The boy had been too young to fully understand the implications, the treachery, the Moon Goddess had committed during her reign of terror. He’d been small and insignificant, and used the opportunities of broken bodies he barely knew to search, to discover, to learn beside Rikyn and his teammates. He hadn’t even truly comprehended death – even when he saw his cousin, Ode, still, silent, at the back of the caves (and later when he had risen again – what had that phenomenon been?). Only when he’d seen Arwen’s battered form, lying on blood-stained snow, did the notion of what passing and demise meant flicker through his skull (and vengeance too, the feverish rush of requital, disaster, ripping, maiming, the glory of hate and the revolution of wrath). The lad had never processed that they’d all been victims of the Gods themselves, that Gaucho had been just one more puppet in their regime, placed here and there, beside chess pieces and chosen casualties because they’d wanted to do it, because it was easy, because it’d been a display, an oeuvre, a measure of their true weight and might. He didn’t even recall seeing Psyche amongst the departed, but he remembered his father staying to watch her funeral pyre, late to come home to the icy walls and the safe, guarded territory of the Basin. To him, as he searched Sjal’s face, as he waited for her expression to anoint and consecrate their movements, their motions, he presumed the DarkEmpress was behind her eyes or in the slate of her smile (anger, spite, malice, had crossed them for a moment, he recognized its worth, its merit, for he had the same emotions rampaging through his in some days, in some moments, stretched into contempt and loathing), maybe even the mischievous glint replacing the menace.
 
He revered the deities, what little he’d ever glimpsed, because they were a tie to glory, to triumph, to power - all he’d ever wanted. When they graced mere mortals with their presence, they were fire and ash, deliverance and strength, predilection and cunning. When they tore across the sky and landed at their feet, they were prestige and capacity. When the Sun God blessed him, showed him the way, he’d been grateful, ashamed, tossed and torn into so many differing, altering directions (and when they’d discovered the inferno being had been Aithniel’s father, they were unworthy all over again).
 
So as she agreed, he didn’t feel any apprehension. He didn’t feel any anxiety. The prince delved, full force, headstrong, impulsive and wily, into the sanctity of the stones and mirror, waiting for them to be blessed. The fiend’s feet stepped lightly along the cold floor, his eyes watched the reflection closely, and saw nothing at all. “I think they use the mirror,” he shrugged, tilting his cranium in obvious uncertainty. “But I don’t see anything in it.” Perhaps it was as empty as promises left by friends and companions. Maybe no God, neither laden by Spark or Time, resided there, and it was all a hollow hoax. “Do you?” His gaze riveted back to hers, mischievous and devilish, sparking and incensing on the delight of the hour, on the chance, the opportunity, to delve deeper into wild, untamed, savage conspiracies and notations.
 
He didn’t feel the looming, ominous shadow behind them until it reached, chilling and firm, unyielding and possessive, across the frigid marble.

Erebos

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