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Take just what I came for Revenge, the power hummed, soaking within the deluge of his potent veins, and he was enticed by its containments, by its hisses, by its growls, as they wandered from hill to sea, from brine to shore. He shouldn’t have been beckoned, tempted, and guided so easily, but the allure, the beguilement, of retribution was too much to ignore – his mind was a blade, his Machiavellian insights a cutlass, a dagger, a knife, yearning to slash across the false God’s throat. Perhaps his brutal, barbaric intentions were a weakness, one known far too well, one inhabited and exhibited by others before him, who’d tried to lacerate, who’d tried to destroy, and were ultimately defeated so easily, so swiftly, it was as if they hadn’t been there at all.   But he remembered. He always did.   The once-prince could see their faces, their figures, and their features again and again, in a clockwork nightmare, in a restless throng, in a savage haze. The ticking of the hands always ensured he’d be slow to get to them, to protect, to salvage, to condemn just as eagerly, just as fervently, just as ardently – Aithniel, with her brilliant wings he’d always admired, fire and fury, Ode, part of his bloodline, eternally uncertain of his role but pledging allegiance as the shadows descended and thwarted them all, and countless others maimed, taken, discarded.   They wouldn’t be – not again. It was another promise, an oath, a pledge, and a conviction that their sacrifices wouldn’t be in vain. They’d all been witnesses to catastrophe, to chaos, to bedlam, to a one-sided, underhanded, brutal battle. They’d watched as powerful being after powerful being had been cut, flayed, maimed, and discarded; pure, raw precision wasn’t going to be the end game, wasn’t going to be the deciding factor, wasn’t going to be the way they’d serve justice to their fallen friends, allies, and kin.   They’d have to be smarter. They’d have to learn.   So he stood along the threshold and listened – flicked his ears, widened his eyes, stared down at the other masses of those known, foreign, and everyone in between. Orsino strayed towards his feet, uncanny eyes slinking along the throng, searching for lost raven wings and serval spots, while the scion embodied naught more than an ongoing wrath, contempt, and outrage. There was no point in hiding his dissolution, his anger, his infernal, blazing fortitude – it echoed through his lungs, pulsed through his spirit, bounded through the mist, snaked through the lightning hisses elongating his withers. But, Erebos would allow himself to be educated, to be schooled again, to be made wise and sagacious in a world, in a land, in an empire he had no knowledge of – if only to ensure that the beast in front of them was eradicated. Not this hour, not this moment, not this instant, but one day, when they’d acquired enough shrewdness, enough cunning, enough insight into the lands, into the souls, they’d be able to execute their plans.   He didn’t venture to gain anyone else’s eye - he waited, a sizzling, smoldering art of patience layered between his bones.

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