Page 29 of Angel in Absentia
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“The war drums.” He turned sharply, gesturing to a separate point in the city as a row of drums thundered. He moved his hands across the air as if manipulating the sounds, guiding them into a symphony. “And a soldier lights one torch too far,” he said, pointing to the north just as an explosion echoed across the city, followed by more in a series, Ryson’s fingers anticipating each explosion and dancing through the air. “The walls fall.”He bowed a long arm, sweeping it across the city just as screaming broke out across the walls. “The beasts are released,” he continued, and howling filled the air as he stepped beneath one of the arches and looked out at the city. It all collapsed in slow, sequential chaos, and beneath it was the foundation of the symphony that made all of this possible. Her life-giving heart, and by cien, how he loved her.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
After several minutes, that sound was all that remained within him. Silence settled back into place, and he lifted his palms, igniting the torches in the room before he strolled back through it and lifted a boot up on the table where the male Veilin lay tied. Ryson inspected the Lodain crest on his arm, cutting his ties loose.
“You’ve lost too much blood. You’re going to die,” Ryson said matter-of-factly as he cleaned his knife with a nearby corpse’s tunic. “Honestly, strapped naked to a table and bloodlet like a choice dish really isn’t the worst death I’ve seen for a Veilin.”
Ryson looked over at Prince, tipping his chin up as the mask materialized in the back of the room. “You can take the bodies. Go ahead.”
The mask rippled with delight and then all of the corpses lifted and slunk from the room to snuff out what remaining skirmishes waited outside.
Ryson waited in the silence, strolling to a nearby window as he heard the Veilin’s labored breathing behind him. The man shifted groggily. Ryson glanced back over his shoulder before walking back into the room.
He pulled a foot up on the seat of the table and propped an elbow up on his knee as he surveyed the table.
“I would heal you,” Ryson offered, finding the man’s eyes as they settled back on him, pained and disoriented. He turned the tip of his knife, over and over, the hilt rotating in his grip as the fingers of his other hand turned the blade in slow revolutions. “If I had a certain princess with me, I’m sure she would certainly offer.”
A heavy, dark impression from the depths of his soul stirred. It churned and toiled at the mention of her, familiar with her title, familiar with her soul. His heart tugged with reservation, mind withdrawing to sort out the conflict between both parts. “One day soon, I know she’ll call,” he whispered. “Perhaps I shouldn’t wait any longer.”
No. You’ve insisted on giving her a choice. You sense her reservations. It’s the right decision. Let her call for you. She will. In time, she will.Prince added.
Ryson turned as a dark beast swirled outside with a powerful gust of air that reeked of decay. Rows of teeth lined the archway, and a single, silver eye peered through. “I say go right now,” the beast objected.
Ryson rolled his eyes. “Alina. You just want me to go because you think I’ll kill her. The princess has made all of this possible. The Belgears are done. There is no need to conquer the Iscads thanks to our flickering little friends.”
You must wait until she is ready.
“Of course, that’s what Prince wants,” Alina’s voice hissed back. “He’s been plotting this from the start. I say you find the princess, Venennize her, and be done with it. That’s where thiswill end anyway, and when you’re done, you can give her to me. Prince gets her last.”
Ryson gestured to the Veilin lying in front of him, annoyed with Prince and Alina’s back-and-forth. “You,” he said. “I can’t heal you, but I can give you another option. If you do want to remain alive, or some version of it, you can become one of us,” he offered, and before the man could respond, Ryson looked up at Alina, offended. “Why do you instantly think I’d Venennize her? I have self-control. Look at me!” He waved the knife casually as he thought through it. “Maybe destroy her, ravage her, typically horrible things, but for us, they wouldn’t have to be,” he said, scanning the room before pointing the knife back at his chest. “She’d be invited to do all the same to me. Honestly, I would love to experience those things, and I think she could do them. Don’t I also deserve to feel some modicum of satisfaction?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
The large silver eye dissolved, and Alina’s form dropped gracefully with a large cloak extended around her.
“The Veilin died,” she pointed out.
Ryson glanced down at the table and sighed. “Probably better off anyway. Let’s go,” he replied, easing away from the table. “Arguing with the two of you is exhausting.”
“When we aren’t here, you argue plenty with yourself,” Alina called after him. “You should have given cien your heart, not your mind. I kept my mind and I’m the better for it.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.”
“That I’m the better for it?” she challenged.
“That you kept you mind,” he replied flatly, and she hissed.
He simply shrugged it off, hopping back up on the windowsill and crossing his arms as he looked out at the city, boiling with remnants of sudden conflict and painted in the moonlight. He tossed his knife up and caught it with one hand. He tossed it up higher, it fell faster, and he caught it again.
“Tonight should have felt more glorious,” he said. “You’re both certainly enjoying yourselves, but I had hoped the Belgears were as grand as they were rumored to be. Why is it that your vices of death and terror are so easily satisfied, and I have to do all of this still just to be disappointed?”
Nothing was ever enough.
Neither Alina nor Prince responded.
“Her heart has certainly changed you more than I would have anticipated,” Alina said.
“Changed me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
