[Library] XVI

[Awder von Warfel]

Isotta was gone.

Behind him, Awder could see the shadow of a sailor's ship. Tarp flickered in the suddenly heavy wind, sending echoes across the violent water churning below him. To accompany the stifling air, flames he could not see licked at his feet but they were soon downed by the serpentine waves spiralling forth from the sea.

The ledge he stood on was slender. Ahead, Awder's eyes were focused on dark nothingness and it wasn't long before a forceful pair of arms steered him forward.

Inaudible whispers tormented his ears, teasing him with knowledge to end the curse but straying far from coherence. Secrets flickered like birds, circling his head before he lifted a laden arm to snatch one.

There were words, but the ink was faded and dripping as if the parchment had been drenched in water.

In frustration, he let it go, only to immediately have his hand filled with a new kind of warmth. A deceiving warmth. Isotta.

Awder could not see her so much as he could sense her. Deaf to Isotta's coaxing voice, he could only feel the tug of her fingers as the siren's song heightened in volume. It was then Awder's glazed eyes turned to look at where he knew she was, though he could not see anything other than dark currents of water for miles.

His mouth opened, and he wondered if it was to make a protest of her partnership in his unexpected and quick demise, or to utter a scornful remark. No voice left him, however, because as if burned her hand pulled away.

Awder's voice rang with the clock tower as it signalled that the midnight hour was officially over.

“COWARD”

He cried in echo with his thoughts being displayed on the parchment in front of her. He did not want to decipher the expression on her face, or why he himself was so angry that she could not complete the siren's task. There was no triumph in his eyes as he looked at her, his normal calculating gaze replaced with a stern refusal to scrutinize.

The sea washed away at once, whirlpools sinking into the ground and the siren's song melting into the backdrop of Awder and Isotta's world. A world that felt more fictional than his illusion.

[Isotta von Warfel]

The chime of the clock reverberated through the tower at a deafening pitch, forcing Isotta to smoother her ears once more. She had her back to Awder, eyes squeezed shut, but the word remained imprinted on her vision, throbbing with the will that Awder poured into it. Coward.

Denial and avoidance cornered Isotta’s thoughts, forcing her to look into its face and read its silence; accusation twisted in the lines of its mouth. As she looked back at Awder she saw no judgement in his face, but she knew he felt it – so what stopped him from delivering it?

For a moment she was foolish enough to feel spared for once, but she soon recalled that terrible little word etched from his heart straight onto the parchment, now faint and waterlogged.

He had no need to look at her to convey his verdict. He was as heartless as ever.

“Take it back...” Isotta’s voice was hoarse and low, struggling to make itself heard. This surprised her, for bitter tasting anger dried her tongue.

Awder had, in his own subtle way, recovered from whatever had overcome him. The parchments continued to circle them in eerily slow, tumbling movements, the silver and artificial blue inks conflicting upon the separate shards, fighting to be heard.

Isotta glanced down at her hand and remember she held both in the same fist, an unpleasant climate of hot and cold.

“Was it being without this that did it?” She suddenly asked Awder, shoving his wand forward, but not to return it to him. “Were you afraid without her? Did you feel like a coward? But she's your vice!” She shrieked with ungovernable temper, Awder’s wand crushed so tightly in her palm that it seemed to cry out.

Listen not to the snake boy’s ache,

The siren had given up on her cryptic song. Her message was simple.

Cast his weapon into our homely lake!

There would be no hesitation this time. Without thought Isotta turned, hurtling the wand into the black night sky. There was a weak wisp of sound as it spun in an arc from the tower. Isotta did not need to see it’s decent to know it had travelled far toward the lake, though perhaps not into it.

A triumphant laugh burst from her chest involuntarily, but she did not try to suppress it. “So alone, Awder...” She sighed sadly, eyes absorbing the night’s mysterious glow. Her hand struck out at the air, capturing her share of the cursed paper in her ivory fingers. “More so than anyone of us.”

Without meeting his eyes, Isotta left, her footsteps echoing for a long time after her.

[Awder von Warfel]

The red hair circling his ears was wet. It dripped down to the nape of his neck before disappearing, keeping his clothes dry.

Awder marvelled at the power of his wand, a pale, spidery hand flickering through his damp roots. Even as Isotta clutched his wand with white knuckles, he remained stationary. There was only the finest hint of disapproval in his eyes, before he tore them away. A grim smile curled the edges of his lips as he looked first at the sky as if for answers, and then to the disturbed ground.

His half of the parchment was still unreadable, like droplets of water trapped under fog.

He had no doubt Isotta could see them clearly. As soon as her eyes took in the message, they sparkled with a sinister emotion that Awder had seen very few times. It was an instant of clarity, pure instinct and aggression. The look of intent.

“You could have won,” he said under his breath. A fury of words withdrew from her rising voice, and when he realised she was no longer focused on him but rather her own failure, his grim smile disappeared – he watched.

His wand was aerodynamic, drawn to the lake and murky depths where the siren originally belonged. Awder did not watch as it soared, but continued to study Isotta. She was as unnerved as him by her actions.

When she was gone, Awder smirked. His eyes finally reached the edge of the tower, and he walked to it deliberately. His wand was lost, and he inhaled the feeling of freedom.

“How could I be alone?” His voice was suddenly loud in the absence of his sister's heavy atmosphere. “When I have you, Isotta?”

Awder's fingers unravelled as he let the wind take his parchment from him. It had no use. Isotta's mind was her own again, though he had long since left his own handprint on it. Not staying to watch the faded words disappear, Awder too walked out of the tower.

And it was almost curious that he felt it had been their most successful birthday yet.