Kill Me With All Your Heart

2 - Where we are

SIX YEARS LATER

LUNETTE EDWIN (24 YEARS OLD)

SLAP!!! The hit resounded around the living room.

“YOU BLOODY DID WHAT?!” My father’s voice echoed bouncing off the floor and walls.

“I-I’m sorry. Th-that wasn’t the plan. We were only supposed to-”

“Only supposed to kill one of Razes people?” My father, Velis Edwin, cut in.

“No! No! We were only supposed to raid the warehouse and take what was in it. We would have been quick. No one was supposed to know it was us.” My brother, Nox Edwin, rabbles on.

No matter what the plan was, you’re not supposed to mess with Raze. What the hell got into him? We cannot afford a confrontation with them, not now! Nyxen can’t afford that!

“Nox,” My father begins as he sits. “You have always been a timid, naive child. Why would you go and do something so out of character. Your brother never would have-”

“Father!” Halo, my older brother, cuts in, voice stern. He is standing behind father’s chair.

“That is exactly why I did it!” Nox raises his voice, his blue eyes are wide, his breathing is erratic and his voice cracks. “You always compare me to him. Halo this, Halo that. You never see me!” Nox’s brown hair is scattered around his face from his head whipping to the side when he got slapped. His cheek is red too. “I did this for you!”

Bravery never looked good on my junior brother. It’s why Halo and I convinced our father to stop comparing him to Halo. If only he had listened.

A knock on the door draws our attention. “An emissary has arrived from Raze.”

“An emissary?” Halo asks, we all exchange looks. “We’ll be right there.”

“Nox, go to your room. You are to remain there until I say otherwise.” My father warns as he walks past him. “Let the adults clean up this mess.”

“Yes… father.” Nox says, shoulders sunken. I place a hand on his shoulder and muster a smile.

“It will probably be fine, seeing as they sent an emissary. War is always signaled by a red flare.” I try to cheer him up. There could be a chance that the war decree was sent with an emissary too. It’s happened once in the past but after the emissary’s head was sent back, we started using flares instead. When Nox doesn’t seem any better I bend to look at him. “Hey!”

“I’ll never be good enough for him, will I?”

“Don’t say that. You’re comparing yourself to Halo by doing that.”

“But it’s true, I’ll never be a good as him. He’s intelligent in offering solutions and all this faction stuff and all I have are just my arts.” He sighs. “I’ll never be Halo.”

“Good! If we had another Halo here, I’d probably kill myself from the annoyance.” I straighten up and so does he. “And what do you mean ‘just your arts’, do you not remember how much your last piece sold for on the black market three months ago? A whole one million Aurel! In the old world that would be around 7 million dollars.”

“You’re just saying that to cheer me up.” He says that but a small smile creeps onto his face. Nox is talented but not like Halo, the two couldn’t be more different and that is Father’s problem. In the old world, maybe Nox’s talents would have been more appreciated.

“Come on, let’s go to your room. I could use something colorful right now.” I pull him by the arm. Nox has an entire wing to himself. The wall between two guest rooms was broken down to make room for his creative space. His room is close by and the last room in this wing is deserted because no one likes the smell of paint or maybe it’s because it is so small.

When we enter the studio, he moves to open the curtains. “Is the reason you haven’t been painting because of the heist you were planning?” I say it in a light tone, hopefully we can joke about this soon.

“Yes…” he pauses, eyes flickering to me then away like he’s contemplating something. “I have been working on something, it’s not complete but I think I can show you.”

“Ouuu, am I getting special treatment.”

“You always get special treatment from me.” He rolls his eyes. “Sit here.” He points to a stool in front of a rather large canvas.

“This would be the biggest you’ve painted so far, right?”

“Yes. Ready?”

I nod. I’m not sure what I was expecting when he began to pull the sheet covering the painting but I wasn’t expecting this.

I’m lost for words.

It’s a knight. Her waist down is not complet yet but her face, arms, breastplate, hair and sword is. She looks fierce covered in dirt and blood but her eyes look ahead, blood stained sword raised to the sky. She looks like a goddess with that radiant golden background. How is it possible to look so familiar yet strange at the same time?

“She is gorgeous.” I tell Nox. “Is she… me?”

He nods shyly then looks at the painting, eyes shining with an emotion I can not name. I swallow. “You always come to my rescue… I thought I’d be fitting to… well, show you what you mean to me.”

“Nox, I-”

“If this all blows over,” He turns to me with a determined expression. “I promise, I will live as Nox Edwin. I won’t compare myself to anyone or be intimidated by anyone. I will live as me and contribute all I can to the faction because you believe in me.”

I shut my mouth. What good are words when they can’t explain how proud I am of him right now. Instead I smile and nod. “I’m your number one fan.”

“Is Lunette here?” Halo bursts into the room.

“Yes?” This is very unlike Halo, his breathing is erratic as if he ran here and his pupils are blown. The excitement from earlier has turned to dread. Are we really going to war? “What happened?” My brows knit.

“What did they say?” Nox’s voice comes out shaky.

Halo’s eyes never leaves mine. Was he so worried about the possibility of the war that now that it’s true he can’t say it? “They want… you, Lunette.”

“WHAT?!” Nox yells.

“They want Lunette.”

“No!” Nox steps in front of me. “I’m the cause of this! I should die, why should Lunette do so in my place?”

“They don’t want to kill her.” Halo arranges himself but his still in disarray.

“If they do not want to kill me, what do they want?” I step out from behind Nox. Halo’s sight gets caught on the painting behind us. His frown deepens. “They want a blood alliance. They are aware Nox didn’t mean any harm because of how sloppily the job was done, plus the guards testified to Nox killing the person who killed their guard.”

For some reason I’m unable to imagine Nox’s hands stained with anything other than paint.

“They are willing to forgive us and look past this whole incident if you agree to the blood alliance by sending Lunette as a display of submission.”

“How dare they?!” Nox mutters under his breath.

“Why me? We have much more valuable things than me, they could have asked for one of our mines or railway rights.” I struggle to understand their logic. His logic.

“Regardless, Nyxen’s Velis Edwin has only one most prized possession.”

So that’s what this is. They are taking me hostage as a show of power. I let out a bitter laugh. “And Father?” I already know the answer.

“He agreed. This is the best possible outcome. With ‘that’ project still going on, we’re draining our reserves fast. We can’t fuel a war right now.” Halo looks away from me, his hands are balled into fists at his side.

This was always going to be my role, he made it clear to me when we got back from the Conclave six years ago. I am only a treasure to be used at his discretion, for only the most unsolvable cases.

“I guess my time has come.” In all honesty, there is another way. Father could pull back his resources from the state of the art medical facility that he is building and fight to keep me here but his greed won’t let him. He is blinded by the profits he will gain in the future.

“No… no!” Nox keeps repeating that but we all know the truth. “This is all my fault. I never should have listened to that anonymous text I got.”

“You got a text?” I turn. I’ve never heard anything about that. From Halo’s expression, this is the first he’s heard of it too.

“Yeah, how else would I have known what to do? I only planned the heist because I was sure it would be a success but strangely, things went haywire.”

“Hmm… I’ll look into it.” Halo tells me. This is the area he excels in so I’ll leave it to him.

“I’m so sorry, Lunette.” Nox’s shoulders slump again. “What if he decides to make good on that promise from-”

“Shut your mouth, Nox!” Halo growls.

“We promised not to speak of that.” I remind him. “Besides,” I lift my chin up. Nox’s eyes are in me now. “He can’t kill me. Back then I was some nameless girl but with the weight of Nyxen backing me now. He won’t act carelessly.” Hopefully, he won’t even recognize me.My eyes find Halo. “Plus if I am interpreting this right, he wants to have some sort of control over Nyxen too so he won’t make any moves to take us to war.” Halo nods in agreement.

“Also, we might be lacking in resources but we have enough allies who are willing to do anything for us to be indebted to them.”

“Yes. So don’t worry.” I tilt his head to the painting of me. “I’m a badass warrior, remember?” Only when he smiles do I smile. The storm in my chest quiets down by a fraction, it’s taking the grace of God for my knees to not give out.

I let out a long sigh. “I need a bath. All this tension has been sweating, if you’ll excuse me.” I walk out the door. I thought I was keeping it together but when they think I’m out of hearing range, Nox speaks.

“Halo…”

“I saw.” He responds in a tender voice. “She’s shaking.”