21. LION
21
LION
Lion woke with an itch on his face.
He scrunched his nose, but it didn’t provide relief. His own hair and beard were brushing against his cheek. He raised a hand to push them away, but his sense of direction had gone awry. Up was down and down was up and he couldn’t move a finger. He couldn’t even open his eyes.
He was floating in a red darkness. His clothes were soaked. He smelled blood. There was too much blood…
Saradra!
He shot his eyes open with some difficulty. Dried blood was stuck on his eyelashes, gluing his eyelids together.
He was hanging in the air upside down, his arms dangling past his head. He tipped his chin to his chest, gazing at his feet. His body was coated in a thick layer of blood. Some of it belonged to him. Warm blood trickled down his shoulders, painting his blonde hair and beard red, before dripping to the floor beneath him.
A pulsing, black rope, thicker than his wrist, was wrapped around his ankles, keeping him in the air. Lion’s eyes traced the rope to the ceiling, where it disappeared in the shadows.
A single eye blinked at him from those shadows.
Lion shouted. When he flailed his arms weakly, a second rope reached out from the ceiling, snaking around his knees to steady him.
Lion screamed again.
Pain jolted in his abdomen when he struggled, and more blood spilled from the wound that he had just discovered. He panted, craning his neck to see the room beneath him.
The man in the black robe was right underneath him. He didn’t look up. He was drawing a large circle on the floor, using Lion’s blood as ink. He was scribing fine details along the inner lines of the circle. Shapes that looked like letters, but nothing Lion had seen before.
In the middle of the circle, there was the strangest necklace Lion had ever seen. It was a single, large animal tooth at the end of a black leather string. The tooth was larger than his hand. Lion couldn’t picture any animal that was humongous enough to accommodate a tooth that size in its mouth.
Panic started clawing at Lion’s chest. Nightmare. He was having a nightmare. But everything felt so real; the smell and taste of blood, the pain in his gut, even the battle soreness he felt in his muscles, were all real. He brought one hand down — or up — to his stomach, pressing against his wound. Still groaning and wheezing, his gaze flickered between the blinking eye in the ceiling and the black-robed man. Was the man even aware of the creature lurking over his head?
Nightmare. He was in a nightmare.
Where was Saradra? Where was this place, if not a nightmare?
He could see tall windows and a round-shaped room. He glimpsed at an upside-down view of the castle walls outside. It was still dark. Was this still the same night?
The door burst open and another group of Vogros soldiers charged in. This time, they were mixed with several Zarall traitors.
The man in the black robe hardly even glanced at them. He made a sharp gesture with his hand, pointing at the newcomers and speaking Lion’s Kill Word once again.
The living ropes around Lion’s legs tensed, swung back slightly, and flung him towards the attackers. Lion hit the first two hard, knocking them down. He screamed in pain.
He was almost glad the Rage took over his mind, putting an end to this horrific nightmare.
When he opened his eyes again, the nightmare kept going.
Lion was lying on his back. The man’s face, looking even more tired and aged, hovered over him. His eyes were closed, mouth moving, speaking an unfamiliar tongue. He gripped the necklace in one hand, and a knife in the other. His skin was pale and wrinkled as if he had aged thirty years in the last… how long was Lion out for?
The man opened his dark eyes and plunged the knife into Lion’s chest.
Lion gasped, more surprised than in pain. He lifted his head up, staring at the knife protruding from his chest. Right in his heart.
The man had stabbed him right in his heart!
When the man moved the knife, cutting his chest wide open, Lion’s heels kicked the floor weakly. His head felt heavy, and a cold shiver took over. Blood filled his mouth. He coughed it out. His head fell to the side, and he noticed the circle of blood around him. The letters and shapes the man had drawn were moving, crawling like squiggly worms. Towards him.
The man raised his voice, chanting, almost yelling. He threw the knife away and dipped both hands into Lion’s chest, causing him to jolt upright, only to fall back again. All his strength drained out of his muscles.
A cold darkness creeped in around the edges of his vision. All he could hear through the ringing in his ears was the weak sound of his slowing heartbeat.
He was dying.
The man’s hands cupped his heart, something sharp pressing against it.
A cold, pure darkness invaded his mind, obscuring his thoughts and senses. With a detached sense of amusement, he noticed dying was pretty similar to surrendering to his Kill Word. Except he wasn't going to wake up from this.
Lion woke up with a start, his body jerking upright from the cold stone floor. His mind was a haze of jumbled memories and fragmented images, with one horrific moment standing out.
He had died.
He remembered the agonizing pain of the knife plunging into his chest. Instinctively, his hand flew to his chest, expecting to feel the gaping wound. He must have lost so much blood and had to find something to stop the bleeding…
Nothing. There was nothing. No blood, no wound, not even a scar.
He lifted his shirt, examining the perfectly intact — blood-stained but unbroken — skin beneath. He scrubbed the dried blood off and pressed his fingers against his chest and his stomach, where he remembered another wound had been. Just smooth, dirty, but perfectly healthy skin.
Nightmare. The memories felt so real, but they couldn't be real, because his body bore no evidence of it. So it must have been a nightmare.
He rose to his feet, his head swimming with disorientation. He shivered with the memory of the man’s fingers crawling inside his chest. He rubbed his temples, trying to make sense of it.
He had died. He remembered dying.
He stumbled back onto his knees, black spots flying in his sight. He swiped his hand across the stone floor beneath him and stared at the dust on his fingers. The intricate drawings he thought he saw — odd signs and patterns scribbled with his blood — were gone. Not even a drop of blood. Just dust.
When he blinked, the image of crawling red letters and signs flowing into his body flashed in his mind. He shook his head. No, none of those things he saw were real. The crawling letters, knife plunging through his chest, and the shadows on the ceiling…
He jumped back to his feet, staggering as he craned his neck to see the ceiling above. Had he imagined the monster as well? The thing with a single blinking eye and rope-like tendrils that reached from the shadows. Nothing. No shadows, no tendrils. Just a grey stone ceiling with soot stains and mould.
He groaned, barely keeping his balance. He couldn’t shake off the lingering sense of dread. The possibility that it had all been a dream seemed both a relief and a source of deeper confusion. What had that man done to him? He looked around. Where was the man? His black robe was bunched up in a messy pile, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen.
Lion shuddered. His head was hurting. He had to get out of this place before the man returned and spoke his Kill Word again.
Before he stabbed his heart again.
He was in a round room — one of the tower rooms — of the castle. The room was dimly lit by the morning light filtering through the windows, casting long shadows across the floor. Lion looked for the door, and he saw the bodies.
A dozen soldiers lay scattered near the door. The sight of their mutilated bodies chilled Lion’s blood. He recognised his own work. He had done this. Smashed heads, twisted necks, broken limbs posing in unnatural angles. Some others were disarmed and killed by their own weapons. Lion wasn’t disturbed by the aftermath of violence; he was horrified because this part of the nightmare — being Raged and unleashed at the intruders — was true.
Then did that mean…
He rubbed his face with his palms, trying to push back the nagging questions and the headache they caused. He tried to focus on the single, most important question he needed to explore.
Where was Saradra?
He staggered towards the door, leaning against the wall and carefully treading between severed limbs and spilled guts. As always, Lion had no memory after the Rage took his mind. A cold doubt grasped his heart. What if he killed Saradra too?
He swallowed. No, he would have remembered Saradra. He would have stopped himself. Even under the iron grip of Rage, Lion would never harm Saradra. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, hating the doubt that tangled his heart. He forced himself to breathe and move on. He had to get to the guests’ quarters. Saradra was smart. She would have stayed hidden, out of Lion’s sight.
Outside the round-shaped room, Lion found a set of stairs spiralling down. Small, square windows lined along the right wall of the stairs. The fire from last night was out and an eerie silence hung over the castle. In these early hours of the morning, courtyards would have been bustling with noise and activity. Everything was dead silent.
He wondered how long it had taken for the King’s men to repel the intruders.
He found his answer at the bottom of the stairs; they hadn’t.
A group of Vogros soldiers were patrolling the corridor downstairs. When they spotted him, they drew their weapons and charged.
Lion dropped to his knees without hesitation. Tilting his head back, he revealed his neck and rested his hands on his lap. He didn’t even consider resisting the men or trying to break free. Because he knew Saradra wouldn’t have escaped without him. If she was alive — if Lion hadn’t killed her amidst his Rage — there was a high chance she was captured and taken to the slave barracks. There was no reason to attempt an escape or fight these men without her.
The Vogros men didn’t slow down.
Lion’s eyebrows twitched, though he tried not to look or flinch. All free men are greedy. Why were they not lowering their weapons? Sweat ran down his spine when he remembered he was coated in blood. Was his tattoo even visible?
He clenched his fists. A survival instinct that wasn’t there before urged him to stand up and protect himself. He didn’t want to die without knowing what happened to Saradra. Yet, his slave training took over promptly, and he sat still. Helpless by choice.
A gauntleted fist landed on the side of his face, sending him sprawling to the floor. Next came the kicks of heavy boots. He curled into a ball, wrapping his arms around his head and enduring until they decided it was enough.
He didn’t remember the last time he received such a beating; Badimar wasn’t a big fan of risking permanent damage to the King’s precious Lion of Zarall. He predominantly used a whip or his Pain Word, and he would use them sparingly. This beating felt different, though. It didn’t serve to punish or discipline. These men were angry, and they wanted to bleed him.
Someone called to a halt, and the men complied reluctantly. The same person ordered two of them to climb to the top of the tower and see what was up there.
Lion remained motionless; still curled up and covering his head. He kept his eyes on the blood-soaked floor. The heavy boots remained at the peripheral of his sight, ready to strike again.
Within a few minutes, the two men came back from the top of the tower. One of them leaned against the wall, throwing up, while the other one reported the scene upstairs, his face grim and green.
Lion could feel their eyes on him, piercing his back with their hostility, blame, and promise of vengeance. His body tensed with the prospect of more kicks. But their leader’s decision almost made him smile.
“Take him to the slave barracks.”
Saradra was there, Lion was sure of it. If he could hug her one more time, everything was going to be okay.
However, his triumph melted like snow on a summer’s day at the man’s next words: “Stick him in a cell. No food or water until further notice.”
Two men moved forward to yank him up to his feet. They paused when their leader added, “And be gentle with him. He’s the Lion of Zarall.”