A crisp snap, deeply embedded and dulled in what sounded like iron-heavy wood and creaking, great hinges grinding, erupted in a spontaneous burst. 

A chaotic yet organized row of lanterns and torches poured into the library, giving an intrusive flood of light that violated the protective recesses formed by the solemn womb of darkness and dim moonlight. 

Panic pierced Malka like a spear hurled into her- had she been a bird, she would have soared into an escape of flight. Yet she remained transfixed, as though her feet on the floorboards were set in stone, right next to Zhuel. She only noticed now that his arms wrapped around her in an instinctive reflex of protection of the split-second uncertainty that assaulted them both now. 

Remaining unswayed by the spontaneous charge of this deliberate intrusion, Zhuel tensed. He braced for what now came, for he expected this- he only questioned why it happened not sooner. 

The intrusive tide of lantern and torch-light spilled into a great wave and flooded upon Zhuel and Malka where they stood by the great window. 

A hard face, chilled with reproach and lined in rigid condemnation emerged, thronged by three guards on either of her side as she glided into the inner chamber of the library, like a vengeful she-hawk grasping its target. 

Rukhel set her steel-hard, blade-sharp gaze with her dark eyes shining with stern reprimand upon her son.

Unmoved, Zhuel stood, stone-still, and his dark, sharper eyes leveled with her hard gaze with a defiant tenacity that would not be daunted by her display of power- or the might of her ire. 

Many in the kingdom feared Rukhel’s retribution, but Zhuel was not subordinate to her will. At times, Zhuel knew well his mother, in her own binds of motherhood, conceded to him. But Zhuel argued in his mind, that it was not the maternal instinct, but rather his own command of authority, for he knew, he should become king, and assume the greater seat of power when his mother stepped down. As she decreases, he would increase. 

This was the order of rule from ruler to heir, Zhuel understood the dynamic well. 

Both ruler and son locked their eyes, riveting their unyielding gazes and silent holds of power over one another in a deadlock- a tense deadlock clamped in cold, heavy, iron. 

Zhuel’s wordless ferocity, channeled through his eyes, tired Rukhel. Her hold began fraying. Like a forger turning away from the forge-furnace’s flames for a moment, she shifted her eyes onto Malka, stabbing her own silent accusation into the trembling, wide-eyed maiden. 

Regaining her hold, Rukhel finally spoke. 

“Zhuel, I grant you an opportunity of defense- explain yourself.” Her voice darted from her rigid lips, thinned and paled with anger and realization, and her tone sounded heavy and hollow within the chamber. 

Zhuel allowed her the first strike, like a clever predator allowing his rival the first extension of talons, while he sought a comeback and greater blow against Rukhel. 

“What must I explain, Queen Mother?” Zhuel tilted his head in a mix of arrogant coolness and indifference- though Malka (and Rukhel) sensed a faint yet strong vein of spite glowing in his tone, like the hidden glow of an ember under a smoldering mess of chars. 

Zhuel took advantage of his mother’s struggle for words in the brief second, and he pressed on his attack, “I think I am owed, like any dutiful subject, an explanation of what you stand to accuse me of, Queen Mother.” 

A certain prick of spite pierced its barbs through her son’s utterance-it piqued Rukhel into an accusative pitch. 

Rukhel commanded the sway of the room, a feat she learned in her early days of rule- she approached the table, smoothing her hand over the table and its filigreed edges, and pressed her hand over a shelf’s ledge in a suspicious inspection. 

“You are my son, and you must understand my concern- I am your mother, before being your queen, Zhuel.” Her voice pressed hard and unrelenting under its weight. “Your habit this year has alarmed me. You keep strange hours, stealing away from the palace, or cloistered in here at even stranger hours. I see a weary darkness around your eyes, like sleep evades you. You’ve lost your color-”

“Not that I possessed much color, though-” Zhuel murmured in a mutter of scorn- he took a jab here, like a young hawk pecking his beak for good measure. 

A glare fired from Rukhel, her dark eyes glittered. Now she dealt a blow unto his vulnerable spot, like a she-hawk pecking into the prey’s neck. 

“You have also been spiriting young Malka away-” and here, Rukhel darted her eyes onto Malka again, assessing the maiden’s reaction. 

Malka’s eyes flew up to Zhuel, for an answer of protection of herself against the queen’s implied accusations.

“ - in the oddest hours of the night and dawn. That concerns not only me, but Lady Chana also.”

“But what are you accusing me of, Queen Mother?” Zhuel’s voice lowered into a defensive growl, which spiked an ounce of fear from Malka. She sensed anger began welling in the young man before her, and she felt his grip oppressive as he grasped tighter onto her. 

Like a snake wrapping a rabbit in its coils, she silently observed. Malka, though, did not reject this binding feeling. She welcomed his strength and protection, oddly secure in his defense. 

His arm, encircled around her shoulders, shielded her within a protective core, like a city well walled high from intruders and poisoners alike. 

Rukhel desired her guards gone, but she feared her son’s elusion- for would he escape if he heard her condemnations? The darkness emanating from Zhuel’s eyes confirmed her deep-seated fear of suspicion. 

How could she declare what she knew he did? How could her guards, of lower understanding, those who never looked into the eyes of their old god, who communed with the god- how could they understand? 

Rukhel was trapped. Trapped by her own son’s power, which equaled hers, but now, her fears manifesting, she saw Zhuel’s power quickly surpassed hers, ever increasing. 

“You defied the very laws I set for you, my son- laws, that you, and only you, know of.” Rukhel found her voice and set her tone like a brick-layer fixing his brick firmly into the mortar. 

Zhuel struck his barb again- “And which laws, Queen Mother? For me, you have set a lengthy and very special list of laws-tell me which ones you suspect I violated…”

A sickening sank into her, right into her stomach, right into her very marrow, as she studied, part in fear, part in a frantic scrutiny that her suspicions were baseless, of her son’s eyes. 

His eyes were of a god’s now, not the painfully shy lad she protected with her power and shielded her in embrace when he only reached her waist with the top of his head. 

But neither were his eyes, so dark, so relentless defiant and void of scrutinizing quality, the richness of understanding and mercy she beheld in her old god, the night her very son came into the world.  

No. Zhuel was becoming a new god- a new god the old one prophesied would be slain by her own hand. 

A cry died in her throat in crushing silence. 

Driven by a single fury, Rukhel sought to crush her son’s ascent into this power he knew nothing of- she sought to change the course of fate. 

“Zhuel- you disobeyed me. You sought the forbidden texts, the very texts our people all but destroyed. The very texts we hid, for in their words, in lies our very destruction-”

“-You mean where lies in our very exaltation!” interjected Zhuel, his voice struck with a lightning-like vehemence that shook the walls and the floorboards- not unlike the very voice of the old god Rukhel encountered in a dark sanctuary those years past.