Brother, my sentinel, the tempest is upon us
We are now each other's responsibility
We are now each other's responsibility
Ard was no stranger to fear. Most of his life spent prior to the stagnant peace of Novus had been moments of terror followed by hours of many more. Fear and pain were constant, but nothing, no amount of cruelty, torture, or terror could hold a candle to the all encompassing horror that he was experiencing.
Erd had not come home. Erd always came home.
Hidden away in their chamber, Ard had waited all night for his brother to return from his errands. He hadn’t slept, waiting desperately for the familiar ’click’ of their chamber door opening and seeing his brother step inside, that goofy, dumb grin on his lips. Except… He hadn’t. The door hadn’t clicked open, his brother hadn’t walked through, and Ard hadn’t seen that stupid, dumb grin in almost ten hours.
Panic set in and replaced his blood with ice. The young warlock wasted no time. He had already wasted enough. Frantically he tore from their room and searched the court but found nothing, not a single trace of his missing twin. Heart thumping wildly in his chest, driven by desperation and rage unlike anything he had ever experienced before, Ard stormed the keep. He was an indomitable army, twelve hands of unbridled rage and resentment, of bitterness and spite, and not even Marisol, Theodosia, and Israfel combined could hope to stop him.
Nothing could stop him, not until he found his brother.
“Halcyon!” The demanding scream tore through his unused throat, the bellow grating and cracking as though tumbled through river stone, echoing back at him in the empty air of the frozen winter morning, “Theodosia! Marisol!” Were they even here? Ard felt like he hadn’t seen them in days, weeks, months, maybe. What had happened to the proud and infallible Halcyon Unit of Terrastella? Would anyone hear his cries?
”Halcyon!”
Mouth parted, Ard could taste blood on his tongue as his lungs heaved in gasping breaths. His throat was not used to screaming, not anymore. It was not used to talking. What a sight he truly made, the mute messenger of the Halcyon, storming through the snow and the silent, peaceful morning to rain hell down upon his enemies, wings and feathers fanned and prepared to take flight at any second, turquoise eyes wide and rolling and shining with hysteria. Nothing would stop him from finding Erd.
Ard would kill anything that tried.
Open for anyone! Erd has gone missing, and Ard is desperate to find him.
