The prince saw temptation there – lingering and lurking, sparking and flaring along her face, beautiful and wicked. It made her incandescent instead of murky and muddled – like she was alive, no longer wandering and searching, hiding and sulking. The boy knew the charms of enticement, of allure, of mischief well; it flowed through his bones, through his blood, through his skull in so many waking, conspiring moments. It dazed and confused, it mottled and rattled, it dipped and twirled, then sauntered again, bright and illustrious, cool and confident, and those dark, devilish munitions had found embers to scorch into their powder. He’d played in those wicked contortions before, venturing across the countryside alongside his fellow musketeers as they rampaged into the Throat with false names and composed souls. He’d strummed the immoral reveries as he found power and salvation in magic and invocations, when enchantments bubbled to the surface (like hate manifested, like pride unleashed). He’d danced on the edge with Enna and their ridiculous means of recruiting, he’d simmered between the layers of prestige and prowess, and he’d beckoned, howled for the allure of strength. But Sjal had found it nestled in the groves of ice and the walls of snow; where mountains transfixed, where determination coiled, where perseverance and forbearance were ichor of the living, where her mother had reigned, been Queen, been summoned and called the DarkEmpress. “Could be!” He winked and tossed, because he wanted the capers and nonsense to continue, because he thrived under the maelstrom of chaos and silliness, because he hadn’t brushed against ebullience in what felt like a lifetime.
 
But it was the notion of Gods that seemed to pull her further into the devilish reach, and the youth seized it, snatched it from the air, set his sights upon the cave and slowed his approach. Erebos ceased his movement on a puff of cool, crisp air and nonchalant grace, eyes locked onto hers, amused at the restlessness, the curiosity, developing and igniting what used to be dim and grim. “Have you ever seen one?” He ran on her inquiry and interest, channeling all his notions, all his sights, all his memories of beasts, of cretins, of madness and monsters, dead and gone, buried by their weapons, their power, their strength. “I've met the Sun God before.” The scion nodded at this affirmation, pretending as if he'd never befriended the daughter of the aforementioned divinity, peeking into the shadow of the cavern as he did so, as if to see if there was a deity resting in there now, waiting for mortals to bask in his essence. “He gave me a quest to improve my magic.” His stare riveted to the mirror for a moment, glistening and shining, a strange, otherworldly beacon he didn’t quite understand; he thought Ashamin might appear before them then, perhaps scolding, hardly indulgent towards a pair of youths knocking at a celestial being’s door. “I’m not sure how we would summon a God,” and here his gaze became the embodiment of delinquency and wickedness itself, a notion of quiet, unholy sin pressing on and through him (he heard Orsino’s laughter through his mind, sharp and shrill, beguiled by the heresy, by the irreverence, by the fiendishness crackling between their souls), turning upon her with Cheshire delight, a ravishing grin. “Do you want to try?”

Erebos

i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want