Bereft: Demise

33 | Of Hounds and Their Prey

Greed looked down upon the City of Blood and sighed.

He made it all so...easy. 

Below, Verweald was alive with noise and bluster despite the late hour. Its streets teemed with ignorant humans out to enjoy the nightlife while its alleys grew increasingly more crowded with others, creatures of fang and claw, monsters who were hungry for the lives of those flippant mortals prancing about.

With the city's mistress gone, the inhabitants of Verweald's shadows had become bolder. Greedier.

Balthier had tipped the county into an inevitable, downhill collision with chaos. He had done so with such ease. Like he hadn't even tried. Like it had all been part of his plan.

Danyel placed the last of Amoroth's cigarettes between his lips and tossed the empty pack from her balcony.

He had begun staying in her penthouse whenever he was needed in Verweald, making use of Amoroth's things now that she no longer needed them. The Sin had always coveted Lust's lodgings. She sat at the pinnacle of society, both in business and her personal life, looming above a city she had groomed and built through her own machinations.

Smoke curled from Greed's nostrils. He felt the cloying burn settle in his chest, felt the microscopic death brush through his lungs—and, just as subtly, the burn was replaced by the sting of regeneration reforming the damaged tissue.

Danyel had always coveted what Amoroth possessed. He had always thought that by usurping her throne, by sitting where she did and assuming the mantle of control and authority she did, he would achieve his goals. He would earn the respect of his peers and garner the power he deserved.

Yet, here he was in Amoroth's domain—here he was standing where she'd stood, crowing from the crown of her glass and steel kingdom, and it felt cheap, like finding the view he had so desired from below was only a vinyl sticker on the wall. 

It's because of Envy, Danyel seethed as he sucked sparks into mouth and swallowed the fire. Because the world bows at his fucking feet and he's responsible for her disappearance. I achieved nothing. I came in like a squatter in the night, scavenging what he left behind.

Danyel flicked the spent cigarette over the railing as the breeze came in off the coast, falling across the seaboard with the swift rasp of midnight air. In the distance, Klau Tower continued its silent sentinel.

I hope he burns this entire city to the ground.

He returned inside, slamming the door to the balcony shut with unintended heat, hairline fissures appearing in the glass. The apartment was a mess. Light from the hazy evening sky illuminated the clutter splayed across the floor and furniture, catching the sheen of Danyel's crumpled silk shirt, glimmering on the plastic buttons of a woman's forgotten jacket. Amber bottles crowded the coffee table with interspersed ash trays overflowing with spent butts.

Danyel collapsed onto the sofa, planting his feet on the floor sticky with stale beer. He leaned with his elbows upon his knees and rubbed the rough, unshaven skin of his face. He glanced above the hearth where a single painting was framed. The woman in the image lay in repose with a beautiful, twisted creature above her, his hand at her throat, a set of black horns spiraling from his temples.

Danyel had tried to remove it, had tried to deface it, but either Amoroth or the artist had paid an enchantress to protect the painting. An earthquake could shake the building to naught but rubble and the painting would probably survive.

Danyel hooked a finger about the neck of a bottle, bringing it to his lips. He drank and wallowed in the brief but rapturous numbing sensation stealing his ability to sense the thrumming energies of the world. The sense of drifting, of falling without a net, was reminiscent of being mortal.