Chapter Text
One day, Erik will be free. He clings to this knowledge, this hope, through the years of binding. One day, Sebastian will miss-step. One day, Erik will tear this collar from his throat, the other less visible chains from his body, and there will be a reckoning. One day, the mage will be vulnerable, and Erik will be able to break this bond, to correct the mistake he made so long ago.
He does not hope for Sebastian to age or die.
Erik set up the spells that keep Sebastian alive and young; they were the first task Sebastian gave him. He no longer has to power them (unless the mage cannot find better fuel), but he can sense them, and he’s bitterly proud of the fact that they show no signs of fading or warping.
They are strong and well made, like Erik himself.
Erik was weak once. Sebastian found him, almost unbound from his lands and with no people or deals to hold him. So the mortal tricked him. Lied to him. Bound him, little caring that binding a trade-spirit like Erik hurts him, every minute, every hour of every day.
Sebastian doesn’t care that, unlike demon spirits, there are few spells or charms that will work against Erik if he ever breaks free. Doesn’t care that Erik hates him with a vast quiet bitterness that does not shrink with age or habit, doesn’t care that Erik is older than the mountains and will outlive glaciers. Now Erik serves and obeys, unable to withhold himself, and waits.
One day, Sebastian will make a mistake. And on that day, all trades are off, all deals done. Erik will be free.
The castle is quiet enough right now; Sebastian is not there. He will return soon, and then the place will crawl with his army and his servants. The noise the mortals create and the power Sebastian craves make Erik’s head ache. There was a time he took Erik with him wherever he travelled. Erik spares a glance for the iron-bound box still squatting in the corner of his cell—his quarters, Sebastian calls them; as if he’s forgotten Erik is here against his will.
That box is the only thing in this room, save for Erik himself. It is set with wards and bars and blocks, will hold Erik in both mortal and non-corporeal forms. He cannot shed his skin and escape that way, Sebastian had said, and laughed. Erik, bleeding energy from every violation Sebastian had used to force the binds on him, had swallowed his rage and waited.
Now those wounds have healed, but the rage is still there.
It rises, choking and black, as the clattering of hooves and the yells of men and dogs and all the noise tell Erik that his owner, his tormentor is back. Erik does not cross to the window. He does not focus his Sight. Sebastian knows where Erik is. If he wants Erik’s presence, he can summon him.
Erik rises, paces the room for a moment, and then stops, standing still. He breathes out. Breathes in. He does not normally need to breathe much, but it’s one of the countless tiny things he’s never told Sebastian that mage does not already know. Erik keeps breathing; keeps up the habit, in case one day that is the tiny thing that proves the key to the mage’s destruction.
Footsteps. The door scrapes as the lock is opened. Sebastian’s’ dead white/grey aura burns just a few feet away. Erik drops to one knee, bows his head and fights to make his face display nothing of what he feels or thinks. Nothing at all.
“Ah.” The mage sounds pleased today. “Rise, Erik.” Erik stands. Looks at Sebastian, blankly.
“Master,” he says, monotone.
“Still so formal, after all these years? I thought we had grown past these things, Erik.” Shaw smiles. Erik hates him. Shaw gestures forwards a small mortal, grandiosely. The boy’s no more than ten at the most, Erik observes. Small, but well formed, and likely to keep his good looks when he matures. His bright blue eyes are wide with wary curiosity.
“You see, my boy?” Shaw says, genially. “If you study hard, and do as I tell you, you too might be able to bind a demon—” The boy’s eyes narrow and his mouth half-opens.
Erik glares at the floor. Spirits such as he are not demons, or angels. They have no higher powers, no heavens or hells to tend or fill. They simply are. They have rules to their beings, certainly, but they are not—
“Sir, how do you know he’s a demon?” the boy asks, and Erik stays very, very still. If Sebastian seeks to demonstrate on Erik’s form—
“Ah, I forgot—you don’t have the Sight yet, do you? Your father’s wealth couldn’t buy you that.” Shaw ruffles the boy’s hair indulgently. The boy doesn’t look away from the collar around Erik’s neck. Erik hates it, too. It’s an ugly thing, with symbols no child should be able to recognise.
“No, Sir.” The boy sounds docile enough, but Erik knows enough of mortals—and boys—to be able to tell he’s lying. Interesting. He stretches out his senses—and hastily winds them in again. The boy is powerful, magically speaking. Truly trained, he might be a threat to his master, even.
“Erik,” Shaw says, and Erik looks up again. “Young master Charles is here to learn.” He smiles brightly. The boy looks unhappy for a moment. Erik would not be surprised if the boy was also there as a hostage, or to be groomed into one of Shaw’s game pieces.
“You are to teach him the Names of the first circle of Powers, and which can be summoned safely.” Shaw speaks as if that is significant or dangerous knowledge, when Erik very well knows it is not. It’s just hard to come by, now so may books have been burnt.
“Yes, master.” Erik nods, blandly.
Sebastian has a bad habit of storing things he knows in Erik’s head, and erasing them from the outside world, as if that makes them into secrets. It’s going to get him into trouble, one day. Erik hopes so, anyway. If he is ordered to teach the boy; if the boy’s ambitions for power (he must have them; he’s mortal) can be fostered…
Charles opens his mouth. Erik turns his head to look at him, and Charles is silent.
“Take him to the library.” Shaw keeps smiling. “Teach him well.”
Erik puts out a hand to the child, ignoring Shaw’s look of surprise at seeing him willingly touch another living being without instruction. This boy, this Charles has much still to learn, for he puts his small hand into Erik’s open grasp as swiftly and as trustingly as if Erik was a much-loved friend.
“Where’s the library?” Charles tilts his head.
“Erik will show you.” Sebastian says. “Be good for him. Like you are for me, my boy.” Charles’s fingers twitch in Erik’s hand. He takes a half step closer to Erik, away from Shaw. Erik approves of such wisdom in one so young.
“Come with me,” Erik says; they are the first words he has spoken to someone not Sebastian in over a year. He takes a physical step back, pulling the boy with him, and then a wider step through to the quiet room full of bookshelves and books Shaw calls a library; although only he and Erik ever go there.
Two nights later, something scrabbles faintly at Erik’s door. He sits up, puts his back to the wall and watches. It’s been a while since someone was stupid enough to try to get to Sebastian through harming his bound demon-slave, as he’s widely thought to be. It’s been longer since someone thought he could persuade Erik to betray Shaw.
Erik doesn’t have that option at the moment, unfortunately.
The door inches open.
“Psst.” A head sticks itself round the door and hisses. “Pssst,” it says, again.
“Psssssssst,” Erik hisses back, and stands, moving forwards silently and swiftly.
“Mr Erik?” a young voice asks, uncertainly, and Erik manages at the last minute to convert his lethal strike into grabbing at the boy’s collar and dragging him into the room.
Charles stares up at the towering spirit, eyes wide and toes dangling above the floor.
“What,” Erik says, flatly, “Do you think to do here, Young Master?”
Charles winces. Erik releases him, quickly.
“Please don’t call me that,” Charles says. Erik glares. “My name is Charles.”
“Charles…” Erik purrs, licking his lips. “Hasn’t anyone taught you it’s dangerous to give your name to a demon?”
“Of course.” Charles’s eyes are bright in the dim light from the barred window. “But you aren’t a demon. Are you, Erik?”
Erik gapes. That is notcommon knowledge. It takes a bit more than Sight to identify Erik as non-mortal AND non-demon. Even Shaw thinks Erik is some form of demon, albeit a pretty rare kind.
“How did you…?” Know that? Erik means to say, but Charles rolls his eyes.
“I did know some things—my father was teaching me before Lord Shaw—took me.” He looks down, bites his lip. “I can tell the difference between a demon and a spirit.”
Erik folds his arms. This is all very interesting, but the boy doubtless has more reasons for being here than displaying that he knows too much.
“So. You know I am not a demon. You prefer to be called Charles. Why are you here, Charles?”
“To help free you,” Charles says, all innocent and sincere. “It’s not, not right.”
Erik has to laugh.
“Little trader,” he says, between his teeth. “Shaw has had me, and had me bound to his will these past hundred years and more. What makes you think, proud whelp, you can help me?”
“Little trader?” Charles frowns. “I’m eleven.”
“A great age indeed.” Erik’s mind is racing. This must be a trick. A trap. Shaw must have sent him, or the boy is seeking to ensnare Erik for his own use, or—or—Mortals have the capacity for altruism, but they very rarely act on it, he reminds himself.
“All I want to know is—if I find a way to free you—will you swear not to hurt me?” Charles shivers, but he keeps his chin up, holds Erik’s gaze with his own.
“What else?” Erik demands harshly. What else will you take from me? he wonders. He has little left to give; after Sebastian’s bindings, Sebastian’s orders, Sebastian’s collar are gone.
“Would you swear it?” Charles persists. “That’s all I want.”
“Why?” Erik asks, bewildered and no less furious for it.
“You’re a person. It’s not right,” Charles says. Erik looks the question at him. Charles sighs and explains. “You don’t like him, you don’t want to be here. It hurts you. And Shaw wants you to be here and he took me away and I don’t like him. At all.”
“What makes you think that?” Erik sneers, mouth on automatic. Charles sits cross-legged on the floor, and sighs again.
“I—I do have the Sight,” he tells Erik, glancing over his shoulder. “I can see things.” Erik snorts. “You aren’t a demon, but he’s used demon bindings on you—that means you wouldn’t be here unless you were forced… and they hurt you. I can feel it when you’re teaching me.”
Tentatively Charles puts a hand out as if to pat Erik’s bare foot. Erik steps backwards, quickly.
“No more touching!” he snarls as he squats, lowering himself to Charles’s level, but staying ready to move.
Charles nods. “Very well.” And folds his hands under his arms, as if in imitation of Erik’s earlier stance. He waits.
Erik thinks. What does this boy want out of this trade? Erik’s co-operation? His friendship? Erik does not do friendship. “I don’t see why you ask for nothing else,” he mutters. “I do not see how you hope to gain from this.”
“I’ve—I’ve seen what happens when people are selfish with magic,” Charles says. Shadows flicker in the boy’s eyes. “And I never asked to be here either. He just… he just took me. And now I’m supposed to be grateful.” Charles’s face twists. “It’s like he forgot I never asked to learn magic from him.”
Ah. Sebastian’s favourite mistake, that one. Erik’s had to protect him before from the consequences of forcing from people what could have come freely. It’s not been a source of hope, until now. He’s surprised the mortal isn’t compelling Erik to free him, too. Maybe he thinks he’ll be able to get away after Erik escapes.
“If,” Erik says, slowly. “If. You find a way of freeing me; I swear my actions when I am free will not harm you.” There. That should be acceptable, and as this is a trade—freedom for his vow—Erik will be bound by it. His word is the only thing Erik would be bound by, if he had the choice.
Charles nods solemnly.
“Show me the collar,” he says. “I saw a drawing in one my father’s books. I think I can see how, but—”
“The collar’s the least of it,” Erik says, harshly.
“It’s the anchor point to the rest of the spells,” Charles points out. “If I can get it off of you, you can sever the other bonds, right?”
He is right. Erik nods. The other spells require Sebastian’s direct and active will to hold them if Erik struggles against them. Right now, Sebastian is asleep. If the collar is gone before he wakes… Erik could be free and gone before Sebastian compels his yielding again.
“How are you going to—” he runs an uneasy hand over his hated collar. It stings and burns his fingers, as always. Charles grins.
“I came prepared.” And he pulls out a small silver file. A file?
“A file?” Erik says, startled. “A silver file? Do you honestly think that will—”
“My friend Armando made it with me. Ages ago.” Charles’s face darkens. “Shaw killed him for being a lesser race and having magic. Then he took me.”
“Lesser race?” Erik bows his head, baring the back of his neck, moving the collar within Charles’s reach.
“He was from the South.” Charles spits on his finger, and rubs the file with it. “Dark.” His tone changes. “I’m going have to bleed on your collar, now.” Erik sets his palms flat against the floor, and steels himself for a long wait.
“My master is not known for his wide acceptance of human variety,” Erik murmurs. Charles gives a little gasp of pain as he slices at his finger. Erik doesn’t move.
“Not going to be your master much longer,” Charles says, determined. He starts filing.
The night is turning towards dawn before Erik begins to believe that Charles is right, that the spells can be broken. Charles has squeezed more of his own blood—innocent blood, willingly given—onto the harsh iron, and has managed to destroy or alter half the symbols with the little file.
Erik can feel the spell breaking.
“Hurry,” he urges Charles. “Hurry.”
There’s a final little snapping sound, and the collar falls away, bouncing to the floor with a heavy clang. Neither Erik nor Charles moves to touch it. They stay crouched on the floor, motionless. Slowly, Erik raises his head to stare at Charles. The boy doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink.
Erik stands up and draws a deep breath. Releases it.
“Did it work?” Charles asks, crouched at Erik’s feet. His eyes are bright with hope.
With a thought, a word and a gesture, Erik tears away the old spells, commands and compulsions Shaw had him tangled in. It costs him, in power and pain, but he is free.
“Yes,” Erik says, and Charles starts at the difference in his voice. “Thank you, Charles.”
Charles swallows, nervously. Erik raises an eyebrow. It’s a little late for regret.
“Do not fear, little trader,” Erik says, gently amused. Charles, of all the people in the castle, should not fear him. “I hold to my deals.”
Charles’s mouth is opening, he’s saying something, but Erik isn’t listening. He is free, he belongs to himself again, and he lifts from the floor, hovers for a second more and then he steps through and he is gone, gone, gone, never to return.
Well. Until he kills Sebastian, of course.