Abolisher

The whips went on for eternity.

He didn’t know when the day started and the night draped.

They came in every day, opened his skin, and left when his blood pooled beneath his legs. Felset remained after the guards. She watched him for minutes when pain ruled him, as if the image was so satisfying that she wanted to burn it in her mind and never let go.

Soon enough, his fear dissolved. Soon enough, every feeling in him disappeared. All that was left was an empty pit in his chest.

He hadn’t eaten. Or maybe he was forced some food down his throat, he didn’t remember.

His mind began playing tricks on him. Sometimes he saw a head in the corner rotting away, felt the cell colder. Rik’s voice tugged him out of the memories before he could lose himself, mistaking them for reality. Not that he ever made out the words his friend uttered—they were always muffled, drowned out by the constant silence ringing in his head.

Sometimes he fell unconscious during the unending pain, sometimes he woke to the whippings. All the times, Rik was pleading.

Azryle wished he would stop.

Azryle wished the pain would stop.

Eventually, Rik’s pleas ceased. Everything from him had already been drained before Azryle was thrown in here. He was surprised Rik had enough life left to plead at all.

Though the pain remained. Didn’t it always?

Would it be so bad? he’d wondered one of these days. To let her have it? Take whatever she wants, if it spares him all she is planning to do to him?

But then he looked at Rik—the burned face, the scalp, the hand. Saw the scars he knew weren’t from the battles, they had been carved slowly, creatively. And Azryle seared that image in his mind whenever Felset entered with her rats.

All the guards she brought, Azryle had once fought beside them all, remembered their names, their faces.

Today, when she entered, the bastard Azryle had never been able to stand came trailing behind her. Luca. A spark of rage reignited life in Azryle.

This wretch, who’d brought Maeren to Felset—had ogled her with a revolting lust even when she’d been no more than a terrified child, as Azryle himself had been. He had always wanted to rip the man’s head off—even then. Knew it would give an undeniable satisfaction. Maeren had had a different body then—her own body, one she’d adored the most. She’d decided to acquire another only when her own had begun wrinkling.

“This could all be avoided, Prince,” Felset sighed. Sounding, for once, truly tired. “Bring down the wards.”

Azryle looked to Vendrik across the cell, laying heavily on the dresteen chaining his arms to the roof. Rik’s amber eyes, tattling about his utter brokenness and bone-deep fatigue, slowly rose to Azryle’s. His chest tightened. But Azryle had only one message for his friend.

You do not surrender.

Vendrik blinked once, slowly, lids heavy. Yes. Two more blinks. You, too.

They’d been on countless undercover missions together, knew each other’s struggles as well as they did each other’s fight maneuvers—unlike greone codes, they’d never discussed these blinks. They’d just understood, until it became their own language.

Azryle blinked thrice. A little more.

The strike came, so harsh and sudden that Azryle lurched forward, his face almost touching the stone, as the flesh split and the whip grazed bone. Pain shot through him; Azryle felt dizzy for a moment.

From the corner of his eye, he caught Birex lifting his arm for another swift blow—

“Stop,” Azryle choked out before another strike could send pain reverberating up his bones, his flesh.

He felt Felset’s delight and surprise like poison flowing in his skin. She’d done it—she’d finally broken him. Azryle played on. He dropped the wall and let her see the river of these utterly human emotions he’d been holding at bay, let her see the sheer terror and weakness that took over him. His heart sped, twisted in on itself; his head buzzed with the rush.

He knew his mejest was meddling with them, toying with them for its own satisfaction, but he couldn’t help the shaking. He tried curling his fingers into tight fists, but that only worsened the shaking somehow.

“I’ll come back.” His voice’s condition was no different than his body’s. “I’ll drop the wards. I’ll do anything—just stop.”

Felset’s cool fingers grazed his cheek. “You think me a fool?” She angled her head. “Whatever you’re planning will not work, Prince Azryle.”

“Please.” The word sounded so genuine, so … expressive, Azryle almost choked on it.

She dropped her head until it was a breath away from his.

That was all he needed. Azryle had undone the shackles around both his wrists and feet hours—or maybe days, he didn’t know—ago.

Then, a lot happened at once.

Here, Azryle lunged at the queen like a wild animal, hooked himself around her waist and hurled her to the ground—her utter surprise was his biggest gain. She was on her back on the floor. Before she could move, Azryle straddled her, pinning her thighs with his knees. He locked her thin wrists in one hand, and with his other hand, Azryle pressed his fingers in her eyes.

Just as he released the wards bulwarking Rik’s fire.

There, the firebreather burst in flames so hot that the air sizzled. So hot that his shackles melted as soon as the flames licked them. The sentries were too slow. Rik’s fire was already burning them. Two of them didn’t even scream, as if it were a sweet end, as if they welcomed death with open arms.

As if it were a release.

Luca screamed, though, and thrill ignited the dawdling mejest in Azryle’s veins. It rushed his blood.

This might be the first time he’d heard Felset scream—it was a shrill noise … another creature’s noise, not at all this world’s. She thrashed beneath him, and it wouldn’t be long before she snapped to her senses and grasped at the strings of her own unworldly mejest.

Azryle dug his fingers deeper in her eyes—he wouldn’t let her see the fire. Wouldn’t let her trap it. She might be something else, something he might never comprehend, but enveloped in a human’s body, easy to rip. Blood trickled at the corners of her eyes.

Rik, still clothed in his raw fire, headed for the cell bars.

Azryle took a fistful of Felset’s hair, and tilted her head from the floor. And with one swift blow, with every last ounce of strength, Azryle slammed her skull back in the stone floor. A satisfying crunch sounded. She stopped trashing beneath him, went limp.

He lifted off her. Any other human would have died, any other human would have never recovered from this, but he knew Felset would heal in a matter of hours. Less.

Azryle approached his friend, tremors shooting up his legs with each step. He ignored them. He’d dealt with worse. “This escape might be easier if you attracted less attention.”

Rik’s flames winked out. He was rolling his eyes behind them.

“Better.”

Vendrik jerked his head to the queen. “Kill her.”

Azryle shook his head, the offer so tempting that his whole body ached to rip her head off. “There’s no point. She’d wake up. Whatever she is might even crawl out of the dead body.” He winced at the thought. “We need to hurry.”

Azryle stretched his senses and listened for any other presence in the cave, felt for them. And what replied back had him cringing.

“What is it?” Rik whispered.

This couldn’t be right. He tried again, sent his mejest to scour the corners. But something despicable and unholy made his power cower. Whispers touched his ears, hissed in his mejest.

He peeked out of the cell. Moonlight streamed in from the cave mouth not much far. There was no one else here. Not even any sentries.

“Let’s go,” he said, trusting his awareness, more than the screaming instincts.

Something wasn’t right.

He made to step out of the cell, but a sudden weakness jolted up his legs, his entire body, having him slam to his knees.

“Ryle.” Rik reached out for Azryle, and helped him to his feet, hooking his arm around his shoulders.

“Poisoned xist,” Azryle gasped, unable to breathe. “The whips—they were coated with—poisoned xist.” His lungs felt as if they were swelling.

“Get him out of here.”

As if dragged out, Maeren materialized against the wall beside Azryle. How had he not scented—

“Quick, hold my hand, I can walltread you out—”

Vendrik took a protective step around Azryle, coming between him and the wraith, a raging ball of flame erupting in his hand. “Stay back, Mae.”

Azryle hadn’t the strength to calculate, to be confused. They needed to get out before Felset awoke—

A rush of shakiness had his vision darkening.

Funny thing. Of all the ways, Azryle hadn’t thought poison would the one to kill him. Such a mortal way to die.

✰✰✰✰✰

“Go,” Azryle huffed, his body growing heavier every passing second. “Get out of here.”

Vendrik ignored him, and began dragging them both towards the cave mouth. His body shuddered at both weakness and mejest coursing through him. His friend had lost his mind.

Maeren tried to halt him by his wrist. “Rik, please—”

Vendrik’s snarl resonated in the stones. He knew Maeren was here to stop them—had to be—knew she would lead them into another trap schemed out by Felset. A backup. No matter what his instincts roared, Vendrik stepped past her.

He needed to get Ryle out of here. Find a healer. Vendrik’s throat burned, because all his senses and calculations were shrieking that it was too late. That poison would take Ryle out before he even found a way out.

“You know you need help, Rik—trust me this once, please, let me walltread you out.” Mae’s voice sounded so genuine, so broken, that Vendrik almost paused. Almost. “He will die.” She matched him step by step.

The cave mouth came closer, closer, closer—

Azryle paused. He slid out of Vendrik’s grasp—swayed—braced an arm against the wall. But his legs didn’t hold. He slid to the cold ground, his torn back smearing blood across the stones. It gleamed in moonlight.

“Ryle—”

“Go,” he wheezed. “Go with her. Don’t waste time.”

Vendrik refused, his chest tightening to the point of pain. “No,” he said, sliding an arm beneath Ryle’s shoulder again. “You’ve never been someone to give up. Don’t start now, bastard.” He attempted lifting his friend.

But Azryle didn’t yield. He looked at Vendrik and shook his head, defeat scrawled across his face. “I never told you this,” he choked out, his eyes drooping. “But you’re a great friend, Rik. I would have broken long ago had it not been for you. And—” He coughed, spraying blood. “And I didn’t come here for Felset, or even Alpenstride, I came for you. Because you’re the one who’s ever mattered.”

Vendrik’s eyes burned, and he attempted lifting Ryle again. “Come on, now, you can do these pleasantries later.”

Azryle didn’t budge. “They don’t need me out there. But you. You need to get out, help Syrene kill Felset—”

“Don’t put your burdens on me,” Vendrik snapped. “Do your work yourself.”

The rise and fall of his chest had slowed. “Go, Rik.” Then—

He felt the warmth of Maeren’s hand around his wrist, and a tug, before Darkness enveloped him. The world moved, so fast that everything blurred, it displayed before him, as if an enormous screen in a dark room.

Vendrik realized Maeren was walltreading him away from Ryle.

“In the coming days,” Maeren spoke from somewhere in the darkness, “you’re going to loathe me. But this is the right decision, Rik. He can find peace, now.”

✰✰✰✰✰

The world was fading painfully slow.

His ragged breaths echoed in his hollowed-out chest. Utter exhaustion had lain claim to him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even lift his lids as he waited for a sweet end.

Fitting, he supposed. A painless death, after a life full of pain.

Fitting, he supposed. Rippers were never meant to be, now they would cease wholly.

Fitting. Fair.

Stop fighting, he told himself, grasping he’d unconsciously been struggling against the poison, struggling for breaths. He was tired—he was so tired of fighting. Of being tested over and over. So tired.

Then why are you still fighting? a voice asked. Let it be enough, ripper.

Azryle loosened his fists. He wondered what Syrene would make of this. She’d offered him freedom, a life for himself. He wondered what she would think if she found he was willing to fight no more.

“Azryle.”

The voice was muffled—not even there.

Steps sounded before him. She’d awoken quicker than he’d anticipated then. He almost smiled at the irony. Even in the end, Felset was the only one with him in his last moments. Even here, taking his last breaths, Azryle wanted to fight only so she wouldn’t be the one to kill him.

“Azryle.” A hand patted his cheek.

It wasn’t Felset’s hand. He knew her touch as good as he knew the way whips tore skin. Her touch always sucked out life from his flesh.

This touch brought life and thrill.

He opened his eyes.

Indeed, the face before his wasn’t Felset’s.

Even now, when Syrene’s azure eyes met his, Azryle’s dying heart dithered.