Whispers Waltz Around Our Dreams . . .

One chance. That’s all Losa had patience for, all her tattered heartstrings had left. She was falling to pieces with each gasp of air rasping into her lungs, silently screaming for help - and the world watched her drown like a pup purposefully disowned. The young Arcus Irae had already endured torture no living thing should have to bear. Things even her sister had no knowledge of. And Losa was still so fragile, so very vulnerable in spite of it all, because the former royal bird was not omnipotent by any means - she had her weaknesses, and all she asked was for a single peaceful branch to pull her from the current that destroyed her. To help her regain her footing, heal from the horrors that coiled like pythons in her innards. Except, of course, the last varg who could do that had willingly stepped away from her . . . Hurricane had heard Losa plea for help and then he’d pulled away to watch her retch and choke, told her to stand when there was no bottom, and finally the last of the rainbow’s hope died.

A realization hit Losa like a stone to her flesh. A knife to her gut. A bullet to her heart. There was no place for her anywhere . . . not back in her birthplace, not at Dierne Hrof - nowhere except whatever mound of dirt would become her grave. Except Losa did not even have the luxury of dying to escape the agony of her existence, because to die would be to inflict another grievous wound upon the souls of the remaining rainbows. That’s all that Losa was, could ever be: a festering center of rot. Made only to harm and destroy. She was a disease cloaked in the deceptively lovely colors of a sunrise. At last the ex-princess understood why she’d been tied to to Duma - why the Gods had bound their hearts together with a string of fate that to this day strangled Losa like a noose. Madness called to madness. Chaos loved more chaos. Their world had gone far too long in peace and prosperity . . . it needed a union of pure ugliness to offset the glory of the innocent Arcus irae. Vile darkness to threaten their light and make it shine all the brighter. Evil to challenge the good . . . and make it stronger.

All this time Losa had thought she’d been raised to become a Queen filled with healing joy and love. But she was wrong. Everyone was wrong. Zawyne should have been born the heir, for all her incandescent innocence and beauty. It was Zawyne that deserved a crown, the adoration of her peers - Zawyne who calmed beasts and healed aching hearts. Even that vicious lost boy Archangel had fallen in love with the sunset darling. And what did Losa have?

A soulmate who had betrayed her. Raped her body, mind, and soul. An Ofer who cared more about letting Losa keep her distance than keeping her safe. And the one wolf she thought she could trust - the warrior who had claimed her heart even as his rival claimed her spirit - had grown cold without warning, his affection extinguished. The absence of his support slithered into the girl’s very bones like frost, spiraling out from where it touched her, blood congealing around razor-edged snowflakes. Losa might have survived it all if Hurricane had stayed by her side. Yet he too isolated the broken doll . . . and now there was nothing left. Rionnag Air Imrich had never wanted to die more than when those beloved lightning-hued lanterns glared down at her without pity or love.

And yet somehow, although she felt the very essence of her being wither and sink like so much decomposing matter, the roseate girl forced herself to move toward Aindreas’s call. She flowed with mechanical grace across the leaf-strewn terra, paws pressing lightly into paths sprinkled with russet pine needles. Though they prickled at her pads, Losa felt nothing. Her breath wreathed delicately from her muzzle, but she was immune to the chill. It did not take long for her slender legs to carry her into one of the larger - if not the largest - meadows in Dierne Hrof; at least, it did not seem long, for something in the failed heiress’s mind had fractured during her moment with Hurricane and her thoughts were unable to leap across the jagged gap in the track, instead resorting to looping around endlessly in her skull, and they were thoughts of her hideousness and her failure and her worthlessness, and as Losa stepped into the clearing she feared the harrowing echos of those inner words might spill from her eye sockets and drip on the ground like a stream of poison. And then they’d all know . . . but they already knew, didn’t they? Quiturah and Zawyne knew, since they’d witnessed her inability to use her Arcus Irae aura. And they must have told everyone else, because Quiturah and Zawyne had individuals that loved them, didn’t they, lucky girls, lucky bitches, and as Losa’s gaze swept toward her sister and her mismatched windows met Zaffy’s equally unique irises she saw that Zawyne had been crying, and that. Made. Losa. Furious.

A surge of hatred stronger than any other emotion Losa had felt before reared in her stomach. Outwardly, she turned her stare dispassionately away from her poor sad sibling to take in the myriad faces waiting for Aindreas’s announcement. She noticed his nephew Vladimir, his face glowing with a lovesick starstruck expression that meant he was thinking of his mate; her Ofer Aindreas sat with his banner about his paws, disgustingly relaxed; two fiery ladies - the daughters of Vladimir - chattered amongst themselves, the blue light of their eyes illuminating their young features; a tiny dark pup flinched as she made noise, as if afraid to draw attention to her position. All of them so ignorant. So protected, insulated, taken care of. Losa experienced the burden of her presence like the feverish heat of a septic wound. Each moment she stood here, she risked corrupting them with her evil. A black hole among stars. Her loathing would devour them.

“I shouldn’t be here.” Lyrics spoken at their normal volume, Losa’s alto tone as smooth as a feather brushing against glass. She did not expect anyone to pay attention to her. Why should they? The lightning-veined creature was merely making an observation aloud, having reached her conclusion at last. Pools of molten amethyst and sapphire flickered to Aindreas, wondering if he would react at all, before the pastel ballerina turned and fled from the meeting. Fled so quick and so fast her pelt rippled flat against the lithe outline of her frame, a shooting star of pearl-pink and cream-orange and smoke-blue. Her electricity-gloved columns made her fly over the terra - and although she hardly made a sound as she sprinted, Losa’s heart pounded wildly with thunder.

☽Arcus Irae Princess | Sister to Zawyne | Chained to Duma | Bound to Hurricane | xathira☾