Rebel, Pawn, King

He drew a vial from his belt pouch, setting it down on the small table by the window.

“She told me about the reason you had to run from the blood moon festival,” Lucious said. “About your pregnancy. Clearly, I could never bring up Thanos’s child. Drink this, and there will be no issue. In any sense.”

Stephania wanted to fling the vial at him. She picked it up to do just that, but he was already out the door.

She went to throw it anyway, but stopped herself, sitting back down at the window and staring at it.

It was clear, the sunlight shining through it in a way that made it seem far more innocent than it was. Drink this, and she would be free to marry Lucious, which was a horrible thought. Yet it would put her in one of the most powerful positions in the Empire. Drink this, and the last remnant of Thanos would be gone.

Stephania sat there, not knowing what to do, and slowly, the tears started to roll down her cheeks.

Maybe she would drink it after all.

CHAPTER THREE

Ceres fought desperately up toward consciousness, pushing through the veils of blackness that pinned her down, like a drowning woman flailing up through water. Even now, she could hear the screams of the dying. The ambush. The battle. She had to force herself to wake, or it would all be lost…

Her eyes snapped open, and she surged to her feet, ready to continue the fight. She tried to, anyway. Something caught at her wrists and ankles, holding her back. Sleep finally fled from her and Ceres saw where she was.

Stone walls surrounded her, curving in a space barely large enough for Ceres to lie down in. There was no bed, just a hard stone floor. A small window set with bars let in light. Ceres could feel the restrictive weight of steel around her wrists and ankles, and she could see the heavy bracket where chains connected her to the wall, the thick door bound with iron bands that proclaimed her a prisoner. The chain disappeared through a slot in the door, suggesting that she could be pulled back from outside, right to the bracket, to pin her against the wall.

Anger filled Ceres then at being caught there like that. She pulled at the bracket, trying to simply yank it from the wall with the strength her powers gave her. Nothing happened.

It was as though there was a fog inside her head, and she was trying to look through it to the landscape beyond. Here and there, the light of memory seemed to break through that fog, but it was a fragmented thing.

She could remember the gates to the city opening, the “rebels” waving them inside. Charging down there, throwing everything into what they’d thought would be the key battle for the city.

Ceres slumped back. She hurt, and some wounds were deeper than just the physical ones.

“Someone betrayed us,” Ceres said softly.

They’d been on the verge of victory, and someone had betrayed all of that. Because of money, or fear, or the need for power, someone had given away everything they’d worked for, and left them riding into a trap.

Ceres remembered then. She remembered the sight of Lord West’s nephew with an arrow sticking from his throat, the look of helplessness and disbelief that had crossed his face before he’d toppled from the saddle.

She remembered arrows blotting out the sun, and barricades, and fire.

Lord West’s men had tried to fire back at the archers assailing them. Ceres had seen their skills as horse archers on the ride to Delos, able to hunt with small bows and fire at a full gallop if they needed to. When they’d fired their first arrows in response, Ceres had even dared to feel hope, because it seemed as though these men would be able to overcome anything.

They hadn’t. With Lucious’s archers hidden on the rooftops, they’d been at too much of a disadvantage. Somewhere in the chaos, fire pots had joined the arrows, and Ceres had felt the horror of it as she’d seen men start to burn. Only Lucious would have used fire as a weapon in his own city, not caring if the flames spread to the surrounding houses. Ceres had seen horses rearing, men thrown as their mounts panicked.

Ceres should have been able to save them. She’d had reached for the power within her and found only emptiness, a bleak gap where there should have been ready strength and the power to destroy her foes.

She’d still been searching for it when her horse had bucked, sending her tumbling…

Ceres forced her mind back to the present, because there were some places her memory didn’t want to linger. The present wasn’t much better though, because outside, Ceres could hear the screams of a man who was obviously dying.

Ceres made her way to the window, fighting her way to the very limits of what her chains would allow. Even that was an effort. She felt as though something had scoured her inside, wiping away any of the strength that she might have had. It felt as though she could barely stand then, let alone fight her way clear of the chains that held her.

She managed to get there, wrapping her hands around the bars as if she might pull them out. In truth, though, they were almost the only thing holding her up right then. When she looked down at the courtyard that lay beyond her new cell, she needed that support.

Ceres saw Lord West’s men there, standing in line after line of soldiers. Each still wore the remains of his armor, although in many cases pieces of it had been broken or torn from them, and none had their weapons. They had their hands bound, and many were kneeling. There was something sad about that sight. It spoke of their defeat more clearly than almost anything else could have.

Ceres recognized others there, rebels, and the sight of those faces brought an even more visceral reaction. Lord West’s men had come with her willingly. They’d risked their lives for her, and Ceres felt responsibility for that, but the men and women below were ones she knew.

She saw Anka. Anka was tied at the heart of it all, her arms strapped behind her to a post, high enough that she couldn’t possibly sit or kneel to rest. A rope at throat level threatened to start choking her every time she dared to relax. Ceres could see the blood on her face, left there casually, as if she didn’t matter at all.

The sight of it all was enough to make Ceres feel sick. They were friends, people whom Ceres had known for years in some cases. Some of them were wounded. A flash of anger ran through Ceres at that, because no one was trying to help them. Instead, they knelt or stood, the same way the soldiers did.

Then there was the sight of the things they were waiting by. Ceres didn’t know what many of them were for, but she could guess, based on the rest. There were impaling poles and blocks for beheading, gallows, and braziers with hot irons. And more. So much more that Ceres could barely begin to comprehend the mind that could decide to do all this.

Then she saw Lucious there amongst them, and she knew. This was down to him, and in a way, down to her. If only she’d been quicker chasing him down when he’d issued his challenge. If only she’d found some way to kill him before this.

Lucious stood over the soldier who was screaming, twisting a sword thrust through him to bring a fresh sound of agony from him. Ceres could see a small crowd of black-hooded torturers and executioners around him, looking on as though taking notes, or possibly just appreciating someone with a twisted flare for their profession. Ceres wished that she could reach out and kill all of them.

Lucious looked up, and Ceres felt the moment when his eyes met hers. It was something akin to the kind of thing bards sang about, with lovers’ eyes meeting across a room, only here, there was only hatred. Right then, Ceres would have killed Lucious in any way she could, and she could see what he had in store for her.

She saw his smile spread slowly across his features, and he gave the sword one final twist, his eyes still on Ceres, before he straightened up, wiping bloodied hands absently on a cloth. He stood there like an actor about to deliver a speech to a waiting audience. To Ceres, he simply looked like a butcher.

“Every man and woman here is a traitor to the Empire,” Lucious declared. “But I think we all know that it is not your fault. You have been misled. Corrupted by others. Corrupted by one in particular.”

Ceres saw him shoot another look in her direction.

“So I am going to offer mercy to the ordinary ones among you. Crawl to me. Beg to be enslaved, and you will be permitted to live. The Empire always needs more drudges.”

No one moved. Ceres didn’t know whether to be proud or to scream at them to take the offer. After all, they had to know what was coming.

“No?” Lucious said, and there was a hint of surprise in his tone. Perhaps, Ceres thought, he genuinely had expected everyone there to willingly give themselves over into enslavement to save their lives. Perhaps he really didn’t understand what the rebellion was about, or that there were some things worse than death. “No one?”

Ceres saw the pretense of calm control slip away from him then like a mask, revealing what lay beneath.

“This is what happens when you fools start listening to scum who want to mislead you!” Lucious said. “You forget your places! You forget that there are consequences for everything you peasants do! Well, I’m going to remind you that there are consequences. You’re going to die, every last one of you, and you’re going to do it in ways that people will whisper about every time they so much as think of betraying their betters. And, to make sure of it, I’m going to bring your families here to watch. I’m going to burn them out of their pitiful hovels, and I’m going to make them pay attention while you scream!”

He would do it, too; Ceres had no doubt of that. She saw him point at one of the soldiers, then at one of the devices that were waiting.

“Start with this one. Start with any of them. I don’t care. Just make sure that they all suffer before they die.” He pointed a finger up toward Ceres’s cell. “And make sure that she’s last. Make her watch every last one of them die. I want her driven mad by it. I want her to understand just how helpless she really is, no matter how much of the blood of the Ancient Ones she boasts about to her men.”

Ceres threw herself back from the bars then, but there must have been men waiting on the other side of the door, because the chains at her wrists and ankles went tight, dragging her back to the wall and spreading her out so that she couldn’t move more than an inch or two in any direction. She certainly couldn’t look away from the window, through which she could see one of the executioners checking the sharpness of an axe.

“No,” she said, trying to fill herself with a confidence she didn’t feel right then. “No, I won’t let this happen. I’ll find a way to stop it.”

She didn’t just reach into herself then, looking for her power. She dove down into the space where she would normally have found the energy waiting for her. Ceres forced herself to go after the state of mind she’d learned from the Forest Folk. She hunted after the power that she’d gained as surely as if she were chasing after some hidden animal.

Yet it remained as elusive as one. Ceres tried everything she could think of. She tried to calm herself. She tried to remember the sensations that had been there before when she had used her power. She tried forcing it to flow through her with an effort of will. In desperation, Ceres even tried pleading with it, coaxing it as though it were truly some separate being, rather than just a fragment of herself.

None of it worked, and Ceres threw herself against the chains holding her. She felt them bite into her wrists and ankles as she threw herself forward, but she couldn’t succeed in gaining so much as an arm’s length of space.

Ceres should have been able to snap the steel easily. She should have been able to break free and save all of those there. She should have, but right then, she couldn’t, and the worst part was that she didn’t even know why. Why had powers she’d already used so much abandoned her so suddenly? Why had it come to this?

Why couldn’t she make it do what she wanted? Ceres felt tears touch the edges of her eyes as she fought desperately to be able to do something. To be able to help.

Outside, the executions began, and Ceres couldn’t do anything to stop them.

Worse, she knew that when Lucious was done with those outside, it would be her turn next.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sartes woke, ready to fight. He tried to stand, thrashed when he couldn’t, and found himself shoved back down by the boot of a rough-looking figure opposite.

“Think there’s room for you moving about in here?” he snapped.

The man was shaven-headed and tattooed, missing a finger from some brawl or other. There was a time when Sartes would probably have felt a thrill of fear at seeing a man like that. That was before the army, though, and the rebellion that had followed. It was before he’d seen what real evil looked like.

There were other men there, crammed into a wooden walled space, with light let in only through a few cracks. It was enough for Sartes to see them by, and what he saw was a long way from encouraging. The man opposite him was probably one of the least rough looking there, and the sheer number of them meant that for a moment, Sartes did feel fear, and not just because of what they could do to him. What could be in store if he was stuck in a space with men like this?

He could feel the sensation of movement, and Sartes risked turning his back on the crowd of thugs so that he could look out through one of the cracks in the wooden walls. Outside, he saw a dusty, rocky landscape going past. He didn’t recognize the area, but how far away from Delos could he be?

“A cart,” he said. “We’re in a cart.”

“Listen to the boy,” the shaven-headed man said. He performed a rough approximation of Sartes’s voice, twisted out of all recognition. “We’re on a cart. Regular genius this boy is. Well, genius, how about you keep your mouth shut? Bad enough we’re on our way to the tar pits without you going on.”

“The tar pits?” Sartes said, and he saw a flash of anger cross the other man’s face.

“Thought I told you to be quiet,” the thug snapped. “Maybe if I shove a few of your teeth down your throat, it will remind you.”

Another man stretched. The confined space seemed barely big enough to hold him. “Only one I hear talking is you. How about you both shut up?”

The speed with which the shaven-headed man did it told Sartes a lot about how dangerous this other man was. Sartes doubted that it was a moment that had made him any friends, but he knew from the army that men like this didn’t have friends: they had hangers-on and they had victims.

It was hard to be quiet now that he knew where they were going. The tar pits were one of the worst punishments the Empire had; so dangerous and unpleasant that those sent there would be lucky to live out a year. They were hot, deadly places, where the bones of dead dragons could be seen sticking from the ground, and the guards thought nothing of throwing a sick or collapsing prisoner into the tar.

Sartes tried to remember how he’d gotten there. He’d been scouting for the rebellion, trying to find a gate that would let Ceres into the city with Lord West’s men. He’d found it. Sartes could remember the elation that he’d felt then, because it had been perfect. He’d raced back to try to tell the others.

He’d been so close when the cloaked figure had grabbed him; close enough that he’d felt as though he could reach out and touch the entrance to the rebellion’s hideaway. He’d felt as though he was finally safe, and they’d snatched it away from him.

“Lady Stephania sends her regards.”

The words echoed in Sartes’s memory. They’d been the last words he heard before they’d struck him unconscious. They’d simultaneously told him who was doing this and that he had failed. They’d let him get that close and then taken it away.

They’d left Ceres and the others without the information Sartes had been able to find. He found himself worrying about his sister, his father, Anka, and the rebellion, not knowing what would happen to them without the gate he’d been able to find for them. Would they be able to get into the city without his help?

Had they been able to do it, Sartes corrected himself, because by now, one way or another, it would be done. They would have found another gate, or an alternative way into the city, wouldn’t they? They had to have done, because what was the alternative?

Sartes didn’t want to think about that, but it was impossible to avoid. The alternative was that they might have failed. At best, they might have realized that there was no way in without taking a gate, and found themselves trapped there while the army advanced. At worst… at worst, they might already be dead.

Sartes shook his head. He wouldn’t believe that. He couldn’t. Ceres would find a way to come through it all, and to win. Anka was as resourceful as anyone he’d met. His father was strong and solid, while the other rebels had the determination that came with knowing that their cause was a righteous one. They would find a way to prevail.

Sartes had to think that what was happening to him would be temporary too. The rebels would win, which meant that they would capture Stephania and she would tell them what she’d done. They would come for him, the way his father and Anka had come when he’d been stuck in the army camp.

But what a place they’d have to come to. Sartes looked out as the cart jolted its way across the landscape, and saw the flatness of it give way to pits and rocky surrounds, bubbling ponds of blackness and heat. Even from where he was, he could smell the sharp, bitter smell of the tar.

There were people there, working in lines. Sartes could see the chains connecting them in pairs as they dredged the tar with buckets and collected it so that others could use it. He could see the guards standing over them with whips, and as Sartes watched, a man collapsed under the beating he was receiving. The guards cut him loose from his chains and kicked him into the nearest tar pit. The tar took a long time to swallow his screams.

Sartes wanted to look away then, but couldn’t. He couldn’t take his eyes from the horror of it all. From the cages in the open air that were obviously the prisoners’ homes. From the guards who treated them as nothing more than animals.

He watched until the cart drew to a halt, and soldiers opened it with weapons in one hand and chains in the other.

“Prisoners out,” one called. “Out, or we’ll set fire to that cart with you inside, you scum!”

Sartes shuffled out into the light with the others, and now he could take in the full horror of it. The fumes of the place were almost overwhelming. The tar pits around them bubbled in strange, unpredictable combinations. Even as Sartes watched, a patch of ground near one of the pits gave way, tumbling into the tar.

“These are the tar pits,” the soldier who’d spoken announced. “Don’t bother trying to get used to them. You’ll all be dead long before that happens.”

The worst part, Sartes suspected as they fitted a manacle to his ankle, was that they might be right.

CHAPTER FIVE

Thanos slid his small boat up the shale of the beach, looking away from the manacles set there below the tide line. He made his way up off the beach, feeling exposed with every step across the gray rock of the place. It would be far too easy to be seen there, and Thanos definitely didn’t want to be spotted on a place like this.

He scrambled up a path and stopped, feeling anger join his disgust as he saw what lay along either side of the path. There were devices there, gibbets and spikes, breaking wheels and gallows, all obviously intended to give an unpleasant death to those within. Thanos had heard of the Isle of Prisoners, but even so, the evil of this place made him want to wipe it away.

He kept on up the path, thinking about how it would be for anyone led down there, hemmed in by rocky walls and knowing that only death awaited. Had Ceres really ended up in this place? Just the thought of it was enough to make Thanos’s gut clench.

Ahead, Thanos heard shouts, whoops, and cries that sounded almost as much animal as human. There was something about the sound that made him freeze, his body telling him to be ready for violence. He hurried off the path, lifting his head over the level of the rocks that blocked his view.

What he saw beyond made him stare. A man was running, his bare feet leaving bloody smears on the stony ground. He wore clothes that were ripped and torn, one sleeve hanging loose from the shoulder, a great rent at his back showing a wound beneath. He had wild hair and a wilder beard. Only the fact that his torn clothes were silk showed that he hadn’t lived wild all his life.

The man chasing him looked, if anything, even wilder, and there was something about him that made Thanos feel like the prey of some great animal just looking at him. He wore a mixture of leathers that looked as though they’d been stolen from a dozen different sources, and had features streaked with mud in a pattern that Thanos suspected was designed to let him blend in with the forest. He held a club and a short dagger, and the whoops he emitted while chasing the other man made Thanos’s hair stand on end.

On instinct, Thanos started forward. He couldn’t just stand by and watch someone be murdered, even here, where everyone had committed some crime to be sent here. He hurried over the rise, sprinting down to a spot the two would run past. The first of the men dodged around him. The second paused with a sharp-toothed grin.

“Looks like another one to hunt,” he said, and lunged at Thanos.

Thanos reacted with the speed of long training, swaying out of the way of the first knife thrust. The club caught him on the shoulder, but he ignored the pain. He swung his fist around sharply, feeling the impact as he connected with the other man’s jaw. The wild man fell, unconscious before he hit the ground.

Thanos looked round, and saw the first man staring at him.

“Don’t worry,” Thanos said, “I won’t hurt you. I’m Thanos.”

“Herek,” the other man said. To Thanos, his voice sounded rusty, as though he hadn’t spoken to anyone for a long time. “I – ”

Another cry came from back toward the wooded section of the island. This one seemed to be many voices joined together into something that even Thanos found terrifying.

“Quick, this way.”

The other man grabbed Thanos’s arm, pulling him toward a series of higher rocks. Thanos followed, ducking down into a space that couldn’t be seen from the main path, but where they could still watch for signs of danger. Thanos could feel the fear of the other man as they crouched there, and he tried to stay as still as possible.

Thanos wished he’d thought to grab the knife from the man he’d knocked down, but it was too late for that now. Instead, he could only stay there while they waited for the other hunters to descend on the spot where they’d been.

He saw them approach in a group, and no two of them were alike. They all held weapons that had obviously been crafted from whatever had been near to hand, while those who still wore more than the barest scraps of clothing wore an odd mix of obviously stolen things. There were men and women there, looking hungry and dangerous, half-starved and vicious.

Thanos saw one of the women there prod the unconscious man with her foot. He felt a thrill of fear then, because if the man woke, he would be able to tell the others what had happened, and that would set them searching.

Yet he didn’t wake, because the woman knelt and cut his throat.

Thanos tensed at that. Beside him, Herek put a hand on his arm.

“The Abandoned have no time for weakness of any kind,” he whispered. “They prey on anyone they can, because the ones up at the fortress don’t give them anything.”

“They’re prisoners?” Thanos asked.

“We’re all prisoners here,” Herek replied. “Even the guards are just prisoners who rose to the top, and who enjoy the cruelty enough to do the Empire’s work. Except you’re not a prisoner, are you? You don’t have the look of someone who’s been through the fortress.”

“I’m not,” Thanos admitted. “This place… it’s prisoners doing it to other prisoners?”

The worst part was that he could imagine it. It was the kind of thing the king, his father, might think of. Put prisoners into a kind of hell and then give them the chance to avoid more pain only if they ran it.