"Then what are you going to do?"
— It is a complicated situation. Yet I have a simple plan: I'm going to torment Mokallai, then kill him. But not right away.
"Excuse my imprudence, but the longer this goes on —"
— The more corrupt and devastated Dyjian gets, I am aware. Hence I refuse to act hastily. Is it not within my power to restore what has been tarnished? Or else, if I so choose, to make it over? I play this game of Mokallai's because in the end, I dream of a greater Dyjian. Wherein my peoples will be restored, and my world expanded. There will be new things, and better works to be done. This is my world. Just as I built Alekzandrya with you, so it belongs to whomever I give it. And the one I wish to hand Dyjian to is not born yet.
"Who will you give it to? What will 'he' be like? Will I know him?"
— In due time, Yonaithes. For right now, I have laid the foundation, and a new Kingdom must mount it. And it will be called 'The Kingdom of Ecstasy'.
There were questions brewing in Yonathael's mind. So many things he wanted to know. He drew his breath and parted his lips to sing his thoughts to Dyiij, when one of the cell's walls shifted and slid open; the cell door opened.
What sobering moments were intended to proceed after the opening of his cell quickly turned frivolous, as his violet-burgundy eyes settled on their spitting image. Yonathael, for a hasty second, thought someone was foolish enough to place a mirogram in front of him, that this likeness of his before him was there to mock him. But when he saw that ever-mirthful, lighthearted and care-free smirk, Yonathael, near to tears, threw his arms around Vandlorael.
His emotions were a deluge to his spirit. Such complete joy, and crippling agony, that whirled around within him in great torrents began pouring down his cheeks with his tears, and his regret. He began to slide down to the floor. Vandlorael gripped Yonathael, and slid down with him. That smirk never changed.
"You…?"
"I came as soon as I heard."
"They…?"
Vandlorael shook his head. "Iiji told me you had returned. This before I received Mylisto's summons," he said, in the language only they understood.
Another reason Yonathael was inclined to weep: Mylisto.
"Come on, get up," Vandlorael said, melodically, cheerfully.
Yonathael quaked, holding onto his brother's arm, staying a half-pace behind and to his right. The attendant at the desk, once they had cleared the cell block and had come to the front lobby, past the visitation center, couldn't tell who she had let in and who was to be checked out.
"S-sir?" she stammered.
"I am Vandlorael," he said, pointing at himself. "He's Yonathael. I would like to have him with me until his court date, if that is permissible."
"S-sure." She nodded, and flicked up some forms. "If he goes off and commits a murder while he's on your name —"
"Yes, yes, I will forfeit my life in addition to his, I know. Where do I sign?"
She forwarded him a stylus. "The bold line."
"Ah, seih." He signed his name: Vandlorael Desthantes Alekzandyr. "Come, Yonai, there's much you must see."
Yonathael then signed his.
Stepping into the arid air, not once in nearly thirty years had the clockwork of Alekzandrya changed. Yonathael knew this, because the industrial rhythm of the city was plain to his Xeirelle eyes. His brother was less concerned with the mechanics of its operations, how the populace fulfilled their duties, and when the shifts changed. But the logic of it all had to bear a particular chime to Yonathael, or else he'd go mad, the same way an architect does when he discovers that his building is incurably crooked.
As far as Vandlorael was concerned, the structure was too bland. It was all shades of gray and sepia and faint hints of blue. It should have been hot pink and piss yellow, according to him. But it was a fortress-turned-city, and he enjoyed at least having built it alongside Yonathael so many centuries ago.
Yonathael halted at the mouth of Nexus. Vandlorael got six paces ahead of him and turned. He studied his brother's face. "Welcome home?" Vandlorael asked.
Yonathael woefully sighed. "I wish it so. Did you ever find 'Nakea?" His ears shifted upwards along with his brow as he watched Vandlorael lift his finger, his face full of good hope.
But not what Yonathael had expected: "No," he sang, and cocked his head, "I do believe I found something close to her, though. He bears a striking resemblance to her — and us, I might add. The other one sort-of does, too."
"Twins?"
"Not quite. Quas — Qyisaadt, you know, the weird bond."
"So then."
Vandlorael shrugged. "Maybe you should ask her."
"What difference would it make?"
Vandlorael held his fist to his chest. "A lot," he said. "I hate seeing you so dejected —"
"Then you should've left me to rot!" Yonathael snapped. Mere seconds later, his eyes watered. "If only I did more —"
"And what more could you have done, Yonai? You were a possessed Xei — you are a possessed Xei. But while you have these fleeting moments of being yourself, enjoy it, if not bear it, at least for this while, please."
Yonathael strode on.
"I do suggest you meet the other one; he is so much like you," Vandlorael said, as the entrance doors parted and they passed through. "In fact, he is you — they both are, yet in different ways. Brother, you must see them!"
Yonathael stalked through the broad and high corridors of Nexus with a spectre-like regal stride. His steps were soft to the floor, near silent, and meticulous, graceful, like when the crane goes and does not disturb the water. There was an immediate recognition of his person. Even labeled as The Murderer of The Arch Ganton, all the staff of Nexus stepped aside, thudded their fists to their chest between their hearts, and bowed their heads, pinning their gaze to the floor until Yonathael passed by.
As, really, he was still the rightful Lord of what is his household.
The servitors outside the conference room were hushed with the swish of Yonathael's hand. He stood, watching, tentatively, the white-haired man dressed in regalia deserving of a lofty station; a Prince.
It was not Rollond's clothing that gave him the distinction, but the fine black lines of his eyelids, the ones that drew out the abysmal dimension of his blue irises; ever-deepening pools, such as when a man ponders his life, tossed about on the boat and, he comes to learn, how dark and far down the ocean floor is. What perils lay underneath that tumultuous blue?
Mylisto's Mannkarian blood dominated his physical appearance. He had that thick, stocky frame from muscles he didn't work to own. But, the white of his hair and the palette of his skin was from Yonathael, as a Xei's blood has a natural tendency to 'bleach' the occasional offspring every other generation or so.
Rollond sighed heavily and rimmed his crown with his thumb and index finger, wishing he could skip these boring events in his life.
"You were right," Yonathael said.
"When was I wrong?" Vandlorael asked.
"On this: I have never had sex with a tree —"
"You dare tell me that's a woman!? Yonai! She's dark as abystheim wood and has hair like autumnpyre — and, I am thoroughly of the opinion that if she were to splay her fingers and stick out her arms, she'd look even more convincingly like an abystheim tree in autumnpyre!"
"She has breasts!"
"Knotty fobbles on the trunk of a tree," Vandlorael snickered.
Yonathael grunted.
As the meeting was coming to a close, Rollond didn't hear a word anyone said. For that matter, he had forgotten what they gathered for. He looked blankly at Marqisian, sitting next to Lellayla who cradled a curious and quiet Laylen, and Marqisian stared back.
"With your permission, Sir, we'll start relieving the distress in Kneitun right away."
"Do we actually know what's wrong there?" Rollond asked, groggily.
"Well Lellayla did say —"
"That a dead woman, a — DEAD — woman was doing something strange to th
e population. Since when do dead women do anything suspicious other than rot?"
"Sir, I —"
"No. Just what is this? A circus meeting?" He got up and walked out, and Mylisto soon followed him.
"Stop!" Mylisto thundered.
Rollond took a deep breath, and forced himself to relax, to keep his fingers from curling. He faced his mother. "My grace?"
"Don't you 'My grace' me, you despicable, rotten child! Have I not taught you anything!? Or do you delight in constantly embarrassing me!?"
"Woman, look, I —" A keen twinge of pain bolted from his cheek up into his brain and simultaneously down his neck into the rest of him. She backhanded him near senseless, and Rollond glared into his mother's heated gaze.
"Don't you ever again take that tone with me," she hissed.
He huffed, but stood silent, instead of making his thoughts known to her face. How intense the fire was within him, how his anger pleaded to be set loose, to burn her forever and ever; to torment his over pompous mother. He turned his back to her, and started down the hall.
Mylisto was wise enough not to say anything. It was clear to them both then: Rollond didn't want to be Neisam, and she couldn't make him; especially not like this. She stated back for the conference room, only to come aware of Yonathael's analytical gaze. "Don't you be critical of me," she said.
"Critical? I was merely making note that you're doing it wrong —"
"'Doing it wrong'?" Mylisto stepped up to Yonathael, drawing so near to him that she could smell the minty flavor of his breath. "At least I was here," she said.
Yonathael narrowed his eyes and arched his brows. He put his palm over her face and pushed her back. "To know what you think of me." He stepped back, balled his fist and held it over the center of his chest. "I abandoned you, did I? It never occurred to you that perhaps that 'she-beast' you so despised served a greater role than you could've ever comprehended."
"Why don't you snuggle up to her rotted corpse." Mylisto shoved pasted Yonathael, only to stop ten paces past him, and realize what she had said.
"Tytnakea tried to love you," he said. "She even wanted to help rear your child. But you were too human for both of us. And now, the Prince abhors you, as he slips through your fingers." He turned, and saw her standing there with the faintest quiver in her frame.
His words were true. The Kyusoakin Tyiha, Tytnakea, turned up pregnant, and all Mylisto did was brood, scheme, plot, plan. She wanted 'Nakea dead, because she, Mylisto, was unable to quell her jealousy. Even now, despite how her son, Rollond, hated her, she trembled out of intense rancor. Mylisto embraced no remorse, in all of twenty-eight years, and Yonathael knew this.
"So you expect to waltz into his life and become his father?" Mylisto asked.
"No," Yonathael said. "I expect him to talk, and at times, listen. He has that obstinate part of you, I can see it in his eyes — he doesn't want a father. But still, he needs to know that he is the son of a Neisam-King."
But where was Rollond?
The Artium was almost as secret a place as the missing basement of Nexus. It was difficult to find, from the front entrance, and blended in well, especially since it seemed little more than a jumble of passageways and rooms in which pieces of art were displayed. Rollond's official place of dwelling was in the security of the northwestern annex. But there were secret rooms in the Artium; unpurposed and useless rooms. And in these he made his own abode.
No one but the Prince ever set foot there, and with all the statues and paintings of the Artium, no one bothered to discover its entrance.
He took the ring off of a peachy-skinned ginger woman, who leaned against an upward gush of water, made of stained glass. On the articulate fingers of her outstretched hand were five rings, and Rollond took the one on her thumb, and slipped it onto his middle finger. He went to the wall-high painting across from her, that she tentatively pointed at with a limped first finger, and with the press of his left hand, that featured her ring, the painting shifted as if made of liquid, and he passed on through.
He stopped only to check it with his right hand. The painting was solid and cold, like a steel slab. He stopped in his recreation room, by a small, round stand that featured something like an obsidian hand, and he slipped the ring onto one of its fingers. There were three rings on it.
Rollond ducked into the wash room. He thought it strange that the floor was covered in suds. Until a high-pitched squeal cut through the air, and So'yi slipped up the side of the in-floor tub, landed belly-first on the floor, and slid across the recreation room into the kitchen.
And Rollond was glad he didn't have carpet. He quickly threw on some jeans and a shirt, and when he stepped out, So'yi sat on her haunches, watching him as he passed through the recreation room and on into the vastness of the vivarium. It seemed a strange place, that somehow Nexus wasn't aware of it. Granted, Nexus did have gardens, but none of them were designed or stocked like this one. Almost as if it was made to accommodate someone, or something.
That made sense, as Ashenzsi dangled from a sole foot that gripped the drooping mahogany-orange branches of an old succle-boz tree, lapping at one of the bright sky-blue and pastel pink fruits that were as big as a melon. Maybe this place was intended to keep a Kyusoa?
Rollond didn't sit on that thought. His mind was occupied with discouraging news, and he grimaced at the idea of a promise he couldn't keep. He sauntered over the bridge, gradually, taking time with each pace. A rustle in one of the bushes snatched his attention, and he saw two identical men standing in the distance. One pointed at Ashenzsi, and uttered some indistinguishable slur of sounds to the other, who nodded.
"Excuse me," Rollond said. He stopped mid-bridge and faced them. "This is a restricted area; how did you get here?"
Vandlorael arched his brows. He parted his lips to speak, but Yonathael stepped forward and cut him off: "There is more than one way to get here," Yonathael said.
Rollond grunted. "There is only one that I know of —"
"That you know of, yes. But is an architect not intimate with his work?" A faint grin highlighted Yonathael's features, as Rollond paused.
"You know this place?"
"I do." Yonathael nodded. "This and many others. In fact, I know nearly all the secrets of Nexus, the good, the bad, and the past."
Rollond quirked his brow. "The past?"
"M'hm."
"Perhaps you can help me, then?" Rollond asked. He didn't move, as Vandlorael and Yonathael strode towards the bridge. "My friend there," he motioned towards Ashenzsi, who had dropped into the deep end of the lake and was tentatively pursuing fish. "He's interested in knowing about his heritage. He showed me a symbol, the sole lead that brought him to this place. I promised him I would find what connection he has with Nexus, but so far…"
"It is a futile search, I know." Yonathael watched Ashenzsi, who seemed bent on keeping his distance from the three of them. "Perhaps it would be to your benefit to know that your father, and his, is the same."
"That would explain the symbol." Rollond rubbed his chin. "But he and I are — far from alike."
"No, no, dearest Prince. What courses through your veins also flows though him. I suspect he was never looking for answers to begin with, but, rather, an insignia — a biological familiarity, what it is that makes any Kyusoa feel at home, at ease. You see, it is not what's on the outside that matters, it is what resides deep within. And to that, you must know, that you are the sons of a Neisam-lord." He could sense Rollond's rejection of what he was saying. Yonathael's statements sprung more questions, and this was present on the Prince's visage as well.
"Why is that a thing? Why does everyone insist on making me know that I —"
"Because it means, Prince, that one day you will awaken, and see that the world of your dreams isn't the same as the one you rise to. And it will be your compelling, mortal urge to fix that." This was something the Prince hadn't considered before, Yonathael saw that.
"And for my friend?"
&
nbsp; "It means — It… means…" Yonathael folded his arms over his stomach. He grunted, and gradually bowed over. Vandlorael slid his arm under Yonathael's and held him up. A cold twinge burst into his limbs, and his stomach agitated like a valley before a volcanic eruption. He became hot, and his vision blackened. As it did, he lifted his crumpled hands and caught a glimpse of his skin; how the rich olive color melted away to that grisly white — as if he were a painting and someone doused him with turpentine. "I — I must go," Yonathael panted.
Rollond stepped towards him. "You alright? What's happening? Maybe I can help you —"
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