[m] there is a two-fold silence

Ezekiel de le Poer · 06-05-2011, 11:12 PM

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Many men had spoken on the depths of hell; some spoke of fire, others ice. Dante described hell by its rings, each more terrible than the last. Ezekiel had read these stories but not learned the truth of hell until he had taken the crown from his father.

Hell was repetition.

Day in and day out he patrolled and scoured the borders endlessly. His sister had become a stranger since the death of the boy. Halo and Sage offered him no comfort. He was trapped by his father’s bond and unwilling to shame him further. Not when he recognized the fate that would befall the clan—his clan—should he fail. A stubbornness to prove those doubts and those whispering voices of mutiny fueled him further. Even now he hesitated to speak to his father about these matters, unwilling to show weakness to his sire. Talitha could not be shown the slightest fault or she would crumble and destroy him with her. His family would turn on him if he hesitated even once.

As night fell, he dismissed the horse. Ezekiel was both capable and preferred to travel on foot at night. He had spent many a night alone in the darkness, and he welcomed it. The forest was savage and deep and it was predictable. In the wild there was no politics, no matters of heart and head. There was only tooth and claw. In his heart, Ezekiel would always be a savage—even though Cwmfen had tried to prevent this, the boy had succumbed to the nature of his soul.

The call rose from nearby, and its voice startled the Aquila. Ezekiel’s ears rose to a great red crown atop a field of gold, his nostrils flared like a horses’ and sucked in the cold night air, but oh his eyes were made of no mortal thing. Fire, as beautiful and deadly as the dawn, filled those eagle eyes with a fury from the depths of the earth. A wolf, not only calling on his sister, but demanding her. Each step he took, well placed and silent, was a step away from reason.

Fury blinded him to the truth even as he spotted the massive animal on his borders. The sunset fell at his back, hiding him in a veil of gold and deep shadows. The wind carried the behemoth’s scent towards the hot-blooded savage. He recognized it, but only partially—he recognized that this was the scent of the man with whom Talitha had fled to. A second and more terrible rage overcame him; his sister, his fanatical, hate-mongering sister, who preached so highly, had gone and run with a wolf.

His face twisted, but no sound escaped him. Muscle memory drew the arrow, notched it. He pulled back with a stillness made possible only by training; had he been but weaker, he might have attacked the man head on. That cold, calculating part of his soldier’s mind warned him against such a thing. With no warning, with no honorable salute nor cry, the barbarian posing as a king let the red-shafted arrow fly.

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