Pepper / INK /

Javved still kept one old picture, silver at the edges from where the magic has faded, making the colors not as bright as they should be. Both he and his brother, on their knees, hands against each other, smiling as they were in the process of trying to do magic. They couldn’t have been any older than six. And it was only a decade later that his brother was leaving him to die in the sands. Disoriented, injured, and terrified that he would be judged too.

Damien honestly hadn’t known what his father was doing. He had assumed that he was bringing them out to bolster his fading magic, everyone knew his magic was fading. Even Javved. But at that point in his life he still had his other name. Damien Emmett. What Damien didn’t know was what his father, Zebulon intended to do about it. The first spell his father cast rooted him to the spot. And Damien watched as his entire family, his mother, Daniel’s mother and most of the living children who still lived at home were murdered. He couldn’t call it anything else.

Their magic and power used to etch the ink onto his skin, it was probably the most painful thing he had ever felt, though it wasn’t the most painful he would ever feel, and then his brother came home. The ink burned, it knew something was wrong, and it tried to fight but the binding spell was too strong and then his brother broke it and the ink rebounded, it writhed and twisted, it tried to hold on, it tried to judge, and it tried to let go all at the same time, but the spell was stronger, fueled by that many lives there was nothing it could do but bind.

And then the storm came, he thought the cold water would feel good, but the moon magic burned because of the blood magic, he screamed, and cried and swore and begged, but his brother didn’t stop and the pain didn’t stop. And eventually, everything was silent. When he woke in the morning there was nothing left, he wasn’t even sure of where he was, and he thought he saw someone in the distance, but all he could hear was what he had always heard when people approached him. "Demon"

That’s what his name meant, even his mother, made a sacrifice to his ink, had called him that. She had said there was something wrong with the child. In certain lights his eyes looked red instead of brown. And he knew, somewhere in the distance was Cold Iron, a haven city, safe for any who choose to come. But there was nothing, no food, no water, nothing.

He walked what felt like for miles, there was nothing out there no food, no plants no water, so when he came on a mummified corpse two days later, he  stole the water flask from the dead man. It wasn’t until he got to cold iron and looked at the skin that he saw the faint house mark, Emmett. He had walked in circles, and little did he know, that body, found by Daniel, made him think Damien was dead.

He didn’t know, or care whose body it was, or how it had been missed when Daniel, the golden boy, moved earth with the Waters of the Moon, but they didn’t need the water flask, and so he took it.

By now, hungry and alone, he staggered on, finding at last, the tall black pillars that announced the edge of the territory of Cold Iron.  But some of the pillars, moved by the earth, were broken, the line incomplete, the circle of protection broken.

Damien’s magic worked, sort of, and he was able to sit in the shadow of a broken pillar until a family took pity on him and took him home.  But from that day, he swore he would destroy everything Daniel Emmett loved, he would know the sorrow of being alone like that.

That was the last time he used the name Damien, when they asked his name he told them "Javved,"  "the one who lived."  and that was what he set out to be, the only Emmett that lived.

#

Seven hundred years was a long time to live, and a longer time to hold a grudge. But Sebastian Emmett had held one for longer than that. He hated his brother Zebulon. Zeb was the golden child, he was the one trusted with the Ink, he was the one shown special treatment, he was the one who got everything. Why? Because he was daddy’s favorite and a moon caster, not a solar like mom. People saw the sun he wore, and the bright colors and they laughed.

But the sun was stronger than the moon, everyone knew that. And once the plague had done its work, he would become the Prince-of-all-cities, and he would show the moon practitioners for the slavering beasts they were. Cold and aloof like the moon they didn’t care for their people, they didn’t bring them long life and happiness, but forbade the use of magic to help others.

Taking out Luna Nueva had been easy, he hadn’t even had to rely on plague. Just pay a couple Necromancers to start an uprising. And once they had set things running, the Inkwalker had cut them off. And when that failed to work, he brought down lightening and holy rain and washed the city away. He had thought that corrupting the Inkwalker’s own brother was an especially brilliant touch.

Sebastian looked over the map of Megapolis. He would never call it by that name, the one it had once born, the one marked out so completely on the map there was no hope of recovery. He refused to call it the city of The moon in any language. It would be the new capitol of his holy land, and the Rule of the Sun would never end.

His mother had always said that his dreams were too grand for a little boy from the flatlands. But he didn’t care. He would have his justice. He would show his brother Zebulon that he was fit to rule. For, that is what the Ink was for, right? To rule, to make everyone bow and scrape before you?

He looked over the maps, each one of a city, his current one was Megapolis, where one of his loyal servants ruled as the Prince of the City. Of course, she wasn’t strong. Using the Solar powers when her specialty was Lunar. But she had given up the moonlight. Happy to do anything to save her soul, her city, and her ’father’.

That was what they called him, ’father’. And they were happy to do his bidding. At least they told themselves they were, so badly deluded that they knew no other than this. The servitude and the sun.

He prepared for the party that he would throw. The send off for his most recent ’curse’ victim. She would drink the sacred wine of parting, laced with the plague, and she would carry it into the cities and towns and thus the temizleyici would be done.

But who would he choose as his consort? The current co-ruler, content to be a sister was old, and her health was failing. But he, the one they looked on as their god and Father didn’t ever seem to age. How little they knew. The things you could learn and unlearn of magic in seven hundred years would boggle the mind.

Plagues, poisons, and spells to extend (or take) life were his stock and trade. His mistress, whether sister or lover, would succumb to the spell he used to prolong his own life, as would the rest of the ladies of the sun who waited for him. He would take their voices and he would take their life, but they still served him.

He walked down the corridor, looking at the painted forms of all his previous ’ladies’. Soon, the current one would join them. Painted, young, and in their finery, there was a secret about the statues that only Two people knew.

They had once been human.

And in a few days, his current mistress of cities would join them, as a sculpture.

;>;;>;;>;;

Next Chapter: Rogue Inkwalker