Archive of Our Own ^beta

Essek is somewhere dark.

Usually, this would not be a problem. Essek is, after all, of the dark. The skies he knows are abound with endless stars and soft violet clouds of cosmos; he is at home in the perpetual night of Rosohna. The silver wash of moonlight has always been more beautiful to Essek than the harsh glow of sunshine. The dark soothes him in its deep familiarity. 

But this is not that dark. 

This dark is complete in the way Essek imagines a grave would be. Yes – that is how this darkness makes him feel. Buried alive. His body aches; his legs especially feel at times crushed with the constant pain. The Empire did not even intend to cause that pain, though they might find out about Essek’s ailment eventually, and find ever more creative ways to worsen it. 

He has begun to suspect that an actual grave might be a mercy compared to what the Empire has in store for him. 

But the mere thought makes him dig his nails into his palms where his hands are bound against the arms of the stiff-backed, nail-studded chair they have him sat in. Essek is many things – careless, ambitious, too bold and too curious and too single-minded in his pursuits – but he is not a coward. He tells himself this in the hope that it might banish the fear that has coiled ever thicker and colder in him since he arrived here.

Arrived is too kind a word. It suggests tea parties and masquerades. No – not arrived, then. Kidnapped. Captured. Seized by force. Dragged away by these damned Empire assassins who call themselves Volstrucker. In the Empire, they’ve been given the charming nickname “Scourgers.”

Essek knows of them, of course. He has been briefed. As Shadowhand, he has even participated in interrogating a few of them. They always struck him as...creepy, if he’s being honest (which...he rarely is). But there was just something...very off in the eyes of the Volstrucker they had managed to capture. Flat, glassy, hard. Like doll eyes.

The Kryn Dynasty’s closest equivalent to the Volstrucker, the spy network known simply as the Lens, certainly aren’t saints, of course, but...for all the difficult training they may endure, Lens recruits never end up like that. If they do, they’re put on leave, or directed to a kinder line of work. Loyalty is important, but not at any cost.

Although, perhaps Essek, of all people, shouldn’t be waxing poetic about loyalty. Alas.

His thoughts stutter to a sharp halt when the door creaks open.

The only thing worse than the buried darkness is when it’s broken by that single strip of flickering firelight, and joined by the silhouette of a stranger. Essek does not flinch, but it’s a near thing. The bruises on his face and the fine cuts along his fingers have already given him enough reason to associate pain with that door, like an animal conditioned to fear the whip. 

But Essek Thelyss is not an animal. He straightens, narrowing his eyes against the light as the door closes softly and the figure – a new one – steps into his cell. They bring light with them...but it’s not a torch. Essek tenses. An orange globule of flame licks at their gloved palm. They hold it casually as they walk towards him, keeping a slight distance from Essek’s chair, preferring to circle, like a vulture.

A...very handsome vulture. 

Essek’s eyes narrow further. This Volstrucker is young, given away as a fellow wizard by his lithe frame and the spellbooks boldly strapped to his hips. 

Irresponsible, Essek thinks with some irritation, to keep one’s spellbooks so out in the open. Or maybe the Volstrucker is simply taunting him. There is, after all, something very keen and bright in the man’s blue eyes. 

Something off in them, too.

Still, the man is striking...in addition to his eyes, his coloration is strange: pale skin strewn with freckles and head crowned in wavy reddish brown hair, tied back in a loose ponytail at the nape. A few strands have come free and tumble over his brow, but the effect is artful, not messy. He has stubble, but that is also groomed with care. 

His attire is simple, but equally striking: his dark pants are tight and terribly flattering, and he wears a loose black shirt with an ever-so-slightly gaping neckline. The sleeves are rolled up to expose forearms covered in scars. 

A chill runs through Essek. The scarring is purposeful, almost patterned, and the skin is raised in such a way that suggests it holds more than scar tissue. His mind races with the possibilities. Some form of augmentation, but to what end…?

“Herr Thelyss,” the man says. His accent is thick, though each word is precise. He stops not in front of Essek, but behind the chair. Right behind it. Essek can feel the weight of his proximity, and his ears flick instinctively towards the slight sound of his breath. When the man continues talking, it is in Undercommon – again, accented but perfect. “I’m told you’ve been quite difficult. You’ve been here some time, and have given the Assembly...nothing.”

There is a sudden flare of heat beside Essek’s right ear. He freezes. The man’s right arm extends over Essek’s right shoulder until the globule of fire is mere inches from his face, hungrily flickering. Essek does not move a single muscle, does not even dare to breathe. It’s hot. Almost unbearably so. 

“Oh, they have done a number on you, haven’t they?” The man clicks his tongue and Essek flushes as he realizes the fire must illuminate the no-doubt awful bruising on his face from the first Volstrucker who “visited” him. He finds himself longing for the darkness, buried as it is. 

“No wonder you’ve held your tongue,” the man adds. “I would, too, if I was beaten like a common criminal.” He chuckles, very softly. “You aren’t a common criminal, are you, Herr Thelyss? Or should I say Shadowhand?” The fire moves a little closer; Essek barely stops himself from leaning away. Behind him are the dull nails on the chair’s back...it’s hardly a respite. 

“Listen to me, Shadowhand,” the man murmurs, and this time he leans forward, very close, until his breath brushes Essek’s left ear while the fire burns in warning at his right. “We will get the answers we seek from you, one way or another. But I think you understand that – you’re a clever man, hm? Perhaps a bit of a vain one, too.” 

The fire creeps closer to his face and this time Essek does flinch, the heat nearly singing his eyelashes, the nails digging into the back of his skull. “We can do this the hard way...or you can be a smart boy and cooperate. The Assembly can be reasonable, Herr Thelyss, if you are generous with your knowledge.” He leans in somehow closer, the brush of his lips against the curve of Essek’s ear brief but haunting. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement, you and I.”

There’s a pause. Essek wets his lips, swallows. This – he doesn’t quite recognize what this is. He knows interrogation, intimately, and this is an offer of...something else. A game, he thinks. 

This Volstrucker wants to play a game with him. A dangerous one. 

But Essek is better at playing games than getting his face kicked in – or burnt off. 

In increments, he forces himself to relax. Lets his face settle into something insouciant, almost bored. “And what would such an agreement entail, Herr…?”

The man pulls away, though the fire does not, continuing to glow, afloat, about an arm’s length from Essek’s face. “You may call me Bren,” the man says pleasantly. “And that, Herr Thelyss, is somewhat up to you. But let us start with a token of trust, hm? Tell me something. It can be a little thing, but it must be a true thing, and it must be a useful thing. If it is both true and useful, then...I’ll give you something that you want. Something little. But useful.”

Essek closes his eyes briefly. As soon as Bren lays this offer before him, he feels the throb of pain in his legs and hips answer, desperate for even a chance at some relief. But he cannot let the Volstrucker know of this; it will be seen as a weakness, and it will be used against him. 

“Very well,” Essek says. “The Dynasty has one of your Volstrucker. Her name is Minna. You were told she turned traitor and attacked the Volstrucker she worked with. This is false. She was captured, and the other Volstrucker’s memory was modified to bring back the false report.”

Bren makes a low, thoughtful sound. “Interesting, Herr Thelyss.” He walks to the door. The fire does move with him then, drifting back into his palm, and as it leaves, Essek finds himself almost missing the heat, fearing the return of the blank, numbing darkness. Bren pauses at the door, looking back at him over his shoulder. “If you’ve told me the truth, what would you like in return?”

Essek stares at him and lifts his chin. “I hate this fucking chair,” he says. “I want out of it.”

Bren’s mouth twitches into the slightest of smiles. “Ja, I will see what I can do about that fucking chair,” he says, and leaves Essek in the dark once more.

*

The facts are checked and Essek is confirmed to be, in this one small instance, not a liar. 

Unexpectedly, he is freed from the fucking chair. 

Essek is still manacled, of course, but he is allowed to roam his small cell, and more importantly, to stretch his legs and lay down. When he’s lifted out of the chair, it takes every ounce of strength left in his body for Essek to not immediately crumple or cry out in pain. 

It helps that he’s practically thrown from the chair and onto the small cot that’s been shoved into the corner. As he’s manhandled, though, the door opens and a familiar figure calls out, this time in Zemnian, “Careful. Our guest is being rewarded, not punished.” 

(Essek’s Zemnian is embarrassingly rusty, but he’s fairly certain that’s the jist of it.)

Essek is all the more aware of keeping his infirmity hidden in front of Bren – or any of the Volstrucker – but he is also aware of how the guards react to the redheaded wizard. There’s no mistaking the flash of fear in their eyes as they mutter apologies and exit the cell in a hurry.

Interesting. And worrying. 

Essek sits up against the wall, letting his legs stretch out in front of him, hating how the position exposes them yet knowing he must pretend at indifference. “You kept your word,” he says, in Common this time.

Bren stands in the doorway, not bothering to close it – another taunt, surely. He tilts his head. “You kept yours first,” he says, matching the language, both of them accented, now. “I’m impressed. Somehow I hadn’t considered that the Dynasty would be fond of modifying memories.”

“We are not fond of it,” Essek retorts. “But sometimes...it is necessary.”

Bren’s eyes flicker. “Indeed.” Instead of leaving, he closes the door behind him and sits in the very chair Essek was just freed from – only on the edge, but still. 

Essek eyes him. If he were confident that he would be quick enough, he could shove Bren against the chair back, perhaps with enough force for the nails there to puncture flesh and bone.

But he is not confident that Bren wouldn’t be faster, so he keeps the violent fantasy a fantasy, a small source of sick comfort hidden within himself. Even if Bren can read minds, he would be hard-pressed to break past the wards Essek has lined his own head with.

But in time...all wards can be broken. Essek hopes it won’t come to that.

“You want me to tell you something else,” Essek guesses, weary. 

Bren raises an eyebrow and flicks a finger, three globules of fire dancing into being above them. “If you wish. Or, we could just...chat.”

“Chat,” Essek repeats. “About Dynasty secrets, I suppose?”

Bren’s expression is distinctly amused. “I was just going to suggest you tell me about yourself, Herr Thelyss, but by all means, if you’re in the mood to spill secrets…”

Essek frowns. He dislikes mockery, and he dislikes the implication that he would ever be in a mood to betray the Dynasty. 

Something must show in his face, because Bren’s smile smooths out into an indecipherable line. 

Then, impossibly, he says, “I apologize, Herr Thelyss. I did not mean to imply you would just give up such knowledge...I understand you are loyal to the Dynasty, and I respect that.” 

“You expect me to believe that you respect an enemy mage?” 

“I respect your loyalty,” Bren corrects, and Essek has to admire the polite savagery. “I respect that you made a risky gamble for that loyalty – not many would.” Bren taps his fingers against the arm of the chair. He has nice fingers, and his nails might be nice, too, but they are bitten to the quick, utterly ruined around the edges. 

Essek refocuses. Bren’s gaze on him is bright and unreadable. “But your gamble failed, Herr Thelyss,” Bren says. “You tried to double-cross the Assembly by delivering a beacon to Ludinus Da’leth, comparing the notes he promised you to your own, and promptly had your spies steal the beacon back from him...and you did all of this without informing Leylas Kryn, which I imagine she isn’t pleased about.”

Essek looks at him sharply. “The Empress was told of me, then?”

Bren’s eyebrow arches higher and Essek realizes he has misstepped. “Oh – she doesn’t know? The plot thickens.” His fingers tap, tap. 

One of his cuticles is encrusted with blood, just a smudge, but it’s enough for Essek’s frown to deepen. The habit was trained out of him before his tenth year. He’d expected the Volstrucker wouldn’t condone nail-biting, of all things…

Bren is still talking. “But you must have thought long and hard about keeping your plans from her. She would have forbade it if you had approached her with it, wouldn’t she? Even if the beacon was not involved, such direct contact between the Dynasty and the Empire is...frowned upon.”

Essek purses his lips. “I thought you just wanted to chat, Bren.”

“Ja, that I did, but my curiosity got the best of me.” Bren admits it with almost flippant ease, and this time when he looks at Essek the look is undeniably just that: curious. Curious, and far too bright.

Off.

Essek searches for a suitable crumb to offer up, one that might be tempting to this strange, handsome, possibly insane wizard. He settles on, “Well – you are right. The Bright Queen would not have approved of my...gamble, as you call it. I did not tell her of my plans, and this was another mistake. I should have asked for her counsel, and accepted her wisdom.”

“So you don’t think it was worth it?” Bren presses. “You don’t think that what you learned from the beacon after betraying Ludinus Da’leth was useful after all?”

“I didn’t say that.” Essek stretches his legs a bit more. The ache is still present, but so much better than in that fucking chair. “And is it really a betrayal if not betraying Da’leth would have been the far greater betrayal?” Maybe, if he continues to give insufferable answers, Bren will leave him.

But, no. Bren just keeps talking. Essek supposes there are worse things to listen to. 

“Just so we are clear,” Bren says, “you betrayed your Empress and Dynasty by offering up a beacon – a highly sacred object for your people, ja? – to the leader of the Cerberus Assembly – one of the most powerful mages in the Dwendalian Empire – because you wanted our arcane knowledge. You wanted it even at the cost of your own agents’ lives as they retrieved the beacon for you, while you hid away where you thought we would not find you...and here is the part where things get a little hazy, Herr Thelyss. Why did you want that knowledge so badly? Was it truly for the Dynasty? Or was it just for yourself?”

Nevermind; this is fairly terrible to listen to, even in that voice.

“You have thought a great deal about this,” Essek remarks, lifting his gaze to the ceiling. “Are you curious, or obsessed?”

“With you?” Bren leans forward, and now the glint in his eye, that brightness that is so off , turns feverish, a sharp gleam like sunlight on the edge of a blade. It is somehow so much worse than the hard, flat eyes of the Volstrucker in the cells of Rosohna. Their eyes speak of hollow things. Bren’s eyes speak of things brimming, of too much , like a cup about to overflow, or a star on the verge of supernova. 

Then Bren leans back against the studded nails and the gleaming moment dies; the star ebbs back into uneasy fusion. “Let me be clear, Herr Thelyss,” he says quietly. “You are a prisoner, and if Ludinus Da’leth had his way, you would be dead already.” 

This is hardly news. “Yes, I thought the Volstrucker were assassins. Yet here I am.”

“Your life is still forfeit.” Bren’s tone never changes; his neutral half-smile does not fall. “The only reason it has not yet been taken is that Trent Ikithon believes you may have something of worth to share with us before you are executed.” Bren inclines his head. “And I trust his judgment.”

Essek breathes in, out. “So that is the generous agreement you offer? A few niceties in exchange for my intel before I am killed?”

Bren shrugs. “You might be surprised at how valuable little comforts become in one’s final hour. On the other hand, something tells me you know exactly how uncomfortable we could make your last moments – or even your last months...or years. Elves do live such a long time, and I believe Ludinus could be persuaded to wait, so long as he knew you were suffering. That is how Ikithon sees it.”

In the light of Bren’s own fire, Essek sees past the young, handsome face. The interplay of shadows paints Bren’s visage in more sinister brushstrokes. He understands, then. This is not a game. This is a hunt, and he is being toyed with by none other than Trent Ikithon’s protégé. 

Essek remembers Ikithon from his secret dealings with the Assembly. How could he forget such an unpleasant man? Power oozed from him, as it did from Da’leth, but Trent Ikithon put him on edge in a way that Da’leth never had. Da’leth is powerful but predictable, measured, and could be reasoned with (unless, apparently, he was betrayed and stolen from). 

But Ikithon is dangerously inscrutable, and Bren takes after him.

Essek swallows hard. 

Then Bren pauses, and lowers his voice to barely a whisper, leaning forward quite close. “But I do not want suffering from you, Herr Thelyss. And I do not –” He draws in a breath. “I do not want Ikithon to have you.” Blue eyes burn. “Because he will sink his claws in, and he will not let go.”

Louder, as if he had not just implied mutiny, Bren continues, “Herr Thelyss, did you honestly think there was an alternative? We Volstrucker are not exactly merciful, ja? But you know this. The duty of a Shadowhand is not so different.”

Essek wets his lips, intrigued despite himself. “You and I are not alike.”

Bren chuckles. “Oh, Herr Thelyss, I would not be here if that were true.” He stands, and Essek’s toes curl, his legs twitching defensively towards the wall. Bren sees it, his gaze lingering for a terrifying moment. 

Bren does not comment, but leans down beside the cot and whispers, “Think on it. I will return, but not before my friends do. If you say a word of this to them, I will take your tongue.” He tilts his head. “I don’t want your suffering, but I need your silence.”

Essek stares at him. “Are you mad?” he whispers.

Bren’s lip curls. He does not answer, but pulls away and goes to the door, calling over his shoulder, “Admit it; the deal I’m offering you is a better one than you would ever give to a Volstrucker.”

Bren leaves; the light goes with him. 

He is right. Essek does not make deals. He does not offer them such things, because to do so would be cruel when the end result is the same. Better to get it over with quickly. No need to play with your prey when it’s already dead. Such games are for cats and sadists. 

Evidently, Ikithon and his students have a different philosophy. But this student – Essek does not know his motive...but he has never heard of a Volstrucker betraying Trent Ikithon before. 

It seems like a bad idea. But a bad idea might be the only one Essek has. He bites his lip until it bleeds, worrying away at it. Is it suicide to throw his lot in with Bren?

Isn’t it suicide either way? 

He trembles. He was the one who set himself on this path to self-destruction, because he was foolish enough to believe he could pull it off. 

He has not pulled it off. 

Essek is not a coward. He is not. He does not fear death – or rather, he should not fear death. He is consecuted. He is a member of Den Thelyss. He is Shadowhand to Empress Leylas Kryn, the youngest in history.

But it is dark here, and Essek is afraid.

*

True to Bren’s word, his friends visit Essek next.

The next Volstrucker who enters the cell is much bigger, with sallow skin and dark hair cropped close to his skull. His sleeves are rolled up, and his forearms are covered in black, mazelike tattoos. His eyes are blue, but not bright. 

“Stand,” the man says when the door is shut. 

Panic claws at Essek’s throat. He stays in his cot and shakes his head. “I – my legs – fell asleep.”

Perhaps he fumbles the wording in Zemnian. Either way, the man grunts something to himself and crosses the cell in three strides, and then his hand is around Essek’s throat and Essek is being lifted up by it, until his feet are off the ground and his back is to the wall. Ironically, with the weight finally off his hips and legs, on some level the chokehold is a relief. 

On another level, however, he is suffocating. 

Even worse, the man mutters something else in Zemnian and touches the silver pendant around his neck – this close, Essek can see it’s a bird’s feather – and his fingers promptly turn cold around Essek’s throat. His touch is necrotic; Essek can feel it eating away at his flesh, spreading through his veins, rot gathering in his chest. 

“What did you learn from the beacon?” the man asks, his grip relenting enough for Essek to gasp and cough. 

Essek closes his eyes. “Nothing,” he rasps.

The man doesn’t even call him on his bullshit, just squeezes harder. Essek imagines himself crumbling away, panic jolting through him again when he thinks too hard about whether or not he is within the required radius of a beacon. If he dies – if he is too far away – even though he is consecuted – his soul will not rejoin the Luxon. It will wither here, alone.

Then again – he had never been certain – if he really wanted to be reborn in the Luxon’s strange light, anyway – 

Again, the man’s grip loosens, and again, Essek lies. The third time, Essek spits in his face. For the drama, mostly. He’s always wanted to do that; it isn’t as satisfying as he’d hoped. Some of the spit runs down his chin. It’s pathetic, but this man isn’t one for mockery, or any words at all.

Essek hates that a part of him misses Bren’s monologues. 

After that, the man lets him fall. Essek braces himself for some kicks to the ribs, perhaps a punch or two, but instead the man leans down to touch his shoulder with a hand wreathed in dark green smoke that reaches towards Essek in sickly seeking tendrils. Before Essek can even think of a lie that might yet save him, he is seized by head-splitting agony and complete blindness. 

He cries out before he can stop himself, gasping and curling away as he hears the man step closer, but the nauseating pain does not leave him. He struggles against it, screaming between his teeth, eyes watering – he cannot see, why can’t he see? – head pounding as if his very brain matter is attempting to escape his skull. He feels — sick, struck by some horrible disease that has rooted itself in his entire skull.

“This can last for up to a week,” the man says. He sounds tired. Essek thinks his brain is bleeding. “Tell me what you learned, and it will stop.” There’s another muttering, and a compulsion sweeps over Essek – a familiar one; he’s tested it on himself and used it on others too many times to count. Tell me. 

Somehow, despite the pain and the terror of a darkness more complete than before, he shoves it away. The compulsion breaks, but the other spell does not, and the man sighs again and leaves him alone and in agony.

It hurts too much to think, so Essek cannot distract himself from the waves of pain with any fantasy, any daydream or idle imagining. There is only his nerves screaming, and his actual screams, which must at some point taper off into whimpers, and then silence when he finds a blessed sort of numbness in the middle of it. It still hurts, like a thousand knives tearing away at his mind, but it’s more distant; he drifts away from his tortured body and curls up in the shadows beside it. 

There is no way to tell how much time has passed in here, especially not in this state, but he is fairly sure it has not been a week when he hears the familiar words of a dispel spell cast in a quiet Zemnian voice, and the veil of torment falls away at once. His vision returns with it, though Essek can only blink, disoriented and dissociating, into the darkness. 

It is in this disorientation that he croaks, “Bren?” 

The door closes, but not before Essek’s keen ears catch a sharp intake of breath and a muttered curse. 

Essek lays on the floor, his cheek pressed to the cold stone. It’s wet from his own tears, and he stares at the wall, slowly blinking the residue away, his bound hands unable to wipe at his face. 

The cold is comforting. The ruined flesh on his neck is healing. He is alive. For now.

He briefly considers praying to the Luxon, then spots in the corner, high up, a spiderweb. Its owner is suspended a few inches below it, dutifully spinning. Essek snorts, and once he starts, he can’t stop laughing, ragged wheezing that must sound mad to anyone unlucky enough to be listening. 

So he prays to Lolth instead, giddy with the absurdity and hopelessness of it all. “Oh, Spider Queen,” he giggles in the oldest dialect of Undercommon he knows, “watch over me. Get it? Watch? Because – spiders – have so many eyes –”

The spider in the corner scurries back up into her web to attend to a mummified fly, apparently unimpressed. Essek thinks he ought to be commended for the effort, anyway.

He falls asleep like that. Essek dreams of the Empire crumbling beneath a glorious swarm of violet spiders, but then the spiders turn into the colorful jellies his nursemaid used to make, and then he’s just confused, and hungry for something sweet. 

*

Someone comes into his cell when he’s laying on the floor, their footsteps echoing in Essek’s aching skull like distant water in a hollow cave. 

The person kneels down beside him, and Essek’s bleary eyes glimpse an unmistakable shock of red-brown hair, and the bright blue eyes peering out from beneath loose copper strands as Bren leans down. He touches Essek’s cheek again and whispers, “Es tut mir Leid.” 

Essek expected many things from Bren. An apology was not one of them. He opens his eyes a little more. The other wizard’s face is very close, and as hard to read as ever. 

Essek closes his eyes again. The darkness is welcome, this time.

Bren’s fingers leave his cheek, and his footsteps recede. 

“He’s alive.” Bren’s voice echoes through the cell, now aloof and entirely free of the trembling contrition it held mere moments ago. “Tell Master Ikithon that the Shadowhand’s constitution is disappointingly weak...Eadwulf is perhaps not the best tool for this lock.”

Then what, Essek wonders, is?

And what does Bren want unlocked, exactly?

*

The third Volstrucker who visits him is a woman, human like the others, and just as young.

Essek is most disturbed by their youth. Then again...he’s quite young, too, for a drow. 

And yet, here they all are. 

The third Volstrucker is short, with choppy brown hair and dark eyes. Her forearms are tattooed and scarred – hardly a surprise – but Essek is intrigued by the long scar which runs down the left side of her face, from brow to chin. It looks nasty...a wonder the eye wasn’t lost. 

Essek is still on the floor, though he has crawled back to his cot for some semblance of dignity. For whatever that’s worth. He glances at her, then back at the wall. 

“Hello,” the woman says. “My name is Astrid. I heard Wulf went rather hard on you. I’m sorry about that. He underestimated your stubbornness. I won’t make the same mistake.” 

Essek glances at her again. “Wulf was the big one?”

“Mm.” She folds her arms and approaches. “You should know, he felt rather bad about it. We all hoped you would prefer Bren’s methods.”

Essek scoffs. “A Volstrucker felt bad about torture?”

“I know it sounds unlikely,” Astrid sighs, “but you must understand, Herr Thelyss, you are our guest of honor. We... deal with many Kryn spies and soldiers, but you are the first Shadowhand.”

“I am not a guest,” Essek says. He looks at his manacled hands, at his dark cell. 

“But you could be,” Astrid says. “This cell is no place for you, Herr Thelyss. Won’t you let us find you more fitting quarters?”

Essek looks at her, really looks. He raises his gaze to the spider in the corner and snorts. 

Astrid frowns. “Is something funny, Herr Thelyss?”

“They sent Bren to talk, Eadwulf to hurt, and you to charm?” 

Astrid blinks at him, then laughs a bit and shakes her head. “Oh, no. Bren is the charmer, not me. But I’m flattered, Herr Thelyss.”

Essek’s own amusement catches in his throat. “Ah,” he says.

“Yes.” She smooths down her robes, simple and black and, now that he thinks about it, much less revealing than Bren’s attire. His face warms. “I suppose you could say I’m the one who talks. I realized, you see, that we might be asking you the wrong questions. So...I’m here to hopefully ask at least some of the right ones.”

Essek doesn’t buy her nice facade, but he weathers it. “What are your questions?”

“You practice dunamancy, yes?” Astrid’s excitement is palpable, her dark eyes glinting, and Essek’s unease comes flooding back. “I would love a demonstration, though as we both know, that would be rather tricky, given the circumstances.”

“Given that I am your prisoner,” Essek reminds her.

“Guest,” she corrects, smiling. “Anyway, I am only beginning to grasp the fundamentals of the power that dunamis holds, and I —”

“You use dunamis?” Essek interrupts. He had not thought — he knew Da’leth and Ikithon had unlocked some of the beacon’s secrets, but he did not think they had shared that knowledge with students…he draws in a breath. 

Essek’s first thought should be that Leylas Kryn must be warned of the possibility that the Empire is practicing dunamancy, but it is not. His first thought is, What more have they learned? 

“I use it a little.” Astrid peers at him. “Does this upset you? Master Ikithon told us of the beacons’ religious significance to the Kryn Dynasty. I’m afraid we probably don’t treat the beacons and their dunamis with the kind of reverence the Kryn would, but please know we do recognize the potential of the power they hold, and we revere that. We intend to unlock that power, Herr Thelyss, and if Bren did not make it clear, we hoped you might help us in that pursuit.”

Essek swallows, very conscious of the weight of his tongue in his mouth. “He made it clear...that no matter what knowledge I provided, I would be executed eventually.”

Astrid’s gaze flickers. “Did he. Well, I see how that would be off-putting.”

“Was he supposed to lie to me?” 

“He was not supposed to –” She purses her lips. “Ludinus Da’leth wants you dead, very much. Master Ikithon thinks your death would be a waste. They are negotiators, Herr Thelyss, and suffice it to say that if you were to prove yourself too useful to kill, Master Ikithon could persuade Ludinus to, at the very least, put an indefinite hold on your execution.”

“You would mark my slaughter for a later date,” Essek sighs, “how kind.”

“This is not about kindness, Herr Thelyss,” Astrid says, kindly. “This is about knowledge. I know you think we are nothing but your enemies, and I’m sure Eadwulf’s rough treatment did not help in that regard. But imagine what the Empire and the Dynasty could accomplish if we worked together, for a common goal.”

Essek frowns. He has been on guard for any influences over his mind, any nudges or charms or suggestions, but there have been none, save for clever, twisting rhetoric. 

“This is about so much more than petty squabbles of territory or theological difference. I think you know that. You are the only Kryn I have ever heard of who would even consider working with the Empire, even if it was for your gain. You worked with us because you knew we had knowledge to offer you – and we’re asking you to keep working with us, honestly and transparently this time, because we believe you have knowledge worth sharing, too.”

She’s good, making it sound like a fair partnership rather than a lifetime of torture. Essek has to give her that much. He considers it, pretends to give it serious, conflicted thought. She waits, patient and calculating. 

“How long could my execution be postponed?” 

“That depends on how useful you are in your work with us,” Astrid admits, “but...I expect it could be postponed long enough to be rendered irrelevant.”

Essek looks up at her. “I can be useful,” he says. 

Astrid’s eyes gleam. “And will you be, Herr Thelyss?”

I will be as useful as you like while giving you as little as possible. And when I have given you enough scraps for you to make the mistake of believing me when I say I will serve you and this false “common goal” you’ve spun, I will get out of this damned place. Somehow. I must.

“Yes,” Essek says. “I do have knowledge, and I will share it, but I must be alive to do so.”

“Understood,” Astrid chuckles. Her shoulders visibly relax; her eyes crinkle up at the corners. She believes him. Essek keeps his own body stiff, always on the defense. “Bren will be relieved to hear that.”

What is he supposed to make of that? He eyes her. Perhaps this is a chance to get more information about the mutinous little wizard. “You are...friends, with Bren.”

Astrid hums, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “Yes, you could say that.”

Essek hesitates. “May I ask you a question?”

“I can promise no answers, but certainly, you may ask.”

“Why do you and Wulf have tattoos on your arms, but Bren does not?”

Astrid’s face grows still. “What a strange question,” she says. “I’m afraid the answer is rather mundane. Bren has never been one for ink.”

It’s a lie, and a blatant one, at that. “I see. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Astrid opens her mouth, then closes it, her smile tight. “I think we can accomplish great things together, Herr Thelyss. So long as I have your word that you’ll cooperate?”

Essek inclines his head, distracted by the thought of why Astrid and Wulf were gifted – or cursed? – with mazes, while Bren was left with scars. “I will.”

He’s jerked out of these musings by a burning on his brow, a searing spike of pain almost like an echo of the agony Wulf inflicted, but more targeted, more practiced, and with it a weight on his mind that brings not pain, but a warning of it, another set of manacles binding him...this time, binding him inside, as well. Essek cries out, bowing over until the pain clears. 

Once it does, he stares at his rippling reflection in the old mug of water beside his cot – there’s a brand on his forehead, a brightly glowing silver that slowly fades as he watches, and it’s none other than the symbol of the three diamonds which represents the Cerberus Assembly. 

Essek looks up at Astrid. She still has the audacity to look kind. She tucks her hands back into her robes, though she cast so quickly and quietly that Essek did not have time to notice...and it isn’t as if he’s in any state to stop her.

“What have you done?” Essek whispers, though he fears he knows.

“You gave me your word,” Astrid says, “so I’ve ensured your service to us. I look forward to working with you, Herr Thelyss.” 

Essek’s lip curls. Astrid may not have stuck fire in his face or left him to writhe in agony, but there is something unpardonably rude about branding someone without their permission. “I will not be working with you,” he retorts. Essek wets his lips, and hopes he won’t regret this. “Only Bren.”

Astrid’s jaw works. It’s a small victory. “May I ask why?”

Essek considers her. The brand smarts. It’s anger, the cold fury of being marked in such a way, that drives him to say, “I miss his pretty eyes. He’s more persuasive than you are.”

Astrid’s eyes narrow to dark, startlingly venomous slits. 

“Careful,” she says, and leaves him without another word. 

*

Essek spends a long time after that staring at the wall and testing the limits of the ward Astrid has placed on him – because that, as far as he can tell, is what it must be. 

It’s a fairly powerful ward, but thankfully it doesn’t seem to trigger when he mentally plots revenge, or even when he verbally lays curses upon the Volstrucker trio in every language he knows. The most likely possibility, then, is that the ward is meant to stop him from casting magic that would harm the Volstrucker, which means they actually intend to let him cast magic. He focuses on that as a positive. 

But there is the matter of what magic they would have him cast, and...Essek shudders. What if they make him torture other drow prisoners, other spies of the Lens, or worse, innocent Dynasty citizens, casualties of war? No. No, Essek will refuse if they try to do that. He must.

He is deep in these thoughts when Trent Ikithon slips into his cell.

And ‘slips’ is really the only word for it – there is no sound of guards talking or letting him in, just Ikithon stepping through an open door, narrowing his eyes as his gaze falls upon Essek. He wears rich red robes and stands straight and tall, but his balding head and gaunt face reveal his age. Essek straightens, watching him.

“I always forget,” Ikithon murmurs, “how drow eyes glow in the dark. Like cats. Hm.”

Essek’s eyes narrow back at him. Ikithon flicks his wrist and a globe of pale blue flame leaps into his palm. “Bren likes cats, you know,” Ikithon continues as he approaches. “I wonder if that’s why he’s taken a shine to you. Or perhaps it’s the other way around?” Ikithon raises a dark eyebrow. “I was hoping you might enlighten me, Herr Thelyss.”

Essek remains silent. He was hoping he would not have to explain his declaration to Astrid, but he should really know by now not to hope for anything. 

Ikithon sighs. “But, I’m being rude. Hello, Herr Thelyss. Last we met, it was at a dinner party hosted by Ludinus Da’leth, and you had donned the countenance of one Lord Dezran Thain, if I recall.” He smiles thinly. “But times do change, don’t they.”

Essek looks away, burning with shame and anger. At Ikithon, at Bren, at himself. 

“You’re very stubborn,” Ikithon says. “Or... proud, I should say. But there is no room for pride here, Shadowhand. So you had best do away with yours.” 

Then he traces a horrifyingly familiar sigil in the air, and Essek feels his body slowly crushed by dunamantic power. He’s pinned to the floor by the force, choking, eyes wide and uncomprehending as the pressure on his torso increases, threatening to splinter his ribs, to rupture his lungs, to split him apart. 

“I will ask again,” Ikithon says, “why did you tell Astrid that you would only cooperate with Bren?”

On some level, the question makes no sense. It’s petty. There are a thousand other questions that would be more useful for Ikithon to ask. But on another level...either Ikithon is suspicious of Bren, or he is possessive of him.

Either way, Essek wants to keep his tongue. He must not reveal Bren as a threat, nor himself as a threat to Bren. His reason for singling out Bren must be devoid of the potential for scheming – it must be simple.

And there is nothing simpler than magnetic attraction. 

Essek is apparently only capable of bad, mad ideas. Pain tends to help with those. 

As soon as the pressure eases, Essek gasps, “Bren is – sweet to me.”

The spell drops. Ikithon stares at him. His eyes are a cold blue, much paler than Bren’s, as if the color has been leached from them. 

“Sweet,” Ikithon repeats. He sounds almost amused. 

Essek gulps. He must commit to this charade like his life depends on it, because it literally fucking does. “He – promised he would...reward me, if I helped you. He promised he would make sure I was, ah, comfortable.” His face burns. “I am not a traitor, but he is...persuasive.”

Ikithon chuckles outright. “I see it pains you to admit it. I won’t pry. But I understand. Maybe I misjudged you, Herr Thelyss. Maybe you’ve already relinquished your pride.”

Disgust roils in Essek’s gut. He hates this man. He loathed him before, but now he can say with certainty that he hates Trent Ikithon with every fiber of his being. 

“Maybe,” he mutters, keeping his head low. 

Ikithon chuckles again. “I must say...this is very unlike Bren. You should know he does not often present himself as sweet, Herr Thelyss. You are special, hm?” Ikithon tilts his head. “Better-looking and better-bred than most prisoners in this place, at any rate. Albeit a Kryn.”

When it becomes clear that Essek isn’t going to reply, Ikithon shrugs, but rather than step away, he kneels down next to Essek. The sudden proximity is almost more terrifying than the dunamancy, and without touching him, Ikithon forces Essek’s head up with enough force that his neck cracks audibly. 

“I know you are not a stupid man, Essek Thelyss,” Ikithon says, “but men can be stupid in many ways. You are valuable to us, it’s true. But you should know that Bren is far more valuable.” He smiles, cold and sharp. “If you even attempt to harm him...that ward will make you sorry, but I will make you sorrier.” 

Ikithon leaves him with this threat, but he also leaves Essek with one that remains unspoken, one that makes a great deal of awful sense the more that Essek thinks about it:

You are not allowed to harm Bren, because only I can do that.

*

Essek hates Trent Ikithon, but he has also apparently outsmarted him, because without warning, the darkness is broken.

Essek is removed from his cell by the guards, but he is not taken to another cell block, nor the gallows.

He is taken to Bren’s chambers. 

No explanation is given. One moment, Essek is staggering down a dizzying hall of stone and marble busts; the next, he is sat down on a settee at the end of a four-poster bed in a suite that is small compared to Essek’s quarters in Rosohna, but practically a mansion after the cell. The furnishings are simple but high quality, the walls are dark wood paneling, and there is quite a lot of red and gold decor.

The guards leave him, and Essek sits in stunned silence before something furry rubs against his ankles. Essek jumps and makes a sound that’s more crow than drow before he sees the large orange tabby cat staring up at him with round hazel eyes. “Oh,” he stammers, “ah, hello…”

“Mrrow,” it says, and bumps its head against his ankle again. Essek looks at the cat a bit closer. It is quite graceful, with tufted ears, an unusually long tail, and an unexpected intelligence in its feline face. 

He carefully tucks his ankles away from it and clears his throat. “You are a familiar, aren’t you?”

“Maow.” The cat relentlessly pursues his ankles. 

“Ah –” Essek likes cats, but he is a little anxious about – everything, at the moment. 

As further confirmation of this, he jumps and squawks again when the cat abruptly poofs out of existence an inch from his foot, followed by Bren saying, “His name is Frumpkin.”

Essek whirls – as best he can with his hands still manacled in his lap – and sees Bren standing in a nearby doorway, the familiar perched on his shoulders, a splotch of ink high on his brow, looking for all the world as if it is perfectly commonplace for a disheveled drow to be in his bedroom.

Oh, dear, that is not a good line of thought to dwell on.

“Frumpkin,” Essek repeats, more than a little frantic. “I – I see.”

Bren tilts his head. “You seem surprised,” he says. He walks into the room, keeping some distance between them. “Probably not as surprised as I was when Master Ikithon congratulated me on seducing you, however.”

Essek misses the darkness, because he would like to crawl in a hole and die there, very much. 

“I – panicked,” Essek admits, looking away. “Ikithon demanded to know why I said I would only cooperate with you, and he was not waiting patiently, he used dunamancy on me and I, I was not expecting it, any of it, so, I apologize, but –”

Bren holds up a hand. “Ikithon used dunamancy on you?”

“Yes,” Essek says, “and, the one called Astrid said she used dunamis, I assume under his tutelage –”

“She uses it for parlor tricks, not torture,” Bren says. He tilts his head. “The spell Ikithon used on you; did you recognize it? Was it advanced?”

Essek is beyond confusion. Bren does not seem angry, at least…? 

“It was...not basic,” Essek hedges. “It was, ah, a variation of a spell I know, adjusted to be less deadly and more, um, torturous...slow.” When Bren keeps waiting, he rambles, “To, to create such a spell from scratch, that would require much study, yes. It is not the most powerful of dunamancy spells, but...it is possible he knows others...I do not know. He cast it quickly, with ease. He has had practice.” 

Bren is quiet. Then he says, “You’re in need of a bath, I think.”

Essek shrinks back against the settee as Bren advances. “ What?” It’s true that he’s filthy, but – 

Bren pauses. “Herr Thelyss, you wrote the rules to this game. I’m simply playing.”

“That’s not true,” Essek whispers. “I don’t even know what your terms are.”

“Then ask.” Bren raises an eyebrow. “This place is...concealed.” He lifts a small golden amulet from its hiding place under his shirt. “So long as you are very near to me, anyway. So, we may speak freely: in fact, please do. It is what you’re here for.” 

Essek inhales. “If you do not wish to help Ikithon, what do you want?”

Bren’s pupils dilate, and so do Frumpkin’s. “You,” he says, and amends, “your mind.”

Essek frowns. That’s not exactly comforting; then again, he was not expecting comfort, only...the lesser of two evils, perhaps. “Explain.”

“I want you to teach me dunamancy,” Bren says. 

“For torture?” Essek asks warily.

“No,” Bren says. “That is not where my interests lie.”

“Oh, well,” Essek says, “that’s a relief.”

Bren eyes him. “I am interested in arcane practices which affect the ebb and flow of time, Herr Thelyss. Am I correct in saying that dunamancy involves such practices?”

“It can…” Essek is not sure what to make of this. 

“And do you possess such arcane knowledge?”

Essek hesitates, and gives a small nod. “Yes, but, time magic is...a tricky business…” Surely Bren knows this?

“All the more reason to study it,” Bren says. 

Essek meets his eyes with rising apprehension. “To what end?”

“That’s nothing you need to concern yourself with,” Bren tells him. 

Essek is concerned, but he bites his tongue. 

“But...though that is the root of what I need from you, I also need you to play along with this little scheme you’ve concocted. It’s bold, and it may just work, but you must be convincing, Herr Thelyss. Trent Ikithon will be keeping a close eye, and if he sees through your act, there will be consequences for us both.” Bren smiles without warmth. “So while I commend your quick thinking, Herr Thelyss, you have put me into a tricky position.”

“I’ll play along,” Essek promises, though he worries about what this might entail. “What would you have me do?”

“Well...wild things must be put in cages,” Bren muses. “But...once tamed, a little more freedom is possible, ja?” He tilts his head and taps his own forehead, where that damned diamond brand rests on Essek’s flesh. “Could you be tame, Essek?”

Essek swallows back bile. He cannot tell if Bren is playing, now. It’s those awful, burning eyes. They’re too bright to reveal anything but their fire. 

“For you?” Essek asks. Bren hums. Essek is in no place to bargain, but he seizes the chance to try. “I will, if you get me out. No mere stay of execution. Out.”

By some miracle, Bren does not protest these terms. Instead he just says, “I will get you out after you have given me what I want, Herr Thelyss. I promise you that.”

Essek does not trust a single hair on this man’s body, but he does trust that there is a desperation in Bren, one he does not yet understand, but one he may yet use to his advantage.

“Swear it on whatever you Volstrucker hold sacred, then,” Essek says, “and I will pretend to be whatever you want.”

Bren’s eyes flicker. The brightness in them fades, just a little. “I swear it on my mother and father,” Bren says, and he says this even quieter than any of their previous clandestine conversation in Essek’s cell.

Then, with an alarming shift in mood, he smiles brightly and rolls up his sleeves, once more revealing his scarred forearms. “But before we get to work, I am quite serious about bathing you, Herr Thelyss. I am of the firm opinion that a clean body makes for a clear mind, and I need your mind as clear as can be.”

The Volstrucker wants to bathe him. Fine. Just – fine. This might as well happen. 

When Bren starts towards him, motioning for him to stand, Essek actually does start to stumble to his feet to avoid his touch...before he’s rudely reminded that his legs’ unsteady aching never left him, and so many days of no exercise have made them weaker. 

With his hands still bound he cannot brace himself, and stumbles off-balance, barely catching himself on one of the bedposts and slumping against it, kneeling and gritting his teeth from the strain on his knees and shins. 

“I will need some assistance,” he mutters, once more spinning epic tales of vengeance in his blessedly unbound mind. 

Bren offers no quips, just stalks forward and grabs Essek by the shoulder, hauling him up. Essek still staggers, most of his weight falling against Bren’s side, nearly knocking the other wizard down. 

At the sudden contact, Bren does tense and warn in Zemnian, “Careful.”

Essek snaps back in Undercommon, “I am trying .” 

Bren falters, blinking at him, and seems to notice the awkward stance of Essek’s legs, the unhappy slump of his back and twist of his arms as he seeks some semblance of balance. Then he makes a soft sound and reaches out, pressing a hand to Essek’s hip. 

“You’re injured?” Essek’s instinct is to flinch away from the touch, but it’s a cool glow of healing magic that flows from Bren’s palm to his sore body, not more pain.

Essek swallows. “That’s – not going to help.”

“Ah.” Bren frowns. “What would?”

Standing, they are near level; he is perhaps a bit shorter. Essek is used to more height, but now that he is grounded, he will have to stand his ground. Against...whatever this is. 

“My magic,” Essek sighs. 

Bren’s expression is unreadable. “I see,” he says. “For now, a warm bath will have to do.”

It was worth a try. Essek is suddenly very tired, as if all of his exhaustion has all at once caught up into him. “Very well,” he relents, and lets Bren lead him without protest.

*

Once in the bathing chambers, however, Essek realizes that his manacled hands mean he cannot undress himself. He sits nervously on a marble ledge as Bren fills the large, sunken bathtub with steaming water and perfumed soaps. It’s a very nice bath, nicer than Essek expects any common Volstrucker would be allowed. 

While Bren readies the bath, Frumpkin continues winding around Essek’s ankles. Essek has begun to accept that there is no escape from the needy familiar when Bren says, “Ah, Frumpkin, do not bother Herr Thelyss.” 

He is about to snap his fingers to summon the fey cat away when Essek blurts, “No, it is alright – I do not mind.”

Bren slowly lowers his hand, gaze flicking from Frumpkin to Essek. “His wriggling does not hurt your legs?”

“No,” Essek says. 

“Mrrow,” Frumpkin says, staring up at him imploringly, kneading at the marble floor with large paws.

“I cannot pet you,” Essek tells him, and holds out his bound hands. “Forgive me.”

Frumpkin trills again and contents himself with rubbing his face over Essek’s shins. Rather than hurt, it actually is somewhat comforting, not unlike a massage. 

Steam has begun to rise from the water, so Bren’s face is partially obscured when he says, “You like cats?”

“They...have a certain charm.”

Bren makes a sound. Essek swears it’s approving, but it’s hard to tell over the sound of water. 

After a few more minutes of Essek continuing to deny him pets, Frumpkin pads away into the next room, leaving wet pawprints in his wake. Essek already misses the little creature – just a bit. 

When the bath is full, Bren returns to him, but rather than disrobe Essek, he pauses and says, “How attached are you to these clothes?”

Essek glances down at himself. The Volstrucker captured him during one of his late-night study sessions, and the dark silk loungewear has certainly seen better days. “Not very,” Essek says, “but why do you – ah!”

Bren traces an unknown sigil in the air and says an equally unknown word, upon which, Essek’s clothes promptly burn right off of him, reduced to ashes in a moment. The heat licks at and lingers on Essek’s skin, but does not burn him. He gapes at Bren.

“I’ve always wanted to try that one out on someone else,” Bren says, and tugs Essek to his feet, seemingly not reacting to the fact that Essek is now entirely naked and –

“Try that one?” Essek splutters. “It was – experimental? You could have –”

“Set you aflame?” Bren finishes. “Oh, there was only a very slim chance.” 

Essek swears at him under his breath, and as soon as they are close enough to the bath, Essek slips in and huddles on the bottom step, legs tucked to his chest. Bren, to Essek’s bewilderment, takes off his socks and rolls up his trouser legs to wade in after Essek. He settles on the edge of the bath so that he is nearly right behind Essek when he asks, “Why, Herr Thelyss, are you afraid of fire?”

“I have a perfectly healthy amount of fear of it,” Essek snaps. “A fear you don’t seem to share.”

“Hah,” Bren says. “Ja, my relationship with fire is not what you would call healthy, no.” There’s a ripple of movement behind him, a dull thud of something on the marble, a click. 

Essek hunches further away from him. “What are you doing?”

“Washing your hair,” Bren says, and promptly dumps water over Essek’s head, sending him into a spluttering panic. “Ah, see, it’s already looking less filthy.” He pats Essek’s head. Literally pats it. Essek is fuming, and also probably looks like a drowned cat. “Anyway, if there were any ideal place to be on fire, it would be a bath, ja? Plenty of water to put it out.”

“You are mad,” Essek hisses, his drenched ears twitching unhappily in a useless attempt to flick off the water.

“The same could be said of you, Shadowhand. But I admire a certain degree of madness.” Bren sinks his fingers into Essek’s wet hair. 

Essek isn’t proud of the sound he makes when Bren does this, the Volstrucker’s nails scratching against his scalp in just the right way, at once aware of how long it has been since anyone touched him so intimately – has anyone ever touched him so intimately? Essek sinks down in the water until he’s submerged up to his nose in an attempt to hide his bright violet face. 

At the sound, Bren pauses. “Are you quite alright, Herr Thelyss?”

“Shut up,” Essek says, or rather, bubbles. 

Bren does not shut up. He keeps washing Essek’s hair, lathering the soap leisurely through silver locks, and says, “I did want to clarify something, Herr Thelyss. Was it just panic that made you suggest to Ikithon that I tempted you into my bed, or…?”

Essek chokes a little on the bathwater and lifts his head out enough to snap, “What else would it be?” before he can think better of it, which he does, immediately after saying it. 

“I’m only saying,” Bren continues, “if you managed to fool Trent Ikithon, either you are a terrifically good liar, or there was at least a grain of truth in it.”

“There wasn’t,” Essek says. 

“Mm.” Bren drags his fingers through Essek’s hair from crown to nape, his touch lingering at the shorter hair in the back. “You’re not a very good liar, Herr Thelyss.”

Essek is quiet. He doesn’t want to be caught in another lie, and his heart pounds as Bren’s fingertips trail, very lightly, very slowly, from the nape of his neck downwards, pausing on the third knob of his spine. 

“Why don’t I clarify, first?” Bren murmurs. “I find you terribly attractive, Herr Thelyss.” Essek’s breath catches hard, his skin prickling, hyper-aware of where Bren touches him. Then Bren’s fingers lift delicately away from his spine, and return to washing his hair. “But I only need your mind, not your body. However...I am willing to offer a trade, of sorts — a trade I believe you already implied to Ikithon. You give me access to your mind; I give you access to my body.”

Essek wets his lips. He stares at the surface of the water, where an iridescent soap film dances in the candlelight. Its hypnotic pattern calms him as he turns over Bren’s suggestion in his mind. “You assume I even want that access.”

“I don’t assume anything.” Bren pauses and pours a handful of water over his soapy hair, drawing a shiver from him. “The offer is simply on the table. But I can assure you, there is more to me than meets the eye.”

“I’m not letting you dig around in my skull in exchange for a good fuck,” Essek retorts, low, with a venom that startles even himself. Maybe he’s so bitter because he’s actually seriously considering this.

“Of course not,” Bren replies, voice still so infuriatingly even. Yes, Essek thinks, he would like to make that perfect voice break. “I mean access within reason, Herr Thelyss. I don’t intend to dig around in your skull, much like I hope you don’t intend to dig around in my innards. But we can both get something that we want from each other, I think.”

Essek grits his teeth. “And – hypothetically – if I did agree to this?”

Bren’s hands falter in his hair, but so briefly that Essek wonders if he imagined it. “ Hypothetically, if you did, I admit that it would make it much easier to keep up appearances...as neither of us would be fully pretending. But if this is entirely hypothetical, if pretending is preferable to you, then we need not –”

Essek is sure there’s a nervous note in Bren’s voice then, faint but present, and that’s what makes him turn. Bren breaks off into silence as he does so – Essek cannot move his hands, but he can shift around until they’re face to face and Essek is crouched on the lowest step, head tilted up towards Bren. In the rolling steam, Bren’s pale, freckled skin has gone pink, and his hair is frizzing at the ends, curling around his startled face and sticking to his neck in damp strands. 

He does not look so put-together and menacing, here. He looks more...not vulnerable, exactly, but...Essek wonders if he may have found a way to gain some control in this situation, to understand what makes Bren tick, to make himself valuable in a way that does not involve giving away Dynasty secrets. 

Essek’s mind for Bren’s body, hm? 

Well, Essek has never been convinced that mind and body are as neatly separate as the Empire would like to think. Perhaps, in having Bren’s body, he will have a bit of his mind, too. 

And a better chance at escape, or at least survival.

It’s a hypothesis he’s willing to test.

“Pretending would not be preferable to me,” Essek tells him, and with stubborn effort – made easier by the blissfully weightless quality of water – Essek stands before him. Water cascades off of his bare body, Bren’s face level with his chest as the other wizard perches on the edge of the bath, watching him. Bren’s expression does not change save for a few small twitches, but his face does redden as bright blue eyes take in the sight offered to them. 

Essek is not unaware of his beauty. In normal circumstances, he takes careful pains to tend to it, as carefully as he tends to his collection of orchids...most of which have probably died by now. These are not normal circumstances, but he has been endowed with a great deal of natural beauty, too. He makes certain that Bren gets a good eyeful of that beauty.

Bren’s gaze finally manages to make it back to Essek’s face. “And here I thought you were shy.”

“And here I thought you had me dragged to your bedchambers so you might ravish me, regardless of my feelings on the matter,” Essek bites back, “but now we have established you are not the ravishing type.”

Bren swallows. There is an unfocused quality in his eyes; Essek likes it. “And are you the ravishing type, Herr Thelyss?”

Now there’s a thought. But Essek lifts his bound hands. “If I was, I am somewhat at a disadvantage.”

Bren’s eyes gleam. He’s gripping the edge of the bath very tightly, if his white knuckles are any indication. “Have you never dabbled in restraints?”

“I have done more than dabble,” Essek says. “But, unlike these, I choose those.”

“Ah,” is all Bren says. He worries his lip between his teeth.

There’s a taut, conflicted silence. 

“Unless you don’t trust that your friend’s ward will work?” Essek adds, tilting his head so the brand catches the light. 

High risk, high reward, he tells himself. 

“Astrid’s ward does not guard against physical attacks,” Bren admits after a moment. “Only the arcane.” 

“Do I look like I am built for physical attacks?” Essek drawls.

Bren’s lips quirk. “You look like you are built for persuading me to make questionable offers, Herr Thelyss.”

Is that an actual bead of sweat sliding down his brow?

“You didn’t think I’d accept your offer, did you?” Essek realizes. 

“You have a reputation as a rather...reserved man, ja,” Bren says. He’s still eyeing the brand, thoughtful now. “That’s why it was so easy to capture you, all alone in that tower of yours.”

Essek glowers at him. “Are you only fond of poking the hornets’ nest when they can’t sting?”

Bren stares at him for a few more moments. Then he says quietly, suddenly, “Intsliozan,” and traces a many-branching sigil in the air. (Essek, of course, commits both spell components to memory immediately. Just in case.)

When Bren dispels the antimagic manacles, the relief is indescribable. The useless metal cuffs fall away, left to sink, and Essek shakes his wrists for good measure with a soft, pleased groan. They’ve been rubbed raw over the days – weeks, months, who’s to say – of his imprisonment, but they’re finally, blessedly free.

“I have been known to enjoy the threat of being stung,” Bren tells him, standing and stepping away from the edge of the bath, his stance not wary, but...alert. As he should be. “But I’d remind you that I am not the one in this place who wants you stung, Herr Thelyss.”

“No,” Essek sighs, gingerly examining his sore wrists, “you’re the one offering honey.”

Bren’s gaze flickers. “Mm.” He nods to Essek’s hands. “Better?”

“Much.” Essek cracks his knuckles. This does change things. Essek won’t let himself get cocky, but...he cannot waste this opportunity, either. When he lifts his hands to cast, Bren tenses, but Essek just says, “You wish to learn dunamancy? Watch, then.”

Bren watches. 

The motions of this spell are both familiar and comforting; the gray and violet web of dodecahedrons and fractals are spun between his fingers in a moment before it takes effect, and Essek finally, finally feels his feet leave the ground, hovering a few inches above it. In the water, this lifts him ever further out of it, and when he drifts up the steps, Bren stays where he is, now forced to look up at Essek. It’s strange, doing this without his cloak or robes to hide his floating, but Bren doesn’t seem put off by it.

“Clever,” Bren notes when Essek ‘steps’ out of the bath. “A modified levitate spell?”

“Not quite.” Essek drifts a bit closer, water puddling under him. “It draws upon gravity – re-adjusts the gravitational force between my feet and the earth, and creates a sort of magnetic effect, as you might get when you attempt to press two opposing poles together.”

Bren’s lips part. “Fascinating,” he whispers. 

Essek doesn’t think he’s just talking about the spell. 

Essek hums and reaches out. “Take my hand.”

Bren raises an eyebrow, but after a moment, he does, his fingers curling slightly against Essek’s palm. Essek repeats the motion of the spell, now with an extra flourish, and then Bren is tugged off his feet, tethered only by Essek’s hand. Bren does not gasp, but his breath catches. 

“Now you are just showing off, Herr Thelyss,” he says, but there is a note of admiration in his voice. 

“I am just stretching,” Essek says. “I have been pent up.”

Bren’s lips curl in a wry smile. “If it’s exercise you need, we can manage that.”

“I thought you were giving me access to your body, not your snark.”

“I think you like my snark, Herr Thelyss,” Bren starts to say before Essek seizes him.

The start of a defensive spell dies in Bren’s hands as Essek kisses him, sparks stinging across Essek’s chest. Bren responds with startled hunger, making a soft sound against his lips, parting them for Essek to lick into his mouth. Essek anchors Bren to him with a hand curled over the other wizard’s nape, and once he’s started touching that curling reddish hair, he can’t seem to stop. 

He gets a handful of it, gathers up Bren’s loose ponytail and gives into the urge to give it a sharp tug, wrenching Bren’s head back enough to give him better access to that open, eager mouth. Not enough to hurt, though the desire is there, prickling through Essek with a thousand other fantasies of vengeance conceived while he was left in pain and darkness. 

But this nastier desire is tempered by the dawning realization of just how young Bren is – for all of his bravado, the Volstrucker is not as good at controlling his body as he is at controlling his words. Bren melts into him, pawing at Essek’s shoulders with clumsy eagerness before he finds a grip. As Essek’s bare, wet body presses into Bren’s warm, clothed one, the Volstrucker makes a high, shaky whine. It’s half-swallowed in the kiss, but Essek hears it. 

As if conscious of the bareness of his desperation, Bren breaks away and scolds, “You are soaking us both,” before casting a hasty but complex spell which makes the air around them all the more humid, coaxing the curling steam closer, controlling the water all around them. Essek trails kisses over the curve of Bren’s cheek and jaw as soapy water droplets all at once spring away from his skin and hair and Bren’s clothes, suspended in the air all around them before they’re cast back into the bath, leaving them both quite dry. 

“Now who is showing off?” Essek asks against the sharp angle of Bren’s jaw. “That was a powerful towel you just used. You ought to conserve your resources.”

“Is this a lesson, or a fuck?” Bren retorts. There’s a wildness in his eyes, the blue rings of his irises nearly consumed by the dilation of his pupils. 

“Why not both,” Essek suggests, and bites the soft place where neck and jaw join. 

Bren clutches at him and growls a wordless reply before kissing him again. Bren is growing more bold, his hands wandering down Essek’s body, but when his hands fall to Essek’s hips, Essek holds them fast. Strength is not his, well, strength, but up close, he can see how Bren’s leanness is more often than not just lanky skinniness, and when Bren’s wrists jerk in his grip, he cannot get free. 

“Herr Thelyss,” he starts, warning but breathless. His kiss-swollen lips settle into what he might intend as a firm frown, but which comes off as an adorable pout. 

“You said I wrote the rules to this game,” Essek murmurs, squeezing his wrists. “So, rule one: my name is Essek. Don’t call me ‘Herr Thelyss’ when I’m fucking you, or I won’t let you come.”

Bren’s dark gaze flicks to the diamond brand. “I think that would be considered magic cast with intent to harm, Herr Thelyss.”

“I don’t need magic for that.”

Bren hands tremble in his grasp, but his face remains calm. “Hmm. As you wish, Essek. What’s rule two?”

His name sounds good on Bren’s tongue. Essek strokes his hair thoughtfully. “Rule two: no fire.”

“Oh, what a shame, and here I was planning to fireball you when you were sucking my cock.”

“When?” Essek raises an eyebrow. “Presumptuous.”

“You’re the one who already decided you were going to be fucking me,” Bren retorts. 

“You didn’t seem opposed to the idea,” Essek points out, dragging his gaze down to the now clear imprint of Bren’s cock straining against his pants, nearly brushing Essek’s thigh. Bren huffs; his wrists again jerk uselessly. “But, rule three: if you are opposed, at all, at any point, tell me to stop and I will.” 

Bren frowns. It’s horrifyingly matter-of-fact when he says, “Why would you do that? I am giving you access to my body; I don’t expect you to be polite about it.” Essek stares at him. Bren blinks, nonplussed. “If it makes you feel better, I will tell you, but you are under no obligation to actually stop. If, by some miracle, you do go too far for me, I am perfectly capable of stopping it myself.”

“That’s not –” Essek draws in a breath. “I see. So am I to understand you will not stop prying into my mind if I ask you to?”

“Do not worry about that,” Bren says. “I want to learn from your mind, not break it.” He smiles. “That’s Astrid’s specialty, anyway.”

His eyes are so bright, so off. Bren may be mad, but Essek is mad for agreeing to this. 

“Fine,” Essek says. “But I would still prefer to stop when you want me to, so you must tell me.”

“If you say so.” Bren’s smile is wry, like he doesn’t believe him. Disgust curls in Essek’s gut, but he’s even more disgusted at himself, because it’s not just disgust that he feels. 

He releases Bren’s wrists. Bren doesn’t move away, just waits.

Essek lets out a breath. “On your knees,” he orders. Is he truly doing this? 

Bren is quiet for a moment; then he lets go of Essek. The loss of contact promptly makes Bren’s levitation drop, and he stumbles a bit, though he only falls a couple of inches. Without making eye contact, he drops to one knee so that he’s level with Essek’s cock – half hard, but well on its way to full when Bren exhales over it. 

No going back, now.

Bren glances up at him, his brows still knitted, as if he’s asking for permission. His complete change in demeanor is...unexpected, troubling if Essek thinks about it too much. But Essek gives him a nod, and without a word Bren sucks Essek’s cock into his mouth, to the root. 

Essek groans in surprise, his hips stuttering forward into that sweet wet heat. Bren chokes, but recovers fast, bracing himself with his hands on Essek’s thighs, straining a little to fit more of Essek’s cock down his throat. He bobs his head, working it deeper, the bath echoing with the obscene sounds. When Essek grasps his hair again, tugging lightly at the ponytail, Bren moans around his mouthful, his eyes falling shut in pleasure or concentration; it’s difficult to tell. 

“You look good like this,” Essek gasps, fingers threading through his hair, mesmerized by the way Bren’s throat opens and bulges around the head of his cock so easily. “You’ve had practice, haven’t you?”

At this, Bren’s already pink face turns a bright scarlet, and he squeezes his eyes shut tighter, the hint of blunt teeth grazing against Essek’s cock. Essek hisses, but it’s a curious reaction. Not playful, but – embarrassed? Guilty? Essek hums, letting his fingers sink deeper into Bren’s hair, petting it, soothing.

“So good,” he coos, trying to forget why he’s here, why they’re both here, “taking it so well. Would you let me fuck your mouth, Bren?”

Bren doesn’t pull off to reply, but surges forward until his nails are digging into Essek’s thighs and his nose is buried in silky silver curls. When Essek pulls Bren back by the hair, Bren doesn’t protest but gags slightly, dazed blue eyes opening as he’s dragged off of Essek’s cock. 

Essek doesn’t leave him empty for too long – he lets Bren take a few unsteady breaths before feeding his cock back in, this time grinding the leaking crown against Bren’s soft, waiting tongue, fucking his throat shallowly, giving Bren plenty of room to lick and suck and find his own rhythm. 

Essek is infinitely glad that he does not need to concentrate to continue floating, because after Bren relaxes, completely pliant and deliciously eager at his feet, Essek is sure he’d be unable to stand up. It takes some time, but that’s partly because Bren is so enchanting to watch, swallowing around his cock and making little sounds, squirming with arousal, a completely different creature from the calculating, clever Volstrucker that he seemed to be. 

Essek doesn’t want it to end, but when Bren flicks his tongue against the head of Essek’s cock right as he reaches down to palm at his own, still-trapped cock, Essek loses his last thread of composure and comes down Bren’s throat with a pleased gasp. 

He doesn’t warn Bren first. Maybe that’s some of the revenge fantasy creeping out, but Bren doesn’t protest or try to pull away, just takes it with a choked moan, swallowing all he can, the rest leaking out from the corners of his mouth. Essek swipes at the mess with his finger and slips it into Bren’s mouth to see if he’ll lick it clean, half-expecting to be bitten.

He isn’t bitten. Bren cleans it off, eyes now half-open, hazy. He licks his lips when Essek pulls back, a bit stunned as he regards Bren. He had expected many things – from violent coupling to playful wrestling – but he had not expected Bren’s sudden, weirdly complete submission. 

When Bren stands, it is on shaky legs, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well,” Bren says, his voice hoarse in a way that makes Essek’s gut twist in satisfaction, “I cannot say I have ever blown someone while they were floating, but there is a first time for everything, ja?”

He’s about to say something else, but trails off when Essek reaches out and wipes at the corner of his mouth with his thumb. Bren looks at him from under his eyelashes, unabashed and coquettish, but also like he isn’t sure what happens next.

Essek isn’t entirely sure either, but he knows that Bren is far too dressed for his liking. “I’m curious to know what you have done before,” he murmurs. He reaches out to start unlacing Bren’s shirt, and Bren lets him.

“Only one way to find out,” Bren murmurs, tipping his chin up. 

Essek grabs his jaw, turning Bren’s face to the side, studying him, his messy mouth and gleaming eyes. “You don’t have a very good sense of self-preservation, do you.”

“I’m not the one who stole from Ludinus Da’leth,” Bren chuckles.

Essek smacks him. It’s a hard, stinging blow, jerking Bren’s head to the side, and it leaves a red imprint across Bren’s cheek. The sharp sound of impact is sickly satisfying. Bren does not look back up, but purses his lips and touches his red cheek, wordless. 

“Did that feel good?” Bren asks.

“No,” Essek says, honestly. “But I needed it.”

Bren’s gaze does flick up to meet his, at that. His brow lowers. He doesn’t look afraid. Resigned, maybe, and that’s worse. “And what do you ‘need’ now, Herr Thelyss?”

Essek shoves sympathy away. “Well, I was going to get you off now, but you just broke the first rule.”

Bren straightens up. “I did not. You specified that I should call you Essek ‘when you’re fucking me,’ and you are not, currently, fucking me, so –”

“Do not lecture me on semantics,” Essek hisses, and kisses him with the sincere hope that it will shut him up. 

It doesn’t. Bren breaks away to gasp, “It is an important distinction, Herr Thelyss, you should be more careful with your wording –” Essek bites Bren’s lip, sharp canines slicing it open, the taste of iron flooding their mouths. Bren pulls back, a trickle of blood running down his chin. “...and more careful with your teeth.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Essek says, and backs him up against the wall. Bren goes, managing to look far more petulant than repentant, but he does pause when Essek grabs his waist and scoops him up so that Bren’s legs wrap around his hips, bringing him back under the influence of Essek’s personal gravitational anomaly. 

“So,” Bren asks as Essek carries him out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom, “are you going to get me off, or –” Essek throws him unceremoniously onto the bed and Bren has the audacity to raise an eyebrow, “– just toss me around like a sack of flour?”

Essek ignores him. He’s getting the distinct sense that Bren is a bit of a spoiled brat, and he has no desire to capitulate to that. When he unbuckles Bren’s belt, Bren tilts his hips up into the touch, but instead of unlacing his pants, Essek binds Bren’s wrists to the headboard with his own belt. Bren lets him, albeit with some half-hearted, semi-theatrical struggling. 

Once bound, Bren sighs and slumps back against the headboard with no small amount of drama, letting his legs splay wide. “Sack of flour it is, then.”

Essek continues to ignore him. 

He leaves Bren on the bed and looks around the room for a moment before he finds what he needs: a jewelry box filled with components, each tucked neatly in their own compartment. 

When he opens the box, he hears the belt buckle clink against the headboard as Bren squirms. “What are you doing?”

Without answering, Essek takes a fat pinch of gold dust and shuts the box. Bren’s gaze is sharp on him, and his fingertips spark. 

“No fire,” Essek reminds him.

“It’s rude to steal another wizard’s spell components,” Bren murmurs.

Essek snorts. “It’s ruder to kidnap another wizard from their bed, imprison them, and coerce them into revealing state secrets, but here we are.” He holds out the gold dust in the palm of his hand and sits on the edge of the bed, leaning over until he can reach the tied belt. 

Bren eyes him. “Don’t do anything foolish, now, Herr Thelyss.”

“And that’s a third hour you don’t get to come,” Essek informs him. “In addition to the two hours you have already incurred.”

Bren tilts his head. “Ah, so it’s like that, is it? My, my, you are an interesting man, Herr Thelyss –”

“Four,” Essek says.

Bren opens his mouth, closes it. He tugs on the belt again. “I may not be the strongest, but I’m a bit insulted that you think this little thing is going to hold me that long.”

He doesn’t tack on a fifth ‘Herr Thelyss,’ Essek notices. Small victories. 

“I’m not worried about that,” Essek says, and adds, “zexen'uma,” as he draws his fingertips together and the gold dust in his hand is instantly consumed by the spell in a soft hiss of lavender smoke. A dark orb of broken, heavy space opens over the tied belt and sinks into it, rendering it immobile. 

Bren tugs on the belt again, but this time it doesn’t move an inch. His smile freezes. He tugs again. The third time, he throws his weight against it; Essek feels the strain of the spell’s hold, but it’s a very faint strain. Bren narrows his eyes. “What is this?”

Essek gets off the bed and floats back to his feet. “Were you paying attention? That was more dunamancy. It’s a very entertaining little spell.”

“Well, I am a captive audience,” Bren drawls. “Do tell.”

Essek pretends to consider it. “No,” he concludes. “I don’t think I will.” Genuine frustration and warning slips into Bren’s face, his hands curling into fists, and Essek adds, “Until you earn it.”

They both know that Bren could dispel the hold if he wished. But Essek senses a competitive streak in Bren, an ego with something to prove. In some ways, Essek can empathize, but right now, it’s not his ego on the line. 

Bren swallows, and sits up straight against the headboard, expression neutral. “Four hours, was it?”

Essek studies his nails. “Unless you decide to antagonize me again, yes.”

“Very well,” Bren says without missing a beat. “Though I should warn you, I do have other duties to attend to; my time is quite precious.”

“Then you really should have thought about that before being a brat,” Essek says.

Bren’s face twists, but he falls silent, leaning back against the headboard and staring up at the canopy with a pensive look. 

Again, Essek ignores him, and pads across the plush rug to a dark, red velvet robe hanging off the back of the chair to the small desk in the corner. Essek picks it up and tries it on, and it’s only a bit short on him. Otherwise, quite comfortable. He’s used to silk, but the velvet is nice.

“I gave you access to my body, not my wardrobe,” Bren says from the bed. 

Essek glances back at him, in the middle of tying the robe shut. “Do you need a gag?”

“Now I’m not allowed to speak?” Bren clicks his tongue.

Ignoring Bren, he discovers, is more effective at silencing him than arguing with him is. Essek wanders his bedroom for a little while longer, investigating without being overtly intrusive, until he gets bored and settles on the settee with a book he found on Bren’s desk. 

Bren’s legs twitch; he’s since pressed them together. He may be under the impression that Essek is going to let him get soft from boredom, but Essek has no such plans. For now, though, Essek wants to read this strange Zemnian book. Four hours is a long time, after all.

“Is this a book of fairytales?” Essek asks, turning the book over in his hands. It is a pretty but slim book, with a dark red cover embossed in gold: Der Katzenprinz. There is what looks to be a cat in a top hat on the cover, of all things.

Bren is silent, and when Essek clears his throat, he says, “Oh, I’m sorry, am I allowed to speak, now?”

“Just this once.”

Bren huffs. “It is a fairytale, ja.”

“For children?” Essek opens the book and blinks at the colorful illustration of a little boy in bed, peering out a window at a woman – his mother? – as she walks away down a sunny lane. He may not be the best judge of human skin tones, but the little boy is so pale that he does not look well. Sure enough, this is confirmed when he reads the first page. Essek gives Bren a quizzical look over the edge of the page. “Is this a happy story?”

Bren closes his eyes. “Zemnian tales rarely are. But this one – ja, it is happy.” 

“Hmm.” Essek starts flipping through it. He is very careful as he turns the pages, not only because he respects books a great deal, but because the more he looks at it, the more he realizes this is a well-loved book. The edges of the pages are worn, and though the cover is clearly dusted and clean, there are a few strange...almost scorch marks on the last few pages. They are fingerprint-sized. Essek wonders, but says nothing of them. 

“What are Xhorhasian fairytales like?”

Essek glances up, startled. Bren’s eyes are still closed. 

“Ah…” Essek frowns. What strange territory they have entered. “There are many, but the fairytales I know from the Dynasty are…a little dogmatic. They teach moral lessons...or about our culture, about the Luxon and the dangers of Lolth.” He pauses. “I suppose there are others. More fantastical ones about heroic quests or dragons or gods. And there are a lot of ghost stories, because of the Ghostlands, I suspect.”

“I never liked ghost stories,” Bren says. “As a child, they frightened me.”

His voice is low, distant, almost ghostly itself. Essek shakes the thought away. “The ghost stories were my favorite,” he retorts, “because they usually ended with the ghost getting its revenge.”

“Congratulations, your dirty talk is abysmal.” 

“What kind of dirty talk does appeal to Scourgers?” Essek muses. “It’s logical that an assassin wouldn’t be keen on stories of undead vengeance.”

“And I’m sure there’s not a drop of blood on your hands,” Bren sighs. 

Essek closes the book. “I’m not the executioner.”

“You’re the one who gives the order, not the one who deals the killing blow, you mean.”

“Is this your idea of dirty talk?”

“Sometimes.” Bren yawns. “When my partner is fun.”

Essek doesn’t rise to the bait. He’s glad he resists doing so when Bren’s mounting frustration becomes palpable, rippling through the room as Essek starts reading Der Katzenprinz . He takes his time with it, and though he’s a slower reader in Zemnian, he gets about halfway into it before Frumpkin interrupts. 

The familiar slinks out from under the bed to stare up at Essek again. “Mrrr?” Frumpkin looks at his now-free hands, beseeching. 

Essek gives in, and Frumpkin purrs as he receives some generous ear scritches. “Why, look at that, the Cat Prince himself decided to grace our presence.”

“Frumpkin, you are a little traitor,” Bren mutters in Zemnian. 

Frumpkin purrs louder. Essek abandons the book to pet him with both hands, gently squishing the cat’s whiskery cheeks and stroking his orange mane. “Bwael murrpau,” he coos. Good cat. 

It’s in the middle of this petting and cooing that Frumpkin’s hazel eyes turn a sudden, familiar blue. Essek jerks back as if burnt and Bren chuckles. He’s still bound, but his eyes are open and an eerie blank white, now seeing the world through Frumpkin.

“You don’t want to pet him anymore?” Bren laughs. 

“Are you jealous of your cat?” Essek demands incredulously. 

“I’m bored.”

Essek reads between the lines. Rolling his eyes, he replaces the book on Bren’s desk, well-aware that Bren is watching his every movement through his familiar’s keen eyes. As soon as Essek turns back to him, though, Frumpkin is nowhere to be seen and Bren’s eyes are their usual bright blue. 

“What?” Essek asks as he leans over the bed. “Aren’t used to not immediately getting what you want?”

Bren tips his head back, the picture of insouciance. “I just don’t want to bruise your ego by falling asleep.”

Essek narrows his eyes. Then he moves onto the bed, over Bren, and shoves a knee between Bren’s legs hard enough for him to gasp and jolt in surprise. “Don’t worry,” Essek says, “I won’t let you fall asleep.” 

He unlaces Bren’s pants and finds, with amused satisfaction, that Bren is still half-hard; Essek doubts his arousal ever actually faded. Bren looks at the canopy, still playing at indifference, but he can’t stop himself from biting back a whine when Essek wraps a hand around his cock. Essek keeps his grip loose, teasing, but rubs his thumb over the tip until it’s shiny and wet. Bren is biting his lip now, strands of hair falling into his flushed face. 

“Still sleepy?” Essek asks, not even really stroking his cock now, just holding it, aiming for the tantalizing touch of not enough. Bren doesn’t answer, but when Essek starts unlacing his shirt with his free hand, Bren’s chest shudders under his fingertips, the shirt gaping open to reveal pale, freckled skin dusted in more reddish hair. Essek has always found humans’ hairiness to be off-putting, but somehow...he likes it, on Bren. 

It’s soft when he strokes over Bren’s chest and down his belly, where the hair darkens, more brown than red here, coarse and apparently trimmed. Bren is a tidy man, Essek notes, everything in its place. But it’s a tidiness that seems taught, almost performed – there are gaps, discrepancies, like his bitten cuticles and the barely-tamed wildness of his hair. 

And then there are the scars. There are...a lot of them. Essek can’t get his shirt off with the belt in the way, but as he pushes more fabric aside, more and more old wounds are revealed. Most are tiny, quick accidents, but others look more deadly, more painful. 

Blades, claws, burns...and other scars, strange ones, little punctures like teeth or nails, little patches of rough, discolored skin. Those don’t look like any combat scars Essek has seen. They’re too...controlled. Torture, or self-inflicted…?

Bren does not acknowledge them at all, until Essek starts exploring his arms, hoping to get a more informed guess at what the strange forearm scars are. But as he reaches them, the Volstrucker flinches violently, his languid posture all at once stiff and warning like a coiled viper. 

“Don’t touch those,” Bren snaps. 

Essek withdraws his hand, but not completely. “They hurt?”

“They are dangerous,” Bren says. “You could lose your fingers.”

Essek doesn’t know if he’s lying or not, but he rather likes his fingers. He goes back to using them on Bren’s cock, and soon Bren is squirming and hard again, the incident apparently forgotten, or at least set aside in favor of the more pressing matter.

“You’re really – ah – going to keep this going for...mmh...three more hours?” Bren gasps when Essek squeezes the base of his cock in firm denial after a particularly frantic sound from the other wizard. 

“Oh, are we at the three hour mark already?” Essek feigns ignorance. Bren isn’t the only one with perfect attention to the passing of time. “Hmm...I thought I’d let you cool off for a bit, but that seems too merciful, upon consideration.”

Bren groans and Essek lets go of his cock, only to settle fully between his legs and replace his hand with his mouth. The sound Bren makes at that isn’t one Essek will soon forget. It’s loud, too shocked to disguise the frantic, raw note in it. The human tastes like salt and heat and desperation, and the deeper Essek takes him, the more the desperation grows, and the more Essek understands that Bren is walking a dangerous line, one that he probably doesn’t even know if he can keep his footing on. 

And Essek knows that it’s dangerous to wonder, but he can’t stop himself from wondering how Bren got here, and why – and if that why and how have anything to do with this foolish bargain he’s made to learn time magic. 

Bren’s hips jerk up hard enough to nearly choke him and Essek snaps out of it, pulling off with a wet sound and an irritated growl. He glances up at the Volstrucker, a reprimand on his lips...but it dissolves into silence when he sees Bren’s face. Light above. How is it possible that he already looks so wrecked? 

“Sorry, sorry,” Bren gasps, “I did not mean to – please, continue, I will not do it again, I swear, bitte –”

Essek wipes his mouth and moves off the bed, tearing his gaze away from the younger wizard with far too much difficulty. “Three hours,” he says, and turns his back on Bren.

Bren inhales, sharp, but he does not protest. The belt clinks a few times, but when Essek glances back, warning, he goes still, chest heaving and face red. His hair sticks to his face and neck in damp auburn strands, and his eyes are squeezed shut. If Essek had to guess, his expression would be one of regret. 

One can only hope. 

Essek goes back to his reading, and he would never admit it, but it takes him three times as long as it should to finish Der Katzenprinz , because he keeps getting distracted by the memory of Bren’s face, beautiful and ruined.

*

Essek is many things, but he does not consider himself merciful. Bren learns this. Thankfully, he’s a quick study.

The second time Essek sucks his cock is precisely sixteen minutes into hour two, and that time, he teases and licks until Bren is on the very edge, and then he withdraws. Bren shudders, cock jumping where it curves up against his belly in Essek’s absence, now so red it looks quite possibly painful. Essek feels sorry for a moment, then thinks of the agonizing Contagion spell and the brand and that fucking chair, and reminds himself firmly that pity has no place here. 

Bren is a Volstrucker, not a helpless victim. 

A terribly pretty Volstrucker who looks even prettier when he’s on the verge of crying and begging, though. Essek will give him that. 

But Bren doesn’t cry. Even after the third time, when Essek pumps his cock slow and torturous until he’s leaking so much that each stroke is slick and messy, only to dig his nail into the slit and pull away again before he can find release, Bren makes a choked sound deep in his throat that could be a sob, but he turns his face away and bites his lip hard and says nothing. 

The fourth time, Essek doesn’t even touch his cock, just kisses him, dirty and open-mouthed and teasing at the cut on his lip until Bren is making breathy little noises and trying to shift his hips away, or maybe closer, to rub off on Essek’s thigh. Essek doesn’t grant him the friction.

By hour four, Bren is trembling all over, soaked in sweat, and Essek hopes it’s mostly hidden beneath the stolen robe, but he’s not...unaffected. 

No, that’s such an understatement it’s a lie. Essek is horribly affected by how desperate Bren has gotten, and maybe he is going to be forced to reveal every magical secret he and the Dynasty holds dear, but in that moment it feels shamefully worth it. 

Neither of them say anything when time is up, but they both know the silent milestone has passed, and when Essek rises and drifts towards the bed, Bren stares back at him with glazed blue eyes, his lip bitten so hard that he’s reopened the cut there. Bren tugs pointedly at the belt.

Instead of dispelling it, however, Essek casts another spell, drawing oil from the air – not too much, only as much as Bren deserves. Bren watches, and when Essek climbs back onto the bed and takes his cock in hand immediately, the Volstrucker makes a wounded sound, pushing up against Essek’s slicked palm and whimpering as he keeps rolling his hips up into it, like he can’t stop now that he’s started. 

Essek leans down over him until he can brush hair out of Bren’s eyes, and whispers, “You can come this time.”

Bren closes his eyes and moans in agonized relief, his cock twitching hard in Essek’s grip, and it only takes a few more strokes before he’s making a mess of Essek’s palm and himself, coming with a shaky, startled little gasp and shuddering all the way through it. 

In the middle of it, Essek dispels the hold on him, and immediately Bren’s entire upper body goes slack, his wrists slipping easily out of the loosened belt. “Well,” Bren croaks, “I don’t know if that was – really worth it for four hours, but – ah, what’re you –”

Essek is touching his cock again, not about to let it soften, and he knows it must be far too sensitive – he hopes it is. “Over,” he says, pushing on Bren’s hip.

Bren’s gaze darts to him, wary and confused, and Essek rolls his eyes. “Come, now, you didn’t think I was done with you yet? I’m fucking you at least once before giving you the keys to the workings of space and time. Is that acceptable?”

Bren blinks at him, some of the wariness slipping away but none of the confusion, and nods, moving onto his hands and knees with some clumsiness – his arms, probably numb from hours bound, give out from under him at first, and he mumbles something like an apology before Essek steadies him. Bren tenses as he does so, and glances back at him with a frown. 

“What?” Essek sits back on his heels. 

“You are really fucking me in my favorite robe?” Bren retorts. His Common is a little worse when he’s flustered. It shouldn’t be endearing. It is.

Essek rubs the velvet between thumb and forefinger. “It’s your favorite? Hm. Then, yes, I suppose I really am.”

Bren grimaces. “You are a menace, Herr Thelyss,” he says, and as soon as the words leave his mouth, he freezes, and the look on his face then is one of complete and utter fear, wretched anticipation of further punishment. 

It’s not a look that makes Essek hot under the collar. It makes him rather cold, actually. 

“Just Essek,” Essek corrects, reaching out to run a fingertip over the freckled curve of Bren’s ass. 

Bren still looks terrified, taut as a strung bow when he whispers back, “Essek.”

Objectively, it makes no sense that Bren should be frightened by any of this. He holds the reins; whatever power Essek has here is an illusion. It should be, anyway. So why, then, was the fear in Bren’s eyes so real? 

Because Essek is certain it was real. He is certain because he has seen many people afraid like that, before. But that fear is conditioned, born of patience and repeated sessions of...persuasion. 

Essek draws back, suddenly unsure. 

Bren watches, brow low. 

“Do you want this?” Essek asks him. He keeps his tone sober, clear, with no chance of misinterpretation of it as anything but a serious question.

Bren stares. His expression is...something like disbelief. Then he sighs and settles on all fours, bowing his head down towards the pillow. “I want you to teach me a dunamancy spell for every time you come. We’re already at one. Make it two.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Bren pauses. There’s an edge to his voice when he says, “Do you want me to beg?”

“Do you want to beg?”

Bren draws in a breath. “No,” he says, slumping a little. “I want you to fuck me.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” Essek murmurs, and fills him with two fingers.

Bren is tight, but his hole opens to the press of oiled fingers, and his cock twitches visibly when Essek crooks his fingers and rubs inside him, searching. When Essek presses a little deeper, Bren groans, pressing his forehead to the pillow and lifting his ass higher. 

“There?” Essek asks, touching inside him again, firm but gentle, and Bren’s cock drips, those pale thighs trembling and flushed already. 

“Ja, there,” Bren hisses, shaking his head. “Fuck.”

“Yes, that’s the idea,” Essek says, and replaces his fingers with his cock.

Bren’s head jerks up in surprise, eyes wide and mouth falling open as Essek’s cock plunges into him. Essek didn’t loosen him much, and Bren’s shaky gasp is a little pained, but Essek lets him adjust, Essek’s cock resting heavy and hard inside him, pushing deeper when Bren starts to squirm. “Ah,” Bren says, his fingers curling into the sheets and head dropping down again, “you are — you feel—”

“Yes?” Essek’s own voice is unsteady as he thrusts into Bren’s trembling body; the other wizard is burning up, so hot inside that Essek already feels too close to climax. “How do I feel, Bren?”

“Good,” Bren says simply, and muffles his sounds in the pillow when Essek begins to fuck him in earnest. 

He pulls Bren back onto his cock on each thrust, mostly because he likes feeling the give of the wizard’s slim waist in his grip, likes feeling how Bren tenses only to go pliant again each time Essek sheathes himself completely. Essek debated fucking him hard, punishing, but Bren was, after all, obedient. Patient. He waited, and Essek will reward him for that.

So the actual pace is quite slow, steady and rolling and at times almost sweet, and it must not have been what Bren expected, because he doesn’t seem to know how to respond to it. He keeps his face tucked against the pillow, but Essek knows he’s making sounds, trying to hold them back and unable to do so. 

Bren isn’t loud, exactly – his bitten-off moans and breathy, choked curses are the sounds of someone used to trying to keep himself quiet – but although his sounds are quiet, they are near-constant. It’s flattering, Essek has to admit – as is the way that Bren’s cock bobs back into hardness within minutes. 

It’s been awhile since Essek has done this – fucking has never really been a pastime he’s actively sought out. Maybe this is because people are never really a pastime he’s sought out, either. 

But here – they’ve been forced together like two opposing magnetic poles, and Essek finds himself far too easily lost in it. Not just the sensation of it, either – which is no small thing; Bren does feel divine – but in the rhythm of drawing pleasure from a partner. 

Essek kisses the nape of Bren’s neck, drags his teeth over the arching curve of the other wizard’s spine and marvels at how responsive Bren is to every touch, every tender brush of skin on skin, of Essek’s lips over reddening flesh. He wonders if part of it is an act – surely no one is actually this sensitive – but it’s terribly enchanting to imagine that it isn’t, that Bren really does just react so openly, so completely, when he is claimed and on display. 

At the same time, there is something demanding and self-indulgent about the way Bren moves, the way Bren takes him with a practiced ease, a greedy tilt to his hips and his head as he throws it back and groans in a particularly good moment, his mouth spit-slick, slack, too tempting to not kiss. When Essek grabs his jaw and draws him in for it, Bren welcomes it, his moans trapped between them, growing louder as he reaches beneath himself to stroke his own cock. Essek briefly considers smacking his hand away, but he finds that he likes the way Bren luxuriates in taking his own pleasure. 

It is this train of thought that leads Essek to pull back and out, wrenching a ragged moan of protest from Bren’s hoarse throat. “Bitte – no – come back,” he mumbles, turning around, his face as pink and pretty and wrecked as Essek had hoped.

His ass is, too, and when Essek teases at his stretched rim with long fingers, Bren curses and crawls into his lap without prompting. Essek lets him, and maneuvers them until he is sitting back against the headboard and Bren is sitting on his cock with a loud whine, wasting not a second before he sinks down and grinds down like a proper whore. 

He has done this before, Essek muses, and again he wonders, where in this life has Bren found time or partners for such things? 

Maybe best not to think about that too much.

He sinks a hand into Bren’s hair and coos, “Beautiful,” before his hand joins Bren’s in stroking his messy cock. Essek shivers at the realization that Bren’s hands are bigger than his own, fingers thicker and calloused in a way Essek’s never have been. 

He is still growing into himself, this little Volstrucker, and the thought that someday he will be even more powerful shouldn’t make Essek fuck up into him with a sudden hunger the way that it does. 

So...maybe Essek has always been a little selfish, a little disloyal. 

And maybe he can teach Bren to be the same. 

It’s a realization that makes him hold Bren to him with bruising urgency, and Bren must feel the shift because he leans down to kiss Essek hard and sharp, rocking in his lap, chasing every thrust with his own frantic movements. His cock is leaking over Essek’s knuckles, and neither of them are going to last much longer, but there is a stubborn, shining light in Bren’s eyes, and in that moment their blue brightness doesn’t seem mad at all. 

Not yet, Essek thinks. There is still a man in there, a young man with something to prove – no...something to save. Himself? Perhaps that’s too optimistic, too naïve. 

But maybe it isn’t. Maybe, maybe. Only time will tell.

Essek tempers the sting of Bren’s kiss, softening it, turning it tender in a way which just makes Bren thornier, but Bren can’t bring the venom back, no matter how hard he tries. Maybe he doesn’t really want to try. Maybe he just thinks that’s what he ought to do. 

Essek doesn’t know how to be soft either; not really. But there’s something about Bren that makes him want to try. It doesn’t make any sense – few things do on the edge of climax. Later, when his head is clear and his logic has returned, he will probably see the absurdity in such thoughts.

But in the moment, it feels right to think them. Such thoughts are a comfort, and comforts are so hard to come by in this place. 

“Bitte,” Bren sobs, folding forward, burying his face against Essek’s shoulder as his body tightens, pulses and sunders around him. “I – I need –”

“Yes,” Essek says, stroking his hair, anchoring them together, pinning Bren’s hips so that he is buried deep when Bren comes, panting and quivering, his cum a sticky splatter of white over their bellies, over the edges of the robes where it has fallen open in the front. 

As he comes, though, Essek casts one last spell. It’s subtle, silver and violet timepieces dancing through the air and swirling around them for a single second, drawing upon unseen threads all around them, but Essek knows its effect on Bren is anything but subtle. 

“What,” Bren gasps, lifting his head, his eyes wide and hazy with shock and pleasure, pupils dilating. The dunamantic loop ensnares him as it was meant to, wringing his orgasm ever outward, multiplying it with each subsequent loop, each layer of repetition. 

It’s a short loop, but anyone feeling a dunamantic loop of this kind for the first time is helpless in the face of it. 

Bren gasps through it, and it’s the glimpse of his blissful face that finally does it for Essek. He keeps his iron hold on Bren when he comes, pumping his cock up into him, and Bren lets him, squeezing his thighs around Essek’s hips as if to keep it all inside. The thought draws another wave of climax from Essek, and by the time the loop has closed and fizzled out, Bren is slumped over him, panting, a limp puddle of exhausted wizard. 

Essek can relate, and tips his head back, exhaling, finding his breath. He’s certain Bren can hear the pounding of his heart. As much as Essek would like to say it’s all due to simple exertion...he’s not that out of shape. Even his legs don’t ache much, but maybe that’s just the afterglow and the dunamancy. 

Bren bites at his nipple and Essek jolts, blinking down at him. Bren stares back up, both accusatory and awed. “You,” he rasps, “are showing me that spell – and another, ja? – as soon as I – hmm...find...take?... catch my breath.”

Before Essek can reply, Bren flaps a hand at him and rolls off of Essek with a wet sound and a badly-disguised whimper, flopping onto the bed on his back beside him and throwing an arm over his face. 

“Ah,” Essek says. He blinks up at the canopy some more, mostly to avoid looking at Bren, soft and fucked-out and lovely beside him. “...well, I’m not going anywhere.”

Bren laughs, but it’s a tired sound. “No,” he agrees, “you are not, Herr Thelyss.” He pauses, and corrects, softer, slower, like he is trying out the sound on his tongue, “Essek.” 

When Essek glances over at him, Bren’s eyes are closed and he’s relaxed, toes curling, hair spread out on the pillow in a burnt halo. 

Even if Essek had not been bound by the brand, it is difficult to even contemplate violence when Bren looks like that. Instead of trying his luck at testing the brand’s limits, at seizing the moment of vulnerability, Essek rolls onto his side and looks at Bren in profile, his mind alight with infinite strands of fate, each one more impossible than the next.

Essek has always been drawn to the impossible. 

He closes his eyes. This time, the darkness is not quite so frightening. 

Fire is, after all, close at hand.