Well, I finally managed to come up with what I consider a plausible motivation for Skya's torturing Kaylin (instead of merely being a power-hungry loon), not to mention work out the entire plot of the story (with particularly nasty twists here and there, inspired by a certain sinister half-seen character from Yami no Matsuei ::evil cackle::).
Hopefully this more fully developed version of Skya will be both more sympathetic and more despicable -- sympathetic because he does have good reason for feeling the way he does, yet at the same time despicable because his pride, stubbornness, and other emotions drive him to ruthlessly abuse the one person who would've understood his feelings and perhaps even helped him (to rescue his twin brother, at least).
Sounds like the making of a serious tragedy, doesn't it? Unforgivable wrongs and all that. But since I write darkfics, but definitely not sadfics, I've come up with a happy ending... in a perverse and decidedly twisted sort of way. ^_-
Well, all this character development is well and good, but it entails going back and tweaking... okay, rewriting chunks of part 1 for consistency's sake. ::sigh:: Back to work.....