Marrok's life had become a turbulent storm of politics, expectations and scandal. His every move was closely scrutinized either by the court or his wife. She seemed to be everywhere these days. In the background, on the throne, in his arms—it was all Jannali, Jannali, Jannali. Hidden under the glamour of yet another mistress, she was always by his side, with her intoxicating perfume and words dripping with poison.

She said that she had found their next prospect. Marrok had stood attentive, his heart racing with excitement. Until Jannali's gaze landed on Queen Aisha, who sat to the side with the baby in her arms, the baby that Marrok had seldom seen but once or twice after her christening. The prince's heart then sank, and he felt rage threaten to burst forth from his body in ways that he would most definitely regret.

He would not kill his mother. He loved his mother.

Jannali's face fell and she cuddled up to him, employing all tactics so to make her desires his, to make him agree, to make him obey. Marrok had dismissed her for the night and she did leave, without a fuss. Jannali was as calm and poised as always. But Marrok knew that Ugly J would hold this over his head for days, months, and maybe even years on end.

I always know best, Marrok. Just follow my lead and you won't get hurt.

He began to cave, and to his utter horror, he found Jannali's idea slowly becoming more and more reasonable. It started from simple squabbles over poker and and tea—soon, Marrok found himself fighting with the queen often and regularly. She would nag at him about Channary's neglect and his abundance of affairs, about how he was an irresponsible father, and how he would come to regret leaving her to the maids and never being present in her life.

"She's only a year old, Mother. She doesn't know the difference."

"The first years of any child's life are always the most important," said Aisha, putting a hand to her chest. "And your poor wife! She's always left alone in her rooms—you know how hard it is for her to fit in, with all her stress and anxiety. I would expect you to be, at the very least, courteous towards her and not have her stay shut in with nothing but her formulas."

Marrok had to dig his nails into his palms to keep himself from laughing. So that was what Jannali had been telling everyone? No wonder the courtesans glared at her like she was a sideshow attraction. And of course his kind, silly mother would believe every word. Tongue-in-cheek, he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm afraid that is none of my concern. I have fulfilled my duty towards both Jannali and Luna by producing an heir. I no longer have any obligations with her."

Aisha fumed. "Turn around."

Marrok raised an eyebrow, which turned into a frown when he noticed his mother picking up her dreadful comb.

"Your hair is an embarrassment," Aisha barked, forcing down Marrok's shoulders. The prince plopped down and forced down a cry of frustration and anger as his mother began to pull at his curls, further tangling them. He braced himself for more pain, but he was snapped out of his trance by Aisha's sudden grabbing of his shirt collar. She pulled it towards her, peering down.

"Marrok, what's wrong with your back?" Aisha snapped, squinting. She then stood and pulled her son up with her. "Take off your shirt."

Marrok blinked. "I do beg your pardon?"

"Take off your shirt. I want to take a good look at your back—it seems like a scratch or something. Did someone hurt you?"

Marrok stood firm. He had no intention of undressing in front of his mother at twenty-one years old.

"Now," the queen hissed.

His will shattered with a sigh, and he complied, knowing that this was a battle he wouldn't win. The threat in Aisha's eyes was clear; he could either take off his shirt himself or she would rip it off him. The choice was his.

Aisha's gasps of horror did nothing to help Marrok's humiliation as she took in the marks on his back, long and crimson, laced with edges and grooves. Jannali's nails would tear through his skin every time they had sex, reopening wounds that would now never heal—he was branded with permanent scars that ran from his shoulders down to his hips. For a while now he had been going to extra lengths to prevent anyone from noticing, by dismissing the maids that had previously attended to him as he bathed and dressed, instead opting to do all of this himself. He could have simply glamoured the scars beneath a swath of flawless skin, but he had meant to send away those girls at any rate—he began to find their intrusive stares and lewd remarks discomforting in ways that he had not felt until recently.

"How did you get these?!" Aisha cried, putting a hand to her son's wounds, her eyes glistening with tears. "Is this one of those...ladies you've been hanging around with?!"

Marrok tore her grip from his shoulders and backed away. With something nearing panic, he hastily put on his shirt to hide his crude scarring from his livid mother. "It doesn't matter."

"Marrok, this is not acceptable. I'm telling your father."

"Father doesn't care about what I do in the privacy of my own bedroom." Marrok smirked. "He'd probably even commend me for having such a—"

Aisha buried her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with her sobs. "STOP! Stop it. Do not tell me that is you, Marrok." The queen took a step forward, her eyes red and puffy. She didn't even bother to hide it. "You've changed. You don't spend time with me, you don't spend time with Lord Abrasax—"

"You're the one who told me to stop consorting with him."

"Yes, but that was—" Aisha struggled with her words. "At least when you were off gallivanting with him, you didn't come home assaulted by one of the snakes at court! She hurt my son! And you don't even seem to care!"

"I'm not hurt," Marrok sneered. "I like what she does...what she..." He threw his hands up. "It isn't what you think, Mother. You're overreacting."

Aisha's devastation only increased. "I'm your mother! It's my job to worry about you, Twinkles! Since you were born I've made you my life, and I won't stop protecting you until the day I die!"

"At least she doesn't treat me like I'm six years old!" Marrok roared, his eyes like fire and his breath ragged. "She addresses me by my name and not your ridiculous—"

Aisha sniffed. "Twinkles..."

His face nearly turned red in his rage. "I dare you to call me that again!" Marrok shoved her away, and Aisha would have fallen had she not been against the wall. "Go on! You say that I act like a child; perhaps I could learn responsibility if you would finally teach it!"

He was met with a slap to the face as Aisha backhanded him, her green eyes alight with fury. "You do not speak to your mother that way!" She screeched.

Marrok stumbled back, massaging his cheek so to avoid the swelling. He knew that his skin was already an angry red around his freckles. Aisha was the same, with her flushed face and heaving chest. "I'm growing up," Marrok declared, his fists clenched. "And if you can't come to terms with that, then I suggest that you have another son. Perhaps he'll be more obedient than I."

Aisha didn't respond, instead opting to sink down onto a cushioned chair and sob. Before, Marrok would have rushed over to comfort her. But now, he stood by the door, his thoughts swarming with darkness and his entire being screaming bloody murder.


Jannali was very pleased with Marrok's change of heart. From where she sat at her vanity, she watched with a smile as Marrok paced the room. He was angry. He was lost. He wanted to get rid of his burden of a mother.

For her part, Jannali was thrilled. She would never again have to endure Aisha's stupid pet name for her or the constant chatter. She would never again have to deal with the queen's annoying friends and mistresses. Once Aisha was gone, she would be the highest lady in court, and she swore to have them banished, at least from the royal family's entourage.

"Oh, Marrok..." Jannali finished applying another layer of lipstick—her war paint. "Could you kindly stop tearing through my room? You're making a mess."

The prince looked down at the robe that he was in the process of flinging on the ground. Sheepishly, he rested it back on the divan and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm assuming you already have this all planned out," he whispered.

"We go after Lady Moonborne."

Through the storm of anger, Marrok felt his heart sink further. "No. She's not a prospect."

Jannali rolled her eyes. "Everyone in this pathetic court is a prospect, Marrok. They are all at our mercy." She stood and adjusted her bodice. It was a revealing thing that plunged down between her breasts to her waist, and Jannali caught him staring more than once. Normally, this would have ignited both amusement and bloodlust, but Jannali found herself blushing like a schoolgirl and wishing for him to help her out of it. "We can't just kill Aisha out of nowhere. It would be much too suspicious."

It was odd to hear anyone address his mother by her given name, and Marrok further felt resentment coursing through his blood. She was not his mother here. She was not a queen. She was prey, and he was the hunter. "So we kill Genevieve to drive her to suicide?" Marrok glanced at his wife. "It would never work. Mother loves her, but she would never take her own life if she died."

"We make it look like a suicide. Just make her kill herself—it won't be hard. No one will even give us a second glance."

Marrok's blood rushed through his ears, turning the world into a dull thrum. He didn't want to kill Genevieve, though. She was a good woman. A good noble.

"I was thinking that we'd just break into their residence and kill the entire family; you know how many enemies they have. No one would even be surprised," said Jannali, glancing down at her nails.

Marrok stared at her again, though at her necklace instead of her chest. He still hadn't gotten over the wedges of human spine that acted as the charms. He treated it with the same silent fear that laced his every word with his wife. Throughout their hushed conversations and nights of intimacy in the dark, he had managed to keep himself from touching it.

"All of them?" Marrok breathed, hugging his chest. "But there are fifteen members of House Moonborne that live in Artemisia alone—"

Jannali thwacked him upside the head. "No, no! Just the nuclear family—the lord and lady and their two rat sons." Her smirk widened. "I know how much you hate them."

Suddenly the plan became twice as appealing—the thought of eliminating Jared and Seth Moonborne made Marrok as giddy as a kid in a candy store. His enthusiasm must've shown; Jannali came up to him and pulled him in for a kiss. He was glad to oblige. She slipped her hands around his back and sighed as he began to undo the ties of her bodice. Her lips moved against his in the grace of a perfect design, and she was once again flooded with the closest thing to love that she would ever feel.


It was only halfway into the long day, so nightfall took a couple hours later to arrive than Jannali would've liked. Both she and the prince retired for bed as soon as they were able, and at around two o'clock, when the entirety of Artemisia lay in sleep, they met up by the servants' quarters and snuck out together, like always. The entirety of the palace remained blissfully unaware of their disappearance.

The Moonborne residence was a half hour's walk from the Artemisia Palace's obscure back exit, and they slipped through the shadows without so much as a whisper. Genevieve's family was one of the few that lived permanently in their own mansion, instead of residing in the palace to be closer to the royal family. It was both a curse and a blessing. The domes had been coated with a dark hologram that mimicked the starry sky from the previous long night, but if one were to look in the right places, a few cracks of sunlight still managed to poke in. Marrok followed his wife through the deserted plaza, and on a wide expanse of land to the left, a magnificent mansion loomed overhead like a dark giant.

Jannali led them in behind the house, avoiding the ever-moving stares of the guards. They were sanctioned at choice places all around the property, and the two were forced to keep up the illusion of invisibility as they snuck in so to not be spotted. The inside parlour, where they had managed to find an entrance, was spotless and silent. The synthetic earthlight basked the glass floor with an eerie glow. It was fitting, Marrok supposed. He certainly felt like a ghost roaming the halls of the imposing manor. Jannali, evanescent and statuesque, made a show of sliding down the smooth floors on her socked feet. Marrok shook his head at her oddly rambunctious display and motioned her towards a door at the end of the hall.

"That's Genevieve's room," he whispered in her ear. Jannali nodded and took his hand, their eternal act of trust.

The door slid open with ease. Inside the room, Lady Moonborne slept alone in the massive four-poster bed. It was an extravagant space, well furnished with glass tables and sparkling candelabras. The candles were fake, of course, still giving off a faint holographic flame. Both paintings and holograms adorned the wall, priceless originals and recollections of various family members.

Marrok replayed the plan on repeat. They wouldn't make a mess with Genevieve. Her death would be quick and painless. She wouldn't even wake up.

Jannali reminded him of this as she tiptoed over to the sleeping noblewoman. There was no shift in Genevieve's peaceful slumber, but Marrok knew that Jannali was dragging her further down into unconsciousness, telling her brain that she was ever-so-sleepy and that she might just never wake up. Now was when he came in.

He swallowed the bile in his throat and grabbed a pillow from beside Genevieve's head. Jannali watched him like a hawk, with her eyes like sparkling stones, as he pressed the pillow to Genevieve's face. He pushed it down and smothered the woman's airways, effectively suffocating her. Genevieve didn't put up any resistance, as was expected—she was too far gone for even her body to have any response. Marrok forced himself to meet Jannali's elated gaze, and as the minutes passed, he forgot his unease and lost himself in the rush and adrenaline. He wondered if it would ever get old.

"She's dead," Jannali hissed, showing Lady Moonborne's wrist as if to prove it. Marrok took her other wrist to check her pulse, and sure enough, the was none to be found. Genevieve was as dead as a doorknob.

He pulled away the pillow and let it fall to the floor. Genevieve's lips had turned a sickly blue and her eyelids had somehow opened throughout the ordeal. As he stared into her dead orbs, he tried to force guilt, remorse, pain, anything—but there was nothing. Nothing at all. The thrill was so intense that it erased everything but the desire to kill.

He spun on his heel and moved to leave the room with one destination in mind; the boys' shared chambers were on the second floor and Marrok was flooded with the desire to tear off both of their heads. Jannali, however, grabbed him by his collar before he could go past the door and pulled him into her embrace.

"Not so fast." She kissed him behind the ear and he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Where are you going?"

"Jared and Seth are downstairs—"

They were cut off by heavy footsteps, and they froze. Their invisible glamour still intact, they watched with wide eyes as Lord Moonborne stalked down the hall, his hair dishevelled and his coat haphazardly buttoned at the wrong places. He did a double take as he noticed his wife's open bedroom door. Jannali and Marrok stayed in each other's arms, blending into the background, and poised to kill if anything went wrong. He couldn't see them. His wife was sleeping, not dead. There was no concern here.

The man shrugged and shut the door; they stayed still like statues until his footsteps disappeared down the stairs. "This is why you wait for me," Jannali mumbled, shaking him off. "That could've been a disaster."

Marrok stepped aside and let Jannali lead them out downstairs. He stopped her at the third door, where he distinctly remembered the brothers running off to whenever the royals would come for tea. Both boys were sound asleep in their beds, one on each side of the main bedroom. Even though they were both seventeen, they still stuck together like a couple of bratty children. It was just as well, Marrok thought. He wouldn't have to go far to kill them both.

Jannali closed the door gently behind them and locked it. She would stand by the far wall—Marrok had free reign over those two. The prince bore a toothy grin as he stalked over to sleeping Jared and tore off his lush duvet. To Marrok's annoyance, Jared simply rolled over and began to snore. An angry locust, the prince grabbed Jared by the ear and tugged him upright. The boy let out a bellow that was quick to wake his brother.

Seth jumped out of bed and grabbed a nearby lamp, baring it like a wooden club. It certainly added to the primitive air that he always carried around. "Who the hell are—"

He was cut off instantly and his hands wrapped around his throat. Jannali tucked her hands innocently in her sleeves, much like a thaumaturge. Marrok grabbed the fleeing Jared by the arm and forced him down on his knees. As the boy flopped like a fish, Marrok felt pride surge through his veins. With the months of constant exercise and training that Jannali had put him through, he had gained a great deal of strength, and it was the most rewarding thing in the world, dominating someone so easily. He would've liked to see his father call him weak now.

By the way Jared's eyes widened in terror, Marrok knew that he recognized him. Jared had seen him enough without his glamour that he couldn't ever forget the prince's fiery hair.

"I don't appreciate you breaking my things," he said slowly, as if Jared were three years old. Marrok grabbed a length of rope from his pocket and gently wrapped it around the boy's collar. Seth, still gripping his own throat, watched with growing horror as Marrok began to tighten the rope around his brother's neck.

"Pull a thread..."

Jared's head snapped back with the force of Marrok's grip.

"Pull a thread..."

Jannali joined into her husband's humming. Seth's lips were turning the same blue as his mother's, and he stuck out his tongue in the only movement he could manage.

"Pull, and pull, and tug tug tug..."

The prince tightened and tightened until Jared's neck made a horrible cracking sound. The rope was released, and Jared's head fell lopsided over his shoulder. Blood poured from his mouth. And, as if by magic, Seth released his cinched neck and fell into a lifeless heap on the carpet. His eyes were as dead as Genevieve's and his lips were coated with saliva.

Marrok took his rope and tucked it back into his pocket. Jannali, ever the professional, walked over the corpses with a skip to her step and took her husband's hand. Squeezing it. Kissing his lips. Whispering her adoration.

They decided to forgo Lord Moonborne, whom they found passed out on the sofa in the antechamber. It was about time that they made their exit. They returned to the palace, again, without a sound, and found the warmth of their own bed.

And they dreamed of nothing.