The Moon's Fangs | 1
29 | celestial mirror

Something felt different when sleep took me this time. An odd pulling sensation ushered me through a sightless path.

At first, I sensed strands of determination, like a leader guiding one through a blinding white tunnel without a map. Then a powerful blockade of pure force slowed our progress.

The strands twisted into desperation. It took a hold of me and pulled me forward—sneaking around turned into a sprint for the other side we couldn’t see. It was a chase of mind and soul, leaving the corporeal body behind.

The white oblivion hummed all around me before the desperation which had clung onto me so adamantly now loosened its hold, dropping me off the edge of the mind’s cliff. The intense humming eased as the chase between forces veered away, leaving me to endure the drop on my own.

As I fell, awareness and body came back to me, or seemingly reformed by my own psyche. The white oblivion manifested itself into a dream, only initiating its construct once my feet landed softly and upright on the ground.

Pale marble floors started to spread out from where I stood.

I looked down at myself, both in awe and incertitude. This was the first conscious dream where I wasn’t naked. Win! The end of Reks’ uniform shirt skimmed the bottom hem of my leather shorts. The crescent moon insignia gleamed across my chest. I tried to focus on my feet to conjure up a pair of shoes, but no luck.

What’s more, the fabricating mindscape didn’t belong to me. Yet, I didn’t think it belonged to Sio either. Not this time. Sio’s constructs followed a pattern of making its target—me—feel vulnerable and trapped.

This felt… alive.

Cream-colored walls with intricate swirls of gold assembled around a dining hall. Several supporting pillars had carvings of cobras coiling up their bases, hoods fanned out wide with their mouths open to expose long fangs. Peachy water cascaded from their mouths into marble basins. Their red-gemmed eyes sent a chill down my spine.

Faces I did not recognize filed into the hall through one of the far alcoves. Gazes drifted over me as if I were invisible.

“Anyone else as shocked as I am? I mean… just look at this place.” A guy with a thick tousle of chestnut curls whistled as he and several others took a seat at a large, circular table in the center of the hall. The table was set and decorated in a darker-colored aesthetic: black table infused with pale amber resin and chairs with thin outlines of the same infusion.

Eight of them filled all the seats except for the one at the head of the table. The empty chair’s back stood taller than the others, coming to a sharp point at the apex.

“Don’t start tearing up on us now, Sorren. We’ve only been vitiates for less than half a day.”

“Heh. Let’s wait and find out what the return policy is on us before losing our shit.”

A round of laughter went around the table, but they did seem a little on the fidgety side, as if they truly worried they could be demoted so quickly.

So these eight people were all new vitiates, I gathered. What did they have to do to become elite assassins? A lot of killing was probably involved, or something equally sinister. But not all of them really had that… assassany look to them - especially the boy with curly hair. He just looked too nice! There was a pureness to his smile, to his eyes.

Sorren’s ring. Reks mentioned the gate ring I had taken originally belonged to Sorren. I looked at his fingers, but he wore nothing of the sort. None of them did.

“You’re all sweating harder than you did for the trials.” the only woman sitting among them chided. She leaned back and crossed her arms with a plucky smirk, then gave the man beside her an enigmatic wink. “Save for Reks. Takes much more to getter under his skin.”

My heart suddenly fluttered when I saw him. He turned away from Sorren with a wide grin I’d never seen plastered across his face. He looked a few years younger than how he looked now, around eighteen maybe. By comparison to the rest of them, he appeared to be the youngest among them, ranging from twenties to early thirties.

He kept smiling at the group, patting Sorren’s shoulder. “Why be nervous when we’ve rightfully earned our seats? We trudged through General Rhosyn’s version of Shayd’s asshole and survived the brutal trainings, and kicked ass through the most excruciating trials known to man. I can’t feel anything but proud of this family we’ve made.” he said, placing his other hand on the girl’s shoulder, then looked past Sorren to the man sitting on his other side. “I knew the four of us had what it took. The rest of you? Damn lucky.”

A cacophony of responses came through as laughs and lighthearted retorts while the four of them smiled at each other the way I did with Blaire. Feelings of love and heartbreak swelled in my throat at once.

“What a wonderful speech. With this being a celebration in your honor, I do hope your nerves will not last long.” a voice like a predatory feline captured the room’s attention. It was hypnotic and beautiful, yet it left an unsettling feeling of lingering danger.

All heads turned to the source, putting a cease to their banter.

So did mine, and was just as starstruck as the rest of them. But my level of surprise jumped far over their own.

One look, and everything made sense.

Holy hell.

I saw the resemblance. I saw how my face reminded him of hers. Of Ellison. There were so many similarities, yet so many differences at the same time. Both were equally striking.

Ellison Lucil sauntered into the hall with a grace-like simper. Hair like gleaming moonlight was pinned up in a loose updo with strands framing her face—a face eerily like my own. Her eyes were an iridescent arctic, like chips of the purest and coldest opals, sending an enticing chill across the room as her gaze swept across the new vitiates.

She’d only just entered the room, yet it was plain to see her confidence and demeanor fit her like her perfectly altered, celeste blue dress. The deep low-cut teased the eye and clung to the curves of her hips, barely skimming the floor where her bare feet were decorated in glittering white anklets, matching the clasps holding the back cape in place and the serpentine cuff coiled around her bicep.

I recognized the dress. It was the same dress I took the cape from and turned into my own personal sash around my waist. Gods. I actually had the audacity to turn a piece of Ellison's fancy dress into a belt. The thing is probably excessively expensive.

As she sat down, dishes full of food were placed in front of them by kitchen staff who made a point not to linger.

She lifted her glass to make a toast to their victories in the Vitiate Trials, then they ate and conversed until the conversation eased into more lighthearted topics as they grew more comfortable in front of her.

I studied her as she listened to the vitiate’s conversations, asking questions she knew would spark more to follow. She never asked about trivial things. Ellison focused more on the relationship dynamics sitting in front of her, which incited the group to open up and share jokes and stories about each other.

Ellison widened her eyes at the climax of intriguing tales, leaned in when someone shared a whispered detail, then smiled and laughed along with them. The more she did these little things, the more they opened up to her. Their walls of nerves and uncertainty crumbled.

All the while her eyes lingered on Reks like a flame drawn to oxygen.

Reks was no different. In fact, with all that talk about him not possessing a nervous cell in his body, he seemed to have suddenly gained every nerve in one fell swoop. He was hyper-aware of every time Ellison’s eyes fell on him throughout the dinner.

Ellison noticed it immediately, the effect she had over him. An amused look graced her features, wholly enjoying the way his cheeks and ears reddened every time she asked him a question directly, every time she said his name.

The two were obviously smitten. Anyone with eyes could catch on to that.

We shared some similarities, yes, but there were differences too - the way she held herself, like a woman of high importance. Someone who possessed power, confidence, and refinement. She was someone who didn’t shy away from foreign or difficult topics. She was the kind of woman who made others shy away, to think twice before speaking. She also knew how to work a room. Quite efficiently.

She won her table of vitiates over, but every now and then, I caught the calculating glint in her arctic gaze.

Still, there were no chips in her stunning armor.

Even at a table of elite assassins, all the power remained in her own manicured hands.

It was like looking in a mirror at a woman I wished I could be - someone so far out of reach and impossible to attain. Yet… here she was. A moonlit reflection who had it all.

A strange hollow feeling grew cold in the center of my chest.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Empress, do you know what our new living situation will be?” the girl named Cyra asked. “I assume we won’t be required to board at the colosseum anymore, what with us completing the Trials and all.”

One of Ellison’s dark brows rose as a wry smile lifted a side of her frosted pink lips. “I’m so glad you asked, Cyra.” as she spoke, their cleared platters were taken from the table, quickly replaced with a small octangular box in front of each of them.

I stepped between Reks and Sorren to get a better look. Each were a solid bone-white with sharp angles dipped in crimson, matching their names etched just under the slit.

Ellison’s glacial eyes danced with satisfaction at their reactions when they opened their boxes and laid eyes on what waited within. New, pristine rings glittering with endless constellations laid on a blanket of crimson velvet.

“These are known as gate rings,” she explained. “A vitiate’s best friend. It is how you will infiltrate enemies on foreign planets, how you will get back home, and how you will be able to reach me in a matter of seconds. With this in your arsenal, it creates endless possibilities.” she looked down to admire the same starry ring adorned on her middle finger. With how brightly the stars shone in hers, it was like she had the galaxy wrapped around her finger. Not a single trace of black could be found in hers.

“So, we can live anywhere we want within the empire.” Yuri, the guy sitting all lovey-dovey on the other side next to Sorren, said.

“Absolutely.” Ellison gave a closed-lip smile, revealing a hint of a dimple on her cheek. There was something enigmatic behind that smile. “You only need to tell me where you would like to live, and I will set up an appointment between you and one of the empire’s best architects to help design everything you desire to be in your new home.”

“Sounds expensive.” someone muttered under their breath, a vitiate named Evander, I thought.

"You realize vitiates are one of the highest-paid careers in the empire, right?" Cyra scoffed at him, throwing a piece of food in his fixed auburn hair.

The others laughed, and someone sitting next to him fished it out as Evander tried to control the twitchy half smile baring his clenched teeth. Cyra kept her piercing blue eyes on him, enjoying his grin-and-bear-it technique.

“It will be at no cost to you.” Ellison added after the laughter died back down. “For when you made your vows to me, I also did to you. Whether it is my life on the line or yours, we will be there to guarantee each other’s success. It is like what Reks Arlen stated earlier: we are a family. Well… I hope to earn my own place within it.”

They smiled at that, trying on their new rings. All except for Reks, I noticed, whose box had been empty from the start. Had she forgotten his? Despite that curiosity, Reks refrained from questioning it, even though we shared the same puzzled expression.

“I know gate rings were specifically designed for vitiates, but I heard rumors only a handful are granted them. How is it we’re all getting one when they’re so hard to come by?” Yuri asked skeptically, twisting the ring around his finger.

“Yes, I suppose those rumors were true before I inherited Sio.” Backs straightened at the mention of the superior Guide. Ellison smiled, taking a sip from her glass. “Let’s just say I do not cower in fear from what the past successors hid from. If there is a boon to be had for our empire, I will not hesitate to seize it. And my current priority is to spoil my very first victors to their heart’s delight.”

“Are all the monarchs as nice as you?” Sorren’s blushing cheeks rose as he grinned.

She smirked. “I’d like to think you lucked out with me.”

Her comment incited a round of agreement from the vitiates, raising a glass to her generosity.

“Did you not get one?” Cyra whispered to Reks, causing Ellison’s shoulders to perk up.

“Oh, that’s right.” Ellison stood from her seat. “Reks, if you will follow me, please. Everyone else, please stay until we return. It’ll be but a moment.”

Reks stood, pressing his lips together as he followed the empress through the alcove between two of the cobra fountains and into the adjoined sitting room, where red and cream drapes masked them from view. Chatter among the others started up again, talking about where they planned to live as I slipped through to the next room with them.

Before she turned around to face Reks, I noticed the opalescent crescent moon adorned in her hair. Upside down, just like the insignia etched in Reks’ uniform he wears like another layer of his own skin.

Slowly, Ellison slipped the shimmering ring off her own finger and offered it to Reks. He blinked down at it, as if trying to solve a puzzle I already put together. To me, it was obvious Ellison showed an interest the moment she saw him. Who wouldn’t? She probably used this as an excuse to get a minute of time alone with him.

A twinge of unwarranted jealousy knotted in my chest - something I definitely didn’t deserve to feel.

“Is that not your ring, Empress? I don’t mind waiting if mine was misplaced.” He said in a soft, hesitant tone.

She looked from the ring between her fingers, then back at him with those iridescent eyes. “This one is yours. I assure you.”

I glared at her. Of course she’d stockpile all the special energy in his ring. It would be obvious what happened here! The other vitiates were bound to put it together the moment they caught sight of the starry ring around his finger instead of hers. It'd be like comparing bicycles to a dang motorcycle.

“I’m not sure I follow.” Reks said, gently accepting the ring. When he slid it on his finger, it expanded to fit his size.

Ellison faintly tugged at her earlobe, just under the small orbital hoop piercing. “It was intentional. I wanted a private moment to ask you about the Trials. My brother tried to sabotage you, didn’t he?”

The way she phrased it, she didn’t need anyone to confirm whether it was true or not. She already knew. All kinds of questions swam to the forefront of my mind. She had a brother? Why would he want to sabotage Reks? My fingers twitched with anticipation.

Reks saw that look too. He looked at her, opened his mouth, then closed it again, not sure how to properly respond. I wouldn’t know how to respond to that either. Was he supposed to confirm that her brother, a royal, tried to potentially kill him?

“You can be honest with me.” she took his hand in hers, cupping it between both of her hands. “You are my vitiate. My champion, no less. Whatever you say to me in confidence will stay with me alone.”

A nervous smile touched his lips as his cheeks colored from her sudden touch. “It is true he changed the directory of one of my tests. But I’m sure it was only his way of showing his love for you, wanting you to only have the most worthy vitiates take the vow.” He phrased it in a way that held back what had truly happened, safeguarding the gritty details of what he went through.

“Please tell me you are not normally this gullible.” She looked at him through wispy lashes, pushing her bottom lip out. A seductive tease.

He laughed, looking away for a moment. “I really have no idea what I did to get under Mylo Lucil’s skin. I’ve never spoken to the man. He did seem… somewhat impressed when I passed his test.”

She shrugged. “Well, I might know why.” she caught his lingering gaze and held him in it, right where she wanted him to be. “My brother may have caught me staring.”

“Staring?”

She dropped his hand, but not his dark, all-consuming eyes. Their eyes stayed locked as she sauntered past him to go back into the dining hall. “At you, my vitiate.”

Seeing Reks speechless was a sight I thought could never happen. Yet here he was, at a complete loss for words as Ellison Lucil gave him a wink before turning to address the others. “Now, who’s ready to test out their gate rings? It’s high time we dress you properly to match your rank.”

The empress knew what she wanted and bore not a single trace of fear of being denied. If I had to make a bet on it, I’d wager she’d never known the bitter taste of rejection.

I moved to follow them back through the alcove, but the scenery suddenly reshaped, taking on a new form.

I gripped tightly onto the drapes as several scenes fought for control of the mindscape. An old bridge manifested in an eerie environment, where Reks escorted the empress, armed to the teeth, yet being her sole protector amongst the intimidating echoes and growls from all around. I nearly lost my balance when the bridge morphed into shallow water, then into a field, a forest, snow, different battlefields… all portraying Reks to be the only one escorting the empress. Each terrain revealed larger bloodstains on his hands while Ellison only seemed to radiate more and more power, like a foreboding aura enveloping her moonlit bask.

I pushed away from the alcoves, disrupting the scape yet again. Battle cries twisted wrongly with the sound of his friends' voices and laughter before being drowned out by a smoky demand, shaking the very walls of the reshaping scape. “Amelia!”

The intense urgency of his voice startled me. He sounded pissed. Hell. Why did he sound so angry?

I gasped and fell backward into a bare version of Reks’ lab. The majority of the furniture remained, but it was devoid of his belongings. The door against the back wall of the room, which supposedly used to lead to a way outside before the Fall, opened.

Ellison Lucil wore an iris purple dress. It barely covered half of her body as it clung onto one shoulder and fell to one bare foot. A silvery band of ivy leaves held the fabric together around the exposed side of her waist, climbing up her bare ribcage to minimally cover her left breast. The silver leaves made wide loops down her arm, which was currently looped around her vitiate’s arm. It was like she decided to turn a table runner into high-end fashion.

A vulpine smile caressed her lips as she watched his reaction when they stepped into the room.

It was like I stepped back again in time. Reks looked maybe a year or two older than he did at the table of vitiates. His eyes rounded from the sight of the lab. “You did this… for me?” he asked, almost in disbelief.

Her arm slipped away from his as she strode several steps in front of him. “I absolutely did this for you, my vitiate.” The thin silk of her dress swayed as she spun back to face him. “Everything you need is here. Not only will you be able to experiment to your heart’s content, but if something terrible were to befall our empire, this lab would double as safe haven. It is hidden within Asylum borders. Besides the entrance we came through, the only way in or out is through the waypoint I had built within.”

“A waypoint? Doesn’t that mean anyone can find themselves falling in here?” he asked dubiously, moving to step around her to explore what in the future would be his main work table and projection display.

Ellison caught the crook of his elbow before he could get out of reach. He stopped and met her icy gaze. His eyes quickly dropped to the floor. “Forgive me, Empress. It was not my intention to disparage your gift. My curiosity likes to find trouble.”

I blinked. His body language, the way he spoke to her... it was nothing like the man I knew.

The empress licked her lips, giving way to a sinuous smile. “How many times must I remind you to call me Ellison? Look at me when you speak.” She lifted his chin with a slender finger. “As for your curiosity…” she hesitated for a moment, finding great interest in the matter. “The waypoint is locked to both of our genetic codings. Only those you wish to invite may come in through the back entrance, or through your gate ring, specifically. But if I may make a little request of you… I’d like you to keep the knowledge of the waypoint a secret. The astral energy I used to construct this place is highly sought after. You'll find some features more enhanced than a typical living space.”

“Your secret is safe with me, Emp—Ellison.” His eyes stayed locked with hers at her request. “I will do my utmost as your vitiate to repay your kindness.”

Her finger fell from his chin down to his chest. She pressed her palm against him, pushing him down into a chair. Heat flared in his face, across the tops of his ears as Ellison slipped over him in a straddle. Reks seemed uncomfortable. His hands hovered outward, as if unsure where to place them.

“I quite like sharing secrets with you. Perhaps we should… share another?” it fell as a question, but Ellison guided one of his hands up the bare side of her body, leaning in closer.

Reks looked strained, but didn't pull away as the empress steered his hand up and over her breast.

My heart seized in my chest as Ellison kissed him. His lips moved with hers, but tension wracked his body.

I wasn’t sure if it was my own jealousy at play, but his reaction felt cornered. Trapped. He only touched where her hand guided, only followed the tempo led by her all-controlling lips.

A sharp spike of anger shoved me forward. Without a plan, I reached out to interject. But their bodies warped into smoke made of shadows and iridescence. The smoke yanked me in, tangling around me like splintered vines. A distraught voice stretched through the tangle. “Ellison has taken things too far! She taunts The Full Spectrum to no end, pursues missions without council, and now we hear the Crowned Prince of Shayd seeks to claim her? A claim like that would bring the wrath of the Fates down on the empire!”

“No!” I cried out, pulling against the binds tearing my skin. The thorns sank deeps, squeezed harder. “Stop! No more!”

I didn’t understand how I saw into his memories. But I’d seen and heard enough. Enough of Ellison Lucil. I needed out. Out!

The smoke hit the floor all at once, then raced out to form a new memory.

A man leaned against a reflective black crystal, curved inward like a small pocket within a much vaster cavern of the same rock. I barely recognized him through the blood.

Three individuals ran past me, desperate to reach their fallen friend. “Gods! Oh, Gods—Yuri!” Sorren pleaded in a broken whisper, knees hitting the rock next to him. Reks and Cyra followed suit, the three of them equally bloodied and battered from something vicious.

Sickness churned heavily in my stomach from the sight - why they were so frantic over him. His throat looked misshaped… as if a large, rock-hard hand had crushed his throat.

“Fuck! You should have warped to the infirmary. Have you lost your Shayd-damned mind?” Cyra snarled after a quick check over her shoulder to make sure their enemies hadn’t found them. There was a crazed looked in her piercing blue eyes.

Yuri, despite the grave injuries, lifted his hand to show her why he hadn’t. I stumbled backward from the sight of his crushed hand. Something had squeezed it hard enough to force his fingers to cave into the bottom of his palm… before melting the severe injury in place. He physically couldn’t take his gate ring off. The indignant look Yuri gave her emanated, “Why do you think, dumbass.”

“The Full Spectrum doesn’t want us escaping Halitus.” Reks said, spitting blood to the ground. He squeezed Yuri’s foot, grabbing his attention. “Yur. Is your Guide able to heal your wounds? One blink, yes. Two blinks, no.”

Yuri pointed with his good hand at his throat and blinked once, then looked down at his mangled hand and blinked twice.

“We can work with that. I know it’s difficult to breathe, but you are breathing. Keep your Guide focused on that until we get you out.” Reks turned to Sorren, whose tears mixed with blood staining his face. “Your ring doesn’t have enough energy to take you back to Orlaith. Cyra’s about out too. I’ll open a way back for the three of you and—”

Yuri snagged the collar of Reks’ shirt, straining from the pain the abrupt movement caused. Yuri blinked twice, nose curling.

Cyra cursed. She and Sorren voiced their opposition, trying to convince him to fall back with them.

“Don’t make me force you through.” Reks snarled his refusal. “My gate ring only has enough energy for two trips between here and home. Evander's still out there, and I can't abandon him, no matter how damn annoying he is."

“But the empress—”

“El’s been AWOL for nearly a month.” He bit back. “We haven’t the means to refill our rings until she decides to return—”

Reks was cut off as the grating sound pierced through the air. I clapped my hands against my ears from the noise, like an amplified version of someone scratching a fork down a plate.

I pressed against the wall next to the others, eyes trained on the monsters making their entrance. Multiple obsidian black crystalline monsters, some tall and with a similar form to the blue ones I’ve seen before while others took on a more animalistic form, all locked pyrope-red eyes on the injured vitiates before them.

Reks stood, whispering orders to his friends to get Yuri through the gate ring on his mark.

The distance between looked long enough at first, but the stretching shadows across the ground made it feel so much shorter. A distance the animalistic forms could surely close within a handful of fleeting seconds.

A scream ripped past my lungs as the beasts plunged forward in a coordinated attack. With how quickly they moved, there was no way Reks would have time to flee after getting his friends out. They’d be on top of him, clawing through him before the gate closed.

This was nothing like what I pictured his job to be. I pictured him sneaking on rooftops, slipping through windows to make a high-profile kill. I hadn't pictured this. Nothing like this.

My heart hammered against my chest as Reks moved to rip his ring off his finger, determined to see it through, no matter the impending price.

Something happened before the ring could make it off his finger.

A rift split through the space between us and the monsters. It was like a giant, invisible greatsword slashed through the air and opened a way into cosmic chaos.

A woman stepped through the tear. Her long, moonlit hair flowed around her as if each strand possessed power. She wore nothing but the chaotic energy from which she stemmed.

The obsidian monsters hesitated in their pursuit, but something—some force—drove them to prioritize taking her out above all else.

Reks moved to protect her, but a force jolted him backward the same moment draconic-faced tendrils extended out of the rift behind her. They slithered around her, sliding against her bare skin before each one singled out a monster to strike. They didn’t just strike them. The draconic tendrils invaded them.

I thought it wasn’t possible for constructs made by The Full Spectrum to feel pain.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

Their bodies gave out from under them and they writhed in unmerciful agony, rendered powerless from the chaos she wielded against them. Inside them. The constructs choked on their tortured wails until their red-gemmed eyes melted from the sockets… and they moved no more.

Reks and the others watched with horror-filled eyes as obsidian ooze bubbled out of the monsters' orifices. Their bodies slowly collapsed inwards like black lava as the draconic serpents retracted from corpses to careen against the woman who commanded them.

She looked like a celestial being, but the force she controlled derived from chaos. Reks and the others stared at her, not as their savior, but as a demon wearing the face of one.

Something powerful, like a quickly approaching storm, hummed all around me as the woman turned to face the vitiates. Ellison Lucil smiled as the serpents sank back into the rift behind her. Terror seized me at the sight of the bright-white glow of her pupils.

I fell back, and something—someone—caught me.

Hands clutched my shoulders as the memory collapsed into inky shadows.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Reks uttered against my ear.

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