The Crowned Captive

Rowan did not recognise the man that sat before him but knew that he was shackled in the same way as the rest of them. Eyes of a blue so light they were nearly white stared at him, intently, boring into him. His hair was a blonde so light it was nearly white. Where his manacles chaffed against his wrists, blood ran fresh. It was obvious that the man had been fighting for his freedom; why, then, was Rowan so complacent?

He looked around then, seeing Cordan staring adoringly ahead of him. With a faint smile and pride on his face, he sat with a single iron collar around his neck attached to the ground in front of him. He showed no sign of knowing anybody else was present, no recognition of his danger. His honey eyes were merely fixed on the space between them all. To Rowan’s other side sat the last stranger, this one unrecognisable. Chains of ebony were wrapped around his every limb, bound to the floor in a dozen places. Blue eyes peered out above the chain gag that was wrapped around his face and through the soaked strands of blue-black hair. Those eyes turned to him then, fixed on him with a distaste that could only be personal.

And then Rowan heard the footsteps. Power was soaked in their every sound, the tremor that ran through the ground ahead of them. Power sat there, held by their owner in an embrace that could never be broken. Jasmine and rose floated on the edges of those tendrils of magic, and Rowan felt his stomach coil. Morana walked past him then, brushing fingertips as cold as death along his cheek lovingly as she passed.

“She is your charge, child. Be her knight, be her protector, or be replaced,” a feminine voice whispered to him, her voice like the whisper of leaves on the wind. At its sounding, the man across from him smiled longingly. Rowan fixed his eyes on him, feeling a whisper of Morana’s power reach out as if to caress the sound

Morana ignored them all, moving without even seeming to hear them. Wrapped in black leathers, she was Death Incarnate. Rowan knew this without a doubt. A black dagger glinted in her hands as she crouched in front of Cordan, her eyes brimming with tears. He saw her next move before she even made it, yelling at her to stop, but it was no good. Yanking against his bindings, he watched helplessly as she kissed him, glowing with life, then drove the blade between his ribs. The gems along its handle glowed red with blood, seeming to absorb it, glinting with delight. Cordan’s look of love and pride did not falter, even as the life fell from his eyes, even as he slipped away. Rowan tugged as hard as he could against his bindings, intent on stopping her, stopping the evil that now sat within her skin.

“Stop. That is not protecting her.”

The voice was Life and Power, shoving Rowan back to the ground, causing his limbs to feel like lead. So Rowan was forced to watch as Morana stalked to the man across from Rowan, the man unknown, and lay a bloodied hand on his cheek. Even through those chains, the man grinned, baring fangs longer than those of any elf he had seen. His blue eyes swam with resolve as he watched her. He bared his neck, the only part of him without chains, and Rowan watched with horror as she dragged the dagger across his throat, spilling his lifeblood on the floor around them. His breath gurgled as he drew it in, but the fierce determination did not drop from his face until he fell into unconsciousness.

When Morana finally tore her eyes from the dying man, her face one of unimaginable pain, Rowan realised what was to happen next. The white-haired man watched, his face dark, as Morana came to kneel in front of Rowan. Tears and blood stained her porcelain face, and Rowan was struck with her beauty despite it. The only issue was her eyes, now dark and heavy, that watched him with such sorrow he thought it may break her.

“Protect her! Listen to her, gods dammit!” The man in front of him bellowed. Rowan couldn’t think of how not as Morana planted a kiss on his cheek and placed the point of her dagger under his chin. No cruel malice contorted her face as she watched him, waiting for something. A last ditch effort, Rowan thrashed against his bindings, his eyes turning to the last bound man.

And then he was standing behind the shackled man, staring at his slumped body as blood pooled around them. Morana still looked at him, her facial expression hidden from this angle, but he knew the shudder in her shoulders was a silent sob. And then her cool composure shattered, and her keening wails pierced the darkness around them, wrapping Rowan in a blanket of regret. He tried to move forward, but he had no body to move. He tried to comfort her, but she could not see him, nor hear his words.

“You are all failures, every one of you. She can never kill her father like this,” the feminine voice hissed. Finally, as if a wall was dropped around him, the pain of his death finally hit him. He gasped with a body that could not move and tried to claw at his wounds without hands, wanting to be free of the blinding agony. He recognised the voice then, and tried to beg -

When Rowan awoke, the could still feel the dagger wound in his chin and the blinding pain that accompanied it. Tangled in a knot of blankets, he yanked his arm free and pressed it against his chin, thankful that no blood coated his hands. Morana hated him with a burning passion, sure, but she hadn’t tried to murder him quite yet. It was a dream. A royally fucked one, but a dream nonetheless. He took a deep steadying breath, eager to shake the dregs of the pain.

The sun had only just edged its way over the horizon Rowan noted as he padded to his bathroom. The air had turned chilly, biting at his sweat-covered flesh as he made his way to wash his clammy skin. Not caring to wait for it to heat, Rowan dunked his head under the tap. The cold water was a shock to his senses, but one well-needed as the dreary dregs of sleep were washed from his mind.

As Rowan finished lacing the ties to his trousers, a knock sounded at the door. He paused, scenting the air for whom the intruder may be, and his mood grew even darker. Knowing ignoring her would do no use, he stalked over and threw the door open, his displeasure plain.

“I do not remember giving you the location of my rooms, nor do I remember giving anybody the permission to do such,” Rowan ground out as Ilda smiled up at him. He did not like the woman and her presence always put him on edge.

“Rowan, you never do grow any brighter. It is quite difficult to hide things from an augur,” she scolded as she let herself in, finding a book-filled chair to take residence in. Rowan knew it would not change the outcome of their interaction, but he fixed her with the darkest glare he could manage. Many had fled from that look alone, but not the all-seeing Ilda.

“I see you don’t grow any more respectful,” he grumbled as he shut the door.

“Oh, honey, you know I only give respect to people who deserve it. You are not very high on that list with how you talk to me.”

“What on earth do you want, Ilda? I have things to do and places to be.”

“Places as far from your charge as possible, yes? Things that involve brooding and moping? I care not for your excuses. Just answer my questions, and this exchange will be all the shorter.”

Rowan felt his lips curl back as she fixed him with a too-kind smile. No lies hung in her words, so he resigned himself to just answering whatever she wanted to know. The sooner he was rid of her oddness in his personal space, the better.

“Yesterday, when she handed you your ass on a silver platter, what did it feel like?” Ilda said after a weighted pause, and Rowan growled.

“Would you like me to demonstrate the feeling?” His every word dripped with malice, but Ilda barely even blinked.

“Oh, please, Rowan. You could try, but I doubt you would get far. I meant no offence in the words, I wanted to know exactly what the force felt like.”

“Exactly how it felt for every other living thing within range - death. It felt like Acheros himself walked up to me and tried his hardest to break my spine against the trunk of the tree. It was cold, and it was beyond the power of anybody I had ever felt.”

“You told our king that she had been possessed and commanded away Death’s Hound. Are you certain it was not her?”

“I cannot be certain Ilda, because I cannot rummage around in heads like you,” Rowan bit out. The more he thought of it, the more the power felt exactly like Morana’s had, but it had not spoken like Morana in the slightest.

“What can you tell me of the “weird” reactions she has had to places?”

“There isn’t an awful lot to tell. I took her to one of the cache entrances, and as soon as we passed through the barrier she fell to her knees as if struck by some holy power. She dug her fingers into the ground and everything. When I asked, she was shocked I couldn’t feel it. She acted on edge until we left the area entirely. The other time was when we first entered one of the rooms attached to the library, the one with the mural. She walked right up to it, touched Acheros, and apparently felt the same thing.”

“You said when she touched Acheros specifically?”

“Yes, Ilda, it was him specifically that she touched. I do not see how this affects anything. She has been gifted with some even-more-dangerous mutation of her father’s power of pain. Of course she would feel drawn to Acheros.”

“She has not been gifted some mutation of pain, Rowan, you fool. She has the same powers as Death, all of them I believe. We don’t need the Unseelie, we need a god to teach her.”

Rowan rolled his eyes, walking to the door and opening it. He was grateful when the strange woman accepted his prompting, returned his books to the chair and left. The hairs on his arms prickled as she walked past him. When she was finally past the threshold of his rooms, he made to slam the door in her face, only to be stopped by a sandalled foot.

“I know you don’t like listening to anything but your own self-inflated ego, but it may do good to heed a god’s warning when they come to you in a dream. I feel you will otherwise find yourself awoken more frequently by the feel of a dagger in your flesh.”

Rowan certainly did slam the door in her face now, wishing to hear no more of the damn witch’s prophecy bullshit. He made sure to lock the door once it was securely shut, and spelled it against intrusion for good measure. He knew his turn to watch Morana would be starting in an hour, but truly longed for nothing more than to stay isolated in his room for the day. She would be out training with Cordan by now anyway, and that would likely keep them both occupied for a few hours.

After a long moment of contemplation and prayer to whoever may hear it for sanity, Rowan set to sharpening his sword and attempting to calm his mind. Cordan needed his sleep if he was to remain sharp on duty, and apparently, Rowan’s absence was being noted by the damned gods.