† Yuen & Esali †
Tears trailed over his cheeks, dripping down onto the floor in quiet splashes. The fog cleared from his eyes like a hazy smog evaporating in the wake of violet suns.
As Yuen filled his vision, luminescent spores floating around him, seeping back into his skin, wracking sobs spilt from Esali in a harrowing sound.
The sight of Kohryn seizing, blood pouring from her face, thrashing around as a viscous red aura shredded into her skin was the last memory he had of his childhood friend.
He'd never felt more horrified as he had watched her scream. His child heart still strummed in his chest. Blood wooshed through his ears in the steady pounding rhythm of a great drum heralding in a plague of terror and chaos.
Yuen took him in his arms and he did not fight it.
He cried into his brother's robe, snot and tears quickly dampened their pale blue silks. Yuen rocked them back and forth, mumbling apologies flowing from his mouth to match the pace of Esali's tears.
"Something bad is happening to her isn't it?" Esali's voice cracked between sobs. "I can feel it in the blood bond. That's why I've felt this way. That's why- that's why-" A sick and twisted reality settled in his stomach then. The curling grey streams and white lighting pulled at him. Delta's presence so close, yet nowhere to be found in Kissian.
The memories were too fresh. New, as if they had happened yesterday, and his childlike love for the human girl named Kohryn was thick and re-blossomed.
"No, no, no." He pulled back, fingers still curled into Yuen's clothes. "Why, Yuen, why?"
His older brother looked so lost, silver eyes for once molten pools of mercury, red rimmed and filled with their own tears. "What is it, Esali?"
"Why did you let Delta take her soul song?"
…
"What?"
"That night bastard has her name. I'm sure of it."
Yuen gripped onto his arms, fingers digging into flesh and leaving bruises. "No…" A hopeful whisper.
"Yes, Yuen."
"No." Denial, his refusal a meaningless word for Delta did truly possess her name. "I never told him who she was."
"But he knew?"
"Vague details." His words came out rushed, a mixture of betrayal and fear settling in his stomach. Delta had known enough to play a part, but no more than necessary.
The prince of a dishonored court eager for reclamation of the control now possessing the ultimate weapon. But Delta had always hated his family, hated the court and being the only born son. Treated like filth, like a pawn, disposable to his queen mother. Surely it was a coincidence. "I never told him her name or let him see the pictures of her."
Esali's brow was furrowing, hatred and disgust darkening his lilac features.
Yuen desperately stammered, "I swear Esali, I would never have given him something so valuable."
"Valuable?" He hissed.
"Valuable to you."
"Liar! You kept her hidden from me for a reason."
Yuen flinched. "She's… a sorcerer. A celestial sorcerer."
Esali threw him from the chair. "Damnit, you fool!"
Sorcerers were powerful, rare, extinct at times. Beings who could manipulate and control mass amounts of vyra. God slayers, masters of light and dark, destroyers of worlds if they so saw fit. One born no more than every ten thousand years. Esali had been taught of them. Had been taught how one had helped secure the imperial rule of his lineage.
Power be damned to Esali, the crown prince who had never in his life craved or cared for the duty he was born into. All he thought about was the warmth of her hand intertwined with his.
Yuen said nothing, did not even try to rise, remaining sprawled across the floor like the fool he was. It'd been foolish to give Delta even the littlest information on her. Now Esali was suffering and soon their empire would as well.
Yuen grasped at the little hope that Delta was unaware of who she was. The man collected names in high volumes. It could be a coincidence. He hoped that their friendship meant something to the night prince. They'd promised to work together. To work to each other's benefit.
"What of Asarath and Asariel? Do they know of her too?" Bile rose in Esali's throat at the idea that his cousins might have kept the secret from him as well.
Yuen shook his head, afraid to make eye contact with his raging brother. "No. They don't remember her either."
Did they feel the distress in the blood bond? Esali bit into a nail. Their mixed blooded nature meant their magic was different. Animalistic vyra from the vypnyr was more obscure and dense and he was unsure if they would know or feel anything at all.
"Where is she?"
"I went to retrieve her. I was going to bring her back to the twilight but someone got to her first."
"Delta." Esali growled and took a step toward him. Petals that had continuously bloomed into the room now rattled with threat. More vines punched through the walls and ceiling, knotting and twisting in sickening rage as debris scattered over the princes.
"No. Priests. The servants of a human god."
Esali groaned and scrubbed his face. His wisteria continued to grow, invading the room. "Those fucking spinless gods." He growled.
Yuen stared, for the first time in his life, viewing the true essence of his brother's power. He could see the ebb and flow of Esali's aura, pulsing into the air in thick ripples. Shades of violet and lilac coiling off of him, waiting to be commanded.
The vines of wisteria thickened into thick beams, cones of flowers filling the room, shedding petals and pollen. Their color strobed as they feasted on their patrons' energy. Growing thicker and larger until they dwarfed the men. The calyx of each flower swelling as thick petals pushed out and curled into the air.
His brother's body rippled as his war form morphed his features. Purple flooded his eyes, serrated teeth revealed in viscous sneer, and purple vines danced beneath his skin.
"Esali!" Yuen barked, finally able to speak.
Those purple eyes, large and glossy snapped to him and recognition flashed beyond their surface. His aura retreated back into his body and the giant flowers shrank, turning to a sparkling mist before disappearing.
"I'm sorry." His voice distorted between sharp teeth. He held out a hand to Yuen and pulled him to his feet.
"I have already sent out a fae to find her, brother. I planned to report on the mines in Iseninai, then return to help search for her."
"No, I am going to go." His voice was determined, his stance rigid. Fists white knuckled as he clenched them at his sides.
"Brother-"
"No. Not this time, Yuen. The court will only suspect I've run off again. Tell father I disappeared in the night. Send out search parties and I'll return once I have Kohryn."
Yuen huffed. "Those humans, the priests, they're dangerous."
"I am not destined for the throne because I am weak."
"I do not think you are weak, Esali." The small display of his power told him such. The calyx swelling with what he knew would birth forth an army to wield at Esali's slightest command. "But I still fear for you all the same."
"Then let me take Wynn." His sweet rose, his blades the deadliest in all the twilight.
Yuen did not want to let Esali walk into that alone. Nimara and Mikhail were powerful, but those priests built up a whole country and numbered in the millions. They were preparing for a war, and their enemy was clear. Fae, unknown to them in name, but on the list of their foes all the same. The fact that the priests had attacked Nimara on sight was of no coincidence. And Esali did not possess the same stealth as the assassin raised in the Black Silt. He drew attention, the way an Emperor often did.
Esali continues to speak in the space of Yuens silence. "Let me bring her back. She will help me, help us, in righting the wrongs of the empire. With the blood bond I can feel her presence. Once I am in midworld it will be easy for me to find her." All he would have to do is follow the draw of anxiety, the thread of insanity that had driven him into madness for the last moon. The same feeling the red aura that ate at her had when they were children.
Yuen was caving in internally. His plans, they way he'd meticulously pieced everything together collapsing in the face of the unexpected.
"Delta will be with her." A statement but also a question.
Esali nodded, his eyes closed as he took a deep breath through flaring nostrils. "Yes. I can feel him near her now."
"He may have been captured by the priests as well."
Esali raised an eyebrow at that.
"I sent an eastern court fae to retrieve her. An accolade of shadow, someone who was well trained in going unnoticed." Now that he spoke the words and had spent more time with the mouthy assassin, he was beginning to think she was perhaps being defiant. More visible in a scheme to thwart his efforts. "She was easily identified and attacked within the first day. I sent Delta to retrieve a vypnyr that escaped from the dungeons shortly after. It is not too far-fetched to believe that he was attacked as well. Especially since he has not returned."
Esali's head tilted in careful contemplation. There were so many little details that painted an incomplete picture, but he paid them no mind. Kohryn had become his singular focus. Now aware of the bond and better able to distinguish it and the feelings it carried between him and the woman. Pain, fear, anxiety, a chasming void that he knew held the source of her power, and there- laced through it all- was Delta. Displeasingly unthreatening.
The night fae thoroughly embedded himself into the song of her soul. And though it unnerved him to think of her having an amicable relationship with the man, he was thankful that the slimy torturer was not harming her… Yet.
"I am the only one capable of finding her swiftly."
Yuen sighed, his lips thinned and Eslai knew he had won.
"A demon possessed man who can travel trails has joined the eastern fae. They travel together with a young witch and Kohryns father. The priests have concealed her presence and her trails somehow, but with the demonborn you should be able to locate her even faster. He is extremely powerful and for now an ally. With the lot of you together, I would feel much better about your safety." This he could work with. If Esali could find the woman before the demonborn managed to pick up her trail on his own, then Yuen would not have to worry about him stealing her away from them.
Esali slowly nodded, tongue traveling over his teeth as his jaw ticked. "And Delta?"
"He is my friend-"
"Tsk."
"- and I do not want to assume that he would do something so underhanded. He may not even be aware that it is her who I had sent the eastern fae to retrieve." Yuen's face fell, his eyes glistening, weaving through with pain. A hint of emotion that Esali recognized. Delta was his brother's aide, his advisor, his confidant, and his friend. And aside from Wyn, his only friend at that. One of a handful of the people they could trust in their lives. Friendship was a luxury to those of their station. And Esali was now more than aware of what it felt like to lose something so precious.
Yuen swallowed heavily, his voice pinched and fighting not to crack. "I do not want to believe he would betray me in such a way, but if he has, tell the demonborn and the eastern fae to kill him."