The Price of Power
2
The black car knifed through rain‑slick streets, splashing through puddles and potholes without any cautions. The storm had blown past, yet stray drops still slid from overhanging branches, racing lazy lines down the windows.
“Mmph wh‑hav emm ride!” Noah shouted from the backseat, or tried to. The serpent Envy had its tail wrapped across his mouth, so the words ca out mangled. Anyone fluent in muffled protest might translate: “What have you done? Where’s my Pride?”
From the trunk a second, less articulate curse ended with a solid thud as the vehicle swerved right.
Noah craned his neck, trying to see behind him.
Eydis didn’t bother looking up, absently inspecting her nails. “Oh, that’s just David adjusting to the accommodations.”
She snapped her fingers. The noise from the trunk cut off. Either David had passed out or was contemplating the life choices that had turned him into luggage.
As for David…
Her mana training with Gluttony, also known as Cerberus, the three-headed creature of identity crises, was a test of its adaptability. Its true power lay in its ability to shapeshift.
Reality, however, had rules. The puppy could fake her way past human eyes, even masquerade as a Doberman to fool Astra, yet City Hall’s scanners were another matter. lissa’s invitation would carry her only as far as the garden.
Fortunately, the flu had done half the work for her. With most of the catering team out sick, the replacent pool was poorly vetted. Easier to impersonate a server than a guest. But it ca with… dietary requirents.
Cerberus was literal-minded about transformation. “You are what you eat” wasn’t just a saying. Thankfully, a full al wasn’t needed. A single lock of hair, a clipped nail, even the trace of essence from skin contact could suffice. The less consud, the shorter the transformation. An hour, maybe two, if she paced her mana right.
Noah let out another garbled protest. Eydis rolled her eyes, wondering whether she should silence him, though she preferred him conscious.
For now.
“That insufferable familiar of mine loves masquerading as Pride.” she said, nodding at Envy. “But look on the bright side, Senator: you’ve acquired the world’s oldest seat belt. Brace yourself. We’re nearly there.”
The senator’s face darkened to a bruised shade as Envy constricted. Its voice slithered out, silky and smug. “An ancient seatbelt, am I, Your Majesty?”
“Safety first.” Her lips quirked, recalling Cleo’s wide-eyed panic at her utter oblivion to the concept. “Though the puppy has a bit more versatility in the comfort departnt.”
A hiss of irritation, another squeeze. “A fine performance, Your Majesty. Watching you play the ek wine server… quite the revelation.”
Her laugh was light. “Why thank you. I do find that the simplest costus fool the greatest fools, don’t you agree? I imagine Noah would concur, if he weren't so... preoccupied."
He tore at the serpent in desperation, leaving no mark. It tightened, its sinuous form hardening around him, forked tongue flickering with sadistic glee.
Eydis replayed the night’s opening act. She had seen through that wretched Sin’s seduction from the start—a twisted courtship spun from lies and double-crosses. The Blackwood brothers were but pieces on the board, waiting to be moved.
Or so she’d theorised. The conversation she’d eavesdropped on between the brothers had confird it. Disguised as a fumbling wine server, she’d made sure a strategic spill excused her presence from Astra.
She could sense it: two conspirators, moving in lockstep, smooth enough to slip even past Astra’s keen eye.
As Noah played the part of the devoted brother, she found herself almost, almost impressed. But Athena’s investigation had unknowingly done half the work for them: Thomas discarded, and Noah left to ripen. Perfect soil for sothing darker.
Her eyes returned to the senator, his face tight, still wrestling against Envy’s hold and no doubt calling for Pride for the hundredth ti. Slowly, his gaze found the faint sigil inscribed on the roof’s glass pane.
The realisation ca delightfully fast.
“Ah, incredible, isn’t it, what one notices in a mont of… forced introspection? I imagine you’re wondering why Pride has gone silent?”
The car slowed, tyres crunching over wet gravel. Lavender stretched beneath the night sky where only a few stars dared shine. Eydis stepped out, opened Noah’s door, and admired the purple sea.
“Beautiful, don’t you think? I used to hate this view, but now…” She released him from Envy’s grip. “Consider it as a mont of peace before the real conversation begins.”
Noah gasped, swallowing air. “What’s your tie to Ares Van Nassau, you devil?”
“Van Nassau?” An eyebrow raised. “What would I have to do with them?”
Noah's teeth ground together. "Cut the crap. You tried to muzzle to keep that saintly façade intact, Van Nassau, but I see through it. You’re rotten, manipulating minds so they stay obedient. I don’t know how you buried Pride, yet justice—”
“Buried Pride?” A light laugh. “Indeed, ‘Pride’ was sealed away the mont those desperate eyes rolled back. Honestly, Senator, you never imagined the tablets hidden in your car would betray you so… poetically, did you?”
“You… you drugged ?"
“Careful with the accusations, Senator. They were your pills. I simply... expedited their use out of curiosity.” She smiled. “Funny, isn’t it? Humans everywhere chase poison for pleasure. But don’t worry. You’re about to experience sothing far more exotic.”
Her hand lifted; the sigil on the glass roof shifted from cutting erald to a venomous violet. The glow rinsed his pale face in sothing unwholeso.
“Just what—” Noah tried to speak, but a thick liquid coalesced and ramd down his throat. Heavy. Bitter. Foul. It tasted like every lie he’d ever told, every betrayal he’d swallowed, every secret he’d entombed on his climb.
He convulsed. Shadows spilled from his mouth, scorching the lavender as they splattered.
“What… what is this filth?”
Eydis stepped back while he toppled from the car. “Don’t recognise it?” She snapped off a sprig of lavender and inhaled. “Repugnant, isn’t it? Not quite Pride’s signature fragrance. More like… eau de sewage.”
“You think this parlor trick makes so kind of monster?"
“Monster? Please." She rolled the stem. “I’m only granting you the ‘power’ you’ve been so desperate to claim. Raw. Ravenous. That darkness has always been yours, just dressed up a little fancier as Pride.”
“Enough of your venomous riddles!” he roared, inky shadows lashing toward her. “Your mind gas won’t fool . The Van Nassau aren’t untouchable.”
A lazy flick of her wrist tore the assault apart. “Mind gas? Correct idea, wrong puppeteer. When my forr familiar approached you, what truly appealed? Power’s promise?”
“Or was it sothing more… pedestrian?” The words landed; she saw it in his eyes.
“Ironic, isn’t it? Trusting a Sin is about as wise as trusting a politician. A creature like you. Did it dangle wealth, status? Cloak it all in so noble purpose? Did you polish those lies until even you started to believe them?”
Noah’s fists shook. “Pride saw what others missed. My potential. The greatness I could achieve."
“Ambition dreams, Senator.” Her gaze drifted toward the starless sky. “It aspires, it reaches beyond the endless grey, if only for a mont. At least it dares. Can you say the sa?”
“Dreams are for children and fools," he spat. “And you, a Van Nassau’s pampered child, dare lecture ? My family built its legacy on sacrifice. Blood. You don’t understand what that costs.”
"Ah. When reason fails, bla the ssenger.”
She traced two spirals in the air. One ascended. The other collapsed inward, a black hole.
“You are correct on one point. Greed doesn’t dream. It wants. It devours. Ever more.”
“Greed? Ridiculous! I am Senator Noah Blackwood. I don’t scavenge for scraps like my brother! I uphold a legacy.”
“Yes… that ‘legacy of sacrifice and bloodshed,’ as you so proudly put it. Funny, though. The bloodshed always seems to belong to others. The bones broken are never yours.” She saw him flinch and stepped closer. “But let's discuss their true design. Their grand plan."
Her words struck like well-placed dominoes, one after another. “Go on,” he said through clenched teeth. “Say your piece.”
She took her ti. Drew it out.
“The Senate race. Not so different from horse racing, wouldn’t you say?”
“Don’t compare sothing sacred to—”
“Sacred? The odds jumped with every new Smoke Monster scandal. People gambled everything on their chosen hero. It’s no different in my world, just faster, thanks to the internet. Sa ga, sa goal: profit.”
“And how does that have anything to do with—“ Noah stopped short as realisation dawned.
“You thought it ant sothing.” She advanced, forcing him back until his spine collided with the car. "There is no grand design. Only chaos that feeds greed, draining wealth into a ravenous abyss.”
Her gaze pinned him. “As I said: Pride and Greed wear such similar masks."
Noah stumbled into the seat, horror mounting as her smirk widened.
“And how much more can you consu?” Her eyes lifted to the glass roof above them. “Deep down, you’ve always known which Sin whispers sweetest in your ear.”
A sound like the grinding of unoiled gears echoed above them. Noah turned his head slowly, his body stiff with fear, as the sigil on the glass roof flared once again, shadows twisting together into a vortex of darkness.
The reckoning descended upon him, the car shuddering violently.
“It…it burns,” Noah choked out. Darkness sunk deep into his bones, eclipsing the narcotic dream he’d called Pride.
This… this was true power. Dark. Sinuous. Devastating. And through it, her soft voice brushed against the shattering remains of his soul.
The final elegy, a requiem.
“The price of power, Senator… Have you ever even understood it? Or is that a lesson every Sin bearer must learn only at the very end? Don’t worry,” she whispered while turning away. “You’re about to find out.”
The shadows surged, consuming him from skin to soul, rging with the darkness within as it twisted and writhed, struggling for supremacy.
And in that mont, Noah ceased to exist, reduced to a final, fractured thought: power had never been enough, no more substantial than smoke, no matter how much tangible wealth he had amassed.
A pawn. In the end.
“How… dare… you…bind…us,” the thing that had been Noah growled, its voice a jagged discord of two voices rged into one.
Eydis turned, slow, calm, and taunting.
“Welco back, Raven.”
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