Sage's POV:
Nox and I spend almost thirty minutes in the corner of the room without being spotted, and then a maid finds us and delivers us a message that my "guardian" requires my presence immediately. Never have I heard a maid speak like that, and never have I seen this one, but it is a big house, and I do not know every maid personally.
I tell Nox I would come back in a few minutes and if it becomes more than fifteen minutes and I am not back yet he should come and save me again. He laughs and promises to not leave me to my doom - my uncle.
I follow the maid into one of my uncle's studies, which is strange because my uncle never desserts our guests mid-party. She leaves me without opening the room or saying anything, and I stare at her back, confused, as she walks away.
I knock on the door and receive a muffled "come in" before entering and closing the door behind me.
When I look up, expecting to see my uncle, I see someone whose only ever visited me in my nightmares - my brother.
"Hello, Sage. How have you been?" There is a smug smile on his face, and I can see he enjoys my shock.
I am too stunned to say anything. What is he doing there? How is he still alive? How did he find me? What does he want?
But nothing like that comes out. Instead, all I say is, "You killed them."
He stares at me with amusement in his eyes, and even chuckles a little. "That's what you have to say to your brother?"
"That's what I have to say to my brother who killed my parents." I say and stare at him, making sure he knows that I do not count him as a part of my family and how much I hate him.
"Ouch, Sage," he says and smiles at me. "You became barbed."
"What did you expect when you killed them? That I would forgive you and prais you for it?"
He looks at me in silence for a while. "They deserved it." he says coldly, every muscle in his body stretched and tight, his fists clenching and unclenching. "They deserved every single part of it."
"You bastard!" I say as my vision turns red. "They never did anything bad to you! You were the one who left and never turned back! You left us, not the other way around!"
His face fills with so much rage and fury that I've never seen before. "You didn't know anything about them. You were ten when I left, I doubt you've noticed how bad they were to me." His face looks a little pleading for forgiveness when he says, "You were the only reason I didn't run away earlier, I wanted to make sure they wouldn't hurt you like they hurt me."
I am so furious that I can't even respond. They were never bad to him ,and even if they were - which they weren't - that wouldn't be a good enough excuse for what he did. He killed them, not just hurt them! They would never come back! The thought brings tears to my eyes, but I try to repress them. I can't show him anything more than what he deserves. "I don't care how bad they were to you, or if they hurt you, or anything. You killed them, I know you did, I saw you doing it. You ruined my life and ran off. What kind of mad person would do that?"
He takes a step forward, looking at me with a look I don't understand. But I don't want him any closer. In fact, I don't want him near me at all. I just want revenge, even if it means killing my brother. I move to the door, hoping to get to Uncle Robert and tell him about Lanaden appearing out of nowhere, but he crosses the room with two powerful steps and blocks my way out. Then he locks the door, still in my way. "No." he says firmly. "You're not leaving until I say you can."
The authority in his voice is so infuriating that I want to push aside and leave him here to rot. And I even try, but he catches me before he can fall and puts his arms around me from behind like ropes to hold me and make sure I don't move. I try to rip myself out of his grip, but he's too strong, and much bigger than I to even budge him. "Let go!" I try shoving my elbow to his ribs, but he catches me and holds me more firmly.
"Sage, come down and stop fighting me." he says. "I only came to tell you something and then I'll leave. You wouldn't hear from me ever again." He says that as if to compromise with me, but his words just sting even worse. He would leave me again to my misery and this life in this terrible house, not caring that he's deserting his last close family member in hell. He would never care, so why do I? He deserves to rot in hell for what he's done, and I'll make sure he does. "Lanaden, let go! I don't want to hear anything you have to say, and I don't care about anything concerning you."
He freezes for a second as if my words affect him, and then his grip just tightens to the point of pain. He keeps tightening his grip until it's hard for me to even breath. I am sure this is going to leave a mark.
"Stop." I rasp in a strangled voice.
"Will you listen now?" he asks, not bothering to lighten his grip. He even emphasized it by tightening it for a second too long. My vision gets a little blurry, and breathing is harder and harder.
"What do you want?" I almost beg him to tell me.
"I need you to stop telling people I killed Mother and Father."
I almost pass out just from hearing him say 'Mother' and 'Father' as if he was ever worthy of being their son, and I would have told him that if I wasn't being choked to death by him. "Lan, I can't breath." I try turning to his softer side, and am surprised to find that there is one in him when he loosens his grip a little and I can breathe again full, wonderful breaths of air.
"You could have told me earlier that you can't breath. I can't see your face from back here."
"Like you'd care." I rasp.
His grip loosens even more for one second before he goes back to holding hard enough for me not to be able to get loose. "I would. You're my sister."
"You're mad if you think I would believe that you cared. You abandoned me here to live with our devils for a family, and that was after you killed Mother and Father and burned our house down, and that was after leaving home without saying a goodbye. Do you even know what you've done to our parents? They were worried sick about you, thinking you were kidnapped as a child of one of the king's advisors. Father went out of his mind to try and find you. Mother couldn't sleep and eat for almost six months."
His hold tightens again, hurting me where bruises have already formed. "They. Deserved. Every. Single. Part. Of. It." With every word he added a squeeze to me that knocked the breath out of me. I found a way to release my hand suddenly, and used it to shove it in his ribs almost as hard as he was grabbing me. He let go, thankfully, but he shoved me towards the insides of the room and leaned on the door so I couldn't escape.
But he couldn't know I didn't have any problem jumping from the window. It was just the first floor, and there was a pleasant little pile of leaves to cushion my fall. I moved to the window, but he caught my hand before I could reach for it and shoved me in through a different door. For a second I thought he was getting me back to the hallway, but quickly I realized he was pushing her into a small closet that was in the room. I was almost empty except for Uncle Robert's hidden flasks and a small chair. Lnaden pushes me and sets me down on the chair raughly before catching my wrists so I wouldn't make any sudden moves. He looks at me seriously and says flatly, "You will stop telling people I killed our parents. You will not tell anyone I'm still alive. You will never mention me to anyone, not even your dear little friend, Nox. And you will do as I say, no matter when or what it is."
"What makes you think I am going to listen to you?" I ask angrily and try to rip my hands from his grip.
Lanaden smiles, a kind of smile that shows that nothing good is going to happen. "Ah, that is the real question, isn't it? What can I do to you if you wouldn't listen, not cooperate? Well, Sage, thank you for asking."
"Just tell me so you can leave already."
He squeezes on my wrists even harder. "Be. Quiet." he hisses. "You will do as I tell you, and you will not argue with me, and that is because I have full authority to do whatever I want with you."
"What?" I ask in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Well, it means that because you are not yet of age, I am your legal guardian, not Robert, and I don't mind telling him that myself. I can put you in a place far worse than this, Sage. I can make you do things you've never imagined, and all it would take would be to write Uncle Robert a little letter to explain how you are now living with me and that he can't say a word about it or against it. It would work so splendidly for you've never been such a social person before, and I can make sure Nox wouldn't say anything either. So you will do as I tell you, or I'll pull you out of here and put you in a place worse than your nightmares."
"Nothing is worse than my nightmares," I hiss. "they are all about you."
He smiles at me cruelly and then pulls on my hands and chuckles coldly. "My little sister..." he whispers in an a cold amused voice. "My little Sage..." Another cold chuckle escaped his lips. "You should be thanking me for not doing that already."
I say nothing and just stare at him with hatred in my eyes.
He pulls me closer to him until his face is mere incher from mine. "Sage... If you don't follow my orders I could just go straight to Nox."
With this he has a pull, because he knows I wouldn't care for what he'd do to me, but I would never let anything happen to Nox.
He feels me go perfectly still at his words and a breathy laugh sounds from him. "Now that I have your attention, I would leave. Remember our talk."
As if I could forget.
He finishes with tying my wrists to a piece of metal I don't understand in the far corner of the small room and sets me back down on the chair. "Be good, Sage." He says quietly and pets my hair, smiling smugly at me. He walks through the door and right before he gets out, he turns around and says, "Oh, and happy birthday."
He closes the door, and with it all sources of light.