BURNED

merciless.

that’s the first rule.

no matter how hard they cry or how long they suffer, there is no room for surrender, no forgiveness for agony. in real war, there’s no mercy, so arianne and revna agree: they’ll never be lenient.

revna begins with small changes. chairs in the dining hall, colors of the walls, one unit at a time, but arianne’s gaze is sharper and she addresses every adjustment with infuriating glee, shattering the illusion revna manipulates. in an instant, it doesn’t matter how carefully she organized the paintings on the wall or the small indents on the floor. all that counts is that arianne caught them and that revna is weak.

in return, arianne inflicts her worst on revna. at a distance, you’d assume them to be enemies. no one should step into their sister’s room and force them to their knees, but it’s all good practice. anger only fuels their ambition, their hunger, and their hunger is like the maw of an insatiable beast: wide open, never full, eyes always blazing for more. so much more.

revna never breaks, however. it’s admirable how easily she’d rather die than submit. even as arianne paralyzes her limbs, brings her to the ground, revna resorts to crawling, uses the joints of her wrists as an anchor and — in a swift motion — yanks the drapes from the wall onto arianne’s head.

she pants as she leans against the wall, chuckling at arianne’s frustrated groans as she fists the sheets off of her. “you rely too much on sight. imagine it in your head. that way, even if a veil is placed over your eyes, you can still picture me —and hurt me.”

three choices meme:

vote for: romilda, arianne

vote against: jasper

three choices meme:

protect: isolde

attack: bastien

three choices meme:

hang out with: salome

party with: raum

three choices meme:

be stuck in an elevator with: romilda

be stuck in traffic with: damien

and they too leaned forward but there was nothing sweet about the gesture. no, if anything it was like a flame waiting to burn the insect to a crisp. “you’ll like it,” the words whispered with a snakelike hiss as the blackness of their eyes seemed to glimmer with one false promise after another.  

she’s done this before. another sour conversation where she doesn’t know what to say yet says things regardless. it’s a compulsion. a need to speak as if mammon is swallowing her every word like air, as if pieces of her in phrases and sentences will linger somewhere in their gut. it’s a way to reach them perhaps — or another surrender. revna can’t keep count of how many times she’s bowed her head or lost the wit of her tongue in their company. 

pluck heads. no. that’s not where her interests lay. pluck minds, however, that’s something that perks her brow and teases her lips with intrigue. past the blood and the gore, the skin-to-skin violence, there’s a deeper intimacy in untangling sanity from the minds of her victims. it’s a delicate pleasure, a profane desire she revels in with all her greed. one she imagines mammon understands, yet not as well as her. after all, no one can understand the joy of mental manipulation better than the great deceiver herself.

revna raises her chin, eyes on their demeanor. mammon carries themselves with an ease only natural to a killer. as if there is nothing darker in the world that would terrify them. she sees it as a challenge. there is always something darker, there is always something more.  

for a moment, her expression is still, then she blooms. a sarcastic smile pulls on her lips, matching madness with menace, curiosity aligning with their blackened stare. “pluck heads, huh? like yours?” that part comes easy. “i suppose i would enjoy that.” she steps away. to some, it might reflect discomfort or even fear, but between the two, the motion is blatantly signified as rejection. 

nearness with mammon is like sticking her head underwater. rationality is blurred and air is discarded. there’s only so much time revna can spend this close before she needs to breathe — before she needs to resign.

“do you not have something better to do? i don’t know why you think i need your company,” she mutters before she moves to join the rest, “like others, i also do not enjoy it.” lies. 

three choices meme:

fight: arianne

tickle: romilda

three choices meme:

unsex: mammon

divorce: arianne

three choices meme:

make love to: gabriel

have a quickie with: evangeline

it was true then, and it’s true now. 

yet, some things remain living even after they’ve been buried, and her past is a hand breaching the soil, clawing towards the ground like a flower reborn. it rises, survived, helmed with a new purpose. her past looks her straight in her blackened eyes and grins, mouthing: do you hunger, girl?

there’s a fire in her yawning against her lungs. she feels it, the simple answer: yes. 

“you can speak freely,” revna glances at romilda, then returns her focus to the man a short distance ahead. normally this task would finish with ease, a mere pull of her fingers or a draw of her brows; a simple thought to string up a fresh reality. now it requires more care. it requires caution. it requires exorcising her past that latches onto her in every moment she projects her strength. as if to remind her that her power is not without faults. 

now, it requires acknowledging the fear of some man turning around in the skin of her father, arms outstretched, beckoning. always fucking beckoning.

when there’s no response, revna relents, probing further, “you’re thinking. it’s distracting me, so please, say what is on your mind.” it hardly sounds like a request.

romilda feels stiff, lost in thought. none, revna knows, directed towards the heretic they follow a few steps behind. he’s a month’s work of careful deliberation and detailed schemes, of rigid planning and rehearsal. the last thing they need is an additional distraction, yet it seems romilda has found one.

A trace of a smile lifts at the corners of his lips, an echo of moonlight gleaming in his eyes as he speaks to the air. To her.  “Revna, are you practicing on me again?”  

in an instant, the frenzy of burning stars fade into blackness, their speckled glory dotting out into the sky like they were never there. whatever pull she has on the world is freed from her fingers when gabriel addresses her. all that remains is a haven the angel fills with his presence. a sanctuary. only her and him. 

sanctuary is a delicate word. it’s a pocket of space outside some torn-up reality. a tempting vulnerability just waiting to be pierced. it’s why she’s never lent her time to be wasted in finding one. there’s no point when it can never last. gabriel, however, is an exception. as of late, it seems too many people in her life hold the title of a special case. how exceptional is all of this when it seems everyone has got something on her? 

she steps into the light, red-handed yet still composed. the space between them is littered with secrets and in the line between their gazes where her eyes meet his, revna finds warmth. 

a smile threatens to unravel on her lips.

no…. this is pretty exceptional indeed. 

“i do not know what you are talking about,” she responds, feigning innocence as she approaches gabriel to join him on the balcony. this high and the city resembles the veins in her wrist; lines curving and cutting around buildings and trees where blood would be. this high, and revna thinks she can understand the pitiful way most angels look down on mortals. it all looks so small. their existence a mere blemish in the galaxy — a matchstick life. some spark that burns briefly, furiously and then dims just as swiftly. 

she glances at gabriel sideways, outlining the way his profile cuts against the night to her memory. she never thought she’d have so many things she wished to keep close, to brand into her mind forever, and yet here she is, with him, black eyes glimmering with something that looks a lot like hope.