Chapter 26
Grimes
Idon’t know how long I sit at the table, lost to the world, replaying everything in my mind.
The last years of my life have been based on a lie.
All through my prison sentence, all through the months after my release that I spent tracking Florian down, I hated him.
I thought he sent me to my dank cell gleefully, with malice and a sense of born superiority.
Now I find out the fluffy-headed fool never expected me to go to prison at all.
He was just throwing one of his petulant little tantrums, his pride bruised by his beating as well as his body. He wanted me scared, not destroyed.
How na?ve, how out of touch, can one man be?
Typical Florian. For him and his aristocratic friends, law-breaking is a joke.
The authorities are lenient, and if they aren’t, someone’s powerful father has a word.
Up there in his sheltered little world in the clouds, of course he thought the same thing would happen to me.
Though, in fairness, the authorities might’ve been more lenient with me too if I hadn’t tested them so much in the past. Another thing that Florian couldn’t have known.
If I’m being fair, he has reason to hate me, too.
The news about the Durovians came as a shock.
I never imagined they would go that far.
I imagine bruises on his soft cheeks, his lithe limbs broken because of me, and I shiver.
I knew he was the one who reported my bar because the official who came to make the surprise inspection told me, with a glint of malice in his eye.
But the man never told me that Florian was so badly beaten.
I always assumed he reported me because I kicked him out, allowing the Durovians to wound his pride but little else.
I assumed he wanted me ruined on a whim, aristocrat-like, because I had dared to cross him.
If I’d known he was so badly hurt, it would have been difficult to blame him for involving the authorities.
If I was really the kind of man to set up such a brutal attack intentionally, as he thought, I would've deserved my prison sentence and more.
And then, in retaliation, I forced him into hard, barely paid labor.
I mocked him. Controlled every aspect of his life.
I became the jailer. So many misunderstandings.
Such a mess. My thoughts are going around in circles.
With an effort, I bring them to a halt. The sun’s heat has lost its biting intensity now; we’re heading into late afternoon.
I shake myself back to reality. I need to find Florian, make sure he’s safe, even if he won’t speak to me.
He’s in no mood to wander around alone; he was so upset he might do anything.
I search all over the fair, getting more and more desperate.
There’s no sign of him anywhere. I ask everyone if they’ve seen him, a pale, long-haired young man in Rhennian clothes.
A few people remember seeing him push past in tears: his looks and clothes stand out here. But they can’t remember where he went.
Finally, I spot a group of rowdy young people who’ve gathered outside a café.
Florian is right in the middle of the group, his voice audible above the rest. He’s extremely drunk, and a lewd-looking young man is all over him, hands like an octopus, groping and exploring.
Florian is giggling prettily and just letting him. My stomach clenches with anger.
Mine. The thought flashes through my mind even though I have zero right.
Even though Florian must hate me now. But seeing that man touch him where I touched him, and let myself hope to be the only one to touch him ever again…
I can’t allow it. I go over at a dead run.
And get another spike of dread. They’re playing afi.
Florian has fallen back into his old gambling ways already.
“Oh, it’s you,” he slurs.
He looks up at me, blinking stupidly as that pervert’s hands continue to roam all over his precious body.
He’s almost catatonic. Has he drunk that much?
It isn’t too long ago that he left me. Unless he’s been pouring alcohol down his throat with a funnel, he shouldn’t be in this state already.
There’s something seriously wrong. The group of friends watches me with obvious nerves, sneaking glances at each other.
They’re too guilty-looking to be innocent.
I snatch Florian’s cup from his unresisting hand and sniff it.
Panic rips through my chest. It’s the scent of abask. He’s been drugged.
I whirl on the man whose hands are all over him.
“What the fuck?” I yell, fury building. “You sick—”
“He’s a whore.” The young man smiles at me, serene. “He was going to give it to me one way or the other anyway.”
I kick him in the ribs, spit on him as he falls from his chair.
He cries out in pain as he falls heavily on one elbow.
He isn’t touching Florian anymore, his hands curling around his wrecked midriff as he gasps for air.
His friends spring to their feet, shocked but ready to fight.
They come forward as a group. I jump in front of Florian, who’s flopped forward to lean on the table now his “friend” isn’t here to support him.
He needs medical help. But there are too many people coming at me.
Cowards. None of them could take me one on one.
But I won’t be able to fight a half dozen.
There are a few other people on the street, but as I look around in hope of help, everyone turns their gaze away from me.
A family hurries their children away, out of danger.
I’m on my own. I put up my fists, determined to protect Florian as long as I can.
I should’ve thought this through. Should’ve gotten the authorities, such as they are.
In panic I throw a punch, not holding back anything.
One of the mob goes down. Out cold or dead, who gives a shit.
The others hesitate for a moment. My hand stings but I’m ready for more.
“He’s crazy,” one mutters, and for a moment I hope I might’ve scared them off.
Then they surge forward again in a single angry wave.
I fling out my fist, connect with a skull.
Two down now. Then something hits the side of my head.
Another blow, another, limbs coming at me from everywhere and I can’t block them all.
I fall. Red dirt on my face. Pain blossoms all over my body as they kick and kick and kick.
**
I wake up staring into the lined face of Judge Draved. His bright red hair flops over his alcohol-reddened eyes as he looms over me.
“Florian,” I whisper, because my voice isn’t working properly. “Is Florian okay?”
I try to sit up. Pain spears through about fifty different parts of me. Especially my nose. A familiar feeling. The fucker is broken, again. The whole middle of my face is screaming, making it difficult to think. I’m so weak the scrawny judge can hold me down easily.
“Don’t try to move,” he says gently. “You’re okay.”
He’s missing the important thing. Is Florian okay?
“What about my servant?” I demand.
“The doctor is with him now.”
Dread claws at me. He didn’t say he’s okay.
“What happened?” I ask.
“We think his drink was spiked with abask.”
Fuck. As I suspected. Abask is a drug that disables the body and clouds the mind.
When it kicked in properly, Florian’s limbs would’ve begun to feel like lead.
He barely would’ve been able to move. That disgusting excuse for a human being could’ve done anything to him if I hadn’t gotten here in time.
The thought is too horrible. I have to escape it.
I look up to get my bearings and find I’m still lying in the shade of the café awning where I fell.
The female manager is glaring at me as though my pitiful, felled figure is bad for business.
A small, curious crowd has gathered now that the danger has passed.
A bunch of city guards mills around, too.
The gang who attacked me and drugged Florian are in manacles.
Octopus Hands, the one who dared to call Florian a whore, looks sick with fear as a guard looms over him.
Good. He’s going to face the brutal “justice” of the Galbravan system.
As an ex-prisoner, I usually have an instinctive sympathy with anyone heading into custody.
Not this time. If anyone deserves it, it’s him.
“Also, they made your servant sign this when he was under the influence of the drug,” Judge Draved says.
He presses a piece of paper into my hands.
As I read, blinking away the pain behind my eyes, fury fills me all over again.
I want to run over there and crush the criminal gang with my bare hands.
The paper is a contract for thirty years of indentured servitude to a man named Hevra. Florian has signed it in a shaky hand.
“Hevra is that one.” Judge Draved nods at Octopus Hands, though I already knew it would be him.
“I’ll kill him.” My threat comes out pathetically weak. Instead of rebuking me, the Judge smiles in sympathy.
“The contract is void now that the contract holder is a criminal,” he says, soothing. “Well, he’ll soon be a criminal. He’ll be found guilty for sure. So I might as well give you this now.”
The lax approach to due process suits me this time. “I appreciate it, Judge.”
I fold up the paper and put it safely in my pocket, shoving away my anger. Checking on Florian is more important than worrying about the scum who drugged him, even if I were in a position to fight, which I’m not.
“Now can I please see Florian?” I ask.
The judge helps me to stand up. Surge after surge of pain overtakes me, almost making me black out, but I won’t give in to it.
Florian is out there, alone and ill. A doctor’s tent has been set up temporarily for the fair.
It’s close by, but it feels like miles away.
My limbs feel like quivering jelly as I hobble over.
I ignore every flare of agony and eventually make it to the tent with the help of Judge Draved.
Inside Florian is lying on a makeshift bed, half conscious.
The bitter scent of a sickroom smacks me in the face: sweat and bile and medication.
Florian looks so incongruous here. I’ve only ever seen him bright as a spring breeze, healthy and vital.
He’s always pale, but now a waxiness covers the usual bloom of his cheeks.
Dark shadows haunt his eyes, which are open.
But he’s not seeing anything, his gaze flitting around mindlessly.
He has no idea where he is, and very little control over his body.
I watch as he flails around the bed, then heaves up the contents of his stomach into a bucket, accompanied by a pitiful sob.
His skin is coated with sweat, his shirt off and his whole torso glistening with sickly sheen.
His scars are obvious, reminding me again how much he’s suffered in the past at the hands of those loan sharks.
Groans come from deep in his throat, but he’s too far gone to form words.
I push past the doctor and sit beside him on the bed.
I smooth back his beautiful dark hair, which has clots of vomit in it.
“I gave him something to make him expel the poison,” the doctor says. “Now we wait.”
“Is he going to be okay?” I say. My voice barely makes it through the choking feeling in my throat.
The doctor shrugs and turns to his next patient.
I kiss Florian’s burning cheek, stroke his hair.
He doesn’t react at all, just keeps staring into nothing, muttering to himself.
His hands are shaking. I wrap my arms tightly around him, trying to bring him back to me.
I hope that somewhere beneath the drug haze he can sense that I’m here with him, looking after him.