ANEW ||

Red Snow

The living room of Rayne's house was filled with floor to ceiling windows. Each one with the capability to swing wide open. They were all open now, filling the who place with air and freshness. It would have been perfect he thought, to walk out into this new day with Rayne. Unfortunately the scent of the other male, the one peached in one of the open windows, ruined his mood.

Alaric didn't bother to glance over his shoulder at him. He supposed it was time to get back to work. After creating his own bond with Rayne, and then stitching Alaric and Clair back together it was only a matter of time before someone asked him to merge the Dividend Marielle and the Given back together. He wanted to be upset about it. He wanted to stay in this house, wrapped in his females arms for all eternity.

Maybe when this was over.

"I found him," Alaric said. There was a note in his tone that made Hellion pause. "I'm going to tell Mari now. Meet us in the tower?"

Hellion nodded, knowing the male couldn't see it. It didn't matter. Alaric knew he wouldn't reject, not with Mari's sister sharing her bed with him. Alaric vanished then, disappearing in the way he was just beginning to understand.

He went back to the bedroom. Rayne lay naked among the white sheets, her eyes closed and skin glowing with something that made him smile. He kissed her cheek once before he started moving towards the Tower of Falls.

It took him longer than her would have liked. The path form Rayne's house in the mountains was long, the black lava rock path warm under his shoes. The worst part was all those stairs on the winding staircase in the Tower of Falls. The colossal building was unnecessary. The thought coming to him on the step where he had finally lost count.

When he finally reached the top, and stepped into the circular room, Alaric's gaze met his own. It was hard, his jaw set. Clair was tucked under his arm. She leaned into him, her small frame fitting against his like a puzzle piece.

Mari stood with her back to him, her black suit covering her body. He thought, for not the first time, that she was truly terrifying.

Alaric pulled away from Clair, pressing a kiss into her hair line. He turned to grip Mari's hand. Hellion not exactly understanding, took hold of Alaric's shoulder with the gesture.

One moment they were standing in the sunny top floor of the Tower of Falls, the next the world turned a terrible blueish grey. The colours were gone, like the whole scene was bleached of colour. Like the contrast was turned all the way up. His shoes sunk into greyish snow that wasn't really snow and cold so deep bit into the skin of his face. 

His gaze travelled out. To the right was a large house with a gabled roof, it was grey of course like everything else but to the left stretched a frozen lake lined with pine trees. Each one was capped with more greyish snow.

Something about this place filled his gut with a sickening feeling. The desperation and agony hanging in the air like sickening perfume. 

That was when his attention caught on Marielle. The expression on her face was one he'd never seen. He doubted it was one many ever saw. It was complete anguish, the kind that took your knees out form under you. Hell, silent tears already poured down her cheeks in waves. Hellion followed her gaze.

Near the edge of the lake was a man, or not exactly a man. It was far too tall to be a man, too horrible. He face was hollow, his mouth slightly parted and filled with a row of white pointed teeth. The thing had eyes wholly black, the white completely gone. Its arms were limp at its sides. The fingers too long, coated and dripping with something that looked like black tar. Hellion wanted to take a step back. 

And he would have but its demonic gaze wasn't on them. It was on a tousled bit of snow, on the only bit of colour in the whole place. Red stained the snow. It travelled from the edge of the lake where the ice had been broken. Streaks of it marked the ground, pooling in that disturbed patch of snow.

Mari began to walk away from Hellion and Alaric. Towards that thing.

"Where are we?" Hellion asked, watching Mari move towards that terrible patch of snow, toward the demon standing over it. 

"The veil," Alaric answered without turning in his direction.

"No," Hellion said, "Where are we?"

Alaric still didn't look at him. "How much do you know of the Fates and their curses?"

Hellion studied Mari's back as she moved closer. "I have no idea. Everything I knew is wrong."

Alaric seemed to pause for a moment. "Elijah's curse was the worst. He was to feel every death of every soul leaving this world. He was cursed to live this existence, sharing his body with a monster known as Deavul. 

"For thousands of years he stood in the veil, the sight showing him on the beach where our father had cursed us. This has been his entire existence."

Hellion looked again at the creature near the frozen grey water. Elijah.

It didn't even look like him. He supposed that was because it wasn't him but the demon who shared his skin. It was horrible, twisted from some kind of terrible nightmare. He just stood there motionless, black eyes fixated on that red spot in the snow.

"Before the war, when Mari and Rayne lived a human life, this was the house their family stayed in during the summers. Miranda, the woman who raised them, was married to a man named John. I'm not sure if anyone told you, but the man who raised Mari and Rayne on earth was my youngest brother - your true father.

"In the last moments of his life, Hades merged his life with Elijahs, meaning if Mari were to kill Hades she would kill my other brother as well. She did it anyways, and when it was over, when she thought Elijah was dead? This is where Elijah watched Mari try over and over again to kill herself. That is where she dragged her talons down her face. That is why her knees and shins look the way they do. The scars are from the ice cutting open her skin.

"Mari thought that he was a vision, that her mind was playing tricks on her."

Hellion felt something in his chest crack the next time he looked at Mari.

"That is where we are. The demon in his body takes his mind to the place of the most torment. I think it finds solace in this kind of silence."