Note: Here is the final chapter! I hope you enjoyed reading and would love to know what you thought. Thanks for reading. :)

9: JUPITER

Six Months Later

Half a year had been all it took to destroy the Great House of Abrasax. Half a year had been all it took to undo thousands upon thousands of years' worth of power, prestige and glory. Kalique stood at the height of the Abrasax tower with unfallen tears in her eyes, her jewelled fingers wrapped around the edge of the balcony, clinging on in frustrated agony. Balem was dead, and more importantly, (that offensive excuse for) her mother's reincarnation had inherited his fortune, not that she needed any of it. Regenex production was to cease, the harvests immediately abolished. Once Kalique's supplies ran out, that was it. She found herself stifling a scream at that thought.

Six months ago, Titus had held an abomination of a gathering to honour their mother's life, and Kalique couldn't help but experience a sense of grim déjà vu as she stood at the edge of the balcony, mentally preparing herself to re-join the party being held in Balem's honour. However, this time, for obvious reasons, Kalique had been the one to play the host. She'd always wanted Abrasax towers, although it had been part of Balem's inheritance. Now it was hers, she didn't really want it. Jupiter had given a lot of Balem's inheritance (with the exception of the one thing Kalique actually wanted- the planets) to her, for she wrongly continued to believe there was some sort of affiliation or friendship between them. Kalique laughed bitterly at the very idea; she hadn't even had a friendship with her real mother.

It had taken a while to sift through the party guests, who all seemed to share an insulting insincerity as they told her how incredibly sorry they were for her loss. They weren't, nor was she. Balem had become a tedious obstacle, his sanity had been on the decline for centuries before he finally snapped, and although there was a part of her that felt wholly devastated that she would never see him again, most of her was simply relieved she was now the Primary heir. Not that this was so simple anymore; Jupiter Jones had proven incredibly hard to kill, Balem had died trying to do so, and if it hadn't been for some incredibly saccharine manipulation on Kalique's part, Titus would have been spending the next few centuries in prison for his attempt on Jupiter's life. Honestly, she had regretted the decision to rescue him ever since. It was Balem's death, she told herself, she'd panicked, hadn't wanted to be the last, lonely sibling sitting amongst the wreckage of the fallen Abrasax legacy.

"Why are you sat in here by yourself? " Kalique asked as she reached the doorway of the dimly lit library. Her once silky, calm tone now seemed permanently replaced with a snappy, harsh one when addressing Titus; it had been so ever since she'd had him released from prison.

"I'm trying to find that book, The Wonders of the Harvest… the wonders of…Jupiter…" Titus was slurring, who knows what he'd taken. It was tiring keeping up these days. "…the Universe…. That's what he said it was called…"

"What?"

"Balem. Balem was telling me about…the books mother used to read to me. When I was young… she read them to me. He said they were called The Wonders of the Universe…" Titus passed under a lamp, and the tired lines under his eyes were illuminated briefly. He'd been using Regenex sparingly in the past few months; he had to after all, now it was in limited supply.

Kalique's expression softened slightly. Wordlessly, she pulled her younger sibling into an embrace, running a hand through his hair as she pressed her arms around him tighter than she could remember ever having done so before. How was it she could have existed for 14 millennia and still manage to become as desperately afraid as she had as a small child of 4 or 5?

"It's not fair." Titus muttered into her shoulder, "None of this is fair."

"It never was fair, Titus." Kalique sighed.

Some lives mattered more than others, and in the eyes of the universe, the life of Jupiter Jones mattered more than the lives of Seraphi Abrasax's spoilt offspring.

The party had gone on for several hours after Kalique had re-joined it, and she'd done her very best to entertain the guests with her usual charming persona that she had begun to loathe almost as much as she loathed Jupiter Jones. Perhaps if she hadn't relied on charm to obtain her goals, none of this would have happened? She had always been the most balanced sibling after all, free of the madness and cynicism that had gripped poor Balem and the self-destructive narcissism that dictated Titus' every move. She should have- could have- killed Jupiter Jones when she had the chance.

"The party's over now." Kalique announced to the empty hallway, as she strolled down it in search of Titus. She had left him searching for that ridiculous book several hours ago and could only assume he was still there now, scrambling through the pages of their mother's ancient books. He'd seemed pretty intent on finding it.

"Titus, for goodness sake! Come on, the guests have left! You don't need to hide out in here." Kalique sighed, reaching the doorway to the library to see Titus curled into the foetal position, his back turned to her. Beside him, there lay a copy of The Wonders of the Universe. "You're sleeping here? Do you want to sleep in my room, will that make you happy? Don't be dramatic."

Frustrated, Kalique stormed over to Titus, grabbing hold of his shoulder to wake him up. He was cold. As she turned him over onto his back, Kalique was already aware her brother was dead. An overdose. It had happened many times before, only he'd been within the vicinity of other people and Regenex each and every time. Not this time. Kalique blinked back the onset of tears as she looked back at Titus. It was difficult to accept mortality after so many millennia successfully defying it.

Seraphi Abrasax held the bottle of Regenex in her hand, gazing through the clear liquid in awe.

"Eternal youth, beauty and wealth. Why would I say no? After all, some lives will always matter more than others."