Julian

All my grief says the same thing: this isn't how it's supposed to be. But the world laughs and holds my hope by the heart and says: but this is how it is.

Song: Final Loss

It is quiet in my corner of Whitefire. The books around me lay in teetering piles, creating something of an escape for myself. I turn the page in a book in my hand. The words on the page string together in mashed bits of ancient, forgotten language. It describes grand infrastructure and marvelous scientific achievements.

In my hand, I thumb the red cloth I first held so many months ago. I had found it not too long ago, on the war council table. Mare had apparently forgotten it and I had taken it to give back to her. But she never asked for it, and I had begun to think that perhaps she had meant for it to become lost. Still, I keep it just in case. She used to wear it like armour, displaying a color she was closely tied to. Now she has her crown, and within her something even more lethal.

From across the room, I hear the tick tick tick of a clock. The sound becomes louder, booming into a lower thrum. The sound morphs, turning from soft ticks to quick footfalls. I look up at the door, listening as the steps come closer and closer until the door springs open, hitting a shelf of books hard.

Wren leans heavily on the frame, heaving hard breaths. "Wren? What's this?" I close the book, leaving it behind to continue later. I tuck the red cloth into my sleeve.

Wren's eyes dart around the room, "It's Mare, she-"

"Is she okay, Wren?" I steady her, trying to ground her. The coolness of her touch aches through me. I think of Sara miles away from here, safe in the borders of the Scarlet Guard. My heart throbs a little thinking of how I left her for all this. For Mare.

"She's done something terrible, Julian." Our eyes lock for a brief moment. I see something written deep within them. Something lonely and afraid. I've felt it myself many times these past few days. Desperation perhaps?

"Show me."

Wren runs out of the room, I follow right behind. We weave our way through the hallways of the apartments that the noble families stay in. It doesn't take long to realize where Wren is heading. The throne room.

As we turn down another hallway, a scream rings out. Wren stares ahead before she turns away from the hallways leading towards the throne room, instead running towards the sound of the scream. I hear Wren's small puffs of breaths ahead of me. In the next hallway, a servant stands in front of two doors. Their mouth hangs open and they turn to us, pointing inside the room.

Beyond the doors, lay the bodies of House Marandus.

Their bodies lay on top of one another. Some slouch over the grand table, others have fallen to the floor in sick displays of silk and metal. A few eyes stare at us, daring us to speak, to breathe, to do anything.

Wren stumbles over to one of the bodies, laying her hands on them to feel for life. She backs away, her whole body convulsing. She reaches her arm out again, but it twitches back towards her. She doesn't know who to reach for. It's a massacre. There is no one left to save.

Distantly, I hear the sound of soft whimpers. I follow it deeper into the chamber, stepping over bodies to find the source. How could anyone have survived this?

The sounds come from a small, trembling girl. She lays draped over another body, moving them slowly in attempts to awaken them. I walk horridly to her. I watch her chest rise and fall in quick, rapid breaths. I lay my hands on the young girl, she stills softly. I feel for the rhythm of a heartbeat, no matter how shallow it may be. There is nothing. The body she held stops rocking as her efforts die with her. Her small fingers still cling tightly to a doll wearing the Marandus' colors. She lays over a woman who shares her silver-blonde hair and cloudy blue eyes. The woman has silver blood spilling from her red lips. The resemblance is uncanny. Her mother.

I back out of the room numbly. Death hangs heavily in the air. Who could have done this? Murdered an entire house, an entire bloodline. The children... so many children. Next to me, the servant sobs. I walk silently down the hall, leaving Wren and the servant in their frozen horror. Death follows me out, clinging onto me as I leave. It's in my lungs, my mouth. I can nearly taste its presence.

There's only one person I know who to go to. Who could make sense of this. I follow Wren's direction that she was leading us towards before the scream, to the throne room. Mare will know what to do, who to punish. Mare will fix this. She would never lie to me. Not like this. She promised mercy. No, this was someone else. It has to be.

Despite it being the early evening, the halls are quiet. I hear distant sounds of life from the direction where I came. There will be no hiding this. Entire houses do not just fall dead.

The Queen's Sentinels open the doors open slowly, opening to a scene of darkness. Inside the hall, I see Mare. She doesn't say a word. She sits on her throne, slumped over slightly. My eyes travel away from her, to a figure on the floor. The smell of blood fills the quiet hall. She's done something terrible, Julian. I feel a chill run up my spine. I walk towards the throne, keeping my eyes on the figure. Mare doesn't say a word to me as I step closer to the body. She doesn't say a word. She lets me see what she has done.

Samson Marandus' eyes peer up at me. The blue in them has dispersed under the sea of milky wisps, and his lips are frozen in the smallest smile. Like the others, a mixture of blood and foam drips out of his mouth.

I pull my eyes away from his crumpled form. There's glass everywhere, and blood. Red blood. Or at least it looks like blood. Did it come from Mare? I flinch at her darkness. It bleeds from her. Seeps from her scalp, from her fingertips. She stares at me with dark eyes. She looks like something of a monster.

"You said you would show mercy." A strange bitterness settles on my tongue and I can't define the taste-- like fear and pain and... something else entirely.

"This is my mercy," she hisses, snapping her head towards me.

"You killed them." It feels so very final to say it. To utter it into the abyss and have the abyss stare right back, letting it ring with truth. She had smiled at me. She had told me she had forgiven them. This is what her forgiveness means.

"Technically, poisoned," She says, a small smile twisting her lips. I look back at the blood. I realize now it isn't blood at all, but wine. The shards of glass from shattered cups create fragmented rays of light. The wine had been drawn not long ago, and it was not in celebration and warmth, nor friendship and beginnings. No, it reeked of death. Of betrayal. Of rot.

"Mare, what have you done?"

She blinks slowly. "This could have been prevented, Julian. Had you told me their plan instead of conspiring with my enemies."

"Conspiring?" I hold her gaze, staring at her as if my eyes can see through this. As if it's all just a nightmare I can wake up from, "I had stopped it. Wren and I stopped it. All to protect you from this."

She doesn't move, doesn't even breathe, "You committed treason. You lied to your Queen."

I take a staggering step away from her as I feel my heartbeat quicken in my hollow chest. "I kept a secret, and you slaughtered a family." I pull the red fabric from my sleeve, holding it up for her to see. Once I wore it for her, to protect her from a boy who would have tortured her in the ways he called love until the end of time. I take a heavy breath, releasing it from my age-beaten fingers. I let it fall to the floor, into a pool of wine and blood. From where she sits she glares ahead at me, as if her eyes alone could burn me alive.

"Sentinels," she screams at last. Behind me, the doors open. I hear their footsteps near as their boots meet marble, creating a deep thrum through the hall. I don't look back at them, I hold Mare's gaze firmly. When their procession stops Mare speaks again, "Seize him."

Armoured hands grab me, twisting my arms behind my back. For some reason, I don't feel the fear that should be there. Mare stands from her throne, walking down the steps towards me. She picks the torn fabric up, it bleeds onto her fingers.

"I could make you stop this."

"Is that a threat?" She looks up from the fabric in her hands, "Do it then." She takes a step forward, inches away from my face. I can smell a strange bitterness on her breath. What it could be I don't know. I look into her eyes, with all my being I want to do it. To guide her to a softer epilogue than the one she's sprinting towards. But I've seen what tortures she had endured last time someone forced their way inside her mind. She never was the same after that. She stopped smiling for a long while after, and even now her laughs are rare. I wonder if she even knows how to anymore. I would give it all to hear her laugh, to see her smile. To let her feel anything other than this pain that must torment her brain. Oh Mare, what happened to us.

She steps away from me, "See? You'll hesitate. Again and again. You're a disgrace to your blood."

"I will not stand by your side as you poison family after family. You are not the queen I pledged myself to. That girl died long ago."

"And from death, comes my birth. I was born to liberate the world from their Silver oppressors. And I will. With or without you." My legs give out, nearly falling to the stone floor. The sentinels grab me, forcing my legs to bear my weight.

"History will remember me well for which side I stood on this." I see it in her face. She remembers my lesson well. We do not choose how history will remember us. But then her emotions fizzle away, hidden behind the mask she wears so clearly now.

She leans closer, "Oh Julian, when I'm done history won't even remember your name."

I swallow around the ball in my throat, "This will destroy you, Mare."

Outside, I hear thunder roll and a bolt of purple lightning stretches across the sky, illuminating her face in hues of deep purple. "So be it."

She walks back up to her throne, resting her palm on the arm of it. Once I thought the twisted, jagged metal never suited her. It was made for Maven, not Mare. But in a way, it was always meant for her. If I still believed in fate I would think perhaps the throne was an omen to what was coming for us.

"You will have your wish, Lord Jacos," I've never heard her call me that before. It sounds cold and lonely. As if everything we had, was gone. The final word to our chapter. "Send my regards to the Scarlet Guard." The soldiers drag me away. I try to call for Mare.

Still, she doesn't say a word.

I will meet the Scarlet Guard in death tonight. That is the only way, the only meaning behind her words. I don't scream for Mare. I pick up my feet, letting the last memory of me be on my feet in silence defiance. I turn back towards her, to look at her one last time before I am dragged off into my death. If I was a hopefully man I would say I see regret. But then it is gone, buried behind a new determination. What have I done?

The Sentinels march me through the palace. It is too much to hope to see Wren, even Evangeline. This is better, I suppose. They don't need to see me like this. They'll know soon enough what became of the last Jacos. Wren had always hoped Sara and I would have children, continue my family name. This bloodline dies with me.

They take me farther into the palace, I do not know their intentions until they lead me to the artillery rooms. They throw me into a transport, my face slamming into the glass of the window. I feel the warm trickle of blood from my nose.

We drive for hours. I watch Archeon turn into distant shapes behind me, as it disappears into nothing at all. Somehow, I regain control of my ragged breathing. It pushes me into a trance of sorts. I don't feel a thing. Maybe I will in a day, maybe even a month. Maybe I'll never feel the pain of losing Mare. Afterall, how do you mourn someone who is not dead? When all that is left is the hollow shell of the person you loved and protected. She was a daughter to me, and I failed her.

By now, we're close to Summerton, the summer royal palace. I nearly laugh at the irony. Mare's village isn't far off from here. Back to where it all began. From there I have little idea as to where we are going.

In the distance I see Mare's village. The houses are all posted on stilts. That's what she had said they called her home, the Stilts. Behind the rooftops, illuminating them almost is a bright light. I stare at it for a long while until our transport nears it. The light evolves into long, twisting arms. My mouth runs dry as it dawns upon me. It isn't just a light. It's flame.

The Stilts are burning.

I turn to one of the Sentinels. "You have to tell Mare. The reds that live there need help. Send for her. Please." They don't react, instead laughing behind their armoured mask. I turn to look back at the fire. It's late enough, everyone who lives there will be asleep. But somehow I still see silhouettes. Running through the flames, as if they can't feel the heat at all. Then I see it. The hard outline of royal transports. This fire was not an accident. She's burning the village alive.

In great, heaving sobs, I burst-- a wave of hurt and anger, of immense pain and shame-- and I choked on it, helpless to stop its wrath. If I cannot save Mare, I will stop this. All I need is their eyes. To look into them and take over their head. I lunge at a Sentinel. I tear at his mask, feeling odd clicks in my ancient joints. I'm one man against four sentinels. I didn't stand a chance. The hilt of their gun smack my skull, the last thing I see is the glow of the fire turning their black masks into sneering monsters.

When I awake, bright, white lights blind me. I gasp for air, breathing into a mask of stale air. Cool fingers latch onto my hands. I've missed those eyes.

"You're safe now," Sara says.