5. Two

The elf who showed me to my rooms apologized profusely for the meager accommodations, claiming they were unfit for a prince. He explained that the best suite had been given to the king and I would have to settle for second best. Typical. Even now, I couldn't best Ruith at anything.

I didn't mind, though. Anything was better than sleeping on the ground another night.

The antechamber was dark, but warm thanks to a roaring fire in the fireplace. Oil lamps flickered against stone posts, giving the room a welcoming golden glow. The wooden furniture was simple in its make, but it was still more seating than I had seen since we had left the Runecleaver stronghold at Rünhyll.

I sank onto one of the long, high-backed benches with a contented sigh. It wasn't as comfortable as the velvet couches back in Ostovan, having only several layers of hide and fur for padding. My hips and back ached from the long ride, and the rest of me was sore from the battle that had come before.

Hawk paced the perimeter of the room, his hand on his sword as he eyed the painted wooden shields and dull weapons placed on the walls as decorations. There were wood carvings on the wall as well, each depicting the stylized art of elves on boats.

He ran his fingers over a copper relief of similar imagery, the metal long ago having oxidized and turned green. "No matter how many years I've been in irons, I'll never get used to this strange land."

"All lands are strange to strangers." I let my head fall back and closed my eyes. It was tempting to fall asleep there without ever seeing the bed. Even a night spent on a hard bench with nothing but furs for blankets was better than all the nights I'd slept on the ground as a slave.

Hawk dropped his hand to his side and turned to face me. "There've been rumblings in the ranks, highness. People talking of deserting."

Blessed Divine… It had only been a day—a single day—and already there were dissenters. I had hoped that I would at least get to sleep once before I had to deal with such nonsense.

I wiped a hand over my face. "And where do they suppose they'll desert to ? The crossing is dangerous, more so in the winter, and the snow is nearly upon us. Even making it to the sea from here would be an exercise in futility. The Runecleavers own the land to the west, and there are mountains to the east. Anyone foolish enough to strike out on their own will almost certainly die from exposure if the elves don't catch and kill them first."

"Aye, so I've said, but some men might prefer death to fighting on behalf of their captors." He leaned against the wall and folded his arms. "And many don't believe the elf king actually means to let us go once the fighting is done."

"Ruith is an elf of his word," I said for the second time that night. I hated how easily I defended him, and how bitter the taste of his name was on my tongue. "Besides, he will have no choice. We outnumber the elves."

"Only if you count the aged, the women, and the children," Hawk scoffed. "Not all men are equal, my prince. Only the ones who can hold a sword count when it comes to war."

I twisted on the bench to look at him. "What would you have me do? Arm the women? Give swords to the children? Or should I appeal to the mercy of elves, Hawk, and negotiate to send them across a hostile sea to the human lands that many of them have never seen?"

Hawk was silent. There was no good answer to the questions I'd just dropped at his feet, just as there were no easy paths forward. He was right, though. Our so-called army was mostly women, children, and men long past their prime. Even my general was nearly sixty, though you wouldn't know it looking at the man. He was still as strong as an ox, and twice as proud. We needed to sort the able-bodied from the infirm, make a proper roll, to know the true size of our forces. I also needed to appoint a second commander, develop a training regimen, confer with Ruith on how to best arm and armor my men and set up a functional chain of command.

But all of those things could wait until the sun rose.

"I need to sleep," I told Hawk. "And so do you."

He snorted. "You close your eyes, my prince. I'll guard your door."

"Hawk, you haven't slept in over a day."

"And it's been two since you closed your eyes, highness," he said in a scolding tone. "I can fight half asleep if I have to, but you can't command if you're too tired to know in from out nor up from down."

I relented with a sigh, knowing that arguing with the old man was a waste of my time. He was right anyway. I pushed up to stand. "I want a list of ten men fit for guard duty tomorrow morning," I told him. "Men you'd trust with your life, as I'll be putting mine in their hands."

"Yes, highness. Now get yourself to bed before I have to carry you."

I trudged over to the set of double doors the servants had pointed out as the bedroom when they first showed me the room. I threw them open and paused in the doorway, mildly taken aback by the sight. Elvish décor tended to be on the more austere side, designed to be functional over being comfortable. I had expected to find little more than a slab covered in furs, maybe even something more akin to a nest.

Instead, it was even more grand than the sitting room. The bed looked almost like an uncovered carriage, complete with posts carved to look like horses. The heraldry of Clan Stoneriver was strung up over the bed, lest I forget whose halls I was sleeping in. More tapestries lined the walls depicting battles and births, family trees and fallen warriors, angry gods and kneeling kings. I ran my fingers over the fine thread work, marveling at the craftsmanship. I hadn't seen its like since that summer my father took me to Trinta.

The memory sparked an unexpected pang of longing to be home in my own quarters, surrounded by my things. I missed the nightly banquets, and my father's laugh, my eldest brother's quiet stoicism as he traded verbal barbs with minor lords. I used to hate those banquets and how Andrej insisted that I be seen at them. I would have rather been tucked in the eves of the library with my books, or in bed with whatever soldier had caught my eye that afternoon. I often told my brother so, too.

He'd just laugh, clap me on the back and tell me, "There will be time enough for such dalliances tomorrow. Tonight, you will be the third son of Ostovan."

Every night, it was the same lie. Yet no matter how many times he told it to me, I believed him. That was the sort of man Andrej was. You couldn't help but believe in him. Everyone in Ostovan loved him.

Everyone but Michail, whom I had no doubt was behind his death now. At the time, Andrej's sudden and inexplicable illness and subsequent death had seemed like a terrible tragedy. Had my father's death had not come a mere two days later, while the city was still mourning the loss of their beloved prince, I might never have thought otherwise. Yet Michail had shown his teeth and claws the night he claimed the throne, and now I knew the sting of his venom.

For the first time in many months, it occurred to me that I had never truly mourned the loss of Andrej. Two days wasn't nearly enough time to process my half-brother's death. Though many months had passed since that day, I had been so busy trying to survive, I hadn't had the space to grieve.

All the strength suddenly left my legs, and I fell to my knees, shoulders trembling. I was glad I was alone. At least no one would see the tears I shed for my family, for the brother I had lost and the one that had betrayed me so cruelly, and for a homeland I might never see again.

Ruith had promised to help me exact my revenge upon Michail, but his war could easily claim my life before that day came. I might die in this strange land, swallowed up by the foreignness of it. It was a beautiful country, with a culture and customs I was only just beginning to understand, but it was not my country. It was not my home. My bones were not supposed to rest there, buried in the lush green hills and in the shadow of snowcapped mountains. It, and my heart, belonged back in Ostovan, encased in stone in the family crypt.

I hugged myself tight and thought about the other humans, former slaves threatening to desert. Perhaps they were right. Why should we bleed and die in an elvish civil war? We weren't elves. There would be no monuments built for dead slaves, no matter which side won, and no honored dead. They'd cut off our heads and bury us in mass graves just like they'd done at Haena.

All that tied me to this war was a single promise. I could gather my people, ride away in the night. Perhaps if we were swift, and the sea winds were with us, we could sail into Savarra. Elf, man, slave, free… The Savarrans didn't care about such things. They welcomed everyone who was willing to brave their gauntlet to gain citizenship. We wouldn't all survive their bloodsport spectacle, but the strong might. I might. And I might even be able to rally the southern crown to my cause, and march north to take Ostovan…

Any of it was possible, I supposed, but so many would die. Would it be more or less than if we fought Ruith's war? I had no way of knowing, and yet I was expected to decide. I had been made the leader of these miserable human souls.

The weight of that pressed me to the floor. My sobs ceased, and I was left only with a trembling weakness that paralyzed me for some time. I sank into a fantasy in which everything that had happened since that night was just a dream. I was back in my bedroom, the braziers lit, incense perfuming the air. Sharp fingernails dug into my sweat and oil-slicked skin and silk ropes bound my wrists tight against my back while I let my guards strike me, use me, fuck me like I was nothing. That was what I thought I wanted, to be nothing, treated like property, to be used .

In the fantasy within my fantasy, I enjoyed the punishment. Craved it, even. The snap of the flogger against my back was once a release I sought on purpose, twisted as it was. Perhaps being tied to a post and being given lashes that opened my back was never real, and I had never been taken at all. I'd open my eyes and I wouldn't be surrounded by strange art in a strange land. I'd be home .

I opened my eyes and my heart sank. With a long-suffering sigh, I stood and undressed before I dragged myself over to the first proper bed I'd slept in since Michail's betrayal. Exhaustion made me close my eyes, but there was no rest for me, even in sleep.

My dreams were filled with blood and the clattering of swords against shields. A red mist descended on a battlefield strewn with bodies. Human, elf… There was so much carnage I couldn't tell one from another. In the sky, the sun eclipsed the moon, painting the starless sky in strange shades of red. The distant sound of music drew me, but it was no war horn nor the beating of drums. Instead, there was a flute and a lyre playing one of the many courtly dances I'd been forced to learn as a boy.

Ruith emerged from the bloody mist, a hand extended. I took it and we bowed to one another before falling into the now-familiar steps of the dance. While the crows feasted on the corpses around us, we danced, pushing and pulling, spinning around each other, but never quite touching.

When I woke, golden sunlight had found its way through the curtains, and the bed felt strangely empty next to me, almost as if someone had been there and gone in the night. I turned my head to look at the undisturbed pillow next to me. It was strange to wake alone, I decided, after so many weeks of sharing a bed with Ruith. Stranger still not to rush off to fetch his breakfast and bath water while pointedly avoiding walking in on him pleasuring himself.

I closed my eyes again. The dream of the macabre dance had faded, but not the sense of rightness I'd felt when we were close. That feeling wasn't unique to the dream. I'd felt it the night of the eclipse too and fought against it with all I had. Ruith was a heartless, selfish manipulator who saw people only as pieces to serve him in his game of power. A sane man wouldn't crave such an egotistical monster, and yet that was exactly what I found my body doing, even as my mind struggled to make sense of it. I missed our arguments, our quiet disagreements, even our outright fights. I missed the certainty of knowing he was my enemy, and of knowing the way my body reacted to him was only physical.

Now, I was unsure.

He had manipulated me, used me, hurt me when it served him, and he'd do the same again if I gave him the chance. Yet my heart still fluttered every time he looked at me, and my fingers still remembered the silky feel of his hair between them. Every time I thought about the night of the eclipse, my cock started to harden, and a strange twinge of hopefulness stirred, as if I wanted it to happen again.

As if I wanted him .

I rose with a sigh. A bath would clear my head, and it'd be nice not to have to wash myself with water out of a barrel for once. I'd spied a big soaking tub in the sitting room the night before and pulled open the bedroom doors, intending to find some way to make use of it if I had to haul the water up myself from the falls.

I stopped short in the doorway, my tired eyes widening at the scene before me. Senna, the bitter old overseer, stood in the middle of the antechamber, his weathered face twisted into a scowl. Two young boys cowered before him, their eyes wide with fear as Senna's harsh voice filled the room.

"Lazy, worthless dogs!" Senna snarled. He raised his hand, and in it was that damnable magical pain wand of his. "The elf king sends you to serve, and yet you can't even manage to light a proper fire! Is that how they train you in the Riverlands, boys? You'll soon learn better!"

I stepped forward, my bare feet silent against the stone floor. "Senna," I barked. "What is the meaning of this?"

Senna whirled to face me, his thin lips curling into a sneer. "I'm but teaching these whelps their place. His majesty sent them to attend to you, but they're more useless than a pair of three-legged mules."

I moved closer, positioning myself between Senna and the boys. The young boys looked up at me with a mix of awe and trepidation, their small bodies tensed as if ready to bolt. I could see the marks of Senna's rough handling on their thin arms, angry red welts that stood out against their pale skin.

I drew myself up to my full height, squaring my shoulders as I met Senna's bitter gaze. "You will not lay a hand on these children. Not now, not ever."

"Well then, how do you suppose I should punish them for insubordination, if not the rod?"

I stared down Senna, my jaw clenching as rage swelled within me. How dare he treat these children, these innocents, with such cruelty? It was one thing for him to beat a grown man like me, and another level of viciousness altogether to strike children. They were not dogs to be beaten into submission, but young souls deserving of care and guidance.

"There will be no punishment," I said firmly. "These boys are under my protection now. If they require correction, it will come from me, and it will never be delivered with a heavy hand or hateful words."

"You overstep, boy," the overseer spat. "The king himself tasked me with supervising the slaves."

I took a step forward, my bare chest nearly brushing against Senna's robes. "You will refer to me as your highness. I am your slave no longer, Senna."

Senna's eyes narrowed, his gnarled fingers tightening around the pain wand. For a moment, I thought he might strike me with it, consequences be damned. But then, with a snort of derision, he lowered his hand and took a step back.

"As you wish, your highness," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'll leave the little brats to your tender mercies. But mark my words, they'll be more trouble than they're worth."

With that, Senna turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, his robes swishing angrily behind him. The heavy wooden door slammed shut, the sound reverberating through the chamber.

I let out a breath and turned to the two boys. They stared up at me with wide, fearful eyes, their small bodies trembling. My heart ached for them. How long had they endured Senna's cruelty? How many other children had suffered under his heavy hand?

I knelt so that I was at their eye level and offered them a gentle smile. "It's alright. You're safe now. Senna won't hurt you anymore."

The boys exchanged wary glances. They remained silent, their small hands clasped tightly in front of them. Their narrow shoulders remained tensed and their posture hunched over, as if they were trying to disappear.

It was a posture I knew all too well. How many times had I stood just like that, hoping to avoid drawing the ire of a cruel master? Hoping that if I just made myself small enough, invisible enough, I might escape notice and, with it, punishment.

I reached out a hand, intending to offer a comforting touch, but they flinched back as if expecting a blow. My heart clenched in my chest. What horrors had they endured to make them so fearful of a gentle hand?

"What are your names?" I asked, first in the common human tongue, and then in Elvish.

The boys remained silent, their eyes fixed on the floor. One of them, the smaller of the two, trembled like a leaf in the wind.

I tried again. "I promise, no harm will come to you here. You can speak freely."

Still, they said nothing. I sighed, realizing that it would take more than a few kind words to undo the damage that had been done to these children. They had been conditioned to obey without question, their dreams and aspirations crushed by the weight of their circumstances if they'd ever been allowed any at all.

I stood, clenching my fists. How dare Ruith send me slaves, as if I were no different from the cruel masters who had once owned me? Did he think so little of me to send me slaves?

I scowled as I yanked on my clothes from the night before. What kind of game was Ruith playing, sending me slaves? Had he lost his damn mind, or was it meant to be an insult? Either way, I was about to give him a piece of my mind.

The boys bowed again as I stormed back into the antechamber, but I ignored them, too furious to give them a proper dismissal. Hawk was waiting outside the room, sitting on a bench. He jumped to his feet when I came out.

"Did you know?" I snarled.

He blinked. "About…?"

"Never mind." I stomped past him and he fell into step beside me. "Where is Ruith? Do you know that much, at least?"

"He sent an invitation for you to join him for breakfast an hour ago," Hawk reported. "I sent a note back that you weren't to be disturbed."

"And you thought it would be all right to let Senna into my room with slaves?" I shot him an accusatory glare.

He shrugged. "He was insistent. Said the lord would be insulted if I turned them away."

I rounded on my commander. "I won't have slaves attending to me!"

Hawk frowned. "Begging your pardon, my prince, but I didn't want hurt feelings, considering the alliance and such."

"Fuck hurt feelings. I cannot profess to be a prince who frees slaves in public while using them in private. I won't be a hypocrite!"

"All right, all right." He lifted his hands in surrender. "But you might want to make that known to the one who sent them."

"Oh, I intend to."

I eventually found Ruith sitting on a terrace overlooking the falls. He was seated on a reclining couch with his usual lazy grace, one arm thrown back over the side of the couch while another one of the household's slaves knelt in front of him, presenting a bowl of fruit. His siblings were scattered around the terrace, each engaged in their own activity. Aryn was sharpening his knives, Katyr polishing his taps, and Ieduin…Ieduin was moping uncharacteristically against the stone railing.

I stormed onto the terrace, my eyes immediately seeking out Ruith. He lounged on his couch like a lazy cat, completely at ease while the world burned around him. My anger flared hotter at the sight of him, so indolent and uncaring.

But then I saw Senna standing off to the side, his weathered face twisted into a smug smile. He had gotten here before me, no doubt to tattle on my refusal of the slave boys like a petulant child. I clenched my jaw, determined not to let Senna get the best of me.

Ruith glanced up as I approached. "Ah, Prince Elindir. I trust you slept well?"

"Well enough," I bit out. "Until I was rudely awakened by Senna here, beating children outside my door."

Ruith's gaze flicked to Senna, who had the grace to look chagrined. "Is that so?" Ruith said. "Senna, I thought I made it clear that those boys were to attend the prince, not be thrashed by you."

Senna bowed his head. "Forgive me, your majesty. I was merely attempting to train them to serve properly."

"By beating them?" My hands curled into fists at my sides. "They're children, not dogs!"

Ruith's eyes narrowed as he regarded Senna coldly. "Perhaps you have forgotten, Senna, but we have freed the slaves. They are tr?ll now, bound to us by oath, not by the lash."

Senna's face reddened, his mouth twisting sourly as if he had bitten into a lemon. "Forgive me, your grace," he gritted out through clenched teeth. "Old habits die hard."

"See that they die more swiftly," Ruith warned, "Or I will find someone else to oversee the tr?ll, someone who understands the difference between loyal service and forced subjugation."

Senna bowed stiffly, his eyes full of barely restrained resentment. "As you command, your majesty." He shot me a venomous glare before slinking away.

I watched him go, a sense of grim satisfaction settling in my chest. It was high time someone put that bitter old man in his place. For too long, he had been allowed to abuse and terrorize the helpless, to wield his meager power like a cudgel.

But my satisfaction was short-lived as I turned back to face Ruith. He was watching me with those bruise blue eyes, his head tilted slightly to the side like a curious bird. "Senna is a mean old bat, but if there's one thing he's good at, it's doing as he's told."

"I recall," I said bitterly.

"As for the boys…" Ruith selected a ripe peach from a bowl of fruit in front of him. "Lord Stoneriver has agreed to free his slaves," Ruith said. "Some of them wanted to stay on as servants to the household. Others he sent to work for me. However, I expect I'll soon have more servants and attendants than I know what to do with. Besides, there might be a misunderstanding if I kept humans in my personal employ. You understand how it might look. So, I sent them to you. You will, of course, be expected to clothe and feed and care for them. But considering you will not have time to see to their care all day and night, Senna has been placed in charge of their wellbeing."

I crossed my arms. "Why do they need a caretaker at all?"

Ruith frowned, considering the peach. "They have lived their entire lives as slaves up until this morning, Elindir. They have no idea how to live without someone to tell them. That will improve with time, but you cannot expect them to unlearn a lifetime of lessons in a single day." He tossed the peach to me, and I fumbled to catch it.

I frowned and turned the fuzzy fruit over in my hands. "What am I supposed to do with two…" I looked over at Katyr.

He smiled and supplied, "Tr?ll . "

Fuck me, I'd never be able to roll the r that way.

I turned back to Ruith. "What am I supposed to do with two tr?ll?"

He shrugged and stood. "Whatever you like. They're your responsibility now as members of your household. I suspect you'll find a use for them sooner or later."

Ruith waved his hand. As if there had been some secret communication between them, Kat, Ieduin, and Aryn all got up and left the terrace, along with the serving girl.

Ruith waited for them to leave before pacing over to the stone railing. He spent a moment in silence, looking out over the white water cascading over the nearby rock face. "Freedom is not so easy when one has no concept of the word. You and I know how to live because we were born to it, but these people, the slaves scattered throughout the land… Some of them have known only suffering for generations. The greatness of this land was built on the backs of slaves. Many of my countrymen and yours will find those well-defined roles difficult to abandon. Even once the war is over, I expect there will be a long fight ahead of me to build the world I've promised everyone."

"A world without war and slavery isn't so impossible. We had neither in Ostovan until one man's ambition broke eighty years of peace."

"All peace is temporary. Even I know that. I cannot promise my people an end to war, not when our culture puts so much value in bloodshed."

He looked over at me and my heart raced. The rising sun silhouetted his head perfectly from that angle and with the white mist of the falls falling around him like a shroud, he looked almost as beautiful and ethereal as he had in my dream.

"But," Ruith continued, pushing away from the balcony, "I can promise to end the pointless unification war we have been waging in the north. As for our raids on the human lands…" He sank back onto the reclining sofa, but did not recline, choosing instead to take up a pitcher and pour two drinks. "We have not yet had time to discuss your plans once the war is won." He offered me one of the drinks.

"I told you. I intend to kill Michail, and you have pledged to help me."

"So I have." He gestured to the chair across from him and I sat. "But if Michail is dead, that leaves only one heir to Ostavan's throne."

"You want to know if I intend to be the King of Ostovan."

Ruith nodded.

I cradled the glass in my palms and tried to imagine myself sitting in my father's throne, fighting with the council as he had, marrying a queen, siring heirs… It all felt wrong, but what other choice would there be? I was the last of my line, the last bastard prince of Ostovan. My blood may not have been pure, but there was no one else to take Michail's place.

Rather than answer the question, I looked down at the glass in my hand and contemplated the meaning of my strange dream again and dismissed the thought. Whatever I felt for Ruith needed to stay locked away tight. I was a prince, not a slave, and he needed to respect me as such, which he would never do if he knew the truth.

I placed the peach on the small table between us. "There is much we should discuss, Ruith. And not just about the war."

He nodded, but I didn't miss the muscle tightening in his jaw or the way he swallowed his nerves first. This was not going to be an easy conversation for either of us.