36. essence of evil

36

essence of evil

Rivian

I rip the books by their spines from their places on the shelves, letting them fall to the ground, pages flying free and glass breaking as books crash into the table below.

I'm not one to normally throw a tantrum when things don't go my way, but it's the war in my head against what I want and what I need and how I can't have both that ravages me, causing me to lose control as I teeter the line of compassion and vulnerability or revenge and anger.

The moment in the piano room was unexpected, just like much else these days when it comes to my wife. But Birdania showing up and mocking our relationship with false jabs angered me. It threw me off more than anything because I didn't think she'd be such a spiteful bitch, then again, we all do things out of hate when we don't get what we want.

I didn't want to let too much show because I knew she was trying to get a certain reaction out of me. She wanted to find and expose my weakness, though I don't know why, but she thought she could get that out of me with Lucynda. And she was very fucking right. But I didn't want her to figure that out, so I had to remain neutral to the situation, which reflected betrayal to my wife.

Lucynda is likely to be fuming with me one way or the other, and if I can skate by with as little guilt and blood on my hands as possible, that is what I'd like to pursue. But if I have to rip apart a person's chest and spill blood or break some hearts, then I am prepared to do just as much. I just don't want to hurt her .

What I do know is that I'm so close to acting out the whole purpose of my intended goal; ending this nightmare I've been living since the day I watched my mom walk out of this castle.

My thoughts plague me. I need to force myself to the state of equanimity. I had everything mapped out so effortlessly before, no obstructions or what-ifs. But all of that changed the moment I met my sweet sin.

I obsessed over every little thing she did; still do. Despite the lore of soulmates that flipped my plan off its axis, I thought I could keep this strictly business, but I was sorely mistaken. I quickly acquired a taste for the desire to find a way to keep her safe so that this would all work and so that I might keep what is so rightfully mine. I owe her nothing else in the thick of it, but even if anima vinculum wasn't the thing that led me to my conflicting thoughts, I fear I would have developed the same besetting feelings for her.

Lucynda is the bane of my existence for reasons I don't care to accept, truthfully. I admire her persistence even through the acts of danger I have bestowed upon her and even though I violated her mind and trespassed her thoughts. She still welcomed the darkness, because she accepts the shadows in her life as objects that can hold beauty. She yearns to see the best in people though people have done nothing but obliterate the light inside her. But she bounces back, like the bolt of lightning that cracks through the deepest of midnights and threatens to strike again. I hate knowing that I might be added to the list of offenders who have broken her down to a shell of false hope and ashes of betrayal, all while the flame of said hope still burns inside of her. I learned to navigate this idea that I can have my revenge and my wife and that maybe she will come around to the idea that I had to do what I had to do. I crave every ounce of soul she has to give. The dark parts. The light parts. The hidden parts. All of it.

I once promised my mom I would follow the first sign of love I encountered. But how can I follow that sign when that very same person is tied to the very thing I swore I would destroy the moment I got a chance. Besides, I was a child who would have done anything his mother asked of him.

Though I am a man of my word and I also swore to my mother that I would avenge her departure.

They say that when a human becomes a vampire, there's a dominant trait within them that becomes amplified and develops more prominently. Mine is my need for retribution. I forced that to be the forefront of what led my desire to live.

Lucynda's magnified trait happens to be the one thing I thought I could train her off of. But even after allowing her to let go of a locked-up memory, hoping instead that she would lean into the darker part of her past and feel the anger that exudes from that, she still craves love.

I hear a small scratch coming from my door, I look over to see no one there. But I'm not stupid.

"How can I help you, Troy?"

"I didn't mean to creep, I just…" The look on my sister’s face expresses distress and worry. It almost makes me feel sorry for her, but I know pity is not what she’s after. She’s after an explanation for why everything is nearly falling apart.

"What's going on, Rivian? I mean seriously. You seem to be so emotionally charged one way or the other. You seem to be distracted some moments, tunnel-vision the next. Is there something you want to tell me?"

Yeah, and if I knew you wouldn't hate me after I admitted my plans to you, I'd tell you. Because you deserve that, Troy. You of all people deserve the world and you got dealt a shitty hand too. You had a mom who left you behind, a father who mistreated you simply because you were a girl, you're so lovesick that you resort to fucking around with my ex-fiancé who is likely using you to get back at me, and you are stuck here with two brothers who have a whole lot of shit they need to work through. Oh, and I think I'm in love with my wife, but I plan to fuck everything up so I continue to pretend to reject her, even though I can't stay away. So yeah, I'd tell you my secret, but that would only add to the trauma you are strong enough to deal with, but this might end you.

It's what I want to tell her. But I simply shake my head as we both look down at the mess I've made knowing that I'm lying.

Her concern is valid. And the only thing that I can equate it to is the arrival of my muse. My sweet sin. Before her, there was nothing for anyone in my kingdom to worry about. I held my secrets in the dark, but now with Lucynda here and everything clicking into place, I fear I've become a lot more readable when it comes to my emotions.

But she doesn't press it as I decide to change the topic of conversation.

"You know I once had an inkling that Trav could be responsible for all of this?"

"You did?" She doesn't sound too surprised as she makes her way over to the bookshelves on the wall and starts picking up some of the books I destroyed in my fits of aggression.

"I thought he was jealous because I was next in line and he wasn’t." I head for the canteen of amber liquid.

"Why would he be jealous?"

"Because he had a royal mother, and I was merely a half-blood. I think he thought he'd be stronger and better fit for the job. I knew it in the way he said little things under his breath as we got older, the way he distanced himself from me. The way he once told me he would ruin me."

"I'm sure he said that to you out of anger. You guys were just kids." Troian seems disassociated when she's responding to me, and I know it's because she's exhausted from the back and forth her family has put her through. She's never feigned her strength, but I know a person can only take so much.

I tilt my head back and let the liquor burn down my throat.

"So, what do you think now?" She tosses a book on the ground, likely realizing this isn't her mess to clean and turns to me as she kicks another one out of her way. Glass crunches under her black boot when she takes a few steps forward.

I put the crystal tumbler down on my desk, letting the liquor caress my veins before I look up at my sister's saddened eyes.

"I think someone is using this knowledge against me. I think someone knows Travois would be the easy way out and is using him to frame me and the Society."

"Why would anyone do that?" Her interest is piqued as she crosses her arms against her chest.

I pride myself on putting my family above all else. Despite my troubles with Travois and his incessant need to always be right and to prove he's better than me, despite him pushing me away when we were kids and completely going unhinged in his adult life, I still want to clear his name.

No one fucks with my family and lives to see another day. No one.

Which is why the future will become blurred and finicky for the three of us. Four if we're including my wife. So while I have the chance, I'm going to plant the seed. My only hope is that I can get them all on my side to soften the blow.

"I don't know Troy, but if I'm being honest, I think it has to do with Ameliana."

"My mother?"

"I can't tell you how or why just yet, but I have a feeling that she is connected to this."

Troy doesn't know the info that I know. That Ameliana may be connected to this but in more ways than one. It isn't lost on me that the man she had been supposedly married to all this time ended up dead. That can't be a coincidence. The former queen I know is cruel and selfish and she has to fucking pay, whether she is connected to the set up designed by Viktrum's Society or not.

"She has been alive this whole time, Troian. Not reaching out to you once. And God knows why she allowed Trav the privilege of her presence and asked him not to tell you. But we know she was in a relationship with Dominek and Dominek ended up dead. A lot of people have come up dead and she has to know something."

"Dominek, Viktrum's brother." Troy states an obvious fact, I can tell she's not sure how to process this information.

"Yes, and I don't know what that means to any of them or to us. But she ran from our father to Valor for some reason. She ran and had her royal Hollows' blood drained just to accept Valor blood. Why would she go through all of that? And why hide even after Renard's death?" Our father gave up the search for his wife when he realized her royal blood's trace ran cold. She could have easily stepped out of the shadows shortly after, especially with another Society's blood running through her veins. There would have been nothing he could do.

"I'm still not catching on, Riv." Confusion twists on her face and I know that what I'm saying might not make any sense to her. Troy didn't take business in watching the castle bustle the way I did. I analyzed everyone and everything because I knew that one day, I would need all the information I could get if I wanted a chance to make sure I could get justice for my mother.

I only hope that my sister will forgive me for what I have to do.

"Maybe it's nothing. But I need you to do me a favor." I turn around to see darkness build around the treetops.

The sky is so tragically beautiful. Almost like a graveyard of stars lighting up the deepest darkest parts of our shadowed pasts lined with sinful secrets. Fitting, if I may say so myself.

"What's that?" She takes another step forward, the sound of glass under her feet and her heart beating against its cage intensifies given the circumstance.

"I need you to bring me your mother." I watch her for argument, or anything to resemble more confusion but she doesn't even ask why.

"Rivian, you know what happened last time. They refused to let us in."

"I am not telling you to ask for permission." Realization dawns on her and she simply drops her head, looks at the ground for not more than a second and then gives me a malcontent look.

"I don't think I'll be able to get through," she says.

"Try again."

October 21th

"What do you mean I can't see her, Kacian? She's my wife."

I remember the rage I felt yesterday when Birdania tried to get under Lucynda’s skin and she let her. I didn't expect for her to stay hidden away for this long, and I was planning on staying just as stubborn. But I can feel the time is near and I have to prepare her for the disaster that might ensue.

"She asked for privacy. You are not allowed in." Kacian blocks her door and I pin him with a murderous look. He doesn't even budge.

Good. I like that she has someone who won’t even bend for the word of the king, protecting her at all costs.

"Has she even come out of her room at all for food or water? For blood? Her transition is complete, she's going to be hungry." I don’t take my wife’s needs lightly, though I hate to add that I allowed her to act childish in her fit of jealousy. I also remained at a distance.

"I assure you; I told her to let me know if she needed anything and she has not-"

"Lucynda! This is fucking ridiculous. Let me in!" I shout over Kacian, pounding on the door.

"Your highness," he warns me, but something tells me my little sin is in trouble.

I am not allowed to infiltrate the walls of her room so long as her door is locked, but her guard has the means to knock it down.

"You need to open the door, Ka-"

Rivian.

An anguished whisper creeps into my head, pain and fear caressing it.

"Do you hear that?" I look at Kacian, confusion washing over his expression as he looks up and down the hallway trying to pin what I'm talking about.

"No, sir."

"It's Lucynda." I'd recognize that voice anywhere, but it doesn't sound real .

"I don't hear anything-"

Rivian .

Another cry for help.

"Break the door down!" I demand but Kacian gives me an apprehensive look.

"You can't go-"

"For fuck's sake, Kacian. I get that you are to follow the orders of the queen, but I am your king! Break the fucking door down or I will break your fucking neck!"

With not an ounce more of hesitation, Kacian blows out a breath and rears his shoulder into the locked door, wood splinters in the air as the frame tries to hold on to the hinges.

I swarm her room, finding it to be eerily empty. The curtain sheers blow around in the breeze from her open windows, her bed seems to have been made or rather untouched.

"Where the fuck is she?" I shout, rushing to the bathroom while Kacian checks the closet.

"Sir, I swear she hasn't come out or even-"

Rivian.

Her delicate voice, affrighted and cold, enters my head again and I know this time . . . she is summoning me.

Without another second wasted, I close my eyes and let my wife's voice pull me to her.