HUNGRY DOGS ARE NEVER LOYAL.
The time was nigh.
It was almost difficult to fathom, that those years of bitter hatred and blame would come to a culmination, that they were coming to culmination right now. He thought of Zolin's arrogant fingers trailing down his spine, every curse bestowed upon him, every unwelcome touch... any dignity he'd had stripped away for what?
It didn't matter to him that the Solterran people below had not committed the crimes themselves — what had they done to stop them? What had they done to repair the damage their boy-King had done?
Nothing.
They had continued on with their lives, relieved that it hadn't been them in chains. He had never respected the regime, whether it was Maxence or Seraphina on the throne — they were the same. What had they done to repair the cracks created so long ago? Maxence was a military commander, not a King. Seraphina... well, Lorc had given up on any Sovereign but the Queen he had pledged himself to. The only one willing to do something.
The one that had set him free.
So he stood beside her now, as he always would — a svelte, razor-cut figure clothed in silver and gold. In a rare show of practicality he had braided his long, silky locks back into a single, raised ridge along his slim neck and he wore elegant gold makeup to turn his white brow aurelian. Two long, wicked knives were strapped to his sides, gleaming in the heat. He and Avdotya shared a glance, a moment in time that they had both longed for, been patient for.
The time was nigh.
Her voice rang out over their horde, the desert singing underneath their hooves as finally, finally — the Davke set upon the cages of the Solterran government.
Lorca kept ahead of the mob, a slick streak of stainless steel, too elegant, too fine amidst the mess of bodies and blood. When they hit there was nothing but the sound of screams — some excited and fierce, others of terror. He headed straight toward the library, ready to gather the history of their peoples execution — so that their suffering would be immortalised, remembered.
But it was burning.
Lorca snarled, his face limned with savage beauty as he took in the mess of flame and ash, the embers floating through the arid air.
No matter. They would rewrite their history, and include the parts that had been thoughtfully left out by the delicate scholars. Burning the library... his lip peeled — it must have been Seraphina, warrior as she was. Nobody else would have blasphemed against knowledge and history, only a warrior who gave little thought to the information that would be lost to the desert sands forever.
There were bodies around — Davke and otherwise, but Lorca paid them no mind but to step delicately over them, heading toward the thickest bloodshed. He would not stand idle while Solterrans murdered his brothers and sisters again.
He moved like water, fluid and sinuous as his knives slicked free. Faster, faster — and then he was in the throng, his knives catching the light as much as his argent body did, dancing and flowing even as crimson began to stain him. Flecks first, then more and more, dirt and dust coating him so that there was no sign of the elegant, intelligent man he had been — there was only a savage, grim beauty.
The beauty of war.
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