LXX.

Even when she closed her eyes she saw him still, the paling skin, her hands soaked by his blood while his consciousness slipped through her fingers. Her brother was willing to save her at the cost of his own life even after what her had authored.

Then there was the human princess who she dismissed out of blind pride and jealousy: Lyra swept in like an angel, single-handedly breathed life back into her dearest brother. Of course, she saw now how the woman was his fated one, her beauty, prowess, strength…Eri felt dumb and useless. Her old self would have rushed to hide behind wrath-disguised shame, but the thorned vines of her contract was undone.

She had to make amends.

This was the thought drilling her in her place as the drone of old men’s bickering about the proper punishment for the rebels bled into eternity only quantified by the diminishing pots of tea served in dignified hurry of imperial servants. The affair gave her enough time to recite her plans: after she’s executed the deed, she aimed to fly home, assuming her brother and company went there. Even if she was to be banished from her people — if she was not, she would exile herself — she needed to see him, to tell her she was sorry, that she was thankful for his unwavering faith in her.

“I have reached an epitome with the experiment that I have previously disclosed with Sir Lawrence and Lord Paris; I believe that with Eridani’s help, I would be able to complete it in time,” The mention of her name raised alarm, she continued to watch the men and attempted to read Claud’s smile. “In fact, I ought to show you all now. Your lordships?”

A cacophony of pushed-back chairs, they followed the Priest towards the Eastern Wings to the Lesser Courts. The white marbles washed by sorrows of dethroned empresses or childless consorts was a perfect backdrop to his dark arts, Eridani recalled the sickly fascination and complete lack of sympathy when Claud first claimed the Palace as his own after he overran the place with an army possessed by sprites he summoned from some ungodly spell. No matter, she would avenge them soon enough tonight; she turned her attention back to the grassy knoll before her. The skies above was an oppressive orange: the conversation was longer than she expected, and that rendered her with less time than she would have liked for her escape, and more importantly, the assassination. The party stopped before a clearing, and she peeked between the cracks of each men standing before her.

“Eridani,” The Priest beckoned, and she resigned to an act of obedience for now while her mind attempted to seek comfort in imagining her blade sinking into that disgusting man’s heart; she went forward, her eyes trained on the foreign symbols burnt into the ground.

“What is this?” She tried not to flinch as the Priest placed his hands upon her shoulders, her wings itched to spread and carry her to safety. “This spell…” It seemed familiar, a call to a distant past when a book fell from her mother’s shelf.

In hindsight, that seemingly random volume must have fell from a cruel tug of fate, the page she flipped to and stopped on made a deeper dent in her mind than the book made to the reading room’s floor, an image she now matched to the one upon the earth.

“No…that is impossible, you would ruin all of us…” She brushed off the vice upon her shoulders, incredulous, furious. “You knew what happened to the Fallen.You cannot possibly be so insane to think you can contain a spirit of that caliber –”

“– You are right, my dear, I do not expect myself to control it,” His smile stretched from ear to ear; she made to fly but strong hands seized her wings, arms, a kick elicited a wet crack from her leg. Blinded by a white flash of agony blinded, she fell too heavily into her captors’ grips.

“…No…”

“But you, my dear,” The Priest retrieved a dagger made of whatever poor beast’s bone offered by a silent servant. “I know that you.”

She couldn’t see the blade fall. She could only hear the wet crunch as a cane crashed against her left side and wing. She couldn’t put strength in…anything, and she slumped into the blade that…disappeared to the hilt into her chest. Nauseatingly red, so much red, too much. She screamed out another spell between wet coughs that tasted of iron. A shock freed her momentarily from her captors, but that left her entire broken weight upon her legs. Her wings flapped helplessly like the clipped fledgling she was, the world spun, the sky a fiery red and her hands slicked scarlet to match. The crimson rivulets steadily seeped through her fingers, the river of time paused.

This…was the end.

Not even near two decades. She hated her life, but she was finally ready to change it. The rough grass felt harsh against her cheek. Her teeth buried into her lips. A goal, she found one, needed to go home, to see her brother, to tell…but she knew.

There was only one thing she could do. She had to stop this demented Priest. Her hand grasped at the handle of the dagger but her blood made her grip too slippery. When she finally forced the blade out, she was numb, cold. She blindly bashed the ceremonial blade against the dried earth now greedily drinking up her blood. Hollow thunks.

She had to break it.

She raised it again. But, before she could bring it down, a hand caught her arm. She wanted to see the face of the man she would spend eternity to haunt and torment, but all she saw was red, the boiling sky and roaring shadows flickering, casting her to the exile of hellish agony.

“Ah…ahyung,” She gasped her last, forsaken.