“He… wanted to come, to see you. I have forbidden it.”
“Why? I didn’t think that?—”
“You don’t understand, do you? It doesn’t matter what you think.”
Biting his tongue again, Leander examined his fingernails and began to pick out the dirt that resided under them.
“I’m not interested in giving you the chance to lie to me, or to my sons. Verin appears to like you, maybe not respect you, but he listens and might be influenced.”
“I have never lied to you, or to my brothers.” Leander finally shifted from his position on the floor and heaved himself up to stand. He approached the bars of his cell, ignoring the flashing spots in the periphery of his vision which told him that he had not eaten or drunk enough to maintain a steady balance on his feet.
“Oh, spare me, boy.”
“You’re barely in my company for long enough for me to say good morning, let alone any utterance containing anything of significance.” Leander was bitter. Bitter for having an absent father. Bitter for his mother barely acknowledging him. Most of all he was bitter for being misjudged at every opportunity by people who barely knew him.
Only Machus…
No, Machus was not his friend.
“If you’re quite finished, I do not want to spend my last days of freedom in your company.”
He turned away from the door and made his way over to the straw-filled bed.
Expecting Flavian to have the final word, he was determined to ignore the man. But Flavian said nothing and, by the time Leander had rested his head on the straw bed, the footsteps of his father had receded to a quiet, faraway echo.
Chapter Thirty-Two
There was an auction block in the west end of the city, packed on the third and twenty-third day of every month, filled with prospective buyers and the products they hoped to own. It was impossible to miss the shouts of bids and general hubbub if one were to find oneself in that part of Saeren on either of those two days.
Leander had been several times since his fall from grace, often accompanied by one of his brothers.
It was an interesting and entirely unique experience and emotional enough to watch as a bystander. The experience of being directly involved in the proceedings was exceedingly much less pleasant.
But, as stated by his father previously, Leander was not to go on auction in the public eye.
Ostensibly, this was because of the risk of such an individual (a divine being no less) being humiliated in such a fashion. Certain things were best kept quiet, and this situation was one of them. But Flavian had already elucidatedon the true reason for the private auction: they needed someone with the means and power to control what was considered to be a very dangerous individual.
As promised by Flavian, Leander waited two more days in his dark and depressing cell—two very long days—before some palace guards came to escort him from the prison to the castle, where the auction would be taking place.
He did not put up a fight, nor resist the manacles placed on his wrists. He silently accepted what was happening to him with all the grace and calm outward façade that he could muster.
With two days to think about his sentence, his fate, Leander had quickly come to the conclusion that there was no point in speaking in his own defence and trying to make the king’s court see reason.
The decision had been made and he was, simply, too fucking tired to resist.
Leander was transferred through the city in a windowless carriage—all the better, so the common folk would not see his shame. It was a short journey, but it felt infinitely long and the rattle of every cobble on the road sent sharp blades up his spine.
The two guards in the carriage with him said nothing. They were armed but relaxed in posture. The demigod surmised that they didn’t view him as a threat, bound and locked away as he was.
For his part, Leander made no effort towards communicating with the two men sitting opposite him either. What was there left to say?
No one would believe him. That much was clear.
Eventually the cobbled road evened out and Leander felt and heard the wheels of the carriage manage a much smoother ride over the gravelly path that marked the grounds of the King’s palace.
They were almost there.
When the carriage finally pulled to a stop, one guard alighted first before assisting the manacled demigod out. There were an additional two guards waiting and Leander soon found himself flanked front and back by all four men as they escorted him into the palace.
