Chapter 5: Fratricide

For all of Sulila's trickery and ill-intentioned endeavors, she was still subject to the inevitable laws of Murphy. When she came back to herself, the shock leaving her, chaos throttled the room. Her mother, father, and brother were all kneeling around something on the floor. Spectators and judges leaned in, wings twitching, hooves clicking, to get a look at what had occurred.

She could make out through blurred eyes, a single limp hand on the ground near Meric's foot. The fingers were pale, drained of any life-indicating color. They didn't move or pulse, and Sulila could not feel the blood running in those veins.

Her mother looked as near to panic as anything she'd every seen.

"What was in that crystal?"

Sulila didn't answer as promptly as anyone would have liked. When she did finally choke out a response, it was one most feared.

"It was all hate, rage. I wanted her life to stop."

Meric stepped back, "You've killed our brother."

The mismatched eyes that so defined their family were closed. Vivacity drained and not a breath filled the still lungs.

"My children…" Lucen began, but he halted, "They cannot die."

"He has no heartbeat!" Yelled Meric, "Call a healer!"

Adona was weeping, her tears trailing down her cheeks and into the long curly tendrils of her red hair. Her grief enough alone at the death of her eldest, but that it was caused by their own flesh and blood, was more than she could bear.

Sulila did not relish in her parent's pain, and she could not deny her regard and love for her older brother. Even in the midst of the trial, when tensions ran highest between them, his murder was never her option.

A healer who sat in-staff was at the scene immediately. Grave silence was present in the room while he inspected the body of the goblin king.

"I cannot tell. In every sense of death is he gone from us, but immortals cannot be killed, even by other immortals."

"What should we do?"

"We can do nothing."

Lucen picked up the lifeless form, "I am taking my son to my home. Until there is an answer to cure him, he will be kept with his mother and I."

The council could not sensibly deny such a request, or rather, statement of fact.

Adona pulled herself to her feet, "We will not have him anywhere else, except under our care."

The former rulers left the hall, followed by a saddened Meric and sullen Sulila.

"Is there to be any reprimand? There are two royals murdered here. Our king Jareth the former and the new Queen Sarah."

The elders sighed, "Until the healer confirms true death or life, Jareth's current state is one close to death. So the council hereby orders the recognition of death of the former goblin king Jareth."

"Who rules his kingdom? He leaves no heir!"

"It will fall to his brother Meric, if the new queen cannot be located."

"Meric cannot rule two kingdoms, neither can the human take the throne."

"Perhaps King Lucen can reassume the throne if need be."

"Lucen prefers his rest to his rule."

"For his son though? I think he will see otherwise."

The were elder got up, "Is there any way at all to locate this mortal woman?"

Displaying all the dignity of his centaurian race, the half-man half-horse representative marched from the judge's bench, "There is little we can count on Sulila for, for an answer to this. She will join her brother before a revelation of that magnitude."

"Do you think that the human still even exists in its corporeal body?"

"Powerful as our wolf queen is, she cannot obliterate a physical form." His hooves echoed as he moved around the floor.

The elf elder raised from his chair with the sudden thought that had occurred to him, "The best hunters and trackers. Why not send the elite from all the kingdoms to find where this girl has been sent?"

"Under the circumstances, I believe that this is our best option."

Before the council could adjourn, there was one final matter to conclude.

"We must decide on the best course of action concerning queen Sulila."

"If she has, in fact, committed murder, then punishment must be met out."

"How? To imprison an immortal for a sufficient enough time to equal this murder? Devise a way to kill her?"

"The murder of her brother was not intentional."

"But the murder of the human woman was the intention."

"Humans die everyday."

"Do not the humans punish for murder though?"

"The humans are fools with this 'eyes for eyes'. What does it leave us but two kingdoms abandoned? A family with two children gone instead of one?"

"We all know very well that king Jareth would not wish the death of his sister. Punishment yes, but never death. He has always considered it the curse of mortals and theirs alone."

"Such lovely irony."

Meric was still, standing next to his sister. They gazed upon the body of their brother, laid out in the family altar room. Adona had used her knowledge of cultures that involved death to replicate the honorary grieving rituals. It was only when she saw her oldest son, unmoving upon a cold stone slab, that she discovered what grief truly was. It had been hours since she's retreated to her room, Lucen with her.

"How could you do such a thing?"

"I didn't foresee that Jareth would take the force of the crystal."

"It's not only that…" He rolled the idea in his head, "It's the entire concept, of taking a life. You could have frozen her, sent her away, but you decided to act as her executioner."

"I did what I thought was necessary. What was best for all of us."

"Except Jareth, you know how he wanted that girl to survive."

"I don't regret the girl."

"Even now?"

"No. My brother is someone whose injury caused I'll always regret, but never her."

"If mother and father could hear you."

"Mother weeps too much while father comforts her, abandoning his post."

"His post?"

"Yes," Sulila grinned, "What would be most beneficial to our family now?"

"To find the girl, if she still exists. She could hold Jareth's throne while we attempt to cure him."

"You look too far for cures."

"Too far? Is our salvation right before my eyes then?"

She batted her eyes innocently, and turned on her heel.

"Wait." Meric's hand raised, sending a blazing line of fire around the room.

"You think some parlor tricks will stop me?"

With this, she stepped into the fire, and melted away from his view.

Taking off at a run, Meric opened the doors to the sitting room where his distraught parents resided.

"Sulila!" He breathed hard, his parents staring at him in wonder, "It was all her plan!"