The Tenebrae was so skilled at crafting lies, feeding them, and forcing one to believe them. All it had taken was a few droplets of suspicion, and Caliban had believed it. Already weak, already feeling unworthy of her love, and it was easy to make him believe the girl was secretly seeing another.
"Don’t be weak. You’re better than them; we’re better than them. Better than them all," the Tenebrae said.
I’m… better than them?his vessel whispered.
"I’m better than them," he said.
Louder.
"I’m better than them."
Louder.Mean it.
He threw his fists against the windows, and cracks spiderwebbed out. "I’m better than them!" he roared, and the windows shook, shadows curling around his arms like a lover’s caress.
The Tenebrae heaved a breath.
Good.
Very good.
He was good. Right?
"Am I good?" he whispered the question against the glass, his breath fogging along the cracks.
Did that belong to the Tenebrae, or Caliban? Somehow, the Tenebrae thought it to be both. Confined in this cage of skin and bone, his thoughts were less of a god and more of a male.
One thought pressed above them all, definitely not belonging to his vessel, for the fury that coated it like black, dripping shadows belonged to him, alone:
I think they’ve had long enough to live in peace.
The Tenebrae opened his eyes and stared out at Luna, thinking of nearly two decades ago when he had first come to this kingdom. When he stood over a cradle in the dark, watching the sleeping Princess. Her eyes were of vibrant blue, shining up at him as he had so gently picked her up and held her to his chest, her tiny hands curling in locks of his hair as she cooed. He could have killed her at that moment. But he didn’t.
Instead, he had placed her back down upon her swaths of blankets and kissed his fingertips, pressing them to her brow.
Then, he had turned away from her and stalked through the halls of the moonlit castle with one thing in mind: death.
Her mother had gone easily, curled in bed, barely able to scream as his dagger slashed across her throat, white hair and white wings drenched in crimson.
Her father had been harder to kill…
The King of Luna was awake in his study. In one hand, a glass of liquor, in the other, a scroll.
The Tenebrae snuck up behind him, silent as a wraith, and held the dagger red with his wife’s blood against his neck. But he didn’t want to end him there—not without looking into his eyes.
Above all, the Tenebrae wanted to be remembered. Worshipped as a god should, never content to work behind the veil as the Lux did.
So, he ordered the male to stand and face his killer.
The King fought, and he fought hard. But when the Tenebrae spoke of his wife’s demise, the light left the fae male’s eyes slowly; his struggling ceased, except for one vivid moment of clarity that proved his grief:
"My daughter. Does she live?" the King asked, gripping the blade of the blood-slicked dagger as the Tenebrae held it to his throat.
He lied. "No," the Tenebrae hissed into the male’s ear, "I killed her before I slit her mother’s throat." Drops of blood clung to his black hair and coated his palms. Proof.
And the King of Luna fought no more. His eyes fell closed as he bared his neck. "Then, I have nothing to live for."
The Tenebrae scoffed, desiring the urge to share what he was planning—to steal his daughter away and hide her in another kingdom until she came of age, until she could be used as a weapon.
