Archive of Our Own

Vellioth's voice carries even in the chapel, when it's empty. It is not musical, not like Cazador's, but there's a rhythm to it all the same; an assurance, like everything he says is Scripture read aloud. That, Cazador supposes, is as Vellioth wishes it. Most things are.

"Stand up straight," Vellioth says, laying a hand on the small of his back, and Cazador cannot feel the chill of Vellioth's touch through the thick wool of his robe. "Shoulders back," he says, and his hands skim the broad lines of Cazador's shoulders, growing into a man's—if he could be called that. Made into a eunuch by the knife, a wound now years old; made into a monster by Vellioth's bite, not weeks ago.

"Now," says Vellioth, "again." Cazador does as he is told. He is a fine soprano, and will be for eternity.

Vellioth's hands don't leave him, but stay to remind him of his posture, his breathing. Cazador's lungs are already those of a man grown, and well-practiced, his notes powerful for it in the slow-tempoed requiem he sings.

Vellioth's hand comes to lie across his throat, feeling the vibrato of the final notes, fingers dancing across the punctures his teeth had left. Concealed to others by a tall collar, they are still red to look at, or so Vellioth says.

"Beautiful," Vellioth says when he's finished, a heavy presence over Cazador's shoulder in the candlelight where he should by rights cast a shadow. If he means the music, or Cazador himself, Cazador does not ask. "Now thou truly understandest, when thou sing'st of everlasting life."

There is only one thing Cazador might say that will not earn him Vellioth's ire. "Thank you, master, for teaching me."

"I don't do it for thee," Vellioth says. "Whom dost thou serve?"

"I serve our Lord." Cazador knows from the moment he says it that he is wrong; Vellioth's hand closing around his throat only confirms it.

"Where?" Vellioth all but spits. "In these hallowed halls? In the life beyond?"

"No, master."

"Dost thou truly think thou would be welcomed? Dost think I'd let thee?"

"No—"

"No." Vellioth lets go of him in a motion almost violent, and Cazador stumbles a step forward before catching himself. "Thou'rt not stupid, Cazador, much as thou mayest try to convince me otherwise. I know thou canst do better. Or do I need to teach thee another lesson?" He does not mean singing, nominally his role; he means to order Cazador to starve, allowed but a sip of the blood of their Savior until it is all he can do not to wrench the goblet away and gorge upon it, or to have Cazador wield the scourge upon himself and serve his master what blood he might catch from the drippings.

With none but God and Vellioth to hear him, Cazador says, "You, master. I serve only you."

"And thou wilt until the day thou die'st."

"Forever, then," Cazador says, but thinks, until the day I kill thee.