POV: Abraxes
POV: Abraxes
Keres had a saying when we were growing up. One she had created herself. 'Beware the wolf which hides its fangs. It will bite you the moment you turn your back to it.' It was certainly a strange one. But I had heard far worse in the time after.
It also applied heavily in this situation. For Rowan was this wolf. This wolf, my lover had warned me of years before. He hid his fangs well. Sharpened his claws in the dark. Never revealed the truth.
The only reason I had kept him was for information. But he lied as easily as he breathed. Offered me nothing but information I already knew. Information he repeated as if I was some deaf child. My patience had grown thin in the last few days.
But now, Cain was here. With his entrance, Rowan's information was useless. My reason for keeping him. No longer existing.
I know our next stop is Ασία. I know it will take us five days to reach it. This is everything Rowan has told me. Everything he knows. Now, he is nothing more than a wolf biding his time.
He is an unknown variable. A danger. Not just to me. But to all of us. He has to be dealt with.
Rowan wheezes in my grip. He is clawing at my hands. But it is useless. He is weak. Malnourished and frail. I can feel the muscles in his neck. The bones breaking in my grasp. I can snap his trachea easily. I can kill him on the spot.
His legs kick uselessly in my grip. My hand is like a noose from which he hangs from. I am taller than him by quite a bit. It is a pleasant surprise. He chokes and gasps in my hand. He is red and turning purple. He will suffocate soon.
"You have lied to me Rowan." I speak as if I am telling him off. As if I am disappointed with him. "You parade as one of us. You whisper not a single truth. You have a chance now. To speak the truth. If you do not, I will kill you."
My words are hard. My grip is tightening. So much so that I can feel his trachea beginning to swell. It will pop soon. He tries to peel my bigger hand off his throat. But his hands are delicate. Thin and weak. They do not have a single callus on them.
My Eidos burns within me. It whispers in my ear. As soft as the wind, as I absorb this false Mercury's Affinities and Impetus Talent. Cain shifts beside me. He is tense, but his hands are curled into fists, and he glares at Rowan in warning.
He does not trust me. But my words are not light. My actions are not to be ignored. Rowan's early mistake is still fresh in his mind. It is good. Because I have him on my side now.
I release the struggling man in my grasp. He falls to the ground with a thud. He is shaking. Dry heaving and nursing his throat. His face is no longer purple as he coughs and takes greedy gulps of air.
"You told us you can hear through shadows." I continue, looking down at him. "Yet I sense a storm within you. Speak, and reveal yourself."
Sparks of blue play in the palm of my left hand. They seem to dance. Jumping between my fingers like a current. He looks at me with fear. With wide eyes that hold tears within them.
Even Cain is looking at me with surprise. But it is understandable. What I can do is unheard of. A never-before-seen Talent which can make me something more than any Alloy in this world.
"I-I-I don't know-" The sparks within my palm build. Until it is a ball of jagged lightning within my hand. The room lights up. The smell of ozone is present, and it is heavy. But my silent warning works, and he stops talking.
"Lie to me again and you forfeit your life." The threat is as clear as it can get. The lightning dies in my hand. My Sacral Essence receding back into the Eidos. Finally, I see something akin to common sense beginning developing within his eyes.
"F-Fine." He grits his teeth through his stutter. A brave glare on his face as he massages his throat. "I am Rowan Au Fotismós."
He reveals it easily. But it is not an answer I expected. I hear a sharp intake of breath from beside me and I am close to following Cain's example. Because I expected Rowan to be a Bronze. Maybe even a Silver. But never an Aureate.
"Yes," he laughs from beneath me. It is ragged and gasping. "I am your superior, you fucking rat. And once I am off this blasted ship- "
It is Cain who cuts him off this time. He moves quickly and I struggle to see his movements, but a sharp crack rings through the room and Rowan howls in pain. A moment later, I see why.
He is holding his nose. Blood flows freely down his face, over his lips and down his chin. His eyes are tearing up again. I realise that it is broken.
"You aren't shit." Cain growls, his glare sharp enough to kill the nearly crying Aureate. "You're stuck in here with us. Which means you're as low as we are."
My fellow Mercury makes a good point. This doesn't change anything. If anything, it makes it easier.
"Peace." I tell him. Stopping him from lashing out with another devastating kick. He aims his glare at me. But he stops. Because he understands that this is my interrogation. That Rowan is mine to handle. It is grudging but he respects the code.
I turn to face the kneeling Aureate once more. "Why are you here. Trapped in here with us?"
He spits at me. It is red, the colour of blood. He growls at me.
"Fuck you."
'The hard way it is then.'
"Go ahead." I grant Cain permission, and he doesn't hesitate to lash out again. His foot is like a war hammer. Another crack echoes through the cell and Rowan's arm falls limp by his side.
It is as broken as his nose. I am impressed. But I move quickly. Covering the Aureate's mouth with my hand before his pained scream can be heard a second time by the Enforcers.
He uses the chance to try and bite me. But I am quicker and guided by my sense of danger. I slap him across the face with the back of my hand. His head snaps to the side. It is oddly satisfying.
"I will ask again. Next time, it will be your neck that gets snapped." He knows that I am not lying. Cain is nearly vibrating, his body shaking with the will to stop himself and Rowan can see that.
Finally, he speaks.
"I am a mistake. A false Aureate." He sneers at me. His flowing blood staining his yellow teeth. I can see a bruise beginning to form on his throat. "I am a stain on my family's legacy. So, I was shipped off to Ασία. A way to prove my worth and bring honour to my House."
He tells the truth. I can hear the anger with which he speaks. As if he has been wronged. As if his situation is unjust.
"What are you?" I ask, my eyes narrowed. Because a false Aureate can only mean one thing.
He sneers as he speaks. But his anger isn't aimed directly at me. It is focused on something else. On a thing rather than a person.
"I am a Mercury. My mother hails from Clan Theta." Just like that, it all makes sense. The puzzle pieces all falling into place.
I wonder if what he told me on my first day is the truth. If his father held some twisted sort of love for his mother. If he was taken in either out of guilt or that same love.
I doubt it. Because if it was true, then he would not be here. No father would condemn their own child to such a fate. Especially if they held a fierce enough love to ignore the Alloys that label our worth in this world.
"Why are you here then?" It is Cain who asks the question. And I know he is thinking similarly to me.
"I already told you." Rowan scowls at us, trying to avoid the true question that was asked of him. I flash the lightning in my palm again, and he freezes. That same look of fear appearing once more.
It is enough to make him talk. To remind him that his very life depends on his answers. That he no longer has a choice.
"Fine!" He is angry, but I do not care how he feels. "My father was a young fool who held a fancy for my mother. He had no heirs, so he had to take me in. But then he married and had my sister. He no longer had need of me."
The truth is finally out, and it almost makes me pity him. I had forgotten in that moment, that his father was not a Mercury like us, but an Aureate. They value family far differently to us.
Rowan was taken in not out of guilt or love. But out of duty. It is a hollow reason. It must have been a depressing realisation. That he was only taken in because his father had no other choice.
It is a foul reason. But I guess it is expected of an Aureate.
His origins. His truths. They should make me reconsider killing him. For he was born from an unholy union of two Alloys which should never mix. But ichor flows heavier than quicksilver, and he takes more from his father than his mother.
He looks down at us. Probably even looks down at the woman who birthed him. I can almost imagine how many times he has cursed the poor slave who had to bear him for nine long months.
It is disgusting. The hypocrisy of his very being nearly makes me laugh. It nearly makes me sick. He parades as a proud Aureate, as our—my—better, but he is nothing but liquid gold.
He is the weakest Alloy in this cell.
"So, you hold no lands. No titles. No love. No respect. Nor allies. You are nothing." It is the truth, and I can see how it eats away at Rowan to hear me say it so callously. "We have no use for you then."
His information is outdated. Everything he has told me I remember. I have taken his Talent. His Affinity. His pride. I can discard him as easily as his father has.
"Wait! Wait, wait, wait! I have use! I still have information that you have not heard! Secrets you do not know!" He is begging now. Pleading. Showing his true Alloy in his last moments. The rat which hides in gold to try and find a way out of his impending doom.
But I have already made up my mind.
My hand is suddenly encased with lightning. It sounds akin to a thousand screaming birds. Faster than he can react, I thrust my hand into his chest. The lightning is powerful.
It breaks through skin and flesh and bone. I destroy his heart within a second. His end is swift. Over before he even knows what has happened.
My Eidos whispers of his defeat, and I pull my hand out of his chest with a twist of my wrist. It is stained entirely with blood and bits of flesh that cover the cell with the smell of iron. I turn to Cain and speak.
"We are matching."
He looks at me with wide eyes. Then snorts in disbelief, a grin on his face that looks probably as unhinged as mine does.
"You're fucking insane."
It is very likely. But insanity is the lifeblood of surviving in this world. I can hear the door begin to rattle again, the Enforcers no doubt hearing the lightning attack which I created.
Sylas, who had been silent this entire time, finally pipes up. "You're both insane. Killing an Aureate. The room smells like shit and piss now!"
"Don't forget the blood." Cain helpful chirps in as the door begins to open.
Clearly, I am not the only one who has gone insane.