Chapter 250: Never Again

*Boooom*

The whole room shakes. I strike again.

*Boooooom*

The training hall quakes like a dried twig in a tailwind again. I am livid. My talk with Eve did not end on the most fantastic of notes, and this space, now abandoned in the quiet hours of the night has volunteered as the valve to release my wrath.

The walls would need repairing. The floors replacing. The targets and equipment buying anew. I even thought the foundations would need reinforcing after all this, but I didn’t care. Only the sickening song of Dark Majesty and Fallen Nemesis tearing through all before me was able of keeping the snickering shadows at the edge of my eyes and the bodiless voices behind the doors from swarming around me in a haze of lunacy.

My eyes caught the reflected image on the window’s cracked glass then, and my greeting was infernal eyes of blazing ivory, petrifyingly peering from behind an abyssal veil. Monstrous. Demonic. Inhumane. Yet I know there is another in this room that I alone can perceive.

’We will never lose them again.’ A growl like fire crackling in embers echoed in my ears.

"No. I will not." I replied. My voice sounding particularly loud in this haunting silence.

’Let them resent us. Curse us. Yell at us. Hate us even. We can endure it. We’ve survived worse. As long as they breath. All else is tolerable.’ It snarled, as I almost felt it flicking it’s forked tongue brush a hair’s breadth past my ear.

"Maybe." I closed my eyes, sheathing Dark Majesty. Admiring the full moon this night, and how it’s light could not pass to my side.

’Not maybe!’ It roared. It’s deep voice erupting like flaring tongues of fire. ’The world will not survive a second time!’

"And neither will I." I replied.

’No... We won’t.’ It said in a slithering whisper.

I chuckled then, surprised by it’s uncharacteristic answer. "Have you grown soft, you blood drunk fool?"

’We are never weak!’ It snapped back at me, vain arrogance seeping from it’s words like acrid venom.

"Indeed." I smiled wistfully. "I haven’t had that privilege for a long time."

Plans. Countermeasures and much more began to return to my mind, now that it was no longer so overcrowded with rampant emotion.

’...And we are mad?!’ The being chuckled then, it’s draconic eyes peering gleefully at the concoctions of bloody mania now swimming chaotically between the islands of fractured rationality within me.

"I never claimed sanity either." I replied.

’HAHAHAHAHA!’ It’s booming echo of a laughter was like a dizzying pulse rattling in my skull.

"I take it you’re in agreement as well?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

’We are.’ It hissed, like noxious gas escaping a volcanic fissure. ’Rules. Regulations. Norms and expectations were never the shackles that bound us like those lesser men.’

I merely nodded in response. My feet already leading me to where I am most needed at this hour. For there was a place where one as unshackled as me would be laying the final brush strokes to her master design. Whether it is with my blessing or not.

Eve. The woman who sits crowned and enthroned, unchallenged and unflinching in my heart; was never the fickle flame. The obedient wife. Or even the tempestuous storm, who’s gales whipped the seas into a frantic fury beneath her glaring thunderheads. No. For my beloved is, and always will be, the moonless midnight sky. Beautiful in it’s serenity, and haunting in it’s quiet. Unblemished and untouchable. And as prideful as the depths of her infinite darkness.

I knew this from the very day I met her. I would never be her better. And neither will she ever be mine. True equals. The perfect partners. Maybe that is why we despised each other so deeply when we first met, and then loved each so dearly when we came to know better. And maybe that is why we always could tell each others thoughts without much effort.

"I thought you might come." She said without looking at me, as soon as she sensed me opening her door.

"Of course you did." I chuckled, gliding into the room with silent foot steps. A room that was obviously in the throes of making ready her occupier for the journey ahead.

"Are you here to stop me?" She asked, not bothering to hide her intentions.

"Yes and no." I replied, walking till I was a mere half a step behind her.

"...What?" She asked, stitching her eyebrows as she turned to me in confusion.

"I will not stand in your way my love." I said with all the clarity that my voice could allow, so that there would be no room for misunderstanding.

And her uncovered amethyst eyes showed her shock by their immediate widening. Yet they did not remain in that state for long, as she quickly restrained her expression, returning them to their impassive mask, sensing that I was far from done.

And so I continued then, my voice growing more serious, "But only if you agree to four conditions of mine."

She was silent for a moment, before then saying with a half smile, as she elegantly swayed from her position between myself and her desk, only to begin circling me instead "Tell me these terms of surrender of yours."

I laughed. I couldn’t stop myself.

"Nizam, Yara. Show yourselves. I know you’re here." I then suddenly said, sweeping my eyes around the room.

A second of silence passed, before a brief rustle passed through the room and the two emerged from their hiding places.

"Hello, brother." Nizam said, with a smile of awkwardness upon his features.

"Emperor." Yara greeted me swiftly after, sounding slightly apprehensive about this whole situation.

I nodded to the two, and then turned back to the circling shark now paused behind me. "My first condition is that you wait a single month before departing."

There was another a moment of silence, before my Eve calmly asked "Your second?" Showing that she had agreed to the first.

"Horus. Abraham. Isaac. Do you hear me?" I then called out.

"Always my emperor." The three simultaneously said, as they appeared bowing before the room’s many windows on the right hand side, bathed in silver moonlight.

"We have a mission where the threat of death and the maiming of limbs are a near certainty. Are you ready?" I did not turn to my most loyal men, as I asked them with a wholly frigid tone.

"Of course sire." They immediately answered, their heads bowing ever lower.

"Wake Valdour, Darius and the rest of the war council. There will be no sleep tonight. Or any night to come for that matter." I said, turning to each of them.

"Yes sire." They replied, saluting before they vanished.

"...Brother?" Nizam muttered, his voice over flowing with bewilderment.

"You will not be going alone to the east." I declared.

"Brother...?!" He now yelped, understanding the unspoken meaning behind my words. Yet I did not look at him anymore, as I instead looked to my Eve, who now gazed at me now with an adorably flabbergasted expression.

"You are stubborn my love. Even more than I at times. So what am I, the pitiful husband of such a hard headed woman, to do but try to make sure to keep a watch over you." I said humorously, as I came to stand before her again, brushing the hair behind her ear.

She did not answer me. It seems I had manged to truly surprise her this time, bringing me a slight sense of satisfaction. So I spoke plainly, laying to bare all my intentions to break her from her stupor.

"That is my second condition love. I will not part from any of your sides until you return back into the borders of my empire. Unscathed and unharmed. Impossible to repeat any follies of the past. Are we in agreement?"

Yet instead of the reaction I had expected, she merely smiled, and replied with another one of her quick smiles, as she softly whispered "It seems my own plans have been rendered complete without me having to do much at all."

"What?" I asked, not understanding her for a moment. Until my eyes then caught sight of what lay on the table she was standing near when I first arrived.

They were sketches of several plans and maps of the eastern empire marked with a dozen signs and arrows. But there was something that they all had in common between them all. Me. I seemed to be present in each and everyone of her thoughts for the east.

"Once again, you and I are of the same mind." She lightly giggled, her hands slithering around my neck like obsessive snakes.

"So it seems." I sighed, but not out of a sense exasperation but of joy. She was not letting her pride and stubbornness blind her once again. She was not going to repeat the mistakes of the past, of that I was now utterly sure.

’I should’ve trusted her.’ I thought to myself in guilt at that moment. ’She is my Eve after all.’

"And your third?" She whispered to me then. "I expected you to ask me for time and to come along as well, but not anymore. What are the rest?"

"Ah, yes." I mumbled for a moment, suddenly hesitant about mentioning them, and she frowned all the more, instantly noticing my discomfort.

"What?" She urged me.

I sighed. Took a deep, steadying breath and simply said "My third condition is that within this month, you must unlock your third gate. And if possible, your fourth."