Chapter Nine
Mavros went straight to the nest. He entered in through an extra door in the serpent Raja's room.
"Let me in." He whispered discreetly through the door.
"Password?" Came the smooth drawl from inside. He was later than usual and they were already breathing in the fumes of the sweet intoxicating powder.
"Sha' Mehay." He said even softer than before.
"You are not welcome here anymore." Came Raja's voice from inside.
"What!?" Came his startled reply. He steped back from the fumes for a moment to clear his head and register what she said.
"You are not welcome." Raja stepped out of the room, into the open air.
She looked exquisite.
As a true dancer, she had the priviledge of wearing the symbols of her guild on her body and had the symbol meaning "reckless abandon" on her waist where her clothes didn't cover her. There were actually very few places that skin wasn't showing. Her outfit of scarlet gauze went around only the more vital areas of her body. The rest of it....
Her very presence was intoxicating to him. After so many times... Nevermore wasn't the only thing he was addicted to.
"Why? Are you angry with me?"
"No. I just don't want you to kill yourself anymore than you are. I know you aren't following the rules and I will not allow you to any longer."
"I have..."
"No." Raja interrupted. "You haven't. You simply think I'm too stupid to notice."
"I don't think..." Mavros started. Raja interrupted again.
"You do. You think I'm so easily fooled.... But you don't even watch the things those of your own household say do you?"
"Members of my household are..."
"More easily swayed than you think."
"But they have all sworn..."
"And will break that oath for extra coin. I know you are engaged. How long did you expect me to go in silence? When were you going to tell me?" Raja's voice was saturated with pain and passion.
"I wasn't going to tell you. I was going to break off my engagement."
"Really?" Came a new voice from in the room.
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Angelic stood in a darkened corner looking deprived and wronged.
"Don't be so sad. You can still torture her when she makes you angry." Gavin was trying to coax her out of her self-inflicted misery.
She wasn't rising to the bait.
"I don't care. I want to go back to what I was doing."
"She can't use her power if she can't see."
"I don't care about her damn power! I want..." She choked on the words. Amethyst was in the back room sleeping off the injuries inflicted by Angelic. Gavin had thought it a good idea to stop the torture and begin training her to use the tecnique she had been misgiven.
"What do you want, Angelic? No one but me here, and the girl in the back. You did so much damage to her she won't wake for a while." Which was true. She would need hours of sleep for her eyes alone. Gavin had needed to carry the girl to the small bed.
"I don't care! You know what I want. I'll not ask it of you again." With that Angelic got up and stalked away, out the door to find some unsuspecting innocent to harass.
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Amethyst was laying on the bed, curled into a ball and refusing to move in any way her body saw fit. Angelic had walked in and taken her temper out on her. Her windpipe was broken, as were her jaw, legs, and three bones in her right arm; her eyes were ravaged to a point that she didn't think they could be repaired.
'Damn them all!' Amethyst thought of her parents. 'If only they were smart enough to know that they were too hated for me to pass through life unscathed! They were said to have trusted none but each other. what made them do this to me?'
She had reached a point in wretchedness when all else ceased to matter but her own destruction. If Angelic hadn't destroyed her eyes, she might have cried the tears she should have cried.
Since a very young age, she was always the odd one out, forced to flee for her life on a daily basis. She usually remained ahead of her reputation and was able to stay one night in one town before having to hastily leave its borders. She fled in circles. There was no other land she knew and she was wary of leaving it.
That was not to say that she didn't try. She left the borders and fled for a day. Slowly she felt her strength begin to fade and she felt like she was falling into an abyss from which there was no return. It took her two days to find her way back to her country. She'd never set foot outside the borders again.
In any situation, she was too busy trying to live and not be killed to cry over a moment's misfortune. Eventually, the king noticed what was preoccupying his subjects and called an end to the cruel game; for that was all that it was: a cruel game of find the traitors' get at her expense.
She was allowed to have a home and it was forbidden to kill her.
'If the king goes out of his way to make a public announcement, and the people still refuse to give up their forbidden game, is the king's word still law?' She thought with bitterness. It was forbidden to kill her, and one would think she could rest easily. No. She had to continue to be careful with her words and the people she surrounded herself with.
There was still no time. So she promised herself that if she had the time she would cry on her death bed. It was the only peace she would get.