~URIEL
My world was in total confusion as I stared at the woman before me.
The woman with black hair.
How was this possible?
The voices in my head began to grow louder, whispering all at once, threatening to destabilize my thoughts.
Could my blood have caused this?
Did I do this to her?
But her reaction, she didn’t look like someone who was confused rather someone who had been…
Exposed.
That was when memories, past events, the inconsistencies began to converge in my mind.
She’d been acting differently, avoiding my gaze like someone who was hiding something.
She had failed to heal herself on her own when she drank my blood.
She didn’t react to the chrysanthemums like she should have.
And she freaked out when she was asked to heal that man.
The one thing she would never do.
It was almost as if she had become an entirely different person.
Impossible.
Could she be the black haired twin?
My eyes grew wider as realization struck and my body began to tremble with a growing dangerous emotion.
“You are not Sayla Aylin…”
She inhaled sharply at my accusation and I watched the color drain from her face.
The confirmation was as clear as day.
“My god…” I breathed in disbelief.
“You are Rune Aylin.”
She began to tremble visibly in the water and she started retreating backwards.
“If you are here then…” I charged towards her and grabbed her neck violently.
A terrified shriek escaped her lips.
“Where is Sayla?”
Tears began to exit her eyes as her tremors intensified.
Short terrified breaths left her mouth as she stared back at me.
And the rage rising within me brought tears to my eyes as a thousand thoughts about how to tear her to shreds for deceiving me entered my mind.
“I asked you a question!” I snapped.
She screamed and started crying right there.
Why would Sayla do this to me?
Why did the humans dare to switch the brides?
Did something happen to Sayla?
“If you won’t speak,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Then I will have to find out the old fashioned way.”
Then I inhaled loudly as I revealed my fangs.
Her eyes grew wider than before and I sank my teeth into her shoulder.
“Aaaaaah!” She screamed.
I felt a jolt of power hit me as her memories suddenly flooded me.
A thousand at the same time.
Such that I was seeing it all yet seeing nothing.
Voices.
Screams.
Cries.
Blood.
They all echoed, reoccurring over and over again.
Like her mind was a maze of neverending pain.
But that didn’t stop me.
I kept drawing her essence, digging through her mind until a memory suddenly froze before me.
I saw Sayla in a pool of her own blood, laying unmoving on the ground.
The shock was enough to rip me out of her head and I pulled away from her in disbelief.
“No…” I said in shock.
“No, It’s not possible.”
“It’s true…” She finally spoke in a shaky voice through her endless tears.
“Sayla is dead.”
My heart exploded.
I grabbed my chest instantly as an immense pain stabbed my heart and I found it hard to breathe.
The candle lights in the room suddenly blazed harder, as if reacting to my pain.
I could not get over the shock I was feeling as the voices in my head grew even louder than before.
What was left of my heart began to hammer hard against my chest as if a war was ongoing within me.
Perhaps it really was.
The only person who had succeeded in stabilizing my madness.
The person who had pulled me from the snow and saved me when my own people tried to assassinate me.
The one person who had dragged me out of my darkness and showed me the meaning of love…
She was dead.
She had been taken from me.
I felt as if I was burning from the inside out.
Then I suddenly snapped my head toward Rune as realization struck.
“You killed her,” I breathed.
Rune flinched and she started shaking her head at me in shock.
“No. No. No, I never—”
I didn’t let her finish speaking.
I couldn’t bear to hear her voice anymore.
My hand closed around her throat as I began to press hard.
She had to die.
They all had to die!
All of the humans had to pay for killing my moon!
Her choking sounds and that which she made as her body struggled in the water filled the room.
I didn’t care.
Those who dared to deceive me.
Those who took from me.
They all had to pay.
Suddenly, I remembered that my throne was at stake.
It was already at stake as I was.
Someone in my own court tried to assassinate me.
My mind wasn’t even stable enough to quell the Black Madness that was plaguing my people and slowly destroying us.
My reign was falling apart.
If the court learnt that I had been tricked by humans and I brought home a fake queen who had no power to heal anyone, I would be completely ruined.
My honor and power would be belittled.
And worse, those who tried to kill me would try again.
They could even try to challenge my throne on the day of the upcoming Black Moon.
I brought my eyes back to the choking fraudster before me.
I gritted my teeth hard.
As much as I hated it, I still needed her.
So I released her.
She started coughing hard as she struggled to catch her breath.
I watched her without a word.
“Rune Aylin… I just realised that death is too easy a punishment for you,” I stated in a deep voice.
“Thus, you will continue your deception in public. Absolutely no one must know that you are a fraud.”
She watched me in shock, not daring once to breathe a word.
Then I leaned down to her level so that her golden eyes were level with mine.
“But in private, you will go back to being the lying cheat that you are. I will torture you every day and make you regret the day you decided to take and steal your sister’s life.”
What could be more dangerous than a broken monster?