07-21-2020, 03:06 PM
He is oblivious to their exchange, life for death, and has no choice but to fixate on their words instead.
He feels emboldened by his sister’s insistence that he is nothing.
They are accustomed to cruelty, certainly. Their mother is cold and proud, aloof and dismissive. Without any affection to spare them, she has raised them unswayed by weakness. Any sign of vulnerability has been chased out of them with teeth. Still, Gravitas is not certain if their display is born from courage or simply from habit. There is some tremor of fear at the very center of him, roused by the plain fact that he knows precious little of magic. Their mother is a viper, but her magic begins and ends there. She has taught them naught of the things they might encounter.
Still, it shocks him into distraction to hear the stranger say it in no uncertain terms. Your father. He doesn’t fully understand the sharp spark of anger that leaps up his throat, that flares his nostrils. He moves closer by a fraction, a reflex. But the ground rumbles before he can act further, before he can speak and he retreats to his sister’s side. It is not fear that spurs him back to her but something else. The knowledge that they are stronger together, perhaps.
He watches, careful not to recoil, as the bones erupt out of the ground. Force themselves into the shapes of horses. Line themselves up to flank their father, awaiting his command. Adrenaline spirals through his baby veins and he leans briefly into Tirza’s side, as if to draw strength from her.
Their father commands his army and then leaves them there. Gravitas understands the command for what it is, an instruction to kill them, and he sets his jaw. He has no experience with battle, but he had watched his sister easily snatch the rib bone from an elk, and he understands that there is no other option but to fight. He will not die a coward.
So he surges forward, kicking and biting. Chest heaving as he fights. Bones explode all around him. Later, he will have no choice but to interrogate why he so enjoyed the chaos.
G R A V I T A S
