Llyr's Court

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"If anyone dies here tonight," Nicolae murmured, eying the siblings sharply, "It will be all of you."
That made Antha laugh, that same sound that shook the vault by means of the earth around it. "Let's just see how things turn out, shall we?" she purred, closing her fingers over the back of the blade and sliding it swiftly across her skin. It was then, the blood dripping from her fingers, splashing against the marble floor, that the white miasma flowed around her still form. "You've shown us your ancestors, children," the purr continued as the thin white mist began taking form, human heads and hands and eyes that withdrew again and reformed elsewhere, "Let us see how they compare to ours, shall we?"
As the mist spread, voices came from it, whispers and laughs that taunted the Calais family. It was only then, with the shroud of dead Mayfairs around her, that Antha chose to move, taking her place before her brother. "Nicolae," came that purr again, turning the knife and handing the hilt out to him.
He took it instantly, slicing his hand in the same fashion she had hers and then reaching for the Mayfair emerald strung about her neck, smearing his blood across the gleaming green surface. "Ashes to ashes," he murmured, his eyes on hers as she ran her hand over the emerald.
Her bloodied hand was in his then, her eyes focused upon his, "Blood to blood." That was the last sound before the roar of wind that burst into the vault, the tremor that shook the earth and brought pieces of the ceiling down around them. "I can't blame you for not understanding," Antha called when the sudden mayhem had quieted, "You were not created as I was. The thing, this spirit that has been worshiped as a god by great civilizations throughout history, spent centuries guiding my ancestors, overseeing the passage of blood, the pairing of genes. It killed whatever would meddle in the Mayfair gene pool, and it's reward was me. I was the end result of centuries of careful breeding, the final goal. A witch that could, finally, channel it." The wind, which was in fact a conglomerate of spirits that stared at the Calais siblings and their ancestors as they rushed by, gathered around her, solidified just enough that full bodies could be distinguished from the mist, clothing rustling and hands beckoning.
From the corner of her eye, she glanced at Nicolae and he mirrored the look. A thought had passed between them, an image that they shared with the Calais children. The pressure of the Mayfair spirits was enough to crush the dirt down on them, to cave in the Calais vault and grind the remains of the family---the dead ones at least, if not the live ones---into dust. They thought then of the satisfaction of bringing their flames down upon the grounds, razing their land, and then finally to the house so that everything left to the family would rest in cinders, their legacy reduced to ashes. But it was only a fleeting thought, shorter than the words Antha spoke to her brother. "He has to truly suffer for bringing me here," she whispered, her eyes glinting menacingly in the darkness that bloomed around the Mayfair siblings, that crept along the floor and walls and prepared to swallow the vault and everything within it, "It was his duty to protect his siblings, just as it is mine to protect ours. He throws their lives away by bringing me here, and I will have him suffer appropriately for it."
The seriousness that briefly overtook Antha faded as her brother draped his arms around her, their wounded hands still locked so that their blood was bandied between their bodies, and brought her slight form against his in the infinitely knowing way of a true lover. It was this that brought Antha back to herself, or the crazed form of it that she had unleashed especially for the occasion. "So go on then," she called, and the laughter she emitted was echoed hauntingly from dozens of points around her, "Whatever you are planning, Rynn, go on. Try it. Let us see who walks away alive."  

[Okimiyage]

The thing that had once been Mary fought to stand in the maelstrom of spirits, her white and filthy limbs battered by the wind into unnatural positions, the sound of tearing ligaments and bones popping from their sockets accompanying her rise. The creature's mouth gaped; the empty sockets of her eyes creased into a smile.

Liesse's knees buckled; the wind tore at her dress, her hair, unbinding her long tresses and blinding her with them. Perhaps she wept--her shoulders shook, certainly--but if she did, nothing of it could be heard above the gale. Her siblings--Cian spat blood from his mouth, his lips scarlet as a woman's, and started forward, towards the triad of Mary and Liesse and Rynn--he was shouting something in the wind, something that could not be heard over the shaking of the earth and the passage of the Mayfair spirits--Erin grabbed for him, and Cian's face, beneath the russet fur of the fox mask, contorted in a snarl--but his brother, oldest of the family, had the advantage over Cian, would have even if his mind had not been addled by whatever drugs he had chosen to ingest before they had been called down to the burial vaults. He fought--like a madman, his body twisting and jack-knifing within Erin's hold--and his curses would have made a sailor blush, had they been audible over the howling winds. But it was to no avail; and Erin dragged him back against the wall, into an alcove where candles had once been lit in honor of the dead, and Aleric joined the two of them, if only to cover the crimson mouth that defiled the name of their family. (Cian bit his hand, vengefully.)

Rynn said, in a whisper that cut through the wind like a knife, "I wonder."
He stretched his hands to the vault of the ceiling--his fingers clawed the air, the tendons of his hands going rigid--
There was not time for any stylizations of the occult, nor did he need any in this place, where the very earth itself had been steeped in the blood of his family for generations. The roots above began to curl and twist upon themselves, ever so slightly.

A noise rose above that of the shrieking winds. The sound was unidentifiable at first, for who listened to the subtle unfurling of a leaf, the sound of sap coursing through the limbs of a tree, the creaking of its roots as they sank into the ground? Even if there existed such an individual who had, they would not have made the connection between the sounds, now.

The ceiling split, the vaulted roof tearing apart under the roots that now thickened and twisted like a nest of pythons, that now made cracks along the walls, sinking into cracks between the stones and splitting, ensnaring, caging the very vault itself in the roots of the flora overhead, that now buried itself again in the flagstones of the room, the crest beneath their feet splintering into unrecognizable pieces. Even the white, weak roots of the grass and flowers from the gardens could be found mingling amongst the taproots of the great trees.

Rynn wasn't smiling, but the expression of faint satisfaction that moved across his lips was worse. The roots, behind the Mayfairs, had made a wall of gnarled limbs so thick that the passageway beyond could not be seen.

Almost as an afterthought, as the roots quieted and their movements became sluggish, a single taproot speared down from the ceiling at an astonishing rate, and impaled the thing that had been Mary from her throat down. It thrashed, violently, and a sound like keening arose from the black hole of its mouth; and it pointed wordlessly at the two Mayfairs who held one another as close as lovers. It seemed to be trying to speak; or at least, the stiff and bruised lips of the girl's corpse contorted as if to form words.

The substratum of the trees above had not quieted entirely, after all.

Without any warning, the wall behind the Mayfairs sent out limb after limb after limb at a dizzying speed. The long, ropelike appendages twined around the throat and chest of Nicolae Mayfair, tangling around the chain of the Mayfair emerald at Antha's throat, forcing between their linked hands as the roots had forced between the flagstones at their feet. And not content with simply collaring their prey, they began to tighten, and pull, and strangle...  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

To Antha, nothing was truly serious for a while. It was all very amusing, as if Rynn had put on a fireworks display above her head. And then, finally, Nicolae was not with her anymore. It registered faintly that he was still near, that he was all in all unharmed, but they had been torn apart, the link between them severed cruelly, and that was the only thing in the world that mattered suddenly.
Quietly, still as only the living dead could be, Nicolae looked at Rynn and said flatly, "You shouldn't have done that."
Antha screamed, expressing a fury so immense that words could not contain it, nor sound itself, and it found an outlet in the air. The heat, greater than that of fire and yet more contained than that wild element, went for the roots, soaked into them from the very ends where they held Antha and Nicolae and coursed through them towards the source, turning bark and life into ash at it's invisible touch.
It should have been enough to Antha that she shook the ash from herself, that she could reach out and touch Nicolae and let him coax her fury into a distant memory, but it was not. Nothing was, because it was not a game to her anymore, some idle and amusing thing she played at. No, Rynn had crossed the line and the thing that dwelt within Antha, that infested her mind and flesh, did not see him as a silly, errant child anymore. This was what brought the darkness, which had loomed quietly around them in fragments, down upon them all, smothering any light that would invade the vault. It was that and the roar of the Mayfair spirits that masked Antha, that made the echoing click of her heels in the blackness impossible to pinpoint. The silent heat was no indicator either, snaking through the room as if desperate for something to attack, coiled around a dozen points besides Antha and her brother.
Even Nicolae was not certain where she had gone until the darkness lifted again, letting the chamber flood with dim light that caught on her scarlet hair. By then his immortal eyes had already seen her knife slide across Liesse's throat, her long, pale fingers tangled in the girl's hair. By the time there was light enough for mortals to see, there was blood splattered upon her skirt, collecting on her hem and dripping to the floor. It was then that she released Liesse and her eyes focused steadily on Rynn. There was no trace of madness within them now, that glimmer of insanity that had allowed her not to take the unfolding events seriously. Her eyes showed instead a darkness, a seriousness well beyond her years, and a spark of something truly, wholly malicious. "You really are the most disgusting sort of being," she called coldly to him as the spirits brushed by Liesse, tugged idly on her hair and touched their immaterial fingers to the deep wound across her neck, "To think that it's come to this."
Her eyes glanced, briefly, at Liesse, and around the two girls the Mayfair spirits were quiet, somber. They knew, as Antha knew, what it was like to suffer for the sins of the brother. And like Antha, they hadn't wanted it to come to this. "How foolish it was to put you in charge," she murmured to Rynn over the space that divided them, "You have no mind to protect your family. You are just a child playing games and gambling with lives, regardless of what might come of your actions."
If anyone had bothered to look at him, it was possible to tell that Nicolae felt sorry for the Calais girl. He wasn't entirely certain she really deserved death, even if she was as guilty as her siblings. But that was when Antha's eyes caught his fleetingly and a silent understanding passed between them. Liesse was not dead quite yet, and Nicolae had the power to keep her from that fate as he had so often saved Antha from it. It was all a matter of what her brother did next, because Antha had cut deeply enough to give her precious few moments.  

[Okimiyage]

Liesse felt the hot trickle of her own blood running down her throat before she even felt the sting of the cut, before she felt her mouth fill with the familiar taste, salt and heat and metal--she tried to inhale, choking, felt warmth bubble at her lips--felt hands in her hair, fingers cold against her scalp, releasing her, and she fell forward. Her blood dripped upon the shattered stone, pooled briefly, and then sank away into the earth. Rynn could feel her fluttering heartbeat in the pit of his stomach, like nothing so much as the frantic wings of a sparrow beating itself to death against a mirrored glass. He could feel the terror in her mind. Not of death, no--because Liesse knew she deserved it, as did they all--but of her own brother, of the madness that had conceived within his heart, which had brought to fruition--now, at the end of it all--this ugly, final end for their name. No suicide pact for their family--no, that was too disgraceful, too cowardly--but the wrath of a goddess--yes, that would suffice the damnable Calais pride.
Her eyes, through the net of her tangled locks, sought her twin's.

Rynn stood motionlessly, watched her white gown turn red. "Gambling," he said--in his breath, he could hear the rasp of his twin's blood--"usually involves some measure of uncertainty."

The ghosts of the Calais family were amongst them, suddenly, a forest of pale, masked figures, stone and root and wall visible through their faintly translucent robes. Every eye was focused on Liesse, on the blood that dripped from her throat. No whispers, no laughter, nothing but perfect silence, their rapt attention-- a sigh of breath released, and then-- a flurry of motion as they prepared to descend upon her, a swarm of flies to a corpse that had not yet ceased to breathe. Liesse shut her eyes, bowed her head, tried to cut off the whimper that rose in her as unstoppable as the tides. Yet she need not have done so, because any sound she might have made was overshadowed by the snarl--'Get away from her'--

As quickly as they had come to stand amongst the living, the ghosts had been thrust back into whatever pale realm they occupied. Rynn's shoulders were tense, his jaw set and clenched. They would not be held at bay for long. Even now, he could feel the rising tide of their rage--they wanted the girl who spilled her life upon the floor, in this hall of their worship. The Calais dead did not understand the logic of the living, rarely understood anything more than hungry and sacrifice. Once, their ancestors had given counsel, had spoken of ancient rites and hallowed words, had been teachers rather than predators. To call them half-mad now, driven all but mindless by the centuries, would be a kindness. They did not like being denied, not even by their own descendants.
In truth, Rynn wondered whether it was time that had driven them mad, or the countless 'sacrifices' performed in their name.

The quiet was broken by a yelp. Cian had clawed his way from his brother's hold, leaving Erin's cheek scarlet with scratches and Aleric's palm bright with blood. In his eyes, there was a lucidity which had not been present in the past. He fought his way through the roots, across the uneven remains of the floor, to fall beside his little sister on the flagstones, to hold his hands against her slit throat as though he could keep the blood from spilling out. Rynn could feel the feeble threads of Cian's magic---what was left of it after years of disuse--weaving together some ill-wrought ward around the two of them.

Rynn looked at Antha, his words faint enough that they should not have carried the distance to her ears.
"End this."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha simply looked at Rynn, with those eyes that were half hers and half the thing's. In the back of her mind, it told her to eat them, as they had eaten their youngest sister. It called upon Nicolae to take their blood and Antha to devour their flesh, like starving beasts. But Antha shook her head, as if she needed more than her own thoughts to quiet the thing, to tell it firmly 'no'. "This isn't fun anymore."
Nicolae had appeared beside his sister, silently, and looked down at the Calais girl. "Antha?" he asked quietly, glancing at her with the question in his eyes.
It was then that she looked down to find Cian on the ground, his hands across the wound she had made, and more than anything that seemed to sway her. "Not because of this," she murmured to her own brother, an errant string of words she only half realized she had spoken aloud, but he looked at her as if she had recited a very detailed monologue.
The thing was not happy with this, Antha's decision to undo her own actions and that Nicolae had gone along with it, gone down on one knee and moved the Calais boy aside with his inhuman strength, his teeth piercing the flesh of his wrist and letting the blood spill onto the girl's slashed throat. It railed against the both of them, tried to bend them to it's will, but Antha was not putting up with it anymore. She reached down the ties that bound her brother to her and dragged the piece of the thing thriving there back into her own body, making it again whole and complete before she drove it back to that dark and lonely place beyond the Mayfair Manor attic, the place that Nicolae had first found it.
It was then that Antha turned from the group, that she went to the nearest wall of the vault and braced herself against it, charred bark cutting into her palm as her body gave the first small convulsion, her shoulders tensing, and blood spilled through her lips like bile. Nicolae still knelt beside Liesse as this happened, his wrist moved to her lips now that the skin had formed a thin, translucent layer over the gash. All he had needed was for the blood to stay in her body, and now that it was he forced his own blood into her. She was not dead enough to change, her heart had not gone entirely still, but she was close enough to the edge that he had to stay beside her, glancing nervously over his shoulder at his sister as the blood came in small waves from her lips, splattering unceremoniously to the floor. That was the thing about forcing something from one's body when it didn't want to leave---it fought back from the inside.
"Whatever you want of us," she called finally, making the effort to stand straight and look back at Rynn, the crimson blood glistening on her lips, "We're through with this. I don't want to play your games anymore." Her body tensed again then, cutting off her next words as she turned back to the wall and the next drought of blood hit the floor.
"Seconded," Nicolae piped up, his fingers running gingerly over what had just been the wound in Liesse's throat, making certain it was healing properly. And then, because his sister could not speak, "You people really are ******** up, and that means a lot coming from us. If you want to die, go kill your own selves. We have enough murders on our consciences."  

[Okimiyage]

"You don't understand,"
The Calais girl's voice was soft, hoarse; her hands trembled as they moved across her throat, came to rest upon the ugly scar that split the white tower of her neck like a choker. She could still feel the wet heat of her own blood on her palms. She sought Cian's eyes through the veil of her hair; caught his steady gaze. It was the first time that she'd seen her brother's eyes so unclouded in--years. His lips were as red as a woman's lipstick, stark and flaming on his white, drawn face. "He--" she began to speak, then stopped, and looked towards her twin. As loose as his posture was, hands tucked casually into his pockets, head tilted back in an approximation of arrogance, she could see the stiffness in his shoulders, could feel the barely suppressed frustration that clenched his jaw.
Cian said what she would not, his lips barely moving, in a whisper so low that even Nicolae could hardly hear it. "He wants it all gone. Our name, our bloodline, our lands, our ancestors. It's all been--tainted." Cian paused, licked the blood from his split lip. "We are the last. No more sacrifices, no more blood-magic, no more <********> ancestor-worship. What keeps us here will keep all of us here until it is destroyed. It is not within our power to destroy ourselves. We need--help." A monster to destroy a monster. A sacrifice that would take the whole damnable house of Calais with it, a funeral pyre that would cast their names into ashes. Cian remembered the row that had taken place in the house after Rynn told his brothers of his plans. Erin hadn't liked it--Erin never liked anything that Rynn said, though, and he was only bitter that he was not as strong as his sibling. Aleric, who had studied longest among them at the shelves of the library, what ashen remnants he might collect of it at least, had said Thank God. and laughed at that, like bringing any sort of god into it at this point was a marvelous joke. Liesse had sighed--in relief, Cian thought--and retreated to her gardens, to summon up the spirit of her dead little sister and play bait.
It was the only way, Rynn said, that they would not be drawn into the same path the ancestors walked. The magic that had been cast into the very labyrinth itself would not let their souls rest, would keep the family--Rynn, Liesse, their brothers, and all who came before--imprisoned within the maze of the dead, awaiting a heir of the blood that would never come.

Rynn might have stopped Cian from speaking, if he had been paying attention. But he was not. He had gone to Antha, picking his way amongst the pieces of rubble and ash and root and stone, where she stood against the wall, and the sixteen-year-old boy put his hands on the wall, to either side of her head, and leaned in close so that she could hear the whisper that came from the half-skeletal mouth. Close enough to kiss her, but the words that came from his mouth sounded more like a curse. "We're two of a kind, Miss Mayfair. The children of monsters, and each generation is more of a fright than the next. There's no stopping it, no escape from your fate. What do you think your children will be? If you're lucky, you'll die in childbirth like our mother did. Don't contain it, don't fight it. Bad blood will out, Antha, no matter what you do..."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha did not speak at first. She glared at Rynn with eyes that had gone glassy, wiping the blood from her lips with the back of her hand.
It was Nicolae who spoke for them, again, staring down at the blood on the floor, "Oh, we understand." He would have gone to his sister, now that he had done what she asked of him, but she stopped him short. "What you don't understand is that we want no goddamn part of it. If you're so weak that you can't find another way around your ancestors and your curse then fine, but don't bother us with it."
As he spoke, Antha continued to stare at Rynn. It was then that she moved, very suddenly, and took the skull from his head, bringing it down hard against the floor with a satisfying crash, the splintering of bone. It was only then that she could take him seriously. "You're pathetic," she whispered simply, and the stain of dark blood on her lips was mesmerizing enough that Nicolae had to turn away, had to pretend not to see her, "Children of monsters as we may be, we are nothing alike, because you are letting it destroy you."  

[Okimiyage]

Instinctively, Rynn turned his head as she grasped the mask, and tore it from his face; the bone edge slipped across his cheek, slid scarlet down his jaw. A drop of his blood fell to the floor, and his eyes went wide.
"Get out," he whispered, and Rynn let his hands fall away from the wall, but did not unpin his gaze from her.
It was complete. The full set--Cian's split lip, Erin's clawed cheek, Aleric's bitten hand, Liesse's cut throat--and now, finally, the thin red thread that curved along Rynn's jawline, that dripped upon the floor, that sank away into the earth. And now, with taste of the family's blood upon their innumerable tongues, all the ancestors could see them as, all five of them, was sacrifice.
The chamber began to tremble; a sound came from deep within the earth, a raw and throbbing murmur of rock--an animalistic sound that no mere stone and dirt ought have been capable of producing. Rynn stepped away from Antha, his eyes still on hers, and repeated himself, this time flinging an outstretched finger to point at the passageway from which they came, where the roots which had once formed a wall now twined overhead into an archway, a thicket, a passage. "Get out,"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Antha stared at the boy for a moment or two, as if she couldn't really believe he was simply letting his life end. It seemed too tragic for words, and she found herself deciding suddenly that she wouldn't allow it. Not completely. "Grab them," she told her brother shortly, as the heat that had been made of her anger took to the tree roots at her fingers and burst into brilliant orange flame that blazed up to the ceiling, spreading throughout the room through the network of roots faster than any normal fire ever could have, and behind those words that dropped from her lips Nicolae heard the ones she didn't dare speak. Grab whoever you can. Antha herself was not there to feel the burn of the flames---she had taken Rynn's wrist, letting the Mayfair spirits lock to him and move him, and fled towards the tunnels with him.
Nicolae hesitated a moment, glancing wildly around him. He couldn't get to Liesse, it was too late for that, but he was still able to grab Cian, to throw the boy over his shoulder and run with him into the tunnels after his sister, led by the wild flicker of flames as they raced ahead of them. He only knew Antha and Rynn were still running by the sound of their footsteps beneath the crackle and hiss of the fire, the smoke that hung thick in the air made sight impossible. He felt his way out the same way Antha did, guided by the Mayfair spirits that made a weak shell around them, guarded them from the flames as best they could. It was only when they were out of the labyrinth, above ground and out the gates so that the Calais home loomed over them, that he clearly saw anything at all.
Antha, her scarlet hair in disarray and clothes singed around the edges, had pinned Rynn to the ground and was bringing her open palms against his cheeks in succession. "You stupid, stupid---" she screamed the word with every strike, over and over, "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"
It was Nicolae who stopped her, who grabbed her by the arm and lifted her, reminding her of the flames creeping along the ground behind them. "Just get them out of here!" she shouted to him hastily, giving an impatient gesture of her hand to Rynn, "Go, now!"
"Antha, you can't---"
He would have told her she couldn't stay behind, alone with the Calais spirits and the fire that razed their land, but she quieted him by repeating herself, screaming, "Go!" And he obeyed, grabbing Rynn by the arm and dragging him to the car, throwing the boys in the backseat and hopping in behind the wheel.
While they drove away, Antha ran into the house. It was the last sanctuary left to the spirits with their vault and the labyrinth burning to ashes. Without the house they were nothing, she reasoned, and so she caught fire to anything she could find. It was while she did this that she sought out Vikteren in the back of her mind, that she told him 'Get away from the house and grounds'. And at the end of it all she stood outside, just out of the touch of the suffocating heat, and watched it burn.
"We never should have come," Nicolae sighed in the car, as if she could hear him, while he watched the flames in the rear view mirror.  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn had lost it. Completely--whatever composure he had possessed was gone. His eyes red-rimmed from smoke and tears, clutching the black velvet collar of Cian's swallowtail waistcoat in his filthy, ash-black hands--He wept, and between gasps he could be heard to scream, in a shredded wisp of a voice, Liesse's name, over and over again. Cian said nothing, did not comfort him, but clutched at him with his own face white as chalk, his own sepia-toned curls singed at the tips, and kept his lips shut tight.

Suddenly, Rynn lunged forward. Clutching at Nicolae, he shrieked--it was painfully apparent that he was only sixteen after all, and no child should have been forced to shoulder the responsibilities that he had--"Why? Why, you Mayfair b*****d, you , incestuous son of a whore, why would she save me? DAMN you!" His voice broke--Cian grabbed at him, and pulled him into the backseat. Rynn scratched like a cat, and bit--Cian yelped, and thrust him into the corner with a kick to the stomach--the two of them fought like children, only dirtier. Cian hoped Nicolae appreciated what injuries he was suffering in order to keep his little brother occupied.

The mansion burned, and the maze with it.

If Antha had been looking about her at all while she ran, she would have noticed that, while they had been underground, the landscape had somewhat changed. The garden was a riot of lush greenery, monstrous Ents-like trees that towered overhead, the stars overhead filtering violet though the leaves in anticipation of the morning. For Rynn had been forced to grow the trees along with their roots in order to use them, of course--a display of tremendous power, if not necessarily finesse.

Vikteren, who had watched--with horror, a fear that he had not expected lunging within his heart--as the garden had erupted into its present state--waited with trepidation, and dread, until the present hour--now observed Antha from the tree-line, the Mayfair girl's body silhouetted against the roaring funeral pyre of the Calais manor, a tower of smoke rising into the air. She had fled the home with the Calais boy clenched in tow, and his brother--Cian--in Nicolae's care--and gone back in to torch the place. He could not read her thoughts--if she had anything to say to him beyond her initial instructions, she had not given him permission to hear it--but he could feel the shape of her mind, all tense and coiled like a knot of wire ready to spring. Or break.
His presence was all but a whisper against her mind when he approached, daring the heat of the flames for her. Coming up behind her, he stopped about five feet from where she stood, flinching as a stray ember landed on his cheek and blackened it. "Antha. We must go. Someone is bound to see the smoke and call your city's authorities to investigate." A disturbance of this size could not go unnoticed.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Nicolae paid very little heed to the damage the boy tried to bring upon him when it began, he was built like a moving statue after all, and he didn't blame him. Everything he had was burning, all but one brother, and in mere moments it would all be ash scattering to different winds. But it was when the brothers began fighting that the threw his foot on the brake, stopping the car with a jolt, and leaned into the backseat to grab Rynn by the arms, to hold him still in the corner where at least he couldn't bring any harm to Cian, and was less able to rail against the vampire.
He didn't know how to answer the question he screamed, why he had been saved. But he spoke regardless, murmuring softly as people do when the other has just suffered some trauma as Rynn had, "You were the one who brought Antha there. You made her part of this whole thing, and she isn't completely heartless. She has some humanity left in her, no matter how hard she tries to smother it, and when you put someone in a situation like that..." He paused, sighed, shook his head, a series of small gestures that silently conveyed he was truly at a loss. "She couldn't help herself. She saw the opportunity to save someone---anyone---and she took it. And I went along with it, because I couldn't help myself either."
His mind turned then to the dilemma of where to take the Calais boys, trying to push the uglier thoughts away as if he just couldn't deal with them anymore. When lost souls had nowhere else to turn, where did they go? Satis House, something in the back of his mind told him, and it was enough to make him release Rynn, to turn back in his seat and put the car in drive and continue down the road towards Satis House.
Unfortunately, Antha was not holding up as well as her brother. At least he had something to occupy him while he took Rynn and Cian away from the flaming ruins of the Calais land. Antha simply stood by the flames, hands knotted in her hair, and screamed. Only hours had passed since she had stood in the family's home, since she had spoken with them, and already they were dead, gone, and to Antha the finality of true death was the most frightening, agonizing thing in the world.
It said something about her state of mind when she did not sense Vikteren draw near, when his words truly startled her, and the barriers around her mind clanged into place like metal plates, hard and cold and impossibly powerful. But she was enough of herself to latch onto him, to bury her face against his shirt and whisper desperately, "Take me home. I can't be here any longer, I just can't."  

[Okimiyage]

XCandy and LunacyX

Nicolae paid very little heed to the damage the boy tried to bring upon him when it began, he was built like a moving statue after all, and he didn't blame him. Everything he had was burning, all but one brother, and in mere moments it would all be ash scattering to different winds. But it was when the brothers began fighting that the threw his foot on the brake, stopping the car with a jolt, and leaned into the backseat to grab Rynn by the arms, to hold him still in the corner where at least he couldn't bring any harm to Cian, and was less able to rail against the vampire.
He didn't know how to answer the question he screamed, why he had been saved. But he spoke regardless, murmuring softly as people do when the other has just suffered some trauma as Rynn had, "You were the one who brought Antha there. You made her part of this whole thing, and she isn't completely heartless. She has some humanity left in her, no matter how hard she tries to smother it, and when you put someone in a situation like that..." He paused, sighed, shook his head, a series of small gestures that silently conveyed he was truly at a loss. "She couldn't help herself. She saw the opportunity to save someone---anyone---and she took it. And I went along with it, because I couldn't help myself either."
His mind turned then to the dilemma of where to take the Calais boys, trying to push the uglier thoughts away as if he just couldn't deal with them anymore. When lost souls had nowhere else to turn, where did they go? Satis House, something in the back of his mind told him, and it was enough to make him release Rynn, to turn back in his seat and put the car in drive and continue down the road towards Satis House.
Unfortunately, Antha was not holding up as well as her brother. At least he had something to occupy him while he took Rynn and Cian away from the flaming ruins of the Calais land. Antha simply stood by the flames, hands knotted in her hair, and screamed. Only hours had passed since she had stood in the family's home, since she had spoken with them, and already they were dead, gone, and to Antha the finality of true death was the most frightening, agonizing thing in the world.
It said something about her state of mind when she did not sense Vikteren draw near, when his words truly startled her, and the barriers around her mind clanged into place like metal plates, hard and cold and impossibly powerful. But she was enough of herself to latch onto him, to bury her face against his shirt and whisper desperately, "Take me home. I can't be here any longer, I just can't."

"You should have let me die," Rynn snarled, and elbowed Nicolae in the chin in his struggle to escape. "I was supposed to die! Let go of me, you stupid--" Cian interrupted with something that -cracked- like a whip within the small space of the back seat. And Rynn, unexpectedly, fell silent and sullenly limp, glowering with flushed, tear-streaked cheeks at his brother.
Cian crossed his arms across his chest and looked out the window. He wasn't going to cause a scene in front of the Mayfairs. It was the first time in years he'd seen Rynn throw such a tantrum, and only Liesse had been able to calm him the first time. He was oddly discomfited by witnessing his little brother's breakdown. How Erin would have gloated--he found himself thinking--and then, abruptly, shoving the thought from his mind. His head ached. He wanted something to smoke, something--to calm him down.

Vikteren did not say anything, but he picked Antha up--the vampire's arms were chill against her skin, as cool as morning dew or the night fog that the inferno had lifted from the grounds of Llyr's Court. The little locket in his chest pocket bore a thin layer of frost about the hinges. She felt hot in his arms, her cheeks as warm as burning coals, and he bowed his head over her--breath stirred her hair, just for an instant--before he began to run. Within moments, they were within the woods that surrounded the manse--and if Vikteren's pace was somewhat too quick to be natural, at least it could be said that he carried her far more smoothly than any human would have, and in complete and otherworldly silence.

They fled like shadows from the fire into the forest.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

Finally, Nicolae snapped. "How would you know what you're supposed to do?" he screamed at Rynn, "That's the thing about magic and rituals and sacrifice, it never ******** ends up the way it's supposed to." He banged his fist once on the steering wheel, as if he really needed to hurt something. "You're so quick to throw your life away," he said finally, as if it had taken him endless nights and all his energy to find the words, "Everyone else is fighting for theirs, clinging to them while people lurk in the shadows and plot how to steal them away, and you just give yours up. And you have the nerve to call me the stupid one?" He gave a brief, humorless bark of laughter as the green trees around the car began to give way to skeletal cypress trees, swamp-dwelling life, as they neared the city walls. "Anyways, it's done. You're alive. You didn't get to be the sacrifice. Everything you ever had is gone. Try to think of it as a fresh start."
A fresh start? Antha laughed within his head, madly, peering over Vikteren's shoulder at the flames that clawed at the sky just before the darkness of the forest swallowed them. Do you even listen to yourself when you talk, Nicolae? Back in her own head, her own body, she clung tightly to Vikteren, feeling the fever rise in her cheeks as if it had been too mesmerized by the events taking place to remember that Antha was a very sick, fragile girl until then. "We never should have come," she whispered in the vampire's ear, and in that wisp of sound was leagues of regret.  

[Okimiyage]

Rynn didn't say anything to this; he bit back the roar in his throat, and drew his knees up into the seat. Maybe he didn't have anything to say; more likely, he was just biding his time. He settled back possessively against his brother, and clung to him for the remainder of the ride. Cian allowed it; it had been years since Rynn had permitted anyone but Liesse to hold him like this, and so he tangled his fingers in the petting of his little brother's hair, and breathed in the milk-and-honeysuckle scent of his white skin, and wished desperately for a smoke to inhale. Rynn looked over his brother's angular shoulder, and wished it were rounder and softer, and watched the road recede behind them.

The vampire shook his head to this, and peered at her through filthy, swamp-green eyes to answer, "No. You could not have expected that they would deceive you. Had they not done so, you would have been in the wrong to stay away--there was no decision you could have made that you would not have blamed yourself for. He laid--a clever trap."
The vampire had come to a cliff, and he halted. His burden's body was warm--no, not just warm, but hot, and he could feel heat from the fever that burned in her chest, that made her cheeks as rosy as a child's at a fireplace. He set her down, turned his back on her.
"Climb on."  

[Okimiyage]

The intervening months had not been kind to the skulking cadaver of Rynn’s home.
They very nearly didn’t make their turn—the entrance to the narrow dirt road was all but invisible, overgrown by weeds, from the highway, and when Rynn pointed and exclaimed, “There!”, the ensuing turn nearly put the car on two wheels.
Rynn found himself thinking, as they rode in silence while the car rattled and bumped over tree roots—and eventually, paving stones—that they should have come in daylight, after all. Despite the high-watt headlights on Antha’s car, the darkness of the woods around refused to be penetrated more than a few feet. The drive had a predominantly oppressive feel, the long branches of the over-arching trees making a kind of tunnel above them. Even if there had been light, Rynn did not think it would have made it through the canopy overhead.
He did not know for how long they drove. It seemed much longer than the ten, perhaps fifteen minutes that he had expected.
The gates were overgrown by ivy, their rococo ornamentation twisted into a talon-like embrace.
Rynn gave a kind of shudder when he saw the dark carcass of the manor, his childhood home. The air seemed suddenly chilled, and his breath came out in silver fog.
“That’s it.” he said, in a slightly strangled tone.
They pulled up onto the drive. Liesse’s white roses had crawled out from the once-meticulously-maintained hedges, carpeting their marble flagstones in creeping tendrils of thorns. When they stepped out of the car, Rynn’s smart black shoes crunched upon rose petals like porcelain—their fragrance hung, miasma-like, in the air around them.
“I—I’ll be just a second.” he said, staring up at the house’s husk, the skeletal fragments of the west wing, the briars that twined around its pillars. The tips of their thorns were white with frost.
“Airi—you don’t have to come in, if you’d prefer.” He chanced a sidelong glance at his partner in crime. In the back of his head, Rynn couldn’t help imagine that it might be best if they kept the car running.
Without realizing it, he had taken several steps towards the cracked, sagging porch steps. Gravity, he thought, drifting towards the black, gaping double doors, which swung open of their own accord at his approach. That was what it was. Something so massive that he had no choice but to be caught in its orbit. “I’ll be back in a second,” he murmured, climbing the steps, and he thought once to look back, to see whether Alistair followed in his footsteps—but did not, because something—quavering, like a visual echo—caught his attention within the parqueted grand hall of the mansion.