The Claim

Chapter Two - The Divide

Eight years had passed although it didn't feel like it for either of them, both were unsettled by their mother's death, the survivors of their mother's coven had taken them in, but Mirabella hadn't forgotten the price their mother paid, her wish for vengeance that stirred in her blood, that boiled to the surface with just a mere thought of the king.

She stood by a large dead tree, dead from the cold or age, perhaps from the curse that seemed to sweep through the coven. She stood close to her brother in case something went wrong.

She lifted her arms, her eyes focusing on a large branch. It shook for a few moments, before shattering, littering the ground with its ashes. She squealed with delight as she realised, beaming at her brother, her smile wiped as he shook dust off himself, spitting ash out his mouth.

"You need to work on your aim", he commented as he shook his short hair, grey from the ashes yet normally as dark as the night itself.

"I know that", she snapped as she raised her hands again, he jumped back a few paces, running his hands through his hair to try and rid it of the remaining ash.

She never could forget that day, the screams of her mother's people, their mother's face, their mother's eyes so full of sadness. If their mother could've joined them, she would've but instead, she refused, she stayed to give them a chance, a chance to kill the king and take their vengeance.

"Are you going to try again?" Merek asked with a soft tone.

"What kind of person am I, if I cannot even cast the simplest of spells?" she asked as she lifted the branch, glaring furiously at it as it burst into flames.

"You are trying too hard" Derek commented.

"And I have never seen you try!" she snapped aggressively.

With that comment, he rolled his eyes. With a hand in the air, he effortlessly pulled a decaying branch off the tree, letting it hover in the air for a few seconds before setting it alight, letting it roar with flame as he sent it flying over Mirabella, roaring as it speared a dead tree.

"You were saying?" he asked.

"So, you practice a little now? Does it mean you joining me, brother?"

"You know what I will say. The violence, the war, it has cost too much and you, sister, reach too high. Even if by some miracle and it would take one, we could somehow make it into the city, how will you do it?"

"How will I kill the king? I will burn him alive"

"Without getting killed yourself? His guards would kill you, they would slaughter you, besides, the throne would not go to you, it would go to his heir"

"Us, brother, it is our throne and mother always told us of our destiny, we are going to fulfil it" she snapped.

"Mirabella, she has gone, our mother died to protect us. Would she want this, really? Is this our destiny, to take the throne?"

"You know it is and you can be with me or stay out of my way, your choice" she snapped aggressively.

"You will not survive it, Mirabella, he will kill you as soon as look at you!" Merek explained with fear in his voice.

She glared at him furiously, suggesting it wasn't a possibility but Merek remained unconvinced. He shook his head, refusing to hear of it, the idea that he'd kill the king, even though blood had been spilled, didn't sit well. A life for a life would never work, it was too dangerous to even think of, let alone to act upon. To seek vengeance for a crime committed so long ago was wrong but there was a possibility he would lose his mother and sister in such a short space of time.

There had been a divide since they first arrived. Twins yet they didn't feel the same way about the king or vengeance. Merek was happy to stay out of it all, let his sister do as she wished, take revenge, but he was convinced it wouldn't make him happy but instead would open the void in their hearts and set them both on a path from which there was no return.

She dismissed his worries and fears, as if they were nothing but the fanciful nightmares of a child but he guessed he was right, that all it would bring was more blood and pain.

Eight years nursing the dark hole in her heart, she had learnt magic to fulfil her lust for vengeance but was their father really going to be enough? Was the throne enough compensation for her suffering?

Could she not see things from his point of view? He did not ask for vengeance, he hated the idea of it, cursed it even. Vengeance was costing him a sister, vengeance had cost him a mother when the coven attacked the wife of the king. When was vengeance going to end? The cursed cycle of vengeance, the pain that it caused, motherless children on both sides.

There was no way of bringing their mother back, she was gone, whether Mirabella accepted it or not. No vengeance was going to fill the hole she left behind but his sister did not accept it.