Minthe rose to his challenge like a wave, swelling with purpose and apt to crash down upon him at any moment. Zahhāk regarded her with anticipation, saliva gathering at the corner of his lips at the sweet punishment she would due inflict via this black behemoth. He lashed his dark tail at his sides as she strung her strings to Lukasz, ever the puppet master; she flicked her wrists and sent him dancing about, his jaw flapping words of warning in Zahhāk’s direction.
He does not heed them. Instead he slowly stepped closer to the stallion, his dark eyes glittering with disobedience as he stared back at him from under his shadow.
“Can’t you see,” Zahhāk spoke with intensity, deliberately, and not at all intimidated by his threats of action. Lukasz was the real victim—not Minthe and not even Zahhāk—yet the large stallion was so completely blind to it, so easily influenced by the red mare’s ways and words. He did not understand their kind—that if you were not a user, you would become the used.
Zahhāk knew what it was to be both—he knew how to ensure the whip wielded by the red mare would be unleashed upon him. It didn’t matter who played the role of the whip. Yesterday, Romulus; today, Lukasz. All that he cared about was that she was the one who held it, commanding its wrath. Pain, punishment—he deserved all of it, even craved it when it came from her.
Zahhāk
There was madness in any direction, at any hour.
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