DOFAB#3

Chapter Twenty-One

~ TRISTAN ~

There comes a time when a maker must face their creation. Its inherited flaws. Its design. Its purpose. Thrage's purpose is a reflection of my own. He's found something unknown to him. It simmers beneath his ivory complexion, twining around a primitive need that's foreign but exciting. New and mouthwatering. But there can only be one of us who claims the prize covered in the scarlet of our misdeeds...of our unyielding passions. And time again, no matter what the gods or the universe tries, or what my own hand fashioned, it will be me.

In both worlds' darkest hours, it is the devotion to my heart's desire that will make it fall or give birth to its rise.

"Duck."

Kinley does as I instruct.

The blood creatures of my creation's massive back feet with three toes launching, their front extremities similar to those of yagkains, minus the thumbs. They don't reach their intended target. They implode, sending a torrential downpour of crimson over Kinley. Fury-filled bellows cast ripples in the pools in which Kinley sits, too stunned to feel the vibrations of the beast tangled into submission at her feet. Thrage thrashes against the brukha weaved net. It's laced with a containment spell even the soulless can't break.

Breach still in progress. Take cover and do not engage. Invaders are hostile. I repeat, do not engage, the Veltan's voice-activated alarm says over the intercom.

Kinley pulls her feet closer to her body as an arm wrapped in scales and claws reaches for her, Thrage's true flesh coming out of hiding. She continues to scramble backward as he continually morphs. Flashes of a face identical to my father's when he was still unfrozen alternate with a beast of a smaller scale than the one that is my shadow when given flesh.

A shirt sodden with death hits against my leg. Kinley utilizes the space between my wide stance to crawl underneath, anything to escape the squalling monster in pursuit. She whirls around, holding onto my legs as if they are the armored prison bars that will keep her safely out of Thrage's reach. She doesn't get the chance to scan the room for her sister before the wheezing of a net blows her clumping, stuck-to her-face hair back.

Thrage flails as he tries to overpower the high-caliber net launcher reeling him in. It takes three nets to wrangle him to the front of valderan steel boots with yowler demon hide straps.

"Father."

It's a mix of the old with the new that clads my father in armor the same shade as his hair and eyes. A dark that rivals mine.

"Here we are again. Me cleaning up your mess." He affords me no glance as he crouches beside a snarling Thrage.

"You should thank me. Now, you have one less leash around your neck."

The indifference in my father's voice a sign he isn't mourning the loss of our dearly beheaded ruler. For with the death of the Dark Prince, it means a release from the duties he takes less fervent pleasure in.

"Neziri!" Kinley rushes off, not minding the globs of tissue and entrails she wades through to reach her slumped-over sister. "Wake up. Wake up."

Neziri sits up with a gasping breath, almost choked out from her regained consciousness by Kinley's embrace.

"Your wounds. How did they heal without an elixir?"

"Must be the residual effect of a cocktail I took earlier still in my bloodstream."

"I thought you bled out and died." Kinley squeezes her flower sister tight, smearing both in varying reds.

"You found your sword." My father places his boot on Thrage's head; applying enough pressure, Thrage spends his time trying to get his arms out of the three nets it took to reel him in. There's no room for his arms to fit through the overlapping holes. "Did you call him here?"