I woke up after what felt like hours. My head weighing like a rock. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. A tiny high window at the top of the wall was open, sunlight streaming in onto the grey wall. It was still day time. I vaguely entertained the idea that whether several sunlit days had passed. I tried to move, expecting my muscles to be sore from passing out on the hard floor. However, I was surprised to find out a soft mattress under me. When had I moved here?

I sat up straight and rubbed my face, massaging my temple gently, trying to get the throbbing ache to subside. I glanced at my watch. It was four in the afternoon. I had been passed out for almost three hours.

I groaned softly. What the hell had I been thinking? Why had I drank almost an entire bottle of whisky?

"Earth to Goldie," a familiar voice drawled and I glanced up to see Zeph, leaning against the doorway. My heart skipped a beat, in an unexplainable way. He walked closer to me and I saw that he had a bottle of some kind in his hand which he threw at me. I caught it by instinct, looking at the strange, thick liquid inside. "Banana. It'll get rid of your headache" he explained.

I placed the bottle on the mattress and rubbed my eyes again. For a split second, I had hoped that the sudden rush of feelings had been just that- me getting overwhelmed. However, seeing him again made it clear that those feelings had been no illusion.

"I should leave," I said, rising to my feet.

"I made that fucking banana shake for you, dickhead," he said suddenly. "Drink it up, along with your big ass ego."

I scoffed at the irony. "You're the one to say that?"

He shut the door behind him and walked over to me, sitting cross-legged beside me as he pointed at the bottle. "Promise, drink it. It helps."

I sighed and took a sip of the strange concoction, pleasantly surprised by the sweet taste of honey and banana. "Thanks," I muttered reluctantly.

An awkward silence fell between us, broken by loud thumps coming from somewhere on the road above us. A transporting vehicle I assumed.

"Zeph, maybe you should know something," I began. "I...I don't know how to say this without sounding melodramatic but...he's not my dad."

"What do you mean?" Zeph asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

I sighed. Was it a bad idea to tell him? Maybe. But maybe if he knew the truth, it would make him hate me less.

"My mom died right after I was born," I said, even though he already knew that. "And well...my dad kind of resented my existence because of that. My mom was the only one who ever...his only friend and confidante. I don't know how he used to be before her death, but this spiritless stoic man is all I've seen. Arthur, Amelia and Asher have seen him when he used to be more human of course."

I sighed, biting my lip. This was the part I had never confessed to anyone. "Me being Sparkless...different...than everyone else..." I didn't go on. I couldn't. The weight in my chest was too much. It was humiliating to admit it to anyone.

"We heard the rumours," Zeph said suddenly. "About your father embarking on some madman's venture to try to save your mother. About you being born less than a year a later. About you not being his blood." He grabbed the bottle from me and took a sip, leaning his head against the wall. "It was a media circus for a week. I presume your dad shut them down later. But man...they really had the time of their lives. One of the Lords of the House in such a scandal? Reporters were perma-ejaculating everywhere."

I shrugged. "Me being Sparkless just cemented the thought into his head. That I was not completely Lightwielder blood, hence the flaw."

"Flaw?" he scoffed. "Not sure why you'd call it that."

I massaged my temple, taking another swig of the drink. I shrugged. "So yeah, much as I'd like to- I won't be leaching off my millionaire dad."

"My dad was a rat bastard," Zeph said, laughing humourlessly as I turned to look at him. He shrugged, "He wasn't a bad guy. Just...useless. To tell you the truth, even if he had been alive today, we might have ended up in the same place as we did anyway."

We? Was he referring to the rest of the inhabitants of the Nest?

"Zeph..." I took a deep breath, knowing how sensitive he was about this. "You never really told me...what happened. That night."

He didn't say anything, his gaze unwavering, as if he could see right through me. "You know I don't like talking about that."

I turned away from him. Why had I thought he would tell me? "I know. I just think maybe...I've known you for six years. Maybe it's fair of me to know that as well. Everyone else here does."

"Bit of a high idea about what 'fair' and 'unfair' is, Goldie," he said, the razor sharp edge to his voice warning me to back off.

I rose to my feet, taking another sip of the drink. "Right, okay. I gotta go."

"Is this what you're going to do every time?" he scowled. "Just fucking run?"

"I'm not running," I said, turning to glare at him. "You clearly don't want me to be here. So I'm doing you a favour."

He grit his teeth at my words, taking a deep breath and shutting his eyes, as if in conflict with himself. Finally he spoke, "If you want to do me a favour...then you should stay."

My heart skipped a beat at his simple request. I tore my eyes away from him before seating back down. The silence between us stretched out before he finally broke it, "You know what they did. Your people. Sometimes my hate...it's hard to distinguish you from them."

My heart seemed to crack at his words, and shatter at the truth in them.

"I'm not...them. I'd never...do that to...anyone. Least of all...you," I said softly. Hopefully, he wouldn't think much of it. Or maybe he would.

"I know that" he said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.

I turned to face him, my breath catching in my throat as I again became aware of our proximity. "Well..I owe my life to you guys," I said, shrugging even as my heart seemed to be getting ready for a hundred mile race, picking up speed. "That night. I would've been dead if not for you."

"Is that all?" he asked, an odd, soft shimmer in his irises. "Because I saved you that once?"

"You guys are also...my friends," I scoffed. "Kinda my only friends to tell you the truth."

"My world is pretty small as well...but it's enough," he sighed and leaned his head against the wall, gazing up at the ceiling. "I know you won't understand or admit, but, you look a lot like them."

I felt suddenly uncomfortable. It was true that the two separate sects of Lightfall had very distinct looks, but I mostly attributed it to the vastly varying financial conditions than anything else.

"You know...before you, I hadn't...been merciful to any Lightwielder that I came across," he said. "I...well, you know what I've done to them."

"But you let me live," I said, something that I had never stopped wondering about. Why hadn't he used me to blackmail my dad for money? He knew who I was. Why did he suddenly start having principles?

He shrugged, "I don't really know why."

"Sounds like you regret it," I chuckled nervously. He turned to look at me, his gaze intimidating, steady.

"Don't make me."

Huh? Don't make him regret? How could I?

"You never told me...what you did to that guy that day. You said...he would come to life in twelve hours...but...what exactly-?"

"You've lost your mother, haven't you? You'd know how it feels like to lose someone," he said, without looking at me. Why was he suddenly asking me these questions?

I shrugged. "I don't remember her at all. She died days after I was born. I was probably just confused..."

"By the lack of boob juice," he said nonchalantly.

I burst out laughing at the suddenness of his statement. "Lack of affection. Yes, I guess."

He rolled his eyes, "and breast milk."

"Real mature, Zeph." I responded.

"I was ten. I remember her well...and dad..." he sighed before speaking in almost a whisper, "-and Zelos."

"Zelos?" He had never mentioned that name before. But the pain in his voice as he had uttered it had been enough to tell me it was someone important to him.

"My little brother," he continued as a rock slid down to my stomach. "He was five. And.." he sighed, shutting his eyes before he continued. "I have...no clue what they did to him. Assume he's dead though."

My blood seemed to turn icy, my fingers numb. Was it better to just stay quiet? I had heard about what had happened to the thousands of children taken from the Shadowcasters. I had heard my father discussing about them with the House officiates, never really paying attention. About some of the children staying at some facility at the Capital. A massive campus. But I had no way of knowing if I was right. Would concealing the truth be better anyway? What had they done to Zelos? The other kids like him?

"I had no clue you had a little brother...sorry," I tried hard not to feel bitter that I hadn't known this about him. But maybe he finally trusted me enough to tell me. It was a painful subject for him, even talking about it, the way his eyes darkened- he was in agony.

He didn't say anything for a long time. "Everything about that night..I remember it way too clearly to not hate the Lightwielders. Sometimes I wish I didn't. To tell you the truth...when I see those people...from the capital, with their clean clothes, dirtless, remorseless faces, well kept hair...I have a burning, venomous hate inside me. It's a natural instinct to hate Lightwielders. Befriending you, and every moment being civilized with you is a fight against my natural instincts."

Did he feel like he was betraying his family? His people? By becoming my friend? Perhaps. He had always had intense survivor's guilt. And I couldn't really blame him. I shuddered to even think about what all he had seen on the night it had all happened. 'The Night the Light Reigned'- as dubbed by the Lightwielders. The 'Night of the Shadow Corpses'- as dubbed by the shadowcasters.

"So...you're telling me that...in reality...you hate me?" I asked, my stomach turning nervously. Did I really want to know the answer?

"It would make life much easier if I did-" he sighed.

"Why's...that?" I asked.

He turned to look at me, his eyes impassive. "I could kidnap you, torture you and blackmail your father dear."

I couldn't tell if he was joking.

"It's...it's not really all my father-" I began. "It's an age old thing and...the six other Lords....they knew about it too. Possible even more than my dad did. In fact- I had no clue what was happening," I spoke quietly. "Just that...a lot of people were rushing in and out of our home. Dad was really anxious..."

He barked out a laugh, "Yeah. Annihilating hundreds of families must have been taken a toll on him."

"I...I don't think he planned it," I said softly. "Initially it was meant to be a peaceful annex but...then it got violent and-"

"Are you actually fucking defending him?" Zeph asked, glaring daggers at me.

"No...I'm not defending...what happened. I'm just saying...he didn't really do it. Like..he didn't plan it." Suddenly, I regretted saying anything. Especially when he had just admitted that his natural instinct was to hate me.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop to a negative as I realized how insensitive I had sounded. I tried to correct myself, but something in his eyes told me it was best to just shut up. He clenched his jaw, his eyes impossibly dark.

"I don't...I don't mean it like that-" I sighed. Why was I making this worse? "I mean..."

"Did he stop them?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous. And somehow, the ghastly image of the guy lying contorted in the dark alley flashed in my mind. Zeph's ability to appear soundlessly, his agility, his deftness. I had read that the Shadowcasters also had powers of their own- some of them. Although not nearly as strong as the Lightwielders. From the way Zeph never used weapons, he had to have some of these mysterious powers as well. My textbook had told me that some trained Shadowcasters can control minds, although it was hard for me to fathom. And just a small part of me, was wary of him.

"He...tried to," I said, although I didn't think anything I said would make him change his mind. "But by the time he got to know about it...the massacre had grown too much. I...remember him trying to enforce more people..."

"Bullshit," Zeph said, and I flinched. In the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of dark, as if the shadows that seemed so much darker around him were moving around restlessly. "He's the fucking Apex. Been so for over a decade. They killed hundreds of people and he didn't know shit about it? Are you fucking kidding me?"

His voice rose and I slid back slightly from him, my stomach clenching uncomfortably. "I'm just saying...it was..a lapse of judgment...rather than a rational-headed decision."

He was quiet, the silence somehow much worse than his outburst had been. "I wasn't trying to defend him," I said quickly. "Sorry if that's what it came out like. I wasn't trying to defend what any of the Lightwielders-"

"Talking about them in third person won't really help, you know?" he scoffed. "They are your people. You could as well have been one of them, and I wouldn't know."

"I was like...eight," I said, shrugging at the ridiculous idea. "I wasn't out there killing people."

"Right," he said. "You were in your room, safe and sound, oblivious to the city running scarlet. Deaf to the screams and cries. Blind against the carnage of bodies that littered the roads outside."

I gulped. My stomach churned uncomfortably. It was surreal for me to imagine that my dad had ever been responsible for so much bloodshed.

"Three months, Goldie," Zeph said, his eyes voids of darkness. "It took three months for us to clean the roads. Of what?"

I didn't know how to respond to his words. What could I say? What do I even say to someone who had undergone something so ghastly that it was hard for me to even imagine?

"Corpses. Blood. I saw faces of people I knew. Mass graves. What did you House do for us?"

Hate. So much hate. It wasn't for me. It couldn't be. He knew that much, didn't he? Or did he really think of me a Lightwielder, and that's all?

"You all are the same. Don't know why I ever thought different," he rose to his feet, throwing the bottle on the floor with a dull thud. "Go ask father dear, how how many bodies he picked up."

He stormed out, leaving me in bellowing silence. A sinking feeling in my chest.  

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An explanation as to why Zeph is so bitchy towards Aster. Trying to build up the fantastical world bit by bit so hopefully it's comprehensive and rational. Also, I wonder if this changed anyone's perception towards Zeph? 

Thanks for reading and do vote if you like it so far!