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Possession is a lot like falling in love, Julius thinks during a rare clear moment. It’s losing your mind slowly, gently, and then suddenly all at once.
The fires that burn him feel like old friends, estranged by both distance and time, finally coming home again. They burn his flesh all the same, but Azel isn’t running. It’s not the fire that paralyzes him, it’s the look in his brother’s eyes when he meets his own. Never in his life has he seen so much pain and regret coming from a man who he had once thought to be as cold as stone. He’s not scared of him anymore, despite the fact that his life force is withering away at an agonizing pace. It must be a horrible sight to watch, his skin searing away but his legs remaining standing, for Alvis is unable to look away for perhaps the first time in his life.
Good, Azel thinks darkly, toxic fumes poisoning his brain yet his mind as clear as day. Let every second of his gruesome death etch into his brother’s memory, let him feel the pain of burning an army of good and righteous men as if it were the flames dancing on his own skin. Let it hurt, Azel prays in his final moments, till long after my ashes have scattered into all directions of the wind.
Let Alvis remember what it feels like to kill the person who, despite everything, never stopped loving him.
The only thing greater than her beauty is her kindness, Alvis admits in the privacy of his own mind. Deirdre reminds him of his mother, eerily so, to the point that he wonders if she too will inevitably leave him, never to be heard of again. It keeps him up at night, taunting him along with the ghosts of the good men he burned in order to achieve his goals. It leaves him sweating and breathless in his bed, unable to go back to sleep until his wife guides him into the circle of her arms, a smile and a gentle song on her lips. For a few precious hours he’ll be at peace, until the realization dawns with the morning sun.
Deirdre’s smile is a gift from the gods, just not meant for him. When it is bestowed upon him it is wistful and distant, but there all the same. He always made fun of men who lost their line of thoughts when a woman was near. And yet here he is, staring secretly at his wife while she plays with their children in the garden, any thought of his empire long gone from his mind.
And love, Alvis thinks, is in the little things. It’s in the flowers that decorate Valthomer in spring, the way the sun kisses Julia’s cheeks in summer, and the snowflakes tangling up in Deirdre’s hair while Julius cries for attention. He’s almost afraid to go near them, afraid that they will disappear the second he enters their little world. He’s a man with blood on his hands, sullied with impurities for the sake of the greater good.
It’ll all be worth it if it means Julia and Julius can have a better childhood than he himself had, he thinks when he averts his eyes, returning to his chambers without another word. There are troops to be relocated, taxes to be levied, and an empire to nourish. The people will not love him for it, but it matters little. Let his hands be bloody, as red as the flames of Valflame, so his family can remain unspoiled. That, too, is love.
Ishtar doesn’t love the man who loves her, despite her mother’s best efforts. She’d follow him to the ends of the world and back, obey his every command, true. But it isn’t a mutual love, the way he holds her close to his chest, never once asking what it is she wants. It is not her he is interested in, she thinks when he sleeps next to her at night, eyes open and his hand resting possessively on her arm. He loves her most when she moves like lightning, power crackling at her fingertips. Or perhaps even more when she is beneath him, all that strength reduced to zero with a flick of his wrist. That isn’t love, but she’ll take all the pain and all of the joy in stride, as long as she gets moments like these: sunlight shining from behind his eyes, a memory of the kind boy she met once upon a time, who hid with her under the bed when the thunder became too loud. That boy is silent most days, buried under inhuman cruelty, but he is there in every soft touch electrifying her skin and every spark in his eyes. It’s never more than a moment, but it’s all she has left.
The Julius that loves her isn’t scared of thunder anymore, quite the opposite really. It’s almost as if he longs for it to strike him, courting danger with a cocky smirk. Maybe it’s not a healthy relationship, this symbiosis of theirs, but those who were supposed to teach them better have long been buried underneath earth and ambitions, and Ishtar never did have the will to abandon the boy shivering under the bed. With the morning light came bravery, and a mother’s gentle words, enough to ease a scared boy out of hiding. Eventually, the sun always came. Eventually, the boy will resurface. In the mean time, all she can do is trust, love and wait.
But she’s been waiting for such a long time, and no candle can burn forever.
When her memory returns, the first ones worth keeping are those of her father. History will remember his as a stern, misguided or perhaps even villainous man, but Julia knows of the rainy days where he had her to sit on his lap for hours, allowing little flames to dance from his hands to her own. He not so much taught her magic as that he eased her into it, gentle gestures and eyes replacing words he could never say.
Her father really was the kindest man anyone could ever imagine, and yet no-one will remember him as such. There was a perpetual sorrow in his eyes that she recognized even in her earliest memories, resonating within her mother. Their love was not the one described in her mother’s fondest fairytale, a timeworn story about a princess and her knight, but it was there nonetheless, silently shared. Even now, with the war over and their true connection as siblings revealed, Julia doesn’t feel like it has lessened the warmth of his memory, forever flickering inside her like a flame.
And she hopes that wherever her father is now, mother and brother will be there too, reading stories to each other in the light of a never dying flame. Wait for me, please.
Dying is a lot like falling in love, Julius thinks during his final moments. It’s losing your mind slowly, gently, and then suddenly…
Nothing at all.