"I almost thought you wouldn't still be here." Song murmured as he reached down and trailed his fingertips feather light over the elf's cold cheek. The feel of it made him draw his hand back almost instantly, curling his fingers hard until the feel of his own warm palm could try to cover the sensation. The skin he still remembered warm and full of life was cold, stiff, empty of all but preserving magic. He was reminded why he never touched him.
He slowly closed the crystal lid of the casket, leaned over it to peer down into the familiar face. Looking just like this was something Song did far more often than he ever thought to touch. With his eyes closed and his face peacefully composed one might have said Tanorien Summerheart looked like he was sleeping. He didn't. Sleep came with the stirrings of breath, with minute changes of expression, the flicker of eyes behind closed lids. It came with half smiles and twitching fingers. Tanorien looked every bit as dead as he had been for years. "I really almost thought you wouldn't be here." he repeated.
He had seen him tonight. Not here where he had left him, wrapped in magic and crystal but as he had been once, breathing, moving. Alive. It was clear now that it hadn't been Tanorien, and he had known that to begin with. But the sight of the man had still caught Song off guard. The way he had moved had been so familiar, his stance, the distant hints he'd caught of his voice, even the way his hair fell and the shift of the hand that lifted to push it back. All of it had been so familiar he had felt it almost like a blow.
It had almost driven him to a stupid mistake. Song had come so very close to walking down into the midst of the training company to speak with the man and even closer to running with fury down among them when the other blonde rogue had sent the man who was not Tanorien sprawling. But in the end he was no longer the man who would have done either of those things. And he knew the man whose every movement tugged at his memories was not who he seemed. So Song had held his place, hidden up among the rocks where their eyes never went as they played their war games, and he had watched.
He hadn't learned much, nor expected to. He had been too far away to catch anything of what was spoken beyond snatches of voices. He had only wanted to watch, to have a look at them when they were at ease and thought themselves unobserved. Ruin had been there. The warmth of that single bead in the strand on his wrist had told him so but he had not seen the rogue any more than the Lynxes had seen him. Perhaps Ruin had been watching in the shadows too. It was a puzzle, and a frustration. It made him uncertain he could ask the rogue who the man had been and get an answer.
He very much wanted to ask that question. But the thought of asking and not having it answered was enough to make him turn from his silent study of Tanorien's dead features and slam his fist into the wall hard enough to make his knuckles bleed. Song was not usually given to furies he would have considered irrational but just at the moment an anger had settled white-hot and wild in his belly. He wanted to tear things apart. He wanted to find Ruin and demand his answer.
More than that he wanted to find that rogue who had the nerve to stand and move and walk like a man years dead and demand of him who had given him the right to be who he was not. He wanted to hit him for it and the odd not quite pain it had caused him and he wanted to push him against a wall and stare into his face to see if he would look like Tanorien up close. A low growl of frustration escaped him along with a sharp breath of air. He would do neither of those things.
He had Ruin's dose in the pouch on his hip, and even here in the windowless dark of the room he had hidden Tanorien in he was aware of the time slipping by and how soon the rogue would need it. Part of him wanted to make him suffer for it. To watch him ache and plead as though that would soothe his own twisted feelings. To take back the control seeing Tanorien's shade had stolen from him. Perhaps he would, unless Ruin had the answer he needed.
He had left their training and the maddening sight of the man before it was finished. But the memory lingered in him still. He turned toward the door and the way up but paused once to set his hand on Tanorien's casket and stare down into his face once more. His death had been one of the few things in his life he had had no control over. One of the only things he could not find any way to take back. Stealing Tanorien's name and life he had done, but it did nothing to fill the place in his heart that had once been occupied. It ached still even if he thought he would no longer know what to do without that calming emptiness inside him. "I will not let anyone steal you from me." He said quietly. "Not any part of you."
Under a cut for torture, death, and Kieryl’s language.
It almost surprised Kieryl when he woke to pain. He was still for the first breaths before memory returned when he didn't know why there was a terrible stretching ache in the still raw muscles of his left shoulder. He inhaled sharply as he remembered, struggling briefly and entirely futilely against the ropes that bound his hands together above his head. Kieros. Fucking hell he had never meant to drag the paladin into this.
He'd thought he could handle it all on his own, he'd meant to, but then one day of delaying at the paladin's side had become another, and another. It had been so damn hard to walk away, and not only because he had been afraid of this and what was going to happen to him now. Even now, he knew that if Kieros had offered to take him home that night he would have gone. He'd have delayed for the sake of one more day with the paladin, never realizing that this time Song might be bold enough to move against Kieros too.
He almost reached out through the comm then. Light, if he could just know that Kieros was safe he could bear the rest of it. But if the paladin was safe, if he'd done as he promised, then reaching out to him might only drag him further in. He was alone. He had gotten himself into this trouble alone and if he had to face an end of it he wanted to face it that way too.
At least he didn't even have to wonder who was behind this. He took a moment to take in the situation, looking for an out he didn't really have any hope of finding. He'd been stripped to the waist, his hands bound far enough above his head that he had to rise slightly onto the balls of his feet to keep the weight on them from being painful. He was somewhere dim and faintly musty, with racks of bottles and the cool feeling that came from being underground. It told him nothing.
Kieryl yanked at the ropes again, but they'd been knotted tightly enough to stop the flow of blood to his fingers and all he managed was to tear at his own wrists. "Song, you fucking bastard!"
As though the man had been silently waiting for the words a pair of feet in neat black boots entered his field of vision. "Always so rude, Kierylaen..." the voice was a purr, as deceptively gently as the fingers that came to slide along his jaw, but the tone didn't change when the fingers tightened to yank his head up and leave bruises on his skin. "You have made me very angry."
"Good!" He worked up the saliva to spit, aiming it right for one of the monk's vicious green eyes.
Song's free hand lifted to wipe the spittle calmly away from one high-boned cheek. "Good?" His head tilted. "I can very much promise you that you will not think so when I am done." He wiped away the moisture from his fingers against the leg of his pants, then without warning curled that same hand into a fist and struck.
The blow jerked him against the ropes and knocked all the air from his lungs. He felt as much as heard ribs snap and give way under the force of it. Kieryl's next inhalation was a painful wheeze. "Good." He repeated barely above a whisper. "You been making me mad since the first damn day I fucking met you, nice to return the favor."
He was almost expecting the next blow, but expecting it did nothing to prepare him for the agony as that first strike was mirrored against his other side and his already burning lungs screamed in protest at being deprived of air a second time. His body jerked a few times against the ropes, almost convulsing as he struggled helplessly to take in a breath. It wheezed in ragged through his throat and emerged in a soft sob.
"Sinful told me you had something useful to tell me" Song purred, the grip on his chin loosening again so the monk could draw the backs of his fingers across his cheek, light and almost gentle. "I thought of going easy on you for the information, only now I'm so irritated with your lack of respect, Kierylaen, that I'm not even going to ask you about it yet. It had better be worth my while when I do. In the meantime, how many days late are you for this meeting?"
Fuck you. He wanted to say, or to call upon the Light to help him, but his head felt just a little too hazy for control. He didn't know whether it was the remnant effects of the drug the woman had given him or whether Song had dosed him with something else before he came to. In the end the result was the same. He was helpless, bound, alone except for a familiar voice that now seeped into his awareness through the comm. Light, but he wanted to answer. To ask Kieros if he was alright, to ask for his help, to tell him every last thing that raced through his mind when he thought of him. But he forced himself to keep silent, to scowl at Song rather than letting the relief he found in the sound of Kieros' voice show in his face. "Four days. It wasn't nearly fucking long enough." He snarled.
"Four days." Song agreed, pacing in a slow circle around him and making unease trickle down his spine as the monk crossed behind him and out of his sight. As though he were aware of the sensation Song's steps paused and fingers trailed once the length of his spine. "I'm going to have to punish you for that, Kierylaen. That's what this will be, so keep in mind that nothing you say now will stop it. Save your answers for when I start asking questions. Ten strokes a day seems reasonable don't you think? Have you ever had forty lashes, Kierylaen?" His fingers trailed an old scar. "You've been whipped some before I see."
"You should fucking know! You watched once." He snarled, trying to cover his sudden fear with anger. Forty was a lot. He'd hadn't been flogged that much in his entire life, let alone at once. He jerked against ropes again, but all it won him was a sensation that might have been the trickle of his own blood along his arm.
"So I did." Song agreed. "I would have thought that would teach you not to steal from me. And yet here we are, and you've stolen four entire days. Perhaps the lesson will stick this time." He paced back around, picked something up from the corner just outside his line of sight.
Kieryl didn't really need to see it. He knew what it was even before the first crack of it came, followed by a searing pain that made him scream and the warmth of his own blood along his back. "Go to hell!" He snarled.
"I think we're already there. This is your hell, isn't it?" Song struck him again.
***
Kieryl had lost count. He had tried at first to keep track of the cracks the whip made and each fresh pain so that he would know when it was done. But by the time he had counted twelve in his head forty seemed so impossibly large that he simply lost track. He had, he thought, lost consciousness once. Maybe twice. He had woken with a face full of water and Song purring words at him he couldn't even remember now. And Kieros had spoken again. Asking him to respond.
He hadn't. Kieros couldn't help him, and if he spoke he believed with all his heart that the paladin would try. And then he would be here. In this room with Song and the whip and the smell of blood heavy in the air and Kieryl would have done anything to stop that from happening. It was moments before he realized no more blows had come. Was it over?
He didn't know, and couldn't dare to believe it until Song strode back around in front of him and dropped the bloody whip beside his own feet. "I think next time you think of defying me you will have reason to remember why you shouldn't." The monk said calmly.
Kieryl stared at him, pulse pounding in his own ears until even the words felt distant. There was blood on Song's hands, he noticed. droplets marring those graceful fingers. It was on the man's face too, on his neck. His blood. He felt sick. He could feel the tracks of tears over his own cheeks and he couldn't even remember when they'd started to fall. "Ain't real fuckin' likely to forget am I?" He finally growled, then licked his lips and swallowed because his mouth felt dry.
"Not unless you want another reminder. I promise the next one would be worse." Song stretched, rising up on the balls of his feet, rolling his shoulders in a way that only served to remind Kieryl of how his own ached. "Now..." He said, stepping forward again. "I want you to tell me about the Lynxes."
"And I want you to fuck yourself with a broadsword." He spat, and tasted blood in that too, though when he had bitten the inside of his own mouth raw Kieryl didn't know. "So we're probably both gonna leave here unsatisfied."
There was no warning at all before the fist planted itself in his ribs, making his taut stretched body double over and sparks fill his vision. But he had heard the snap of bone breaking, almost as much agony as the simple emptiness in his lungs. "You will tell me." Song said calmly, one hand coming up to rest against the pulse pounding at the side of his neck. "Sooner or later. I can beat it out of you... or I can beat what you know out of someone else. That Commander of yours for example. Are you so very sure I haven't got him bound up just around the corner?"
For just a moment Kieryl doubted. Panic closed in on his chest robbing him of air even more surely than the blow had. No. He would never have chosen to face this alone, to try and hide the depth of it from Kieros if he had realized he was putting him in danger either way. But the voice that had come through the comm. It had sounded worried. It hadn't asked him what was happening or who Song was... just over and over wanted him to respond. And there was something else. His breath sobbed its way into his raw lungs and for just a moment he let himself reach out in return. 'I'm really fucking sorry I couldn't make it home, Kieros.'
He lifted his head to look at Song, trying to ignore the slow, deliberate folding of the man's fingers that told him another blow was coming. "You don't have him." He panted. "If you did you would not tease me with questions about it, you'd fucking show me. You can't play me with that this-" There was pain, and a cracking, giving feeling in his chest and everything went dark.
Another face full of water woke him, but the shocked breath he took in after stole his vision and almost sent him unconscious again. He wheezed air more slowly back into his lungs. It hurt so damn much to breathe.
"Now... Sinful told me you did have something to say. Do you? Or do I send her after him?" Song asked.
He had already thought of the one thing he could tell Song, the one thing that wouldn't mean betraying Kieros or the Lynxes. There was one person and one secret he knew that didn't belong to either. But he knew too many other things he couldn't give up. If he gave this scrap too easily Song would know he was willing to give it, and would look for more. But he wasn't sure how much more he could take. "Fine..." He gasped. "I'll tell you. Just leave him the hell out of it."
"It had better be worth my while." Song stepped closer almost embracing him, running one palm over his ribs as though counting the places he'd broken them.
"It is..." He swallowed. "There's a noble."
Song's hand stilled against his ribs, the monk's expression suddenly rapt, attentive. He tilted his head slightly. "There are several, what about this particular one would interest me?"
"Not a Lynx..." He continued, wincing at the monks' fingers pressed just hard enough in one spot to hurt. "But works with us some. The Baron Ravendarke..." He swallowed. "And I thought you'd be interested because he's got a magic that lets him fucking control people. Not like yours, where you just track people down and beat what you want out of them... lots better than that. You own people because they're scared of you. He steals their fucking souls."
Song punched him again, holding him up against him when the blow made him reel, and then again, as though to emphasize the first. The monk's voice waited to fill his ears until he'd swum his way back from whatever darkness it sent him briefly to drown in. "I don't want children's tales, Kierylaen. I want information."
"It's the damn truth." He could barely breathe out the words but Song was close enough he knew the man caught every one. "I've seen it. I swear on my fucking life. You think I'd take this beating and think I was going to get away with lying? But you just fucking check him... you look deep enough you'll find out." And find out a lot of other things too probably that Kieryl rather wished he wouldn't, but it was far too late to worry over that.
Song studied his face. "I think you think you're telling the truth at least." He said after a moment. "But it doesn't change the way you've tried to defy me. This isn't the last time I will ask you for information, Kierylaen." The monk pulled a knife and he swallowed, trying to muster the strength to jerk against the ropes that bound him, but one hand closed over his fist, the other bringing the blade up to slice away the ropes on one arm and then another. Kieryl couldn't stop himself from falling.
Time had gotten strange. He opened his eyes again and wasn't sure if seconds had passed or hours. He was on the floor, the bloody whip in front of him and beyond it two pairs of boots. "What the hell?" he breathed.
"One more little reminder, Kierylaen, of the price you can very easily pay for crossing me." Song's voice was calm and silken and sat like ice in the pit of his stomach as he lifted his eyes to meet the frightened ones of Damarianth's butler.
"Amoril." He swallowed, taking note of the ropes binding the man, the gag tucked neatly between his teeth. "Please, he's got no fucking part of this, Song. Let him go."
"He had no part of it until you defied me, Kierylaen. But now he does. One last very important part to play."
"No..." He watched the man jerk at the ropes, but Song's expression didn't so much as change, he simply lifted his hands to almost gently cup the elf's face, and then twisted until Kieryl heard the snap of breaking bones and watched the light fade from Amoril's eyes.
Song let the body fall, stepped over it as though it were a bit of trash in the street. "Now, I want you to think about how many more people can die if I don't get what I want." He crouched down before him. "Dream about it." He said and reached for him, leaving him hardly even time to notice the slight pricking at the side of his neck before he felt himself slipping away. "And remember when you wake up."
@midnight-ashes @eternal-emerald @songofembers @lynxesguild
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