BROMMY

"By the gods, Adler, we should be searching the streets and the outer wall-"

"That is what Enoch's men are doing. While they search out there...we search in here."

I scoff while storming outside my room and into the hallway. From the entryway, I watch with growing impatience at his childish reactions to finding Greta's things in my home.

"She was not to live in your bed, Brommy. She was to live in your home, of which, has multiple rooms. Why yours, dear Brometheous?" he asks with a belly laugh.

His cackle makes me angry. He is full of it. He pretends to have no interest in her when it's convenient for him.

I clench my jaw seeing a layer of cloudy black stardust rise off of the ground around him. He can hide his anger from the guards, but he can't hide it from me.

Then, the black stardust travels to the columns in my room coated with her drawings. My heart sinks. He's going to destroy them.

"Do you know how easily any mongrel could just sneak into my home? Everything is open. There are no doors here. That was Enoch's law, by the way, not mine."

"My sweet certainly did not have any say in the matter!" Adler laughs, bitter. Is he serious? He doesn't care that much about her. He continues, "I'm sure, with you being of the same blood as myself, you believed you could just take your chance while you had it."

Ignoring his provoking, I watch as that haze of electrified stardust on the columned walls suddenly lights up in black angry flames of fire.

My guards pick up on his leaking temper. Cowards, all of them, shuffle outside into the hallway to avoid the sudden flames.

"Adler, if I may be blunt, I am of more use on the streets than in here waiting on you. You already know where she is, anyway, don't you?"

He's turned away from me looking over some drawings Greta made and hung on the column walls in here. It's what his stardust is coating now in a thick layer of burning black fire.

He clasps his hands together, with a wolfish grin, now that we are alone.

"Of course, I know where she fucking is."

"In the interest of time, Adler, may I ask why we are still here then?"

"Oh, I cannot answer that, Brometheous," he says while looking over my head at the fire on the walls. His movements are stiff as he folds his arms. "Only the gods know why we are still wasting our breath-"

"Where is Greta?"

"In my observatory. She's teaching a few people how to operate our light-"

"I know that is not true. I am your brother and I can tell when you are lying."

"Fine," he snaps sharply, "She is living outside the city in the shack she died in."

"She did not die, Adler. She was unconscious...probably due to over exposure from the planet's radiation. The light levels here are across the spectrum compared to Ashtium. You know that."

"She may as well be dead. I killed her long ago. I killed her in my own way. Don't you think so, Brommy?"

***

ENOCH

"...don't you think so, Brommy?"

"Am I interrupting something?" I look between the two gray-skinned desert demons. "Because the last time I checked, Adler, you were going to leave these walls and retrieve Greta from the village outside this commune city! Why in Ashtium's name are you still here? Both of you are useless. We have to put out the fire, now!"

"It's already dead. Why don't you tell him what I burned up, Brommy? You should tell him what I found."

Mischief dances in my father's eyes as he waits for his favored son, Brommy, to speak instead of himself.

With a scowl, Brometheous leaves the room.

"I heard your entire conversation, Adler."

"And what of it? Brommy is getting her."

My blood boils at his lack of empathy.

With a childish sigh, he leans against the marble wall and wipes invisible dust off of the sleeves of his tunic. Looking bored of my existence, he proceeds to whistle a meaningless tune and leans against a column just as the last of the fire dies out.

"How did the fire start?"

"Ah, Brommy and I had a bit of a talk. You could say it was electrifying."

My heart lurches as the black shimmering dust creeps away from the walls. He raises his arm and it disappears into seemingly thin air.

He seems calm as he skims through the pages. Distracted. Maybe he will spare some snippets of truth. He thinks I am an idiot unaware of him and Brommy's scheming.

"What is that?"

"It's Greta's journal. Her perception is very strange."

"Stop reading that. You are invading her privacy...especially if you want to keep her around. I don't recommend you read it. You might not like what you find, Adler."

At the moment, he finds her written sadness humorous.

I'm just glad she isn't here to witness it.

"The reason I am here is because Ren has been spreading rumors. Is it true you wish to cast our city into shadow again, Adler? She says you plan on using Greta to do it so as to avoid any hostility toward yourself. You think you have that woman under your thumb, don't you?"

"Ren will regret telling you that-"

"What does that mean? Wait! Where are you going? I won't tell anyone if you promise to forgive Ren for admitting it!"

"The only woman I will ever trust with my truth is Greta. No one else knows how to keep a secret better than my little pearl."

He approaches the voltak stables.

"Is that what you think?" Brometheous asks him from on top of his voltak.

He hops down standing right in front of Adler.

"I do," Adler answers, all smiles gone. "Why else do you think I went into the desert to look for a krexbin woman? She can see through the lies of others in a way we cannot. She can see in the dark, and I might as well admit it, she will make this city see in the dark too. The intergalactic counsel has located our 'imposing' nation here. They are not happy. If I give them Greta, they will give me whatever I want-"

I jump as Brommy punches Adler without warning. Knocking him out cold.

"Guards! Seize him and return him to his temple with Ren. Let her decide how to proceed with her drunk of a husband!"

I join his side staring down the unconscious bastard with him.

"He will discard anything to advance himself!"

"Brother," I say with concern, rarely do I say it. He is not himself. Brommy usually does not lose his temper. "What is going on? You cannot excuse this violence. You will lose the trust of your own men," I whisper carefully.

Brommy straightens and brushes off the dust from his tunic.

"No one trusts you or me here, Enoch. They are controlled by fear. Fear keeps things in order!" he shouts while watching the guards around us. "Fear is how Adler rules. Chaos and vanity! Is that what you all want? He believes you are cowards! Disposable. He used stardust to start an electrical fire in my bedchamber and burned up the walls. The walls covered with Greta's drawings."

"Brommy, settle down. Don't you think this, too, is chaos?" I gesture toward our unconscious 'father', but he is no father of mine anymore. "Don't you think you are doing exactly what he would do-"

"Shut up!" he hollers. It's crazy Greta trusts him. He is one and the same as Adler. Just younger. "I am in command now, Enoch. Not you."

"H-hey!" I shout when he points his sword at my throat.

"You are weak. I remember how you abandoned Greta to sleep with our father's previous wife!"

"Put the sword down and let's talk about this. You aren't mad at me," I speak slowly, "You are mad at him. You must understand how Greta and him are the reason we lost our birth home! Our nation-"

"That may be true," Brommy answers while lowering the sword. His grey skin turns purple. "But I need your allegiance. Before the bastard wakes up!" he shouts in my face.

He has completely lost his composure. This only happened once in front of me before when Greta got whipped around her neck.

Abruptly, a cough comes from the ground. He got the guards riled up and they never took this baffoon away.

So, now, Adler is awake.

With a disgusting burp, he blinks his eyes and sits upright. The side of his face is bruised bad.

"What happened?" he asks with a yawn.

"You fell and became unconscious," Brommy answers calmly.

Adler's look of confusion changes into a scowl as he rubs his bruised face.

"Is that so?" he asks darkly while looking between the two of us, "It almost feels like someone hit me. Right in the face. Who was it, Enoch?"

Surely, he must know who it already is. He can't seriously think it was me. Brommy has knocked him out before.

"Well, I'll find out from my little pearl who did it soon enough!" he screams with sudden wrath. Large black clouds of electric energy leave the hem of his tunic. Then, comes the unhinged laughter, "You thought I wouldn't notice being lied to? By my own family? You didn't think 'your' guards, who follow you around all day and are compensated by this family's wealth, my wealth, would rat you out to me? Well, we aren't family much at all anymore, are we? I will teach you all what fucking respect is. Every ungrateful mongrel in this city, including the two of you, owes their allegiance to me!"

Shit! He wasn't unconscious? Typical of the snake to pretend to be. He heard everything.

The air whirs with a new violent howl around the three of us.

"Why are you still standing there? Do you want to be fried alive while he laughs? Come on! We need to leave right now!" Brommy hollers. "Let's go!" he hollers to the guards.

He grabs the collar of my tunic hauling me off away from Adler's insane meltdown.

☁️