Chapter Text
They’d left the smoking ruin of Phoenix Gate hours ago, but time had done nothing to dispel the stench of ash and blood from his lungs. Nor to wipe away the bitter taste of grief.
He’d failed.
He’d been rejected by the Phoenix. Had thrown himself, fully, into his role as elder brother. His place as First Shield. Had adopted the position of the Eikon’s foremost defender as the whole of his being, if he couldn’t be its Dominant. And he’d failed.
Joshua was dead.
Dead at the claws of another Dominant. A second Eikon of Fire. An impossible beast, risen from the conflagration set by the Sanbreque invaders like some sort of demon up from hell.
He’d done nothing to stop it.
If he’d tried to intervene, Clive knew, he’d simply have been turned to ash. And then, he’d be dead too.
He should be. What was the point of living? What purpose did he have to serve?
The sun had begun its slow descent beneath the horizon an hour before and now hung just beneath the lip of the world. Dying in a flare of flame that seemed almost to form a red blade against the earth, filling his chest with the cooling damp of dew and nighttime. The Chocobo pulling the prison he sat in were common yellow, instead of white like his own.
Had Ambrosia survived? With the wound that she’d suffered rescuing him from a death which might at least have brought him peace, it was unlikely. Not when he’d seen the Lord Commander, who’d been just as close to the blast as him, reduced to cinders.
Why had he lived? How had the fires left him untouched?
The wheels of the cart that he’d been hoisted into, after he’d been located among the rubble, bounced over a rut in the road. Juttering Clive’s body against the wood in a way that made his limbs ache. Still, he didn’t move. Just lay there, nearly catatonic with despair, yet still able to acknowledge the heaviness of his body that would have kept him pinned regardless. As if all of the strength had been sucked out of him the way that fire, when it burned, sucked all of the air out of the room to fuel itself.
What did his discomfort matter anyway?
He’d best get used to it. Bearers weren’t treated well in the Holy Empire and having been sold into slavery by his own mother Clive knew precisely what sort of treatment he was bound for. Cruel training. Even crueler work. If he lived through the year, once he saw the field of battle, he’d be lucky.
Even knowing that he had to live to find the other Dominant, had to survive in order to gain vengeance, he hoped he didn’t.
At once, a sound like thunder echoed through the air. Rolling ever onward from the far horizon. Drawing closer, unbreaking, and growing louder until it shook the air and became discernible for what it was.
Hoofbeats.
Clive had never heard such a thing himself, but he’d been told of it. And of what it meant. The storm of six crashing feet it heralded, which moved across the land and brought suffering in its wake. Told of the Black King and his constant wars.
Could it really be…?
No. Surely that wasn’t possible. Waloed was a beastly kingdom, constantly gnawing at the borders all around it like a starving wolf desperate to be free of its chains, but there were no battles nearby. No immediately raging wars. No reason for Odin to be there of all places and then of all times.
And yet, as the Imperials all around him began to panic and draw their weapons and Clive fought his way onto his elbows with the last motes of his strength, that was precisely what he saw. An armored warrior cresting the hills, outlined in that burning sunset. Mounted astride a six-legged horse and clutching a blade in one fist that seemed to drink the dying light. Glowing a terrible sickly crimson, as if stained with the blood of all the men that it had slain.
For a moment, it were as if time itself hung still. There was no wind. No sound. No breath and no rush of blood in his ears as the massive Eikon stared them down. Then, the horse sprang forward, and it all came rushing back. Death thundering toward them all in a flurry of hooves, wearing the night around its shoulders like a starless cloak. Arriving with a boom and an explosion of earth; the sing of steel and the sound of blood spilling.
The strike should have cut him clean in half. Cut him like it had cut the soldiers and the cart and the Chocobo which drew it. But it hadn’t. It hadn’t cut him. Hadn’t even come near him and left Clive sitting, unharmed, among the wreckage as his arms gave out and he fell back onto the wood. Staring up into the darkness behind the Eikon’s helm as its massive hand reached toward him.
He drifted in a sea of black for a long time after that. Rocked, gently, from side to side atop a bed. The room around him small and dank, smelling of brine like the cabin of a ship. There were voices nearby. Male voices with strange accents, speaking a language he couldn’t understand. Not Rosarian or Sanbrequean, nor the common tongue spoken during meetings between nations. Clive turned his head, trying in vain to find the source of the sound, to gain some idea of who was with him. But the motion sapped him entirely of his strength and his vision blurred out.
He was being carried, the next time he regained some concept of where he was. Carried in strong arms, in a way he hadn’t been since before he’d failed his inheritance and his mother had all but forced him out of the family. His face pressed against a warm chest that smelled of burned stone and sword polish. All he could see was black and blue fabric and he drifted again. Softly descending into a welcoming darkness as whoever had a hold of him carried his body away to some fate unknown.
He’d happily have stayed in that darkness forever. It was gentle. Peaceful, in its numbing silence. A place where nothing mattered and pain couldn’t reach him. But fate was not so kind and, inevitably, he woke. Blinking back to awareness with blurred vision and sunlight spilling down into his face.
He was lying in a bed, not in a cart or a cell. But it wasn’t his room either. He knew that from the smell of stone and sea which hung in the air. Had it all been some strange dream, then? Some consequence of too much drink being had at the feast? Was he back at Phoenix Gate with the castle whole and intact and his brother and father alive?
No. Phoenix Gate was nowhere near the sea. But the Imperials wouldn’t have treated a bearer so kindly as to leave them sleeping. And if he truly had been taken captive by Waloed, Clive couldn’t fathom why he wouldn’t have ended up in chains.
He was dead, then. And this? It was some sort of afterlife. He couldn’t think of any other explanation.
Every fiber in his body protested the motion, burning with the strain of being forced to move, but Clive pressed forward in attempting to sit up. Dragging his arms under his back and pushing his upper body off the bed. A hand found his chest and pushed him back down, his limbs crumpling beneath the gentle force like wet paper.
“Be still, my Prince. You’re not well.”
Prince? He was nothing of the sort. A Lord, perhaps, by his blood as a Rosfield, but his title hadn’t been ‘Prince’ since Joshua had Awakened instead and been named heir.
No, he realized with a sickening jolt. A bitter surge of grief flooding his gut like cold water. He would be Prince, now. Because he was next in line, with both his father and his brother dead. And after the Coronation, he’d be…
“Are you with us, Mythos, or is this just another working of your fever?”
He tried to focus on the voice, but couldn’t. His vision refusing to settle and bring the world around him into clarity. All that he could see was color and shadow: the vague contours of a person floating in empty space. Clive tried to speak, but his mouth and throat were too dry and his tongue felt swollen in his mouth. A sigh. The hand vanished from his chest. Footsteps retreated from his bedside and then returned. So did the hand. Joined, this time, but another to grab his arms. Firmly pulling him upright and propping him there with an arm curved around his back. He couldn’t hold his head up and it lulled against his shoulder. Fingers, clad in supple gloves, slid into his hair to lift his head into a less strenuous position.
The rim of a mug was pressed against his lips. Tilting up and backward to pour its contents into his mouth. Cool and soothing against his swollen throat. Water, his hazed mind was able to determine a moment later, and Clive swallowed greedily. His hands reaching, blind, for the mug with numb fingers which only led to most of its contents being splashed down his front. The figure holding the mug made a soft chuffing sound, not unlike a laugh, and pulled the empty mug back. Refilling it with something else which Clive attempted to swallow so quickly that the bitter taste of medicinal herbs almost didn’t register.
He tried to spit it out but that gloved hand grabbed his chin and pinned his mouth shut. Pinching his nose to prevent the tincture from escaping that way while another hand-they all felt the same but at this point he counted at least two separate pairs and couldn’t fathom how one person could have so many-massaged his throat. Encouraging the instinct to swallow.
The medicine burned as it went down and pooled heavy in his stomach, but the weight of its influence didn’t permit him to dwell on it. Dragging him back into the unconscious abyss like an anchor chain wrapped about his waist. The last thing he was truly aware of was being laid back down against the pillows. That strange voice speaking just beside his ear.
“Rest, now, my Prince. Your father bid me care for you until you’re well enough to see him.”
That wasn’t possible. His father was dead. But the precise details of why that was and how it had happened evaded him. Melting away, when he tried to grab them, like ash upon the wind.
Clive didn’t know how long he slept, but when he opened his eyes again it was raining. Overcast light spilled in through a set of doors which led out onto a balcony, alongside the play of rain and the rhythmic thudding of the distant sea. There was no more haze across his vision and he was able to make out his surroundings with clarity. The walls pressing in around him, latticed with mullioned windows. The dark tiles of the floor reflecting the same color as the heavy chandelier above his head; wrought iron and hung from a chain which wouldn’t have looked out of place in a dungeon. The space was nothing like his room in Rosalith had been, with its airy ceiling and patterning of red and white. Who it belonged to, he had no idea.
He wasn’t alone, he realized, as he propped himself upright against the pillows. Peering across a heavy velvet bedspread toward the corner of the room where a figure sat in a chair, reading by the light of a crystal lantern. He glanced up over the top of the text-titled with a runic script of harsh marks and sharp lines which Clive couldn’t make out for the life of him-at the sound of the sheets moving. Lowering it entirely a moment later and rising to his feet.
Pale blonde hair worn short and braided to one side. His skin, too, was pale, as were his eyes. The clothing he wore was a mix of tassets and leather, topped with a drapery of fabric about his shoulders which reminded Clive strangely of saddle cloth. He pressed one of those narrow graceful hands against his chest and bent forward. Sweeping into a deep bow with all the poise of a courtly noble.
“You are awake, my Prince. And for more than a mere moment, it seems.” He said. “Is there pain? Do you require something? Food, perhaps? You’ve been unconscious, to varying degrees, for nearing a month now.”
It had already been a month since Phoenix Gate? Since he’d lost his home and family and been sold away? A month since Odin…? “Where am I?”
“Home.” The man said.
“No.” The word came out almost as a snarl, but Clive didn’t care for the little details. Not with his hackles raised and his instincts flaring. Something hot, like Phoenix’s flame but unfamiliar, sparked up inside him. Racing down his sword arm only to be grounded by something on his wrist. He looked down without thinking, his addled state short-circuiting him enough that his training to never take his eyes off an enemy deserted him, and saw it. A crystal fetter, cleverly disguised as a decorative bangle and adorned with the image of a six-legged horse. “This is Waloed! Don’t lie to me!”
“I don’t lie, my Prince.” He said, raising his hands in placation. There was a strange expression on his face. One that Clive recognized, a moment later and with a start, as pity. “I understand that you’re confused. But you’ve been lied to all your life. Nothing that you think you know is true. Not your bloodline. Not even your own name. You’ve been deceived.”
Deceived? How in the Founder’s name…that was preposterous. “ Where have you taken me?”
“Home, my Prince, as I’ve told you. You are in Stonhyrr, at Castle Black, for the first time in fifteen years. The place where you were born.” He said. “All you’ve ever known is the Dutchy and the Arch Duke’s lies, but you are no Rosfield. No Phoenix blood. You are the son of Odin. A Tharmr.”
That wasn’t possible.
His father was Elwin Rosfield and his mother, for all that she wished it otherwise, was Annabelle. He was the brother of Joshua Rosfield. First Sheild of the Phoenix. Firstborn failure. The eikon hadn’t picked him because he wasn’t worthy.
It wasn’t because he didn’t share in the blood it passed through.
It couldn’t be.
“Your King is of the practice of handing off his children to opposing nations to do with as they please, is he?”
The man shook his head. “You are the only child he ever had. Born at the will of our God to save this world. A gift from the Most High. But he never got to so much as lay his eyes on you and thought you dead until our Master told him of Phoenix Gate.” He said. Ignorant to, or perhaps simply uncaring of, the way Clive flinched. “We were at war with Rosaria at the time and they had pressed us back. Your father had gone to the front line to do battle with the Phoenix, and was successful in slaying him. But while he did so Elwin and his men snuck into the castle. Spirited you away after your mother was cut down in the fighting. Stolen, before you could take more than your first breath. And your father? He believed you’d died with her.”
It was madness. His father was a good man, for all that he’d often had to make hard choices as a leader. He wasn’t a monster. Certainly wasn’t the type to sanction anything so grisly as the murder of a woman, likely unarmed and having just given birth.
Of course, Clive wasn’t a fool. He didn’t know war, not personally, but he’d been taught the truth of its nature. Knew that soldiers could get out of hand, even while they had their Commander with them. Knew that collateral damage was an accepted cost. Knew that even good men, even men as good as Elwin Rosfield, could do terrible things when the heat of battle seized them.
It was disturbing, how easily he could envision it. He’d have felt guilt over her death, surely. This woman whom, to Clive, was nameless. And he wouldn’t have been able to leave behind a newborn, only minutes old and unable to fend for himself, to die. Even knowing it was the son of an enemy leader. Clive knew he was of the practice of taking wards; Jill had been the daughter of the King of the Northern Territories, another country with which Rosaria had warred. And it would explain why Annabelle, hung up as she was on bloodline, had always…
No. He wasn’t going to entertain this madness!
“My Liege has mourned for many years, believing that his family had been torn away from him by this cruel and unjust world. He has been…dolorous and without spark but, still, he served our Holy Master. And that devotion was repaid with a miracle.”
“I’d assume your ‘miracle’ is my return?” There was no ‘miracle’ to be had, in Clive’s mind. Not as he sat there in a foreign country in the ashes of the only life he’d ever known, being told by a man he’d never seen before that everything, even his own sense of self, was a lie.
“The Most High kept you, Mythos. And when you’d grown, and grown strong enough to bear the strain, he awoken within you your full potential. Allowed you to burn away your bondage. And delivered you back to us.”
Another spark of anger, stronger than the first, crackled to life in him. Zipping down his arm and meeting the same fate as the first. “So your ‘God’ sent the second Dominant of Fire?” Clive demanded, his lips drawing back over his teeth again. He tried to get up but his limbs were slow to respond. Heavy, as if they’d been cast from lead. “Where is the bastard! I’ll kill him!”
The man was in front of him in an instant and pushing him down. Pinning him firmly against the bed, entirely unphased by his efforts to squirm free.
“Forgive me, my Prince. But you will do nothing of the sort. Your life is not yours to take.”
His…?
No. No! It couldn’t be! It wasn’t possible! He wasn’t a Dominant! He’d failed to awaken! He didn’t have an Eikon!
He’d stood beside the Lord Commander, and yet he hadn’t burned.
He knew of the second Eikon of Fire, yet he hadn’t seen it. Couldn’t remember its features, only the pump of power in his veins and the wild resistance of heavy blows.
The last thing he remembered was a splitting pain and a cloaked figure calling out a name. His name. Or, at least, the name that the strange pale man was insisting was truly his. His name and two more words which, looking back, he could vaguely make out as ‘Awaken, Ifrit!’
Clive threw himself forward with every ounce of strength still possessed by his Prime-worn body. Crashing into the other man and knocking them both to the ground. Grabbing the sword at his belt by the hilt and trying his damndest to wrench it from its sheath. He’d end himself, then and there. Plunge the blade into his heart and avenge Joshua. Pay penance for his sins in the only way that he could. The only way that offenses like kinslaying and oathbreaking deserved. He’d bring his brother peace. And would free himself, by consequence, from the shackles of his own existence.
But fate aligned against him. The tongue of the blade caught on the top of the scabbard, locking it in place. The man that it belonged to reacted instantly, revealing himself to be a soldier and a skilled one at that. Grabbing Clive’s arm and sweeping his feet from beneath him. Pinning him, on his front, against the cold tile.
“I am sorry, my young Leige. But, as I told you, I cannot permit an attempt on your life. Even at your own hand.” He said. “Yours is a great destiny. One that you must fulfill. And, at the behest of our King, I will see to it that you are preserved for long enough to do so.”
Clive hissed and shouted. Struggling against the surprisingly powerful grip of the man, who’d pressed his knee into the small of his back. Bucking and wriggling with everything he had until he lost the strength to do so and was forced by his exhausted body to simply lay there. Then, he screamed. Screamed without words. Screamed like a wounded animal, his vision blurring with bitter tears, because there was nothing else that he could do.
He’d killed his brother. Joshua. His little brother. A child of no more than eight who he’d loved. Whom he’d been born to protect. Who’d trusted him. And he couldn’t even avenge him. Couldn’t even pay the toll he owed.
Some brother he was.
Some shield.
He was released from the pin and pulled upward. Dragged into an embrace, his head propped beneath the other man’s pointed chin. His face pressing into the soft cloth around his shoulders; warm and strangely scentless.
“He was not your brother, Mythos. He was the enemy. The inheritor of your chains, passed down from his father.” He said, voice smooth and silken. Inviting him to believe. To sink into oblivion and let the guilt and pain fall away like a snake shedding its old, unneeded scales. “You have done nothing wrong. Merely reclaimed your freedom. Punished those who stole you from your kin and from your birthright. Who sought to make you servile, when it is your right to sit upon every throne ever crafted. To bring Valisthea to heel.”
“No.” It came out as a moan. Drawn out, dry, and reedy with pain. “Joshua. No.”
The man hushed him. Running his fingers through his hair and rocking him like a mother might their ailing child. Like he’d seen Annabelle do for his brother but had never experienced himself. Humming a melody he didn’t recognize and holding him like that, against a chest which had no heartbeat, until his swollen eyes ran dry and Clive hiccuped himself back into unconsciousness.
He’d been placed back in the bed at some point while he’d slept, dreamless and merciful in the claws of his exhaustion, but the pain returned with wakefulness and he curled in on himself. Pulling his knees up to his chest and clutching his head in his hands. Pulling uselessly at his hair until the places where it had anchored to his skull burned. His breath hitched. His eyes blazed. But he’d run out of tears the night before and had nothing else to cry.
If only he could believe that everything had been a lie. That he wasn’t Clive Rosfield, but Mythos Tharmr. Not a murderous brother but a tortured captive at last breaking free. At least then he might be spared from his burden.
He wanted to believe it. Wanted to hide behind that sweet veil of absolved responsibility and drown himself in that numbing darkness. Drink deep and let it soothe the broken hurts inside him.
But he couldn’t.
He could.
But he shouldn’t.
But why? What was there for him in Clive Rosfield that was worth clinging to? A Prince who wasn’t. A Sheild who’d broken. A son his mother couldn’t love.
Wouldn’t he rather be the lost Prince whose father had thought dead but had still rushed to rescue? Son to a mother who, presumably, had loved him? Bound for greatness, rather than a failure without a hope of worth?
Had Elwin truly raised a man so weak?
“Awake, my Prince?” The man asked. The one who, it seemed, had been appointed both his carer and his jailor. Who’d held him and soothed him and, likely, tucked him into bed. Despite his agitation, Clive felt his cheeks warm. “I must insist you eat, Mythos.”
He wasn’t permitted to respond before the door clicked open. Swinging wide to reveal…a doppelganger of the man? Clive stared, uncomprehending on how such a thing could be remotely possible. Were they twins? It didn’t seem so. They were too identical even for that.
“I see you are confused.” The first version of the man said while the second placed the tray that he was holding across his lap. Bowing at the waist and shuffling back out again. “I suppose something of an explanation is necessary. My name is Sleipnir Harbard and I am what is called an Egi. A construct created by your father, from the aether of his Eikon. Originally to serve as a replacement for the Dominant of Ramuh, who betrayed us and fled his post as Lord Commander some years ago now.”
Egi? He’d never heard the term before. Was it something that all Dominants were capable of, or just an ability of Odin’s? “Why are there two of you?”
“Two of me?” he laughed, a small grin appearing on his features. “My Prince, there are many more than two of me. Granted, only one can contain my consciousness at any given time, and thus only one can accomplish truly complex tasks such as caring for the sick. Luckily, I’m able to leap between them at a moment’s notice. And it was, of course, I who aided our King in your retrieval.”
Aided him in his retrieval? He’d fallen unconscious quickly, granted, but Clive hadn’t seen anyone else there. Only Odin and… “you’re the horse?”
The Egi, Sleipnir, let out another chuffing snort of laughter. The braid at the side of his head swinging gently with his nod. “You catch on quickly, Mythos. But I should not be surprised. After all, there is none so keen as Odin.”
His father.
No. Elwin was his father.
Did the Arch Duke deserve that title when he’d allowed him to be all but excommunicated by his wife? Consigned to the sidelines. Made to bow and serve when he should have stood beside them as an equal.
Elwin had tried. He’d done his best for him. For both of them. Clive knew that.
He hadn’t tried hard enough, and Clive had been the one left to suffer for it. He’d always treated him like a son when they were alone, but had never intervened between them when Annabelle was present.
If they weren’t blood then it made sense why keeping the peace between his true family had been more important than his treatment.
“Please, my Prince. You must eat.”
Clive didn’t look at what he was putting into his mouth, nor did he taste it. He hadn’t realized how hungry he’d become, after weeks of unconsciousness and being drip-fed bone broth. He cleaned his plate despite his still roiling upset and felt the press of tiredness return. His eyelids suddenly heavy.
“Do you tire, Mythos?” Sleipnir lifted the tray and spirited it off to a waiting table. “I can leave you to take your rest if you wish.”
“No.” He said. “No more sleep. I’ve slept enough,” Enough for a lifetime. At least, that was how it felt. “I want to see him. To speak to him. Your King.”
“ Our King.” The correction was gentle, but insistent. “And not yet. Not until you are recovered and well enough to walk. A few more days, at the very least.”
Clive huffed in annoyance and shifted back and forth against the pillows but wasn’t able to do much more than that before the strength left him. “Do you have a book, then? Something I can read, unlike the one you had the other day?”
“I’m afraid not. Your father keeps an extensive library here in Castle Black, built upon his many decades of rule, but all his books are written in Waloedi. Until you’ve learned to speak and read it-and you will-there won’t be much reading that you’ll be able to do. Though, if you’re looking for a distraction, I may have another means.”
The door opened again and another Sleipnir-Clive couldn’t tell if it was the same doppelganger as before or another one entirely-stepped into the room. Handing a small polished box to the first who placed it, in turn, on the side of the bed.
“This is a game you’d have learned to play had you grown up here, as you were meant to, called Hnefatafl. In a tongue you’re more familiar with, King’s Table.” He said. “I can teach you the rules, if you’d like?”
“Please,” he said. “I’d welcome the diversion.”
Hnefatafl, it turned out, was a war game not unlike chess in which the defending side-whose objective was to escape with their king off the side of the board-was outnumbered. Clive quickly discovered he was terrible at it, regardless of which side he played, and wracked up a healthy twenty losses before Sleipnir packed it away for the night and left him to sink back into sleep.
The next few days passed by in much the same fashion. Clive would wake at an uncertain hour to find at least one Sleipnir present, though it was often at least three, and would be administered medicines and water before being given a meal. And then the Hnefatafl board would be brought out and they’d play. Clive would still be brutally beaten but he was gradually getting a better grasp on the intricacies of the rules, as well as the way his opponent went about his strategies, and was confident that, with more time, he’d begin to be able to hold his own.
Exhaustion still came to him, but it grew less and less formidable to fight with until he was finally able to stay awake from morning to night without needing to rest. To get up out of the bed and explore the room under the watchful eye of the Lord Commander. Though he was herded away from the balcony doors, with the tall railing and stark drop beyond them, whenever he attempted to stray too near.
Finally, a week after finding himself in Castle Black, he awoke to the sight of Sleipnir carrying a steaming jug and a leather pack. “Good morning, my Prince. The time has come for you and your father to speak. But first, you must make ready.” He set both the jug and the pack down atop the table, beside a parcel of clothing. Gesturing to the wooden tub which had appeared on the ground while he’d been sleeping. “You did not believe I would permit a proper meeting between you and our Leige with you unbathed and dressed in bedclothes, surely?”
A bath. Come to think of it, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d had one. Though, considering he wasn’t covered in the blood and ash from Phoenix Gate, it had likely happened at least once while he’d been unconscious. Which meant that the Egi, more than likely, had been responsible for overseeing it. Clive tried not to blush as he rose to his feet, well aware he’d likely failed.
“Thank you, I’ll…see to that.”
For a moment, much to his mortification, it seemed as if Sleipnir would just continue to stand there. Then, the Lord Commander offered him a serene smile and exited the room. The door swinging shut in his wake with a soft click.
His knees still felt unsteady-loose in their sockets and unused to holding his weight-but Clive pushed aside his legs’ desire to give way and stumbled forward. Catching himself against the side of the table and knocking it faintly askance with his weight. One hand braced against the dark wood-ebony or stained wenge, he couldn’t tell-to hold himself up as he palmed the leather satchel open.
A pair of clay pots labeled with more of that unreadable Waloeder script and a bar of soap that looked like ash and smelled strongly of yarrow and meadowsweet. Rough to the touch, and oily, but more than capable of getting the job done. And, though it wasn’t the cream and cinderbloom soap that he was used to, Clive found he didn’t mind the scent.
A thin cloud of steam rose up off the water as he poured the contents into the wooden tub, warm as it caressed his cheeks. Clive cast a glance over his shoulder, just to reassure himself that Sleipnir had indeed left, then began to strip his clothing away.
The shirt was long-sleeved; white and woven from a fabric that felt almost like silk. So thin it was nearly sheer, but not quite, and loose around the shoulders. The pants were dark and fitted just well enough around his waist to not fall away unprompted. He’d been sized at some point while he’d been unconscious, then. And the clean set of clothing resting on the table, no doubt, had also been tailored to his body.
Another matter Clive tried not to think about. Not merely because the concept of being undressed and fitted while he’d been comatose with fever was a humiliating one but also because it spoke to an awareness of him that was so foreign it was almost uncomfortable. A consideration that he was there and, because he was there, he would need to be clothed. Care , even, on account of not simply giving him any old cast-offs that happened to be lying about to wear, fit be damned.
Not an afterthought to be scorned. Not a dismissed failure. A person.
The fabric fell down his legs. Pooling at his feet. He stepped out of them and over the rim of the tub and sank down into the water. Soothing in its warmth and mixed, it seemed, with more oils that lent it a faint and gentle scent he couldn’t identify. Floral, almost, but not quite.
Clive picked up the ashen soap and dunked it into the water; rubbing it between his hands until it produced a satisfactory amount of suds. Lathering them across his chest and sides; his stomach; his arms. Pausing when his fingers came into contact with the fetter on his wrist.
Loose enough that it wouldn’t bite into his skin and cause discomfort, but not loose enough to be at any risk of sliding off his hand no matter how abruptly he moved. A core of faceted stone-deep violet like the night sky and likely taken from Waloed’s Mothercrystal-edged in gold and held together by that glittering latch. Clive thumbed at it curiously, not expecting it to give way, only to nearly drop it into the water when the shackle popped open.
He quickly snapped it shut again, wide-eyed. The last thing he needed was to lose control again and Prime. Become the monster called Ifrit. Hurt someone else.
He’d already killed his Captor. Brother . Joshua was his brother . His-.
Clive needed to get out of there. Needed to get out of Waloed, and off of Ash. To get back to Storm before anything else could happen to make him further question what he thought he knew and his sanity along with it. Make him want to believe that the story Sleipnir had told him could possibly be true, if only for the selfish sake of escaping from his pain. From the burden of the sins and culpability he had to bear. From the fault.
He was still only a child. Could he be blamed for that temptation? He’d lost the only parent who’d cared anything for him and he’d killed the brother he’d adored and was now only left with a viper of a mother. It was only natural he’d grasp onto the possibility that he had another parent-a real parent who was still alive and who wanted him-like a lifeline. No matter how terrible their reputation.
Even if he escaped, somehow, from the castle and all of the Sleipnirs where could he go? He’d been sold into slavery by his mother. If he returned to the Grand Dutchy he would, at best, be sent immediately to Sanbreque to be turned into a slave and, at worst, hung up for the crows. He knew nowhere else. If he left, he’d not only be marooned in an alien nation without any care or mercy for him, bound to become a tool for whoever uncovered his nature as a Dominant and captured him first, he’d be alone.
He could kill himself.
He had to, if he was truly to avenge the Phoenix-his brother! His brother! -but were Clive truly to be honest with himself…he didn’t want to die. He wanted to live. Wanted to embrace the other story that he’d been told. The alternative history which rewrote his past into a political prisoner at long last returned home. Wanted to turn his back on Clive Rosfield and all the pain he carried with him. Wanted to be the snake that shed its skin. The butterfly which broke from the chrysalis changed; granted wings upon which it could leave its suffering behind. The lava which boiled up through cracks in the earth, melting away old stone and forging it anew.
He just wanted to be free.
It made him hate himself even more.
Setting the bar aside on top of the unfurled leather, where it wouldn’t dirty the tabletop with suds and water, he washed the soap from his body. Selecting one of the clay pots at random and using it to lather his hair, if only as a means of busying his hands. Stepping out of the tub again once he’d finished and drying off with the waiting cloth before turning his attention to the clothing that had been left out for him. Realizing with a start that not only had attention been paid to his sizing but also his preference in style.
The armored shoulder pads were gone, as were the faulds he’d worn around his waist, and the heavy boots and gloves had been traded out for supple riding attire. Shiny and butter-soft. Stamped, yet again, with the six-legged horse. The rest of his clothing, though, was much the same; long pants, a sleeved undershirt, and a doublet tied tight across his chest. The only truly noticeable difference was the exchange of Rosarian red for a deep and inky blue.
White, black, and indigo. The colors of Waloed.
A soft tutting sound rang out from behind him a split second before a hand descended on his shoulder. A comb, crafted from animal bone and adorned with carvings of wolves attacking his hair. “A mess, from so long abed. I can hardly allow you out like this.” Sleipnir’s hands were firm and insistent but gentle. Somehow, magically, managing to work the comb rapidly through his hair without pulling on a single tangle. “You weren’t permitted to walk about Rosalith looking like an unkindness of ravens had made their home atop your head, were you? Where is the rest of that oil?”
A rhetorical question, it turned out, because an instant later something cold was trickling down the back of his neck. The comb returned as well and the Lord Commander took to taming his hair. Tutting as he did so, like a fussing mother, while Clive stood frozen in bewilderment.
At last, after what felt like an age, he was spun around. Catching sight of their reflections in a long lead glass mirror: Sleipnir, without so much as a thread out of place, with his hand on the shoulder of a youth he didn’t immediately recognize. Gaunt and pale from stress with dark shadows under his eyes and his usually unruly hair slicked into a regal fringe that framed the right half of his face in gentle shadows.
Mythos Tharmr looked nothing like Clive Rosfield and yet, they could have been brothers. Twins.
What was he talking about? He was Clive Rosfield.
But maybe…he didn’t have to be anymore.
“Come, my Prince. We’ve kept your father waiting long enough.” The Lord Commander stepped away from him, then. Striding confidently across the stone floor and disappearing through the door. Clive took one last look over his shoulder at the stately figure in the mirror and followed the Egi out into the castle halls.