Leaving the brilliance of the ballroom, I stepped out into the gloomy dark of the castle balcony. The castle was perched on a seaside cliff and from the balcony I could see the turbulent waves crashing against the rocky shore, the expanse of the sea that stretched on and on to the distant horizon, and the winding body of The Serpent beyond where the world ended. Her golden scales, now silvered in the light of the waning moon above, shimmered like precious jewels as she moved, ever constricting the world she held within her coils.

I sighed in contentment as I sat on the balcony railing, enjoying the last of King Kallus' wine, as I relaxed against the cool stones of the castle to the tune of the waves rolling in and the distant murmuring of The Serpent. I had lived here in this castle all my twenty years, but it was here I felt most comfortable, in the place where I fell from the ageless heavens and into dreary mortality.

"Happy birthday," Adela's timid voice sang gently, nearly lost amid the stronger voices of the earth, sea, and goddess. Her beauty was evident even with the mask of pearls that attempted to hide it. It covered her skin from brow to nose, but her brown eyes were bright and expressive, her pink lips curved into that undeniably beautiful smile that was uniquely her own. Ringlets of dark hair framed her face, falling well past her softly curved jaw to brush against her bare shoulders. Her silver dress, dotted by precious, expensive pearls, draped her form like the flowing garments of the nymphs in classic paintings. In the light pouring out from the ballroom, a hint of her dark skin peaked through the fine material. It was no wonder why Adela had so many admirers and would-be suitors. Even now, I did not have enough fingers to count on one hand the number of men whose eyes followed her out onto the balcony.

"Thank you, though you are still the only one that considers today my birthday." I laughed as she offered me a fresh cup of wine. "Did they find more in the cellar?"

"My father called in a favor." I always had to strain my ears to hear her properly. I found myself perpetually leaning a bit in her direction. She always kept her eyes downcast and even in the brief moments I would catch her looking up at me directly, she would swivel her eyes away the moment she realized I'd caught her. She had always been a timid, shy little thing, but in the recent months she had begun to speak more to me than she'd ever dared before. A change begun by the very human and very foreign feelings she had awoken in me. "May I ask why the Righteous King is out here and not in there at your own party? Are you hiding from your admirers? My father? Me...perhaps?" She asked, bashfully, dipping her head further.

"There's your answer. That title. Believe it or not, sometimes I like to pretend that I was born like everyone else and did not just fall out of the sky." I didn't mean for my tone to turn so rough. I could see Adela bristle beneath her finery.

Shame plunged its knife into my guts at the sound of her frightened squeak. "Forgive me. I didn't mean to offend you." She said with a blush spreading to her ears and down her neck.

"You didn't. This day makes me melancholy." I moved from the railing and stepped behind her, hiding her body from the men inside with the bulk of my own and the drape of my red cape. "Why are you still so frightened of me?" I asked in a low whisper, my breath stirring the curls that escaped her elaborate hairstyle of woven braids. I asked though I already knew the answer, as bitter as it was. "You are to be my wife very soon and given how intimate we have already become; I would think you would not cringe when I speak." I stroked my hand down the soft flesh of her arm, soaking in the warmth that radiated off her, warming my own cold, translucent skin. I splayed my fingers over her own, my belly twisting sickeningly as I noted how different my hand was compared to hers as my finger curled inward, interlacing with her own. My silver blood glowed through my see-through skin, branching out like streams and rivers across my body. I could feel her shiver at my touch. I offered no warmth. No safe comfort. I was a cold, alien thing. I might as well have been chiseled from stone. Was it really so surprising then that she was disgusted by me?

"You are still a daunting figure." She confessed, shuttering as my free hand pulled her against me. "You are The Righteous King that was promised and- "

"I'm nothing. I am and will be nothing until I've hunted down my sister and murdered her." I said, still with more roughness than I intended. I felt her flinch against me, and I pressed a kiss to her neck in apology. I touched her and kissed her, soothing her fear with stirring lust until her mind was so fogged with it that she forgot who it was that held her. Until she forgot to be afraid. We had grown up together, she and I. We were raised by the same family, but never allowed to consider each other family. I was always the king that was promised and she my intended bride. She used to hide from me when we were young and it was not until we were much older that she began to share more than a few small words with me, most likely at her father's insistence. Even when I expressed desire for her, even when I held her like this, every shutter, every fearful look, reminded me that she did not consider me human. I was a god made flesh, set apart and raised up on a pedestal. Something to be feared and never denied for I would destroy the Monstrous Queen and save all of humanity someday. Or so, The Serpent would have them all believe.

"Lucius," Her tiny hand stopped mine at the curve of her inner thigh. "Please, stop. I don't want this. Not here."

I pulled away, taken aback for a moment. "I do not think that you have ever told me no before." I laughed at the newness of her rejection.

"Why do you do that?" She turned towards me, keeping her head bowed as she adjusted her clothing. "When we speak, you always act mildly annoyed and yet you distract me with pleasure to make me quiet." Adela genuinely sounded hurt. "I am not a simpleton. I know when I'm being manipulated and used, but for the sake of my father's plans I have been quiet and indulged you far more than I would ever allow any other mortal man."

"Because it seems that that only time you see me as a flesh and blood man is when I have my fingers buried in you." My poisonous tongue lashed out before I could bite it off.

I was rewarded with a look that could bring even the most hardened criminals to tears of remorse. "That was cruel and disgusting of you to say." She said, wrapping her arms around herself, curling inward, growing all the more smaller.

"It is the truth. I too know when I'm being manipulated." I could not stop my wickedness from pouring out. It was she that had come to my bed, she who had sought me out and it enraged me to realize that absolutely nothing had changed when I so desperately wanted it to.

She lifted her eyes to long body of the Serpent in the distance, where she rose in an arch over the horizon line. "I have made peace with the fact that I will have to marry a man that I am afraid of. I must, to ensure that my bloodline stays in power even when you take our throne. However, you are so resentful of your fate, Lucius, it angers me. I don't understand why you don't want it. Do you not realize how many men would kill to be you?"

"They only want it because they don't understand the burden that comes with it. To the people The Monstrous Queen is a devil hiding in the dark, but to me...she is my sister. My twin, born of the same womb, born at the same time. Today is my birthday and it is hers too. She turned twenty-one today, same as me, and she too has not become what she is meant to become. I don't know what my sister is like, if she has already started down her dark path or is as hesitant as I am. I don't even know her name, but I wonder what it could be sometimes, what she likes, who found her after she fell, if she has friends and loved ones. Most of all, I wonder if she knows about me and if she wonders the same things."

"It sounds like you are dreading destroying her." Her words were almost hopeful.

I moved away, relieving her of the pressure of my presence hovering over her and took my usual place at her side. We looked out at the same view. She watched the Serpent curl ever tighter around our world and I looked up at the black sky that had birthed me. "Because I am. Knowing I must kill her without ever knowing her is not as easy as people think."

"I don't think you would be worthy of your title if it was." She whispered, bravely taking my hand after all the cruel things I had said to her out of anger and hurt.

Despite knowing all that she had confessed, I found myself leaning towards her still. She was using me for power, and I was ever willing to let her use me until there was nothing left to take. Her warmth and softness were a comfort to me, and I sought it out relentlessly like a moth with its flame. "I want to be worthy of it. I'm just afraid of what I'll have to do and who I will be once it is done. Will you help me, Adela? Will you at least continue to indulge me so that it might be bearable?" She didn't respond, but when I leaned down to kiss her, she leaned further into my embrace, her hands clenching the fabric of my cape at my shoulders to hold me nearer. I moaned into her mouth, her heat like nothing else in this world. She was a sun in my otherwise lightless existence. Even if she hated me, even if she never saw me as anything other than a god, I would bask in the light of her until mortality doused her out.