A pause that stretched like a wound.
"Still trying to bind him. Trying, yet again, to take sothing precious from ."
The blood drained from Cassiopeia’s face so fast she felt dizzy, the room tilting for a mont as if the floor had dropped away beneath her.
"Or did you think — did you think, Cassiopeia — that I did not know what had brought you?" lissa asked, voice low and trembling with old fury. "Every Maxton who has walked into a room I was in for the last years as the wife of your family, has co for the sa reason — to take sothing, or to watch sothing be taken. Your two brothers. Your ancient aunts and uncles. Your cousins. You. The order was always the sa. Go see what she has. Go see what she still loves. Go see what we can take next."
lissa drew a slow, shaking breath that sounded like it hurt coming out.
"All your family does is take everything precious to , Cassiopeia. Take. Take. Take. You took my child. My infant. You took my happiness. You took my daughter’s twin, Cassiopeia, and you replaced her with your brother’s bastard, and you made raise him. You took my brother. You staged the road accident. You took Phei’s father. You took his mother. You took his whole world he’s ever known and annihilated it in a single afternoon and as if that were not enough, you robbed him of happiness for ten years, took my child’s remain and used to give that bastard powers; you took everything away from us — every single thing — and what."
"Every single thing. And what had we done to you?"
Her voice had thinned to sothing raw and bleeding, the words scraping out of her throat like they were tearing sothing on the way up.
"What have we ever done to your family to deserve this, Cassiopeia? What had i-Lin ever done to deserve her neck being snapped? What had Seiryū ever done to deserve dying in that harrowing pain? What had my daughter — my newborn — done to deserve being killed in her own bassinet?"
The words landed like stones dropped into still water, sending ripples of old agony through the room.
"M-lissa —"
"For everything you took. For every single thing. What had we done?" lissa was in tears, streaming endlessly from her eyes.
What had the Ryujin Tiamats ever done to them, really?
The silence stretched, heavy and terrible, thick with the weight of eighteen years of unanswered grief.
"And yet there you were," lissa said, even quieter now, voice cracking at the edges, "back in our doorway to finish the job. Trying to turn Phei into a mindless husk so you can drag his soul ho to the sa people who staged the road that killed his mother and father. As if all you had done wasn’t enough!"
"lissa, no — that’s not —"
"And still you have the audacity," lissa whispered, voice shaking with barely contained rage, "the unbelievable, monstrous, the unprecedented audacity, Cassiopeia. Just because he outwitted you and he turned you into his slave first before you did just the sa, instead of killing you. Just because you lost. The audacity of standing here in my doorway and asking — asking , Cassiopeia — for a clean slate.
Cassiopeia’s face was wet.
She hadn’t even realized she was crying until the tears were already falling, hot and unstoppable, tracing burning paths down her cheeks and dripping from her chin onto the front of her blouse.
The training had never taught her what to do when the body started crying before the mind caught up.
She was crying. Quietly. More than lissa was crying — lissa had wiped her one tear; Cassiopeia had two, three, four, the small civil failure of her face cumulative now, running unchecked down her cheeks while she stood gripping the door fra — quietly, helplessly — while her hands stayed locked on the doorfra like it was the only thing keeping her upright, the wood growing damp beneath her palms from the sweat and the tears she couldn’t stop.
lissa saw it.
She did not soften.
"Just because you lost to him, Cassiopeia. Just because you beca part of this family the way you beca part of this family — not by surrender. Not by choice. By defeat. The mark on your soul is the evidence of a contest you lost, and you stand in my doorway as though it is a wedding ring."
"M-lissa — I —"
Must I remind you, Cassiopeia — must I, honestly, must I — that this was not your choice." lissa asked, voice cracking with old, buried grief. "You did not surrender to Phei, Cassiopeia. You lost to him. That is how you beca part of this. Lest — and you and I both know this — lest you would still be trying to take him. Right now. This very afternoon. With your sa hands and your sa patient mouth."
She turned.
Walked back toward the sofa. The small bright clean architecture of her shoulders did not, technically, shake. But she had her back to Cassiopeia again, and the space across her shoulder blades held the patient terrible weight of a woman who could not, at this mont, afford to be looked at.
"So do not stand in my doorway, Cassiopeia, and talk to about your eternal servitude."
A breath.
"Because that was not your choice. You are serving because you lost, and you have no choice. Should the Mark go away — should anything go wrong in that bond with you — you would, by the next afternoon, be back at that long oak table with your father, finishing what brought you: binding My Everything as a soulless being."
"I — I would never, lissa I —"
"You would still be Cassiopeia Maxton."
The words landed like stones dropped into still water.
"And I will never forgive a Maxton. Ever. My daughter. My brother. i-Lin; Phei’s mother. Unless you can bring them back."
Cassiopeia made a small, broken sound that wasn’t quite a word, sothing torn and wet that caught in her throat like a hook.
lissa’s hands found one of his shirts again. Her fingers curled around the fabric like she needed sothing solid to hold onto, knuckles whitening as she gripped it hard enough that the material bunched and wrinkled beneath her touch.
When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and final, the words falling like a death sentence.
"And just you wait."
A breath that shook on the way out.
"Just because we Ryujin Tiamats have been quiet for years doesn’t an we’ve forgotten. i-Lin’s family didn’t just let their daughter die and go back to their afternoons like nothing happened. Tell the Maxtons, Cassiopeia; her family will be coming to correct the debt of their daughter’s death!"
A pause that stretched like a blade.
"Tell them their doom is coming!"
Another pause.
"Oh — right."
Her voice dropped to almost nothing, barely more than a whisper.
"You can’t."
****
A/N:I will ask again, guys, honestly, tell what you think about this Cassiopeia and lissa confrontation and if Cassiopeia had the right to do what she just did in light to both what her family has done, her own actions and being Phei’s slave.
And what about lissa’s reaction pain and everything.
My most excitent is of course about i-Lin’s family... I literally felt a shiver going down my spine. For all we know, that family isn’t simple either and yet they’ve been quiet for years since the death of their daughter!
And what about Phei and his mother’s family?
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