The Moon's Fangs | 1
19 | eye to eye

The flavor of sweet, honeyed bread had me believing it to be the best bread I’d ever tasted. However, after taking the last bite did I realize Reks had only taken a couple of bites out of his own. He stared at me in bewilderment, like one would at someone who inhaled their meal instead of chewing.

“What?” I feigned innocence.

He handed me the pouch. “Here, help yourself.” He took a seat in the rolling chair.

“Really? Thank you.” I took it and grinned. “Did you nab this in the marketplace you wreaked havoc in?”

“I did.”

I propped myself up on the countertop, pulling out a pink fruit the size of a clementine.

He glanced curiously between the infamous interrogation chair and my choice of seat on his countertop. He opened his mouth to say something, then pressed his lips together. A good choice.

For whatever reason, Nox chose that moment to slither out of my body in its projection form and find its place around my shoulders.

I split the fruit, handing Reks the other half. “Okay, so… storytime.”

“Storytime?” He frowned, peeling a piece of the fruit off like an orange.

“Yeah. So, when I was sleepwalking this time, a woman appeared in my dream. But she was all ghostly. She never said anything, but I knew she wanted me to follow her. It was like I was being pulled by her. Weird, right?” I ate a piece of the tangy fruit. Definitely not as good as an orange, but it would have to do.

He stared thoughtfully at the floor between his boots. “What did she look like?”

“I don’t know.” my head and shoulders slumped against the cabinet behind me. “Her… aura felt similar to the cobra. Maybe it took on a different form. You know, like a shapeshifter.” I breathed out a doubtful laugh.

“That cobra is Sio.” Reks said. The muscles in his jaw tightened.

I watched his reaction to his own words. The way his body tensed up to just the name made my stomach twist in knots. “So, these images it placed in my head, they’re like a roadmap to its own location.” I thought about what Reks had said about Sio before. How it was supposed to be the key to everything. “You mentioned Sio before. Did you know it?"

Reks looked up at me, then sighed. “Sio is… was Ellison’s Guide.”

Ellison… suddenly, his tense reaction made more sense to a small degree. I didn’t completely understand what happened between him and this girl. It wasn’t a Band-Aid I wanted to rip off of him. Well, maybe I did want to a little.

I bit my lip, then changed the direction of the conversation. “What’s a Guide’s job anyway? What’s the purpose?”

One of his brows cocked as he finished his last bite. “Originally, Guides were used to control slaves several millennia ago. But since then, Guides have evolved into the most important piece of advanced tech in history. It’s our way into Celestia, our source of communication, unending knowledge and skills… and power granted to us by the Fates.

His expressive answer ended with a hint of friction with that word. Power. I felt his passion veering in both directions on the scope.

“People were once enslaved by Guides?”

“A long time ago, yes. I’ve read several books written from different narratives across the worlds, which all have their own opinions on where the Guides first originated. It’s a long story that has to do with the Fates and other religious beliefs. However, it was an orleizen who turned the tides that set the new advances in motion.”

My eyes grew as I absorbed the information. When he mentioned religion and how many species had their own story they believed, it made sense. Earth was the same way with religion. My lips quirked up to the side, waiting for Reks to continue instead of leaving me in suspense. “So? Who was it?”

A faint, enigmatic smile touched his lips for a fraction of a second. “Her name was Elsy Lucil. When Sio chose her as its first host, everything changed for orleizens, especially the Fate of the Lucils. With the wealth of power Sio brought, her family rose above all else and created the orleizen empire. The Lucils turned our nomadic race into the crux of unwavering power. It had been that way for as long as I knew. Sio chooses among the Lucil line who will be its next host and has never veered from that bloodline. The last successor was Ellison.” his voice lowered as his mind went somewhere different. “The day Ellison betrayed me and threw me into cryo was the same day the empire fell. All that’s left are the broken pieces she left behind.”

I blinked. Was he referring to himself as one of those broken pieces? She betrayed him. Threw him into cryo. Why would she do that?

A strange pang squeezed my heart. I reached down to lightly touch his shoulder.

“Reks?” I pulled my hand back, pressing it against my chest. I gave the Guide resting peacefully on my shoulder a small look. “Nox was supposed to be a gift for Ellison. Wasn’t it?”

He closed his eyes, then pinched the bridge of his nose.

Intuition told me someone can’t possess more than one Guide in their body. So why gift her Nox when she already had Sio, this supposedly all-powerful Guide?

When he didn’t answer, I continued, filling in the pieces myself. “You wanted to replace Sio with Nox. Why would you want that if Sio plays such an important part in keeping Orlaith in power and safe?”

A part of me wondered if that was the reason why Ellison betrayed him in the first place. Would all of Orlaith’s power disappear if Sio wasn’t involved? Is that what happened to the empire we’ve seen in the present?

“You’re full of questions.” he sighed incredulously. He didn’t even know half of it. “From my own experience from being her vitiate, is that Sio corrupts everything it touches. When I first met El, she was sympathetic and considerate about how her decisions affected others. An unwavering light, even when surrounded by darkness. She handled everything with grace, and everyone she met truly enjoyed her presence. …I guess you could say there’s a lack of evidence, but I know Sio influenced her wicked judgments down the line. Sio twisted her passions into its own personal, perverted ambitions. And the more she fed into it, the more control the superior Guide gained over her. I know it. I… wanted to offer her a way out with Nox.”

My gaze dropped. This was a man who likely wore a mask most of his life. For him to open up like this into an uncharted vulnerability for me, someone he barely knew… it rocked me. Reks didn’t look it per se, but I felt the ache of sentiments behind his words.

Something else he said itched the back of my mind. He said Ellison betrayed him, not Sio. He held the empress responsible for the betrayal despite knowing this Sio figure corrupted her.

He had once loved her.

He also resented her.

“You don’t have to answer this if it’s too personal… but why hold a grudge against her if you know Sio is to blame?”

He went rigid. His expression noticeably darkened. “Ellison had a choice. She chose that dark, corrupted power over her orlanity. Sio never forced her to do anything. She chose to pull that trigger. The Guide only offered the drug she became addicted to as leverage. And because of that weakness, she certainly owed a deadly price.” his voice turned harsh, and he stopped for a moment to recompose himself. “I will always hold her responsible for her actions. Even now.”

Even though I couldn’t completely understand his situation, it wrenched my heart. Reks must have had a front-row seat to witnessing this woman he either once loved or merely tolerated be manipulated by Sio, and by the sound of it, succeeded in doing just that before he could put a stop to it.

And even now he can’t end the thing responsible for corrupting the empress he served because it’s the only thing able to give him the answers he deserves. Sio may be the only one alive to give him that closure. A wretched catalyst wielding his betrayal and the enlightenment he seeks.

I bit my lip. Something about it didn’t settle right in my gut. Did the superior Guide never know how much Reks hated it? It couldn’t have known. There’s no way it would have wanted me to seek out and save Reks if it thought him to be a threat. Right?

“You’re crying.” Reks stood next to me, concern written on his face. The heat of his thumb pressed against my cheek as he swept away the sudden tears. “Did I upset you?”

I wiped at the tear going down my other cheek, which warmed from his abrupt forwardness. Nox’s tail curled around the top of my arm, offering a strange sense of comfort.

“No, I… you just… how can you be so strong after everything that has happened?”

His empress forced him into cryo without explanation, only to wake up to… everything and everyone he knew and loved to be gone. Wiped out. The option of choice had been stolen from him. Even worse – not even put on the table.

He was alone. Alone in his pain, his heartbreak, his time.

It hurt, and it didn’t even happen to me. It was the kind of pain that yearned to swallow every part of the afflicted.

Reks turned quiet for a moment. He leaned his hip against the counter next to me, reaching over to stroke a single finger down Nox’s little head. Shock tingled through me before recalling the Guide had stated those with the vitiate rank would be able to see my projections without needing permission.

Nox vibrated warmly against the back of my neck, as if pleased by Reks’ quiet acknowledgment.

“Do you believe in second chances, Amelia?”

My heart fluttered suddenly. He didn’t call me by Outlander this time. I looked up to see his dark eyes studying me, curious to learn my answer. A faint glint of blue reflected at the bottom of his irises from my necklace, like a lone star lighting up the night. “I… I don’t know if second chances apply to what you’ve told me.” my jaw clenched, holding back the tears I didn’t quite understand. “From what you’ve said, it sounds like you gave Ellison every chance she wanted.”

An ironic smile touched his lips as his head lifted heavenward. “Never much I could do about that. A vitiate must serve their elected Lucil without question. It's ingrained into the bond. No matter my feelings, I was her vitiate first and foremost.” he leveled with me, curving his finger under Nox’s head to rub its vibrating neck. “But I wasn’t asking for her sake.”

Oh.

Color stained my face, and I looked sheepishly down at the floor.

“O-oh, well to me, I guess I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t believe in them. But it's on a case-by-case basis. If I think someone is worth another chance, I’ll give it to them. If not, ties cut. That’s the beauty of choice, isn’t it?” I nudged his shoulder and gave him a wry smile. “You’re not worried you’re on your last chance with me, are you?”

For the first time since meeting Reks, he did something I was almost positive he couldn’t be capable of. Reks blushed.

His golden-toned cheeks tinted red, and he scowled in an adorably flustered way. “Course not. Where'd you get that idea?”

My mouth fell open, and he turned his head in the other direction. He combed a hand through his midnight hair, ruffling it to hide the redness tinting his ears.

Who knew the big, bad vitiate could get embarrassed.

I tried to suppress the giggle bubbling up in my throat. “Nowhere. Look, if it’s not what you meant, don’t worry about it.”

"Moving on." He scowled again, shaking his head. "Can you shed light on what Shion mentioned about you? About your eyes."

My face scrunched as the sudden urge to abort the conversation skittered through my veins. I wrung my hands together in my lap. "Ooo... yeah. I don't really have any light to shed on that one. The only thing I've gathered is it's connected to the dreams which induce the sleepwalking."

He nodded, seeming to tuck the information away until another time. “Aside from that, how did Nox react to the dream-walking? I see it’s taking a liking to this projection form. If I were to make a guess, I’d say it stems from wandering around here for so long. It may feel cooped up, or perhaps it craves to feel more present.”

Dream-walking. I liked that better than sleepwalking. It sounded more accurate.

“Well… I came out of it after bumping into something outside of the dream. Then Nox acted all moody like it had a headache. It doesn’t remember anything that happened when I was in that state.”

~I did have a headache and it was awful!~ Nox relented. ~A little bit of sympathy goes a long way, mind you.~

I gave the serpent a dubious look, but glanced back up when a lock of my hair found its way between Reks’ fingers. His lips curled into a wolfish smirk, like he was up to something. “Care to indulge me in a little experiment?”

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