Lysandra's Point of View

She held a sliver in her hand as she prepared herself for the task to come. The task that would rip her to pieces.

It must be done, she reminded herself. Fail, and the world would crumble. The valkyries and the elves would be the first and though their fall was inevitable, at least Lysandra knew some would survive. With the ShadowBreathers able to replace them, she knew that none would live past her mother's wrath. Soon there would be no escaping her Medea's rule, not even for Lysandra. She could never take the throne if the ShadowBreathers were released into the world. Aaron would simply bring his mother back.

It would be the end of everything in the way elfin magic never could be.

The sliver pulsed with darkness in her hand, and she was careful not to let it slide into her veins. That would cause her blood to go dark, something no one had yet experimented with and did not want to. She felt her magic deplete from creating the sliver. At most she could make five at a time; more than her brothers, less than her mother. That seemed her constant fate.

Sweat beaded down her forehead, half from the heat and half from fear. She walked to Aaron's room, her breath coming quickly now. He wouldn't remember what she had done. She would make sure of that. But she would remember all of it well enough for them both.

"Lysandra?" Aaron asked, turning around. Now. It had to be now.

She ran her fingers over the sliver nervously and threw the razor-sharp shadow bolt right into her brother's head.

It passed through, and she breathed a sigh of relief. When Aaron turned to her, there was nothing in his eyes. No life and purpose in those bright blue eyes that had greeted her all her life.   His usually golden skin-a rarity amongst dark-skinned Kallians-was sickly pale.

"Why?" he asked, and Lysandra broke. Her heart shattered completely in that moment and she froze.

"I'm so sorry, baby brother," she told him, her voice little more than a whisper. "But I can't let you continue the ShadowBreathers."

"Why?" He repeated. His eyes were so soulless, compelling her to answer.

"They will destroy everything," she whispered. "They are unnatural, Aaron. They will plunge the world into darkness."

"They would have been people. So many people."

"Our mother cannot have that power," she told him. "You know this, Aaron."

"It would have made her so happy," he said. "She would have loved me so much. You took that away from me!"

"She already loves you," she answered. "And if she needs you to do this to love you, then she doesn't deserve your love at all."

"You betrayed me. You put a sliver in my head! You lied to me, too-I didn't even know you had magic. What other lies are there, sister?" And because this is the only time she can confess, the only person she can confess to, she tells him.

"I will frame our brothers for treason.," she began. Aaron's face was hollow; empty of the shock and betrayal she had expected.

"I am working with the rebellion, and later, I will make sure they are blamed for what I have done. I will do this to become heir, and to protect us both." She tells him, and the words release her burden - slightly. The heartbreak in his eyes only makes her feel worse. "I feel no guilt for it. They are horrible, and I want them dead and I want to be heir. And...when they are dead I will kill our mother, not to save the thousands she is tyrant to, but to win the crown myself."

"I hate you!" He screamed at her. "I will always hate you. She is our mother!"

"She was never mine. She never loved me."

"She loves me!" He protested. "Why can't you spare her, just for me?"

She seized the sliver with her magic and he went limp, the words dying on his lips.

"Destroy your work on the ShadowBreathers. Forget them. Forget this."

And because she had betrayed him, because he had no choice, he did.

Afterwards she cried.

She shut herself in her bedroom and cried and cried at what she had done, at the betrayal and the crime. She cried for she had hurt her brother, and because if he knew the truth about her, as he did so fleetingly, he would hate her.

He was all that she had; all that she had ever had. The only one in her family, the only one in the world who loved her.

And if he knew the truth, the horrible truth, about who she was and what she was going to do, he would hate her just as the rest of the world does. She, who was so unworthy of his Name.

He hated her. There was true hate shining in his eyes, not just rage and shock.

He hated her. He hated the person that she hid from him.

He loved her, the her she showed him everyday, the her that was not real.

He could never love her if he understood her. Never love the true her.

Could anyone?

------------------

Lysandra left Crimsith, unable to stand seeing Aaron. Aaron, who she had betrayed. Aaron, who had forgotten it all and now looked at her with light in his eyes, smiling and asking if she wanted a walk. If she wanted to play chess, or cards, or eat ginger nut biscuits in the garden and talk about the most unimportant things.

She lied to her mother, makes up some stupid excuse she couldn't even remember. She wasn't happy; she wanted her daughter in the capital She told the same sun-blasted lie to Aaron and he bought it, so trusting. He didn't think she would ever lie to him. He wasn't happy either; he would miss her.

So she would go to Cobalt, not caring about the Plan and Lucifer's demands, not caring at all. She would get herself a room in her favourite hotel and she would drown herself in pretty, useless things: dresses and crowns and perfume. She'd avoid the letters Aaron would send to her, like he always did.

Or maybe she'd answer them. It would break his heart again if she just broke off contact. He loved her so much. He shouldn't.

I made the right choice, she told herself again and again. I made the right choice. The ShadowBreathers would have destroyed everything. Sent the world plunging into chaos. I saved lives. So many lives. But that never bothered her before. So many crushed under her mother's rule, and what does she care? Killing her brothers? She never loved them anyway.

I saved lives. But there were only ever two lives that mattered: hers and Aaron's.He doesn't remember. So what? It still happened. I still put a sliver in his brain and betrayed him, I still forced him to forget.

And quieter: I'm still going to frame his brothers. I'm still going to kill his mother. She pushed that to the furthest corner of her mind. She had to. Of course she had to: if she did not, she would never be able to complete her Plan.

There were letters piling up on her desk: letters from Aaron, so obviously missing her but too kind to urge her back, letters from her mother, wanting her back in the capital and not bothering to hide the demand in her words, letters from Lucifer, begging her to come back and help them, because this is their opportunity, their only hope.

Lysandra read them all: every word from her mother and Lucifer, and every word a hundred times from Aaron, each one hurting more and more.

In the end she sent a reply to all three letters. To her mother, it was long and apologetic, another excuse. To her brother, every word the sweetest lie. To Lucifer, a quick thing explaining she was in Cobalt, trying to find the information they needed.

The reply for that was annoyning: a three-page-long rant about how this was the rebellion's only chance, their only hope, how the information she had already gotten ended in minor, insignificant raids or capture, that if she didn't have the resources and time then she better summoun them out of thin air, because that was what he and every other insurgent had been doing.

Lysandra had just finished burning that one when she heard loud, sharp knocking on the door.