Chapter 1: Returning
I continued to sip my coffee as he choked to death. It was bitter – both the coffee and the look on his face, but I think this coffee is much bitter. I watch him as he grips his throat and gestures for help but not until he gives me the information he's keeping.
"Are you ready to spill it out?" I ask with my finger circling the rim of my mug and my head bent sideways, watching him as he crawls on the floor. He just might die, but oh well. I gave him a chance, so. I can't make out the movement he does with his head, but I think I'll take that as a yes. I release my hold on him and he gasps all the air he was deprived of. He is on his knees, holding on to his throat and the other hand on the table.
"Well?" I ask rather impatient.
"Why?... I COULD HAVE DIED!"
"Don't yell at me darling, you said it yourself – could have, you didn't." I get up and help him up to his feet, then guide him back to his chair. "I know I look like an evil sister right now brother, but really what do you expect?"
He pushes me away to get into his seat as if not needing my help, but I just smile.
Patience.
"Sage, this is madness! You can't just demand me to tell you something I couldn't even tell father if he were alive." He touches his throat as he speaks and gives a silent cry of pain. I decide not to sit anymore but stand behind my chair instead. I am holding the urge to slam this boy into the four walls of my residence.
"Eir" I calmly say "I am not father. He was a disgrace to Tumbleberk and certainly not anyone's favourite. He was only made ruler because he made a deal with the Spirits, or do you not know?"
I watch as disbelief sweeps into his face, and I laugh. "So naïve for a big brother I must say."
"How do you know that, Sage?"
I take hold of the table and close up into his face until we're nose to nose. I can see the fear in his eyes, exactly what I want.
"When you were running off trying to be father's favourite lad, I read the books he forbade us to read and walked into rooms father kept away from us." I slowly stand upright and look him dead in the eye, walking around the room as I spoke. "That's why father hated me and kept me out of the family. If the kingdom knew his true story and origins, he would definitely be killed."
"Why?"
I glare at him. "It is forbidden to make deals with the spirts, Eir. Why do you lack such common knowledge?"
He makes a fist and bangs it on the table which causes my coffee to spill a little. "You will not talk to me in that manner, Sage. You are still a banished royalty." He says with his eyebrows meeting each other and a finger pointing at me.
"Banished royalty?" I say, "Father banished me for a crime he committed, Eir."
"He banished you because of your disrespect and stubbornness." He shot up from his seat and made to hit me, but I am way ahead of him and slam him into a wall. He falls with a great thud against my bookshelf, and it slowly comes down crashing on him.
sigh.
"So, father never really told the truth about me."
Eir groans loudly as he lifts up the bookshelf and throws it to the side. "What the hell are you talking about?"
I walk up to Eir sad, but I am not one to express my emotion.
"Father married a Spirit, come down to us as female. That was the deal he made – to be made king he must sleep with her." I look up at him. He was no longer under a pile of books but still in pain from it all. This pain tolerance is starting to irritate me.
"So, what does that have to do with you?" He asks and that must be the dumbest question he has asked me today. It's so dumb I answer him in a rage.
"EIR LOOK AT ME! All the things I just did to you, is that something any normal person can do Eir? I am not like you, slow to realization and weak. I am more of a Spirit person with powers you do not possess."
Eir did not speak but squinted his eyes at me and shook his head. "Make me understand."
I nod. I walk up to the window blinds and open them, revealing a beautiful sunny sky. I concentrate and breath unto the window glass. Soon enough, clouds clog the sky, and the rain begins to pour suddenly. A red bolt of lightning breaks through the glass rain starts to pour. Rain that melted the trees into nothing but lava. I see the look of aghast on his face and I immediately put everything back into order – the sun shining, the glass brand new and the clouds just passing by, like nothing ever happened. He stumbles back a bit but catches himself. It sure must be a lot to take in.
"Our mother was not of flesh and blood. She was a Spirit and although you have little signs of it, I am fully in it. It's like I am not human at all."
I don't look at Eir as I say this, but I remember the day father sent me out; I used my power for the first time in front of him. I had hidden it for 17 years and on the 18th one, I was banished. I only left for two weeks though. I came back as soon as I knew I could shapeshift, but ever since my father died and Eir ruled I lived as my normal self with a lot of disguises on.
Eir's eyes looked understanding, and I saw that he was finally seeing the truth. Maybe whatever the Spirits told him shouldn't be of importance to me. If that is so, then I don't need him anymore.
"Go Eir. I don't want to know what they told you anymore."
I feel his arm on my shoulder and immediately back away. Human contact – it irritates me. Maybe because it's been a long time since someone actually touched me or even listened to me.
"Father banished you because he knew you could bring down his empire. I understand now." He placed his hand on my shoulder again, but I don't resist it. I smile at him. This all I need. Someone to understand and see me for…
In a split second, a knife goes into the air and into my abdomen. I stare at the stab of the knife and look up at him in disbelief.
"The Spirits said I should keep this a secret, but I guess I cannot" he says with a chuckle. I stare in pain, slowly dropping to the ground and holding unto the knife inside me.
"The Spirits said they cannot walk the face of the earth like mere mortals, and so you must be wiped off from existence." The smirk on his face only makes the pain in my heart boil and boil into anger.
"I DID NOT CHOOSE TO BE THIS WAY"
"Neither did I sister, neither did I"
I pull the knife out and jump out the window. I let myself fall and concentrate hard enough to glide with the air. The pain is getting much worse but I catch myself before hitting the ground and swoop up into the sky. Eir watched from the hole in the glass, smirking at me.
"I will still kill you, Sage" he cackled and now I feel like a fool for trusting him and telling him the truth. I was the one in control but here I am about to take flight for the dessert, holding my abdomen is pain.
"Eir…you don't have to do this!" I yell at him, holding the urge to cry. I know I have the ability to end his life in just a matter of seconds, but I am not a monster.
"If you must know, Sage… I made a deal with the Spirts too."
He is.
He is the monster.