He stood, still bleeding from the shoulders, an eternal numbness washing over him as his small ears rang with the gravity of what he had done. His heart pounded in his chest as he stared at the empty shell of his dead father, a heap in the sand. The sun stretched their shadows long over the dunes as the dried blood on his legs grew sticky and cold as the evening air.
Zahhāk had dreamed of revenge—of retribution for all that had been taken from him since he first fathomed the very existence of the great, gaping hole in his soul. He had high expectations for this moment, and instead he felt the chasm stretching wider—like acid eating away at the edges from within his core. Zahhāk only hated himself for it more, because like everything else in his life, this meant nothing.
Maslakhat’s dying words had been the most truth Zahhāk had ever heard—and it only made him more angry, whether he acknowledged it or not. The fire inside him burned and burned and from the ash came nothing new, a cycle that could not complete, and still the flame found more of him to consume—undying. His endless insecurities fed it, the tinder burning relentlessly, hopelessly.
He was so consumed with his own ambivalence, he didn’t even hear the dramatic outbursts of the mare who suddenly slammed into him, knocking him off his feet—pain once more screaming through his limbs like lightning in a storm as he fell to the dusty soft sand below. She charged him again, hooves flailing with unpracticed rage as he regained his stature, pinning his ears back and meeting her squarely with mirrored, yet unwarranted aggression.
Zahhāk noticed the teenage colt behind her, gently nudging the dead stallion as though he might rouse him, and as the mare struck him once again, he realized the connection. She loved him, and clearly their son did not hold the same unending hatred toward his father that he did, which meant that he had treated them well. Therefore, Maslakhat was indeed capable of giving what Zahhāk had craved his entire live, the very thing that might have been able to save him, that could change him, that he had now ensured would never ever be possible—the very thing that he was denying to the children he fathered himself recently, however indifferent he had felt about it. Love, admiration, pride.
"Sikme!" Zahhāk cursed loudly, suddenly wheeling around and striking out at the mare with all the power that both his his hind legs could offer.
Zahhāk
There was madness in any direction, at any hour.
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