evidence against him. The last and final answer to the most important question of all. The last chance at his innocence.
“Now, answer me this, when you arrived back at the castle, doing so at the very moment the one responsible disappeared, the very sight the Eye had chosen to show me… tell me, brother, if you weren't the one responsible, then where were you returning from?”
“What?” He seemed shocked by the question.
“Where, if not returning from the harpies’ lair, did you return from?” I asked again, holding my body tense as if fucking praying for some proof left.
“I…I…” he stuttered out, frowning as if searching himself for it.
“Where were you, brother… for surely if there was anything left of your innocence, then that is your chance to provide me with your alibi… now tell me, where were you?!”
“I…I can't answer that,” he said in a pained voice.
“Why not!?” I roared in fury, which was when he raised his head and shouted back at me,
“Because I don't know!” I took a step back as if trying to question where this response had come from. What did he mean he didn't know?
“Don't know or you just don't want to answer?!” I snapped.
“I don't know where I went, Lucius,” he said again, and I felt my anger burning at my lungs in order to keep me breathing.
“That's a little convenient, Dariush, considering our current dilemma!” I bit back.
“Well, it's all I have to tell you, and believe me or not, it is the truth, for I will not stand here and lie to you! I will not make my death easier on you when killing me will only prove that I am innocent.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“And how exactly is your death supposed to prove your innocence?!”
“Because if there is a threat out there, and I am dead, and that threat continues, then you will know you took the life of the wrong man.” He grinned this at me, emphasising each word like it was venom being lashed against my soul. I tore my face away, unable to continue looking at him. But then the next thing he asked,
“Now tell me, the girl, your Chosen One, she is not back yet, is she?”
“Excuse me?” I asked now feeling sickened by the tone he used when he asked me this.
“Funny, how the threat of my betrayal should be locked in here and yet she's still being kept from you… I do wonder, brother, who you will have to kill next, for perhaps then you will have finally taken the life of the real person behind all of this.” At this I growled,
“If you think by throwing in my face and reminding me of the danger that my Chosen One is in right now will alleviate my anger towards you and direct it elsewhere, then you are sorely mistaken, for your death is surely coming. For a new day approaches by the minute and pretty soon, Dariush… you will have run out of time.” I grinned at him before turning away and marching from the cell before I did something in that moment that I actually may regret.
Which was to give my brother a death he did not deserve, for having him tied up and in a cell to die by my hand was not our way in dealing with traitors.
No traitors…
…were made an example of.
20
Execution
‘My loyalty has and always will be first to the blood I share, not the blood that made me.’
Gods, but how these very words had plagued me! Over and over and over again I heard them being said in my mind like a sickness. As though I was lost in a world of madness and one that in this moment in time, I had never wanted to believe something to be true so much in all my years of taking an immortal breath!
I had been near desperate for him to give me the one thing that could have saved him from execution. If only he had been able to tell me where he had come from when creating that portal, then I might have been able to discover an alibi for him.
But he gave me nothing.
Fuck, but I was so enraged! I was so angry that he had nothing to give me but lies. Yet what was troubling me more was that he said he couldn't remember. Had this been just another excuse, for surely if my brother was so willing to lie to me then wouldn't this