Chapter One Hundred And Sixty Nine

Chapter One Hundred And Sixty Nine

Lucian’s Pov

I'd long been convinced wickedness took a face and one I'd seen in both monsters and in men, too. But tonight, with dusk consumed and sunset gone, I saw an atrocity that challenged my definitions of wickedness and forced me to redefine them. I'd seen evil I could hardly have dreamed in my most fevered imagination.

The sky wasn't at its radiant best, but one contrast alone remained: one silver glow of the moon painted everything with an eerie, dark radiance, and I could almost feel its vigor. I kept moving onward, a burning fury in my heart burning brighter with each pace I took. "Your face, moon," I whispered in a snarl of anger, "tonight, your face bore witness to my friend’s murder." Travis’s dying memories looped in my head forever: laughter, soft comforts, and a shocked cry of betrayal that took him from me. I hadn't seen him coming.

Travis, a man who firmly insisted wicked souls bore a glimmer of virtue, lay dead, robbed of life at our hands through a wickedness I could neither forgive nor forget. And in its wake, my heart raged with a vengeance: Deluna’s head, I vowed, would leave her frame before morning’s first sunlight crested over the horizon. I willed it, heartbeats pounding in my head, a dirge of vengeance.

I pursued Deluna deep into the forest, my heart full of vengeance and anger. Trees shot high and skeletal, branches twisted and reached towards the sky, and undergrowth lay motionless under my boots. The forest was hung in deadly quiet, with even nature holding its breath in anguish and fright. Not a sparrow trilled, not even a break in undergrowth could shatter the suffocating quiet. I heard nothing but my thudding heart and in the distance, a faint echo of fleeing footsteps, taunting and elusive.

A sharp report seemed to spring out of nowhere, a snapped tree limb under my foot, and I whirled, alerted, and saw a glint in moonlight moving with furtive caution between the trees. I crept towards it, my pace slow and deliberate, with each muscle taut with anticipation. As I reached out, a voice rang out in quiet: "Lucian!"

"Naomi!" a pained and desperate cry rang out, and I whirled, joy and concern flooding my face. Before I could speak a single word, a thudding sound rang out, a wood struck her head, and she collapsed. "Ahhh," I shouted, hurrying towards her, and a shuddering impact traveled through her frame, and for an instant, I worried she'd been badly injured.

Naomi’s eyes flicked and then locked onto me, full of agony and anger, and with a shaking fist, she clapped a trembling hand over her head. "Lucian," she wheezed, voice rough and determined, "Deluna… she’s at it again. I narrowly avoided her blow."

My anger flared a second time at seeing her bruised form. "I will make her pay, Naomi," I threatened, my voice low and determined. "I pledged that her betrayal would cost her." Before I could collect my wits, tension snapped and Deluna entered the glade.

Her eyes glinted in the cold moonlight with an almost unnatural hatred. In a voice thick with poison, she taunted, "Why did you kill Travis, Deluna? Why did you kill the man who loved you, who could have been worth your trust?" Her voice hung in tension-filled air, warped by our shared past. I could almost see her memories flashing, moments when she'd been fragile, perhaps even breakable. But tonight, such memories are submerged in tonight's brutality.

Naomi’s voice sliced through tension-filled air, cutting and accusatory. "Why did you kill Travis? Why did you destroy everything ever between me and him?" Her eyes flashed with poison, and you took a single, trembling step, her shaking hand bearing witness to loss. "You... Deluna, you loved him, didn't you? Or did you use him for your gain, for your sake alone?"

Deluna’s face contorted in a mix of remorse and rebellion. "I… I did not mean for it to go that far," she started uncertainly, her voice trembling in an attempt at apology for the unconscionable act. "I, too, cherished him, in my distorted state of mind. I was offering all of us a chance at redemption, though I may have granted but an alibi for my own purpose." Her voice trembled at a mental glimpse of Travis’s laughter and his closing, trusting regard, and she winced in anguish. "But, Travis ever assured me that he adored you, Naomi," she whispered, almost in a way that seemed taunting in its admission alone.

Naomi’s eyes filled with tears, and she moved towards Deluna, a sword in her hand. "How could you? You knew that he mattered to me. You knew that he was my rock, my one source of hope in all the ugliness." Her voice trembled with both anguish and churning fury. "You stole him from me, Deluna. I will not forgive you for that."

I could not speak, locked in indecision between interfering and wishing desperately for vengeance, when Naomi attacked, sword aloft. Metal clashing with sorcery, and I could not move, torn between wanting to stop them and burning with a desire for vengeance in my heart. In that one, perfect moment.

Lucian's voice thundered through the tumult, commanding restraint and unrelenting attack. "Naomi, recall subdue your fury! Don't let your grieving cloud your eyes. We must cease at once!" His voice thundered with commanding presence and shared loss.

Naomi's anguish, however, was a wildfire raging out of its burning path. "I trusted in you, Deluna," she snarled, shivering with raw emotion, and disarming Deluna of her wand and sword. In that mortal fraction of a second, her sword flashed perilously near Deluna's jaw. "For Travis," she wailed, streaming tears down her face.

The face of Deluna changed, torn between rebellion and a flicker of remorse. "Naomi… I did not mean for you to suffer in such a manner," she whispered in a mangled voice. "I… I'm sorry. I believed..." Her voice failed her, not knowing in what terms to speak of agony in actions.

"No!" Naomi shouted out, her voice sounding in the quiet glade. "Nothing your apologies can say will mean a jot to me any longer. You've taken everything from us. I insist that you pay for it." In a single moment, a burning flame in her eyes flashed at me with all that we'd lost and all that lay between us and fighting for it again.

A suffocating tension hung over the glade like clashing metal, a cry of agony, and a soft whisper of wind mingled together in a tapestry of loss and vengeance. I lived through each throb of my heart in a countdown to its inescapability, and with each throb, a sharp reminder of Travis's sacrifice and loss whose presence in its aftermath had left in its wake.

Then, with a quick, deliberate motion, Naomi lowered and let drop her sword, trembling shoulders shaking in unbridled shudders. She sniffled, wiping her tears with the heel of her hand. "Now," she struggled out, voice shaking between determination and heartache, "because of the love that we shared for all that we have lost, I grant one request." Her eyes, raw and bloodshot, locked onto the face of Deluna, commanding a reaction.

The voice of Deluna, no louder than a whisper, replied, "What request, Naomi? Tell me in simple terms."