Beneath Shadows and Secrets

♔ 𝕿𝔥𝔦𝔯𝔱𝔶 - 𝕰𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 ♔

I'm so behind on writing so please bare with me if next weeks updates are a little slower. Uni is biting my arse rn.

♔ 𝔑𝔦𝔯𝔞 ♔

An absent sort of horror rushes over me. A silent scream.

I took too long. He knows I am here. He will blackmail Calix to see that I am back in his hold. He will lock me away again. He will make it so that I never escape.

I took too long.

My body jolts as Cenred is torn away from me, but I cannot feel anything. I do not even think that I am breathing. Or blinking. Or existing. I will not go back. I will kill myself before I let that happen. Calix has only ever wanted to protect his Court. From the risk I presented. I am a risk again. He will give me to Zaire.

I took too long.

My whole body begins to shake, and I am spiralling into that panic that I thought I had long escaped from. Crumbling under this reality as though I never escaped Zaire at all. Sloan's death will have been for nothing. She died to save me, and she ought to not have bothered. He killed her.

I will have to see him, each day, knowing that he killed her.

Two warm hands come to my face, and I blink Calix into vision. He looks desperate – a foreign sort of expression for the Lord – but I do not dwell on it. I can only hear his words. "Calm down, Nira. You are safe. You are alright. Nothing is going to happen to you." It is only then I feel the thundering of my heart in my chest, the way shallow breaths rip out of me. I am gasping for air, suffocating in this new reality. "I promise you; you are safe. Breathe for me. Breathe, little Viper."

I nod, stealing desperate inhales, soon surfacing above this panic. I nod again, and Calix swipes his thumbs over my cheekbones before letting me go, his attention moving over my shoulder. I look too.

Tynan and Cenred are brawling in the room, knocking furniture over, sending ornaments crashing to the floor. Their wings beat frantically as they attack one another – Tynan punching Cenred in the jaw, before his brother returns an equally harsh hit to his gut. Already they are bloody and bruised, and neither show any sign of relenting.

"Stop." My voice is hardly mine. Soft and meek and everything I promised myself I was not. I force it to sound stronger, sterner, authoritative. "Stop."

Neither listen.

"STOP!" The Stygian bursts from me in rage, thickened tendrils darting for both Kythiran's and wrapping around their midriffs. It tears them from one another, Tynan until his is pinned against the wall with the Stygian restraining his arms and throat. Cenred it drags over a countertop, spilling vials and alcohol as it goes, before it traps him against the sofa.

Only Cenred seems bewildered at the Stygian. He has seen it before, but never like this. So controlled, so powerful. His brother, having once already fallen victim to it, is not fazed at all. "You betrayed her. You slimy bastard – her?" Tynan growls out, fighting against the darkness' hold. A vein in his forehead pulses with his anger, and for a moment, I let myself be comforted by the fact he cares this much for my well-being.

Calix pays no attention to the males, only watching me. Assessing my reaction. Prepared to step in if I crumble again. I will not. Though my body still shakes, and my mind still whirls with the devastating possibilities, I will not. I am stronger now. I am better. I am the worst kind of wrong, and I will not let a hypothetical circumstance strip away all that I have worked to right about myself.

"I would never!" Cenred shouts at his brother. "If that was true, why would I come here to warn you all? To warn Nira?"

"You were the only one that knew where she was! I don't believe in coincidences you son of a bit-"