Different Path Taken Ch.49
So uh I did the first bit of this chapter with the elves in a day, hit a block, came back, considered leaving it with just them but didn't like how short it was so I came back to add what was Meant to be a fairly brief section with Corvus and Gren. And then their part ended up being a full chapter length on their own. So, have fun. Skor and Callisto are in dire straits but alive. Gren breaks down a bit, but he and Corvus come out of it stronger.
Callisto hadn't really expected to wake up, after the horn-rattling impact they had made against the wall and the glow of magic shooting towards them while they were stunned. Skor's new moon spells were making the whole hallway visually confusing anyway, and the last thought they'd had was hoping he fared better. That he might even escape.
A stinging cheek and a sneer of "Good, you're awake." was not on their list of expectations.
They blinked their eyes open unwillingly though their lids felt like sandpaper, and recoiled instinctively from the dark mage's touch. An attempt to move their right hand revealed it was bound tightly against their chest with their broken arm, immobilized. Their head still ached, their back hurt, and one leg was suspiciously numb under their slumped position. Casting their gaze about desperately they froze as they spotted Skor.
He was still out cold, on his side rather than propped up as they were. His braid had been cut free and hung beside his face with his bangs now, stained pink with blood - a smear, not as though his head were bleeding, thank the Moon. His hands were hidden behind his back, presumably bound like theirs were, his armor torn in places. The part that made them sick to their stomach was the way his scars looked fresh, as though they were all but half-healed despite being years, some decades old.
He was breathing, at least.
Crucially, also, they weren't in the dungeons. Callisto's breath came harsh as they realized they were in the mage's office, the one from higher in the castle, the one that contained the -
"Lucid enough to talk now?" The mage asked coldly, looming in their vision.
They bared their fangs at him spitefully.
"Before we go down to the workshop where you'll be spending the rest of your miserable life, until I decide what other uses I have for you, you're going to answer some questions for me." The mage sneered.
Callisto snorted and didn't dignify that with a response. Their eyes drifted sideways again, anxiously, too well-trained to let their ears flatten even with the fear lacing their veins. Skor was stirring. He must have been knocked out not much after they were.
"Let me make that a little clearer for you." The mage stalked over next to Skor and gestured pointedly down at him. "You're going to answer me, or your friend is going to pay the price for it. I would much rather just deal with you directly, but your kind have proven . . . difficult to break in the past, until their partners are threatened."
Though Callisto's heart felt stabbed with ice by the threat it never crossed their mind to do anything but sneer back at the mage. Skor was an assassin, too. They had made the same oaths. "We are already dead."
"You don't look dead." Viren countered mildly. "And I assure you, he isn't either."
They glared at him in hateful silence as Skor slowly blinked his eyes open and shifted at the mage's feet. His bound hands visibly gave him pause.
"But I've heard of this," Viren went on, stroking his own beard. "A Moonshadow philosophy of accepting that one is already dead, so that you don't fear death. You've given me an interesting challenge. How to find a fate worse than death?"
With a pointed look back down at Skor, his voice dropped as he asked Callisto, "Your own life is one thing. Are you prepared to sacrifice his?"
"We made that choice a long time ago." Callisto sneered back at him.
"Did you?" Viren asked, still infuriatingly mild, and raised his eyebrows as if in genuine surprise. "Does he know you feel that way? Because he seems to hold far greater loyalty to you. He faltered trying to save you, you know."
They hadn't.
Skor had frozen, too, at the reveal, and he didn't meet their eyes when they looked at him for some trace of the truth, and it sank in their heart like a heavy ball of ice. Fear that had stalked them for far longer than they'd known this mage's name roared up the back of their mind like a plague and they knew their breath was coming quicker in the sudden panic. Anger, too, irrational but there nonetheless, because -
Callisto had spent so much of their life remaining carefully distant, content with their dark work and the relationships they formed on the basis of knowing they would lose each other violently. Skor had been someone they trusted because he lived by the same oaths, so it was okay to love him. Because he understood their position - because he shared it.
And now, he had made a mistake that could prove fatal to both of them because he had broken those oaths. He had not only crossed a line he had done it where this mage could see, could use it against them!
The mage moved on, apparently deeming those precious seconds long enough to process that information. "First and foremost, this." He pulled the cover off of the mirror and Callisto felt ice in their veins as they stiffened. "I want you to tell me what this is."
"No," They hissed.
"No?" Viren echoed, arching his brows curiously. "Fascinating, that's not nothing." He hardened a glare at them through steel-grey eyes with something darker behind them and they hissed, recoiling in their bindings. He took a step toward them. "Of all the things in the Storm Spire, the dragons kept this close to where they slept. They wouldn't do that for something that wasn't important. So tell me what it does."
When he took another step toward Callisto Skor broke. He had promised to get home alive - to bring them both back alive - he wouldn't let Callisto die for this. "You're playin' with something you don't understand," He said harshly to the mage, desperate to draw his attention back from Callisto.
He'd seen how they hit the ground. He would never forget the moment. The way that left leg was sitting - it was dislocated, they probably couldn't feel it yet past the terror. But it meant even with their legs unbound they couldn't run.
Viren turned back to him with a look of nasty satisfaction. "What is it?"
"Skor, don't," Callisto begged.
He didn't look at them, instead meeting the mage's gaze. "If you're lookin' for a fate worse than death, you've found it," He rasped. "Take this as a warning, not a victory, fakir. Leave the glass where it stands. You're in as much danger as we are from that thing."
"I didn't ask for your opinions." The mage dismissed the warning after only a moment, and whatever brief hope Skor had held when he was quiet died in his chest. "I asked you for what it is - but if you're not willing to tell me, you've at least given me enough to have a few new ideas. Now it's time for you to go rest in your new home until I decide what to do with you next."
They weren't given time to ask what that meant before another black spell had put them right back to a deathly cold sleep.
When Skor woke up, Callisto was once again already awake. They were in the cells of Viren's workshop, just out of sight of the awful shelves full of dead things. A faint smell of Gren lingered, and Skor scowled as he realized they had been led in circles earlier by the death magic. They were separated by a lattice of metal bars so thick they were more like panels, each chained to the wall in the back.
They were alone, though. There was no sound to indicate Viren was around; he had apparently abandoned them down here to go about his business. Skor's hands were wrapped in cloth, held in fists so he couldn't draw his runes. It was a crude attempt to restrict his magic; a more powerful mage wouldn't even be slowed by it, but Skor was talented more than powerful. To his relief, Callisto's leg seemed to be sitting properly again, and their hands were simply cuffed, not wrapped as his were. They were still in one piece.
Seeing him look them over, Callisto gave him an unreadable look. "You hesitated." They accused.
He knew what they meant right away, grimacing as he tried to sit up further and winced as the chains wrapped around him shifted, clinking unpleasantly, and he aggravated his wounds. "I did."
Their horns thudded back on the stone wall tiredly. "Why?" They asked, in a defeated sort of tone.
Skor's heart ached and he found himself leaning on the bars that separated them. "You know why."
"We took oaths-"
"And this wasn't part of them," Skor cut them off roughly. "This isn't a mission, Callisto. We're meant to survive, one way or another."
"And at least you would have if you hadn't hesitated." They retorted.
Skor closed his eyes and shook his head softly, the braid they had given him falling loose - his heart hurt seeing it, feeling how disheveled it was. "I saw you fall," He rasped. "I knew ye couldn't run. So I tried to distract him."
Callisto's breath came harshly but their voice was steady and resigned when they answered. "You always were too soft for your own good."
Quiet enveloped their cells for a minute and Skor tried and failed to twitch his fingers in his bindings. He didn't open his eyes. A faint smell of salt made his heart hurt, aware Callisto was - perhaps not weeping fully but had at least teared up in the other cell. "I'm sorry."
He was, was the thing. Not for hesitating, not for trying to save them. For how much he had hurt them by doing so. The reason they let him in was trusting him to have their back - trusting that he could let them go, when the time came. That he wouldn't be broken by losing them like they had been broken.
He didn't regret it. This wasn't a mission they were meant to die on - and he would have tried to help even if it was, he couldn't let his friends fall if he could stop it. Callisto wasn't an exception or a special case in that.
"I just . . ." Callisto trailed off.
They weren't ready.
Maybe one day - if they survived this . . . Callisto had grown more open in the last few years, to the point of cuddling him through cold winter nights and braiding his hair on occasion. Maybe one day they would be ready to let their love be spoken.
"This isn't the time." He admitted roughly, finally opening his eyes to lean his own head back against the wall. "If the mage discovers anythin' more than he's already seen, we're fucked."
Callisto gave an ugly, humorless laugh. "I think we're already fucked."
"It can always get worse," Skor replied dryly, and could have sighed with relief when Callisto shifted so he could feel their warmth through the bars, though they couldn't quite touch with their hands bound up. They'd forgiven him, so at least there was that.
Now all they could do was wait, and worry, and pray Skor's warning had, if not penetrated, at least not given the mage any useful new ideas.
Gren and Corvus had made good time away from the castle. With Viren occupied, they had been able to stop in the stables to fetch Gren's horse and one of the Crownguard mounts, the two of them speeding away much faster than they could have done on foot. Corvus had updated Gren as they fled, starting with the details the princes, elves, and Soren had revealed about the night of the king's death. They stopped at the Banther Lodge to rest, after Corvus had gotten his friend up to speed. Gren's hands were shaking violently on his reins, obviously strained by the week or more they'd been suspended above him, and Corvus refused to let him push farther.
He took care of both of their horses as well, pushing Gren away gently when the man struggled with some of the buckles on his tack. "Go try to get out of that plate." He said, furrowing his brows with concern.
Fortunately for them all, Gren wasn't as stubborn as Amaya, and his shoulders dropped immediately, just taking a deep breath and nodding. "Okay. Thank you, Corvus."
Corvus just nodded, watching just long enough to make sure he left before returning to their horses. It didn't take that much longer to get both settled in stalls with a bit of grain and hay for their service. He wiped down their tack as well, though he didn't take the time to do a full cleaning on them.
To his surprise, Gren still hadn't gotten through all his armor when he returned inside. He found the man sitting on a red settee in the den of the Lodge, arms laid across his lap, flexing his fingers with his head bowed over them. Corvus caught himself moving faster at the sign of distress, and -
Well.
He'd spent four days traveling with two people in a very similar position to his and Gren's. Accomplished warriors who worked for a powerful leader, with dangerous jobs. Callisto was just as reserved as Corvus himself, and yet they never hesitated to lean on their partner nor to offer Skor help when he needed it.
"Hey." He announced himself with a soft call, unable after all these years to stop walking softly, and Gren jerked his eyes up to meet him. "Do you need help?"
"It would be easier." Gren admitted, sitting up properly on the settee with a wince. "It's not bad, I've just worked my arms really hard riding like that after being locked up for over a week."
Over a week? Corvus frowned, kneeling in front of his friend to help remove his greaves. "What happened after you and Amaya made it back to Katolis?"
Gren gave a humorless chuckle and resumed pulling at the catches on his breastplate. His pauldrons already lay on the settee beside him, along with a few other pieces that were easier to reach without stretching his arms. "I feel stupid, honestly. Amaya warned me not to trust him, but I thought, there's no way he'd be stupid enough to do something to me openly, right? He sent me away with Soren. I shouldn't have gone with him."
Corvus shot him a look out of the corner of his eye, well aware with how powerful a fighter Soren was. "So he got you alone with the Captain of the Crownguard, unarmed."
Gren grimaced. "I know I should have been more careful. Once we were out of sight Soren had me in chains before I could think what to do - how was I going to fight him, I don't carry a sword. I know this is why Amaya keeps telling me to carry some kind of weapon, I know. But of all the places I should have been fine without one . . ."
"The palace of your own kingdom should have been one," Corvus agreed quietly when he trailed off, setting the greaves aside and going up on his knees to help with the breastplate. It placed him between Gren's parted legs, but when he glanced up, Gren didn't seem uncomfortable with the proximity, so he focused on his task.
"After that it was just the dungeon, and that was worse." Gren swallowed hard, eventually giving up and letting Corvus strip him of what was left of his plate. He wasn't the sort that looked overly smaller with his armor gone, instead the lack just revealing a softer body that owed its tone to strenuous training. He did look more vulnerable without it though, with the padding under the plate showing. "No one ever came in but Viren. I - it almost reminded me of going home from university in the summers, after I decided to pursue a field position instead of remaining a diplomat like my father. The taunting was bad, but at least when he came I had something to focus on. The worst of it was the silence - which sounds stupid, because of course I had the servants to talk to when I was home from university, and Amaya lives with complete silence every day, but -"
"But she doesn't," Corvus cut him off softly, sitting back on his heels but putting a hand on Gren's knee to comfort him, brows drawing up as he saw Gren's eyes growing wet. "She can't hear like we can but she's not alone." Catching one of Gren's shaking hands, he gently steadied it, curling Gren's fingers carefully and holding his hand up. "You make sure of it."
Gren blinked and the tears overwhelmed his eyes, leaking out despite himself, and he closed them again with a shaky, gasping breath as he tried not to cry. "I know. I guess - you're right. I just - it was so quiet, and all I could hear were the rats and even they wouldn't come in the room, and then Viren would and it was the same dismissal every time. It would have been easier if he'd sneered or tried to talk to me but he didn't, he just commented so mildly on my attitude and then kept walking, like I'm just a footnote, the same nothing to him that I am at home, and I . . ." He broke off with a grimace, wiping at his face with his free hand, clutching Corvus' hand with the other. "It hurt so much more than it should have, when I knew how awful he was already."
Corvus took a chance and rose up a little more to hug him. Gren paused for only a second as if surprised and then wrapped his arms around, burying his face in Corvus' shoulder and shuddering, curled into the hug as his shoulders shook. Corvus turned his head to speak softly into his ear. "It's okay to cry. We're safe for now."
Gren clutched him tighter and he gave a ragged breath that was probably the tears coming. Corvus rubbed his back and hummed.
After he got his thoughts in order, he replied to Gren's actual worries. "You didn't know. You knew he was a dick, not a murderer."
"He did hit me once," Gren said with a wet laugh. "When Amaya was still there. She'd made him angry, so he hit me instead of her."
Corvus gripped him tighter, rage coiling through his gut at the reveal, but he took a slow breath and focused on Gren for now. Gren's arms loosened and he sat back, keeping a hand on his friend's shoulder and looking him in the eyes. "You know they're wrong," He said softly, squeezing the muscled shoulder under his hand. "Everyone who's ever made you feel that way. They're wrong. Your parents, Viren - they're just power-hungry assholes who can't stand the fact that you're nothing like them."
Gren gave a wet laugh and rubbed his face, wiping his tears away. His smile was weak. "Thank you, Corvus. I . . . I know. It's easier with you around." He glanced down at the hand on his shoulder, something like awe flickering over his features.
"You looked like you needed a hug," Corvus said awkwardly, loosening his grip. "You . . . kind of look like you still do."
That weak little smile turned more genuine, Gren's eyes soft when they looked back up at Corvus' face. "I could use one," The soldier admitted. "But I know you're not big on physical contact, if you don't . . ."
Corvus didn't wait for him to finish, just pushing in to hug him again, letting Gren pull him in tighter this time. Unsatisfied with the distance enforced by Gren's shed armor on the settee and their legs, Corvus threw a leg over Gren's lap without really thinking about it, focused on how it would get their bodies in better alignment for Gren to just hide in his chest. It was only after he settled with Gren curled into him and the soldier's arms wrapped carefully around his waist that he realized their position was somewhat compromising.
He decided not to overthink it, settling his arms around Gren's broad shoulders and rubbing little circles into his back comfortingly. "Wouldn't offer if I didn't want to." He said, a little belatedly.
Gren snorted into his chest. His arms tightened around Corvus' waist. "I'm not sure if I'm glad it was you or if I hate that you had to see me like that. Like this." He admitted without raising his head.
Corvus found himself reaching up to draw his fingers through orange hair, scratching his scalp the way his mother had done when he was little and his curls were short, and he was overwhelmed by the everything around him. "I know you," He said after a minute, feeling Gren relax under his touch. "It's not the first time I've seen you cry. You don't have to put on the cheerful face with me if you don't feel it."
"I've always loved that about you." Gren confessed, his hands shifting on Corvus' back, leaning his head back into Corvus' hand, as if his words didn't make something in Corvus' heart and gut jump. "Thank you."
Gren loved people so easily, with so few reservations despite how his birth family had abused his forgiveness. He loved Corvus, he loved Amaya, he loved their soldiers and the princes and the king, he loved his job and his country and his family in spite of everything. The word didn't carry any pressure from him.
Corvus rarely returned the sentiment aloud, more reserved by nature. He tried to show it instead, baking for Gren's birthday just as he did for Amaya's, giving the man space to be weak, to break down when everyone else needed him to be cheerful and strong. As he grew older the feelings had shifted, and he'd been trying to work out what they meant.
Traveling with Callisto and Skor made things so terribly obvious.
"I love you, too." Corvus murmured, like a confession, over Gren's shoulder, and forced himself to be still and look back when Gren raised his head to look him in the eyes.
Blue eyes searched his darker ones and Gren's thumbs pressed gently into the small of his back. He smiled faintly. "Catching up with me, are you?"
Corvus snorted, having nearly forgotten - or rather hardly thought about - the conversation they'd had almost a year ago about Gren's new habit of staring at him. They had done the last of their growing up together, Corvus growing up a bit too young and Gren doing it late, seventeen and twenty-one when they met; four years a gap that closed quickly as they were in the same stage of life. Gren had never pressed, but he'd been open about liking what he saw, liking how they felt together, when Corvus asked. He'd been content to let it be with Corvus not reciprocating - unsure of himself - and hadn't placed his life on hold to wait.
It hadn't escaped Corvus' notice that what little dating Gren did around his job had all but halted, though.
"You know me," He replied softly, his own eyes dropping from Gren's sky blues to the front of his uniform shirt over that thick chest. "Need at least a year of processing before I commit to anything."
Gren chuckled. "That or a little push," He agreed, pressing firmer into Corvus' back, as if emboldened by the admission, but his smile faded, his brows drawing up, after a moment. "So what pushed you?"
The meaning of the braid in Skor's hair, revealed softly by Runaan with a knowing look in piercing teal eyes. The comfort the duo took in sharing a tent, Callisto's broken arm tucked carefully between them. Skor's hand trailing over his partner's horns and hair and the way Callisto allowed the touch when they bared their fangs at most getting too close. The sootheberries Callisto kept in their pack for Skor's voice. The way they moved without needing words, just as he and Gren did, in perfect sync everywhere from the battlefield to bed. Their comfortable banter, like his and Gren's, mixing words with signs, speaking for each other. The contrast of Skor's wounded quiet but softer heart and Callisto's sharp tongue and guarded soul, the way they supported and softened and strengthened each other.
"Callisto and Skor," He admitted. "Seeing them together. They reminded me of us. I realized I didn't want to make you wait anymore."
Gren's eyebrows had raised a bit when he said the names, but he softened at the rest of the statement. "They're together?"
Insisting on sharing the room at the Moon Nexus, attached at the hip everywhere they went, fussing over each other, the intimacy they permitted only from each other - "From what I understand. I didn't ask too much, Callisto likes their privacy, but it seems obvious even to me."
Gren cracked a smile at that, both of them well aware that Corvus often struggled with picking up on social cues, especially among the nobility Gren hailed from. "I hope they're both okay." The soldier said, quiet, sympathetic.
"Me, too." Corvus said, wincing. Skor had told him to run, doing the same thing as he had done to the elf at the Nexus. He had obeyed, recognizing the favor, knowing Skor was right, but still -
Skor was taking a much bigger risk than he had by staying. He'd been fairly confident Soren and Claudia wouldn't kill him. He had no such confidence in Viren's mercy on a pair of Moonshadow elves.
Especially with the bits Gren had gleaned from the dungeon, revealed on the ride here as Corvus told his story. Viren summoning the Pentarchy, failing to gain their aid for something - this was almost certainly a power grab, and knowing that the elves had never entered but any vantage point that could see the king's tower had been killed but only Viren had entered the room - it all just lined up too well. The mage had turned on his so-called best friend, just as Amaya suspected he had turned on her sister nine years ago.
Gren suddenly gave a helpless-sounding laugh and dropped his head to Corvus' chest again. "Amaya's going to be furious about everything except us," He said, audibly smiling, tone a bit too amused and affectionate to be wry but trying for it. "She'll love us, though. The two of us getting together."
Corvus couldn't help the smile breaking across his own face, too. "Oh, stars, she'll be more excited than we are."
"Yep." Gren popped the end of the word and they both chuckled, hugging each other tight. Corvus felt the tremble in his friend's aching arms and pulled away after a moment.
"You need rest," He said firmly. "Let me take care of your armor, go find a bed."
Gren smiled indulgently at him, eyes soft. "Yes, sir," He teased gently, giving Corvus' waist a last squeeze before fully picking him up and setting him on the seat beside his position to stand up.
Corvus sputtered. "I said rest!" He batted at the redhead, heat rushing to his face, abruptly grateful his beard would cover whatever visible blush he had. "Go! I know that hurt your arms, you - you clotpole!"
Gren fully belly laughed at the insult, his teeth flashing in a grin so wide his eyes closed with it. "I just wanted to know if I could," He defended himself playfully, and Corvus swatted him again for it.
"Go rest your arms, you idiot," He said, unwillingly affectionate over the soldier's antics.
"Hey, if I can do it now, imagine what I can do when I'm back to normal, right?" Gren smirked. It was an expression that should have looked like Amaya, given how rarely he smirked on his own, but somehow his whole face changed when he was speaking for himself, and Corvus just felt flustered by the tease.
He didn't know how to respond and instead just shooed his - friend? Boyfriend? His partner - towards the stairs. "Bed," He ordered firmly.
Gren chuckled again. "Good night, Corvus. Thank you."
"Good night, Gren. I'll be around somewhere if you need me." He didn't know why he was promising it, but it made Gren smile, so he didn't overthink it, just focusing on gathering Gren's plate. He took the time to clean it before storing it away properly in the Lodge's limited armory, and it was late at night by the time he found the room beside Gren's and opened the window to get some familiar fresh air before crawling into the bed.
At least with the horses it wouldn't take them long to reach the border. He couldn't do anything more for Callisto and Skor but carry out their mission ahead. Right now, that meant getting to Amaya and telling her the truth - all of it - and hoping her prejudices didn't blind her to it all even with his and Gren's confirmation.
