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araneaes-order · 6 years

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In the Bleak Mid-winter Ch. 6

LAST HERALD-MAGE FANFIC

Fix-it…ish. canon mm

Young Stefen, living on the streets, found out someone was looking for him and decided to lay low, avoiding the mysterious stranger in red, so he’s never taken to Haven by Bard Lynnell. It was an unfortunate decision, but in spite of it, he and Van do meet up, just later, and under less kind circumstances. Basically a redo on the ending. ~55k words Finished.

Word Count: ~9400

Rating: Mature for, sorry, lots of bad stuff, rape, sexual abuse, child abuse. Canon was pretty dark, especially what I was redoing here, so’s this.

On AO3.

Chapter Synopsis: Stefen’s backstory with Leareth. (Mind the warnings)

Stefen felt ready to crawl out of his skin at any moment. They were so close to Master Dark already. It was just the pass between them now and Stefen hated crossing through that narrow, dangerous way, the mountains to either side like two frozen oceans, or one, divided, and only waiting for the perfect moment to come crashing back together and smash whatever insignificant creature was stupid enough to try to ford them.

The Herald, the whole reason he was doing this, didn’t even seem to care. The closer they’d gotten, the cooler he’d become. Stefen wanted to shake him until he expressed some of the terror he ought to be feeling, if only so Stefen could feel less alone in it—except he’d seen the man blow out the roof of a keep without half trying and kill almost twenty men with frightening little effort, and that after being beaten bloody and broken. No, Stefen wasn’t making a move on that one in anger.

The Herald and Master Dark might just be well matched in more than appearance. …if the Herald had brought an army with him, a few dozen magical monsters from the Palagirs, a score of lesser mages to drain of power and life and hope…

At least he probably was fine going off by himself here, though Stefen had tried pointlessly to argue with him about it at first. But no one came this far north without express invitation from Master Dark. No one who was hunting him would even consider he might be so close already; this was possibly as safe as they could be, short of on the other side of the continent.

The Herald had told him ominously to “rest while he could,” as though there was any chance of that, before taking off for whatever solitary errand he was pursuing. Stefen’d napped a little on that uppity horse and now sick dread was churning his innards, making him shiver more than the cold even as he huddled over the small fire the Herald had left.

When that horse, that Companion, let out a terrified call and half rose to her feet from the lying position, he jumped to his own in a panic, his dagger drawn, pointed out at the dark, wondering what the hell she’d caught wind of. After a moment, with no attackers and no more noise from her behind him, he turned to find she’d settled back into her previous position and was only staring wide-eyed and mouth agape, into the darkness.

No. No, she wasn’t staring at anything, he realized after a moment, another shiver racking him; she was talking to her Herald, and apparently not liking what he was saying to her.

Stefen retook his place, huddled so close to the flames he was at genuine risk of his clothes catching fire. Gods, it was creepy.

He suspected he was missing most of the times they were “talking” but he’d caught it often enough: the sudden blank expression of one or the other as their focus turned inward, the gestures, a turn of the head, a sudden pat or stroke, the shifting of the Companion to be closer to him, all hints of a constant flow of conversation going on around Stefen’s head.

And thank the gods for that! He shivered again.

He couldn’t imagine anything worse than a relationship that unnecessarily close. Someone always in the back of your head—more than bad enough the times Master Dark had strutted through his, thanks—how horrible and invasive it would be to have someone just…always there?

And how much worse would it be when they turned on you? he wondered, since in his experience everyone always did, eventually.

He kept his eye on her. She was supposed to be resting. She’d run all day after their early start, and would run all or most of the night just to get them to the other side of the pass. Hopefully she’d run all the next day—or several—afterwards, to get them well away from here once the Herald had seen what he wanted of Master Dark’s forces.

Stefen still couldn’t stop feeling guilty, even though this clearly wasn’t about him. Whatever was between the Herald and Stefen’s Master had been going on longer than he’d been involved. But that didn’t let Stefen off the hook for bringing the Herald, helpless, to Rendan, orders or no.

Guilt was idiotic. Pointless. A privilege for people with wealth and power and real choices in life. But that didn’t mean a penniless boy couldn’t feel it.

He knew what would take the edge off, the only thing that would, and he ached for it with a desperation that made his fingers almost fumble on the strings of his gittern, which he didn’t remember breaking out though he was glad to fall into the music when he noticed it.

It was almost as good. There was a time it had been better; when the music had been the nexus of all his hopes. Now even the music couldn’t stop him feeling the flask tucked tight in its hidden pocket against his chest, and hearing the sweet call of it.

He’d be useless if he gave in. He owed the Herald a clear head until he got him where he wanted to go, no matter how futile the Herald’s desire to see the Master’s work was.

His fingers tripped off into a faster tune, loosing some of his frantic tension in racing, tumbling notes. As quickly as he wished to be flying away from here, his fingertips strummed the strings. He was panting when he finished the song, heart pounding.

His eyes slid over the Companion. She was lying down now, as if she was dozing, but he suspected she was still in contact with her absent Herald. He wondered how far their mental link extended.

He moved into a softer, gentler song then. He didn’t call on his pain blocking gift, but he did weave a bit of restfulness into the melody. Peace, he played, until he felt the calmness rising in himself. Nothing but now. No use feeling guilty over what was past, no point worrying about what they would face in the morning; for now, there was rest.

It didn’t last. The Herald returned a bit later, striding out of the snow that had started falling again, like a creature of the snows himself, even if he was wearing the drab brown of the Rendan’s unfashionable bandits instead of his ruined Heraldic Whites. The silver in his hair and in his eyes was more than enough to make him seem a creature of an elemental winter, and the calm surety of his too-pale face made him seem more than human.

The longer he had spent with him, the more superficial his similarities to Master Dark had seemed. As the paler one, of eye and hair anyway, Stefen would have thought he’d have appeared the…weaker. More worn, more aged, and in some ways that was true, but age and care made him seem more real than Master Dark, and made the dark mage feel more and more like an imperfect copy, crafted by a talented but uninspired artist.

The Herald went straight to his horse, who stood, not waiting for a word or visible sign, so he could fit her gear back on her again.

Without being told, Stefen put away his gittern and quenched the fire.

“’Fandes says to thank you for the music,” the Herald said, without turning from his work.

Startled, Stefen looked at her, as though to check her expression—as though a horse’s face could have revealed whether that was truth or mockery.

The ride through the night was by far the worst part of the journey, as Stefen had expected. The pass was dangerous, narrow, and the crags of the mountains on either side made dark, looming silhouettes against the sky. The wind funneled through the pass, a mad, howling thing, raging and frigid and even with the Herald in front of him, shielding him from the teeth of the beast, he couldn’t stop imagining the damage frostbitten fingers would wreak on his musical abilities.

That was still less terrifying than the thought of being in Master’s Dark’s presence again if he found them before Stefen could convince the Herald to run away.

And he didn’t want to think about what the Master would do if he found Stefen with the Herald and realized he hadn’t been bringing him to turn over. Frostbit fingers would be an easy fate in comparison, even if he never played an instrument again.

The Herald patted one of his hands, and he realized he was probably holding on to the man far too tightly but he couldn’t make his grip loosen.

“The end of the pass will be guarded,” the Herald said, turning his head and shouting over the wind.

Stefen nodded against the Herald’s back, though he understood it had not been a question.

“I’ll set a Seeming on us—an illusion. Keep quiet and stay down and close to my back and I promise they won’t see us.”

Stay down and close? That wasn’t a problem; Stefen buried his face in the Herald’s cloak, trying hard to regulate his breathing. He’d been feigning indifference to the world since he was a child. But he couldn’t pretend indifference to Master Dark, pride be damned.

He was so lost in his fears he didn’t even notice them passing the guards that Master Dark had set at the northern entrance of the pass.

The Herald’s gasp and sudden stiffness was his sign that they were probably in sight of the stronghold. He sighed.

The Herald had cut east as soon as he’d reached the open snow plains north of the pass. The Companion found a small ridge of stone that curved up along the mountains, taking them high enough to look down over Master Dark’s work.

Stefen finally forced himself to look as well.

There was a straight path from the entrance of Crookback Pass to the grand front gates of Master Dark’s keep. Though calling it a “keep” was doing the elegant structure a grave disservice: it was a small palace, pulled from a child’s song, multi-towered, sparkling with glass even from such a distance, pennants flying, with high walls surrounding a courtyard that somehow enclosed a lush and verdant garden, even in the heart of this wintery land. It was all well suited to the powerful and vain man who’d made it his seat and stronghold.

But Stefen had seen all that before.

New to him, though it was little surprise, was the army camped around the keep, filling an uncomfortable amount of the landscape. It crowded the plains almost to the horizon, it surrounded the keep, it was gathered around that road between it and the pass, and Stefen could already imagine the spectacle that the Master had planned: him riding out of those gates on something that wasn’t a horse, along that clear, open road, his men falling in behind him as he rode through them, taking the vanguard and leading them through that pass into the southern land—and then to Valdemar.

Stefen knew he’d been gathering an army, allying with and subjugating many of the tribes of peaceful and not-so-peaceful caribou herders who’d once controlled the northern country.

He sighed wearily. You could even see where some of the beasts were being held: both summoned mage beasts and wild things captured from the Pelagirs. The former would obey their Master’s command, the latter could be set free and driven before the army to sow chaos in his enemy’s ranks.

The mages weren’t as visible, but Stefen knew they were there too, likely in the keep with Master Dark himself. Some would be blood mages, willing acolytes of such a powerful dark mage, hoping to learn enough at his knee to one day overthrow him. Others were captives and slaves, brought to be drained of magic and of life, their blood forfeit to the Master’s spells. That was the end that Herald Vanyel was courting. He was powerful, as Stefen had seen, but Master Dark was unstoppable. Hopefully now, looking over the forces he had gathered, the Herald would finally understand that.

“You see?” he demanded, though his voice was dull with exhaustion. “You can’t stop him. Go back to your country—maybe if you raise your army you can hold him off.” For a while.

He and the Herald dismounted, the Herald still disturbingly silent.

“I need you to do something for me, Stefen,” he finally said, slowly, as though the words were difficult for him. They probably were, a high and mighty Herald asking for help from a backwoods thug. But for some reason the way he said his name made Stefen shiver. It was foreboding, he decided. Trouble. And the way the Companion turned away from them both as the Herald spoke only made his heart sink lower.

“…yes…?”

The Herald turned to face him and pulled out one of the packets of Master Dark’s powder. Stefen stared at it in confusion.

“I need you to take me to your Master Dark.”

He forgot the powder. “What?”

The Herald grabbed his hand and pressed the paper packet into his glove. “Use this and take me to your Master.”

Stefen didn’t even think, he dropped the little envelope of powder and staggered away as though he’d been attacked instead of…whatever this was. “You’re mad!” he said, but to his own ears his voice was the voice of a child, shrill and frightened.

And perhaps the Herald saw him that way too: he looked regretful but determined, picking up the packet and following Stefen, then following again when Stefen couldn’t help falling back another step.

“I can use it on myself, I suppose,” the Herald said, sounding remarkably understanding for a man who’d gone completely off his head, allowing the hand that still held the powder fall to his side. “But I’ll still need you to take me to Lea—to Master Dark.”

Stefen was already shaking his head. “I won’t do that. I won’t—you’re mad!” he finished again, faintly and even vaguely plaintive.

He looked at the horse, thinking this had to be some strange test. She’d turn on him in a second and trample him to bloody bits in the snow for even listening to this. But she’d stayed where they’d dismounted, staring out over the plains as though memorizing the view, not turning at all to look at them.

Catching the direction of his gaze the Herald sighed. “She doesn’t like it, but she’s agreed with me. It’s the only way: Yfandes will go back to Valdemar and raise the Heralds, she can tell them through the other Companions, she can show them exactly what we’re facing here. That army—” He waved at Master’s Dark’s troops, a camp that stretched from the mountains to the distant horizon. “—they’re almost ready to march. The standing army of Valdemar will never assemble and make it here in time to hold them back, but Heralds on Companions might at least reach the pass…perhaps. Master Dark’s number won’t matter so much if we can catch him before the bulk of his forces are through.”

Stefen lifted his chin. “Then good, the two of you go back and get the other Heralds—”

But the Herald was already shaking his head. “They can take on the army, but Master Dark is a different matter. He’ll have mages, feeding him and strengthening his shields…?”

Stefen nodded so stiffly he was half surprised his neck didn’t snap like a brittle branch under the sharp jerk of his head.

“…and we’ll never be able to touch him. Not from any distance, and with as many troops as he cares to hide behind to keep assassins at bay.”

And Stefen began to understand. He snorted. “And what sort of assassin will you be? Blind and deaf and helpless because of that stuff—”

The Herald smiled in weary triumph. “Don’t you know? The powder doesn’t affect me the way Master Dark designed it to.”

Stefen waved his hands wide. “Master Dark will never buy that stupid story I told Viga! I still can’t believe Viga bought it, but Master Dark’s no small-minded hedge wizard.”

The Herald caught one of his hands and held it between them, stepping close and using it to keep Stefen from trying to back away again. “Yfandes and I made some changes to my personal shields. Nothing Master Dark should notice, but that powder will affect me differently now. I won’t lose all my senses, and though it will block my magic, it will leave a sort of backdoor in the walls that hem my powers in. It shouldn’t be visible to your Master Dark, but I’ll be able to use it to bring down the shields against me when I’m ready to.”

“And if he kills you right off?” Stefen asked quietly, a rising wave of despair peaking over him as he realized the futility of trying to talk the Herald out of this suicide mission. Was this what it always felt like to be standing with a hero as the makings of a ballad were aligning around you? A terrible, doomed sort of feeling. “Or if he doses you with something stronger once he has you?”

Those strange, pale eyes were as gentle as his grip on Stefen’s wrist. “He’s been waiting too long for me to kill me out of hand.”—at least that was likely true—“And I suspect he’ll have other ways he’ll want to ‘play’ once he has me.”

Shite. That was probably true too. Stefen gnawed at the inside of his cheek.

But if I take you to him that means I’m giving myself to him too! he wanted to whine. Just because the Herald didn’t care if he threw his life to Master Dark it didn’t mean that Stefen shared that same casual disregard for his own skin.

But the grave expression on the Herald’s face suggested he knew very well what he was asking and it left Stefen squirming under the steady weight of that implacable, saintly calm. Stefen had never pretended to be a hero and he sure as hell had no delusions of sainthood.

He’ll go to the Master without you, a voice whispered in the back of his head. Alone. Surrounded by the Master’s sycophants, he’ll suffer—and probably die—alone.

And for some reason selfish, practical Stefen couldn’t bear the thought of the Herald facing that fate. Not alone. Not without a single friendly soul to stand beside him. Or knowing his own cowardly, worthless self, to watch helplessly and silently from his place at the Master’s feet.

His throat was closed with fear and something else he couldn’t even name, leaving him able only to nod his assent.

The horse had nuzzled the Herald for a long moment, and aimed a stern, searching gaze on Stefen.

:If I find out you betrayed us, the gods themselves will not keep you from my justice.:

He staggered at the clear, dangerous female voice ringing through his head.

You can talk to me?

For once it was the Herald, his arms wrapped around his Companion’s neck in bittersweet parting, who was left out of the conversation. Behind his back, she bared her teeth.

:I can do more than you guess. More than even he knows. Take care of my Chosen.:

As she turned and left them there on the side of a mountain, her stony gaze passed over him but didn’t linger.

Watching her go, he got a better sense of the speed with which she moved. He’d known she had to have been near to flying to get them to the pass so quickly, but seeing her from this new vantage he found she almost seemed to vanish as she ran, leaping, and disappearing, and reappearing again several ground-devouring strides further ahead. He blinked away the odd observation, certain it was some trick of the light on the snow and her equally snowy hide.

Then if you care so much for him, come back for him as quickly as you can! he thought a her, but he had no idea if she could still hear him or was still listening or…whatever, and there was no reply.

The Herald turned on Stefen and held out the packet again, with an almost sheepish smile. He’d use it on himself if Stefen wouldn’t, he’d already said as much and he seemed about ready to do just that.

Gods above and below, save him from heroes.

Stefen snatched the little packet. He’d unfolded the first flap when the Herald stopped him.

“Wait,” the Herald said, and suddenly held out seven of the powder packets Stefen had given him. “It’ll look suspicious if I have them.” He smiled again, but Sefen knew the expression. Trust me, it said. He’d worn it often enough himself, and usually turned it on people he was about to fleece, one way or another. It irritated him that the Herald was trying it on him. Amature, he thought unkindly, pocketing the other packets and finishing peeling the first one open.

The Herald watched him steadily; a strong, hard breath over the pile of powder cupped in his hand sent it airborne, setting it over the Herald, sparkling for a moment like stardust before it settled and dulled, like a quickly melted frost.

He should have made the Herald move away from the edge of the mountain; it would have been just his luck to end up throwing the man he was trying to protect—gods knew why—off of a cliff.

Fortunately for both of them, but especially for the Herald, it seemed he and the Companion had done as he’d promised and though a shudder chased through him, he didn’t fall and his eyes remained clear. Too clear, perhaps.

Stefen considered him critically for a moment.

“…The Master isn’t going to think you’re under any sort of spell at all…”

The Herald’s mouth quirked. “Oh, he will. It’s easy enough to see and to feel, if you’ve any sense for the Mage Gift.” He rubbed almost absently at his temple, as though a pain was kindling there.

Well the Healer had noticed the “walls” on the Herald’s power easily enough. If that much of the spell had been left, then Master Dark would certainly know. But—

“He’s not going to believe I’m controlling you, with you so…” Stefen waved vaguely with his fingers. “Free?”

“I won’t seem so free by the time you get me to him,” he said, and Stefen wasn’t sure if he meant he was going to pretend to be out of it or that he might actually lose some of his clear-headedness, and he desperately hoped he meant the first, even if he didn’t think the Herald could trick Master Dark like that. “And this will help,” he continued, holding out a coiled length of rope.

Stefen took it, not liking this, any of it, trapped as he’d ever felt and had always been since Master Dark had come into his life. The Herald stood patiently with his wrists pressed together and extended for Stefen’s fumbling attempts to bind them. He was usually a pretty good hand with knots, tying and untying them, but the cold and his gloves and his nerves made his fingers clumsy.

More than that. The siren song of his flask—there was so much he wanted to forget, so much he needed to escape—

He cleared his throat. “I guess…I tell the Master we got attacked by the other bandits he sent hunting you. Tell him I didn’t trust his men after that—he’ll think that’s just delightful, amusing as all fuck—so I snuck you in, past his guards at the pass. He’s a clever bastard but maybe he’ll be so excited to finally have his hands on you he won’t worry too much about how I got us so far without horses…” he trailed off doubtfully.

“You shooed the horses off when we were through the pass, but before we sneaked past his guards.”

“I suppose—”

“And stick to your first story for Yfandes. She got away when you took me from the guard post.”

Stefen shivered at the thought of admitting that to the Master, even though he’d thought the same thing when he’d spared her in the stable. The order had been clear, the Companion was supposed to have been killed. “Couldn’t I just say she’s dead?”

The Herald shook his head and then wove a little on his feet, prompting Stefen to grab his arm and pull him away from the ledge and closer to the mountain. Please, let him be pretending.

“I can’t feign that sort of loss. He’d know if I’d suffered the severing of my Companion bond. It will have to be good enough that he thinks we can’t communicate while I’m blocked like this.”

Good enough to make Stefen pay for failing on half of his orders.

But he squared his shoulders and forced his chin up. It was the Master’s own fault for setting the other bandits on the Herald too. It was a stupid thing to have done; he had to have known they’d squabble over the right to be the ones who turned him over, going at each other like starved dogs over a single, bloody scrap. Gods, he was lucky Stefen had managed to even get the Herald to him under these conditions.

Sometimes the Master was amused when Stefen played cocky. He could hope he was in such a mood today.

The Master’s guards had never been friends to Stefen. In part because they, like the bandits on the other side of the pass, were never entirely sure where he stood in Master Dark’s regard and in part because they, like the bandits, knew that whatever his place was, he’d bought his way there with his body.

But while he enjoyed the relatively unusual benefit of coming and going with no real oversight, he hadn’t ever before come striding through the front gates bearing company to the Master’s palace. Strange, staggering, bound company at that.

“Who goes?” a guard—Warin—demanded suspiciously, stepping in front of him at the inner gate, and Stefen knew the young captain wasn’t asking for his own credentials.

“A special package for the Master,” Stefen answered, full of swagger and grinning false pride.

The taller man looked over the captive Herald with interest but didn’t immediately stand down. He was cleverer than many of the Master’s men, hence his promotion to captain at such an age, and not too proud to have let Stefen spend more than a few nights in his bed, though he welcomed the pretty kitchen maids there just as eagerly. He wasn’t a bad sort, especially considering many of his brothers-in-arms, and Stefen felt himself holding his breath. If anyone less than the Master and his inner circle of apprentices might recognize the trick, it would probably be Warin, but without magic what would betray them?

Was the rope that Stefen held not bound tightly enough around the Herald’s wrists? Were the Herald’s eyes not glazed and dull enough to mark him as properly subdued? Was—

Warin snorted, cutting through Stefen’s spiraling doubts. “Don’t look much like anything special to me,” he said, his hand sliding from the hilt of his sword as he shifted slightly, though he didn’t actually step away.

For a moment Stefen’s eyes widened, surprised by more than the ‘easy’ deception. Couldn’t Warin see the resemblance between the Herald and their Master? That alone would have been worth a second look—but then, even as a captain, the guard probably hadn’t spent enough time in the Master’s company to be as familiar with his looks as Stefen was, the better for Warin.

Master Dark didn’t spend much time with the lesser ranks of his men, and he had a separate, more carefully curated guard to protect himself and the inner sanctum of the palace: soldiers whose minds had been stripped to little more than mirrors of their Master’s whims; simulacrums, whose eyes were his eyes, whose ears were his, incorruptible, unfeeling, unaffected. Just the muscle memory of the warriors they once had been and the singular, driving will of the man who’d reduced them to nothing more. Yes, better for Warin to stay where he was.

Stefen tossed the captain a saucy smile. “Easy for you to say! You weren’t the one who had to get him here,” he said, leaning a little against the captain to pull his attention from the Herald. Perhaps he was just lucky the man didn’t favor brunets, though he knew he wouldn’t have let the handsome Herald pass by without a second glance, even if he hadn’t been out hunting him.

Warin stepped aside with a laugh and a gallant hand light on Stefen’s elbow to steady him as he did, his eyes gone a bit softer even while his grin took on a sharper edge.

“Off with you then, little bird. I won’t be the one responsible for keeping the Master waiting.’”

But it was a pair of the Master’s special guards who were waiting.

They were beautiful, the Master wouldn’t bear anyone in his presence who wasn’t, and one of them looked familiar, which Stefen tried not to think about. Had she been friend or foe? Not that it was important anymore; it was at least a relief that she didn’t strike him as familiar enough for him to remember who she’d been.

Now her eyes were blank and empty, like a hauntingly realistic doll. Or a magician’s puppet, dancing on a string.

“We’ll take him,” she said. The mouths never seemed to work quite right, as though the voice that passed between those lips wasn’t theirs.

“But—”

“Master’s orders,” the other one said, and Stefen knew there was no argument to that, even if the special guard could be argued with, which they could not.

He handed the rope off to the woman.

“He knows I brought him? I want my reward!” he whined, glad to imagine that the Herald was as dulled as he looked, and not able to hear Stefen’s weedling tone. It wasn’t entirely an act.

They ignored him though, trudging off down the hall where they’d intercepted him, three clockwork humans in a clockwork castle of stone and glass. Glittering and lovely, but cold and utterly lifeless. He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself.

The Herald gone and his stomach churning with a worry he couldn’t even name, as if he didn’t have enough whenever he was here, Stefen headed to his own chamber. He’d had bigger when he’d first come, swanning around as Master Dark’s pet, too stupid yet to recognize what a trap he’d leapt right into.

He’d lost it not long into his service, the punishment for some misstep he couldn’t even remember now, there’d been so many missteps and so many punishments since. Losing those big lovely rooms, right by the Master’s, hadn’t been even close to the worst. He shivered again, his teeth almost chattering as he let himself into the small, single room he now occupied whenever he was called to heel.

He froze with the door half open, finding the Master himself sprawled on his bed.

Oh gods, oh gods, what’s he doing here? he thought in panic, his stomach heaving.

“Against all odds, my little hunter returns triumphant!” the Master said, smiling and sitting forward, his dark eyes glittering.

Brave. Sometimes it amused him when Stefen played brave. Although his spine felt like jelly, he straightened it. “Against all odds is right, with every hold in the hills looking for him too. I was starting to think I wouldn’t make it back alive, nevermind get that damned Herald here,” he groused, forcing himself to walk into the room when everything in him was screaming for him to run. He couldn’t run. He knew; he’d tried.

The Master tossed his head back and laughed.

Stefen flinched, hoping he hid it well enough. That laugh always meant suffering, one way or another, and yet it still curled inside him like a warm hand, delicious and wrong all at once. He recognized it as something like his own gift, the barbed hooks in every word and sound the Master made, but that didn’t make him immune to its pull, or make him any less ashamed of feeling it for this man—this man, of all men.

But the closer he was and the longer he spent there the worse it became, his will and even personality draining away, bit by bit.

“Ah, Stef, my sweet Stef. I knew you could handle anything those ruffians would try. I didn’t want you to get bored. Where’s the thrill in an easy victory, hmm?”

All lies. Any of the brigands could have made short work of him and would have if it hadn’t been for the Herald’s Companion carrying them away from danger at a pace no normal horse could have managed to keep up with.

“Well anyway, he’s here now. You wanted him so bad, I’m surprised you’re bothering with me.” He wanted to sound disgruntled, but he knew the words came out sounding jealous. He felt jealous. Why did the Master even want the Herald so bad when he had Stefen? ‘His’ Stefen, who would do anything…

Master Dark stood and Stefen had to force himself not to scurry away like a frightened mouse—or fall to his knees and start licking his feet. He suppressed a shudder and stood his ground.

So the Master came to him.

While Stefen fought desperate, conflicting urges, the Master cupped his cheek and everything else fell away, the whole of his being focused on that hand, that touch. Everything was right when his Master touched him. He sighed and leaned into him, his eyes falling shut, his breath hitching in pleasure.

“Why Stef! You’re no bother…” His Master’s voice was a song, the melody that Stefen’s heart and his blood and his very soul sang. He’d do anything to please him.

There was something he was supposed to say… I love you. I worship you. No—

“That dust didn’t work on the Herald like you said,” he babbled, his tongue somehow bypassing the song in his head. “He didn’t go down all the way like you said he would. He’s just quiet, like one of your guards—”

“Shhh…that’s fine. It’s fine.”

He’d been afraid the Master would be mad. So afraid. The light amusement in his Master’s voice set off another wave of pleasure that made Stefen’s toes curl in his boots and wrung a sigh from deep in his chest.

“And the horse got away,” he continued, knowing he needed to say it all, confess—lies—before he lost his nerve.

The Master inhaled sharply. The pleasure drained away, the keen edge of terror piercing Stefen’s gut instead.

pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease—

He felt a weight on his chest that made it hard to breath, an insistent pressure on his bladder that made him fear he’d shame himself. But shame was nothing, nothing at all to what the Master would do if he was displeased.

Stefen opened his eyes, biting his lip to stifle a whimper, and looked pleadingly into that cold, black gaze.

“Where? How long ago did the ‘horse’ get away?” Angry, the song of his voice became a storm, a raging, discordant cacophony, his words, bludgeoning hail, the silences between, electric.

It would have been better if the Herald had killed him in Rendan’s keep when he killed the others.

Stefen couldn’t hold back a little, despairing moan. “At—at the guardpost. I got the Herald but I couldn’t get the horse, we had to go or I’d’ve lost them both!” he whined. He pleaded.

He held his breath, waiting for judgement.

Slowly, the Master smiled.

Stefen didn’t react; a smile could mean forgiveness or it could mean punishment, he didn’t dare assume.

“Sweet Stef,” the Master murmured, stroking Stefen’s cheek and brushing his thumb across his lips, and at last, Stefen exhaled, falling forward into his Master’s arms, clutching at his clothes and panting for breath. “Shhh, I know you did your best. And I’m very grateful.”

Stefen fisted his hands, daring to look up and meet his Master’s eyes again, hating himself for feeling so hopeful.

Hating himself more for how he trembled when Master Dark leaned forward and kissed him. He felt it in every part of his body, a sudden fire raging to life. This was so much worse than Rendan and his men. Master Dark made him want it, need it. His body shook with the desire to serve him.

Of their own accord his hands slid down the Master’s chest towards his breeches.

To his sorrow—and immense relief—the Master caught his hands and gently pushed them away, chuckling as he extricated himself from the kiss.

“Now, Stef. I must see to our guest,” he murmured indulgently, and Stefen felt his gorge rise at—everything, every part of the play Master Dark forced him to perform every time he was in his presence. The besotted fool, the desperate lover, the cossetted pet, he was none of those things, godsdammit, but he would act as if he was, no less a puppet than the Master’s mindless guards.

He couldn’t make himself pull away. That was for the Master only, and only when he wished it. Stefen leaned against his body like a dog, desperate not to be left. “Do you have to? Right away?” he asked, feeling guilty for the Herald’s sake that he didn’t mean it at all. Gods, just go, please, anywhere else. Just leave me alone.

The Master gripped his chin and kissed him again, deep, hard, and Stefen fell into it, devoured and lost and only returning to himself when the Master not only released him but stepped back, a little smile on his face.

“I’m afraid so,” he said, and Stefen couldn’t make sense of the answer or the question it was answering through the haze still clouding his mind. “But I haven’t forgotten what a good job you did, bringing him to me. And I haven’t forgotten your reward.”

His focus sharpened instantly at that word. These days there was only one thing that meant and it was the only thing Stefen needed more than he needed his Master.

Master Dark laughed again. “Yes, for my good boy—” He pulled a flask from somewhere, possibly from another room and space entirely, he did enjoy showing off, but Stefen wasn’t an appreciative audience at the moment, his gaze and attention solely on the large glass flask. The Master shook it slightly from side to side, the liquid inside sloshing audibly. Gods, it was full! “What do you say?”

“Please? Please, Master—”

“Of course,” the Master drawled, holding it out.

Stefen reached for the bottle, hesitantly, desperate, but used to having things offered and then snatched away as he reached for them. It wouldn’t have been an effective trick if his Master didn’t occasionally throw him a bone, and this time, mercifully, he allowed Stefen to take the flask and cradle it to his chest.

“Thank you Master, thank you! Thank you so much!” he babbled, but Master Dark, bored, was already walking away.

He cursed the little ball of pain that kindled in his chest at being left alone and as soon as the Master closed the door he fell to his knees, the precious flask still cradled carefully in his arms while he leaned forward, pressing his head to the cold floor, and cried.

He was fourteen or so, maybe fifteen, nobody knew for sure, least of all him. He’d been with Rendan for going on five years, bought for a handful of silver and a small keg of sour beer from a pair of filthy old men who’d bought him from Berte and carted him north, the length of the kingdom he hadn’t known he was part of. He’d learned what he was good for long before reaching Rendan and it wasn’t singing. It was almost enough to make him think the gods cared enough about a pair of dirty street rats to get him back for what he’d said to Janne that day in the alley.

Whatever his age, after five years Rendan and his men were losing interest in him. He was still small, but not so fresh faced anymore, and although that life had left him with a diseased soul, broken and decaying inside his head, physically he was a hearty thing, and there was only so much you could go through before even horror and hell became somewhat mundane. They still had their fun from time to time, but he didn’t squeal the way he used to and there were days he found it more dull than terrifying. He was mostly just tired.

And then one day, they brought back the girl.

She was pretty, even with the bruises darkening half her face, and her screaming and sobbing made it clear she didn’t find Rendan and his men to be dull at all. They’d brought back plenty of other of their prizes since Stefen had been with them, but she was different, maybe just because they hadn’t touched her before they got her to the hall.

It was the first time Stefen saw Rendan and Tan and them with someone who wasn’t broken yet. The terror in her face reminded him of something and it took him longer than it should have to realize it was himself, sleeping in garbage in the back of that rattling cart, the first time one of the old men had slipped back there with him. Old and foul smelling, but big and so strong—

When they stripped her he realized she wasn’t as young as he’d taken her for. She was a woman, not a girl; her hips and breasts, though slim and small, were too sweetly curved for a child’s body. That didn’t make it any easier.

Stupid girl, if she’d just stop whining and lie there they’d finish faster, he remembered thinking to himself, curled into the corner by the fire, hiding his face and trying to cover his ears, humming a wordless melody to himself and hating her almost more than he hated Rendan for reminding him what it was like for a real person to suffer Rendan and his men.

Turned out he was wrong though. No matter what she did it wouldn’t have changed Rendan’s plan.

“Enjoying yourself, girly?” The bandit lord sneered, that pitch piercing Stefen’s song and making his breath catch. No, there’s no reason to worry, it’s not you he’s talking to. It’s not you, he tried to tell himself but he couldn’t find any comfort in that this time, her answering whimpers were so pained and pathetic. Idiot, just shut up!

He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, folded in on himself, as small a shape as he could twist himself into, as small a target as he knew how to be.

The sharp crack of a blow landing on soft flesh was met with another shrieking cry. “Gotta send word to your da, thanking him for sending you to us, eh?” Rendan said, his voice low and his words eliciting a round of mean chuckles from his men.

“My father didn’t—”

A slap, or worse, and silence in response this time. “Did, though. He knew what would happen if he didn’t fall in. He made his choice—and yours. The better for us. Oh,” he crooned—Stefen hated that, hated when his voice went soft like that, in mocking mercy—“Don’t hide your face now, girl. You don’t have anything left to hide from us, does she boys?”

There was another round. He wouldn’t look and he tried not to hear, but there was no mistaking that rhythm, flesh on flesh, or the little cries, or the smells. He hummed. Hummed and hummed, smart enough to keep it all inside his head though, he’d made that mistake before, and the men hadn’t been in nearly as dark a mood then.

It was starting to sink in this wasn’t a ‘normal’ game for them, this was something else.

She lasted three days. Three hellish, haunting days, before he overheard Rendan talking to Tan. “Send word to come get her. He’ll want to deliver her himself, I reckon. See the look on the old man’s face,” he spat and laughed. “Old fool.” He inhaled sharply, sniffing. “And for the gods’ sakes, get her out of here. He can pick her up from the barn, smells like she’s a week dead already.”

She wouldn’t smell so bad if they hadn’t—but he didn’t want to think about it. He’d thought he’d seen them at their worst, he hadn’t imagined there was worse in them, or in anyone, but he knew better now and it made him sick. He could hardly admit it even to himself but it was a relief when Tan tossed the girl over his shoulder and disappeared outside. He didn’t know how she wasn’t already dead, but he was glad she was gone, even if it was only as far as the stables.

And yet—

He couldn’t stop thinking about her, while he filled and refilled beers and stirred and dished out week-old stew. How pretty she’d been when they’d brought her. How everything had frightened her. Soft, is what she’d been. It was too dangerous a world to be so soft. The fault of her ‘da,’ for letting her be so soft and not giving Rendan and his set whatever they wanted if he’d wanted to keep her that way. He hated Berte, of course he did, but at least she’d taught him to be strong before she sold him north.

He slipped out of the hall, mumbling something about taking care of the horses when Gart stopped him at the door.

He found her in a stall at the back, and he couldn’t have said what he expected to find when he pulled the blanket off her, except penance, having to see her again. But he was surprised—and endlessly disturbed—to find she was still breathing, shallow and thready. She wouldn’t be for much longer, that was an easy bet, but gods, that she was even still alive.

He couldn’t stand to touch her, could hardly bear to look at her, she was so ruined, more meat than person. But he couldn’t just go back into the hall and leave her, either. She deserved more than that, even if she’d been stupid and soft. He squatted on his heels, scratching his arm, torn between grim vigil and guilty flight.

Then he began to sing. He couldn’t imagine she was in much pain anymore, she was probably already too far gone, but he sang as if he could still help her, since it was all he had. He felt a little rusty, no one to listen to it but himself since he been taken by the slavers, Rendan and his men not seeing much purpose in his ‘caterwauling’ except when they needed a break from their well-deserved injuries.

It was only her and him and the horses now though, and so he sang as if it would make a difference, tears in his eyes, but not for her.

He sang a love song first, a real one, low and sweet and soft, like her, full of longing and hope. He didn’t know many nice songs like that, his list was mostly raunchy ballads, dirty stuff full of innuendo and double entendre, suitable for a brigand’s hall. So he switched to lullabies, he knew a few of those and they seemed fitting.

Sleep now and don’t fret, your dreams will be lovely and the morning will find you—

Dead. He blinked and shook his head, his song cut off, the silence hanging heavy around him. Just meat now and no one sang to meat.

He reached for the blanket to re-cover her, shamed by the relief that made his hands shake. He’d go back in and curl up to sleep in his corner and not have think about her anymore.

“What happened to her?” a hushed voice asked from behind him. He fell forward with a yelp, struggling with an ungainly tangle of his own half-grown limbs to not land on the dead girl.

“Whoa! I’m sorry!” The voice came again with a hint of concern. “Let me—”

Stef scrambled away sideways, quick, putting his back to the wall beside the girl so he could face the stranger—there were never strangers in Rendan’s hall, unless they came with Rendan himself. Who was this man, off in the stable alone?

Then—

An angel, Stef thought, catching sight of him and staring, dazzled. He felt a dizzy certainty that he must have been the one who’d quietly slipped away in the stable, fallen asleep and frozen to death while the girl still labored for breath, no less than he’d deserve for such a wooly-headed bit of stupidity.

The man in front of him wasn’t like anyone he’d seen before. Pale, but with hair black as a raven, even with that bit of sheen to it, winged brows over depthless, black eyes, the prettiest face Stef had ever seen on a grown man; he was from a fairy tale if not the Havens.

The stranger dropped his hand—elegant, pale, long-fingered, a noble’s hand, that had never done real work—realizing Stef wasn’t going to accept his help up, and cocked his head and smiled, a little upward twist of one corner of his beautiful mouth. Stef felt it in his belly, like he’d been hooked on a fishing line and the handsome stranger held the rod and reel. This was… this was desire and it was the first time in his life he’d felt it. He hadn’t known he could, but it was glorious and nerve-wracking at once. His skin prickled, his ears rang, he felt lightheaded, and in his breeches—

Looking around, because he couldn’t keep looking at the man any more than he could have stared into the sun, his gaze fell on the body beside him and he remembered the stranger’s question. He shrugged stupidly and pressed his hands between his back and the wall of the stable. Where was Rendan? Who was this man? He was torn between wanting him to stay and wanting to warn him to go, leave this awful, dirty place while he could.

“Your singing was beautiful. I was sorry you stopped,” the stranger said, his words like music.

Stef didn’t think he could have managed anything sensible if he tried, so he just shrugged again. But he flicked his gaze back, catching the curiosity on the man’s face, and he found himself strangely desperate to please him, especially after he’d called Stef’s warbling ‘beautiful.’ Sometimes he still thought it was, but what did he know? The praise he’d once gotten for it on that faraway street corner seemed like something from a dream of another life, and Rendan and his boys didn’t think much of it, except when they needed him to sing away their pain.

“She wasn’t list’ning no more,” he said plainly.

The man smiled a little wider, leaned a little closer, as if to share a secret. His scent was heady, something herbal, woodsy, and clean.

Stef stared and licked his lips.

“I am,” the handsome man promised.

Too clever, Stef had been called all his life. It was never a compliment. Too clever for his own good. Too clever to take what he ought to just take. Too clever to leave well enough alone. Always looking for an out, always considering his options, even when he didn’t rightly have none.

What was his life with Rendan? He was a slave and fuck-boy, a toy for any man in Rendan’s hall. But he wasn’t half-bad to look at, maybe not as pretty as the stranger but prettier than any of the others in the hall, prettier than any of the men and a good lot of the women Rendan’s boys sometimes showed up with. He straightened his shoulders, hands still pressed to the wall behind him, he knew what his stance offered.

He looked down for a moment. The girl’s feet weren’t quite covered by the blanket and there was something heart-breaking in the vulnerability of those pale, bare toes in the dirt and hay.

Stef wasn’t soft like her though.

“I know more songs. More’n I was singing just now,” he said.

The man grinned. “I’m certain you do. And perhaps I could teach you a few new ones.” He held out his hand again.

This time Stef took it.

Stefen rolled over with a gasp, pounding his hand against his pillow, tears wetting his cheek and his bedding. When the dreamerie went down wrong it went down wrong, and dragged him with it.

He panted for breath, like he’d been running in his sleep instead of strolling through dark and misty memory. Stupid, stupid little boy, thinking he’d known the worst life could be, taking the devil’s hand and calling him an angel.

If there was justice in this life then he must have lived a helluva last one to have earned this lot. But he didn’t believe in justice or angels. He tumbled from his bed, staggering across the room.

He should have checked the time, maybe asked around to find out what had happened to the Herald, but he went to the flask instead.

There were worse memories he could have had dragged up to replay, as real as if he was living them again. Something after he’d gone with the Master maybe, the first time he’d made him mad, when he’d been unprepared for his ‘angel’ to cast off his wings and show his horns. Times he’d been beaten, made to crawl, given away like he was a cup to be borrowed, passed around—filled—gods!

His hands fumbled the cork off and he took a hit straight, not even diluting it in water or wine.

He’d told the Master everything about himself in the first, full bloom of that infatuation, thinking, unaccountably, that his plans had more than paid off; that he’d found a safe place at the frozen top of the world. When they’d fucked it had been the first time Stefen had ever actually wanted to. Damn him, how he’d paid for it.

He shuddered, wiping his hand across his lips to catch what spilled in his haste and then sucking his palm to savor any lingering drop, any smear of the drug, as he lurched back to collapse on the bed and curled around his pillow, still instinctively trying to make himself small.

His Master had given him music back, fascinated by Stefen’s Gift. He’d given him instruments, tutors and mentors. His words when he’d taken him away had been more than just innuendo: he’d given him access to a repertoire of songs he’d never have dreamed of, and then he’d stolen it all by back by claiming it, and Stefen himself, as his own.

His little pet, and, when he wished, just another weapon in so vast an arsenal it shook Stefen to his bones and stole his nights and his sleep. Then he’d given him dreamerie, knowing what it had been to his childhood, knowing the racking shame he’d kindled as he used it to buy what little was left of Stefen’s soul.

He hissed in pain, begging the dreamerie to kick in again, but better this time. Please, gods, please, let it be better this time!

The world started to fold in on itself, the little room falling away. Stefen breathed in relief as a cool, green light enveloped him. This was a good place, the best of places. A circle of trees, a warm, sweet-scented wind through them, and someone he was waiting for…

Continued in Chapter 7

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#LHM #the last herald-mage #Vanyel Ashkevron #Stefen #Tylendel Frelennye #my writing #fanfic #long post

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