Something Immortal

51: Bloodline Part Four

[TW: This part contains content that some might find disturbing, reader's discretion is advised]

Overcast skies welcomed her eyesight as she awoke from what she presumed to be a very deep slumber. Empress Veradrinx blinked and gazed at an unfamiliar place but looking out the window she realized that she was in an airship, flying a thousand feet away from the ground, a dark and moody detail in the clouds.

"You are finally awake," said a deep voice with the kind of softness that was both charming and calm to the ear. She raised her head and met the soft gray eyes of an elderly male in his long distinct robe.

The Empress would have uttered his name if she had noticed that she was chained tightly in a chair and half-submerged in a blackish pool. All around her, nasty gelatinous entities crawled their way through her, their smell assaulted her nostrils—one moment, a sweet flowered perfume then a rancid death, the next. She was familiar with these creatures. All these princes of the void have their own realm, and each time she visits them, something different awaits her.

She knew his purpose and refused to be distracted.

The Empress of the Banshee race closed her eyes to calm herself and even her temperament. "Where is he?"

A smile graced his wrinkled face but Vera already knew what was beneath the mask and refused to be fooled once more. How can she be so blind not to notice that all this time, he had been in the councils and peace treaty assembly listening to them bicker over the most nonsensical matter of the state? She thought that he might have found every encounter amusing.

He came out of the darkness and into the relative convenience of the light, his smiles widening at every stride he took, coming towards her. "I have given you one task, one task alone, and you seem to be failing on that miserably."

Vera's voice cried out, echoing from the four corners of the airship, "I no longer work for you!" she declared, a mixture and hatred in her eyes, two emotions that don't go well as a pair.

"Very well," the smile finally faded, and for a moment, she really thought she was still staring at the Grand Sage she once admired, but knowing that this was no longer him and this was nothing but a skin made her disgust even more unbearable. Because then, she has to accept the fact that he had probably perished in the hands of this one, malevolent deity. "We are almost at the end of the story," he gazed at her, this time it was his familiar isosceles slits that stared back at her. "I apologize, Vera."

As though she had resigned to her fate, she cackled so loud it filled the whole area making the other's scowl deepen. "You're pathetic! It doesn't matter how many times you come close to victory, one snap of his fingers and we will all vanish and we'll keep on repeating the same fucking shit over and over again! You cannot defeat either one of them and you can never have Naga's power!"

The mention of this made his eyes blazed and for a moment, she thought she was looking at his true self. A hand grabbed her by the jawline, squeezing every last bit until she could only feel the pain. His face was only a breath away from her. "This time, I'll make sure he can't reset it no more. In that case, you also don't need to return."

With that thought that he was going to end her life right there, she closed her eyes and let the tears run down her face freely, no longer caring about her countenance. But to her surprise, or perhaps, someone's benevolence, he removed his hand from her and turned to his heel, leaving her in a room surrounded by darkness.

✧༺♥༻∞

A figure in red awaited him outside of the room where he had kept the empress locked. If not for this one in front of him, Phaibun would have ended the life of the bitch but he would have to risk gaining the ire of this one. Shedding his current skin and revealing only his true self, Phaibun removed the glove on his right hand and touched a healthy flower on the vase nearby. It immediately wilted underneath his fingertips and even the soil where it was planted dried.