“Just let her go,” Ruban said, taking a step towards his cousin, his hands held up in front of him. He had no idea what the Aeriel was going on about, and at the moment he couldn’t have cared less. “Just let Hiya go. I’ll give you anything you want in return.”
Reivaa smirked, tightening her grip around Hiya’s throat infinitesimally. Hiya whimpered, her eyes widening as a tear trickled down her face and into the already damp collar of her uniform shirt. “You think you’re in a position to bargain with me right now, Hunter?” she asked, reaching up to pull the sunglasses off her face, silver-flecked black eyes shining like uncut diamonds in the light of the setting sun. Somehow, they reminded Ruban of the Aeriel Queen. “There is nothing I want that you can possibly give me. I want you dead, and I’ll kill you, as well as your little pet princeling. And if you try to stop me, well, I’ll still kill you. But not before you’ve watched this pretty little girl die screaming at my feet. Give me an excuse, Hunter, and I’ll give you a show you’ll never forget in your life – not that it will be a very long life, one way or another.”
“You want to kill me? Do it,” Ruban said, throwing his gun to the ground, followed by his sifblade and taking another step towards the Aeriel. “Just let her go. She has done nothing to you. She’s just a kid. Let her go, and you can do what you want with me. Just please, don’t hurt Hiya.”
“How very touching. Almost like a poorly written soap opera. Humans and their dramatics,” she sighed. “Not that it isn’t a tempting offer. You’ve single-handedly caused me more trouble than a hundred humans are worth together, you know? You for the girl, you say? You and the little prince, of course. He deserves to live even less than you, if that’s at all possible. Conspiring with humans,” she spat, like it was a dirty word. “Keening and simpering for the favour of lesser beings. Disgusting, the lot of them. Vaan requires a change of guard; a cleansing, to be more accurate. And this is as good a place to start as any.”
To Ruban’s surprise, Ashwin spoke before he had had a chance to think of a reply, his voice mocking. “A cleansing, is it?” the Zainian said derisively, voice dripping with contempt that almost rivalled the Aeriel’s. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? When was the last time you saw it, Reivaa? When was the last time you saw Vaan?” As he spoke, Ashwin walked slowly to his right, away from Ruban. “Not in centuries. And you never will, I can promise you that. It doesn’t matter what happens here today. Doesn’t even matter if you manage to kill me – which honestly, I wouldn’t count on if I were you. But even if you managed it somehow, it wouldn’t matter. ‘Cause my death wouldn’t change what you are. The only thing you’ll ever be. An exile. An outcast. Now and forever.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“All your delusions of power and grandeur aren’t going to change that. Dominion over all of earth, even if you somehow managed to gain it – like the old days – wouldn’t change what you’ve lost. You’ll never see eternal sunshine Reivaa, never again. Not all of Mommy’s petty little schemes nor all your silly posturing before mortals is going to get you what you really want.” He smiled beatifically, leaning against a tree some distance away from Ruban. Reivaa had turned almost ninety degrees to maintain eye-contact with the Zainian, as if trapped in a hypnotic trance, unable to look away. “You’ll never see home again, Reivaa. Never be more than an outcast, a stray wandering the earth for all of eternity.”
Reivaa howled, baring her teeth at Ashwin in an almost animalistic snarl. “You know nothing,” she spat, practically vibrating with fury. “Nothing of what we’ve done, what we’re capable of doing. When we take Vaan you’ll all be dead. You and your sister and all the rest of the cowards who ran away – a disgrace to our kind. We’ll burn all the traitors out of Vaan; restore her to the glory that’s her due. All the realms will cower at our feet, when this is all over.”
Ashwin doubled over, laughing as he clutched at his stomach. “And you call the humans dramatic? Really, the irony of it! But then, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any different from a vankrai. Try as you might, you just can’t get it out of your systems, can you? That pesky little stain of latent humanity. You call us cowards, when you were the ones who let the puny mortals drive you into the ground all those years ago. Couldn’t even win the stupid fight that you started, could you darling? If anybody’s a disgrace to their kind here, I’m fairly certain it would be you. After all, you lost earth and you lost Vaan. Can’t keep a hold of anything, can you? Really Reivaa, you’re so pathetic, it’s almost sad,” he smirked. “Or it would be, if it wasn’t so utterly ridiculous.”
With a hair-raising screech Reivaa lunged at Ashwin, pushing Hiya to the side as she flew towards the Zainian, silver wings unfurling around her like clouds of saturated electricity. Twin strokes of crimson marked the tips of the sterling appendages. Thunder sounded somewhere in the distance. Ashwin leapt lightly to his left just as Reivaa crashed into the tree he had been leaning against, the force of the impact uprooting it and throwing it a few feet further into the forest.