How could he be? These two people, for all their faults, were his parents, and if not for them he would never have been born.
Even so, some things could not be forgiven.
His father hesitated as he saw Vane. It gave his mother the opening she needed to run Markus through with her sword.
It should have been a killing blow.
It wasn't.
His mother jerked the sword free, cursed, and stabbed Markus again.
Markus only
stood there blinking in disbelief as he remained immune from her attacks.
"Give it up, Mother," Vane said as he approached them.
She spun on him with another curse until her eyes focused on his face.
For once Vane didn't bother hiding his facial markings from either one of them.
He stared at her blankly as horror filled her expression and she realized the truth about her eldest son.
"I know Acheron probably couldn't care less if you two destroyed each other," he said slowly. "But I couldn't live with myself knowing that he had sentenced one of you to die even though you deserve it."
"What do you mean?" Markus asked.
"I'm altering things a bit. You two can fight and kill each other over and over again, but neither one of you will be able to die by the hand of the other."
"Fine, then," Markus snarled. "I'll kill myself."
"I won't allow that, either."
Bryani cursed him. "You can't stop us."
Vane laughed. "Yeah, Mom. I can. You should have listened to Fury when he tried
to tell you about my powers. There are only a small handful of people on this earth whose powers can negate mine. And neither of you are one of them."
Bryani's eyes narrowed. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because you two need to come to terms with each other. What Markus did to you was wrong, but then, I've always been told that two wrongs don't make a right.
So here I am trying to do the right thing for once. You two have to deal with each other and settle this hatred." He took a deep breath. "I'll be back in a few decades to see how it's coming."
"You can't leave us here. Not like this!" Bryani screeched.
"Why not, Mom? Dad beat me and Fang and hung us out to die, literally.
You beat Fury and left him for dead. Now the two of you can both pummel the one who really pissed you off, and we can live our lives out in peace away from the two of you. Have a nice war."
Vane flashed himself away from them, back to where Bride was busy packing up their things in Valerius's house.
"You know you don't have to do that?"
She jumped and gasped. "I think I need to put a bell on you!"
He laughed.