Sylas didn't move.
Neither did Sarethvane.
They stood across from one another, mirrored down to the angle of their scythes, one wreathed in green Will and the other in a black so deep that the stars behind him seemed to bend the light in a vain attempt to continue shining.
Sylas understood what Sarethvane wanted. He wanted to take his shape, his weapon, his method, and beat him with it, because that was the only true way to put a man in his place. It wasn't enough to kill someone arrogant. You had to prove that everything they thought made them unique wasn't worth the land it stood on.
Sylas couldn't have understood it any more because it was what he had done countless times before.
And Sarethvane understood what Sylas wanted too. He wanted a Serpentes who had walked a path without the system, he could smell Vipermancy wafting from Sylas. But as arrogant as Sylas was… he hadn't even used it.
