Renathal would have stormed up to the castle then and there and demanded answers of Denathrius, refused to leave until he had them, were it not for the… extenuating circumstances… Read on Ao3 here.
The Prince of Revendreth stalked up the walk to Darkwall Tower in a thunderous mood. Every minute of the last slow and unsatisfactory day had been spent extinguishing the metaphorical fires set by his disastrous court.
The first half had been occupied by a steady stream of meetings with his well-placed sources throughout the realm, all confirming his reputation had taken quite the blow. The nobility considered him to have gone soft in recent years, while the rest complained he catered too much to the nobility - something about the low number of invitations extended to the Venthyr working class. After which, he was forced to make the long trek to the Halls of Atonement and endure a tirade about his court’s anima waste from the irate Accuser, who had not even bothered to attend.
“Courts and flowing fonts and frivolities while the realm bleeds anima!”
Renathal had done his utmost to keep a diplomatic demeanour -
“The Sire is now overseeing the anima conservation programme himself. I am sure a change in fortune is on the way.”
“And what is he doing with all this conserved anima? Our tithes and tributes have tripled and yet we see no aid!”
- but his nerves were highly strung.
“Ask him,” Renathal had snapped.
“You think I have not tried?” The Accuser’s laugh was a high, bitter scoff. “I apply to Nathria for an audience daily and am refused. The Master is far too busy, they say. Busy with what, exactly? What is he doing holed up in the castle?”
That was the question. And one the Dark Prince could not answer. Little though he liked to admit it, he did not know his Master’s mind. Renathal had not seen Denathrius since first receiving his mortal assignment, and, for one of few times in his whole existence, he was not eager for an audience, though his fear of a summons grew with every passing hour and accounted for most of why he was so tightly wound.
“It is none of our concern,” he declared. “He is the Sire. All of Revendreth is his purview. Ours is simply to trust him.”
“Perhaps you trust too blindly, Renathal,” was the Accuser’s dour reply, and Renathal’s patience had buckled.
“Perhaps you are too familiar, Harriett.”
Unpleasant surprise momentarily stymied the Accuser, but she recovered herself quickly.
“Very well then. Your Highness. If you will not help us, we will take matters into our own hands.”
“We?”
“Yes. We. There are plenty of others who see what is happening even if you refuse.”
At which Renathal, his patience for thinly veiled threats already exhausted, had taken his leave.
It was, strictly speaking, treason. By right, he ought to have summoned Stone Legion representatives to clap the Accuser in chains and escort her to the nearest convenient crypt. But the re-education of a Harvester would necessarily draw the Master’s eye, something Renathal was actively avoiding as his dredger driver raced his carriage at unprecedented speeds through back ways and side roads in an attempt to avoid the castle grounds. Revendreth, however, seemed to have set itself against him. A sharp turn around a sharper bend saw the carriage’s disastrous cliff side crash, obliging the Dark Prince - the Accuser’s warnings of anima lack still echoing guiltily through his head - to walk the last miles back to Darkwall Tower.
With each uncomfortable step - he was wearing the wrong boots for a hike - Renathal cursed every aspect of this tedious, nerve-wracking, and distinctly inauspicious day. There was only one thing that would salvage it, and he sought it on instinct the very second he reached home. Slamming the front doors behind him, taking the stairs to the first floor two at a time, he stalked for the open entrance to the informal parlour where Elisewin and two dredgers were arranging a modest tea.
At the violent stomp of his boots, all three looked up in varying shades of alarm.
“Out,” he snarled at the undeserving dredgers. “And shut the door behind you.”
They hastened to obey, muttering mutinously at his outburst, but Renathal spared them neither apologies nor a backward glance. His eyes were on Elisewin, setting down her tray of tea cakes and regarding him curiously, as he waited with palpable impatience for the snap of the closing door.
“What-” she began, but Renathal’s mouth had already found hers, dragging her to him and drowning his temper in a deep, desperate kiss she reciprocated without thought, and which, for one full, delicious minute, neither of them was willing to break.
“Come,” ordered Renathal hoarsely, winding his arms around his new lover, ready to whisk her upstairs to his bedroom, anima be damned.
But the miseries of the day had not, apparently, had their fill of him. His stomach gave an unpleasant lurch as Elisewin shook her head.
“Renathal,” she said, half-laughing, avoiding his chasing hands, “you have guests.”
“Who?”
“Tenaval and Dehavia. They’re stabling their sinrunners now.”
“Send them away.”
Elisewin’s laugh blossomed into something full and delighted. It echoed through the high-ceilinged room and unknotted the tension in Renathal’s shoulders and neck. This time when he reached for her, she did not shy away. She let herself be caught, let Renathal kiss her again, laughter and all, and her mirth had not quite faded when he next allowed her air.
“Very well,” she said breathlessly. “And what should I say is the reason you are refusing to see your allies - your friends - after demanding they report to you on such short notice?”
Renathal groaned. A petulant, put-upon sound. Elisewin was right, but he did not have to like it. He did not want to think about intrigue and espionage and anima allotments and rumours of rebellion any longer. The day had been excessively taxing, all the more so for how much of it had been spent away from her. All he wanted now was to wrap Elisewin around himself like a blanket and relax - truly relax; that total abandonment of stress and expectation he so rarely enjoyed - safe under her warmth and gentle weight, for however long they might have left.
He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at his temple. And, to his surprise, heard Elisewin’s quiet laugh bubble up once more.
“Wait here,” she said and craned her neck to plant a quick kiss on his furrowed brow, then returned to the table and hastily crowded teapot, cups, and accoutrement back on their silver tray. Hoisting it into her arms, she headed for the door, nudged the knob with her elbow, and transferred the rattling porcelain to the dredgers lurking outside. “Change of venue. Set up tea in the formal parlour downstairs instead. Escort the Prince's guests there and let them know he will join them shortly.”
“You are becoming rather free with orders,” remarked Renathal wryly as she shut the door again, then slid the lock into place.
He raised an eyebrow at that. Elisewin’s smile was wide and wicked.
“Your influence. Come.”
His eyebrows slid higher up his forehead, but Renathal made no argument as Elisewin took his hand and led him to a seat on one of the parlour’s low, comfortable chairs. And they almost lost themselves in his hairline when she sank to the floor between his legs and reached for his belt, her unrepentant smile wet and glistening as she unfastened the heavy gold clasp.
Half an hour later, Renathal was no more interested in his duties than he had been all day, but he was a great deal more relaxed as he sat in the formal parlor, sipping tea and absorbing the unsettling news brought by his informants in the Tithelord’s estate.
Dehavia drank in customary laconic silence, her occasional nods or shakes of the head a solemn counterpoint to Tenaval’s eloquent if long-winded report. The gist of which was that, though the Harvester of Envy had indeed increased the realm’s required tithes, anima was as thin on the ground at his Manor as everywhere else in Revendreth. The Tithelord’s own vassals were becoming concerned at their dwindling supply. But the Harvester himself was inexplicably indifferent to their plight. He was as sequestered as Denathrius, going nowhere and seeing no one, with the notable exception of the Harvester of Dread who remained a regular guest.
It was worrisome. Quite apart from the undeniable dearth of anima, if there was corruption among the Harvesters, the Accuser would never let Renathal live it down. He thanked his agents for their information, assured them the matter would be dealt with swiftly, then let Breakfist show them out and sat back against the velvet of his stately parlor chair to brood over what he had learned.
A confrontation with the Master was coming. It was as inevitable as death itself. Renathal would have stormed up to the castle then and there and demanded answers of Denathrius, refused to leave until he had them, were it not for the… extenuating circumstances…
“You look concerned,” Elisewin noted as she piled the used tea things onto their silver tray.
Renathal watched her hands as she worked. Half his mind was lost in worries, the other in delightful memories of the other activities in which those same warm, lavender fingers had recently been engaged.
“It is a concerning issue,” he replied.
“Has this never happened before?” she asked. “Corruption amongst Harvesters? Keeping anima to themselves?”
The question roused Renathal a little from his discordant reverie.
“Well… those are really two separate questions,” he said, sitting straighter in his chair. “Corruption, certainly. But rarely in the form of hoarding anima. Before the drought, such a thing hardly mattered. There was always anima and to spare for even the lowliest of Venthyr. Such a lack is… unprecedented.” He drummed his fingernails against the lacquered armrest. “It is disappointing and disconcerting, but… I suppose it makes sense for corruption to take on a form more applicable to the current climate.
“The question…” He sighed heavily as he admitted the truth out loud, “is not whether there is corruption, but which Harvester is at its heart.”
“And how far it reaches…”
Renathal looked up sharply at Elisewin’s thoughtful murmur.
“After all… you said yourself… there are no secrets from the Sire.”
Her blue-white eyes were fixed unseeingly on the empty fireplace before her, fingers worrying the hem of her tunic in what Renathal had come to interpret as nerves. And something about her own concern for his realm flooded his chest with visceral affection.
“Come here,” he called softly.
Elisewin blinked. She shot a glance at the closed parlor door before accepting Renathal’s outstretched hand and letting him gather her onto his lap. His fingers stroked almost reverently through her dark, silky waterfall of hair, basking in the colligation of comfort and arousal her warm mortal flesh inspired. Renathal closed his eyes, and imagined eternity like this: his lover a permanent fixture instead of running on stolen time. But he knew better. She had spoken the inexorable, infuriating truth. Nothing stayed secret from the Sire.
Which meant…
“Either Denathrius has somehow been deceived,” he mused aloud, “or he himself has fallen to corruption. Both possibilities are terrible to contemplate.”
“And I suppose there’s only one way to find out for certain.”
Renathal hmmed noncommittally into Elisewin’s hair. She lifted her head to look up at him.
“You will have to see him, eventually.”
“I am aware.”
“Then why put it off?”
Renathal grimaced.
"Our... situation... complicates matters," he admitted. “The Sire can smell deception. And he knows me far too well. I cannot hope to approach him, let alone accuse him of something, without giving us away.”
The arm around Elisewin tightened reflexively, as if anticipating the moment when Denathrius would pry her from him. She shifted under his grip.
“Would it really be so bad?” she asked, absently petting the bit of Renathal’s throat peeking from his high collar. “For the Sire to find out, I mean? I understand, there will be consequences, but-”
“Yes.”
Elisewin blinked and dropped her hand. Renathal squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing the sudden upswell of vomitous panic.
"Yes," he repeated with marginally more calm. "It would be... bad."
There was a pregnant pause. Renathal could feel Elisewin's breath flutter his goatee as she stared up at him, expecting explanations. But the memories of that most hated of lessons, and the sure knowledge of another looming on the horizon, were unbearable in his present anxious state.
"You cannot understand," was all he could say.
Elisewin seemed to find this unsatisfactory. She wriggled from his grasp, manoeuvring herself until she sat astride him.
“Renathal,” she said, his name all matter-of-fact consonants, leaning in to tidy his mussed goatee. “I told you already. I'm yours, whatever the consequences. But… I do think I deserve to know what those are, if only to give myself time to prepare.
"It won't change my mind," she assured him with a little shake of her head, hands leaving their work on his chin to comb back loose strands of his hair. "I'm not as delicate as you think. I can take a bit of torture and imprisonment. It's the not knowing I can't stand. And there is so much I don't know already… so much I cannot remember. And that has been worse than anything else I have faced in Revendreth by far. Please, Renathal," and, in an unusual display of open frustration, she raked a hand through her own hair. "Please, don't leave me in the dark about this, too."
Renathal’s capitulatory sigh was dredged from his weary bones. For the second time that day, he knew Elisewin was right, and he was even more miserable about it than before. He dragged air back into his lungs with a rattle and wrapped his fingers around her thighs, fortifying himself for the unhappy task.
“Intimacy... exclusive intimacy,” he explained with reluctance, “is... discouraged among Venthyr. It is not a sin, per se, but it is a gateway for sin. A vice. So much envy, covetous desire, greed, and wrath are born from it. Harvesters in particular are expected to be above such weakness. And… if we are not...” he wet his lips with his tongue, “the Sire intervenes.”
“What does that mean?” asked Elisewin, bland and business-like. “How can the Sire intervene between us?”
Renathal forced the words out from behind gritted fangs.
"He will... take you."
"Take me away?"
"Take you for himself." He laid a stress on the word, and watched understanding dawn in Elisewin's pale eyes. "And by the time he has finished with you, any other... attachment you might have had will be little more than a fading dream. He will ensure your loyalty belongs first and foremost to himself. That both our loyalties do."
Elisewin mulled this information over for a few seconds behind her blank expression before announcing, "I see," then asking with equal impassivity, "Has he done this to you before? Taken someone from you?"
“Many times." Renathal nodded, attempting to mirror her pragmatic tone. "Every time, in fact. I cannot be trusted to keep anything, or anyone, to myself. I am... too possessive. Too prone to jealousy. That is the dark side of dominion, I'm afraid." His lips summoned the bitter corpse of a sardonic smile. "Denathrius sent you here as much to educate me as you. It was a test. One I have failed, obviously, though I cannot pretend to regret it. I knew what the consequences would inevitably be, but.." He slumped back against the chair and closed his eyes as he confessed, "I do not know how I will bear to lose you.”
Again, Renathal’s hands flexed compulsively, this time around the flesh of Elisewin’s thighs. He forced his fingers to unclench, stroking them over the material of her trousers in apology, blindly tracing the tattoos he knew waited for him underneath. He had spent the time before sleep claimed him the previous night memorising their pattern: lines and curves within concentric circles; uncommonly beautiful, comforting, and inexplicably familiar.
Just like every other part of the mortal now leaning in to press her forehead to his.
"You will not lose me, Renathal. I promise," she breathed in earnest, slipping off her sangfroid like an unlaced dress. "Denathrius can drag me from Darkwall and take me by force if he wants to. But he cannot make me love you any less."
“Make you - what?”
Renathal's eyes snapped open. Her face so close to his, he could just make out the violet blooming on her cheekbones and the curves of a small, self-assured smile.
"I love you, Renathal," she repeated."I knew it the first time I saw you. I could feel it. It was already here." She groped for his hand, prised it from her leg and pressed it to her hammering heartbeat. "I just... didn't know why then."
“Do you know now?” asked Renathal, breathless with curiosity and awe and a whole swelling host of emotions he could scarcely name.
“I have some ideas.”
“Share them.”
Elisewin bit her lip, her expression suddenly wicked as she asked, “Is that a command, Your Highness?” and Renathal knew his own was a perfect match as he replied, "Oh, yes."
Her low giggle sent anima swimming down his spine. Renathal slid his hands to her hips, urging Elisewin more precisely against him, and revelling in her little gasp as she felt the full effect of her words. She tilted her head to catch his lips in a kiss already wet and clumsy with her own day-long suppressed need.
“Let me show you,” she whispered, grinding shamelessly against him, and the Dark Prince, wending shadows around them, was happy to oblige.
It was only later, as they lay nestled together in his well-used bed, Elisewin still catching her breath and Renathal reluctant to remove himself from her, that he had time to reflect on her remarkable confession and realise, with no little wonder, it was true for him, too.
He loved her. If he was honest with himself, he knew he had loved her all along. Since he first watched her fumble the tea tray in Denathrius' private chamber what felt like a lifetime ago. He understood their instant connection no better than she, but he could not deny it to himself any longer. Nor did he wish to. There was an exquisite thrill in rearranging their tangle of limbs and pressing his lips to her ear to whisper, "I love you," the shape of the words as familiar and natural on his tongue as her name.
“I love you, Elisewin,” he repeated, savouring the taste of the precious sentiment, and the way it made Elisewin arch against him and murmur hoarsely, “Say that again.”
And the smile that sprung up unbidden as he teased her: “Ordering your Prince around, now, are you?”
And the wanton way she begged him, “Renathal, say it again, please!” as he skated his long fingernails down the delectable curve of her spine.
And the uncommon strength he seemed to derive from repeating the words again and again and again, and hearing them echoed back every time in Elisewin's broken voice. A strength that did not fade as the resting hours waned and the next day dawned. Figuratively speaking. Revendreth’s twilight, like every other aspect of the realm, remained unchanged. Only its Dark Prince felt like a different creature as he rose with his lover, let her dress him, kiss him, and leave him to carry out their requisite tasks.
For Renathal, this meant another day of continuous meetings, more unhappy news of anima lack and appeals for intercession with the Master - these, predominately from the Accuser. But it also meant another day of tense apprehension, as he waited for the Sire to pronounce his judgment over their unsanctioned affair.
It did not come. Not that day or the next, or the next. And with each illicit, “I love you,” he whispered in Elisewin’s ear whenever their duties brought them into proximity, and each thrilling repetition of the words she offered in return, Renathal’s confidence grew. The soul he loved was singular; her presence in his realm, a singular occurrence. Why should their love not be as singular as she? Epochs of experience urged him to expect the worst, but, for the first time in as many long years, Renathal dared to feel... hope.
So much so that the summons, when it finally came, induced only a moderate amount of panic.
“Your Highness,” intoned the Stoneborn Enforcer darkening the doorstep of Darkwall Tower one week after the Harvester's Court. “I have orders to escort you to the Master. Without delay.”
The threat was respectful, but unmistakable. Their reprieve was rescinded at last. Renathal’s eyes flicked from the hulking figure blocking the terrace twilight, to Breakfist, holding the door open and twitching as if he longed to shut it in the messenger’s impudent face; then, with a half-turn, to Elisewin, loitering silently on the first landing of the staircase. Her face was as carefully blank as any stretch of dark stone wall, but her fingers twisted unconsciously round and round the hem of her tunic. And something in her own display of nerves set the spark of treasonous hope within Renathal blazing into sudden and purposeful rebellion.
It was futile, of course. He knew it even as he nodded imperiously at the Stoneborn, bid him wait as Breakfist fetched his second-best coat, and beckoned Elisewin down the stairs to drape it across his shoulders. But the familiar warmth of her breath as she made minute adjustments to his collar, her valiant attempt at encouraging smile as she announced, “I will be here on your return, your Highness,” forged an armor against the worst ravages of worry and fear and despair. And, for once, it was Renathal who was the more supremely self-assured as he held her gaze - the only thing he could hold in the presence of witnesses - and promised, “Then I will return as swiftly as I may.”
Outside on the terrace, an unusual hush had enveloped the twilit air. Revendreth itself seemed to hold its breath as it waited for the Dark Prince's next move. But there was no time to plan, even if there had been plans to lay; nor to run and hide, were there any place safe from the Master's eye. Renathal merely wrapped his coat around himself in defiance of the realm's still chill and followed the Stoneborn across the Bridge of Paramountcy, towards Nathria and its waiting Sire.
They were doomed, himself and his singular mortal, but not without a fight.
Read Chapter 10: Into the Light | Visit the Masterpost
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