Rafaela had never felt this nervous to enter her own quarters, before. Don’t be ridiculous, Rhea, she’s not some wild animal you should have to fear! And yet she was nervous—to the point of being frightened, as she didn’t know what to expect. Grief did strange things to people—she knew it all too well, as grief often made her own mirror’s image look like a stranger.
She entered the room in a burst of courage and her eyes caught the sight of gold hair; her legs nearly crumpled from under her. Instead, she held on to the doorknob. Restraint usually came easy to her, but the sight of her former daughter made all efforts towards keeping herself contained especially hard. “You should eat,” the captain said, and she held up the plate she’d brought with her.
“I don’t want to eat.” came the cold, monotone reply. Silence stretched out among the two women. Hypatia, curled up into a ball upon the small straw bed, wrapped her arms a little tighter around her legs.
More silence.
Hypatia then rose. It was so unexpected and so sudden, that she was was naught but flurry of loose golden curls and cheap black cotton. Hypatia went to the captain and slapped the place from her hand before leaning in close. With a sneer, baring her teeth Hypatia hissed “Leave.me.alone. I don’t want your pity nor your horrid food!” she was screaming now. Crying again. Fat tears itched at her already red raw eyes “I don’t want you here.!”
I’m sorry. “Antony!” he screamed as his hands uselessly clenched around the iron bars. “Antony!” I’m sorry. In this too, he was powerless. “Antony!” he screamed as he watched them drag his brother past. I’m sorry. “Antony!” he screamed as his brother fought to turn, face pale and eyes scared, and opened his mouth-
Hamish’s eyes slowly blinked open. Tears clung to his lashes. His hands were fisted in the sheets, his hair flattened against his forehead with the sweat of a broken fever. “Antony,” he whispered in a hoarse, nearly inaudible murmur. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, brother. “Where’s Antony?”
The sliding doors that connected the cabin Hypatia had been placed in with her sons, flew to the side so violently that it banged and almost slide back into place. Hypatia entered, the short stride from the door to her sons bedside was covered in two footfalls. She dropped to her knees by his head and smoothed her hand over her sons wet brow. “Hamish.” Hypatia choked out, tears forming in her own glassy green eyes. “My love....my boy, Hamish wake up....” When his eyes did open, Hypatia licked her lips “A dream my love....a dream is all.” Only it was no dream. At the mention of her lost child, Hypatia’s heart was lead heavy and sore. The tears she shed graced the cheeks of her last living child when Hypatia leaned in and kissed his head. “it is but you and i now my sweet.” Hypatia murmured, smoothing his golden hair back. Curls....so like her Antonys. Hypatia breathed in a deep, choked breath. “....you and i....”
Ayesha rounded the corner to approach the screaming she had heard only moments before only to witness the most disgusting crunch. “Urgh Jesus Christ… disgusting… why are you guys always so gross?”
Hypatia rolled her eyes and stepped away from her meal. Those red eyes latched on to the smaller girl before her. Sneering, Hypatia stepped closer “Well...it appears someone has a death wish”
Holden let out a civilized sigh, watching the scene with vague disdain on his features. “Must you play with your food, Hypatia? It gets rather exhausting.”
Hypatia pressed down on the girls throat until her eyes bulged. However, before she passed out, Hypatia pulled her foot away with a sigh. “Perhaps. Yet it never fails to amuse me.” Those bloody lips pulled back into another smile “You don’t wish to share?”
Hypatia rose above her dinner with a grin “Shh. You might wake the whole street with your screeching.” with that, she placed a heavy boot on the throat of her victim with a smirk.
“It has been said time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind protecting it’s sanity covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it’s never gone.”
Hypatia had never begged for anything in her life. Not once. Not as a girl, or a teenager or an adult. Anything she had ever wanted was given to her and more. Never had the great Lion Queen lowered herself into begging from others. She would have asked to be damned rather than beg.
Not now.
Hypatia would beg now. Until the rivers ran dry. Until her bones became brittle. Hypatia Vitello would beg for the life of her son if it took everything else she had ever held dear. She would trade anything for Antony. Her beauty. Her jewels. Her life, what little value it had left.
When the wildlings came to announce her fate, Hypatia did not believe them. Surely not even the King of the Savages would truly kill her boys. Not her sons. She did not care about herself but gods, they could not kill her sons? The Gods could not be so cruel as to rip them from her like this. “Please.” Hypatia had struggled to stand. Weak from lack of sleep, wine and food, the Old Queen struggled to make it across the small expanse of her cell to the bars. She curled her hands around the iron, the cold bit into her palms but she ignored it “Let me speak to him. The King. Your King….Please. Please let me speak to him, only if for a moment.” Hypatia was tempted to reach through the bars but she could not risk it. They could see it as a means of attack and she was aiming to save her sons. Anything could be seen as an assault. The Wildling that stood in front of her was tall, weathered with age and grey with time. He said nothing, but Hypatia could not mistake the look of pity in his eye Do you have sons? She wanted to ask, Did you love them?, hold them tight as children? Scare their nightmares away in the night?. Hypatia wanted to scream at him. She wanted to fight and scream and tear her hair out. She wanted to do anything to stop the hurting inside. The pain. The suffering. Gods….was she suffering. The wildling turned “No No No No!” Hypatia reached through the bars then, desperation clinging to her like a sickness. She was too late. He was just out of reach. “No please!” she cried into the cells corridor “Please!, please!, please!...”
They came in the morning. Afternoon?, Evening?. Hypatia could not tell one day from the next in such darkness. Only when the door at the end of the corridor opened did she rouse from the spot on the floor she had collapsed into in. Two Wildlings strode by her cell not long after. Struggling to her feet, Hypatia leaned in close to the bars and tried to see what was going on.
No. It was too soon. They had not come for her sons. There was no way-
In the distance she heard a cell lock. A key was turned. A door was open.
Hypatia felt dread, cold and heavy, settle in her stomach.
Marching. Toward her.
Hypatia could see a little of what was happening, not much given the poor lighting but just enough. Alycia walked past first. A far cry from the elegant High Medow girl Hypatia had once know. The woman who had taken her throne, her crown and her son glanced through the bars at Hypatia and smiled bitterly. Then she was gone.
Have I won?, thought Hypatia, her hand going to her throat, is this price of victory?
Her sons final walk happened in slow motion, as if the gods wanted to draw out her final suffering.
Antony. Her Antony, came walking past her cell in front of one of the wildlings. Hypatia was rarely left without words, but now she could not seem to find her tongue in her head. Antony looked at her, and she saw a little boy. The same one that stretched out beside her in bed when Zion would not. The boy who she had fed and clothed and cradled at her breast for years. Her son. Her first born boy. Her Antony. “Mother.” He said gently, unsmiling. He was afraid. Hypatia thought, my son is afraid and I can do nothing for him. Oh gods…..my son is to die.
Hypatia reached out blindly through the bars and managed to catch Antonys hand. She held on, the feel of his skin against hers bringing tears to her eyes “Antony…..” she breathed, unable to hold on. The wildling grunted and quickly pryed her fingers from around her sons hand “No!” she was screaming now. Wailing like a mad woman “No please!” She scrambled up the bars until she was pressed against the stone wall and the iron. Still she screamed on. “I love you!” she cried into the darkness. “Antony, I love you!”.
The Door slammed shut.
She was left in darkness.
Alone.
Hypatia tried to catch her breath. She tried to see sense and see reason and see clearly. Yet could not. Her son was on his way to his death and Hypatia could do nothing for him. She had sworn a vow. She had sworn to protect him from all harm. She had failed.
Hypatia screamed. Loudly. It was horrible. Grief stricken and heavy with panic and anger.
She cried and she wailed, clawing at her gown, at her face and at her hair. Hypatia tore herself to ribbons, all the while screaming the name of her son.
Antony
Antony
Antony
No mother should have to bury their child. Though Hypatia Vitello could not have buried her Antony even if she had wanted too.
I should have known that wouldn’t have been enough for her to shut up. Galen almost startled at the uncharitable thought. She was locked in a cell while he walked free—what right did he have to think cruel thoughts? He focused in on Hypatia’s face, the cruel twist of her generous lips and the fire in her eyes.
She’d been such a beauty when he’d first come to the Lion’s Keep; he’d seen her pale skin and her soft pink-flushed cheeks and thought Zion insane for casting her aside. But she’d been kind then, with sweet words and gentle touches to his hair. Perhaps she’d seen the son she’d always wanted in him, before she’d realized what he was. What they were. And the hatred she felt for him, the vitriol that burned through her veins… When Galen looked at her now, with all that rotted-black fury tainting her tongue and glinting in her eyes, the beautiful once-queen was so, so very ugly.
He almost felt sympathy twist in him. He tilted his head through her insults, quietly attentive—and then she insulted Illias, and he saw RED.
“Is that what I am?” Galen asked softly, setting the basket he’d been holding down. He didn’t notice that the dungeons had gone eerily quiet—Hypatia had always been quite a presence, after all. The man strode forward, taking hold of her slender wrists and yanking her forward, until there were scant inches and iron bars between them and he held her arms firmly against his chest. ( His hands encircled her whole wrists effortlessly. Delicate little creature, thinks she’s still got teeth to bite and claws to scratch. His grip was steady but his eyes were violent. His eyes were violet. ) “And what does that make you, Your Majesty?” he asked, soft. “Do you want to know what the man you love so desperately thought of you? Why he had to turn to such a vile creature as me? Perhaps you should look into the mirror, you self-righteous, mewling bitch.”
Galen clenched his jaw, squeezing her wrists in warning. He blinked, and his eyes were their same shade of kind blue. “Show some humility for once in your life, Hypatia. Whether or not you believe it, you are not the only person in this world who has suffered. You’re here because your family is made up of cruel, overemotional children and good-intentioned, ineffective leaders. You were sad because your husband spent his nights fucking me? Thousands more women were miserable because your nightly wine meant they were starving to death. You were working towards destroying the Realm with every breath, so it’s been taken from you.”
He shoved away from her in disgust, both at her and himself. “Don’t ever insult my mate again,” he said tightly, raking a hand through his hair. What was wrong with him? “Unless you want to hear exactly what Zion had to say about you when he was in bed with me. You think you’ve been sliced open by him, Hypatia? You say you know me, but I know you, and you’re a slave to that twisted love you cling to. You think you’re beyond being hurt by him? You don’t know the half of it.”
Gods, never had she thought it would end this way. In her dreams it was always Galen in the cell while she looked on in glee. How horrid it was to see him loom above her. Still so very beautiful even in the gloom of the prison. She had once loved him so...Hypatia still remembered it. Remembered him in his youth as the boy she had wished for. Hamish had been beautiful but Galen was perfect. So much like her that Hypatia had almost loved him.
There were times when she still wanted too. Times when she wished with all her heart that she could.
It happened so suddenly. She had been watching him too. Waiting for something in him so snap but she never expected that it would.
With a grunt of pain and surprise, the elder Queen was yanked forward so suddenly that she banged her head into the bars. She would not cry out though. She refused. Her head began to thump in pain but she ignored it and focused solely on Galen. His grip was so tight.Too tight. It would no doubt leave bruising. Hypatia tried to struggle free but it only served to tighten his grip on her. He was talking, Hypatia noted. Galen had rarely touched her. Hypatia had always been the one to move first on him. They beatings, the slaps. Every single time it was her who had claimed and held the power. Now, with it the other way around there was something close to fear bubbling under the skin.
He was wildling now, she thought, violent and large.....gods, he was so very huge next to her. Hypatia stared up at him. Emerald upon blue. Bother bright. Both Golden, Both had earned for so much and had been abused by the world. Galen had broken free. She had not. Hypatia would never admit he was right. Never. She would rather die.
She remembered the hungry. The woman who craddled a dead babe to her breast, begging for food outside of the Royal litter the day Hypatia watched her son be crowned. She remembered the poor and the old. The half naked children that her guard had thrown out of the way of her carriage. She remembered all of them but cared for none of them.
The shove came hard and fast, causing Hypatia to stumble back and clutch her arm to her chest. She was right. A red welt had encircled her wrist, ready to break at any moment. Only she did not weep for the pain, or due to his words. No. The former Queen. The now Mad queen, she smiled. “It seems the Savages have taught you savagery well enough Galen.” Hypatia returned to the bars, the green of her eyes glowing in the dim light. A lioness, no less than what he had once called her. Zion had made her into many things, but a lion was what she was always grateful of being.
“I loved him so much, you have no idea. You have no idea of what i did to keep him. Of what i had to do.” Hypatia curled her hands around the bars and leaned in. The welt on her head from where he had pulled her, had opened and a single trickle of blood creeped down her forehead, onto her cheek. “Yet it was never enough and you know that. When he died again do you know what i felt?” the question fell into silence before her smile turned into a bark of laughter “Nothing. I didn’t feel a thing. I think that made me more of a Monster than what i ever was. I loved to hard and without question. Like you do now but i did not weep again when Zion fell” Hypatia chuckled. “You let monsters into our home Galen and when they murder my sons will you smile?. “ Hypatia’s smile faltered and then it was her turn to reach through the bars. Her fingers outstretched and her nails ready to shred him to ribbons. “When they MURDER my BOYS will you return to me and gloat like you do now?!” She was screaming now. Hysterical. “You may as well do the honours yourself, murderer!”
He deserved that. Iapetus kept a neutral face through Hypatia’s venom, uncapping the scotch and taking a sip for himself since she didn’t care for it. She could hate him. She deserved to hate him.
“If you want me to,” he replied mildly, watching her as the liquid burned down his throat. “If it gives you any sense of comfort. You can scream at me all you wish, I welcome it if it eases your mind even the slightest bit.” Not that he cared about the fates of her boys, one a fool and the other a weakling. “This is hardly pity, Hypatia. I’d pity you if you were a fool, if you were weak enough to crumble under this. This is guilt.” His expression didn’t change as he spoke, plain and mild. “Not for your children. You know Antony dug his own grave the moment he nearly murdered my Marc. But for you, sweetheart, for you. Haven’t you already suffered enough in this life and the last?”
“Suffering i told you all about, encase your memory has suddenly failed you!” she snapped “You were my confidant....i told you everything and you betrayed me!” Hypatia screamed at him, rattling the bars of her cage until her arms turned to lead.
Hypatia fell silent then, a rare moment for the ever maddening elder Queen. It dragged on, the only sound being the periodic drip of water down the walls of her cell.
“Why did it have to be you.”
Such honesty. Such pain in her voice.
Hypatia was choked, a sudden tear in her resolve opened a pandora’s box of emotion. Anger was still the most prevalent. Yet there was guilt and saddness and worry etched all over her face. There was fear too. You could see it in the way her eyes dulled and her lower lip was chewed into ruin. Hypatia was afraid. So afraid that she could barely keep it hidden anymore. “I could have handled it from anyone else. Even Holden or Antony because i knew them. I knew they found fault in me....but you....” Hypatia looked up at him from her pitiful position on the stone floor and a sarcastically sad smile stretched at her lips“My golden Isiah....You were my friend....the only friend i ever had in this wretched world....and you are just as awful as the rest.” The anger had returned to her voice then, cold and pointed at him “I stand to loose everything because of you.....” she snarled, curling a hand around one of the bars in front of her “....Friend.”
"I already got ride of one of your sisters from my sight, must i be tortured with another?” Hypatia stood up from the half rotted wooden bench in her cell and stalked toward the bars. “If i would speak to one of you wretched lot, it would be your better, your elder. Why don’t you be a good little girl and run to fetch her.”
Hypatia eyed the girl through the bars before barking a sharp laugh “Are you as stupid as your sister?” the old queen snapped “I don’t want your pity. It may make you feel better but it does naught nut annoy me witch”
Hypatia eyed the girl through the bars before barking a sharp laugh “Are you as stupid as your sister?” the old queen snapped “I don’t want your pity. It may make you feel better but it does naught nut annoy me witch”
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