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m1ckeyb3rry · 3 months ago

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Series Synopsis: When the husband you’ve never met returns from the war you’ve never understood, he comes bearing a strange and inexplicable gift — a prince in chains who he refuses to kill.

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Mydei x F!Reader

Chapter Word Count: 9.9k

Content Warnings: pls check the masterlist there is. a lot. and i’m not retyping all of that LOL

A/N: UEUEUE I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S FINALLY DONE!! thank you so much to everyone who has been here and read this — whether you were here when i just had the masterlist up or if you only read part one/two five minutes ago, i appreciate all of you and your sweet comments + support more than you know!! this series was definitely an experiment for me so being met with so much positivity has been so 🥹💖 that said i hope you all enjoy how things wrap up here and maybe i will see you again on another story / shitpost of mine!!

Where once the sounds of the sea had sung you to sleep, now it was Mydeimos’s rattling breaths which were your lullaby. He never allowed you to protest, frowning and telling you that it was wrong to argue with the wishes of a dying man before extending his arms and pulling you against him, caging you there until you fell asleep with your cheek pressed to his heartbeat. His chest would rise and fall, unsteady with his lungs’ impending failure, but the promenade of his heart remained strong and true, for he was after all a warrior, and warriors were not so easily put down.

“It burns,” he whispered to you one day, when you were on that hazy brink of unconsciousness where you knew what he was saying but did not have the means to respond to it. “Y/N, it burns.”

“Hm,” you said, though in your mind you were frantic, clawing back to wakefulness. Your grip on him tightened; it would’ve been imperceptible to anyone else, the way the sling of your arms tensed around his waist, but he was always so keen, and keener still when it came to you, so he exhaled.

“Every time you leave, it is as though I am set alight,” he admitted. “I have never felt it before, this fire, which is not doused until you return to my side. I am mad from it — if your husband does not kill me first, I am sure it will spell my end. ”

“Then shall I never leave you?” you mumbled, your words barely coherent but insistent, pleading.

“If I had my way,” he said, and then he chuckled. It was a sad, resigned sound, though you were sure he did not mean for it to be, and, as if in apology, he stroked the back of his hand along the column of your neck. “If this were Kremnos, you certainly wouldn’t.”

You still dreamt, but now, instead of those memories of the end of your existence as Y/N L/N playing on loop, you saw visions of a different life, the one you had been denied, the one where you were the princess of Kremnos instead of the lady of this empire. In these dreams, the sky was blue and your father sent you fond letters from the sea, tucked in green envelopes that smelled of salt when you opened them, so that you did not miss it too terribly. You played with Verax, who followed you around as faithfully as a puppy, nudging you with his trunk to gain your attention and then lifting his head, pretending like he had no idea what you were referring to when you chided him through your laughter. You spoke your mind against anyone and everyone, teasing the great lords when their ideas were foolish and then suggesting better, kinder methods of approaching the spirited people, tempering the fire of their many victories with the sweetness of the sea’s peace.

In all of these scenes, there was one constant: Mydeimos, always Mydeimos. He remained at your side no matter how mundane the situation, and yet you never really grew accustomed to the quality of his presence, so that every time your gaze flicked to him, you lost your voice — but you did not hate it so much when it was him, when it was done of your own volition.

He was so beautiful, his leg unmarred from the chains which crossed over it, his voice steady and painless, his hair lively in the wind, his face smooth and free of shadows. He smiled more, too, finding great amusement in everything you said, and each time was like a sunrise, just as bright, just as warm. You loved him, the Mydeimos of your dreams, who would, on the rarest occasions, touch his lips to yours and then hold you in a different way, a way you could not ask the prince himself to in your waking moments.

“Is there medicine I can bring you?” you asked him another night, one of the few where you had convinced him that he needed the rest far more desperately than you did. He lay between your legs, coughing and coughing until you became frightened that red would dribble from his lips and stain the hem of your nightgown. Petting up and down his back in a vain attempt to soothe him, you tried to focus on anything but how suddenly fragile he seemed, how delicate his sturdy frame was growing.

“Only when I am free of this place will I be well,” he said, his voice hoarse as he caught his breath. “It is this darkness, this air. Medicine will alleviate it only momentarily, but nothing barring freedom will cure me, and that—”

He broke off into another fit of coughs, and you redoubled your efforts, massaging at his muscles, squeezing his hands, cradling his head. All he could do was groan, adjusting himself so that he was sitting up straight and could muffle it in his hands. His face and ears were pink; at first you thought it was from exertion, but then you realized he was ashamed, shying away from you.

“That is the only thing you cannot give me,” he completed. “I am sorry.”

“Why do you apologize?” you said. “Of all the people, why must you apologize?”

You wiped at the corners of his mouth with your thumb, and then you leaned your forehead against his, the most affection either of you permitted. How could you allow anything more to burst forth in the confines of this jail? This was the safest option, the only option, or at least the only one which might save you both from the spiral of grief your destinies seemed headed for.

“Perhaps it will come for me soon,” he said. “The death your husband hopes for.”

“Don’t say that,” you said.

“It will be easy,” he said. “I think that I will just go to sleep one day and never wake back up.”

“Mydeimos,” you said. “Please.”

“Can I ask one thing of you? You can deny me if you’d like, but please consider it to be my final request, and take that into account when you do,” he said.

“No,” you said. “No, you will make so many incessant demands of me that I will grow tired of them — but never of you, I will never grow tired of you—”

“Listen to me,” he said.

“Why do you speak as if you are already dead?” you said, your voice bordering on hysterical. “Why are you calling it your final request?”

“You can hear me,” he tried. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“You don’t know!” you said. “You don’t know that, so don’t act as if it’s certain!”

“Y/N,” he said, and then he was dabbing at your eyes, which was the most unfair part, because why between the two of you were you the one who wept? “It is certain. If I do not succumb to the conditions of this cellar, then do you really think your husband will simply ignore my existence? I am the prince of Kremnos. I am his greatest enemy. I cannot be allowed to live.”

“You are Mydeimos,” you said, nervous tremors wracking through your body. “You are mine. I want you to live. Tell me you’ll live.”

“I can’t,” he said. “Don’t ask me to lie to you.”

“Then I will make you,” you said. “You have to. I say you will, so you will.”

His breath was warm and sweet and heady, and he was so close, only a hair’s breadth away from you but still keeping that agreed-upon distance. For a while he allowed your words to hang in the air between you, and then he let out a sigh that made you dizzy and lightheaded with longing.

“This isn’t the Southern Sea,” he said. “You cannot command me, beloved princess. Nor is it Kremnos, where I could order you around; I recognize this, and so all I can do is beg you to take heed.”

“What is it, then?” you said, your teeth clenched in the hopes that the scratching in your throat would abate. “Your request.”

“If I should come to my end in this cellar—” You whimpered, and he shushed you, his index finger resting against the seam of your lips. “Y/N. If I should come to my end in this cellar, then I wish for you to be there. Let the last thing I see be so beautiful. Let there be light to guide me on my way. I know it is selfish of me to ask you to keep vigil over my corpse as it cools, just so that I may have one more moment of warmth, but that is all I can fathom wanting.”

You thought of rebuking him. You thought of telling him to never ask something like that of you again, but then you imagined him curling into himself the way Verax had, left alone in the dark, shuddering as death descended upon him as swift as nightfall, and all you could do was cling to him, stuttering out promises as your knuckles stamped divots into his shoulders: I will, I will, my dear Mydeimos, I will stay with you until the very last. You needn’t beg me anymore; I will stay with you. No matter when or how it must happen, I won’t let you leave this empire alone.

There were times when neither of you could find sleep, and then you both would entertain one another with stories. He would tell you of his youth, of his love for the flush of dianthuses in the spring and the tart sweetness of pomegranates in autumn, how his people adored him for his unprecedented magnanimity, especially towards the children, who flocked towards him in droves when he strolled the streets of Castrum Kremnos.

“Such dear little things,” he said while you brushed his hair, the most care you could lavish upon him without a hint of dissent on his part. “How can anyone be cruel to them? I don’t understand it. They are so guileless.”

“Not everyone has your patience,” you said, for that was what it really was. How strange, how contrary you would’ve found it just one year ago, the mere thought of saying that. Mydeimos, the beast from Kremnos — who in their right mind would call him patient? Yet what other word was there for the boy who had slept every night in an elephant’s stable? What other word was there for the prince who knelt so that the children of the streets could tie flowers into his hair when he passed? It was patience, there was no doubt about it, pure and enduring as it was. “If only they did.”

You could not tell him of your past, not when you were so bound, so instead you made up fantastical tales and told them with great animation, waving your hands about for emphasis and to make up for the fact that you could not show your heart to him the way he had to you. He did not complain, and after every story he would cock his head before nodding, always too clever for his own good.

“So,” he said. “This jellyfish princess, who nobody loved because of their fear…what became of her?”

“She spent the rest of her life floating about in the depths of the sea,” you said. “She thought she might be lost for good, but then she met the prince of dolphins, and instead of shying away from her, he smiled and told her that she was beautiful, that he knew who she was beneath those stinging moon-tendrils. And you know what the strangest thing is, Mydeimos?”

“What is it?” he said. You traced the mark underneath his right eye, the one which meant clarity — of vision, of mind, of heart. He blinked but did not cower away, instead remaining very, very still.

“She was never venomous in the first place,” you said. “They were frightened because they thought she might kill them, but she didn’t even have that capability, let alone the desire.”

“I see,” he said. “How horrible it is, to be thought of as a monster when you are anything but.

“Yes,” you said. “I should hope that anyone who is in such a predicament may find at least one person who looks at them as if they are something beautiful. Something more than what they are called by the rest of the world.”

“Well, my lady of dolphins,” he said, covering your hand with his own, keeping it held against his face. “At least I am so lucky.”

As rumors of a Kremnoan counterattack solidified into genuine intelligence, your husband and his cousin both grew more and more involved with their generals and their advisors, leaving you alone more often than you were not. You did not dare visit Mydeimos in the daytime, for his warning that the army-men often came to mock him rang in the back of your mind, but now you did not wait for midnight, instead fleeing to the cellar at dusk, as soon as your obligations to appear at dinner were fulfilled. He welcomed you, of course he did, though he was always more careful than you were, telling you that you had to return before the bakers awoke to make the day’s bread.

The days stretched on, and your will to return to the world of the palace faded until it was nothing but a weak, flickering candle-flame, wont to be extinguished at the slightest breeze. Let me die here, too. If I can be with you for a little longer, then I will gladly accept it. You never said it to him, but you thought it, every time he ushered you out of the cellar with the reminder that you might be caught. Let them find me, Mydeimos. Let them kill me if they will, but let them know that I was never their perfect empress. Even in the throes of docility, I was still Y/N L/N, the princess of the Southern Sea, who lay with the prince she was meant to hate.

“Dear lady!”

The banging on your door at such an hour was out of the ordinary, but even more alarming was your husband’s cousin’s voice, frantic yet shot through with something like ecstasy. Outside, the sun had not yet risen, though there was a watery gathering of light on the horizon that said there were only a couple more hours until dawn, and although you had already had slept as much as you would, back in the cellar you had just returned from, you were still confounded for a moment by the repetitive knocking, your voice coming out groggy and dazed.

“Whatever is the matter?” you said with a yawn, rubbing your eyes and flinging the door open with no small amount of irritation. “Why have you — ah!”

He grabbed your wrist, pulling you after him with a cackle of glee. “My dear lady, the time has finally come!”

“What are you talking about?” you said, almost tripping as you attempted to keep up with his sprint. He paused, whirling to face you, and you furrowed your brow when you saw that his eyes were glittering. “Why do you keep calling me that? ‘Dear lady,’ I mean. What mood are you in?”

“The Southern Sea has refused to cooperate,” he said. “The king says that they will not join in the war against Kremnos until the ruler of this empire is of the blood of the tides. That is after all what was promised in the treaty of our alliance, though I believe we all imagined he would not be so stubborn as to genuinely withhold aid from us when his own daughter is the empress.”

“Why are you happy about this?” you said, despite your own joy, which flowered with abandon at the news of your father remaining as stubborn as ever, uncompromising through sadness and sickness alike.

“Wars are costly, and without the aid of the Southern Sea, our empire will surely feel the effects of another conflict,” he said. “But the Kremnoans are coming to us, whether we want them to or not, and with my brother’s latest actions, they will only come sooner. We will lose…or, that is, he will lose. All that our family has built will crumble to nothingness at the hands of those barbaric, uncivilized warriors. It is known — by delaying the execution for as long as he has, he essentially set his fate in stone — but his fate needn’t be mine. No, indeed. Once I deliver the Southern Sea to the people of this empire, I will depose my dear brother, and then, with the combined might of both kingdoms behind me, I will defeat the Kremnoans for good.”

“You mean to overthrow my husband?” you said, and you should’ve felt surprised, but it made so much sense that it was more of a relief than anything, an explanation for every bewildering move he had made thus far.

“The life of a second son is spent ever waiting, ever watching, pliant until the moment to strike becomes evident,” he said. “You must know it’s not a coincidence that I have ingratiated myself with the soldiers and the councilmen alike — I am sure if it comes to it, they will support me over him, who they all but detest for his peacocking, his pointlessly grandiose gestures. They would follow me anywhere, and those who might protest, who might cling to the old regime, will fall in line when faced with the wealth of the Southern Sea, which is so vast as to be incomprehensible to those of us who have lived our entire lives here.”

“You speak of the sea, but how do you expect to win it when even my husband could not? You are gambling so much on something that is not even assured,” you said. “The king is not so easily swayed, this I can promise. If he has refused this empire once, he will surely do it again and again, for what does it matter who is asking? Why should he give you any different of an answer than he would my husband?”

“For a while, my plan was longer, more gradual,” he said, and then the two of you were walking again, although this time with consideration for your pace, which was about half of his, and with his arm heavy over your shoulders, companionable and careless, like you both were old friends out for a stroll. “The first thing I had to do was arrange for the course of your thoughts to turn my way. I thought this would be the most difficult, for my brother is after all such a charming, handsome man, but he neglected you to the point that it was an invitation, really! He made it so you would have loved anyone who showed your desperate, starving self any shreds of affection, and from there it was simple on my part. The seeds of infidelity were sown by my brother himself; all I did was water them, and is that such a sin?

“You would’ve taken me into your bed eventually. It is why I made such a crude suggestion all those days ago, though of course I never meant for you to genuinely allow a stableboy to father your heirs. All along I spoke of myself, who you — and therefore the Southern Sea — would then be bound to, even after the death of your husband rendered you free of your obligations to this empire,” he said.

“Why are you telling me this?” you said, for you were unsure of what else to say, unsure of what else to feel besides a discomfort at the fact that he had been toying with you. Even this, however, was mild, because who in this empire was not playing with your life? Since the day you had come here and sworn yourself to that statue, the people in this palace had treated you as little more than a vapid, sickly woman who brought nothing with her but senseless tears and parsimonious promises from a family that had sold her to save themselves. For your husband’s cousin to reveal himself in such a way was a foregone conclusion, and perhaps it should’ve hurt you, but all you could muster was a detached sort of acceptance.

“Things have changed,” he said. “He is distracted at present, and so, in this brief moment while the world’s eyes are averted, I can tell you this: today, your husband is signing the order for his own death. The palace will be thrown into turmoil, and without the protection of your marriage to him, you will find that once the Kremnoans come, you will be the first to fall. Who would defend the princess of a kingdom that refused to come to our assistance? But it needn’t be that way. Escape this fate with me, dear lady. Promise you will marry me, and when all is said and done, I will even let you go home.”

“Home?” you said, and he nodded, maneuvering you so that you were tucked away in an alcove where he could cup your face in his hands without fear of discovery.

“Yes,” he said. “Once this war is won and our heir is born, relations between the empire and the sea will be established. I will have no further use for you here, so why should I not allow you to return to where you came from? Certainly your father will not mind, sentimental old fool as he is.”

You swallowed back a lump in your throat before nodding, taking the insult to your father quietly, not wanting to upset him when this was the first glimpse at freedom you had been given. Home. He was promising to let you go home. You would marry anyone if they gave you that assurance, and something behind your eyes prickled the longer you thought about it.

They would welcome you so grandly, wouldn’t they? The palace would be covered in pearls, and the sea would be so blue, and the whales might even sing again in jubilation at your return. Your father would be there, his face lined and gaunt but alive and happy, so happy it’d carve a hole in your intestines, the kind of hole borne from an incapability to handle that much delight.

“Come with me, then,” he said. “We must run from this palace and make ourselves scarce for the moment, in order to gather our forces. This opportunity may not present itself once again, so we have to take advantage of it while we can.”

“Wait,” you said. “You have mentioned only vaguely what my husband is doing at present. What can possibly demand so much of his attention and also be such a fatal mistake?”

“Mydeimos,” he said. “Your husband has finally deemed it time for him to meet the lord of death, and so he is utterly preoccupied with that, but with the Kremnoans so close, this is nothing but folly. He is making a martyr out of the very man they adore so much; rather than cowing them, this will only fuel their efforts further. If we can escape during the execution, we can mobilize the army to cut them off, turning us into the indisputable heroes of the empire. It will be difficult, but it can be done, and with both him and the prince taken care of, there will be nothing standing in our way.”

“No,” you said immediately, ice shooting through your veins, the rest of his explanation blurring together as you elbowed him off of you with an unprecedented vigor, earning a yelp out of him. “No, Mydeimos is mine. He’s mine, he’s mine, he can��t die without my permission! He can’t, and I haven’t given it yet, so that means he won’t!”

“I was sent to fetch you for the event,” he said, dusting himself off and giving you an odd look. “Don’t throw a tantrum. They await us in the throne room, though you know he is impatient. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just kills him to end the waiting, which is all the better for — where are you going?”

You were already running in the direction of the throne room, smacking his hands away when he tried to reach for you. He hissed in dismay before yanking on your sleeve, holding you securely in place and scowling at you. The expression was so reminiscent of your husband that you actually recoiled, an nagging voice in the back of your mind reminding you of what you had sworn: duty, obedience, docility.

“If you leave now, then everything will be lost. He will know by your presence what I plan to do, and I will be seized,” he warned as you fought back the instincts that demanded you go limp in his grasp. “Do you understand? You will die here, and for what? Your own possessiveness? Your childish greed? How spoiled you are! To think that you would throw away everything, all because someone touched your favorite toy! I had heard the whispers that you were such a brat in your home, allowed to run unchecked by your father as you were, but this is unprecedented. Think for once, won’t you? If you do this, you will never go home again.”

Never go home again. Never go home again. Never go home again.

“I don’t care,” you said, and near tears though you were, reluctant though you were, you pulled away from him. “How many times must I say it before all of you listen? He is mine. I will never, ever leave him.”

That was the last thing he had asked of you, the only thing he had ever asked of you. If I should come to my end in this cellar, then I wish for you to be there. And you had sworn you would be, so how could you break that promise? Not for anything. You would not break it for anything, not if it meant your husband’s ruin, not if it meant you could go home again, not if it meant your father would embrace you for the rest of your life. You would give up all of these things if you had to, but you would not leave him to die alone.

The throne room was as cavernous as the last time you had been in it, empty and hollow like the stomach of a titan. In the center, the statue of your husband loomed, as unfeeling as the day you had wed it, and in the back, upon his raised throne, was your husband himself, staring down at you imperiously.

“Where is he?” you said, your voice meek, yet somehow stronger for its trembling, for the proof that you could not ask such a thing and yet were doing it anyways. “My lord. Where is he? Where — is — Mydeimos?”

By the end of it, you were gasping the words out, and you glared at him as well as you could, the most rebellion you were allowed. He did not say anything about it, but you knew he saw, for the faintest hints of humor flickered in his cold eyes, as if you were a jester he had hired, a clown instead of a wife.

“Why are you so worried? Haven’t you been telling me to kill him since the day I brought him here?” he said before laughing in earnest. “I should be asking you where that treacherous cousin of mine is, but I know the answer to that all too well. Did he ask for you to come with him? He has always been so insatiable. Everything that is mine, he longs for. Such is the nature of second sons, though that’s not something I’d expect either of you to understand.”

There he was, chained to the base of the statue in the same fashion he had once been bound to the wall of the cellar, his left leg heavy with gold but the rest of his limbs free: Mydeimos, his tether shorter now, but still loose enough that he could shift to watch you as you took one step and another, trudging towards the inexorable pull of the throne, of your husband, who regarded you with a careful disdain.

“You can stop there,” he said. “I know you want to remain at his side, so you needn’t force yourself to go any further.”

You halted immediately, just close enough to Mydeimos that if you were to reach out, you could grasp at his arm, just close enough that you could almost feel the warmth he always emanated, like he was your very own furnace — but also far enough that there was still a sharp pang in your lungs with every breath you took, far enough that your heart still ached from the distance. You wanted to embrace him, to run your palms up and down his shoulders, to ask him if he was alright while you tended to every wound that had never been inflicted upon him but which he still stung from, anyways. Yet in front of your husband, the most you could do was hold your breath, keeping the scent of him in your lungs for safekeeping.

“The prince of Kremnos and the princess of the Southern Sea…what a collection of delegates I’ve gathered here,” your husband said. Both you and Mydeimos had to crane your necks to look up at him from the dais his throne rested upon, and you knew he found some satisfaction in that, in the simple reminder that he was above you in every way that mattered. What was a prince or a princess compared to an emperor? Your titles were more of mockeries than anything, reminders of what you had once been but what you never would be again, now that you were so soiled by this place — a prince-turned-prisoner and a princess-turned-wife.

“You can’t kill him,” you said, taking yourself aback with the boldness of it, the urgency of the request. “My lord, I will do anything, I will bear your children without complaint, I will beg my father to give you the Southern Sea, but please — please let him live, please — I will take responsibility for him, I will drag him around by his chains until we both die if that’s what I must, but don’t kill him today, please, I will have nothing to my name if you take him, too—”

“My pretty wife,” he interrupted you. “Your fretting is endearing, but it is unnecessary. I do not intend to execute him just yet. There is still something I need from him, and he can hardly accomplish it if he is dead, after all.”

“Is that why you have brought me here? Whatever it is, I won’t do it. I have no interest in being your accomplice,” Mydeimos said. His words were still thick with drowsiness, and you realized with a start that they must’ve poured a sleeping draught down his throat in order to bring him to the throne room from the cellar. You shivered, and once again you wished you could hold him against your breast, could defend him from the tribulations of this empire, of this place and these people that found such particular and cruel pleasure in beating him down, over and over and over until he was ground to nothing but dust.

“I think you’ll find that this is a mutually beneficial deal,” he said. “You see, I’m in a bit of a dilemma at the moment. My own cousin, set to betray me; my father-in-law, refusing to support me; the Kremnoan army, marching towards my city.”

“None of these are my problem,” Mydeimos replied.

“No, of course not,” your husband said. “But your captivity is, right? You have been locked away in a cellar, kept from the sun until you have been reduced to this waifish state. Don’t you wish to be freed?”

“You mean to free him?” you said. Your husband raised a placating hand, silencing you immediately with the casual gesture.

“He must free himself. Even I cannot break thrice-blessed chains until their condition is fulfilled,” he said. “But you can say I have a...vested interest in the completion of this specific condition.”

“What is it?” Mydeimos said warily. All three of you knew that this was a trap being laid out for him; after all, this was your husband, who was known above all else for his tricks and cheats, for being a serpent instead of a lion, a man with nothing resembling honor to his name. Yet already the two of you were ensnared, and so your only choice was playing out his script until the end, following his plans until they came to fruition, no matter how unwillingly.

“You know already,” your husband said. “That’s the thing about thrice-blessed chains: as much as they long to bind their target, once they have accomplished that, they wish most avidly to be destroyed, and so they whisper to their prisoner the methods of their undoing. After all, such immortal power is not meant to remain on this earth for very long.”

“I haven’t the faintest clue what you refer to,” Mydeimos said. “Tell me plainly; I have no interest in these games of yours, snake-emperor. I have played one too many already, and I don’t have the patience for any more.”

“Indulge me this final time,” your husband said. “I am sure you have some idea as to what I’m talking about. The thing which you desire above all else, which quells that remarkable fire that has blazed within you since your capture…oh, you really are lost. What a comical surprise! The prince of Kremnos is an idiot!”

“My lord,” you said softly. “Don’t torture him like this. Haven’t you done enough already?”

Perhaps you should’ve been more careful, but you did not want to mind your words more than you already did, and anyways, you had a sense that hiding anything from him was futile at this point. He could see through you as certainly as if you were made from glass, and he did so with impunity, with the same beguiling set to his mouth as ever. His eyes, unclouded and bright, rested on you for a while, and then he snorted, nodding like he was indulging in the whims of a child making some impossible demand.

“Fine, then,” he said. “It’s not such a difficult thing, anyways. In fact, it’s simple, especially for a man such as he. Mydeimos, prince of Kremnos, heed my words: if you wish to be freed, you must kill your master.”

“Easy enough,” Mydeimos said immediately, any traces of lethargy long gone with this news, even the false sleep bolting in face of his vehemence. “I can feel it in my bindings that you are telling the truth. Well, come down here, then, coward! I have wished to destroy you from the moment I heard your name. Shall I tear out your throat? Your heart? Don’t just sit there and stare at me, emperor. If this is your wish, then challenge me as a man would — as you refused to at our last meeting!”

“You can do that, if you’d like,” your husband said, his voice lilting and musical. “My heart and my throat, with your nails or with your teeth, whichever you prefer. I’m sure you’d even enjoy it, filthy brute as you are…but no matter how you go about it, it’s inconsequential. My death will not release you.”

“What?” Mydeimos said. “Why not?”

“Because,” your husband said, and then he glanced at you and you swore, you swore his pupils were slitted, his teeth sharp like fangs, the corners of his mouth blue with venom, “I am not your master. She is.”

“I’ll kill you,” Mydeimos said, baring his teeth, a snarl in his voice when he shoved you behind him, standing between you and the throne. “You lying mongrel, I’ll kill you—”

“I’m not lying,” your husband said. “What, did you think I just gave you to her for no reason? As soon as I summoned the chains and became aware of the condition, my plan began, and her stewardship over you was only one of my contingencies. You can tell I’m being truthful, can’t you? The chains are affirming it. You’re drawn to her. You want to be near her. You want to kill her.”

“That’s not why,” Mydeimos said, and then he was turning to you, his eyes wild with pleading. “Y/N, that’s not why, that’s not—”

“Don’t tell me,” your husband said with a chuckle. “All this time…you actually thought you loved her? No, you don’t. You don’t even have that capacity, prince of terrors. It’s the chains. It has always been the chains.”

“Why?” you said, and it came out as it always did: demure, gentle, when all you wanted to do was scream and throttle him. “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand it. Why do you want me to die?”

“In truth, this confrontation is the most desperate option,” he said. “I was hoping he would’ve killed you long ago. That’s why I had you go to the cellar, after all.”

“You…?” you said.

“The prince of Kremnos,” he said, and your stomach dropped. “He calls for you. With the blessings of the messenger lord, it was not so difficult to fool you, dear lady, especially when you have the kind of sweetness that all but begs to be manipulated.”

“You made her this way,” Mydeimos said. “Don’t you dare put her down for something you did to her. It is your fault.”

“You may be right, at that,” your husband said. “Well, anyways, does it matter who did it? Regardless, she is such an amenable woman, so easily led astray, straight to the cellar which should’ve spelled her doom. What a story to tell your father, don’t you think? His most beloved daughter, slaughtered by the savage prince Mydeimos. The Southern Sea and Kremnos would bleed one another dry in their fury, and thus there would be no resistance left to oppose us when we came en masse to conquer them both.”

“But he didn’t kill me,” you said. “He never even tried to.”

“Yes,” your husband said. “This has always confounded me. That morning, when I came to see the state of you, to raise the alarms that my wife had been murdered in cold blood, I found you sleeping peacefully in your bed, without a trace of worry in your lovely expression. Then I thought you might awaken and bawl to me of your near-escape from death, but to my everlasting shock, you were entirely unaffected; furthermore, that night, you returned to his side, and with food in your hands, to boot!”

“Y/N,” Mydeimos whispered fervently. “Y/N, you must believe me, I would never — I know I said I considered it, but I would never hurt you, I would not, I love—”

“Oh, but you will,” your husband said, cutting him off. “Or else you will spend the rest of your short, miserable life as a prisoner of this empire. Kill her, and then kill me if you want. My cousin is far from this place, thinking that he is taking advantage of me, and through him, my blood will remain on the throne; it is the only reason I have not dissuaded his attempts at a coup, which were so clumsy that even a child could see through them. Forever and always, he will remain my heir, and I suppose there is some irony in that.”

“This will not work the way you think it will,” Mydeimos said. “I will tell the king of the sea what you did to her. With the support of the Southern Sea, Kremnos will demolish you. Perhaps we are not so wealthy, but our army is infinitely stronger, and with the south at our side, you will never be able to defeat us.”

“Who will he believe, I wonder? The one who married his daughter, or the one who killed her?” your husband said. “Because you will not be able to lie about that, Mydeimos, and you do not know the old king as I do. The circumstances are irrelevant — the mere fact that you killed his darling will be enough to turn his mind to darkness. He will never stand with Kremnos, and the sea itself will never welcome the rabid prince that murdered its most beloved.”

“What if I give him to you?” you said, interrupting their argument, which strangely enough was being held over your fate. “If he is yours, then you will be his master. He will kill you, and then he will be free.”

Your husband did not falter. “Yes.”

“You are not frightened of this outcome, although it is contrary to everything you have planned for,” you said. “Why is that?”

“Did you think I would not account for such a simple escape?” he said. “Oh, my dear lady. Come here.”

You were moving before you knew it, moving until you stood at the foot of his throne in wait. He did not say anything for a while, and you realized he was looking at Mydeimos, who was staring at you in abject horror. This was the first time he was seeing the extent of it, the first time even you yourself were experiencing the full strength of your devotion, and the expression on his face clawed at your throat even as your husband caressed your hair. He was grieving you already, you thought, that wise, tender prince — he knew what your husband did not, he knew that you were little more than a marionette, already killed long ago by the very man who pet you now as if you were his lapdog.

“Duty, obedience, docility,” he recited. “Go on, then, my wife. Try and give him to me. Your prince, your prisoner…give him to me.”

“Mydeimos,” you said. “I—I—”

Your words dissolved into a flurry of coughs, and you hunched over from the violence of it, pressing your forehead against your husband’s knees as the entirety of your chest collapsed in on itself. There was an invisible fist barging past your lips, imaginary ropes binding your tongue to the roof of your mouth, and so every time you tried to form those words, you were left with nothing but a weak series of inhales and exhales, body rejecting the mere thought of such a betrayal.

“You swore to me, too,” you choked out. “Didn’t you? How can you do this to me when you swore you wouldn’t?”

“Trust,” he said. “And so I trust that your death will bring me what I need. Favor; and so I am favoring you with the honor of sacrificing for the empire. Companionship; and so I will not leave you to die alone. Surely I will chase you into the afterlife, and then we can be together for the rest of eternity.”

“Let go of her,” Mydeimos said. “If it is promises that we speak of, then let me make one to you as well, you asinine half-wit: whatever becomes of you, I promise you that today will be the last time you ever place your hands on her. Don’t you presume that you will get to touch her again. Don’t even think that you will get to lay eyes on her.”

“How passionate, prince of terrors,” your husband said. “But you would do well to remember that she is my wife. You can make no declarations as to her outcome — the only claim you have regarding her is your persistent desire to kill her, and even that is borne from your bindings. If not for the condition of the chains, you would not think of her.”

“And if it weren’t for the Southern Sea, you wouldn’t think of her, either,” Mydeimos said. “But I would. I don’t care for her father’s wealth or the fact that she can free me. I don’t care for the food she gave me or the sleep she brought me. I don’t care for any of it. I would love her if she were nothing more than the princess of seals and whale-song, because she is mine. Yes, it is so; I may belong to her, but she is mine in a way you can never understand.”

“Then take her,” your husband said, nudging you, which was all the permission you needed to scrabble backwards, stumbling over your feet as you retreated to the safety of the shadow cast over Mydeimos by the statue. “Take her and kill her and desecrate your body when you are done with it, if that is what you please.”

“You—”

“Mydeimos,” you said, cutting him off before he could hurl back some insult at your husband. “He’s telling the truth, right?”

His eyes were beseeching when he took your hands in his own, holding them against his heart so you could feel in the vascular pounding the reluctant and yet unquestionable verity of it. Your husband was many things, but this time, he was not a liar. This time, when you wanted him most to be baiting you, he was whole in his honesty. Mydeimos, if he ever wished to be free again, would have to kill you.

“I won’t do it,” he said. “I won’t. I don’t care what he says or what he plots or if it’s the truth. I won’t kill you.”

He was being earnest. He who was so abrasive and harsh, the hostile man you had found in the cellar and come to love, the man who had not killed you yet despite everything which told him to — even now he would not. He would remain in chains for the rest of his days, but he would not kill you. It was your father all over again, your father who would’ve lost the sea if you bade it, who would’ve fought such a pointless fight to save you from the empire, and so you found yourself shaking your head. Just as then, you would not allow yourself to be saved. Just as then, you would not be the reason why he fell.

“You must,” you said, your fingers soothing over the red designs running up his neck and over his shoulders. “Mydeimos, you cannot allow yourself to be swayed by something which doesn’t exist. You heard him. You don’t care for me; it is the chains which cause you to feel this way. How can you give up your life for a falsehood? You must kill me. Kill me and be free, my prince, kill me and run to my home as fast you can. Ignore the words of others, who know nothing of our ways; I swear the sea will welcome you, it will welcome you and love you as surely as I did. Run to my home and tell my father everything, tell him that I sent you — I by my name, I by the title you bestowed upon me. He will believe you. The whales will sing at your arrival, and he will believe you.”

“What is my life?” he said. “What is my freedom? I cannot have either if they must be tainted by your death, brought about by my own hands. I can hardly bear to kill my enemies. Don’t beg of me to do such a thing to you, to you who I have loved so well since I heard your name for the very first time…”

“Do you think that you will be the one to kill me?” you said. “I have been dead for so long. You are not slaying me in some vicious or cruel manner; you are only dealing the final blow and freeing us both from this torment.”

“No,” he said. “I am not one for eloquence, so I cannot say it more elegantly, but I refuse, I refuse, I won’t be the victim of his schemes again, and I won’t let you be, either. Take my chains in your hands and walk me as if I am your hound, jerk me when I am disobedient and allow me enough slack to kill those who stand before us, but do not die.”

“Think of your kingdom,” you entreated. “What will Kremnos do without you? What will become of them if they fall to the empire? And what of my home? My people? I have died one death for them, when I swore fealty to that husband of mine. I cannot bear their suffering, I will die so many times if I can relieve them of it, and do you not remember what I said to my father all those many days ago? I will find love in it. I will find happiness. Even in this loveless place, I found you; so, too, in death will I find escape. Kill me now — if it is you, I should not mind so much, I think.”

“Why must you be so trapped?” he said. “Why can I not free you in any other way? Why is death the only end to your bondage?”

“That is the nature of it,” you said. “Only by his death or mine will this marriage end. Only by his death or mine will I be saved. But he knows this, and so he remains ever out of your reach. Mark my words, he will not allow you to kill him until it is convenient for him. There is no way to outsmart a man whose power we do not even understand, a man who is so loved by divinity itself.”

Your husband was silent, observing the argument with the self-satisfaction of one whose prey was within the reach of his jaws. All three of you knew that Mydeimos could not win; the desires set upon him by the chains combined with your persistent appeals would sway his convictions until he turned his mouth upon your heart and tore it out with his canines, sinking his incisors into your chest for lack of a better weapon with which to do the deed, lapping at the rivulets of blood until your own body resembled his own, covered in streaks of irate crimson that wrote out your accursed predestination.

“The next time we meet,” Mydeimos said, closing his eyes and thumping his forehead against yours in resignation. “The next time I find you, I will steal you from him. I will come to your wedding before you can swear your vows, and I will take you away. Such a beast, they will say, such a brute, snatching a bride from her groom, who awaits her most eagerly upon the altar. But then again, to the world, that is just the way of Kremnos, and next time, I will prove them right. Next time, I will make you the queen of my horrible kingdom, and you can scream and slap at me if you’d like, but you will be mine in full, mine and not at all his, so even if you hate me, I will accept it.”

“The altar,” you repeated, and then, in the back of your mind, you thought of such a faint, silly thing that it almost did not bear vocalizing. Yet what other choice did you have but to say it? Even if it was imprudent and rash, even if it would come to nothing, you had to tell him, in whatever way you could manage. “Mydeimos, listen to me.”

“Hm?” he said as you grabbed his jaw, holding it firmly so that he could not flinch away, keeping him steady and facing you. “Y/N?”

“Everything I have ever wanted to say to you, you have heard. You told me that, once,” you said.

“Yes,” he said, his brow furrowing. You brushed his hair back, pushing it off of his forehead, marveling at how his wellbeing was already so improved. You doubted he had been back in the sun for more than an hour or so, but the color was returning to his skin, and there was genuine vitality to him. His breaths came steadily, evenly, and his eyes were like gemstones set in his strong, handsome face, which was flushed with a despondent sort of verve.

“My marriage,” you said. “Do you remember what I said of it? I cannot repeat it now, I am not able, but you must recall what I told you. The day of my wedding, everything I said…it is desperate and slim, but there is a chance. You must remember, please, you can forget everything else, but remember that. What did I tell you?”

“What are you talking about?” your husband said, and for the first time, he stood, alarm creeping into his tone. “Dear lady, what lies are you espousing? Kill her now, prince of terrors, before she can deceive you further! Kill her and free yourself!”

Staring into the churning gold of Mydeimos’s irises, praying to the sea that your own spoke everything you could not, you ignored your husband. There was not much time, and so much was left unsaid; all you could do was trust in the prince, trust that he knew you and thus knew what you were trying to convey.

“The gods of this empire are not on your side, but I am,” you said, and as his eyes widened, you tilted his chin towards the statue. “No matter what, I always will be.”

Ramming his shoulder into you, knocking you to the ground by the foot of the throne, Mydeimos gathered the drooping chains that lay on the ground. Pushing yourself up, you clambered backwards, away from the vengeful figure who, in that moment, was a god unto himself, one who did not request the help of any other deities but commanded it, who ordered their assistance as easily as a general might.

“What is he doing?” your husband said, the collar of your dress tearing as he used it to haul you to your feet. “Kill her, you idiot, what business do you have with that statue?”

“He is not the idiot,” you murmured. “You are, my lord.”

Mydeimos swung the chains around the neck of the statue, and then, with the strength of three squadrons of soldiers, his braid gleaming bright with the unwilling blessings of the gods you had invoked that day in the cellar, he yanked it taut, causing dark cracks to form in the marble.

“Mydeimos!” your husband roared, but Mydeimos did not stall, the muscles in his arms straining, sweat pouring off his forehead as he continued to tug on the metal, slicing into the stone with his own effort, the unbreakable chains digging into the white expanse. “Cease your actions immediately!”

With a great crash, the head of the statue shattered against the ground, bursting into a thousand pieces that sprayed into the air, forming clouds of dust and debris that filled the throne room. As the one you had sworn your vows to died a miserable death, its weight lifted from your shoulders, and so, gasping for breath — not from the muddied air but from your regained sovereignty — you seized your husband by the front of his shirt.

“Imbecile,” you hissed, ignoring the wounds he clawed into your forearms as he fought off your grip. “I never did give you a wedding gift, did I? My apologies for the delay, but you’ll find that this present is entirely worth the wait. The finest of plunders for the finest of husbands: the prince of Kremnos himself!"

“You can’t,” he said.

“I can,” you said. “And know this, you foul worm: you cannot give back a gift once it has been freely given. You cannot refuse him. Perhaps that is how affairs are conducted in your backwards empire, but where I am from, it is not so.”

You pushed him towards the waiting Mydeimos with all the strength you had. The prince descended with a swiftness, not even allowing him to stand before catching him, snapping his neck as easily as a butcher might snap a pig’s, tossing him aside and then lifting his gaze towards you, both of you frozen with anticipation.

The chains melted into sunbeams, sparkling against him for a moment longer before vanishing entirely, the braid in his hair coming undone as he raced towards you on unsteady feet. You met him halfway, and when his legs gave way, you were there to catch him, kissing the crown of his head over and over as he sank into your arms.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had some ideas of coming to greet you so bravely, and here I am, in such a state.”

“Don’t say sorry,” you said. “Don’t say sorry to me, Mydeimos, you have done something that ought to be impossible, and with it you have freed me. There is no one braver. You must never say sorry.”

“I killed him,” he said, like he could not quite believe it himself.

“Yes,” you said, and then you were crying into his hair, shuddering with the ache and exhaustion of everything that had just transpired, the scratches gouged into you by your late husband’s dying efforts biting from the touch of the open air. “You killed him. That putrid, dastardly coward…you killed him.”

“We mustn’t delay,” Mydeimos said. “They will come looking for the emperor soon, and at present, we cannot fight off an entire army. We have to flee while we still have the chance and that cousin of his is still too focused on saving himself to realize that there is nothing left for him to be safe from — or nothing of this empire, anyways.”

“Where should we go? Kremnos?” you said.

“No,” he said, using your bicep to balance himself as he drew himself back to his full height. “The Southern Sea.”

“The Southern Sea?” you said, your voice catching. He smiled at you slightly.

“The wars and the fighting can wait. The empire has been weakened enough that they will bide their time before making any decisive moves, and the Kremnoans have survived thus far, so what is a little longer? Before I return to the strife and violence of battle, I will take you home. After everything, that is the least you deserve,” he said, taking your arm and dabbing at the droplets of blood which welled where the skin had broken, a frown etched on his features at the sight. “Come. A few elephant keepers will pose no difficulty to me, even like this; let us fetch Verax and use his might to escape this empire.”

“Wait,” you said. “There is something I must do first.”

As Mydeimos watched, you strode over to your husband’s limp, cold body. Drawing your leg back, you kicked it, over and over until his features were all but unrecognizable, mangled and swollen as they were. Then, gathering saliva in your mouth, delighting in the barbarism, which felt sickeningly appropriate despite how uncharacteristic it was of your typical refinement, you spat on him.

It splashed against its cheek, the frothing bubbles washing away the salty tracks of his dried tears, and only then did you turn, rejoining Mydeimos so that the two of you could leave the empire behind for good.

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