d stand here without her.  I lost myself to the suffocating din of ire and phrenic whispers teetering on the edge of mania.  A warm wetness rolled down my cheek leaving a cold trail of sorrow. Part of me knew she’d died before I came back to play the part of big brother to the desert stray.  They’d never put flowers in her room.  No one kept me from her bedside.  She’s too frail, Aethelos.  Her condition could worsen with contamination.  The light aggravates her illness.  The hounds maimed a cat that crawled beneath the floor to die.  We’ll send the gardener to fetch it.  I felt so helpless standing here as a victim of my hopeless stupidity.  “I pray, Arabella,”  My voice was a raw whisper, a hoarse sound breaking through what felt like a dam of lament lodged deep in my throat.  “That you did not suffer for their greed.  That your… your last breath.”  Mine shook.  “That it knew peace.”  I kneeled to rest a bouquet of pink fairy roses - one of her favourites - at the head of her tombstone.  There were so many words I’d wanted to tell her - so many feelings I needed to say.  They were mute on my tongue and only knew the quiet cry of mourning.  ⊰∾⊱ Numbness took over in the hours I’d spent being jostled around to the melody of cobblestone and horseshoes.  Again I found myself occupying my thoughts on the ring and its meaning.  My mismatched iris observing the hints of blood I hadn’t been able to wash away nestled deep within the cracks of its design.  They had lied about so much, our parents, that surely their letter - too - had been falsified.  Daesn'yri… A flash of golden hair braided and decorated with pearls and beads splayed across silken sheets.  A white gown pressed up against her hips.  The taste of her hot upon my lips.  Lo’, what sounds she made as we moved in tandem until we were lost to the throes of unspoken passion.  Warmth spread throughout me roused by this memory, a merciless reprieve from the quiet torment of loss.  The demure maiden who could barely talk straight when flustered… her claws adorned with blood.  The image couldn’t find roots in logic.  I couldn’t think of her in the way their letter portrayed her.  Daesn’yri of the Dunes - murderer.  I kept the ring close at hand while the nag slowed her pace to a walk when we approached the winding drive, the prelude to the grounds owned by one Avarice Trahern.  What brought me here?  Rumour, speculation?  Hardly.  It was the same flash of sunwheat tresses I’d caught glimpses of in town that had once lay beneath me, beside me, smothering me in her presence until it was burrowed deep into my skin down to the blood in my heart.  “Do you know where she stays, madame Daesn’yri?  I’ve something of her’s I’d like to return.  Something very precious to her.”  A flash of a ring, a sullen smile, and the desperate glimpse of a man who needed answers.  A quiet plea that perhaps loosened the tongue of the hesitant woman.  That’s all it took for the florist to give the address where some of their out-of-stock goods would be delivered.  Did she hear my sigh of relief?  “The Trahern estate, sir.  I’ll scribe you the address.” The nag was released to graze on the wild grass and trimmed brush of the woods surrounding the walls of the Trahern grounds.  Booted heels crunched against gravel as I moved towards the iron gate that groaned quietly when pushed open.  What would I say?  What would she do?  Would it be her I saw here or another that would shoo me away for trespass?  I glanced to the left, drawn by instinct or perhaps a quiet knowing of what I’d find tucked away in the garden grounds.  That familiar hint of blonde.  The shape of her shoulders, the curve of her hips.  My breath hitched deep in my throat.  Anxiety gnawed at my stomach, twisting and turning and controlling my insides until I felt like I could vomit.  It took everything in me not to turn back down that drive.  My boots were quiet on the grass, gloved hand tightly holding the ring - her ring - until I was sure it would embed itself into my skin.  For a moment I stood there, watching her tend flowers before tossing the sterling band at her feet… and I said nothing.

A WREATH OF THORNS ADORNS THE DOOR

She had grown accustomed to the departure and arrival of various staff within the Trahern estate that she had been priveledged with keeping the company of. Avarice was overly kind, though she didn't strive to merely accept her dear friend's charity. In truth, most of her time in recent days had been spent within the embrace of the wilds. The landscape was vastly different, and she didn't have the hands and aid of her people, but there was an overwhelming comfort to regaining some semblance of closeness to her roots. They were not yet ensnared deep enough within the soils to be unaffected by the threatening blight of frost, however, and the creeping lethargy of winter's threat had chased her closer to the manor walls.

The morning sun would find her enveloped within the gardens, aiding one of the women in picking the various medicinal herbs the Lady of the house tended to and grew despite her absence. The workers still maintained her supplies in the event she needed them, and the wolf was not one to rest on her laurels. Not when she felt so restless, especially.

Maybe this complacency was why she no longer surged with paranoia when the creak of the gates announced a visitor to the property.
Had she known previously, what would she have done differently?

She heard the approach of foot falls, assuming it to be another to procure the whicker baskets they had gathered full already, and she paid little heed beyond the acknowledgement of another presence. The soft hum of her vocals continued their sway, a gentle lull, a precious lullaby that her mother had once sung to them on the cusp of night's embrace while she tucked them within their bed rolls. She could no longer recall the scent of her hair as the wheat strands had passed over her face to tickle her nose and cheeks, but the tune remained within her cerebrum. A loll that only halted as she heard the thud of something nearby instead, something dropped.

Something thrown.
No sooner than her eyes lit upon the band did her veins run like currents of ice.
No sooner than she beheld it, did she know the presence that loomed behind her.

She stood there for a moment. Her heart beat. Once. Twice. Her outstretched hand, reaching to retrieve the previously unknown object coiled, withered away like a vine to press tenderly to her chest. To the scarring of the bullet's explosive exit. She had unknowingly, foolishly nurtured a naïve hope that she would be left well enough alone. That they would be complicit with the announcement that she had died. That whoever had met the grave's peace in her place was enough to satisfy them. She certainly should have surmised otherwise. After all, the Beleverons could never be satisfied.

"Cathlene," she was proud of the way she kept the trembling from her vocals, pleased with how easy it was to keep the neutrality of her expression. "Would you allow me a moment?" The thickness of her accent would be accompanied by a small simper. The woman offered her a smile as well, a nod, an 'of course!' as she instead retrieved the full containers. The lamb was quiet within her breast, it offered no bleating resistance as the hand there coiled into a fist, sere nails biting hungrily into the skin of her palm. He didn't move. He didn't speak. Somehow, it made it worse. It made her even more infuriated that he didn't try to smack her as he did upon their first reunion. That he didn't offer his petty serpentine venom. That he gave her nothing. She hadn't expected an apology by any means, knowing full well those of his ilk could never be so kind.

So it was that she finally turned to face him as the last steps of the retreating maid depleted into silence. She wasn't dressed in the same gowns and finery as she had been when she'd anxiously awaited him with giddy, misplaced excitement at the Beleveron's front door. Her hair was messier, braided hastily and pulled itself with the length of its weight over the breadth of her shoulder, the looser strands brushing against her crawling skin within the crook of her neck. Her gaze seized his, unabashed, unrelenting housed within her raised countenance. Defiant. Proud. Her jaw clenched.

"Pick it up."

The words escaped her through a cage of teeth as she kicked the moonstone embedded thing she had once treasured back towards him, the metals clinking quietly against the bump of stones. She didn't care to watch its path, she didn't allow her vision to leave his face. She wasn't even particularly searching it for rhyme or reason for his appearance. He had already taken everything he could from her. She had nothing. left.

"Your kind are not welcome here."

NO ONE COMES HOME ANYMORE

That stare was likened to the intensity of the desert sun casting itself across sand-rolled dunes.  Drums pounded violently throughout my veins sounding a ritual of haste, their heat vibrating the shell of my ear.  Her eyes were a sweltering glare bolstering inflated dignity, volatile insurgency but to what end?  To set me aflame where I stood?  I couldn’t say I was surprised to stand here now before the hissing sandcat and not the beast my parents attempted to tame.  A demure creature with flushed cheeks and sombre eyes.  Someone who wasn’t Daesyn’ri.  Someone they tried to control.  She always was stronger than I could ever be. “Pick it up.”  I almost wanted to laugh but I couldn’t muster it.  My mouth remained a closed, narrow line.  Mismatched eyes drifted to the band discarded to the ground between us.  The moonstone caught the noonday light enough to glisten beyond the silver and blood and  I made no move to oblige her demand. “I am not your servant to command, princess.”  The numbness ebbed enough that my body stiffened, the hairs along my nape bristling beneath her glower.  “And I’ve grown quite tired of obeying orders.” I’d had enough of listening to their incredulous demands just for a chance to see Arabella.  Her life dangled in front of me like a bone held out for a starving dog.  They knew I’d jump for it, pull against the leash, whatever it took so I could reach her.  I was even willing to lose myself - the last remnants of dignity tossed to the sea - just so I could know that she was alive.  But she wasn’t anymore.  All that was left of her were memories and stone; bones now laid for the earth to claim.  There it was again, the tightness in my throat and the pang in my chest.  The reminder that my service had taken everything away from me.  “Your kind are not welcome here.” A tawny brow piqued.  “And which kind would that be, exactly?”  I met her gaze with equal ferocity, fists clinching at my sides until the knuckles grew white.  “Human?  Should I go howl to the full moon just so you’ll have a conversation with me, then?  Perhaps kill a few people to earn your good graces?”

A WREATH OF THORNS ADORNS THE DOOR

“I am not your servant to command, princess.”

When he had ever been, she did not know. Even in the desert the fool hardy hardly listened to a word she proclaimed. Despite her knowing the perilous pitfalls, the beasts that stalked the wild, the hot blood of youth (or so her father had claimed) would not allow him to listen. Not to a woman, not to a savage. She had learned then to let them make their own mistakes. They had learned better that way. The same as she could say she had. She would no longer be biting the hand that fed her, she would no longer be silently begging and pleading for the attention she had so sorely craved. He wasn't coming to meet the false face of his sister. He wouldn't find her babbling and flushing over her clumsy words and improper etiquette for Babington to scold her for. "Queen." The word was bitter upon her tongue as she corrected him. If he wished to use titles, then he would at least choose the correct one. It wasn't an entirely proud declaration. It tasted of iron and blood and chains as it trespassed from between her lips. More like an admittance. A confession.

He  would have known she was not the first in line. Nor the second. Not even the third for such a succession. “And I’ve grown quite tired of obeying orders.” A convenient time, she would consider it. He had no qualms of marching off to war. He had no objections to leaving her amid the monsters that were his family. Once again, it had only been her to taste his rejection, to tell her he would be punished should he not leave. As it just so happens that the attempt on her life would happen shortly afterwards. How daring to only decide now to make such a claim. In the end, she supposed, it made little difference to her that he would not reclaim the ring.

It would make a nice bauble for some fortunate crows.

“And which kind would that be, exactly?” The storm was gathering now within his stare as well, the motion of his fists clenching catching her peripherals as the entirety of his frame tensed before her. “Human?  Should I go howl to the full moon just so you’ll have a conversation with me, then?  Perhaps kill a few people to earn your good graces?” At that, she would laugh - no, the sound was more like the bark he accused her of. Humorless. Cold. To even consider the Beleverons human, he must have thought it a cruel, clever joke. One that had the edges of her lips twisting upwards, the likeness of a simper, but it lacked the warmth, the familiarity of her usual expression. A concession of madness. Teeth wrapped in velvet.

"Snakes." She would almost whisper. "Vipers. Traitors." For the first time, she wanted to edge closer, she wanted to fulfill his accusation. She wanted to show him fang and claw. That even he would hint that there was truth to the claim that she had been the aggressor... Well, it only proved within the cold of her eyes that he was indeed in on their ploy. Of course he was. He had gone along with everything else they had asked of him thus far, hadn't he? What more could she expect? It was as he said, but while she was the wolf, he was little better than a dog tied to their leash. She remained where she stood, however. The entirety of her rioting against the stillness. The whole of her vibrating with the cry for action. For vengeance. It was leashed, this overwhelming animosity, as she stepped from the mulch and dirt and onto the walkway that they would now share. Perhaps it was something sprung from when her mind was broken, begun with Khalila, but the ideal of being betrayed clawed at her sanity more than the tethers of moonlight from swollen Artemis. He hadn't been there. He had left. He had abandoned her. He knew. He knew it all - everything. No, he hadn't been there, but he may as well have been among the firing squad.

"But to kill..." she would let the words suspend themselves upon the air between them for a moment, "no. I didn't get to finish what I started. After all, your father should know best how to deal with savages."

NO ONE COMES HOME ANYMORE

It returned, the sharp ache, the nagging thrum wailing in its bone prison.  Thundering heart lamented like a robin locked away from the sky.  Never again would it see the bold blues of joy nor bask in the radiance of a noonday sun.  The starkness of her gaze, the malice lurking beneath, turned blood to ice and my thoughts descended into a quagmire of darkness.  Those beautiful eyes said everything her mouth did not.  Distrust.  Scorn.  What for?  Should I not be the one whose iris burned with unadulterated hatred for the death of a sister?  The murder of an innocent girl?  If what they’d said was true - that Daesyn’ri was responsible - I should be seething at the sight of her.  Instead, there was a part of me that wanted to reach out, to touch her face, to see the same pink flush spread across her entirety as I lay claim to those damned lips.  She stopped me.  Though Daesyn’ri didn’t move from beside the roses, when she spoke, the bitterness in my chest crawled up my throat and plucked at the strings of my voice, arming it with barbs. “Do forgive me, majesty.”  I swept my arm in front of my chest, a lazy bow.  “I didn’t realise I was talking to the queen of nothing.”  Before the vices of adulthood caught up to us, in the days of innocence and youth, she’d watch her elder sisters prepare for that role as she worked towards making her father proud by other means.  Few could best Daesyn’ri in combat whether through skill or fear of the bear-like man observing on the sidelines.  Even through the spiritual veil, I could feel those salt-and-pepper brows knitting into a scowl as I stood before her now, listening to the bark of laughter and the cold, calculating words that lured me forward a step with self-restrained hands clenched tightly at my side. Traitor.  I wanted to laugh. “I overestimated you, Dae.”  My breath drew in deep and methodic while I released the white-knuckle hold.  “You really are stupid if you honestly believe that I’d risk everything I worked for only to betray you in the end.”  There was no venom, no crescendo of growing ire.  Tawny brows lowered not with distasteful discourse but with increasing disappointment—a flickering hint of hurt burrowing deep in mismatched eyes. With arms crossed against my chest, I watched her, studied how her shoulders remained high and proud, how the crease of her mouth nearly admitted to the Beleveron accusations.  They weren’t true - they couldn’t be. “Their actions aren’t mine.”  Didn’t she know that already?  “You are many things, Daesyn’ri.”  Beautiful.  Dangerous.  Proud.  “But you’re no killer.” My gaze was provoking, a narrowed glower scorching over her face as I unfolded my arms, hands raised on either side in a challenging stance.  “Or would you like to prove me wrong?  Tear my throat out like they did Sari - put me in the grave beside Arabella.”  My lips twisted into the mockery of a smile.  What more did I have to lose when it already felt like I’d lost it all?

A WREATH OF THORNS ADORNS THE DOOR

She was ever her father's daughter - often he joked that she was the son he had never been given. She was so young when her mother had died, she couldn't recall the way he grieved her. Not only the loss of the woman he had loved so devoutly, but the future that was still surely ahead of them. Perhaps the siblings she would have yet gained should her dame not be plagued by problems. Many had said he had changed in the wake of the devastation of saying farewell. That the light in his gaze had dimmed, but she had never seen it extinguished. Not until the eldest of her sisters had been slain and lay wrapped in his arms as he cradled her the way he would have a babe. She could recall the dread that had crept through her body like blood, the horror that clawed up her throat like bile. She had never had the privilege of being introduced to the man she called 'father' prior to morph that grief wrought upon him. She wondered what that intangible thread would have looked like as well, what the footprints left behind on such a trail would have lead them to instead.

Did it look like her current state in time?
Would he recognize her like a reflection?
Would he mourn the daughter - the son - he had had before? The one he knew?
Or would beleaguered understanding only haunt his mournful stare as it rested upon her?
Would he witness the husk left behind by her untimely execution?
Or bury it.

“Do forgive me, majesty.” He would bow, a lazy, mocking motion. There was the familiarity of his dripping venom. Of his poisonous charm. There was the Aethelos she had become woefully familiar with since his arrival at the estate all those moons ago. Time. Sadness. She wanted to believe that those things had changed him as well, that her father hadn't been right about him from the beginning when they had begun to grow closer. She wanted to blame those cruel hands of fate for ripping his from her once desperate grasp. Maybe she had been far too naive, too trusting of the earnest desperation that she'd seen in his eyes the night he had set her ablaze and left her in ruins. Maybe it had all been naught but shameful lust, a deep seeded regret buried behind. “I didn’t realise I was talking to the queen of nothing.” She took no pleasure in it. There was no swell of satisfaction that the bite inflicted. In fact, she would be more surprised to admitting the hollowness. The nothingness that the sneer implanted within her breast and grew out the tangled gnarl of feasting roots. Spreading the plague. Devouring all it touched until such a title as the queen of nothing perfectly suited.

She had wanted to remark that he had picked an odd time to stop following orders. She had wanted to rant and rave at him for stupidly following the king to Dunmeath so adamantly despite her nearly begging him not to. She wanted to rake the talons of blame over his spine until the lacerations wept deep crimson for leaving her after all. For not running away with her as he had promised. For making a pyre of her and only coming back to inspect the ashes left behind, but in the end, that's all that there was. Damp, gray soot. The words couldn't pass the cage of teeth that had formed around them like a snare. Her tongue a rabbit caught and weakening behind them. She couldn't scathe him, because she had broken promises too. Ones that if she had only kept, Arabella may have been fine. She had always known she was second, a frustration once - yes - but now only an echoing after thought, a pang of indifference that relaxed the severity of her nails digging into her palms until her fingers were lax at her sides. She wanted to hurt him the way he had her, but she supposed in the end, she already had.

She would be it. This Queen of Nothing.
Housed upon a cracked throne in a crumbling empire.

“I overestimated you, Dae.” She had never turned away from him, but her stare would finally find focus upon him again. The venom was gone, despite the bluntness of his accusation. “You really are stupid if you honestly believe that I’d risk everything I worked for only to betray you in the end.” Despite the abandonment of her pride, she couldn't help but raise her chin, to abide to the clench of her jaw. But she wouldn't cry, not anymore. She had already long since spent all of her tears. "You say that, but you're the one that left." The words were quiet, albeit clear. They didn't quiver with the emotion that they would have if she had seen him sooner. "Again. I became the queen of nothing without you last time, but at least those were my monsters." Her head tilted faintly upon its axis, "This time you left me with yours, and this time I even asked you not to leave. But you did, so what am I to become now?"

“Their actions aren’t mine.” He stated, as if it were obvious. As if it was as plain as the nose upon his face, as if she should just simply take his word with the value of gold. Once upon a time she would have, she'd have believed him if he had told her the moon was the sun and the sun the moon. She'd thought his home was a thing of beauty from the way he had told her of it when all she could do was imagine the buildings and architecture he described. The dresses the women and girls wore. The dashing gentleman's finery. Like the city by the sea, but more grandeur. Enthralling. Mystical. Brimming with magic and possibility. She had wanted to visit it once, to see it with her own eyes and stroll the streets with him as he'd suggested. What she had discovered instead was the harsh reality of poverty and the restraining strings of political manipulation. The transgressions of a greedy monarch who allowed his people to do without and ordered them to lay down their lives while they were already starving to death or he would take them himself. Better was it to be the Queen of Nothing than that. Better was it to hunt together in an attempt to survive the harsh wilds than let her people starve without remorse. Better was it that all ate rather than a self proclaimed upper class of folk while those below them withered and perished. Better to be a savage than civilized if this truly was their idea of civilization. “You are many things, Daesyn’ri.” Was it a mask he wore, or genuine hurt? Crocodile tears could fill the Great Basin at the oasis if they could have only siphoned them from this place, and her kinsmen would have never done without again. “But you’re no killer.”

The edges of her mouth twitched once again, though she didn't smile in full. “Or would you like to prove me wrong?  Tear my throat out like they did Sari - put me in the grave beside Arabella.” At the mention of Sari, the hint of all expression would evaporate from her features, cerulean eyes drawing cold, reserved as they departed from him for the first time. So he knew of it. So she really was dead. They had killed her. Where was the line drawn for these people? For him? "You're wrong, you know." Then she glanced back to him, she did smile, a sickening saccharine expression warped from her once gentle beam that didn't match the chilling depth of her stare. She did come closer, her foot falls slow, measured. "I am not a murderer, but I became a killer." That day was not one she would ever forget. Before he had sailed away back to his world she could only imagine in fantasy, the only lives she had claimed were those of honored hunts. It hadn't been until his absence that she was forced to claim her first in battle. It was different, she had rationalized, some small shred of mercy upon herself - to try and right the shaking tremors of her hands as the blades had fallen from them. The way those eyes had gazed up at her, the gaping mouth open in horror. Sputtering carmine. Wheezing, rasping breath that seemed to deafen her despite the overwhelming cacophony of noise around them. It was their home, their little caravan assaulted in the dead of night while they had slept. It was different because.... Because she had to. She had trained for it all her life, but no matter how many times she had swung the curved blades, it didn't prepare for the way it felt when they met armor and flesh and bone and when they were wet with blood because the viscous liquid was different than the slip of water.

"And perhaps I would rip your throat out, if I thought it would hurt them at all." But it wouldn't. That much was obvious as the words fell numbly from her lips. She didn't rightfully know if she meant them or not as she picked up the wicker basket she'd been gathering the plants, herbs, and flowers into. Anything for her nails to dig into and spare the raw and now sticky plains of her palms. "So what will you do now?" She breached, resting the container on the cocked curve of her hip. "Now that you've decided to stop following orders, losslu lirk?" She would address him the way her father used to, a title he had once loathed her mocking.

NO ONE COMES HOME ANYMORE

“So what am I to become now?” Mine.  The answer withered in my mouth like weeds succumbed to winter, frigid against the back of my throat that remained silent, still.  I quietly watched the coil of her fingers, the heave of her breath, the defiant pride still clinging to the hoist of her haughty chin.  She didn’t stand before me as the mighty self-proclaimed queen; she was a wounded animal. Back then I’d been warned as we crouched a distance away from a sand-jackal whose paw violently wept between iron teeth.  The sight was harrowing, chilling, and its cries plucked at my juvenile decency.  It was the first time I’d seen carnage to that degree.  I recalled my stomach turning, her stern stare, the flicker of mercy and hesitance behind the draw of her bow.  Can we free it?  The whistle of her arrow heralded a haunting quiet.  It will die regardless.  We only hurt ourselves trying to save it. She’d had a coat made from its fur, a parting gift I’d long since outgrown.  Even after all these years, I’d still kept it tucked deep in the back of my armoire. “If there came a choice between standing on the field to protect your home and the people you love, would you have chose to run?”  My found voice was neutral, devoid of the scorpion's sting.  “No, no you wouldn’t have.  You would have stood on the front lines ready to swing a sword or fist at anyone who threatened them.  Why then do you stand here and villainise me for doing the same?”  A hard stare narrowed on the contours of her face before finding themselves tethered to the stark blue of her iris. “Because I didn’t take you into war with me?”  My tone grew louder than its casual drawl.  “Because I left you where I thought you would be safe, where you’d be alive when or if I returned?!  You’ve never struck me as the damsel in distress type, Daesyn’yri.”  Neutrality turned chaotic, calm intonation preluding a wicked laugh.  “You have your teeth.  You have your claws.”  My palm ached as my fingertips burrowed into the calloused flesh.  “What will you become now?  The same thing you’ve always been, the same thing you will always be.  A survivor.” Part of me wanted to turn around, to go back up that drive and return to the empty shell of a house that had once welcomed me home.  A house that quickly became a prison, a death sentence.  A house I wanted so desperately to watch burn to the ground until all that remained were their bones buried in ash.  If they desired to see their eldest son in ruin, consider it a great success. “You’re wrong, you know.  I became a killer.”  There was something in the way I looked at her softly as if I could reach out and stroke her cheek, cleanse away the blood she’d been forced to spill.  I caught my hand lifting, reaching, and stilled it before I could even get close enough. “Only because you had to protect the people you love, Dae.”  My hand lowered back to my side. A sardonic smile coiled along the shadow of my mouth hoisted enough that my neck lay bare to her, inviting those claws to sink into its rugged flesh.  The barbs of her words nipped at me, a bold reminder of where I lay within the hearts of those who birthed me, sired me, and brought me into this world only to abandon me, us, for their precious greed.    After all, children don’t make you wealthy. "perhaps I would rip your throat out..." “Or is it that it would hurt you too much to do it?”  A tawny brow piqued, studious eyes honed upon her face like a hawk-eyed hunter. I watched her gather up the basket, hold it upon her hip, and address me in the same prickling way her father used to all those moons ago.  I dragged a hand over my face, fingertips ruffling already mussed locks while I offered a quiet sigh. “Ideally?  Start over in Kaisermont.  Perhaps purchase some land in Sanctuary.  Why?”  My gaze narrowed on her.  “Looking to come along this time?”

A WREATH OF THORNS ADORNS THE DOOR

He was right, she knew he was. She would have defended her people. She had defended her people. She shed blood, she claimed lives. She ordered it done, and it was a weight that crushed her shoulders to know that ultimately in the end, she had failed them. She could have been logical about it as well - she could have reasoned that she didn't have the training of someone for that position, that she didn't know well enough to lead them. The position was thrust upon her simply because she was the next of the bloodline destined to lead. The oppression of their doom was thrust squarely upon her and her alone, another fact she could have claimed ignorance of. This one she would, however. It was just them. It was only she and her youngest sister remaining. She sought her often, when night terrors plagued her and she knew not what action should be next taken as they struggled merely to continue their meager existence. Had all of her words been poison seeping into her ears with those advisory whispers? In the end, her people had simply been far too forgiving. To both of them.

"Then why not take me?" She demanded, just as avidly as he defended. He knew she could fight. "If I am no damsel in distress, why treat me as one and lock me away? What if you had died?! What was I to do then?" Her jaw clenched, her gaze searching his face for answers, ones she doubted he had either. Even if she hadn't been accosted within the confines of the tower he'd been content to tuck her away in. If the dragons meant to guard her hadn't turned to bite the hand that fed. Her days prior to the betrayal had been steeped in worry, an ever darkening elixir that clouded her inclinations with festering regret and remorse that she could do no more. Word was scant to none from the front lines - not that the Beleverons seemed to care one way or another the directions of the tides to her dismay. Sari had found it almost impossible to lay finger on even a shred of news as well despite her best efforts. A survivor. She was to be a survivor, he claimed.

"I aum nis cinsuns si murulw serzozu!"

Still, they didn't fall, those saline droplets. Despite the tightness she felt encapsulating her throat like an enraged fist and strangling the words from her in a hoarsely chaotic cadence. Her stare ascended sharply, glancing over the cloudy haze of the lazy winter skies so imperceptive of the tiny lives that lingered below. The bruised tapestries loomed in threat of a storm, one she loathed as it blanketed the earth in the chilling snow. The cold breath of the zephyrs wrought a sigh from her own lips as her stare fell to the space between them. The next quiet, not above a whisper as she gripped tightly to the basket. "Nis whun I aum shu inlw inu lufs." The last of her family. The last of her people. The last of those she knew. What was the point in surviving that which had already seen her slain? In her tribe, women were just as fierce a warrior as any man, only those who had children were ever left behind. And she was no mother. Maybe just as much as it was a thorn in her side to have known nothing, was the nettling sting to her pride. What was left of it.

“Only because you had to protect the people you love, Dae.” He was right, of course, but it did little to change the fact that now the thought no longer churned her stomach. She had stopped flinching. She was sure he was the same, a boy who's hands had once been so soft waging war for a king who cared naught for his people. Had someone told her in their younger days, she'd have laughed at them for teasing her so. "I will finish what I started." She warned, the strength returning to her voice though the vice upon her neck never lessened. She would see them dead for this, especially knowing for certain now that Sari had met her end in their cruelty as well. It would only be a matter of plan and execution. “Or is it that it would hurt you too much to do it?” She shifted the basket. "It would, unless you get in my way." Her answer was bluntly honest. Despite her suspicion, she couldn't simply toss aside the years of adoration of him she'd collected like motes of dust in a pillar of sunlight. Even if they were no longer the same, the memories cared not. But she couldn't afford to turn a blind eye to him either should he decide to cast his lot with them. "Or should you cause trouble for Miss Avarice," she added, her glimpse casting towards the Trahern Estate where the frail maiden likely resided. The war had glissaded greedy fingertips upon her as well. The guardian she'd mentioned often had been brought back battered and broken only to draw his final breaths. Just like that, he'd been placed in the ground before Daesn'yri had even been privy to meeting him.

“Ideally?  Start over in Kaisermont.  Perhaps purchase some land in Sanctuary.  Why?” Again, her crown would tilt. Sanctuary, that was near here, correct? Or maybe that was the name of the small town nearby? She'd heard it mentioned elsewise before as well. Always an option for escape, it seemed. A name of irony. Kaisermont, however, was more familiar to her and far too close to the city walls she was more than happy to leave behind. “Looking to come along this time?” A frown curved her mouth. He was part of the king's guard, she knew, breeding reluctance to tell him that she had plans away from peace for some time at least. She'd heard the whispers, promises of reformation to right the wrongs going on in Odersten. It was difficult to chose between exacting a swift vengeance upon his family, or savoring the downfall of their house should success find the efforts of the revolution. To see them fall from wealth and power, the two most important qualities of their lives. Further more, had he heard the rumors? What would he think of them? "I have business elsewhere." She began, cautiously, "I'm helping harvest the gardens here to help repay Avvie for saving my life, and then I plan to go somewhere warmer. Perhaps to the islands off the coast." If he had caught wind of the grape vine, he would probably piece together quite quickly what she meant, and should he not. Well. It was likely for the best.

NO ONE COMES HOME ANYMORE