“Stay safe. Escape if you can. Illyria would welcome you. Good fortune, Son of Hecate. May the Goddess shine upon you.”
???
While the pain medication didn’t take my will, it did make me drowsy. I woke to the sound of the door clicking shut. A quick glance around the room confirmed I was alone. A covered tray sat on a nearby table. I forced myself up, my stomach growling.
I was still stiff and sore, but no longer in agony. The bandages didn’t show any new bleeding. I stretched gently, my Legion training kicking in and automatically cataloging what hurt when I moved and how it might restrict my movement in a fight. Fight. Yeah, right. No way I could fight with an Elusian around.
The covered tray held some hearty stew and soft, sweet bread. I ate slowly, chewing carefully on one side where some teeth seemed to be loose. One moregiftto thank Maalik for.
My best guess would be that another six or eight hours had passed. Which, from my previous experience in a House meant I should be expecting another client soon. The thought of dealing with Maalik, or someone worse, turned my stomach. I tried to focus on the reason I was here: protecting Vlakas. I could survive just about anything Maalik dished out. Vlakas couldn’t.
To my surprise and increasing tension, the door didn’t open. The hours went by, and I searched the room, nervous energy filling me as suspense built. The bathing room had latrine facilities, but nothing else. I took another hot bath,soaking more of the soreness from my muscles with the hot water. I toweled off, then ended up going back to bed.
I woke sometime later to the sound of the door opening. I was up and on my feet before the door was fully open. I knew I looked ridiculous, clothed in nothing but the robe I’d been given. Two guards entered the room, carrying a chain with cuffs attached. Maalik strolled in behind the guards. My glare turned into a snarl when I saw him.
Maalik’s smiled grimly as he looked at me. I could feel… could feel his hands… I narrowed my eyes but refused to drop my gaze. This fucker would NOT break me.
“Ah! You are awake, good,” Master Hestus began, interrupting our staring match. Then he gestured at the two guards. “Take him.”
I fought them, but immediately felt the gasping pain of Suppression even though I hadn’t used my powers. I saw Maalik’s look of intense concentration. Bastard. They cuffed me then pulled the chain through a hoist on the wall, my body stretched painfully, my feet barely brushing the ground in a gross parody of the move I’d used on Vlakas a few days before.
“Enough, my Lord,” Hestus insisted. “If you wish to have him conscious.”
Maalik cursed, obviously not overly concerned about my health, but the Suppression lifted slightly.
I gasped, struggling to ease the pain in my limbs. The position had ripped open some of the careful stitches sewn into my skin. I could feel the hot trickle of blood down my side.
“You present an unusual challenge, Hoplite Kataramenos. I haven’t seen many survive so long in the Indigo Room under the care of our Prince. The law, however, defines how much we can inflict on any one person during a Calling,” he continued with emphasis on the word, pointedly looking at Maalik, as if this was a conversation they’d had at length.
“But an offering was made by the King on behalf of his son for the celebration of his birth, and the Calling must be fulfilled. It is not protocol, of course, but this is a very unusual situation. So, we are forced to move to the next Hoplite in rotation.”
The wall of mirrors suddenly faded as lights came on beyond the glass, and I realized for the first time that they weren’t mirrors at all, but darkened glass.
My first thought was of who else might have witnessed my degradation. The thought made bile rise to the back of my throat and adrenaline cleared my head as the light showed what was beyond the window.
A room, appointed much like this one, was lit with a low glow, a fireplace opposite the one in this room. I shuddered as I saw the horse in the center of the room, and my stomach sank as I realized there was a man already mounted on it. His head was down, his body strapped to the torture implement, hair hung forward covering their face, much as I knew my own had been.
Then I saw it and my blood ran cold. On his right shoulder blade was a tattoo. A sun and stars flooded with black ink. It was the tattoo of the King’s household, the same one that adorned my shoulder. And Maalik’s. At some unheard signal the guard in the other room grabbed the man’s hair and jerked it up to face the mirrored wall, his eyes wide with fear.
Vlakas.
“No!” I yelled at Maalik, struggling against the chains. “Maalik, you fucker! He’s just a kid!”
Maalik continued to smile at me. Now I knew why he looked so smug. He would get to fuck both of us.
“He’s a Hoplite,” Maalik said dismissively. “And all Hoplites must answer their Calling.”
“God’s dammit, I will fucking kill you, Maalik! I swear to the Goddess, I will rip you apart limb from limb if you touchhim! He’s done nothing to deserve this!” I yelled in impotent fury.
“He was born Mageia, Kataramenos,” Maalik said. “Just like you. That’s reason enough. But I’ll make sure he knows how concerned you are for him… as he sees you in here, relatively untouched while he, well, he won’t beuntouchedanymore, now, will he?”
I screamed at Maalik as he and Master Hestus left the room, fighting through the suffocating feel of the Suppression the guards maintained as I begged them not to do this. The tears Maalik had been unable to wring from me by violation threatened to spill as I saw him enter the room my brother was held in.
Then I was forced to watch my brother suffer… everything.
They left both rooms lit the entire time. I witnessed everything he did to Vlakas. Every torture. Every humiliation. I wanted to look away, to not see the horrors they inflicted on his body, but Vlakas locked his gaze with mine. He seemed to draw strength from the connection between us like it was a lifeline. The more they inflicted on him the more stoic his response.
After one particularly brutal blow his head hung, unmoving, for long moments. I thought Maalik might have finally broken him, but then Vlakas raised his head as Maalik leaned down to gloat, a long gash over one eye, the other so swollen I doubted he could see out of it. My brother spat, the blood from his mouth landing squarely on Maalik’s face.
