His eyes made a mockery of her, a narrowed, piercing gaze that lanced, harpooned, over her writhing, coiled rage, her helplessness, her inane, vacuous candor. Their ruthless upheaval, their heedless, barbaric quality cast an arcane shade of his reticent, rapier credence – she should have feared him in the hushed, dank corridors, in the anguish and despair of her shackles, in the gloomy haze of her future. She should have been repelled by his wicked grace, by his heinous elegance, by the chiseled slate of his savage, forsaken silence, the wretched, wrecked detachment of an infernal foe. So indifferent, so aloof, he was corruption, annihilation, despair, torture and torment, and could proffer any of these augured sentiments across her winged body; make her void of any thought, feeling, or existence. She could be devoured, consumed, and never heard of again, amongst the rubble and ruin of the walls, coating the earth with remnants of naught. Yet, she still cracked, persistent, sarcasm riddled from her voice, and the chilled behemoth, monster and devil, thought nothing of her commands, of her orders and requirements. Instead, his voice, rough, grating, harsh, made its sibilant debut, hissing in the formidable darkness, the only warning he would provide to her foolish countenance. “A prisoner has no right to demand.”
Resuming his silence, but not his brutality, he pulled the strings of his curse, felt the threads of the necromancy pulse, beat against his lungs, his skin, his veins, a sliding, sinuous ardor that poured along the remnants of his heart – a slinking, sadistic, serpentine arch of enchantment. The alluring, beguiling lethality clung to his frame until he allowed it to pour onto the cavern floor, lick and cling to the dank merchants of the merciless hall, touching, caressing, damning. It maneuvered across the ground, reaching Svetlana’s toes, dancing across her hooves, the promise, the oath, the vow, the guarantee that if she crossed him, she’d suffer. She’d beg, she’d pine, she’d whimper and crash into the whims of the earth, become dust, soot and ash. She’d remember anguish, she’d enamor despair, she’d reach for solace and find none in the great wake of treachery, in the seamless, puissant intensity of his machinations, of his calculations. The intimacy of peril, danger, scorched at her feet, simmered along her cracks, until after a few moments, he pulled it back into his core. His message had been delivered, and if she ignored the portended outcome, she’d find herself plunging farther into the depths of delusion, melancholy and menace.
Another malicious creature joined their midst, and his stare narrowed to glance at her briefly, this sneaky, specious harpy looming, presiding, in the absence of Mauja. She too possessed an enigmatic entity, intertwined in different forms, different appearances, different artifices that rankled ardent chains – he cared very little, and didn’t bother puzzling over her. If she proved herself a capable leader, he’d remain along the edge of loyalty. If not, then he’d find another venue, another way to proffer his gifts, his arts. He gave her a simple nod of recognition, and directed his gaze elsewhere, listening to her serpent tongue slash over the Chieftess’s words, and waited for the fracture, the rupture, of the winged mare.
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Pale Princess of A Palace Cracked [Svetlana/Open]
