LIRO || completed

• 19.2 •

Liro's eyes bored into those of the figure staring opposite the bars. Her blood boiled, and she felt the urge to grip the bars tightly between her fingers and shake them. Though it would do nothing, though it would be absolutely pointless, it might just make her feel better.

It was incredible that she had let her expectations for herself sink so low.

"Do you have nothing to say to me?" she hissed, pacing back and forth along the length of her cell to quell her urges.

Kier said nothing.

"Nothing that might save you from me?" Liro leet out a cruel laugh. "I won't be here forever, you know. It's awfully naive of you to believe a lie of such magnitude."

Kier cleared his throat. Her eyes snapped back to him, and she could hear nothing but her breathing and the pulsing of her own heart. 

If he had come to tell her something - anything - he was close to saying it. 

Liro wanted to hear whatever news he was bringing from his own lips, and yet she didn't. Tyras' visit had been enough. She had been thanking the stars that she hadn't been graced with the presence of the King or Queen. And Kier?

He had betrayed her. The brief amount of trust that they had shared, it had been shattered. He had stepped on it as he had dragged her to the cell in which she still stood.

His trust had felt nothing like that of her sisters. 

Yasri and Emina were cold and cruel, and their trust came with a price. Yet once she had paid it, she had been ushered into a sisterhood that was supposed to be binding. Until she had broken their unspoken rules, and her nightmare had begun.

Liro and Kier, they had threatened and bruised and hated one another. Each knew exactly what the other was capable of. And yet, there had been an understanding. There was very little that one could do to the other that was not returned tenfold. 

They hadn't trusted one another for anything more than power, the fact that between the two of them, they both wished to wield it. Perhaps Liro had been foolish to think he would never be so consumed as to try and wield it over her.

Perhaps he was beginning to realize the severity of his mistake.

She wanted him to beg for her forgiveness. She wanted him to see just how merciless she could be, just how cunning, just how cruel. 

And then she would return to him what he had bestowed upon her.

Nothing but blood and tears and sorrow.

"You need to come with me," Kier said, finally breaking the silence. "Now."

Liro didn't blink. "No."

Kier felt for the blade strapped to his hip. Liro was made painfully aware of the fact that she was unarmed. In her old form, she would have been able to make him cower with only a look. In this mortal body, it would take much more than that.

"It wasn't a question, nor was it a piece of advice," Kier replied. "You are coming with me."

Liro's voice rose as she spoke again. "No."

"Do you think I want to be here?" Kier snapped, stepping closer to the bars between them. "Do you think it pleases me to see you like this?"

Liro gripped the bars with both hands. "You brought me here. You did all of this. Do not be so vain as to claim ignorance to me now. You are by far too late." Her face was impassive, and her voice was cool like the stone that made up the floor of her cell.