Shadows of Blood

The room dropped into silence again, silence so heavy that it could stifle breath, so thick with ghosts of memory clinging to every shadow.

Anna, who had remained silent beside her husband, moved forward at last. Her long silver locks slid across her shoulder like a silken curtain, the strands caressing the even curve of her violet horns. Her own eyes, dark violet and hurting with sympathy, relaxed as she reached out and touched Ben's arm with sensitive fingers. Her voice was low, with comfort and warning both. "Stop, Ben," she said softly. "Don't drown yourself in grief. That time is past. What counts now is that we are here. Alive. Together."

Victor's eyes lingered on them, something tentative pulsing in his chest—a feeling he'd almost forgotten how to maintain. Family. On the planet, in his previous existence, he'd been nothing but an orphan, a discarded boy who didn't belong. But here, now, with facts revealed in blood and bereavement, he could sense it—the burden of their love. It wasn't a façade. It wasn't an act. It was survival, desperate and wild.

His voice was steel-thin when he spoke, and his words sliced through the air like a knife. "…I never knew. You kept this from me."

Ben bent his head, his dark hair falling forward, obscuring his face. His voice was somber, weighed down with regret. "Yes. I enforced silence. Guards, servants, ministers—none of them were allowed to talk of it before you or your sister. You were children, my beloved jewels. I would not sully your hearts with war's and blood's stains."

Victor's eyebrows furrowed, mind racing like whirlwind clouds. Something within him shifted, pieces falling into place in a grotesque epiphany. His back stiffened, and his purple eyes narrowed with icy light.

If I was never permitted outside the palace… if there were guards posted at every entrance, if each step I made was under scrutiny… how could I ever believe what I did know? How would I be able to distinguish between my own memories and those inherited from the ghosts of the past? He gripped his fists, attempting to sort through the fog of inherited recollections, each piece of memory piercing him with an unnerving cocktail of truth and uncertainty. Every idea, every transient picture, he replayed repeatedly in his head, balancing, questioning, interrogating. And then, a flash of ice in his chest, came the question—abrupt, inexorable.

He rotated slowly, gaze meeting the figures in front of him. The words tumbled out, keen and relentless, shattering the weighty quiet of the room. "Father. Mother. Then explain me this—where is my bodyguard? The one who is vowed to stand at my side? I have not sighted him. Not once at twilight."

The room appeared to shrink around the sound of his voice, the cut of the tone arcing through the air like a knife, leaving behind an unseen path of tension. Silence met him initially, heavy and oppressive, before the soft whisper of movement gave evidence of a reply.

Ben blinked, and for the first time, doubt crossed the king's face. The self-assurance, the arrogant pride, wavered that fraction of an inch to show uncertainty. His black eyes flicked to the side, a glimmer of doubt flashing, before he looked back at Anna.

She did not blink. Not a twitch. Her expression was calm, chilling so, as if her serenity were a tool of war. Then, in a soft, considered sharpness that made the room tremble, her lips opened. Her words sliced deeper than any blade. "I killed him."

The room froze.

Victor's body stiffened; each muscle tightened like a taut bow. His heart pounded furiously against his ribs, each stroke resounding in his ears, each stroke a drum of astonishment. Violet eyes widened, raw shock splitting across his face, making him almost unrecognizable in his anger and horror. "…What?"

Outside, the storm ripped the heavens asunder, jagged lightning flashing in savage bursts across the sky, thunder shaking the walls of stone as if the world itself was protesting what she had said. Within, the silence crackled taut, brittle, humming with fear and unspoken threat.

Ben's head jerked away from hers, his incredulity pouring into his voice, quivering with rage and confusion. "Anna—!" She didn't waver. Her hand edged out of his arm like something cold extricating itself, and her violet eyes settled on Victor's with a hard, pitiless intent.

"I killed him," she repeated, the words dulcet now but lither, laced with a savagery that was not erotic at all and was entirely purposeful. Victor's breath caught and the ground around his feet grew dark, tiny shadows creeping as if to respond to summons. His raven black hair spilled over his shoulder; his face was inscrutable, radiating heat under its page. "…Why?" he asked, the single word small and raw.

Anna's lips compressed into something that was not a smile—more like the peace after a long storm, an acceptance that had cost her. "Because he betrayed you," she replied without relinquishing her gaze. Ben's color ebbed; his features crumpled into a private thunderstorm of Suprise and confusion.

Victor's jaw ground, muscles intervening like sentries. His voice had descended so far it seemed to be down under the floor. "How do you know?" The question cut through the air like a knife.

Her gaze never wavered. "He returned without you yesterday evening. When I inquired about your whereabouts, he was dishonest. I read his deceptions like reading letters—plain and coarse. He opted for betrayal at the expense of you." She raised her chin very slightly. "I would not let his hand touch you. So I killed him."

A heavy silence fell, dense as fog, so that the rain outside sounded like it beat against the windows with an angry beat. Victor's lips opened, closed; the words that followed were wrenched out. "Mother… if he betrayed me, his blood was mine to shed. Not yours. You—" His voice snagged on the rest, voices of rage, confusion, and a baby love that still reeked of new skin jamming the syllables. Anna advanced until the distance between them contained only the narrow electrical space of two bodies that had been important to one another for so long. Her voice dropped into a lower register, shaking but firm. "No, Victor. You were too young. Too trusting to notice knives concealed behind smiles. Too innocent to detect poison in hands that were sworn to keep you safe.". I killed him because I would not allow his sword to touch you. I defiled my hands for that—because existing without you was worth more than my own tranquility.

Even if you come to despise me for it, I would do it again.

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