Sevastyan looked away, shaking his head.“No.”
“You’re still loyal to your father, then. Prior claim.”
Sevastyan’s head came up, eyes flashed with something ugly. “My father can go fuck himself.”
Something else, then.
Ellisandre flipped the knife, catching it by the end of the blade, then again by the handle. They stood, pushing the coffee table to the side on its wheels. Sevastyan’s chest expanded as he dragged in air. They caught him by the open panels of his shirt as it fell from his shoulders and dragged him forward, trapping his wrists in the sleeves at his waist. “Don’t tell me that you stayed away if your prior claim was gone.”
Sevastyan searched their face. “Did you think me so shallow that I’d risked my soul just for my father?”
“Not shallow, loyal.”
Sevastyan’s eyes reddened with tears. “Loyal,” he scoffed. “I was born a hostage, flesh and blood to keep a weak man tied to home when they sent him abroad. And like a child, I played my part. I loved him.” Sevastyan was almost yelling now, straining forward.
Ellisandre tangled their fingers in the hair at the base of his neck, twisting it and forcing him to his knees. He went, eyes still on their face.
They scolded him softly. “You know that now. You didn’t know that then.”
Tears swelled over Sevastyan’s waterline. “Do you know the worst part of being a hostage?”
“Tell me.”
“When you realize you weren’t enough.”
“You tried to be.”
Sevastyan’s shoulders heaved. “You know what’s worse?”
“You do.” What had Anton done?
Sevastyan closed his eyes, tears escaping from the vault inside his broken heart. “That I don’t hate him.”
Ellisandre dragged the flat side of the knife across Sevastyan’s cheek.
His eyes blinked open. “If you could cut that love out, I would burn it at your feet.”
It was easy to push him to his back on the floor. He fell like a good soldier. Ellisandre straddled his hips, kneeling over his waist. His arms were still tangled in the sleeves, only one arm garter undone, the other still in place. His shirt was open from throat to waist now, the last button pulled apart from rough handling. Ellisandre dragged the blunt side of the knife down his sternum to the soft skin over the muscles of his abdomen. The ancient Greeks would have made sculptures of this mortal and written stories of the gods he prayed to.
“Only you can cut love out,” Ellisandre said. They traced the blade sideways, over a rib, pressing the tip in just hard enough to abrade the surface of his skin, leaving a pink line. No blood. Not yet.
“He’s given up,” Sevastyan said. “If he was ever true to the cause, he isn’t now.”
Ellisandre trailed the knife under Sevastyan’s belly button, a scattering of golden hairs decorating the skin between the top of the belt and the place that had once tethered him to the woman who had birthed him.
Sevastyan was still crying. His nose would become full and stuffy soon from lying flat. Ellisandre grabbed a pillow from the couch and lifted Sevastyan’s head by his hair, putting the pillow beneath his neck.
His chest rose and fell. He struggled out of his shirt except for the gartered sleeve and leaned up on one elbow.
Ellisandre pushed him back down and dragged the knife over his ribs. Sevastyan sagged against the rug, one hand out against the carpet, the other bent above his head.
Ellisandre arched over him, one hand braced flat on his right breast. They cut his chest, a hand span away from the old bullet scar, one short, shallow drag of the blade into his skin. Blood seeped to the surface. They blew over the cut, their breath pushing a bead of blood upward. A few millimeters to the side, they used the blade again. Sevastyan’s chest rose and fell. His body was tight between Ellisandre’s thighs. More blood broke through, rising in tiny swells.
Beautiful. Red liquid against skin, the light shifting over the glossy surface as Sevastyan breathed.
A third cut. Sevastyan arched his neck, forcing himself not to move.
Four. Five. Six. Ellisandre cut tick marks into Sevastyan’s skin across his breast. Slowly, waiting between each cut. Sevastyan’s breath caught, released, caught and released again.
