19. Tassarion
Tassarion
Blood would be shed this dawn, and I would be its harbinger.
I stepped out of the star gate into wooded forestry.
If what Obsidian told me was true, the portal used for traveling long distances should have brought me to the woods behind Beauradèl Manor, located on the opposite end of Mortevain Island.
Marcèllian had thought coming out of hiding to return to his old family home was safe.
The former Ministeri Advisor had assumed I was no longer combing Mortevain looking for him.
The rotting fool. Vengeance didn’t carry a statute of limitations.
I would never rest until I made him pay.
I paused in the forest's clearing and looked around. Memories instantly flooded me. I’d spent endless cycles running through these woods as a youngling with Tovares.
I looked up into the trees. Spotted the branch Tovares had tossed me from, swinging me from my wings into the branch in the opposite tree.
Branches we’d later hide in while we played games of hide and seek.
I looked at the trees we climbed for many cycles from adolescence into our wildling years.
The trees we told stories in, entertained ourselves in, while Manmi and Papi were inside Beauradèl Manor having a pleasant lunch with their longtime friends.
Friends who helped breach the Trumpet Gate.
Friends who would turn around and betray them to the Fallen Angels.
Friends who handed them over to Zemshaza Beliah, Fallen King of the Souls Court.
I learned the real reason for the betrayal boiled down to Marcèllian wanting Mortevain Island for himself. His bloodlust made him betray the island. Made him betray us. And for that alone, I wanted revenge. Marcèllian’s actions made us Everthorns suffer. Bleed. Die.
Now, every Beauradèl alive would do the same.
“Yvette! This way!”
I whipped around, turning toward the sound.
The voice belonged to a youngling. Full of life.
Full of hope. Just like I had been on that fateful dawn.
I snarled quietly, scanning the woods for the owner of the voice.
Deep inside me, the accursed beast Nahomie had put to rest by her voice, her touch, stirred.
Bloodlust coursed through my veins. Vehement rage overwhelmed my senses.
I drew on ethèr. Pulling on my powers, I used them to cloak me until I blended into the brightness of the sunshine like souls in daylight. I didn’t completely disappear, but I was camouflaged enough. Flying into the branches of the high-standing trees, I perched on a branch and looked down.
“Yvette! If we hide over here, Jacques won’t find us.”
Through the copse of trees, a youngling burst forth. He couldn’t have been over fifty cycles. Stars. He was a child. So young. Innocent. So carefree.
Just like I once was .
I watched the youngling. He was small, coming no higher than my knees.
He had an adorable afro with tight curls that tumbled into his large hazel eyes.
His mahogany brown skin was dewy, well oiled and moisturized, glowing beneath the seven suns above the wood.
He was dressed in a patchwork print shirt with matching shorts and leather sandals.
His small, six pairs of wings flapped behind him.
I could see him struggling with the weight of his growing wings.
The muscles were still developing. The youngling wasn’t strong enough to fully carry them yet.
So na?ve. So precious.
It was a shame he was going to die.
“Richard, come back! Papi said we weren’t allowed to be back here. You know the woods beyond the garden are off-limits.”
The youngling, Richard, laughed. Full belly and all.
I would break his joy before I ruined him like his Papi helped ruin me.
“Oh, come on! Papi isn’t going to be mad over a game. Hide with me. Please.”
The angel Richard called Yvette finally flew into the small clearing below.
I tilted my head, looking down at her.
She was a true Vainyen beauty.
Like Richard, she had a large afro with curls that fell in her eyes, reaching past her neck in full fro.
Her eyes were a stunning hazel, like sand on the seashore; her skin a dark brown umber hue.
She wore an ivory, ruffled, two-piece set; her off-the-shoulder cropped camisole hanging just above her high-waisted skirt.
The specially woven set was trimmed in scarlet red stitching, and she donned golden sandals to match.
Yvette reached Richard and laughed, ruffling his hair.
“You and these games. Don’t you grow tired of them?”
Richard scoffed.
“Tired? I’m only fifty. Why would I be tired? I’m not ancient like the rest of you.”
“Oh, my... rude!” Yvette shoved Richard playfully. “I just turned five hundred and twelve. I’m still very young.”
“Yeah, as young as a prized Zaur.”
“Eya! Easy.” Yvette crossed her arms. “What you’re not about to do is call me a dinosaur.”
“You are as old as a Zaur you know,” he retorted. “You don’t have a top lip like them, either.”
I snorted at the youngling’s brass. The two young Beauradèls began arguing back and forth.
I rolled my eyes, growing bored with this stupendous tit-for-tat among children. I was seven cycles from seeing my Second Millennia and I was still only entering my prime for an angel. Both of them were so young they were practically newborns.
The heat of the sunshine made me sweat beneath my obsidian layers, the fabric beginning to cling to my sweaty limbs.
It was time to move this show along. For three centuries I had every one of my Gargorètti scouring the island for this family.
Every village, tribe, region. Hunting them down.
And for centuries, after my escape from Zemshaza, they escaped me.
Until now.
Blending in as best I could with the sunlight, I opened my mouth and let the accursed beast chained within my blood roar.
I kept the volume contained to the wood so only the small angels below could hear.
Yvette screamed, whipping her head to the side.
She spun around, trying to find the source of the roar.
I jumped from my crouch on the tree branch.
When I landed, I slammed my boots into the bark, squatting back down.
The motion caused a shower of leaves to fall.
Amid the disturbance, I unleashed my souls.
They scattered the leaves across the clearing, blurring all view of the woods temporarily.
When all the leaves settled, Yvette remained stunned. And Richard was gone.
“Richard, we have to get back to the manor. Now!”
Yvette whipped around, looking for her little brother.
Just like how I looked for Tovares and Vitani before Zemshaza got his hands on me.
“Rich?”
Finding this game amusing, I drew on the darkness within and let the beast I was cursed with roar again. Yvette shrieked at the top of her lungs.
“Richard, seriously, this isn’t funny. Don’t you hear that? There’s something in the woods. We have to go. Stop hiding!”
I laughed. Having let the beast flow through me now, twice, it gained boldness, seeping into my blood and snaking into my mind.
Before I knew it, control over my morality waned, and my lust for shed blood surged.
Like a vortex, an insatiable hunger for the death of these younglings exploded in my veins.
Papi always said if we ever willingly played with fire, we would be the fools for being shocked when we got burned.
I tried to gain control of myself, feeling ancient evil wrestle with my Soul Bending.
It was too late. This time, the beast won.
“Rich?” Yvette called again. “Richard? Where are you?”
The female didn’t know where the puny little angel had snuck off to.
But I did.
I’d watched him scream in silence before crossing the clearing, awkwardly flying through the trees, deeper into the wood. I flexed my hands, pulled on my powers, and flooded the clearing with souls. Yvette’s screeches were like music to my ears.
Endless Nanmiess slithered into the wood, hissing and gnashing their teeth at her.
Their ghoulish hands tugged at her clothes and pulled at the pretty curls of her hair.
She thrashed around, turning this way and that, trying to shoo away the souls.
The Nanmiess became emboldened, furious at her reaction.
They plunged onto the angel, tearing at her skin until she bled.
“Get away from me, hèlsborn! Don’t touch me. Get off!”
My souls didn’t take kindly to her insults. They rushed her again, all at once, from all sides.
And as she screamed, I sang.
At the bewitchment of my voice, the souls overwhelmed the Mortent, latching onto her six wing pairs, grabbing onto her arms, dragging her to the ground. Yvette kicked and hollered, but it mattered not. Tears streamed down her face as she fought against the souls. A battle she was quickly losing.
I continued my song, closing my eyes, concentrating on the flailing angel below.
With my physical eyes closed, my spirit ones opened.
I found the silhouette of Yvette’s angelic spirit.
Saw where the threads of her ethèr radiated, pouring out of her body.
I looked at the silhouette of her spirit, latched onto it, and squeezed.
Using my Soul Bending, I hummed an eerie tune of command. Of obedience. Of surrender.
She was instantly hypnotized.
Gripped by my ethèr, she became catatonic, moving when commanded by my song.
I sang to her to go back home. To forget that she was with her little brother. To believe she fell and hurt herself while in the woods all alone.
To tell her Manmi and Papi that all was well.
To tell them not to come into the woods.
Spellbound by Soul Bending, a tiny smile appeared on Yvette’s face. She rose to her feet, snapped her wings into her spine, and floated back through the trees, headed for the garden behind her family’s manor. When she was gone, I stopped humming, releasing my grip on her soul.
I smiled.
Now that Yvette was gone, Richard was left unprotected.
It was time for the actual games of vengeance to begin.
I leapt from my perch in the tree. Spread my wings. Fueled by a chasm of wrath overflowing for eight centuries, I shot through the woods and began my hunt.