Morons and Monarchs

Chapter Sixty-One: Delta😠

I drag the wet cloth over my Mates face. Seething the entire time as she flinches and struggles against my hold.

"I know," I try to calm Anul, but she doesn't listen, she just screeches again and I lower the cloth. My chin dips. "You need to stop picking at it, darling."

I feel drained. I cant keep this up, and now we do not get the extra paycheck for training the heir and everything is just going down the drain. My mates face is obscured in burns, for Kaimana's sake!

I clutch at the blankets on either side of Anul, staring at her face. She must be in agony. She must be in so much pain. All because that heir refused to just stop. That is all she had to do! Just stop hurting- stop trying to kill those she was friends with. Our Moron, our little new recruit. And now Ea is dead.

And there is nothing-

Nothing we can do.

I look back at my soulmate, taking in each clean strip of linen Azul and I managed to tie around her scalp to clot the bleeding. My lip wobbles.

"I don't know what to do. I really don't," Anul looks back up at me, her own eyes sharing the depth of my pain with me. She feels it to. The rooting of death- when it starts to grow on you, when you finally think that it cant break through. That nobody you love will ever die, they do. It strikes. And you do too. You emotions reign and you do not know what to do how to stop why it is happening...

Why you? Why is it happening to you?

Tears slip down my cheeks, onto my neck. But I don't care. Why should I care when Ea will never again? Why should I do anything when my own brother won't do anything again? What is in this life if not to fulfill the love of those bound by blood? And when you can't do that, what about death?

"I-" I don't register the pain as I slam the desk chair into the wall once. Twice. Thrice... "DON'T KNOW ANYMORE!" I scream as I slam it into the wall a fourth time, the legs breaking off and hurdling in every direction.

I remember when we were first sent to the school for Encantados Princes. I remember our mothers resolved face. Morana's resolved face.

How Ea was crying, and I was huddled with him in the carriage. Glaring at Mommy and swearing that one day- One day we would get her back. One day we would get revenge.

I remember holding Ea, stroking his hair, as Mommy dissolved into the mist as the carriage wilted this way and that. I remember how strong he was, how powerful he was in that moment. How every tear that fell brought forth a mighty gust of wind, or a lone flower.

I remember how chaotic his magic used to be. I remember how mine would never amount to that. I was jealous at first. I really was. But by the time we arrives, I was still stronger. I hadn't yet broken.

I remember when we got stuck in the same dorm- and we would fight everyday during that initial month over who got the bed before we just ended up sharing.

He was the only one who stayed with me. My brother. Our father left us- we didn't even know who he was. Our mother gave us away- we found retribution by coming back sworn to Freyja.

I remember him taking his last breath, and how he didn't even look at me but instead looked at the girl who killed him.

I watched as he died, and he didn't even look at the one who raised him! The one who LOVED him! The one who would have done anything for HIM!

GODS!!! WHY? WHY DID HE HAVE TO LEAVE ME? WHY DID YOU TAKE HIM! WHY ARE YOU HERE AND WHY DID YOU CLAIM HIM! WHY NOT VIVIENDEL? WHY NOT THAT BASTARD THAT CALLS HERSELF AN HEIR?

WHY!?

I feel the wood scrape my knees as I fall, tucking my head into my arms and rocking.

Rocking.

Rocking like I used to do when Ea was sad.

Holding him.

Holding him as he cried.

Holding him like Mommy never would.

Back and forth, I rock and rock. I rock some more. I rock until my sobs become cries. I rock until my eyes adjust to nothingness. I rock until my being protrudes from its empty-mindness.

And I rock some more.

Somebody pats my shoulder and I jerk up, watching as Anul's scarred face looks down at me, tears dribbling down her cheeks.

"I am sorry," Is all she says, curling next to me, bringing my head into her lap and shielding my body with hers. I wrap my arms around her torso, digging my head into her lower stomach. Cuddling.

"Why?" I ask her, my voice wobbly.

"Because life is unfair,"

I remember his face when I came back to the dorms after sneaking out, a flower crown and blood red dagger in my hands. A ruby in the center of the hilt, I sold a CD of Ea and I singing the latest Kaimana's Genius's song- which, at that time, was 'No Dream Becomes Reality'. I sold it to a blacksmith telling him it was an original from the band. Not us. He gave me the dagger as a thank you- it was Ea's first dagger, and the one flitted around our group. A dagger that ended up with Viviendel.

The crown was something I made, for him. So he would always remember me. It still sits hidden on Aîskhos's head in his closet.

He had lit up. He had been happy. It was the first time since our mother gave us away that I saw my brother joyous.

"I'm tired." My voice is muffled.

And I am. I am tired.

I am tired of being betrayed, I am tired of all of the ones I love leaving me. I am tired. So, so tired.

"I know," She tells me as she presses her fingertips and traces my scar.

I lean into her touch, letting a few more tears lull down.

He is gone.