Blood & Sand

“Surprising to see you here.”

Drifting my fingers along the couch, I couldn’t help but stare into the manor where I could have grown up. Besides us, the only living thing in Ariadne was grandmother’s purple anemones crowding along the castle's exterior. Stems of the purple anemones were long bodies of black snakes, and each of its four sepals was a snake head with purple, bejeweled eyes. Every night they bloomed to life and closed their eyelids under the hazy, blood-red sun and bursting nebulas that adorned Nehpthy’s skyscape. Ariadne was filled with eerie frigid air that swept through the pores of my silk shirt and pale skin, latching and encircling my bones and very my being like a rope. Dead trees, vines, plants, and remains of creatures lay within bushes and in the fog that fell upon the realm like hair. Only at the bell of midnight would the plants, creatures, and vines resurrect themselves from their boned coffins and ashes to bloom along the purple anemones that never died. Something of this plane brimmed far more powerful than the abundance of black and white energy that tore and formed the landscape of Nephthys. Energy far stronger than love, hatred, and vengeance shook Ariadne’s core once my grandfather left, taking away the beauty of the anemones that were always in bloom. Now each petal seemed to be a cocktail of emotions and powerful energy, each a testament to grandfather’s love, sadness, anger, and resentment.

The castle towered in gothic architecture, tall, thin windows that stretched tall beyond our heads, giving the building a sinister face. Hauntingly beautiful wallpaper that stretched across the wall, depicting moons and stars with snakes wading through its crevices and craters. A tall fireplace bellowed a hideous crackle, caged by golden snakes with rubies for eyes. Before the fireplace stood three tufted couches that were the same color as the snake’s sparkling eyes. Pulling out the broken necklace that had lived along Lillian’s neck her whole life, I pulled the necklace up with one hand, watching the crystals crumble even more.

“You killed her.”

Lezabel sat on the other couch, legs propped on the armrest, holding a glass of red wine. With lips cherry red and her black hair falling elegantly over her shoulders, Lezabel wore a tight dress, dyed in the blood of her enemies. Lezabel only brought the rim of her glass to her lips, smelling the alcoholic aura before a calculating smile stretched across her face. “My condolences.” Lezabel raised her glass while her dress simultaneously turned black.

With my hands sparking with energy, the lights and candles began to flicker and hum with my mania. “Answer me goddamnit!”

“Did you think that I would let her come between the life-long work we have dedicated ourselves to? Forsaken by the gods for our entire lives, thousands of years, and you crumble at the first mortal woman that smooches you on the lips!” Lezabel threw herself off the tufted couch, throwing her glass of wine onto the other side of the room. With the shattering glass, she bellowed, “Pathetic! To think you are my brother. She weakens you, but I have underestimated how weak you were before to let such a low-living slern rot our mission, our purpose!”

I could only let a storm of agony and rage erupt from my lungs. Pulling my hair, never had I pondered about killing my sister so mercilessly. To kill her, how she killed Maya; sucking the life out of her and letting her fade into the dust that made this realm. “Killing her was not our purpose! Trying to steal my birthright is not your purpose!”

“Oh brother, how you are wrong! I have given you the chance to steal the key, yet you have only returned with some broken necklace! You have given me your birthright; the key is mine now!” Lezabel’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, scoffing, “The old and new ways of Shivani are dead now, Abaddon; it doesn’t matter what our purpose is or not! We fight for autonomy of our own destiny, and mine is beyond this mortal realm!”

Claiming the key was the least of my worries at the moment. Let her have it for all I fucking care! “This necklace,” I felt like my teeth were about to break, “is my daughter! The daughter Maya was to tell me, before you killed her!” Throwing the shattered necklace in my pocket, I lunged at my sister. Flames of candles burned brighter, switching to black as soon as I could grab Lezabel’s neck. I slammed her into the wall, causing cracks to form, but just as father would, she found my anger amusing. My pain, amusing. Everything I had ever loved, amusing.

With wine-stained lips, she showed the ruthless demeanor that father had become all so proud of. “Another favor I have done for you.”

“You almost made me nearly kill the very last of Maya. Thank Idalia that she was my blood.” I couldn’t help but squeeze her neck tighter, hoping to pop her out of existence like a balloon, but she only smiled brighter as I did so. With the sound of breaking bones, I could hear the Neerax coming into the room to hear what the commotion was all about. Some in the form of crows, others in their true forms, and the rest in the form of the people they had killed.

They never seemed to get their eyes right.

Lezabel let out a burst of energy that sent me flying backward, crashing into the couch, causing the couch and me to slam into the wall. The Neerax stood awkwardly, knowing not to put a hand on either of us, or father would have them killed.

She towered over me, a smile replaced by annoyance and eyes electrified with disapproval. “You never needed a daughter; you needed me. You need to help our cause.”

Throwing a ball of energy back at her, she screamed in pain before recollecting herself. Anger bled from her busted lip and nose. I only chuckled through our pain- “she has figured out her abilities, and my gods, she is powerful! She knows you killed her mother.” Lillian’s powers had to be triggered when she first came to Nehpthys, as this is her realm as well, after all.

“Do you think that I care!” Her voice echoed and thickened, reaching deep within her powers to feed the chagrin that I had caused. “It was always you and her! Abaddon and Maya! Maya and Abaddon! She makes you weak, and she made me weak! You don’t care about that girl; blood or not, she is no Blackwood!”

We fumbled, throwing energy in an attempt to hurt each other, but neither of us achieved true obliteration. In a sense, I was Lezabel’s pawn. I always had been, and to kill me so early in her game could be a damning decision. She was the same for me; kill her now, who knows how father will react to his favorite child being murdered by the less favorable one. We were pawns to one another, walking the path we blindly wove for ourselves. Mutations, some call it, but I see it as true destiny. Both of us had become bloody, yet our broken fingers that had been snapped like pretzel sticks bolted unusually back into place. Scars were fading from our skin like rain to pollen.

A caved-in wall, furniture charred and scraped, and the glass coffee table had been shattered with only the base of a golden snake remaining unharmed from our brawl. Wallpaper scratched and peeled, and the Neerax, silently watching us, debating if they should call our father or not. Father never encouraged peace; he taught us integrity and to hold our ground. If that meant getting a scar, then so be it. Although we could erase the scars with a mere glance, I’ve always kept the one on my face to remember that although immortal, we were not beyond death. Lezabel seems to have forgotten that.

“You will pay for this!” I couldn’t hold my tears any longer; my soul was lit ablaze that my sister and a bunch of Neerax had seen me weakened. Maya’s death washed over my eyes again, feeling transported to Ismene, where I saw Lezabel turn her into the same very dust that caked Ariadne’s earth. “You took away my life!”

“I gave you one.” Lezabel shook her head, neck muscles tightening. “I gave you one and you still prove how incompetent you are.” She erupted in black energy, sending shards through my skin. I fell backward, slowly healing from her attacks. “This isn’t a game, brother! You are either with me or against me. Now get out!” The house rattled at her bellowing voice, but I only matched her with mine.

“You’ve drawn a line in the sand with Maya’s blood! You push the limits, stretch the durability of relationships, and then poke and smile at the exposed ligaments! You feed off the painful energy that you create, but you are far from a demon. Don’t you dare act surprised when I am the last thing that you see, slowly turning you to the same dust that shadows this realm!” Ripping a portal open, our eyes locked together, the ire of our bloodshed relighting flames that had been put out from our thunder.

With hair tossed and tangled, bruised arms and healing wounds, Lezabel’s mechanical laugh was poison to my ears. “A rude awakening you will have, but perhaps a happy ending. I can send you with Maya, dust to dust.” Her smile was relentless. “Ashes to ashes- well, since our blood hinders us from ever reaching Aelin, at least your remains can be with her.” She tilted her head, the closest to sympathy she could ever get.

Stepping into an opening portal, a whirlwind of untapped blackened energy erupted, feeling like the unraveling of what was left of my soul. The wind swept through the room, knocking over the painting of grandfather and grandmother over the fireplace. At midnight, the furniture would stitch itself back together, the burnt wallpaper would lighten back to its usual color, and the shattered wine glass would return to the kitchen cabinet as if nothing had happened. The blast of the portal became more unhinged, spinning our hair throughout the room as we locked eyes. Her icy blue eyes were far from the eyes of the young girl I grew up with thousands of years ago. Now I felt nothing for her.

It took every quark in my body not to turn her to the ash that she casually teased me with. The ash that became caught up in the whirlwind of energy around us, speeding up violently, dethatching the chandelier from the ceiling, and grabbing the furniture into its tornado of madness. I needed Lezabel alive for now. She had the key and was getting the rest of the Holy Quaternity. Start what you finished, Abaddon, and then you can kill her.

Trembling with anger, teeth fastened so tightly together, and veins so defined it felt as if they might burst from my flesh. I vanished in the portal, beyond words. Only plagued with the sickened, distraught, and a lump sitting at the pit of whatever empathy was left that lay in my soul. She will feel every ounce of her body fade into the earth that we walk on. Aelin nor Nephthys, or Life herself will be able to hold me back for the death I have set for her.

Death will be the thing that sets us all free.