Is there anything else you’re curious about?

[SS]: “I think because Rayne was on the verge of taking him down, Nox sped through these years in his Verse. Considering how much she redacted, whatever he mentioned, I think was more intimate than what Rayne wanted us to know. Can you tell me anything to understand her better? I can redact it if you think we should.”

Korac’s quirking a brow at me before glancing at his fingernails. Avoiding me.

What do you want to know?

[SS]: He’s hiding that he’s hiding something, but I know better. “You know something Rayne wouldn’t want you to share with me.” That’s a statement of fact.

Korac nods as he answers while keeping his eyes averted.

I do. I don’t think she’d want you to know. But yes, I’ll tell you. I’d like you to redact it. I don’t need to piss off two Kings of Cinder by always putting my loyalty to you above them.

[SS]: He’s finally looked up, and he looks a little unhappy. I smile at him. He blinks at me as if I suddenly appeared from wherever he stared off to. Then he smiles. Bitterly.

You won’t like this. Keep her age and her experience in mind. Appreciate the littleness of both.

{Earth | January 2006}

Four months before we planned to erect Nox’s Sphere and invade your school, my King stopped visiting your leader in her dreams. He also ordered Colita and me to stop with the males and with you, respectively. It left us both quite bored.

It drove Nox to dangerous coping mechanisms.

Not even a month into his self-imposed sequestering, Nox incapacitated over forty human girls—all blue-eyed brunettes—by draining them nearly dry. We eventually established a hospital especially for these victims—CoN disciples—to recover.

Concerned for our front so close to the invasion, I took it upon myself to entertain my King with reports of the Progeny. Specifically on Rayne.

I was stalking her.

[SS]: I’m taking a deep breath on this one, and letting him get this off his chest. At his questioning glance, I nod for him to continue.

From hereon, I’m addressing you directly, sprite. In those last few months, I knew what Sagan didn’t know of your nightlife, which was quite active without Nox’s invasive dreams.

You went out every night looking for a fight. No Xelan to spar. No Nox to contend. You weren’t too unlike my King in your restlessness, and every mugger and would-be rapist in the area suffered for it.

This one night, you wore your hair in two braids with a scarf pulled over your nose and mouth, sunglasses, and all-black gear that covered every inch of your skin. You roamed all over downtown Little Rock until you heard screams near the river. Some asshole dragging a drunk woman under an interstate bridge. I remember smirking at your little intro cartwheel before you flipped and drop-kicked the guy in his chest. Hard enough to almost kill him.

The woman got away, and you disappeared into the night.

A hero.

But that’s not why you were doing it, was it, sprite?

Don’t worry. I’ll keep your secret. Even from Sagan, who may or may not be glaring at me right now.

Carrying on.

In my adventures as your shadow, I learned of another extracurricular activity of yours. Yet again, you kept it from your friends and family. With it, I decided to test a recent theory.

That is, I believed Nox’s obsession shifted onto a dangerous course. Once, he looked upon Cascading Light and saw the salvation of our people—The end of Enki.

Now, I believed he saw you—A young woman with massive capability and promise. Although Nox sought your suffering as Celindria’s descendant, your time with him in the dreams swayed that immovable object in the way of an unstoppable force.

One week in January, I reported that you intended to visit a dive bar that Friday in the downtown area. Alone. I gave my King the name and address, which was unusual. He took no obvious notice of it. But I knew better.

The day of the reported appearance, I doubled the guard on Nox’s quarters in the CoN compound. My four best soldiers stood at his doors with orders to report anything out of the ordinary. Yet I still wasn’t surprised to find his rooms empty after the sun went down.

Sagan, both our leaders threatened our causes with their reckless abandonment of their responsibilities. Both searching for the other.

I braided my hair and hid it beneath a fedora to match my three-piece before commandeering a Cadillac Escalade. It was the only SUV big enough to haul Nox back after I laid him out. Overdressed per usual, I slipped into the dive, looking like a gangster before locating my King in the back at the bar.

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Not much for drinking and not interested in company, Nox scanned the crowd with a predatory ease of a lion lazily evaluating prospects on the Savannah. Across the club, his eyes flashed like mirrors in the dark, and I couldn’t discern if he was switching into Atramentous or not.

[SS]: “Can I interrupt for a question?”

Anything, amos.

[SS]: “Has there ever been an Atramentous like his before or since?”

The mirrors to reflect his enemies’ deaths? No. It’s unique as far as I know.

[SS]: “Okay. Continue.” I smile at his smirk.

Nox found me quickly across the way. He nodded to me.

Fucking nodded.

As if this were the behavior of a collected, self-contained King rather than one that disintegrates his begotten with a single flex of his fist when provoked!

“Where. Are. Your. Guards?” I mouthed to him. With a terse, “Sire,” for good measure. Only after I questioned him did I consider his ire.

Instead of anger, Nox smirked in a way I last saw when we were teens. “I’m. A. Grown. Icarus., General.”

“No. Shit.”

My King’s mass swallowed the space like a black hole, and the handful of bikers and their girlfriends noticed. The men inched to the farthest edge of the bar. The women kept glancing over their shoulders at him, much to their boyfriends’ reticent disdain.

More’s the pity. I wouldn’t challenge Nox for my lovers’ affections. He didn’t seem to notice, of course. No. Even amid our conversation, he searched the growing crowd impatiently.

When I flagged his eyes back to me, I held up a finger. “One. Night. Only.” After a pause, I added, “You’d. Better. Enjoy. It.”

Much like his younger self, he chuckled with a visible shake of his shoulders. I felt a wash of relief. Hanging out in a bar, he looked almost normal.

Until his eyes flashed again.

I stayed across the club and left Nox to his fixation because I still wasn’t convinced as to the depths of his depravity. Not until the band came on around 9:00PM.

They opened with a melody heavy on the bass and a guitar rhythm that crept along the tune seductively. Nox searched the crowd, no doubt seeking you, Rayne. His self-control was almost non-existent, and I could see the hunter needed blood.

A young woman came on stage. Long, dark hair. Pale skin, with far more of it showing than I expected. And the brightest blue eyes. The color of lightning in a velvet night sky.

[SS]: “Was she wearing black ripped jeans and a thin white tank over a black bra? The shirt pulled down enough to expose that her bra was lace?”

Korac’s staring at me with big blinks.

This is a common ensemble then?

[SS]: You little vixen! I swear the next time I see you, I promise I’ll chew you out. You said you only wore that for me! But I’m not admitting that fact to everyone, so… “She wore it when we went to concerts.”

Well, it had the intended effect. Nox stopped glancing around at other people. Stopped frowning. Stopped breathing.

Especially once you started singing. And very well, if I may say so, your majesty. But you know exactly what you wanted with those lyrics and that breathy voice.

Nox took what I was sure was an involuntary step forward when you admitted you wanted to touch him. Sang you wanted to fuck him. Call me a liar, if you wish, when you see me next. But… He was there, King Rayne. He heard it all. He saw you.

With black lipstick, you kissed a lily and threw it into the crowd. Who do you think caught it? And how many people do you think he was willing to rip apart to win it? I was almost forced to intervene and hold him back.

That’s when I realized that Nox’s focus shifted from saving Cinder to being with you.

Briefly, I entertained the same fantasy Sagan discussed earlier in the book. That perhaps we could find this sort of happiness and potential peace on Earth. All of us together. Then, I recalled every measure we took to get here. All the sorrow and the strife at Celindria’s hands. How much the Icari suffered on Cinder with no way of escape but your blood.

I was embittered to you, this impressive sprite, and this strengthened my efforts to move the invasion along.

So, I watched as Nox narrowly contained himself from fulfilling your expressed wishes in that public space. I was prepared to stop him if necessary. His eyes never left you as you sang your set. Long after, he continued to admire the lily until the bar closed when Nox slipped through the back exit.

I kept up.

You left the backstage area of the dive bar and headed out.

Unarmed.

I knew what you wanted. I’d watched you after all. You wanted Nox to take the bait. To blow his cover and take you sooner than planned. Maybe you thought we could avoid the Invasion that way. Prevent the suffering. Or maybe you tired of the anticipation.

Either way, you put me in the terrible position of choosing for Nox, for Cinder, and for all of Icarean kind.

I followed Nox, who followed you down an alley. A dank, ill-lit one. In this moment, I swore you knew. Maybe you heard his heartbeat quicken, sensed the flex of his jaw and the clench of his fist, or imagined the satisfaction he’d feel once he finally gripped you in his arms.

Before Nox followed you down the next blind corner, I completely and legitimately tackled my King and wrestled him to the sweating pavement. Ruined my suit and fucked up my hair.

Meanwhile, you were safe on your uneventful walk home, dressed like that and seething from your own dissatisfaction.

I made two enemies that night, keeping the two of you apart.

Nox rose from my interference, truly bewildered at first. Which was refreshing when I expected his ire. “What—Korac?!” Then Nox’s voice deepened, and his eyes flashed their Atramentous at me. “Explain yourself now and pray to Elden it’s a decent defense.”

After I stood, I held my hand out to my King and promised, “That girl toys with you, sire. So much like Celindria. She knows you want her and that you entertain notions of abandoning our plans for revenge so that you could be with her.”

Nox, for all his enormous build, sat contemplatively in that alley. In the stretching silence, his eyes flicked to the hand I offered. Unhappily, he clasped my forearm and let me haul a third of his weight off the ground.

For one forlorn second, Nox stared down the turn you made with more longing than I ever saw in him. Was he hearing the words from your song? Or imagining the kiss from the lily on his lips? Or was he simply recalling your shy smile when the audience cheered for your performance before you disappeared backstage?

All the while, I prayed to Elden he thought of Celindria stealing away her brothers and sister. Of the rebellions which forced us from Earth. And of the child that monster disclosed only to take it away.

Finally, Nox crushed the lily in his fist, shifted his eyes fully into Atramentous, and growled in three pitches, “That manipulative bitch will pay.”

I lament this decision. Especially seeing that before Volcano Day, I begged Nox to reconsider and join your fight against the Tritans. Maybe if I didn’t instigate the malice borne in Nox through Celindria’s spite, things would be different.

We could’ve had that life you spoke of, Sagan. You and I are very fortunate to have each other.

[SS]: I squeeze his hands on my shoulders as he leans down to whisper in my ear.

Until Eternity takes me, I’m yours.