The Princess and the Blade

[Soran Nightblade]

Ren squirmed in the woman's grip. He didn't want to see, and he couldn't look away. Her grip on his horn sucked the strength from his limbs and left him watching in numb dread.

Havi stared into Tenara's eyes in horror. No, no, no, no. He couldn't. He had to stop.

Even as he thought it, his hand settled over the hand she'd placed on his cheek and slid, twitching, to her wrist. His long fingers closed around the slender joint like a vice.

She was his Yurivis. She was everything.

His vision swam with effort to stop. Stop! He pressed his cheek into her gentle hand, clenched his eyes, and snapped her wrist like a matchstick.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara had clenched her teeth in preparation, promising to hold back because she knew the scream would only make it worse. But, the moment the bone snapped, the cry erupted out of her against her will. Her knees buckled, until the only thing keeping her off the floor was the grip on her wrist.

Elias sighed and passed the sword back to Narissa. "Let's get this over with and back on the road."

He nodded to the guards along the wall who came forward before Laurius could move and bound him to his chair. A scream erupted outside the hall. Another came from somewhere in the house. The loose ends were being rounded up for the pyre.

"Alright, my pet," Milandra mused to Artisuren, and tapped his nose playfully. "It's time to go. Be a good boy and collect our royal cargo?"

Narissa stayed put, watching Havitharon and Tenara like they were center stage at some play.

[Soran Nightblade]

Artisuren stood on watery legs and stumbled to Tenara's hunched form. He looked up at Thvoros, and the other Ivis blinked at him as if roused from a trance. He let go of Tenara abruptly, and Ren stooped to catch her crumbling form. When he'd secured her, he looked up into Thvoros's eyes. Strange, he was taking his Yurivis from right in front of him, and yet Ren wasn't afraid of him, for once. Frankly, he might have preferred whatever Thvoros would do to him over whatever these people had planned.

He turned his back on Havi and carried Tenara toward where the strange Yurivie were waiting by the door. His path took him straight past Laurius's chair. There had to be something he could do. Anything.

Something came to him then. A long shot among long shots. From back on the boat... What were the chances he even still had it on him? "On our world, when one is about to die, it is tradition to give him a piece of candy," he said.

[Emora Deen]

Milandra smiled, drumming her black-stained fingers on the doorframe. "What a sweet gesture," she said. She nodded to one of the soldiers lingering in the room. He came and took Tenara from Artisuren. Tenara had been foggy-minded and complacent in Artisuren's arms, but when the soldier pulled her out of them, she thrashed, and he took her screaming down the hall. "Give your candy good-bye."

---

The soldier pulled Tenara over his shoulder. She kicked her feet and struck at him with her good fist, and when that didn't work, she used her bad one until the pain made her sick.

She looked up, peering through her hair as they burst out into the cold night air. Snow fell, and glinted along orange light as the people outside tossed vials of flame into the windows of Laurius's beautiful home. Havi...

Havi was inside still.

"No!!" She grabbed at the bind on her neck and pulled well past the point of agony.

Arken was going to win. Her parents would come looking when she didn't come home, and they would find the charred ruins. They would find the sword. They would think she died in there... And if Havi survived the fire, his sanity wouldn't.

Tenara tore out some of her hair with a vicious yank and dropped it on the snow. She scraped her already injured hand along the sharp edge of armor the soldier wore and squeezed the blood onto the snow, smeared it painfully along the decorative stones they passed. She left every means of evidence she could to point the way—that she had been outside the house when the fire came. The house would burn, and the snow would melt, but her blood would be in the mud. Her hair on the ground. Her father would know.

She wouldn't let them win.

[Soran Nightblade]

Ren threw off the soldiers' hands as they began to drag him away from Laurius. He crouched beside Laurius and reached into the pocket where the man kept his wallet, rummaging hopefully. Like a miracle, he felt a tiny compartment with a round object inside it. He'd kept it! Ren dug out the round silver pill. "This will have to do for candy," he said tightly. He looked and up at his master and set the toothsbane between his lips. "Eat it with your last breath," he said to Laurius, his voice shaking.

He should say something else. Goodbye. Thank you. Something.

"Come, pet," Milandra said from the door. Ren rose to his feet and followed them out in silence.

Havi couldn't think. Why couldn't he think? His breaths grew thin and restless as Elias's men tied him down to a chair opposite Laurius's. Thanks to Narissa's command, he couldn't move a muscle. They secured him tightly enough for the ropes to bite into his skin.

"So long, puppy. You would have been a fun toy," Narissa scoffed as she threw the sword on the floor in the corner. With that, they filed out of the room, leaving their victims to burn.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius held the pill in his mouth, heaving panicked air into his lungs. He listened to the horrid sounds of the windows breaking, to the crackle of fire growing somewhere in his house. His gaze settled on Havitharon across from him, and he wanted to say something but that would mean speaking and risking loosing the pill in his mouth.

Eat it with your last breath…

That meant burning. Burning and almost dying. But the fire would eat the rope around him… as well as his clothes and skin. Would he have the presence of mind to eat it in that moment? Or would the pain madden him to uselessness?

He struggled, thrashing against the ropes. After a minute more of fighting, he pinched the pill in his cheek and said, “I’m sorry.” He looked at Havitharon. “I’m sorry.” He knew it didn’t do any good. Nothing could make up for this.

Smoke billowed in along the ceiling. He heaved frightened breaths into his lungs, and tried to ignore the screams coming from elsewhere in the house.

—-

They bound her hands together. The rope constricting over her broken wrist initially tore a scream from her, and made her fall to her knees in the snow. But, once tied, the pressure and stability provided some strange measure of comfort. However, before that, it had made her too dizzy to focus. One minute she was on her knees, and the next she was on a horse, the heat of someone behind her, the world blurring around them.

She tried to look back at the house. It glowed orange against the night, but eventually the forest blocked it from view.

She tried not to think of Havi in the house with the fire closing in—of it licking along the sword. Would he feel it? Of course he would feel it. And he couldn't leave the sword. He could leave the house but the sword would pull him back. He could be chasing after them right now, trying to get to her, and it would pull him back into the fire.

Tears fell down her cheeks, sorrow and rage became a nasty tangle in her heart and she swore she would get the thing around her neck off and burn them all in turn.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi's stunned mind gradually focused on Laurius's voice.

"I'm sorry."

He looked up at the man whose home was burning down around him. "Don't die," he ordered him dully. "I'll kill you myself later." He needed someone to hold the sword. Someone to help him get back to her. Even if he'd already...

The memory of her wrist snapping in his grip shot his mind blank. He could still feel the sensation in his hand. He could hear her screams.

No.... those weren't her screams he was hearing. They were the help. Some of the voices were familiar.

"Fuck," he spat, tearing at his bonds. He needed to get them out.


_______________

Ren looked across his reins at the princess.

"Don't worry about her, puppy. You need to steer," Milandra purred from behind his saddle. She was seated lightly on their horse's rump, her arms looped around his waist with ruthless intimacy.

He faced forward again, shivering as her hands traced down into his lap. Everything she did felt like Kishva's presence. His mind was roiling, still not coming to terms with the idea that the life he'd grown accustomed to had just disappeared.

He no longer belonged to the master who had torn him from his home and twisted him sexually.

He no longer belonged to the master who had invited him to come to his rooms tonight.

He no longer belonged to the man who had wanted and valued him, who had impossibly guided his bond-broken mind back to sanity during his rut...

That master was gone, and he belonged once again to a Yurivis. One who was practically Kishva.

He didn't push her hands away. He didn't let himself try to complain or argue with their captors. Old instincts he hadn't needed in months had kicked back in. No showing weakness. No selfish moping. Exist to serve. Exist only to serve.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius wanted to laugh at the threat. Death by Havitharon would be a blessing compared to what was coming.

The fire was in the room now. He felt the heat of it at his back. He hated not being able to see it, but then it had spread along the walls and caught the curtains, and it was around them. His breath came quick, and he coughed the smoke from his lungs. He almost lost the pill. It jumped to the front of his mouth and he snapped his teeth shut before it tumbled out.

He was going to die. He was going to die. He was going to die.

The heat scorched his skin, closing in on them.

The fire had a voice. He had never stopped to really listen to fire, not beyond the crackle of it in a hearth. This one had a roar. It was angry and hungry, and it would devour them.

Sweat beaded his brow, and the fire at his back became blistering hot. He prayed. He had never prayed before, not beyond the ones forced out of him. He remembered dark temples. Calls to Verin. Bloody sacrifices. Sex and tears.

He hadn't told Tenara. He hadn't told anyone. He was Arken born—Laurius Marvinagin. A poor boy who had been bright enough to capture the attention of the Citadel. Who had been taught to make terrible things, and who had used that knowledge to build a life for himself beyond the borders of his home. Not far enough. Of course, not far enough. He could never be far from home. It was a beacon always calling to him. A specter in the corner of his eye.

And now that secret had set fire to his house and his life and stole the man he...

The man he...

The fire was on him now, and Laurius knew no other thought than prayer and death and keeping his teeth locked together so the pill didn't fall out. The screams were a roar in his chest, cracking his ribs open.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi tore at the ropes, but he couldn't gain any slack no mater how he twisted. The soldiers who tied him fast had inhuman strength, and the bonds were tight enough to cut off circulation. He tried to flex himself sideways onto the table, and managed to get a knife in his mouth, but that was all he managed. The ropes were too far to reach, and even if they weren't, it would take more time than they had to go through such thick restraints with a butter knife. He looked at the sword in the far corner of the room and struggled to get his chair towards it, but only managed to topple onto his side. He let out a scream of rage and thumped his head against the floor in pure frustration.

The room was burning around them, the oxygen rapidly sapping from the air. He looked up at Laurius and the toothsbane he held carefully in his teeth. Havi shook his head. It would take a miracle for that to work.

"Listen," he panted to his doomed host. "Sure, the toothsbane will heal you, but you'll still have to escape the fire afterward. And you'll have the side effects to cope with. If you wait until the fire consumes you, you'll just die anyway." He glanced at the flames beginning to lick up the curtains. "Focus on your legs. As soon as you get the ropes loose, take the pill, and go out the window."

[Emora Deen]

Laurius could barely focus on Havitharon's instructions. They seemed so calm and measured. He was on the floor. The room was burning around them. Laurius was so hot, he swore he was already on fire. It hurt. It blistered.

Loosen the ropes?

He'd been so focused on Ren's instructions, so focused on the fear of death-by-fire, he hadn't thought to attempt escape. A slew of curses rumbled behind his teeth.

Laurius wiggled and thrashed and stretched his blistering limbs against the ropes. He managed to topple his chair, and ended up on the floor like Havitharon, staring through the table and chair legs at him across the way. But, unlike Havitharon's chair, his cracked. The heat must have affected the glue in the joints. The chair seemed to come apart, and the ropes loosened and he wiggled out.

Relief was a rush, and he didn't even notice he was now, literally on fire. He moved, scurrying through the flames. He did as Havitharon instructed. He went to the window, dove through the fire, through the cracked glass, and out into the snow.

He rolled the fire out, and clawed his charred form from the heat of the house. Even outside it was so, so hot. He crawled towards his conservatory. They hadn't burned it down. He never made it there. Halfway, he felt himself slipping away and chose to swallow the pill.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi watched the man make it out the window. "Yes!" he cried, the shout quickly twisting into a choking fit. His boots were melting, and his legs were already on fire. He stared across the room at the sword. He didn't want to lie here and burn either. If he could just let the fire eat through his ropes...

No. His body would be worse than useless by then. If he let his strength drop that low, he wasn't sure Laurius would have enough power to call him back. It was a risk to assume he could call him back at all. But if he retreated to the sword now, there was at least a chance...

He clenched his fists in their binds and let his physical form disperse and return to the sword. In his phantom form, he watched and waited as the flames swallowed the room. They soon swallowed his sword as well, raging at the metal. It wasn't nearly hot enough to melt steel, but it was plenty enough to weaken it. The soul stones proved less resilient. As they burned, he felt something ripping away inside his chest. He screamed despite his efforts not to, praying the weapon would endure. Eventually, he lost consciousness.

It was extremely dark when Havi opened his eyes. So dark that he wondered if he was dead. But then his vision gradually cleared and noticed a dim glow of moonlight on his surroundings. He sat up slowly in his spectral form, phasing straight through the charred beams that had buried him. The house was a ruin, the roof gone. A few walls still stood stubbornly, scorched to frailty. Some of Laurius's stemware still sat eerily undisturbed on the half-charred buffet.

He had to find Laurius. He tried to push to his feet and staggered, grabbing at his skull. Dizziness washed over him, and his vision warped dangerously. He stumbled to the one standing wall in the corner and sagged down against it, his head full of lightning.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius blinked his eyes open. His whole body throbbed, but he was no longer scorched. He had been in such a state of pain, that the agony of that pill had been a pleasure. He'd let himself fall away, let the instincts take over. He'd rutted into the cold snow to ease the continuous burning need, and somewhere along the way, he had lost his mind and consciousness.

He was cold. But he was no longer burned. He looked at the dull light along the blue-black horizon, a bud of white light marking the rising sun. He'd laid here all night. How far had they gotten? He'd never catch up to them.

He sure as hell wouldn't find them lying in the snow.

Laurius groaned and pushed to his knees. His clothes fell away from him, ash and brittle cotton. His pants proved a little more resilient than his top, but they were worst for wear and a mess. He'd... over and over.

Laurius pushed it from his mind. He shuffled through the snow towards the shell of his home and fought the urge to weep for the innocent who had been bound up inside. He reached to his head, felt the broken, burned strands of his hair. It was half melted. Much shorter. He moved onward.

The house smoked, and no doubt the town down below would come looking for what had become of the house on the mountain. They must have seen it burning in the night, a beacon on a hill.

He entered through what remained of a stone doorway, and moved down the hall. He didn't look into the rooms. He didn't want to see... He went to the room he needed, and dug through the rubble until he found the sword, and he dragged it back out into the snow, toward the conservatory and his office.

-----

Tenara jolted away as hard hands grabbed her arms and pulled her off the horse. She struggled to get her bearings. They were in some kind of encampment. Tents and fires and people. She looked for Artisuren and spotted him on a horse. "Ren!" she shouted, and thrust against the hold the two men had on her arms. Their hands bruised where they clenched.

"I'll take her," a voice said, and someone scooped her up over their shoulder again. She kicked and screamed at them.

"Vardner," Elias's voice filted over the air.

Vardner set her on her feet, and tugged her close. The prince road along on his horse, circling them. "Not yours," he said. "Mine."

Vardner hesitated before nodding. He scooped her up again. She hated it. Hated being carted around like a sack of goods. Desperately, she tried to find Ren again before the fabric of a tent flap blocked her view.

-----

Elias went to Milandra. "Remember our deal, Sisters. You have your fun, but he ultimately belongs to me. At night, I want the dagger turned over to me. In the mornings, you can have it again. Are we in agreement?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi twitched awake, jolted by the familiar experience of being sucked to a new location by the sword. The sword had been moved! He strained to sit up and was confused to find himself in a well-lit room. The air still smelled of fire here, but nothing had been burnt. His gaze roamed over a familiar skylight window above him. Laurius's conservatory.

He was on the tile floor beside the man's desk. His brain melted every time he tried to think about why. "Fuck," he muttered to himself, squeezing his head. "Laurius?"

___________________

Ren stood beside Milandra while the soldiers took their horse to be unsaddled and watered. He had no sense of how long they'd been riding. Everything was still a blur.

"Ren!"

He turned to look for the familiar voice, only to see them pulling the princess aside into a tent. He stared at the canvas door she'd disappeared behind. "They shouldn't touch a Yurivis like that," he said numbly.

[Emora Deen]

Laurius was sitting in his armchair, the sword draped across his lap, a sense of numbness in his bones. Havitharon’s voice jolted him alert. He jumped, looking around, but couldn’t see him. A specter again. His hand tightened over the scorched hilt, and he winced at the look of the soul stones. It was a miracle the mage would arrive today with more.

Laurius wiped the tears from his eyes and sat up straight. “I’m here,” he said, his throat raspy from disuse. The pill had healed whatever damage happened while he screamed. “Are you… How are you?”

—-

Narissa sighed, resting her head on Ren’s shoulder. She assumed Yurivis meant Princess in whatever language he spoke, and so she said, “She isn’t a Princess anymore. As far as the world is concerned, Tenara Dracul-Hajaris died tragically in a fire. Now, she’s nobody. Invisible. She’ll be forgotten, maybe used for pleasure or harvested for her power or sacrificed to your gods—it really depends on what her blood says. Do not let it worry you.”

Milandra smiled, and guided Ren to a red tent. “Indeed,” she said. “You should be worried about yourself, my pet.”

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi pushed up to a seat. "My head's all wrong," he murmured, shaking his head and immediately regretting it. "You survived. Can you ride? We should-..." he tried to get to his feet and sagged back against the side of the desk. He clutched his skull to make his vision stop dancing.

___________________________

"Pet," Ren murmured. The word felt true. That's what he was. That's all he was.

The rising sun poked at his vision, and he squinted at the horizon. A whole night had passed.

"Come to me tonight?"

No. He didn't want to think. But tears filled his eyes anyway, spilling over his cheeks as he stared unblinking at the sunrise. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't come," he croaked.