The light left Aurelius' hands and struck Darius like a bolt of lightning summoned from a storm.

The Absolian grinned with delight before the dust settled, filled with silent, selfish satisfaction. Where admiration for his older brother had once lived now lurked darker, uglier emotions of hatred and an old dash of envy. He could admit part of his desire to become the King Below was driven by a base sense of inferiority given to him by Darius and Sethan, the eldest and youngest sons of their family. Even after they'd been thrown from the cliffs, Aurelius had existed in their shadows, all his successes blamed upon the power void left in their absence.

He'd thought Darius dead many eons ago and hadn't come to find him now—but this was a delightful surprise Aurelius relished in. He'd at last proven who was the strongest. No tricks needed this time.

The Absolian returned his attention to the witches, weak, quavering creatures that they were. One was dead, one near the brink, two others unconscious, and the final member of their sordid bunch was awake and dribbling with curses. Aurelius could sense the evil in her, a wrongness to her magic that had a foul, disorienting scent to it. She was what the Absolians' referred to as a spirit-defiler, a person who toyed with the weave of the universe and endangered them all. The void was not a toy for little mortal girls to play with. 

He swatted her with his wing—swearing when the bitch managed to land a talisman against the appendage before falling and his feathers began to rot. Aurelius ripped the spell off with an annoyed growl and went to pluck the woman's head from her scrawny body, when he took a breath of the magic surrounding the women again and realized he'd made a mistake.

Four witches. Not five. The fifth was not a witch. What was she?

Aurelius used his boot to roll the dark-haired woman onto her back and went to touch her. A cold, sinister laugh halted his motion.

It...can't be.

Feeble veins of lightning ate through the static clinging to the clouds of debris as the dust finally cleared. Darius remained where he'd been, prone on the filthy floor, not reduced to cinders as he should have been. Aurelius didn't understand: the spell he'd mustered should have reduced Darius to ash, be he Sin, mortal, or whatever else he could manage to become. It wasn't possible to be alive after being struck with such an ability, nor was it possible to be laughing.

Darius was unharmed, his shirt singed and smoldering, but unharmed.

What happened to the spell?

Darius used his arms to lever himself upright, and Aurelius saw that his face was flushed, his eyes remarkable in their abrupt vigor. The lines of exhaustion that had cluttered the skin about his brow and lashes were gone, replaced by a healthy sheen of youth, and all broken bones were healed once more. The Sin studied his sooty hands and Aurelius saw his tongue flash across his teeth like a content wolf cleaning blood from his fangs.

"My," Darius crooned, standing with eerie, unhurried ease. The incongruous aspects of his appearance, the flash of Absolian fangs and sharp, bladed ears, were gone. "That is an...unexpected side effect."

Blue flames split the flesh of the beast's palms.

Did...did he consume the spell? Aurelius stiffened, wings held aloft to hurl him upward and away from unexpected danger. He told himself such a feat was impossible, that Sins did not consume magic in that manner, but it seemed many impossible things were going to happen this day.

He recalled a distant afternoon spent on a garden terrace, covered in sweat and out of breath, sword heavy in his younger hand. He remembered Darius's snide voice, "Do not underestimate your opponent, Aurelius."

The Absolian went to take flight and to grant himself time to reevaluate this encounter. Perhaps he would reduce the whole countryside to embers just to ensure Darius's death this time. His dark wings readied themselves for flight—and pain exploded in the left wing, jerking a screech from Aurelius' throat. He hadn't seen the creature move, but Darius had attached himself to the limb, flaming hands setting fire to the feathers as the Sin sank sharp teeth into the Absolian's flesh.

Muscles tore. Bones cracked like overburdened tree branches. 

Swearing in Libera, Aurelius maneuvered his arms and brought an elbow cracking down across Darius's temple with lightning speed. The Sin released him and the Absolian retreated on foot, unable to takeoff. Savage and unbalanced as the sulfurous monster seemed, he'd known exactly where to strike, using his fingers and blunt nails to rip the ligaments connecting the proper feathers to muscles that endowed flight. 

Darius was smirking, licking bloody lips.

It would take time to properly heal the injury. Trembling with rage, the Absolian allowed his wings to disperse and faced his opponent on equal ground.

In a bygone age, Aurelius and Darius had once sparred frequently. Aurelius had thrown himself fully into studies of combat and his brother, despite his mockery, had indulged Aurelius' whims. They'd fought in the gardens and in the skies, taking flight to the distant mountains where the air was thin and the magic was strange. Just once, they'd flown over the vast darkness of the nether beyond the white cliffs, and Darius had furiously shouted for Aurelius to return, as only ruin lied in that direction.

How ironic.

Each time Darius had swept Aurelius' leg out from under him, his frustration had grown. With every hard fall to the ground, Aurelius had felt his brotherly admiration bruise and crack. Darius would return to Aromont and Aurelius would ascend to the glass citadels in the sky where the red light of sunset bathed the High King's altars in sanguine shades, and he'd trained with his sword for hours, for days, until his flesh remembered the calluses and the blisters no longer formed.

Gadrid, with a teasing air, had told Aurelius that Darius was weaker against a staff, and so Aurelius had changed his favored weapon—to no effect. Still he'd landed upon the ground and still Darius had laid the edge of his blade to his younger brother's neck, that filthy smirk of his always firmly in place. 

Over thousands of years, resentment had festered and had become hate.

The creature before Aurelius didn't fight the same as his brother had. The Sin was a reservoir of unrefined power, lashing out with brutality, not caring what retaliation Aurelius met out. Every injury was healed in an instant, crimson eyes danced with violent intoxication, and he continued to assault the Absolian without taking a breath. He grappled at Aurelius' limbs, and wherever his skin made contact with the Absolian's, unbelievable agony spiraled through Aurelius' flesh.

That was Darius's gift. He'd never used it against him in Absolia before. It was outrageous that such a monstrosity should hold such a precious ability. 

Screaming his frustration, the Absolian struck the demon hard enough to throw him through a reinforced wall and into the next room. He didn't dare use magic against him, as it would only feed the creature. Instead, his hands twisted about a thread of creation, and his crystal staff came into being.

The Sin returned, falling into a steady, predatory stride. He was smiling again and had his vicious teeth on display.

Before Aurelius could attack, a booming voice spoke from the balcony and a paltry rill of mage magic dropped before Darius. Rocks shivered as they rose, their forms adjusting to the order of the mage's skill. Metal shone as porous stone receded, and both Sin and Absolian watched as a rough-hewn sword appeared from the unfinished materials. Darius took the haft in his hand as the spell came to completion.

Mages had gathered at the balcony, unbeknownst to Aurelius. Where did they come from? They hadn't been there before. The Absolian would have sensed them! He sent a bolt of energy flying toward the men, furious at the interruption, and it was intercepted by Darius. The pure strain of power thrown by the Absolian glowed in the Sin's palm for half a second before it disappeared, and Darius's crimson eyes burned with unabashed effervescence.

The creature laughed. Aurelius refused to be laughed at by him. Not anymore. Never again.

The blade completed a slow, lazy circle in the Sin's hand. He didn't seem to know he was doing it.

Suddenly, Aurelius had no doubt this was the same man from his memory. The images overlaid one another—dream and reality—and while one was crimson-eyed and surly, the other blue-eyed and haughty, they had the same set to their jaws and identical mannerisms in their swordsmanship.

Aurelius remembered the very last fight he'd had with an Absolian Darius. By then, his hatred for his elder brother had been so vitric it'd become a poison, an ailment that slowed his hands and inundated his mind with compromising rage. When Darius had thrown him down for the final time that evening and had turned his back with a muttered, "Go clean yourself up," Aurelius had lunged, drawing a hidden dagger from his tunic, and had intended to end Darius's life.

The man had met the unseen blow with cold, calculated precision, throwing Aurelius to the ground so hard the garden's pavers had cracked and the planters had bled streams of wet soil.

As Aurelius had stared into his brother's fiery eyes, he'd finally understood that he'd never defeat him. That this was why Darius was First Commander, why he led all Absolians of the Command, why he sat at the High King's side, acted as Iadlim's voice, and was Aromont's pride. 

That was the night Aurelius had decided to be rid of him. 

They clashed in the foyer's middle, Aurelius' staff singing through the air, the crystal's structure humming with interwoven spells. Darius met him blow for blow, the dull gleam of the blade seeming to bend like liquid silver when used by Darius's experienced hand. The Sin's gaze was as unyielding as his sword arm—and only once, once, did he glance away from Aurelius. He did so to look at the woman Aurelius had deemed to touch. 

This cannot be happening. 

The staff grew heavier in Aurelius' hands. The humid mist lain by the mages sucked at his power like a leech of infinite proportions.

I am an Absolian!

Darius's blade slashed his cheek and Aurelius used his wounded wings to block the next strike. Severed, black feathers littered the ruins.

He is NOTHING.

The sword cut his hand, the staff lowering.

I am the First Commander! Not him! This cannot be—!

The crystal staff fell with a clear, high clatter.

—happening!

Darius's exhalation was audible as the blade slashed Aurelius' chest and the Absolian stumbled, the sight of his own scarlet blood splattering across the Sin's face startling the winged harbinger.

I'm...bleeding?

His wings folded beneath him as the Absolian collided with the ground, trembling fingers ghosting the edge of the ghastly slash. It wasn't healing. Why wasn't it healing?

The remembrance of their final fight infiltrated his thoughts again as he saw both the Absolian First Commander and the Sin stand above him, sword held at the ready.

The Darius of his memory hissed, "If you draw your weapon on me again, prepare to die with mine in your throat."

The Sin, in contrast, said nothing. There was no familiarity in his gaze, no pity, no warning. He was—and he wasn't—the man Aurelius remembered, because this creature was something else entirely.

The sword came swinging downward in a final arc.

Aurelius felt no regret for his ambition. He only wished to see the dawn again.