Chapter Text
Titus hurt.
That wasn’t unexpected, given the mess he’d gotten himself into this time. Titus had always played fast and loose with his order’s rules. His oath-brother Oleander had never liked him. Titus didn’t have the sour, sneering demeanor he wanted from his knights. Titus could be serious if he wanted to be. He usually didn’t, and that was part of why he found himself abandoned in this shithole.
The knight holding him wrenched his arms behind his back. His friend – maybe Tybalt, maybe another one of the Golden Lions – shoved Titus’s head down. Titus gritted his teeth. He breathed in slowly, inhaling through his mouth and exhaling through his nose. In and out. A focal point. If he grabbed onto that and refused to let it go, he would survive whatever happened next. And something would happen. Oleander’s friends in the Lions were determined to get a confession out of him. Titus wasn’t even sure what they were looking for. He hadn’t consorted with any demons or dabbled in the dark arts. He was inconvenient, though, and insubordinate. Tybalt would come up with something and do his damndest to force a confession.
Torch light flickered overhead. The air was damp and heavy, curdled by the stagnant currents. Dark shadows crawled across the heavy, arched ceiling. No one bothered to cover the floor with rushes here, nor did they ever sweep. The only people seeing this cursed place were the ones unlucky enough to cross Oleander and Sicarius.
Titus had been unlucky enough to do both.
He stared at the ground, his feet dragging behind him. Neither knight holding him spoke. Their gloved hands dug into his sides and threatened to tear his already tattered shirt. If Titus felt any better, he would have taunted them or asked if they were aroused by torturing innocent prisoners. The bleeding stripes on his back and burning pain in his chest said as much. Taunting them would have earned him another smack to the mouth or maybe being thrown to the ground.
No one spoke. Tybalt and his friend could sign if they wanted to, but they didn’t. They walked on, dragging Titus between them, and let the only sounds come from their footsteps and gently clinking armor. Titus used the moment to catch his breath. Each one felt like sucking in a mouthful of hot coals. Tybalt had kicked him in the chest twice, then slapped him when he couldn’t answer their questions. The caning was next. Titus had screamed and begged, thrashing in the restraints, and lost himself to the pain. Tybalt liked to wait until he caught his breath, then start again.
He was going to die here. Titus had come to grips with that ever since the Lions had dragged him out of his bunk. None of his battle-brothers dared to lift a hand in his defense. They watched, yes, but none tried to free him. Titus had been bound hand and foot, stunned, and thrown into the back of a horse cart. He didn’t know where they took him. It was a castle or fortress, true, but there were hundreds of them in Inntara. Some were hill forts turned into something more. Others were grand, sprawling things that were more palace than defense. Most fortresses were clustered near the borderlands thanks to the elven tribes or remnants of old battles. This one could have been any of them.
“Cat got your tongue?” Tybalt asked. He smirked and gripped Titus’s dark hair with his free hand, forcing his head back. “You were quite feisty before. What changed, little brother?”
“I’m not your brother!” Titus spat. He tried to dig his heels into the ground.
Tybalt laughed. He kicked Titus’s legs out from under him and nodded to his friend.
“Right, right,” he said. “Order differences and all of that. The Order of the Golden Lions has never fully seen eye to eye with… what were you again?”
Titus stayed silent. He closed his eyes and offered a prayer to a god he no longer believed in. The Great Flame of the Night had always seemed so real before, so close, but now He turned His holy face. Titus didn’t know why. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Not truly. Maybe cracked a few jokes here or there or let his mouth run away from him. It was just words, though. It wasn’t like he was sneaking out in the middle of the night to go talk to the elves. What did they call their king again? Adrian? Adiiran? Adeline? Something like that. Some horribly complex name that meant something in their cant that he had no hope of ever getting right. Why they wouldn’t speak Saxon was beyond him.
“Oh, that’s right,” Tybalt continued. His voice was silky smooth, the tone mocking. “You’re nothing at all. Because Oleander McConnel decided to cast you out of the Azures. You’re nothing, Titus. Nothing. And that’s all you’ll ever be.”
Titus licked his cracked and bloody lips. He could have said something nasty back. In fact, he thought it. He wanted to call Tybalt a beaten dog and asked if he licked Sicarius’s asshole.
Tybalt’s friend snorted. “Maybe we have taught him something.”
“I doubt it,” Tybalt said. He craned his neck and looked down the hall. “Has Ignatius gotten our other friend ready, Lucien?”
Lucien smirked behind his helmet. “He’s feral.”
“Good, good,” Tybalt said. He dragged Titus to his feet and grabbed his chin. “Oleander said you were consorting with the Darkness and getting yourself in all sorts of trouble. Well, we’re going to see where that gets you.”
“I never did that,” Titus said. “I never did anything like that!”
He blinked, the light burning his eyes. One of the torches flickered and cast wickedly sharp shadows over Tybalt’s face. Lucien shrugged. He started walking again. Tybalt followed. They lapsed into silence as Titus sagged into their arms. He didn’t have the energy or desire to take another punishment. He knew what Oleander said he did now, though. Consorting with the Darkness was enough to get a man killed without a trial.
The Darkness. Titus had never gotten a good answer for what that was. Ever since the forces of humanity and civilization came to this cursed continent, they were fighting darkness. The Great Flame of the Night resided in the Salamanders and their holy fire, but they were beaten back by the elves. Titus didn’t know how they did it. He hadn’t ever seen an elf, but he knew that they were dangerous. They worshipped pagan gods and lived in loosely allied tribal villages instead of proper nations. Some parts of Inntara wanted to soften to the elves – access to their Coast Road was vital for trading purposes – but the more fundamentalist regions wanted to take that road by force.
So far, every attempt had failed. Titus wondered if his failure to seize the Road during a raid contributed to his current situation.
Cold, foul air boiled up from the fortress’s depths. They moved deeper now, boots striking stone instead of bare earth. The lights became paler and weaker, leaving vast pools of shadow. Titus grimaced. He didn’t have the strength to try and fight them. Tybalt and Lucien signed something to each other. Titus stared at the wall, trying to parse out the shadows, but he couldn’t force his beleaguered brain to interpret what they were saying. It didn’t matter anyways. What was going to happen would happen. All Titus could do was wait for the Great Flame to decide if He wanted to help him.
Dogs barked in the distance. Lucien tensed. He gave Tybalt a long look, then picked up the pace. Titus grimaced. He coughed, his lungs burning. Each breath tasted like copper. His head hurt. Everything hurt. A constant drumbeat of pain surged through his body as he was taken through the winding corridors.
After a little bit, the corridor widened. Cells cut into the dark stone branched off from both sides. Most of the doors hung open, but the one on the end was closed. Rust spotted the dark iron. Chills raked down Titus’s spine. He looked up, giving both men a worried look. They ignored him and approached the door. Titus tried to dig his feet into the floor. They pulled him forward anyways.
Another man stepped out of the shadows. He didn’t wear armor, just the plain, dark tunic that the Lions wore off duty, and he nodded when Tybalt approached. That had to be Ignatius. Titus swore under his breath. Ignatius wasn’t a tall man, nor was he well-muscled, but he was strong in an understated way. He cocked his head and smirked when he saw Titus.
“Well, now,” he said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. “You must be the soldier who’s taken a liking to the dark things in the night.”
It wasn’t true. Titus hadn’t done any of that. He didn’t even know what the Darkness was.
“Well, we’re about to show him what that Darkness is,” Tybalt said. He dropped Titus on the floor and nudged his ribs with one steel-toed boot. “Isn’t that right, Titus? I can’t even call you Titus Azurine because you’ve been exiled.”
Titus picked himself up slowly. He blinked, studying the closed door. It didn’t seem dangerous. It was a cell, true, yet it didn’t look like it had anything wild in it. Titus had heard stories about the monsters living in the forests. The Mountains of the Moon might be tamed now, but they still held all manner of foul things. Orcs were the worst. They were said to be meaner than the elves and destroyed any human that ventured into their territory. The elves did the same to anyone who strayed from the Coast Road. Even hunting was forbidden.
“Well?” Ignatius asked. He smirked and grabbed Titus’s short hair. “Why don’t you go meet your new friend.”
“Are you giving me a choice?” Titus asked. He coughed and winced.
The cell looked larger now. Something inside scratched at the door. Ignatius’s colorless eyes flickered toward it. His shoulders shivered. Then he recovered and started walking.
Titus yelped. He pulled back, struggling now, and gasped. Tybalt kicked him from behind. Titus went over. Ignatius dropped his hair, then grabbed his arm. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a tarnished brass key. Tybalt took it. He stepped around Titus, then slotted the key into the lock. He turned it, and the door swung open.
Shadows wreathed the little space. Soiled straw covered the ground. No chains hung from the ceiling and it looked dry, but something unsettled Titus. Tybalt, Lucien, and Ignatius studied for a second. Then they started walking and shoved him inside. Before Titus could recover, they kicked his legs inside and slammed the door shut.
Titus sat up. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light. Something dark huddled in the corner farthest from the door. It didn’t move. Titus rubbed his face. His sun-kissed skin seemed pale and dingy now, thanks to the abuse he’d taken before coming to this shithole. His body protested at the movement. He hissed softly and rolled his shoulders to loosen whatever he could. The dark lump in the corner didn’t move. Titus tried to stand. White spots danced in front of his eyes. He swore again and slumped to the floor. Titus braced himself against the floor. The world spiraled around him, taunting him with what he couldn’t have.
“Fucking hell,” he whispered. “They couldn’t have been nicer. Assholes.”
They called themselves his brothers. If this was brotherhood, Titus didn’t want it.
He scooted toward the wall and leaned against it. The cool stone sent shivers down his back. Titus focused on his breathing. He picked up a piece of straw and shredded it with his nails. The lump didn’t move. It was very small and still, whatever it was. It didn’t make a move to attack him. If Titus had to guess, the thing was more scared of him than he was of it, if it was even alive and not a pile of moldy blankets. He glanced at it periodically but didn’t try to bother it. He wasn’t in any shape to fight right now.
“Fuck,” Titus groaned. “What in Inntara did I do to make Oleander hate me so much?”
Something rustled.
Titus looked over. The lump uncoiled itself, revealing two long, skinny arms and a shock of dirty white hair. His chest tightened. Titus didn’t move for fear of setting whatever it was off. The being watched him. Golden eyes reflected the dim light back at him. Two ears – long and pointed, not short and rounded – twitched. Titus’s mouth went dry.
An elf. An actual, honest-to-the-Flame elf. Sitting in this dungeon with him. An elf. One of the tribes that terrorized humanity and kept them from reaching their full potential.
He didn’t cry out for help. That would give Tybalt and company the satisfaction of knowing he was scared. Titus would rather die than do that. He clenched his fists, heart beating quickly, and waited for the elf to make its move.
He could have challenged it. He could have charged into battle, quoting scripture, and proven his loyalty by killing the enemy. Yet, he didn’t. Titus watched the elf, taking note of its curving shoulders and slender build, but he didn’t attack. He didn’t know if he needed to. Titus wanted to save his strength for getting out of here. Elves were supposed to be vicious fighters, and Titus couldn’t risk injuries. His breath caught when the elf fully raised its head.
No, not an it. He. The elf watching him with scared golden eyes was male.
Titus raised his hand. “Hello?”
The elf recoiled like he was struck. He bared surprisingly sharp looking fangs and hissed.
Titus flinched. “Uh, so you’re not friendly.”
Great. Fuck him sideways. Of course, the elf wasn’t friendly. He was stuck in this shithole at the tender mercies of Tybalt and friends. The Golden Lions weren’t known for being kind to anyone that crossed them.
The elf growled softly.
“I’m Titus.” Titus pointed at himself. “Ti-tus. You can say that, right?”
The elf hissed again, louder this time. He pressed his back against the wall, his bared teeth shining in the half-light.
“You can talk, right?” Titus asked. He gestured to the cell, then to himself. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with you. I think it would be a really bad idea if I got in a fight, because then I would probably get my ass kicked. I mean, you hiss like a cat. What if you bite like one, too?”
The elf glared at him. He pressed his body into the corner, a low growl spilling from his throat. His golden eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Do you even speak Saxon?” Titus asked.
The elf hissed again.
“I guess not.” He scrubbed his face with his palm and stared at the wall. “This is what I’m supposed to be scared of? A skinny little thing like you who hisses like a stray cat if I look at you for too long. You’re supposed to be the Darkness?”
The elf’s ears twitched. His matted white-blond hair fell around his shoulders. Titus thought he saw the remains of braids and maybe a polished bone charm. He wasn’t sure, though, and didn’t care to try and see for himself. Those fangs looked sharp. The elf was probably scared – or desperate – enough to use them.
“My brothers put me here,” Titus said. “They said I talked back too much. What did you do?”
The elf stared at him. He wrapped his arms around his knees and huddled against the wall. His shirt was nothing more than tatters held together by fraying threads now and his trousers had seen better days. He hadn’t been thrashed, though. Maybe Tybalt was too scared to touch him. Titus shook his head. No, Tybalt wouldn’t be scared of an elf. Sicarius hadn’t ordered him to hurt the elf yet.
Elves weren’t supposed to do well if you tried to civilize them. They were wild things, relics of an earlier age, and were supposed to fade like the mist did at dawn. Progress, the clerics called it. Proof that humanity was the best and only way. Inntara had more resources than Silica did. The elves were too primitive to access them. Or, if they did, they only took what was on the surface and lacked the drive to dig deeper. Titus didn’t remember much of Silica. The famine that tore through his village left hundreds of orphans. Joining the Azures was the only way he had kept food in his belly and clothes on his back.
Inntara was supposed to be a new country. It was a land of opportunity where even the disgraced could make something of themselves. The people living there had to be shoved out of the way first, of course, because they didn’t know what to do with their blessings.
Titus didn’t know if he believed that. He did what he was told and served the Great Flame with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.
“Aerie.”
The word cut through the cool air. Titus turned, trying to place it. The elf – Aerie – raised his chin. Frightened golden eyes met his.
“Itilii Aerie esaav.” Aerie licked his lips. His ears drooped again and he stared at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry,” Titus said. “I don’t speak your language.”
Your gibberish, he should have said. Your cant, if he wanted to be insulting. The words the elves spoke wasn’t said to be language, just like the barking dogs and braying mules couldn’t have language. Yet hearing Aerie’s words shook something in him.
Itilii Aerie esaav. My name is Aerie.
Titus dipped his head and rolled the words around in his mind. Then he raised it and pointed at himself.
“Itilii Titus esaav.” He stumbled over them, unfamiliar with how they tasted in his mouth, but they came out just the same.
Aerie nodded. He didn’t move closer, but didn’t attack, either.