As Tauheen turned her unnerving eyes on them, Ruban noticed her hands: they were aglow, long fingers enveloped in an incandescent light.
He had barely had time to shout out a warning before a shell crashed into the spot where they had been standing seconds ago. If they had leapt out of the way a moment later, they would have been a black, incinerated splotch on the white marble floor.
Instinctively, Ruban reached for his sifblade, the familiar weight in his hand an anchor in the storm. He let his body relax, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders as he dropped into a defensive stance, his movements fluid with years of practice. The Aeriel Queen’s radiant eyes followed his every move even as she recovered from the last attack. She must have already been drained for such an inconsequential effort to tire her.
As he gazed into her twisted beauty, Ruban felt fire course through his veins. It was like all the injustices of centuries past – both personal and global – weighed upon his heart, his soul, demanding recompense. Demanding vengeance.
His voice sounding oddly calm even to his own ears, he breathed: “It’s over, you know. Whatever you thought you were going to accomplish through all this bloodshed, all the lies and the treachery, it ends now. I am going to kill you. For what you did to my family, for what you did to the world. You’re going to die – tonight.”
Tauheen laughed, her voice ringing through the house, rich and mellifluous. “Kill me, will you? Idiot child. You say I am a liar and a traitor? Very well. And yet it isn’t me that has been lying to you all this time. I’m not the one who has betrayed you. Stupid, naïve boy. You’ve been played by my daughter just like the rest of them, don’t you see that? No, of course you don’t. That’s the whole point.
“She’s good at it, you know. At manipulating people, tricking them into doing her bidding. Corrupting the most honest intentions to fit her twisted purposes.”
Her gaze flicked to Ashwin and she sneered. “Sweet boy, isn’t he? Your little foreign friend. Very handy in a fight, I’d wager. He’s not what you think he is, though. Not a foreigner. Not your friend. Not human. He’s an Aeriel, my dear Ruban. And not just any Aeriel. He’s my son, Safaa’s brother. The prince of Vaan. And my daughter’s second-in-command. Another instance of her ability to corrupt all that is pure.
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“He’s not here to help you, Ruban. He’s here to kill you. By Safaa’s orders. I’m not the liar, nor the traitor you need to be worrying about. You have bigger problems right now, haven’t you? You’ve been manipulated by an Aeriel all this time, my idiot boy. Manipulated and used by Vaan and my daughter to further their agenda. And all of it without your knowledge or consent. Don’t you see? That’s what they do. Twist honest, honourable men and women into performing evil deeds for their amusement.
“The question is, will you take that betrayal lying down, or will you be a man, stand up and get revenge?”
Ruban smiled. The irony of it was: it wasn’t a lie. None of what she had said was really untrue. Ashwin had manipulated him, and had done so to further Safaa’s agenda of foiling their mother. And yet, to Ruban, her implication couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Even a few weeks ago, the reminder of his naïveté would have stung, would have raised his hackles and made him defensive. Now, all it did was make him want to laugh. “Ah yes, your son. Shwaan – that’s what you call him, right? Shwaan and Safaa, quite the symmetry to it. I’ve met her too, just by the way. Wants your head on a pike, she does. Can’t say it’s much different with the boy, either. Kids these days,” he sighed, mocking, looking right into the Aeriel’s eyes. “Still, you’ve got to be a really shitty mother if both your children want you dead. That’s just a bit too much of a generation gap, wouldn’t you agree? Not in the running for any ‘Mom of the Year’ awards, are you?”
Tauheen snarled, face contorting in some nameless combination of rage and hatred; and even as Ruban watched, her form blurred, moving faster than his eyes could follow. Between one breath and the next, she was upon him. This time, she had not even bothered with an energy shell. Eyes burning, inches from his face, she raised a hand to strike him. She didn’t just want to kill him, he realised – she wanted to do it with her bare hands.
Tauheen’s hand came down in a wide arc, gathering momentum as it descended on its target. Moments before it connected with the side of his head, Ruban ducked, pressing his palm into her gut, the touch almost gentle.
His attacker staggered, her hand stopping mid-strike before falling limply to her side. Moments later, her knees buckled, leaving her prostrate at Ruban’s feet, heaving like a spent horse. Her eyes, what he could see of them, were wide with something like terror.
The enhanced sif ore – a harmless little rock to the unobservant eye – fell out of the folds of her green dress, where Ruban had pressed it into her belly, and rolled on the floor between them.