Darkness Rising

CHAPTER [ 30 ] TRAITORS REQUIEM

Lenore lifted her head, eyes slowly trekking up from barefeet to a pair of long, muscular legs. There were discolored, puckered scars marking brown skin like they had marched through a field of swords. Their body was covered by a royal purple toga styled outfit. It started halfway up the thighs and barely covered the wide chest.

Long, dark waves hung down to the shoulder. A sense of familiarity began to tickle Lenore's stomach. This meeting was oddly reminiscent of when she met Kaiser. Her heart leapt into her throat when she locked eyes with a face she had grown to revere and hate at the same time. The only difference was the dark brown eyes and the scars that cut across his left cheek.

This was Arkaydian.

The patron god of the Gillard family.

Someone that had thrown her into the deepest of hell's.

And apparently, Kaiser's twin brother.

His mouth turned up in the corner, in a smirk she was intimately acquainted with. The sight of it was as confusing as it was unsettling. Lenore turned to Kaiser, with a deep frown creasing her forehead. He was looking at his brother with a cool indifference.

"You look more alive than how we left you, Kaiser. Though not much more." 

Kaiser scoffed at the provocation. He sat up, reaching over to help Lenore. "You okay?"

She gave a silent nod, gaze shifting to Arkaydian, taking in the malice written on his face before looking back to Kaiser. The tension settled between the three of them was like laying down on a bed of nails. Lenore stood up first, testing her limbs to make sure they were operating properly.

"You wouldn't know it now, looking at him, but this guy used to be a cute kid, following along behind me like a baby chick. Always doing whatever I did." Kaiser was talking to Lenore but he was looking at Arkaydian. "I wonder what happened to you, Brother?"

Arkaydian's lip curled up, resentment burning in his eyes. "I grew tired of always living in your shadow. It was suffocating. No one acknowledged me as an individual. I was only ever an extension of you."

"Is that why you betrayed me?"

"Is that what you want to talk about after all this time? Still mad about that?"

"Mad?" Kaiser chuckled, covering his face with his hand. There was something unhinged about the sound. It sent a shiver down Lenore's back. He peered out at them from behind his fingers, eyes glowing red in the darkness. "You killed the only reason for my existence." 

"After all this time, you still believe that way, huh?" Arkaydian tilted head, sighing as he crossed his arms. "You still believe in the illusion that woman created. But it's different for the rest of us; for me."

That woman? Lenore glanced at Kaiser, curious. Though in the back of her mind she knew to whom Arkaydian was referring. The woman—the goddess from the memory she'd seen. The person that caused the cold, despondent look in Kaiser's eyes.

"It's time to wake-up, Kaiser. Do I appear to be the same, weak younger brother who chased after you? Things couldn't be more different. I've matured, grown past you. Before I was that child and I thought the same as you. But my thoughts evolved, Alkaris revealed the truth of reality to us—"

"Don't speak that name to me!" Kaiser's voice boomed, a clash of swords—violence dripping from every word. 

This response only emboldened Arkaydian. He stood up straight, took a determined step forward. "We were nothing more than prisoners and this world that woman watched over; a cage. You think she cared for any of us? Guardians born to serve their beloved goddess? No, she and her siblings feared us and our power. They feared what we might become—feared we would surpass them. So, they trapped us in a beautiful illusion."