The knife drew across Cygnus's throat, the supernaturally sharp blade slicing deep through skin and flesh. Blood welled from the gaping wound, but slower than it rightly should, oozing and bubbling instead of spurting, crawling down his chest in thick rivers. Cygnus's eyes were on his, watery with pain and shaky with panic, mouth working breathlessly.

Arcturus dropped the knife, took a step back, glancing down to make sure he'd crossed the edge of the circle. And he waited.

He didn't have to wait long. Even as he stepped away, an absent wind wafted over him, the roaring and hissing obvious in his ears yet not shifting his robes or his hair. There was a single instant of emerging shadow, blackness shifting in the center of the circle, but in less than a second it was gone, replaced by a woman.

Something that looked like a woman, anyway — it quite clearly wasn't. The proper shape, yes, the proper proportions, but she certainly couldn't be mistaken for ordinary. The brief, archaic continental-style robe in strident purples and reds and oranges, that could be mistaken for rather eccentric dress. Her short hair, a twisted spiking thing a black as solid as the darkest night, could have been accomplished with a couple simple charms. (Though why someone would want their hair so messy and asymmetrical was beyond him.) The vibrant, sharply angled tattoos switchbacking across her face were unusual, but not entirely inhuman. It was the unnatural paleness of her skin, the black on her fingertips, reflections shimmering like oil, the shadows and colors shifting and mixing between each other in her eyes, the narrow points of the teeth shown in a too-wide grin, no, she couldn't possibly be an ordinary woman.

But then, he hadn't been intending to summon an ordinary woman.

"Is this for me?" Her voice hung heavier in the air than it should, magic thick on every syllable, yet at once sounding light and bouncing to the ear, halfway between speech and song. A hand buried itself into Cygnus's hair — he jerked, tried to lean away, but he was tied to the chair, he had nowhere to go. "Why, Arcturus, I'm touched. And here I didn't bring anything for you."

Arcturus had absolutely no idea how to respond to that, so he said nothing at all.

Her grin stretching wider — an expression sharp, joyous, and bloody — the goddess turned her head a bit, meeting Cygnus's wide, horrified eyes. And Cygnus started screaming.

Even after Eris had straightened, taking a few gliding steps toward him, Cygnus was still screaming, thrashing in his chair, trying to cringe away from something unseen, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming. And Eris just grinned at him, looking for anything as though she were on the edge of laughter.

His mouth going a little dry, Arcturus sank into the chair he'd prepared beforehand. Despite the unpleasant tingling at the back of his neck, he fixed his eyes steadily on Eris, doing his best to ignore the results of...whatever she'd done to his nephew. "As long as I have you here, my lady, I was hoping we could talk."

"Yes, you do think you have me, don't you." Eris came to a halt, her slow pace having put her just at the end of the circle of runes Arcturus had drawn. She glanced downward for a second, then back up at him, a derisive sort of amusement quirking her lips. "Is this supposed to be a binding circle, Arcturus? And here I thought you would know better. This magic works on demons, not—" In a blink, she was gone.

Arcturus twitched, glanced around the empty ritual room, got halfway to standing before he froze. An icy wind on the back of his neck, black magic heavy on the air pinching at his skin, a voice whispered an inch from his ear. "—things like me."

And then she was in front of him again, appearing without a sound or a flicker of magic, just there. One foot coming up onto the edge of the armrest, parting the layers of her skirts, she leaned forward, planting one hand on the back just over his right shoulder, her face coming too close, too close, he pressed himself back into his chair as far as he could but she was still too close, inchoate eyes only inches from his own, black breath caressing his face.

"You think to contain me, with chalk and blood and mortal magic? The arrogance doesn't surprise me, not really — it is only human to have an overinflated sense of your own power and importance, don't you think? But I do have to wonder…" Her grin shifted into a smirk again, unnaturally sharpened teeth glinting in the wan light. "You called me in hopes to stay my wrath against you and yours, and you open your negotiation by attempting to confine me against my will? And here I thought you were supposed to be a politician."

It took a few seconds for Arcturus to find his voice again — the way Eris was smiling at him and the sound of Cygnus still screaming really were not helping. "I, I meant no offense, my lady. That circle was simply included in the description of the ritual I found. I didn't intend to—"

"No, I suppose you didn't." Eris turned, plopped down to a seat on one armrest, her second foot rising to join the first. Elbow against the rim of the backrest, she propped her face up against a fist, and she smirked down at him, the tattoos on her face twisting. "Mind of a politician, yes, it was clever of you. See, Cygnus means nothing to you. You would have found some way to eliminate him anyway, for his crimes against a child of the House of Black.

"But, since that child was my bellatrice, you fear my anger — and rightly so," she whispered, soft and amused, blood in her eyes and black magic oppressive on the air, his skin tingling and his blood singing and his stomach roiling. "You think, you can give him to me, and my vengeance will be sated. But Cygnus is not the only one who wronged her. His crimes were only possible because you, Lord Black, failed to uphold your responsibilities to your family."

"I know." The words came remarkably level, Arcturus thought, considering. He could count on the fingers of one hand the occasions in his life he'd been in the presence of a direct manifestation of one of the Powers, and still have fingers left over, and it was a bit… Well, it was a bit much, magic so thick around him he could taste it, blood and grass on his tongue, energizing him, making him feel younger, more powerful, more alive. But, at the same time, he could feel Eris was angry with him, and…

She wasn't even wrong, he had failed. And not just his most irritating nephew's children either: he'd done a bit of poking around the last weeks and found a few other...questionable situations throughout the House. No one had gone quite so far as to murder their own daughter, but that didn't mean there weren't still serious issues to deal with. He'd taken it upon himself to intervene more directly than he ever had, moving the vulnerable around to other households, punishing offenders as he saw fit. He was even weighing the pros and cons of turning one of his cousins from a minor branch of the family into the DLE, whether the opportunity to rebrand himself and his House in the eyes of society would be worth the scandal.

He just didn't understand it. That was part of the problem, he just couldn't imagine that anyone would...do these sorts of things. He simply didn't understand. He'd loved his girls, more than anything, he'd never… The thought was what had woken him up. He'd been more dead than alive, these last decades. The greater part of him had died with Lysa and the girls, he'd been less than a full person for decades, it had taken Cygnus to wake up, what Andromeda had told him. And he didn't understand it, he didn't, he couldn't…

Whenever he thought about it, Bellatrix and the other children of his House whose suffering he'd failed to prevent, he saw their faces, floating ghostly behind his eyes. He'd thought he'd forgotten what they'd looked like, but there they were, Dora and Sedha and Charis. And that rage was back, rage that he thought had long burned itself out, and despair so thick it choked him, they were dead, and he hadn't been there, it was his fault, his fault…

It was his fault. He hadn't been there for Bellatrix. And now she was dead, and it was his fault.

Eris's smile had lost some of its teeth, going slightly softer. Her off hand came up, fingers trailing lightly against his cheek; a thrill shot through him, his blood sang, he tried to suppress the shiver. "You should know, Arcturus Black, that you have Bellatrix to thank for your life, for your House enduring unhindered as long as it has. You taught her well, before I got to her. Even after Cygnus, her loyalty to the House of Black was too strong, too central to her understanding of who and what she was, for me to strip it from her. That, and her love for little Meda, is all that has kept you safe these years. I would not...entertain myself with you and yours while it would harm her, no matter how much I wish to. But now she is gone, and I am free to do as I will.

"But I don't think that will be a problem, hmm? You understand the weight of what you've done, don't you? You mean to make amends for your crimes, and, just perhaps, you are willing to sacrifice enough. So, my little Lord…" Lifting her hand from his face with a last little tap at his nose, Eris leaned back a bit, smiling turning a little crooked. "...let us see how this goes. What will you offer me to buy my peace?"

Arcturus hesitated — that was a trap if he'd ever heard one. From what he understood of everything he'd ever read involving the Dark Powers, Eris could be...well, Eris. It was quite possible that no matter what he offered her she'd take offense, claim something of such little value was an insult, and then they'd be fucked. She wouldn't seek to destroy the House entirely — Arcturus would wager the Covenant was valuable enough to the Dark that would never happen — but she could certainly make the current generation suffer.

Of course, he could just… There were risks, of course, he couldn't know what she'd ask, it might be…

Swallowing his doubts, Arcturus forced his voice as level, as respectful as possible. "I would be glad offer you whatever you think is fair, my Lady."

Eris grinned.

The goddess hopped off the chair, freeing Arcturus from the overwhelming presence of blackest magic, sauntered over toward Cygnus. He was weakening, finally, his screams reduced to wheezing, burbling moans, the river of blood draining from his throat thinning. Eris contemplated him for a moment, that eager grin still stretched across her face.

Finally, when Cygnus's extended suffering seemed near to an end, Eris spoke. "Five hundred years ago, we formed a pact with your ancestors. That was long ago. The circumstances have changed, both for the House of Black and for us, for the world, in those five hundred years." She turned back to smile at him, her eyes so bright they were as a rainbow in the night. "Perhaps it is time we make a new Covenant."

His words failing him utterly, Arcturus could only gape back.

Tiny short chapter, woo. Meant to post over the weekend, but distractions happened.

We've been distracted by things lately. We're going to flee to France...probably next year, so we've both been studying French like crazy people — not to mention my health/brain stuff not getting better, that doesn't help — so we've been stalling a little on the next chapter. Work is getting done, but I can't say when the next update will be. —Lysandra