Chapter Six
Remus
Control is an illusion.
From a young age, I was taught that the true way to rule is to allow people to believe they are in control.
If they feel their voices are not heard, or if they feel they don’t have the space to make their own calculated decision, they feel that they have lost power.
They become irrational, which is why my mother established a council upon her departure from Xyrannis.
So that the Leviathan would feel like they are in control even though beings who could implode their planets at any second rule over them.
Fear would only lead to unnecessary rebellion, such as with my mother’s reign and Iriel’s betrayal.
I, however, would never allow that to happen.
I do not have the same compassion as my mother, which makes council meetings all the more difficult to sit through.
Regardless of what the Leviathan in attendance believe, my plans will be the ones that leave this room.
But they would never acknowledge that. It would shatter their fragile illusion.
It would make their lives frightening instead of allowing them to blindly follow my will.
I have always been flawless in executing this form of control.
But, as with everything that involves her, it is different with Iris.
My usual patience is running thin as she goes about her days, refusing to accept that this is her new home.
She has been in complete awe the past few days and has enjoyed her time.
Yet she still coaxes irrational emotions out of me, most of which are beginning to make me irritable as time passes.
I can’t begin to understand why she would choose to live a life free of an inhibitor and still feel guilt with each day that passes.
“With the last of the rebels wiped out, we can finally manage the resources of the planet properly and begin farming it for resources while continuing to turn it into a settlement.” I’m pulled from my thoughts as Xion reaches the end of her presentation.
Murmurs of approval sound over the room as the council members discuss what this means.
“And what of its inhabitants? Have they been allowed integration into the settlement?” Valerian’s words pull me from my thoughts.
I scoff, pulling everyone’s attention.
“Integration? Do you not recall why we went there in the first place? There is nothing to integrate. Humans will remain under inhibitors and be classified as part of the resources offered by the planet,” I say.
The conquering of Earth began over a decade ago in Earth years.
We only ever arrived in the first place to ensure they never be allowed to leave their planet’s surface again after the damage they did crash landing on ours while I was off world.
But after seeing the abundant resources the planet gave, and the way its inhabitants were ripping through its life, we made the collective decision to rid the world of the parasites attached to it.
“And you are sure there are no more lingering threats on the planet’s surface?” Valerian asks.
I shift my attention to him, my gaze narrowing slightly as I take him in. I can see his discomfort as I study him. I can hear it—I can smell it.
“How long have I been absent from Xyrannis?” I ask.
“Three years, Aureon.”
I release a breathy laugh.
“Three Years. Do you think I enjoy leaving this world to finish what our military failed to do, with a race so weak, they would resort to blowing up all life on their home if it came down to it?” I ask.
Silence passes over the room. No one has an answer for me.
“The only lingering threat that remains is Iriel. The sooner you set a punishment for him and his co-conspirators, the sooner we can move on. His weapons took the lives of Leviathan. And he sacrificed his own to help the creatures we were there to eradicate. He cannot be left for long without a trial or a decision on what is going to be done,” I say, eyeing the council.
They should have already set a date for Iriel the moment he touched down on the planet’s surface, but they are dragging their feet.
Once again, they would rather know what has been added to the empire and what our next moves are, rather than punish the Leviathan who almost cost them an entire settlement.
But as it always happens with them, they know that I will handle it, and they have nothing to worry about.
Ezra speaks from the other side of me, pulling everyone’s attention.
“Have you set a date for Iriel’s trial?” he asks.
“Not yet. We’ve been speaking with—”
“What the hell are you waiting for? More Leviathan like him to get the idea anywhere in our empire? He needs to be made an example—”
“Calm yourself, Ezra,” I say.
He clearly has a personal vendetta against Iriel. While I understand his frustrations, it is not our place to urge the Leviathan to take action. It is our place to guide them to it.
I look at each member of the council as I speak.
“Iriel is a traitor to Xyrannis. And while his crimes are not only against his own kind, but my siblings and I as well, we are giving him the opportunity for a fair trial. It would be wise to set a date sooner rather than later. We don’t want this marinating among the Leviathan,” I say.
I rise from my seat, signifying the end of the meeting, and the rest of the council follow suit.
Our usual return to Xyrannis is met with excitement among the people.
But the council is hesitant since, for the first time in the history of my rule, a Leviathan has returned in chains for attempting a coup and dragging an entire planet with him.
It is clear they do not know how to proceed as they are faced with a threat that indirectly affects them because it involves me.
They think I will retaliate, since I am not my mother and I do not care for this world in the way that she does.
But I currently have little interest in Xyrannis’s day-to-day activities. Not when Iris has returned with me and is invading every piece of my mind at every turn. Even now, my mind wanders to where she could be and how she is feeling when I should be more concerned about Iriel’s punishment.
Once the room empties, Ezra approaches, and I brace myself for the argument I know is coming.
“You didn’t have to talk over me. I have every right to feel the way that I do toward Iriel. They can’t be hesitant about his punishment. You didn’t see everything that was done in that place,” he says.
“A place you willingly put yourself. I didn’t have to see what he did to you. I saw the effects of it to our people,” I say.
Ezra huffs in irritation.
“You keep telling me I need to mature, but you don’t give me any room to do so,” he snaps.
I turn to look at him, my irritation bubbling to the surface.
“Mature? I overlooked the stupidity of your plan and did not reprimand you for it. Do not make me have to explain to you why getting emotionally involved with a decision that is not ours to make is not a mature action,” I say.
Ezra shifts his attention past me to Xion. But she won’t help him in this instance. He is in the wrong. And he will never learn if she keeps coming to his defense as she did in the hallway.
Ezra releases a humorless chuckle as he looks between us.
“Unbelievable,” he snaps.
Xion steps forward. “Ezra—”
“Don’t,” he growls as he leaves the room.
Xion waits until the door is closed to turn her attention to me.
“Must you always be so hard on him?” she asks.
“Someone needs to be,” I say. “Between you and our mother constantly shielding him from every bad thing that could possibly happen, he is never going to learn to stop jumping head first into everything.”
I trail off as a dull throb forms in my head, pressing my fingers against my temple to stop the pain.
“What’s wrong?” Xion asks.
I pull in a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
I know this pain. It happened once before when I stopped feeding regularly.
It’s how I almost took Iris’s life in my sleep.
For the duration of our journey to now, I haven’t fed.
I’ve been adamant on giving Iris her space and I know that if I took what I needed, she would once again retreat into herself further than she already has.
And now, I desperately need to replenish myself.
But Iris won’t have anything to do with me, further adding to the growing list of problems between us.
“It’s nothing,” I say, brushing her off. I shift my attention in the direction of the door. “Make sure he doesn’t do anything foolish,” I say.
Xion scoffs, pulling my attention.
“Did you forget? He has a human of his own. He won’t be getting into any trouble any time soon,” she says.
I eye her in confusion, but then I remember the woman he brought with him from Earth.
I forgot about her. According to Iris, her name is Sky.
She was the one in charge of Ezra’s tests, which explains part of his vendetta against Iriel.
I’m sure she worked in close quarters with Iriel, so Ezra is intimately aware of the extent of Iriel’s hatred.
I release a deep breath as I realize my mistake. Xion laughs, placing her hand on my shoulder as she speaks. “You’re not just his leader. You’re his older brother, Remus. Maybe you should start acting like it,” she says.
“I know. I just worry about him sometimes. And it comes out wrong,” I say, closing my eyes as the pain in my head intensifies. It’s as if something is prodding at my skull, trying to push through when I don’t want it to.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Xion asks.
I nod. “I’m fine—ngh!”
A sharp pain rips through my skull, momentarily blinding me, and I stumble as one word echoes through my mind. It’s in a different language. An ancient language that was taught to me long ago, and yet I don’t remember learning it.
“Remus.”
Something flashes in my mind, but it’s so brief that I can’t decipher everything. Just the overwhelming emotions that come with it.
I feel Xion’s hand on my shoulder, steadying me as the world spins.
When I open my eyes, she has a frightened expression on her face, her eyes shifting to the table that was in front of us.
It’s shattered. The solid wood has splintered into thousands of pieces, yet it continues float through the air, suspended in time.
Both of us stare at it in confusion. I didn’t mean to do it, I wasn’t even focused on it for this to happen. I reach for it, gently touching splintered pieces, and instead of it going back to its original form, it swirls into a mass of light before it disappears. And I have no idea where it went.
“Remus…”
I flinch as I hear my name, but it isn’t the voice in my head. It’s Xion. I quickly pull away from her.
“I’m fine. I just haven’t fed recently,” I say.
Xion continues to watch me, but I know she doesn’t believe me. I’ve never been this disoriented. Even so, I don’t give her a chance to grill me further about it as I make my way out of the room to go in search of Iris.
Iris
Remus is different since our return from the capital.
I don’t know if it’s from his irritation with me, his argument with his siblings, or if something happened in that meeting.
But he’s different. And it isn’t in the way he has been in the past. His lack of attention isn’t purposeful.
He’s distracted, which, in my experience, has never been the case for Remus.
I quietly approach the glass as I study him.
He’s sitting in the snow, his back to me, as he meditates.
He’s been like this for the past hour since we returned, his body barely moving even as he breathes.
But I do notice his hair gently floats at the ends.
It reminds me of the times he released his true power on Earth—when he wiped out the rebels and when he took down the resistance.
I chuckle to myself as I watch him now.
It’s terrifying to think something like him exists. We are all at the mercy of his patience. I move to the edge of the glass, pulling on my boots before motioning the gesture Remus taught me, and the glass shifts, curving so that it opens in an arch big enough for me to move through.
I flinch as the chill in the air whips around me. It sinks into my skin much faster than it would on Earth, stinging my flesh.
“Remus,” I say his name, but he doesn’t hear me.
“Remus,” I try again. He still doesn’t respond.
He’s eerily still. I slowly move around him, my eyes falling over his unmoving form.
It’s unnerving seeing him like this. He’s like a statue as I study his blank expression with his eyes closed.
I note his lashes are white as well as I study him meditating.
And as I slowly move my fingers toward his face, I release a soft gasp when there’s a slight resistance against my fingers, like an invisible force field.
“Ah!” I scream as Remus suddenly grips my wrist, his eyes opening.
An audible gasp escapes my lips as his eyes meet mine.
They’re pitch black. The inner circle is so dilated that the purple sits in a dark corner at the edge of his gaze.
Slowly, his eyes shift back to their natural form until he looks at me in confusion.
“What are you doing out here?” he asks.
He barely waits for a response as he pulls me quickly back inside, making sure the glass is closed before turning to me. He pushes my hair from my face, his eyes roaming over me in a panic.
“I told you not to go outside unless you are covered up,” he says in irritation.
“I was just—”
“Doing as you pleased,” he snaps.
Silence passes between us as we glare at one another, and Remus breaks first. He takes a deep breath, lowering his hands.
“You cannot just do as you please here, Iris. You could lose your life because of it. I know you think I am doing this as a punishment, but, unlike you, I care about what happens to you,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “Just…listen to me for once in your life.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to respond as he moves away from me. I watch him depart in confusion as he is once again distracted by something, leaving me alone.