"Fancy seeing you here, sister," Senya spat out the last word like a piece of cartilage.

Her eyes ran down Nyu's orange robes with palpable disgust, then returned to her older sister's face, chiseling away at Nyu's petrified features with a hostile glare.

"What are you doing here?" Nyu whispered with a cracking voice.

Senya scoffed. "That's the best you can think of? No warm welcome? No happy-to-see-you?"

"I —" Nyu stammered, her mind racing.

"I, I, I," Senya sneered. "That's all it's ever been about."

She walked right up to Nyu, nodding at the guard behind her to release his grip around Nyu's shoulders, signaling with her eyes that this one would not be any trouble in her presence. She did so with a remarkable level of authority, which Nyu had never seen in her — and while it would've made her proud once upon a time, now it just frightened her.

Senya looked completely changed. More confident, but also a lot more angry, with a malicious glow in her eyes and a sly smile playing on her lips. Gone was the gentle soul that had been her peace-loving sister — in her stead, Nyu saw what she'd always been scared of: a younger version of herself.

"What happened to you, Sparkles?" Nyu whispered wearily.

Senya cackled. "A lot, dear sister. Life happened to me. You happened to me."

Her orange hair framed her once soft face. It had retained its beauty, but was now lined with ill intent and traces of deeply ingrained anger. Nyu couldn't make sense of it — she hadn't even been gone for long.

"I don't understand," she admitted, which further seemed to toss coals into the furnace of Senya's rage.

"Of course you don't," she snapped, and the sinister smile vanished from her pale face. "How could you? You weren't there. You set fire to our family, and then you didn't even stay to see it burn."

An uncomfortable feeling crept up on Nyu.

"Tell me what's going on!" she demanded with a voice that didn't carry half as much resolve as she would've liked.

Senya glared at her and didn't say anything for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was heavy with grief.

"Mom is dead," she rasped. "She is dead because of you."

Nyu's heart skipped a beat, and her head started spinning.

"What?" she breathed, half to herself.

"You heard me," Senya hissed. "She was killed right after you left us to rot, to go on an adventure with your new friends."

She frowned at Elara, then spat on the ground in front of her, right into a puddle of fresh blood.

The sounds of battle around them grew distant, muffled, like someone had wrapped Nyu's head in cushions. Her temples were throbbing, her lips dry as the bark of a tree come summer. She stared down at her hands, shamefully.

"Killed?" Nyu gasped when her voice was starting to fail her. "How?"

"She was stabbed in the abdomen by one of Morathen's guards."

Nyu blinked twice and raised her gaze until she met Senya's cruel stare.

"You mean one of Malvorn's men?"

When Senya didn't respond right away, Nyu pushed: "How can you follow the man who killed our mother?"

Senya shook her head. "He didn't kill her. He didn't even order her death."

Nyu stared at Malvorn in disbelief, and the subtle smile on his lips made her guts wrench. What lies had he been feeding her sister? Did he twist her mind so easily? But then again, he seemed to be quite proficient at other forms of warfare, too.

"Do you even hear yourself?" Nyu asked without taking her eyes off of Malvorn. "That soldier was working for the same man you now seem to follow. What you're saying doesn't make any sense!"

A hint of frustration found its way into her voice.

"Mom's blood is as much on your hands as it is on the hands of that guard," Senya hissed back. "You doomed her the moment you sided with those orange freaks."

Nyu opened her mouth, then closed it again. She glanced at Elara, where her helpless gaze was returned in kind.

Senya sighed. "Even if Malvorn had given the order, I couldn't blame him. Those soldiers were only at our house because they were looking for a thief — because they were looking for you." She pointed an accusing finger at Nyu. "You stole that stupid book from Malvorn, and we paid the price for it." She snorted. "And one skilled thief you are — apparently, some lowly servant saw you, and they'd brought her with them. When asked by the soldiers, the foolish hag mistook me for you, if you can believe it. And that gave them all the justification they needed to kill Mom, right in front of my eyes."

The knot in Nyu's stomach seemed to burst, and her mind went into overdrive. Hot tears started rolling down her cheeks, leaving wet trails in their wake. The sensation was entirely foreign, so much so that she didn't know she had it in her to display these kinds of feelings. But between Senya's hateful eyes staring at her and the devastating news she'd shared, there was no helping it. Their mother was dead because of her, and their family lay in shambles. And now her last relative, her beloved sister, had turned against her — and against her old self.

But then there was another feeling — one of anger and regret. She had wanted the servant to die. She knew her business, and she knew it well. The weakness of the Dor siblings had kept her from doing what was right, or at least necessary. And now, because of that, Alva was dead. She should've known better. She had long since felt that their presence was making her weak, dulling her blade in an almost literal sense. But while she had embraced the transformation thus far, she was now beginning to see its downsides. And somewhere within her emotional turmoil, she couldn't help but blame Elara for letting that one servant live. In the end, they had just traded her life for that of their mother — that and the innocence of her sister.

When Nyu's mind returned to the present, she could see that Senya was watching her closely. Something about Nyu's reaction seemed to amuse her, judging by the thin smile that played on her lips. When she spoke, her voice was laced with cruel satisfaction.

"I killed the servant who saw you," she dropped casually. "Thought you should know."

Nyu's throat contracted like a corset. She tried to speak, but no words came out.

"Oh, and I also killed Kwan," Senya added. "Sorry if that throws a wrench in whatever gig the two of you had going on."

Nyu felt like she was choking. She tried to breathe, but the air inside her lungs was burning. Her vision was growing dark shades around the edges, drawing inwards in concentric circles. Searing thoughts raced through her head and dispersed into nothingness before coming to conclusions, and droplets of sweat started to drip from her eyebrows.

How did all of it go so horribly wrong? Moments ago, things had been dire, but at least there had been hope. Now, it felt like her soul was being crushed by an unimaginable weight, exerted by the person who claimed to be her sister, looked like her sister, but was someone she'd never met. And that someone was smiling a sinister smile to top it all off.

Still, even in the middle of her growing emotional turmoil, she couldn't bear the thought of losing Senya to whatever evil had taken hold of her. She had to try to bring her back — there was no other option. Even if right now, Senya seemed to have fully given in to the hatred she'd nourished since they parted, blaming her sister for everything that had happened. She likely was right, and would maybe never forgive Nyu — just like Nyu would never forgive herself. But that part was okay. What was not okay was Senya turning from being a gentle soul into a murdering monster.

"I know this will sound odd coming from me," Nyu tried, "but you can't just kill everyone who wronged you. In the end, there will be no one left."

Senya scoffed and rolled her azure blue eyes.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Seriously?" she asked, sounding more like the annoyed sister Nyu remembered.

"The path Malvorn set you on only leads to more pain, believe me."

Within a split second, Senya's features hardened.

"Don't you dare talk to me of pain," she snapped, and shoved Nyu against the pedestal of the large statue Malvorn had been studying. The guards watched them, but didn't make any move to intervene.

"You don't even know pain. Not like I do."

Senya's eyes reddened, and her voice was now dripping with anger.

"And Malvorn didn't set me on any path," she continued, digging her fingers into Nyu's chest, "I chose my own path. For the first time in my life. Do you know how sick I was of being that helpless little creature? With you always saving us, while I could do nothing but carve out a miserable existence in that smelly tavern? That is, when I was not busy helping our mother with everyday life — something you never bothered to do. But why would you? There was always your stupid little sister, figuring it out."

When she stopped, her breathing was hot and heavy, her face only a few inches away from Nyu's. Again, she could feel tears rolling down her tough cheeks. Senya's words cut through her heart and soul like sharp blades, but through her own pain, she was beginning to understand the amount of agony her sister was in.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but what you and Malvorn are doing is not going to solve anything," was the best Nyu could think of. "Hurting other people won't heal your own wounds. Trust me — I've tried it."

Senya scowled. "Trust me — you have no idea what you are talking about, sister."

"You are murdering thousands of innocents," Nyu said helplessly. "How can you be okay with that?"

Sparks of anger ignited in Senya's eyes, and her sinister glare made Nyu shiver.

"Don't talk to me of injustice or morality," the Fateless woman snarled with a voice sharp as a knife. "Your beloved Fateweavers drew first blood, and they didn't care one bit about all the innocents they killed. How is that any better?"

"What the Fateweavers have done to our people for generations is wrong," Nyu agreed, "but it doesn't justify mass murder."

Senya stared at her for a moment. Then she cracked an evil smile, and Nyu would've preferred she hadn't.

"They didn't tell you, did they?" she sneered in a bittersweet voice.

Nyu began to shuffle uncomfortably. Senya's smile widened with every second of awkward silence that passed.

"Well, isn't that funny?" Senya jeered. "You try to lecture me about our history when you don't even know about the present. But you just always have all the answers, don't you?"

As if to prove her wrong, Nyu said nothing. Her mind was blanking, and her senses felt numb. Pleadingly, she stared at what was left of her sister, silently begging her to just return to her former self. But Senya seemed to have no desire to fulfil her wish.

"Your Fateweaver friends came to visit us in Morathen, you see?"

Nyu swallowed hard. She'd heard about the Master they sent to kill Malvorn — Nerina, if she remembered correctly. She also knew that the woman's mission had failed, as was evident by Malvorn's presence. Still, she thought it best not to disclose the fact that she'd been let in on a secret Fateweaver mission, which would only alienate Senya further.

"They tried to assassinate Malvorn, right in the middle of his palace," her sister said quietly, and her voice took on a darker tone. "Obviously, their pathetic attempt failed."

She gestured dismissively with her hand, like she was swatting away an annoying fly. Just when Nyu thought she'd weathered the storm, Senya continued: "But in anticipation of their failure, these cowards chose to do as much damage to our people as possible. You see, killing Malvorn was not enough for them — they wanted to kill all of us. Men, women, children — it just didn't matter to them."

Nyu felt like she'd been slapped in the face. Her body temperature seemed to drop until a disconcerting chill crept over her skin.

She shuddered. "What do you mean? Who did they kill?"

A dark shadow flashed over Senya's face.

"Everyone," she rasped, and finally her sinister smile was gone. "During their attempt on Malvorn's life, they used some vile poison that seeped through every crack and every hole in the palace. Malvorn was hosting a banquet, and so there were hundreds of people in the dining hall. All of them choked on their own blood, or simply dropped dead when their seizing hearts stopped working. And not just them — also the servants, in the lower levels, and the guards as well. Every one of them is a corpse now, their eyes framed by dried blood and their faces pale as ash."

Nyu looked down at her orange robe while trying to process what Senya was saying. She didn't even bother to question it — somehow, she knew it was true. But had Kaelen and Elara known? Did they not tell her on purpose? She grabbed her head with both hands when it suddenly felt unbearably heavy. Here she'd thought the Fateweavers were trying to de-escalate, that they were intent on protecting life, not destroying it — albeit in their own twisted way. But as it turned out, they were just as cruel as their enemy.

She glanced over at Elara, who looked just as shocked. In a way, Nyu was relieved that the other woman seemed not to have known about this massacre. But it didn't make it any less vile.

Nyu thought back to Sylvaris's dark study and the substances in the jars and vessels. Surely, that's what they had used on the Fateless — he even commented on it.

Then it struck her. He had known, too. Of course he had — he was the creator of that gruesome weapon. And he had toyed with her, fully aware of how many of her friends and relatives he might have killed with his machinations.

Nyu clenched her fists. She'd been taken for a fool, betrayed by the people she chose to trust. And what's worse yet, she'd picked them over her own kind. Now, she just felt like no one was on her side.

She glanced over at Elara, saw her pleading eyes.

"I had no idea," she mouthed, and Nyu believed her.

But still, it couldn't mend the pain she felt. The emotional wounds she'd suffered over the last few minutes were deeper than any blade could cut. This was not the kind of fight she'd wanted, not the kind she excelled at. Weapons were simple, the truth was not.

Nyu looked back at Senya, whose spiteful expression was now adorned with an evil smile.

"There," she whispered, "now you get an idea of what my life's been like."

They fell silent for a moment, staring into each other's eyes. Somewhere far away from them, Nyu could hear the clashing of swords against stone, the rattling of armor plates as soldiers charged up windy staircases. Screams of pain echoed through the hallways and sought to vent into open air in the large atrium they were standing in.

"I spent a long time thinking about this moment," Senya snarled, "wondering what I would say or do if I ever saw you again. Honestly, I figured you'd just be another corpse somewhere in these vast halls, and that our paths would never cross again, lest I go looking for what was left of you. Maybe that would've been for the better." She paused briefly, her eyes flashing over Nyu's face. "But then you had to be the hero, don't you? Coming here to end it all, to save the day once more?"

She shook her head.

"Unfortunately for you, that's not how your story will end. You see, I promised myself to leave everything behind, burn my past as a bonfire of all the ways in which life has wronged me. I'm afraid that includes you, dear sister."

She produced a curved dagger with an ornamental handle from within her robes and held it up into the light of the torches — the dark blade barely lit up, like it was crafted from night sky itself.

Nyu's mind refused to think, and so she just blankly stared at the delicate weapon that was hovering above her.

"Don't!" she could hear Elara scream, hear her struggle against the grip of the guards that were holding her in place. "Let go of me! No!"

Her voice grew distant and distorted, as if Senya and Nyu had left the atrium and were entering their own plane of existence, where only they could hear each other, see each other.

"I would say I'm sorry," Senya hissed through gritted teeth, "but I finally feel like I don't have to lie anymore."

Nyu could've stopped Senya — her arms were not restrained anymore, her own weapons accessible. But to what end? The last member of her family hated her so badly she wanted to kill her — and Nyu felt like she herself was to blame for it. Actions had consequences, but she never knew they would catch up to her in such a brutal manner. Her life had been full of bad choices, and she was surprised she'd made it this far without reaping any repercussions. In a way, it was probably deserved.

Time slowed down as Senya's blade descended onto her, allowing Nyu to take in the whole absurdity of the scene in slow motion. Senya's features were distorted by anger, breaking through the pretty disguise that was her face. Her expression was like an erupting geyser, as if all the pent-up rage could not be contained for a second longer if she tried.

Where Nyu expected to feel terrified in the face of imminent death, she only felt sorry for her sister. Life had turned her into a puppet, with Malvorn and her own anger as the puppeteers. She wondered if her death would even satisfy Senya, make her feel anything at all. Or would she just continue to be a terror to this world?

Nyu closed her eyes.

She felt like she could hear the humming of waves in the distance, growing louder and closer. There were birds screaming, somewhere above an imaginative shoreline. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, she thought. She'd never been one to think about the afterlife, or even worry about dying in the first place. Maybe she'd be pleasantly surprised by whatever came next. And if there was nothing else, that'd also be alright with her.

Into the serenity of her mental farewell crashed an elbow like a falling tree, jabbing at her ribs and tearing her mind back into the present. The waves turned into sounds of shuffling, running, chasing, the birds into screaming guards all around her. When she opened her eyes, she could see surprise on Senya's face as her eyes wandered from her victim to the dagger she held in her own hands, hovering about an inch above Nyu's chest. Attached to it was another hand, covered in bloody wounds and emerging from a spotty orange sleeve.

When Nyu's shocked gaze met Elara's, she could see tears in the other woman's eyes — tears of sorrow, of regret, of guilt. Elara opened her mouth to say something, but only a gasp escaped her lungs when Senya's blade slid into her chest, effortlessly slicing through fabric, skin, and bone.

Nyu couldn't even hear her own scream as it shattered her throat and made her spit blood into the cold air. As Senya stepped backwards, Elara's dying body sank to the ground. Nyu dove forward to catch Elara's limp head and cradled it in her lap, just in time to see the spark of life vanish from her green eyes.

#

Nyu didn't know how long she knelt in the mud, holding Elara's upper body in her aching arms, crying, weeping. Eventually, she could hear Senya's muffled voice through a shroud of grief.

"Interesting," her sister said cynically. "I guess you do have feelings."

Nyu heard the words, but couldn't process them. She just sat on the ground, staring at Elara's pale face, while thick blood kept spilling out of the gaping hole in her chest.

"I guess that'll do," Senya said to someone else. "In fact, that'll do even better. We can leave her here, so she can learn what it feels like to see someone you love die right in front of you."

Someone responded, but to Nyu, it was just gibberish — it didn't matter. In fact, nothing mattered right now.

She had lost — and in the process, she'd destroyed the lives of everyone she cared about.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.