The taste of copper, the taste of smoke.

“Hey.”

Brittle’s measured footsteps at his side, always closer than he’d like but at the moment it didn’t matter. He needed someone there, someone to ground him. He opened his eyes and caught his reflection in the pools of murky rainwater. Scarlet. His eyes were scarlet still.

Brittle was tense, he could feel it, see it, but that voice remained conversational, soothing. He held onto it like a lifeline. “Sanguine says it shouldn’t be much longer. They’re thieves and sadists – but they’re punctual when business is involved.”

He could hear the smirk. Of course, only Brittle would try his wit at a time like this. He smiled despite himself and raised his head, looking over the vacant stretch of packed dirt and rubble, edged with warped fence. He could feel the old burn in his veins, the ache, the starvation. Marks of an Addict. But this is not the Ares, and you – you are not their play-toy any longer.

“…must I do this, Brittle?”

His voice held a vague distance, a resignation because he knew the answer. The other stallion gave him a look that might’ve been pained, before following the path of his empty gaze.

"There's no other way."



It’s dark when he first sees her - in the shadows her neon hair glows like a star. Brittle breathes through his teeth and he can feel Sanguine tense and trembling beside him. It’s not from fear, it’s not from anger, but pure and simple desire.

He can understand. She’s a beautiful creature.

He thinks this even as she slips under her opponent and those wicked little teeth slit the skin. She doesn’t relish in the blood; she’s not an addict, not a monster. She simply is, just as she was designed to be. This is the only life she knows, her black and white reality. Her head tilts slightly as the men come to take the corpse away, but other than that she is still, like a perfect little doll.

He watches her as Sanguine exchanges silver words with the Architect, bargaining for her soul as fine as any devil’s advocate. The words filter past his ear – my finest creation, my masterpiece, my little dancer. Never never never – you will never take my death doll.

“And what if she is flawed?”

Sanguine knows when to strike – arrogance is too easy a game for her to win. The Architect’s silence is sudden and heavy in the air, and in its absence he notices that his breath is dragging from his throat. It’s the blood scent again, and he’s shivering again like he’s falling apart.

“Id.”

Brittle’s voice at his ear, calming. He’s close now, close enough to hurt, close enough to heal. He forces his eyes open.

“It is fine.”

He sounds like a lie, the whisper harsh in his throat. The Architect is looking at him now, and with a sudden dread he realizes that Sanguine is as well. Their eyes are the same. When the Architect speaks his voice is dry and inquisitive.

“He is an Ares Blood, is he not?”

“The last,” Sanguine says, with pride and poison. Brittle shifts, almost protectively, and his eyes are narrowed slits. After all, he’s the one who knows their Bond the best – even so Id can sense what is going to happen.

Sanguine continues, studying her nails in the dim light. “The last and the finest. He brought the Masters to their knees, every last one. And he is a Warrior born, more than I can say about your little precious. She’s fine, very much so – but I can’t help but wonder if she can stand up to a pureblood?”

The Architect’s eyes darken, and Brittle’s eyes flash. “Sanguine, you can’t-!”

“A simple test, simple experiment,” Sanguine goes on as if she can’t hear him; Id knew she would – she is Sethe’s sister after all, and her want is deep. “You say she’s perfect, so it should be no problem. Another simple spar, and if she wins your work is validated. If she loses –“

“She will not lose,” the Architect says it with the assurance that could move the world. “She is perfect. I tolerate nothing else.”

Sanguine smiles then, like a blade in the dark. “Then you will have no qualms letting me take her.”

The Architect nods, but there’s a scorn in his eyes that Id can see all too clearly. “If he’s a true Ares Blood then there won’t be much left to collect.”

He shudders; his blood throbs under his skin. Brittle’s anger is tangible, like a smoldering flame, but there was really nothing he could’ve done. There had only ever really been one way.

She shifts in the corner of his eye; she had been so still the whole time, he had almost forgotten she was there. Her brilliant acid orbs meet his and in the dark he feels the tiny tug of a smile at her lips.

Hey pretty, won’t you come and take a ride with me, through my world?



She stood across from him now, thin barb wire the only thing separating them. The Architect was at her side, hidden beneath the shadowed folds of his cloak. It was only a matter of time now, but already he could hear the screaming begin.

“If I-“ he gasped suddenly and shut his eyes, blood pounding in his head. Brittle didn’t move, but his voice was low and clear with an unspoken promise.

“I won’t let you.”

He felt Sanguine’s hands tangle in his mane; she was faltering now, like she always did. She was not as wicked as Sethe, but not as wise Sive. She wouldn’t apologize for what she had done, for her impulse and her passion, but she regretted. She buried her face in his neck and he felt the hum of her words more than he heard them.

“Come back to me.”

He said nothing, made no promises. The wire gates parted and she stepped forward to meet him, eyes unreadable, poised as perfect as a dancer. He disentangled himself from Sanguine’s strangling touches, from Brittle’s silent gaze. They faded into the white noise, and there was no one else alive but the two of them on the field.

Brittle had time to draw a breath before they began to tear each other apart. Scarlet splattered against the sky, and slowly, mechanically, he began to count the minutes.



Brittle moves through him like thunder; he spits blood onto the ground and lets himself go. They collide into one another – Brittle’s breath is harsh and angrier than his has ever been.

“Why, why does it always have to be like this?”

He would give him an answer from his torn throat, but it’s something that’s already known. Why? Because of her. Everything has always been for Sanguine, and there is no logic and no rhyme. There’s a hole in her heart that needs to be filled, a hole where Hinote used to be.

He’s known it from the start.

Brittle draws back first but it doesn’t matter. When they fight there’s never a winner or a loser, just two broken people, trying to make something of the pieces or trying to grind them to dust. He has never known which it is.



Sanguine shut her eyes for a second, but Brittle caught it. Out of all her Bonded, he was the only one who could bear to rip her apart.

“Don’t,” the bitterness in his voice hurt her ears. “This is all part of your design, the least you owe him is to watch.”

She was quiet for awhile, but when she spoke again there was still a wavering note of defiance. “He’ll win. You know he’ll-“

“You never think of the cost Sanguine. You never have.”

She did but she could never tell him that. Not with Id being cut to pieces before her eyes. The little mare was as fast as he, or perhaps faster, her small body lithe and light. The fight was eerily quiet save for the pounding hooves, the rending of skin, the wet sound of sweat and blood. The Architect’s words echoed in her head.

“She is the finest, the only one to have survived so far. From infancy to now she has learned only one thing – to fight. She has no voice, true, but she can read your body more intimately than any lover, any friend. Your breath, your heart, every small motion – they are all the language she needs.

She can kill you before you even decide when to strike.”

Exaggerated, of course, but it still rung of truth. A girl who could predict moves before they happened, pick you apart with a mere glance. But then again, so could Id. It was the reason she chose him, after all, because their eyes – their eyes were the same.

But then, they why was he losing?

She was fast and she was sharp – eyes, teeth, hooves, relentless and refined. Every movement he made stung with grit and wind, but she moved like a dancer, no matter how bloody or torn. Maybe, maybe it wasn’t all the Architect’s ministrations. Maybe she believed she was perfect herself.

He could see it in the way she played with him now. Six times she could’ve killed him, crippled him. Six times she teased him, dancing away. He thought he could see the scorn in her eyes.

She was no Warrior, but even she could tell when someone fought without heart.

You’ll let her kill you then?

His veins ached and throbbed, the slow and steady burn that he should’ve been used to. He felt the want rise in him, like venom lacing through his body. It was all he could do to strangle it down, to keep the screaming in his head. He hissed as her teeth found his shoulder and tore deep.

…you were, weren’t you? How unfortunate.

Golden eyes flashed in his head, and the split second he blacked out she had him by the throat. He knocked her away in time, but she still left the crescent of her bite, almost like the smear of a lover’s lips.

“Shut up,” he murmured, and she cocked her head at him across the divide. Her hearing must be good.

I could take you by force, you know, and that would end badly for her. If she’s what you’re worried about that is. Letting yourself go however – the odds are in her favor.

He caught Brittle’s eyes through the blood. Brittle, who probably knew every little twist in his head, knew why he was fighting, why he was dying. It only took that instant to decide, only the briefest of glances to throw everything away.

“I won’t let you.”

He closed his eyes, and when they opened again, all she saw was gold.

When he came back to himself his teeth were at Brittle’s neck, his blood sticky on his tongue. The other stallion had him pinned to the ground, matted with foam but his voice was calm still, rushing in his ear.

“Id, come on now. Come back.”

He let go instantly, and he caught the stallion’s wince. He must’ve bitten deep, for how long he couldn’t remember. Everything ached, and he noticed that his vision was off in his left eye, swollen black; wounds that could’ve only been done by Brittle’s horns. Then-

“The girl-“ he started and stopped, surprised by the rawness of his throat. Brittle let him up slowly, warily. He didn’t blame him. The Ares was unpredictable, but he felt too hollow for anything else. The other stallion moved to his side, supporting him and at the same time, letting him see the aftermath.

“You won.”

The mare wasn’t dead, nor even unconscious. Instead she was crumpled in the dust, her breath rough, eyes wide. Her skin on her forelegs was shredded, as if she had run through broken glass, the wounds ragged and stained with dirt. She kept trying to rise, only to fall in a broken heap, for she could no longer catch herself with any semblance of grace.

She didn’t utter a single cry.

Id closed his eyes, feeling the guilt swell again, that old, sharp hurt that would never truly leave him. “You promised that you’d stop me.”

“And you promised there’d be no more death wishes,” the other stallion, replied, evenly. The Architect hadn’t stayed to see his creation destroyed, and they both watched as Sanguine slipped through the fence and began her steady walk toward the remnants of her prize.

“…are you ever going to let me go? Or do you just hate me enough to keep dragging me back?”

“I shouldn’t hit you so hard next time. You always start talking complete and utter bullshit.”

The mare stilled as Sanguine approached. The girl spread her hands, opening herself to any retaliation. Her pace didn’t slow in the least; she stopped right in front of the wounded serian, so close that every labored breath rustled her coat. Neither of them moved, but their eyes were locked and focused. They were in their own world now, a universe made only for them, the innermost reaches of a soul.

Bonding.

It seemed an eternity later before Sanguine knelt, resting her hand against the mare’s forehead. From the shadows of her cloak she pulled out bandages burned with Sive’s seals; she could have never healed her on her own, not after the Ares. Id closed his eyes, resigned. She had planned it from the start then – the madness and the guilt and everything in between. Brittle began to move toward them and he had no choice but to follow or fall.

Sanguine seemed absorbed in the task of dressing the torn flesh; her eyes stayed riveted to her gruesome task. Brittle broke the silence with a sigh.

“Well…what’s her name?”

Their bonded paused, looked into the mare’s eyes again. “Lock.”

A beat, and then a voice, the first wavering sound from a long silent throat, the name that bound up everything she had been and threw away the key. She died with that voice, that name.

“…Lock.”

It was the last thing he heard before he slipped away.

There was nothing more for him to do, after all.