36. LION
36
LION
The darkness was peaceful. It had always been peaceful for him. He never dreaded being alone in the dark, and he doubted if he ever would. He could easily spend the rest of his life left alone in the peaceful, pitch black.
It had been nearly two weeks. He knew it because he counted the long stops they had made. Thirteen. Thirteen nights spent on the road to White Tower.
He was chained at the back of a wagon, covered by tarp on all sides. He sometimes heard the coachman talking to Master Karhad at the front of the wagon. There was not much conversation, mostly Karhad sneezing and complaining about the cold and rain. He was not a big fan of travelling. This was another reason for him to hate Lion.
Karhad hadn’t acted on his hate, though. Both he and the other guardsmen Kastian had assigned left Lion alone most of the time. For the first few nights, Lion had laughed and howled so loud, they had no other option than to beat him unconscious so they could get a bit of sleep. Soon, Lion had become quieter. But not because of the threat of the beatings. Whatever had made him scream and cry and laugh until tears flew down his face was trickling away.
Darkness was healing his mind.
Lion rarely remembered having dreams before. Some slave breeders claimed that purebreds didn’t dream, because they didn’t have any rhoas . Lion didn’t know where these dreams came from now, but he welcomed them.
He dreamed of his room at Castle Brinescar, making love to Saradra in the tiny bed they shared. She was warm, tender, and passionate. She didn’t let him speak to say how sorry he was. She didn’t let him beg for forgiveness, nor cry for her loss. She just took him by the hand and showed him how ready he was to trade everything for an eternity with her body.
Then, there was the dream that had felt like another life; a real life that was being lived by another Lion of Zarall in another Earthome.
The alternate Lion and Saradra had escaped on the night of the coup. All they did differently was pick another bedroom in the guests’ quarter. They never encountered that mage and the fiend. They escaped the city, crossed the border, and reached the Chamber of Twelve Saradra had been talking about. They lived there. Pyres devoted to Goddess Alunwea showed them mercy and kept them safe. Saradra gave birth to a blonde-haired boy with bright blue eyes. It had been terrifying at first. The Dream Lion had confided in Dream Saradra that he had received no training to become a father, which she had responded nobody ever had. It was the oddest feeling in Earthome, and nothing could have prepared him for it.
The whole dream was so realistic that Lion felt disoriented when he opened his eyes back in the wagon. He could almost hear his son’s laughter.
Then, Karhad yelled him to shut up and Lion remained there, his eyes closed shut, trying to go back to that dream. No matter how hard he tried, it was gone.
Some other dreams involved blood and violence, and they felt just as good.
In them, he was back at the Switchblade Arena. He was wearing his usual armour with a lion engraved on his chest, complete with the mask. The arena was empty; there were no spectators, no announcer, no guards. It was just him and his rival.
Kastian.
In the dream, Lion fought and defeated Kastian, but he didn’t kill him. Not quickly, anyway. He tortured him for days. He flayed him and buried him deep in the sands of Switchblade. He watched fire ants eat him alive, vultures rip his tongue and carve his eyes out. He stuffed him inside a steel bull and lit a fire under its belly, cooking him slowly. He lashed him until his back resembled nothing but a slab of meat. He killed Kastian with his bare hands, savouring every second.
Not just the King. Queen Inoeveth had become a guest in these dreams, too.
Lion erased that bitchy smile off her face in the castle torture room. He branded her with a hot iron, scalped her, stabbed her over and over again. He tortured her until she lost her mind, just like he did. Then he finished her off with his bare hands.
Surprisingly, these dreams had done more healing to his mind than the others. They gave him a sense of peace and satisfaction that had eased some of his suffering.
At the end of the first week, Lion had stopped laughing and screaming, and switched to staring at the darkness, yearning for the dreams. He started eating the stale food they served twice a day. He didn’t know what had brought those dreams, but he didn’t complain. They were almost constructed specifically to banish that madness out from his mind.
To open room for something else.
They had been exactly what he needed to see, and they threw him a rope to climb out of that pit called insanity.
And the dream that had done the most healing was the last one.
In that last dream, Saradra was there in the wagon with him. She cradled his head in her lap and he breathed in the smell of her hair. He moved his hand across the length of her leg, feeling the soft, warm skin. His heartbeat picked up, his breathing becoming quick and shallow, as the seconds piled up on top of each other. Realisation grew like a throbbing bump on his head.
“You’re… you’re here,” Lion whispered hoarsely. “You’re really here.”
He clutched her hand, squeezing it tightly as if fearing she would disappear. Saradra winced and used her free hand to loosen his fingers, but didn’t let go of his hand.
Lion attempted to sit up. His chains restricted his movements, and his body was still sore from the beatings, but he could straighten up enough to see the outline of her face in the semidarkness. “But… You… How are you here? How…?”
Saradra placed one of her delicate fingers — warm and alive and unbroken — against his lips as she hushed him into silence. “I can’t stay,” she whispered apologetically.
“No, no, no, no…” Lion struggled against his chains, shaking his head violently. “You’re here! Don’t… Don’t go, don’t go…”
She hushed him again, reaching out and taking him in her arms. Her hands gently cradled his head against her chest, muffling his protests. Lion sobbed and whimpered silently, uncontrollably. He breathed her in, soaked in her warmth, too afraid to move. He didn’t want to break this moment.
Saradra held him until the wagon started slowing down for another camp on the road.
“I’m sorry,” Lion whispered. “I’m so sorry. I… I tried to fight it. I did…”
“I know,” Saradra whispered. “It’s okay, I know…”
“But… But you’re here now. You’re okay! You…”
“I have to leave,” Saradra interrupted reluctantly. “But you’ll find me in Farhome. One day.”
Lion started shaking his head. “I can’t go to Farhome. Purebreds don’t have…” He stilled. The hair at the back of his neck stood up, a shiver running down his spine. Slowly, he pulled himself back, searching her face in semidarkness. He let out a long, shuddering breath as he finished his sentence in a whisper: “ rhoa .”
A weary smile played across Saradra’s lips. Her silence encouraged Lion to arrive at the conclusion himself: This was Saradra’s rhoa .
His chains didn’t let him raise his hands to caress her face, so he stroked her knees with the back of his fingers. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s a lie,” he whispered.
Saradra nodded. “We all have rhoas . Purebreds too.”
The wagon came to a stop. Outside, men jumped down from their horses, moving around the wagon to set up camp. Saradra held his face between her hands.
“Don’t go,” Lion begged, his voice only a whisper. “Take me with you. Please.”
Footsteps rounded the wagon, approaching the flaps that served as the entrance to the back.
“You have somewhere else to be,” Saradra replied. Her eyes sparkled with passion and excitement. Her voice had an urgency as she whispered; “Twilight of Infinity.”
Lion’s eyes grew large and his heart plummeted. Saradra sealed her words with a kiss. Her lips were hungry. Warm. Real. “Do whatever it takes to win,” she whispered into his lips. “Be free. Whatever it takes.”
Lion leaned forward, his chained hands aching to take her between his arms, to angle her head back, to deepen the kiss. A desire like he’d never experienced before boiled out of him. His blood rushed, his muscles tensed, a growl humming in his chest. He wanted nothing more than to scorch the whole Earthome until there was nothing left but Saradra and him.
“Who were you talking to?”
Karhad pulled the flap back, filling the wagon with the cursed light of the setting sun.
Lion opened his eyes to find the space in front of him empty. He slumped like a brick, sinking into the muddy, filthy, airless bottom of a lake. Invisible hands cut his chest open, ripped his heart out. Ripped Saradra out of him. But this time, they replaced the empty space she had left behind with something else.
Twilight of Infinity.
Karhad climbed into the wagon. He asked another question, but Lion’s heart was thumping in his ears. He didn’t hear it. Saradra’s last whisper echoed in his mind, louder and louder.
Be free. Whatever it takes.
Karhad muttered something about Lion’s head losing it completely before he left, closing the flap behind him.
When Lion thought of his tattoo being removed from his neck, a new kind of desire set his blood on fire. No more chains. No more collars. No more pain.
Freedom.
For a brief, intangible moment, he wanted it more than he wanted death.
After that day, Lion didn’t have that powerful compulsion to laugh or scream any more. Days flew past in a blur. He was so quiet that at one point, Karhad ordered the convoy to stop so he could check up on the slave. Lion’s silence unnerved the Master of the Slaves more than his crazed laughter did.
Even when Lion had greeted him on his knees and responded to his questions with his head down, Karhad still had difficulty believing Lion was behaving again. He thought this was a ploy and ordered the men to beat him. When they started moving again, Lion’s silence was replaced by pained groans.
Now, when the convoy stopped for the thirteenth night, Lion was still bruised from the last beating. An hour later, the covers at the back of the wagon slid open and Karhad brought a bowl of goulash and a cup of medicine. Kastian’s head physician had given Karhad a mixture to make Lion drink every night, in order to assist with the recovery of his leg. The wound throbbed and itched now and then.
Karhad had removed the bandage from his ear, which now resembled a half-eaten, dried prune. He was wrapped tightly in a woollen travel cloak. His nose was red and runny. He looked miserable.
Lion sat up on his knees and dropped his head down to greet him. Karhad scoffed at Lion’s show of obedience. “You think this is a joke, huh?”
“No, Master.”
Karhad sneezed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “You think just because you’re behaving again, we’ll turn back to Brinescar after traveling this far, huh?”
“No, Master,” Lion repeated.
Karhad banged the bowl and the cup of medicine on the floor, splashing grey juice and meat everywhere. “Up,” he said, fumbling for his keys. “Get up, you mongrel!”
Karhad’s keys jingled as they slipped and turned in the lock. He released Lion’s chain from the wagon and dragged him outside, jerking the chain roughly.
Although the sun was out of sight, remaining daylight still blinded Lion’s eyes. He stumbled after Karhad, barely aware of the men setting up camp around the wagon.
“Master Karhad,” a voice called behind them. “Where are you taking him?”
“Just up on that hill, Sir Quewlan.”
“Is that a good idea?”
When Karhad ignored him, Sir Quewlan trailed behind them. The King had assigned two of his knights to oversee his escort, along with five soldiers.
The hill Karhad dragged him to was not exceptionally steep, but Lion still tripped and fell several times. His leg bothered him. When they reached the top, his knees were bleeding, and his eyes were still blurry.
“Look!” Karhad urged him with a slap. “Open your eyes, worm.”
Lion blinked rapidly, shading them with chained hands. It still took a minute to get used to the light and more than a few seconds to understand what he was looking at. Karhad waited with a stunning amount of patience, staring at his face to catch the moment Lion would figure out what the shape on the horizon was.
This was the first time Lion saw the sea. The vastness of it was frightening and beautiful at the same time. The blue, glassy surface stretching from one end to the other, reflecting the last gleam of light left in the sky. If there had been more daylight, the colour would have been the same as Saradra’s eyes.
The map of Chinderia flashed across Lion’s mind. This must have been the Wasted Sea. Then, that piece of land right near the edge of the horizon was the Deep Island.
Lion’s stomach heaved with nausea.
Karhad grinned as Lion shivered, suddenly feeling queasy. He couldn’t take his eyes off the structure that stood in the middle of the island. Its grey-white walls were washed by a touch of orange light. It was an ugly, coarse, and tall building that presented nothing worth looking at. Yet, White Tower imprisoned Lion’s eyes and started torturing him even before he had stepped a foot inside the building.
“Three days,” Karhad said. “Three days and you’ll be exploring all the different sounds you can produce from your throat.”
Lion’s heart sank deeper with every word. The promise of more torture didn’t terrify him. Free men and women believed slaves feared White Tower because of torture. They were wrong.
Inside White Tower, the Hunters didn’t simply torture a slave until he behaved again. They took away the only thing a slave was allowed to possess.
Breeder Astaldo dragged his hawkish gaze amongst the blank faces of his property.
Their eyes were firmly fixed on the floor. Their stances were identical. Each one of them were now old enough to be allowed simple, identical clothing: coarse cotton tunics and dust coloured pants. Even their hair length was identical; shorter than one finger above the scalp.
“Sit,” Astaldo said.
He hadn’t even raised his voice, yet ten scrawny bottoms dropped to the floor promptly.
The young slaves had formed two rows; five at the front and five at the back. Astaldo started walking amongst them, the whip hanging on his belt making that dull thud every time it touched his thigh. It was a sound all the young purebreds were familiar with. Astaldo completed a circle around the slaves, dragging every step and filling the air with the threat of punishment for one reason or another, or none at all.
He stopped when he reached the front of the classroom. “Bring him in,” he said, raising his voice for whoever was waiting outside.
The door squeaked open and two men walked inside. One was the weapons trainer they had all spent half their days with. He was carrying a wooden box the size of a pillow between his hands.
The other was a slave.
“Stand there,” Astaldo pointed at the slave, who obeyed and stood at the front where all young purebreds could see him.
“All of you, look at him,” Astaldo commanded.
For a split second, one of the nameless purebred boys feared the breeder would ask them to make eye contact with the new slave. To his relief, the new slave had kept his eyes on the floor.
The boy had noticed the slave’s tattoo; a freeborn labourer. He looked well-trained for a freeborn, though. He must have been enslaved at a very young age, though the ink on his tattoo seemed fresh.
Astaldo stood with his feet apart, hands on his hips. “I want you to watch and see. Listen and hear. Whoever closes their eyes or looks away will spend the next week in the hole. Acknowledge.”
“Yes, Owner!” said ten eager-to-please voices.
Astaldo turned his face to the freeborn, watching the purebreds out of the corner of his eyes. “Tell them who you are.”
“I am the property of Astaldo Luuhun, Slave Breeder, Master of Faychill Ranch.”
“And what are you called?”
“You have named me Ratsack.”
As the purebred boy with blonde hair and grey eyes listened to Ratsack speak, he felt all the hair on his arms and legs stand up. The freeborn’s voice reminded him of the sound decaying bones made as they were dragged on dry land. His eyes never left the ground, which was not unusual for a well-trained slave. In fact, it was what would have been expected from any slave. However, this freeborn’s eyes seemed different. They were nothing more than two empty, black holes carved on a corpse’s face.
“Tell them what you did, Ratsack.”
“I escaped.”
Nobody gasped or looked at each other in fear. They were too disciplined for that. But an invisible shudder passed between them.
“And then what happened?”
“Hunters found me, Owner.”
Astaldo raised his voice to indicate he was addressing the purebreds this time. “What do we say here, maggots?”
“Hunters always find you!” the boys yelled, loud and clear.
Slave Breeder nodded. “What happened when they found you, Ratsack?”
The boy who would become the King’s champion beast one day already knew the answer, but hearing it still filled him with terror.
“They took me to White Tower,” Ratsack said dully.
“Tell them about how time flows inside White Tower.”
“For every hour outside, three days pass inside the tower.”
“And how long did you spend there?”
“Six months had passed outside when I was returned to my Owner.”
If every hour outside equalled three days inside, six months would have been… The boy who would one day defeat a giant bear, naked and unarmed, held back a gasp. He didn’t have the knowledge to calculate how many days that would make, but he knew it was a lot!
“What do they do to escaped slaves in White Tower?”
“They Wash their flaws away.”
“How?”
“They torture until death, then bring back intact, to torture more. Countless deaths wash off everything.”
Everything, until all that was left, was an empty shell.
“Do you obey now, Ratsack?”
“Yes, Owner.”
“Then take your clothes off.”
As the slave undressed, Astaldo borrowed a knife from the weapons trainer. He handed the knife to Ratsack. “Cut yourself.”
Ratsack dragged the knife over his naked chest, leaving a red trail behind.
The boy who would one day fall in love with a flame-haired girl, didn’t find this impressive. Had Astaldo given him the knife and the order, he could have done this as well. He doubted if he could keep his face as impassive as Ratsack’s, but he would still obey.
“Cut your ear off.”
Ratsack took the knife to his ear without hesitation. He pulled it with one hand and cut with the other. His face didn’t even twitch as the blade scraped against the bone and cartilage. He dropped the cut-off ear and stood there, blood seeping down his neck, ready for his next order.
“Cut your balls off.”
The boy had to spend every drop of his willpower to stop himself from looking away. Astaldo’s vigilant eyes studied their faces carefully. This was what he wanted the boys to watch and see, listen and hear.
To learn. This was another lesson to be learned.
Dark blood rushed down Ratsack’s legs. He almost looked as if he’d peed himself, if not for the colour.
“Eat them,” was Astaldo’s next order.
The boy stabbed his fingernails at his knees. The pain drove the nausea away, and he forced himself to keep watching.
“Now, stab yourself in the stomach and leave the knife there.”
Again, no hesitation, no sound, no twitch.
“Carve your eyes out with your fingers.”
Astaldo’s hand moved in a blur and his whip lashed at one of the other boys. The boy stifled a moan and turned his gaze back on the slave, just in time to witness fingers curling into hooks and pushing inside. Ratsack gouged his eyes out of their sockets, releasing a wet sound as he tore off the tendons.
“Rip your tongue out.”
Ratsack obeyed. It took several attempts to grab his tongue, as it was soft and slippery, and his fingers were wet with blood. He bent his head down to let the gravity help him. He wrapped both his hands around and pulled it free with another wet sound that would haunt the young purebreds for months. Blood poured, followed by vomit. Ratsack straightened up, gawking at them with empty sockets and blood pouring down his chin.
Next, Astaldo made him bite all his fingers off. After three slushy crunches, Ratsack dropped to the floor, unconscious from the blood loss.
Astaldo’s whip lashed five more times, bringing back each pair of eyes which had strayed off the demonstration. A fair number of purebreds were going to visit the hole tonight.
The Slave Breeder didn’t grant Ratsack’s mutilated body a second glance. He had brought the slave here for this demonstration — maybe even bought him solely for this purpose. Losing his property for the occasion didn’t bother him in the slightest.
He stepped over the puddle of blood and scrutinised the effects of his latest lesson. However, the way he took a deep breath and tilted his head to the side indicated what he wanted to teach them today wasn’t over yet.
“I hear that some of you,” he started, lowering his voice and stretching the silence between each word, “have been dreaming of running away.”
The boy who would one day kill free men and attempt an escape with the woman he loved shuddered. He turned his head down, cold sweat running down his spine. Who would even dream of something like that? Not him. Not ever!
I live to serve, I breathe to please, he repeated in his head like a prayer. He had no wants, no desires, let alone dreams of running away. Even the thought petrified him.
The silence was pregnant with punishment. “Remind me,” Astaldo said, blinking his eyes lazily. “What happens if you escape?”
“Hunters always find you!” This time, they didn’t speak in perfect unison. Each one of them was rushing to finish the sentence before the others, to prove how well they knew the consequences.
“They already did,” Astaldo said quietly.
They heard the shuffle of his heavy robes before seeing him.
The boy almost flinched. There was someone behind them! But how? The door had never opened after the weapons trainer and Ratsack walked in and there was no one else in the classroom when the purebreds had first entered.
He moved his head an inch to the side to see a pair of boots dragging a long black robe behind them.
A Hunter! There was a real Hunter in the room!
“Stand up and form a single file,” Astaldo ordered.
They stood. The back row took a step forward between the front row, forming a quick and orderly line. With Astaldo’s gesture, the weapons trainer opened the wooden box he had brought with him and handed out a knife for everyone.
Sweat poured down the boy’s back as he picked up his knife. Was Astaldo going to order them to cut their body parts off? The thought of doing what Ratsack had done drained all his breath out of his lungs.
“Cut your palms and hold your hands behind your back.”
The boy sliced a shallow cut on his left palm. His blood flowed readily. He took both hands at the small of his back.
A rustle of rough cloth sounded as the Hunter approached. The boy at the start of the line flinched, and a yelp escaped his mouth before he could bite his lips shut. Astaldo narrowed his eyes at the purebred, but the whip didn’t leave its resting place. The young slave bit his lips bloody. His body shook intensely, yearning to get away from the Hunter behind him, but he held his stance.
Whatever the Hunter did to him, it didn’t last long. The next boy flinched only seconds after the first one. Then, the Hunter moved on to the next one, who managed to strangle a yelp, but cried silently.
The boy who would one day kill the woman he loved with his bare hands had the time to prepare for his turn. Yet, he still gasped when he felt the Hunter’s touch.
The Hunter’s hands were cold and clammy, but not like someone who spent a few hours in the snow. They were cold, as if made of ice. His fingers were thin, bony, and wrapped in a dry, creased tissue that the boy couldn’t bring himself to call skin.
The boy’s eyes popped wide open when he felt something cold, rough and wet rubbing inside his palm, licking his blood. Frozen lips closed around each one of the boy’s fingers, sucking the blood off them. There was an unusual number of sharp teeth inside that mouth.
He’s not human, the boy screamed in his mind. Hunters are not human!
The Hunter even licked the knife clean before moving on to the next purebred.
“Now you know,” Astaldo spoke when the last one of the young slaves exhaled a relieved breath. “Hunters always find you, because they know your blood.”
Because they were not human.
“No doors or gates are ever locked in Faychill Ranch,” Astaldo continued. “They will be unlocked tonight as well. Those of you who have looked away, go and put yourselves in the hole. The rest of you, weapons training in fifteen. And feel free to take your chances to run away tonight if you dare. Now, drop the knives and get out.”
They raced each other to be the first one out of the room.
The boy wiped his hands on his pants and risked a glance over his shoulder. The Hunter, who was nothing but a shadowy hood and a tall robe, had kneeled beside Ratsack’s dead body and leaned over. The boy pried his eyes off them before seeing any more.
Spending years with Hunters in White Tower… Never. He would never disobey, never do anything that might bring that fate to him. He would serve, he would please, and never even dream of being free.
A slave wasn’t permitted to possess anything. Not a name, not emotions, not desires, not even a body. His body was their property. That was the phrase Astaldo had taught them.
But his mind was his.
He could behave like a perfect slave, hide all his thoughts, suppress every drop of emotion. Yet still cling to his own mind. It was the only thing the Owners and Masters could never own. It was all his. It was all him.
Now, they were going to take that away, too. He would still breathe, but he would be no more.
He sunk to his knees and shuddered.
He didn’t remember how he climbed back down from that hill. He had slipped a number of times and the knight walking behind him was the only reason he hadn’t tumbled all the way down. Breaking his neck would have been a better fate than White Tower. After the second time he slipped, the knight, Sir Quewlan, hooked his fingers in Lion’s collar and supported him all the way down.
What Lion did remember before hopping back inside the wagon was that none of the guards around the camp — including Sir Quewlan and the other knight — were wearing House Vogros uniforms.
They want to keep this a secret.
Kastian was afraid of what might happen if one of the opposing families got their hands on the Zarall symbol. Hence the secrecy and the black tarp around the wagon.
Lion didn’t touch the food or the medicine that evening. It was too late to starve himself to death, but he just didn’t have any appetite. He wanted to pray for a miracle to save him from this end, but he didn’t know whom to pray to. The Twelve Riders had failed Saradra; the Goddess of Mercy was a deaf whore. He hated Alunwea. He hated every one of the Twelve Riders.
He played with the idea of praying to the sands and the steel, the only meaningful things in a beast’s life, but they seemed to fail one in every two beasts, which didn’t sound promising either.
So, he prayed to the darkness.
Darkness was peace. Darkness had always protected him from harm. Free men and women were afraid of it. Therefore, he prayed to the darkness to save him from the light of free men and women. Then, he leaned against the side of the wagon, and stayed up all night.
When the fighting begun, sleep still hadn’t showed itself. Lion couldn’t say the same thing for the guards, though. The darkness had lulled them to sleep, just like it wrapped the attackers like a blanket and hid them from the eyes of the sentries. Someone shouted and woke the others up, but not until the attackers had killed at least half of them.
The darkness served confusion to the Vogros men, and the attackers exploited it.
Lion sat there, in the darkness of the wagon, and listened to the sounds of the battle. A compulsion to laugh creeped in and he had to cover his mouth to suppress it. This was not the laughter of madness; this was pure joy.
He had prayed to the darkness to save him from White Tower, and the darkness had answered.