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Their father’s body was still warm when Shuza decides what they’ve done is good.
It’s not like anyone could have stopped them anyways.
She watches Hahlu draw in a strained breath as he looks at the monument of their sin, the magik in his grasp dimming to just a faint glow.
“It’s finally done”, he whispers, in both awe and pain as he rips the golden serpentine amulet from his father’s throat and wraps the gleaming chain around the back of his hand, the lifeless body of their maker dead in the grand armchair.
Somewhere beyond the dark halls of the estate, a belltower rings to greet the hour of the owl.
“Mother should have succumbed to the poison by now”.Hahlu cannot help but notice the lack of even an ounce of hesitation in his sister's words as she sheathes her curved dagger in the holster beneath her silken skirts.
For a moment,their eyes meet. Their emerald green eyes, the same eyes they just shut for forever.
It’s an unspoken thought they both have.
They could leave right now and never come back into the cursed halls on their home.
They could leave.
But they won’t.
They sacrificed too much.
Even if Patricide is no sin the eyes of their god.
Roaring awe fills the temple as Hahlu presents his sister to the sekt but some moons later.
And pride fills their hearts.Forgotten is the once-noble intent they held as he leads her by the arm onto the open Gallery overlooking the black marble halls. She is gleaming in the same gold and jewels as their mother once did,a dangling diadem on her forehead like a trancing third eye, bracelets of carved serpents wrapping around her joints, delicate and deadly.
As does the darkness wafting off Halhu, like faint smoke of low-burning embers as she places the amulet of rulership around his throat.
He has gotten what he wants.
She has gotten what she wants.
Power and revenge.
As they crushed the cowards beneath their feet.
“I want more”, Shuza whispers as her brother rises to face their subjects.
“Never once did I say that our work is finished”, he simply replies and claims his throne of carved blackstone.
There are no screams when the Lord of Hlondeth gives a last,red smile.
Maybe one last gasp of disbelief as the silhouette of the priestess of Mershaulk pulls herself from the shadows and and Hahlu gives a wicked smile.
The city had been theirs in all but name.
Now it is theirs in all.
Silence falls over the Banquet hall as the servant of the serpents takes the silvered throne of the city, one leg over another with almost theatrical boredom written on his sharp features.
The candlelight captured in the glittering,emerald scales that creep up the crook of his neck.
“This is divine”,he speaks for noone to hear but his golden sister as she sinks to sit by his feet, leaning against foot of the throne.
“Don’t be modest, brother”,Helsee replies as her eyes feast of the fear and helplessness of the nobles before them.
It’s not like anyone could have stopped them anyways.