Barnania and the Twisted Tales

Chapter 27 Blood Bonds

John Peter

Red mists started swirling from where Walter stood and then the sky starts to grow redder, the crimson moon has grown brighter. John looked up then he saw the stars sparkling to compete the dazzling brightness of the moon in the now cloudless sky. He moved his gaze back to the canopies of trees then his stomach clench to see his twin brother gliding back to the battlefield, his golden eyes are flaring in rage. Janus is floating towards his direction, his golden swirling body emitted much more golden mists like electrical bolts. He's back with an intent to kill. John was mystified as his brother lunged at him, knocking him on the grassy meadow. He looked into the hollowed golden eyes of his twin brother, his eyes were forming ripples that are hypnotising him.

John has this ability he had just discovered, the ability to look into someone's past, to look into the heart of whom he looked and locked eyes with. As the eyes of his brother tried to hypnotise him, he saw John's past swirling like photographs trapped in bubbles. John swam deeper into his thoughts, most of the scenes flashing before his eyes were scenes he already knew. . . The time when they visited their aunt in the castle of Regality, the time Janus gets cursed. . . The moment the two of them learned to use magic. . . When Janus broke Disaster, their mother's most important project. . . The night their sister Joreyna cried as she took the blame, banishing her on the sea of Goosebay. . . He replayed the scene. Inside the Dark Castle, inside the Great Hall, after Joreyna and the little he left, only Janus, Gekee and their mother were left, Janus reasoned with their mother. In his ghostly form with golden eyes glinting, he confessed. "Mother, it wasn't her fault, it was me who broke the sceptre, it should be me you have banished." Their mother just smiled to his swirling son, "That wasn't just a banishment of punishment my son, Goosebay is harmless. I intended her to go there, to train, to be strong and be independent, so that she may receive the blessing of the Ghost Goose."

"Then you should have had told her your main reason, not like this that she feels like carrying a burden she has not caused and wanted carrying. What if she wouldn't come back? What if she would resent you?"

Their mother threw him an icy glare, Gekee who stood beside her posed like a mannequin. "Would you resent me if you were the one I banished?"

Janus was silent for a moment, floating like a poltergeist.
"No."

"Good," their mother replied.

"But that's because I know I'm at fault, and it's because. . ."

"Because what?" Josephine raised an eyebrow.

"Because a child couldn't bear to hate his mother."

"Exactly," Josephine smiled and moved near her levitating son, she extended her arms to hug Janus but her hands only passed through.

Scenes started flooding his thoughts that he couldn't see them clearly, they were blurry as they flash so fast. His head started to get hurt, vertigo hit him as he was pulled back. In a dazed state, he had taken a glimpse of the swirling face of his brother, he could feel the rhythm of his longing and sadness, they are beating like muffled drums dominated by the blow of the trumpet of rage. He was no longer the brother he holds dear, he was no longer his half he used to love.

His hands were singeing now, he could feel his skin burning. Janus was still on top of him, trying to choke him with hands made of mists as other mist-like hands pinned him on the ground. "Traitor. How could you do this to your family, what is your goal?" Janus' raspy and raucous voice rang to his ears. He was taken aback for seconds. His hands have stopped glowing as he's letting his brother choke him to death, he didn't wriggle to free himself. "I am not a traitor." His mind would have liked to scream but instead he closed his eyes and drifted into the question that let him feels like he is nothing. Worthless. Naught. Enough to prove that he's a traitor.