[Judged] I think my fate is losing its patience;

[Bexley]

BEXLEY BRIAR

but if i gave up on being pretty,
I wouldn’t know how to be alive

At the moment their bodies connect, Bexley cannot tell if the thing that rushes through her is satisfaction, relief, or pure adrenaline. She has always been, for better or for worse (more often worse) a creature of the flesh. Didn’t particularly matter what brought the rush—sex or fighting or the sight of gold—it all had been bodily desires, all stemmed from that thing inside her that had never learned to control itself or be controlled. At home commoners called it the curse of her family. They said sin is inherited. They said you carry your family’s sins with you, and you multiply them. Especially they said it is the nature of your family: what’s the use in moderation when guaranteed an endless life of luxury, guaranteed a gilded existence for thousands of years? Her grandmother had lived eons. No reason to believe she wouldn’t, either.

For a long time she had felt untouchable. Now she knows better. Now she is reminded of it every time she catches sight of her reflection, a girl scarred, starved, and under slept.

But still she is that same vessel of sin, like the priests said, no more holy than she had been although much more bold, and a bolt of pleasure hits her in the brief moment that Seraphina’s skin is against hers. (Bexley has often wondered why a pretty girl like Seraphina never took a lover. She’s… difficult, but more difficult people than her had managed to scrape up partners. Acton, for one. If things had been different, Bexley thinks, maybe they could have—)

A brief whoosh is knocked from Bexley’s lungs as they peel apart, and then with a snap of her tail she is cantering off, away from Seraphina’s reach. When she does turn back, a safe distance away, she wants to laugh again: the girl-queen is floating in mid-air like a god. Her hooves hover inches above the ground, her bone-white hair tugs at its braids like an animal trying to break free. Worse than either of these, the mismatched eyes watch from high above, and they are not kind. (What did she expect?) Instead, her gaze is as cold and analytical as a scientist keeping watch on a new experiment, and for a moment Bexley is afraid of the thought that anyone could ever hide their emotions so well.

No matter how she plants her foot on Cupid’s neck, no matter how she works and begs and pleads, skills like that never come to her.

They are at a standstill. One floating, one grounded. Both bruised, neither satisfied. Silver and gold on a steppe drenched with ritual blood. Bexley pants until her breath comes back to her in full, alternately squinting and batting her lashes against the glare of sunlight streaming down; it is then that the idea comes to her, and she smiles a secret smile so quick it could be a mirage.

A faint halo of light builds around her like a crown. Magic gnashes its teeth in the pit of her chest, strong and bitter; Seraphina is almost too far to tell, especially in the glare of the daylight, but Bexley’s eyes are turning to molten gold, unnervingly dark against her bone-white face.

Slowly she moves forward. And then—

A ball of blue fire tears from her chest and goes hurtling towards Seraphina. Beautiful and terrible, like a flower opening at ten times the normal speed: it’s almost reminiscent of the hole in Torstein’s chest, only Bexley’s closes instantly. The ball crackles and spits and sheds sparks as it smashes through the air like a comet. In reality it’s no hotter than a good bath, a shell of warmth turned blue for theatrics, but there’s no way to tell until it hits, and it seems set on a track to splash against Seraphina’s hindquarter.

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