Chapter XX
A foreign energy, so familiar, fuelled his smile as the heavily room clenched with it's silence; a fear. Apocalypse was coming, and yet the distant screams of the battle inferred that it might be already here; waiting outside thick doors. Phobos spoke, though his soft drawl might've been a rounded yell; for the effective focus of his words. None would even know what he was saying; children of nobles, who'd suck down every drop of animosity he bestowed them. "Rex Meridianum. Habeo purgatum promiscua ipsum."
Unease, followed wisely, and King Phobos walked forward in his demense to his throne, his eyes on the opening door; on the Miranda as she clicked the lock and startled the watchers, though not one single eye would leave him. With a lazy hand, he pulled up the limp shoulder of his throne's disturber; pulling the rag and letting her death-bound body fall, not even dead yet, to his marble flooring if only to repeat them what she was worth. And then Phobos smiled. Grinned.
As the room filled with nervous applause. "Et in mea sit potestate, et qui creavit me deorum tempus."
...
"No.." There was no point in screaming, not that Will could as her dry lungs shook with her aching body; all the screaming; all the crying. There was nothing left, but her body, shaking, and the silence, because even her mind no longer wanted her.
There was no sound, whatsoever, but the faintest buzzing she suspected to be her own imagination - considering it had merely faintly remained since she had thought of the portals, but Elyon could close them anyway. She had seen her do it, she was sure.. And Caleb would save her, if that was his true intention, because quite clearly there was nothing he couldn't manage.
And she had felt so wonderful.
So beautiful in his arms, but he was lying. He was lying! Everything he had ever said- But yet not, because he'd been smart enough not to; to mix it with truths, and pretend that he was sorry, and what the hell was she even doing here? Was this some elaborate plan of his, but then why had he been so timid.. So many times, he'd nearly sent her away, but she had insisted that he come through the Veil.. She had insisted!
And now she was here, with nothing of the outside world, except the low mumble of pain and sorrow, and an anger she supposed was the battle field. She wasn't angry. Not at him, because it was her, who had come again and again, and it was her falling at his feet, and now she was nothing. A forgotten moment, as battles raged on in the pit of her stomach, and there was no guessing, as each emotion seeped in.
It was all her fault.
...
Tears, the purest leaking humanity, were rolling down Elyon's cheeks, Miranda realized, as her interest of Phobos had disintegrated, and her eyes had searched the corpse, who barely lived in the last of her shallowing breaths. Because Prince Phobos was too impatient to even let her die, and she knew that the man was gone.
That was a power in a man's body, because Meridian might've never been ruled by a Queen. It would never be ruled by King or Prince Phobos, because the Light swallowed the crown. Or maybe once it had been; once, the Light had been a Light, but there were too many ties - Miranda knew well of the meaning of Royal blood and maybe his blood was too dry to control it.
The first Escanor had ruled, but now the closest heirs' uncle was their grandfather, and there was no knowing of what before that; which fathers had taken their daughters, and their daughter's daughter's - who might just also be their daughters - just for one fucking name.
Applause, sheltered the room in Phobos' supposed wonder, but Miranda would have smiled if she had seen Phobos sit on that throne. That was someone else entirely; a man who saw no need for his soul and would split it until it was nil; a man who poured bodies into his garden and pretended they were roses; pretended they would live forever. And yet, even then he had praised and thanked the Gods. Even then he had mourned his father and mother.
He didn't look like he was mourning now.
He didn't look like he would praise, or thank, or bother to respect the Gods.
He looked like he might just be Apollyon. The King of Hell, with a beautiful face etched in evil.
Rex Meridianum. Habeo purgatum promiscua ipsum. - The King of Meridian. I have purged the promiscuous bitch.
Et in mea sit potestate, et qui creavit me deorum tempus. - And in my power, I will fuck the Gods who created me.