by Rosie Scott
Sacrifices. My eyes stuck on the stone where Ricco's gored body had collapsed during the war after I'd failed to protect him, and my fingers found the bottle holding his ashes against my chest. I will set you free, I promised. It was the only thing I could do for him now. If there was an after-life, I hoped Ricco and Kyrin were sharing it together under much better circumstances.
My friends and I walked through the door of the tavern we'd spent time together in after last year's takeover, though we chose to sit at a table instead of at the bar. As Nyx and Jakan began to joke together, my mind wandered. I found myself staring at where we had sat together the last time we were here. Calder, Jayce, and Vallen had been here with us then. I missed Calder with a vengeance. So badly, in fact, that it felt like my heart was tearing each time I thought about leaving the tunnels for good because it felt like I was leaving him, even though I hadn't seen him for nearly two moons already. Years ago, I had gone on a quest to meet my mother and learn of my roots. While getting to know her had been nothing but disappointing, I found that during my quest for vengeance, I was building my own family. Calder—he was family. Jakan, Anto, and now Azazel were family.
The screeching sound of steel against stone grated through my ears, and I glanced over to see Cerin scooting his heavy chair closer to mine. When he was directly beside me, he put his arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze. His silver eyes were on the bar as he asked, “Should we have picked a different tavern?”
I understood his concern for me, but I shook my head. “No. I wanted to revisit this place. Besides...” My eyes fell upon the seats Vallen and Jayce had sat in, which now held two different people. “...it feels nice to know that some things don't change.”
Azazel fidgeted with a menu on the table, though his black eyes were on the bar as well. “The last time we were here, I couldn't hear most of the conversation you had with Vallen, Kai,” the archer stated. It made sense since he'd sat so far down the bar from the beastman. “So forgive my ignorance, but weren't Vallen and Jayce siblings?”
I nodded, finally ripping my gaze away from the bar. “They were.”
“When I left the castle, I remember passing Jayce,” the archer continued. “She seemed to live for war. Did she handle his death well?”
“Not at all,” I replied, quietly. “She prepared to transform to hurt Calder and I had to take him to safety, much like I did with you.”
Nyx exhaled slowly between two purple lips, the air whistling. “Gods, throwing her out of the city was my least favorite part of the whole takeover.”
Azazel's eyes met Nyx's. “You threw her out?”
“She was attacking everyone,” Jakan pointed out, sadly. “No matter how many times I calmed her. We couldn't let her stay.”
Azazel frowned. “That's a shame. I figured that it was possible she would have an easier time accepting Vallen's death, given her personality.”
“It's different when it's someone you love,” I mused. “I love to battle. I find war fascinating. I have killed hundreds over the span of minutes. But...” I shrugged, feeling self-reflective. “Each time I lose someone close, none of that matters. Each death of a friend hurts like it is the first.” I was no particular exception to this, of course; it was true of all people in war. Each person will fight to protect what they love and cherish while cutting down those who stand in the way. Each side of a war believes it is just and righteous, while neither side honestly can be.
“How many have you lost?” Azazel asked me, curiously. Though I had filled the archer in on the details of the war and its causes since he'd joined us, I hadn't told him of Theron.
“Four,” I replied, glancing over at him. “Four, and it feels like five because I no longer have my brother Terran. I will kill him the next time I see him, and I will hate every second of it.”
Azazel's black eyes were sympathetic in my own. “Then why kill him at all? If you can take over Sera without hurting him, surely you can leave him be.”
“Because he has every right to that throne, Azazel,” I replied. Without thinking about it, I started to spin the ring Terran gave me as a gift years ago around my finger. “If I take Sera and let him live, he will spend the rest of his life working against me. He could undo any progress we've made, and he might try to hurt or kill those I love who have stayed with me.” My eyes scanned over my friends. “And I'm not willing to let that happen. I am terrified of losing the people I love. Each of you means the world to me.”
Azazel's face darkened with humility, and I heard Jakan scoot his chair closer to the table before he reached over to put his hand over mine.
“Aww, Kai, you mean a lot to me, too,” Jakan said, rubbing my hand warmly. “You won't lose us,” he went on, glancing over to Anto. “We'll be with you to the end.”
An ache grasped my heart. “This war will last for some time, Jakan, and it will be dangerous. None of us here are invincible. Many people will die, and we can't expect all the casualties to be our foes.”
Anto observed me carefully from across the table. “No, we can't. But I think all of us here accept that going along with you is dangerous. We don't want to fail. We don't want to die. We will fight as hard as we have to to prevent that. And we will fight hard regardless because fighting under you has already granted us victories. Thousands upon thousands are freed here and in Nahara, and none of that could have happened if it weren't for you. Still, I don't think any of us here expects to live forever. It is impossible, after all.” He smiled knowingly at me. “Even for the gods.”
“Besides,” Jakan piped up, “What would we be doing if we weren't here risking our lives for you because we'd met you?” The thief nodded toward each person at our table as he listed, “Anto might already be lost to me. I wouldn't know it and would still be stealing from people in Comercio. Azazel would still be enslaved. Nyx would be fucking all of Chairel. And Cerin certainly wouldn't be getting laid.”
Cerin chuckled beside me.
“That's not an insult, by the way,” Jakan added, with a grin. “You're not a bad looking guy in the slightest, Cerin, but living alone in the forests never did you any favors.”
“Sure didn't,” my lover agreed, squeezing me again affectionately.
A waiter came to our table then, and we started to order food. As Jakan was ordering, I felt warmth grab my left hand and glanced over to see Azazel turning it over to look at my palm.
“You need mushrooms or fish,” the archer reminded me, one blue finger running over my yellowed skin.
I found myself smiling at him with amusement until he noticed and let go of my hand, embarrassed. Over the past moons of knowing Azazel, I'd found he was one of the most caring and attentive people I had ever met. It was first apparent during our mission together the year before, of course, but I was continually surprised by it. Part of me wondered if his jealousy over my friendship with Calder was fueling him to be the best friend he could be.
“You've been feeding me mushrooms since we left Quellden,” I pointed out. “Eating more here isn't going to make much of a difference. I need the sun.” I glanced up at the stone ceiling as if I could see through it to the sky. “And I'll have that soon enough.”
Azazel didn't argue, but I ordered a meal that had mushrooms in it to put his mind at ease. All of this talk of the sun was making me miss it even more. When we finally left the tunnels within the fortnight, the weather would probably be beautiful. We hadn't seen the sky in a year, and Azazel hadn't ever seen it, so I looked forward to emerging from the underground more than I had looked forward to anything else in a long while.
“Where will we be in Eteri when we leave?” Jakan asked me minutes later as if he could read my thoughts.
“Mm...” I thought back to the map Calder had marked the tunnel exits on long ago. “Near the western coast. I think the tunnel emerges from the last mountain in a range.”
“You mean the cliffs?” Jakan inquired, before a chuckle.
“What's the difference?” Nyx retor
ted.
The thief shrugged light-heartedly. “Eteri's highlands are different from the mountains of Chairel. Chairel's are all pointy with snowy peaks. The highlands of Eteri are mostly rolling grasslands, and they end at the Servis in rocky cliffs that stand far above the ocean.” Jakan smiled at me as if he knew his next statement would be of particular interest to me. “The cliffs serve as a natural defense from attack, for obvious reasons.”
I nodded, finding that interesting. I'd never seen Eteri's famous cliffs for myself, of course, so I had a hard time imagining what they were like. Artwork of Eteri was rare in Chairel, even in the books I'd often read of wars involving the country.
“How do you know what Chairel's mountains look like?” Anto questioned his lover curiously.
“On my commute to and from Comercio from T'ahal, I could see the Golden Peaks from a distance in the west,” Jakan explained.
“Aren't mountains just rocky land?” Azazel asked, suddenly. “How could they look different from one another?”
As the others explained something so simple to the archer, I felt a rush of sympathy for him. It was hard to remember sometimes that the slaves of the underground had never seen the surface world to know what it was like. The sky, sun, weather patterns, and landmarks were utterly foreign to them.
Our conversation slowed minutes later after our food was served and we set on devouring it. The only diet on our menu for nearly half a year had consisted of rat and fungi, and as well as Azazel could prepare rat, I was grateful to eat something else. Nyx downed Alderi ale like it was her last night on Arrayis since the alcohol of her home was the strongest in the world and her favorite.
A bar stool screeched back on the stone floor in the midst of our meal, and a few of us glanced up with mild interest. When the Alderi woman whisked straight over to our table, however, she had our attention. I didn't recognize her, but she stared at Azazel as if she knew him. I prepared for a tense situation like we'd experienced back in Thanati when Azazel and Calder had seen each other again for the first time in almost seven decades. Azazel claimed he'd had no friends here so I couldn't begin to imagine what the woman wanted.
The stranger stopped at the space between Azazel's chair and Nyx's, staring at the archer with a spark in her eye. She paid no attention to the rest of us as she said, “Gods damn are you good-looking!”
I smiled to myself. Azazel was extremely attractive, but then again, he had been a mate. Calder and Koby had also been quite beautiful. It was part of the reason the women had chosen them decades ago to be put into prostitution, after all. Azazel's face was perfectly symmetrical, and he had high cheekbones, smooth periwinkle skin, sharp black hair, and full lips. It was a little surprising to me that he hadn't been approached by a woman before this.
A few seconds passed after the woman's compliment before the air became awkward. Azazel looked as if he had no intention of replying to her.
The woman glanced up to the rest of us. “Is this one deaf?” She inquired, jerking a thumb to the archer.
“Are you?” Azazel retorted, his voice bristling. “I showed no interest in you. Leave me be.”
It felt as if my heart dropped into my stomach acid and was slowly decomposing. I had never in my life seen an Alderi reject a proposition of sexual interest. Azazel's brush-off shocked me.
The woman chuckled coarsely. “Hell, if you like cock so much, you could've just said it.”
Azazel stood up so abruptly that his steel chair fell back to the stone floor, clattering over it and causing the tavern to quiet as patrons tried to watch the confrontation. I tensed, scooting my own chair back from the table in preparation for a fight.
The archer stood mere inches from the woman, his black eyes glaring straight into hers. He trembled with anger as he spat, “It is of no concern to you who I am or what I like. It never was. Your fucking gold never took my interests into account.”
“Ah! That's why you look familiar,” the woman replied, not backing down from where she stood. “You are a whore. Were you this sassy when I fucked you? Maybe that's why I remember you so fondly.”
I jumped up from my chair, immediately taking Azazel's arm. “Come on,” I murmured to him, as he strained against my grip. I nearly succeeded in pulling him with me, but his anger proved to be too much. His fist flew into the woman's head so fast it was nothing but a blur of blue. She fell back to the ground, muttering curses as Azazel shook beneath my hand. “Azazel,” I encouraged softly, tugging at his arm.
“All right, bitch,” Nyx announced to the woman, standing over her with two daggers in her hands. “This is what we're gonna do. You're going to leave our friend here alone, and then you can leave here alive and go to hell where you belong. K?”
“Ha!” The woman spit blood over the stone beside her face, though she didn't make a move to get up. “A woman protecting a whore's honor? That's a new one.”
Cerin glared at me. “Get him out of here,” the necromancer breathed.
I nodded, pulling again at Azazel's arm. This time, he finally relented. The two of us hurried out of the tavern together, walking briskly down the street with Azazel's heaving breaths of anger hoarse in my ears. I said nothing to him yet. I knew that this whole situation was painful and personal for him, and I didn't want to talk about it amongst a crowd.
Azazel finally jerked his arm away from me and stalked down a shadowed alleyway, his breaths echoing off of the claustrophobic walls. I waited at the edge of the buildings, watching as he finally came to a stop halfway down the alley. He backed up against a wall, leaning his head against the cold stone. I watched as the shadow of his chest rose and fell rapidly with a mixture of negative emotions.
I swallowed hard before I asked, “Do you want to be alone?”
“No,” Azazel admitted, his tone pained. “That's all I've ever been, and I'm tired of it.”
I immediately closed our distance and leaned back against the opposite wall. I said nothing, letting him breathe and think and calm down. I hoped my presence was enough.
“I'm sorry,” Azazel finally blurted.
“Whatever for?”
“For...losing it. For being angry. It wasn't meant for you.”
It wasn't the first time he'd apologized for being angry in front of me. “Don't apologize for that. Let yourself be angry. I'll listen to it. What happened to you here was awful.”
Azazel audibly swallowed as he tried to gather himself. “The whole time I've known you, Kai, I have expressed hatred for Calder's shame of his past.” There was a short pause. “I am a hypocrite.”
“You are hurting and trying to heal,” I replied softly. “You are not a hypocrite.”
Azazel huffed dryly. “And here you are, making excuses for me like you once did for him.”
“If you think they're excuses, then tell me where I'm wrong.”
I heard a sigh come through the shadows. “...you're not.”
“You're hurt,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“And that's okay.”
“Is it, though?” Azazel questioned. “My past is affecting your friends.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I have rejected Nyx, and I think she is hurt by that.”
Realization settled into my mind. I thought Azazel had only rejected the woman in the tavern because she'd been one to hurt him, but the trauma extended much further than that in consequence. Calder and Koby had been able to heal and move on from their time enslaved in the brothel; Azazel had not.
“Azazel, you have every right to reject anyone you want. Nyx is used to it. Not all men offer themselves to her so freely.” I paused, thinking back to Theron. “We have had friends with us who have rejected her before, and she loved them all the same. If she is ever pushy with you—”
“No. She has been nothing but respectful to me,” Azazel said, his voice defeated. “You and your friends are so happy most of the time, Kai. I simply worry that problems like these will make me unwelcome.”
<
br /> “Stop talking about my friends as if you aren't a part of us. Each of my friends has their own struggles and hardships, and we are here for each other. I fail to see how you're any different.”
I expected him to continue to argue with me, but he didn't. After a few moments, he finally said, “Thank you, Kai. For being here.”
“Anytime, Azazel.”
“...and...” he trailed off. “...and for letting me punch her.”
I smiled despite myself. “I wanted you to, if I'm honest.”
A dry chuckle sounded from the shadows. “Do you think the others were kicked out of the tavern?”
“I doubt it. And even if they were, we'll stay somewhere else. Your choice,” I offered.
“Okay.” A rush of relief was hitched onto the lone word.
The two of us were silent for a while as I waited patiently for him to calm down. When I could no longer hear his breaths, I asked, “Are you glad you came back?”
It was a vague question, but Azazel knew immediately what I was referring to. “...yeah.”
Two
Azazel's fist rattled off of a distantly familiar steel door. It was the same one we had stopped at first during our stealth mission in Hazarmaveth the year before. The archer had wanted to say his goodbyes to Corvina. He'd told us that she had been the one to purchase him out of the brothel four decades ago, and she had been the reason Azazel had been allowed to train with the bow and go on hunting missions. It was part of how Corvina had always worked; she would often visit the whorehouses to get the male slaves alone, and then begin to plan for their freedom after gauging their interest in escaping the underground.
The door opened, and Corvina's eyes brightened when they found Azazel standing before her. “You have survived Quellden!” She exclaimed, a smile lifting up her features.
