He had slept again because when he woke the moon was high and the night's chill seeped through the small windows cut into the cell on the wall opposite. It was not Leoth's moon; it had not the scent of it or the grace of it. Nor did it have within it the power to imbue any kind of restoration to his weakened body.

He felt death wrapping itself around his neck, upon his tongue, creeping closer to his heart. It was like the moments close to sleep when one thought meandered into another, where the lines between reality and dream moved and thrashed like waves so they could not be told apart.  

Without blood to sustain it, the Leothine could survive no more than half a moon's turn before it surrendered itself. Before it would fail to pull the air into its lungs and the heart would cease to thrust the blood around its body. What happened then was but a myth, for none had suffered it and returned to tell its grave tale. But it was a state just beyond life, but preceding the true death.

Still, he felt calm.

It mattered little what they did to him. His duty was done. It was a noble death he faced now. It would satisfy Theodan to know his female was returned safe; Xanthus would be proud of the justice delivered to the traitor Torrik of Zybar. How he met his end now was of no consequence, for he did it as a true and loyal warrior of Leoth.

He closed his eyes and thought of Xanthus now. The taste of him, the sweetened scent of his desire, the warmth and contentment he found in his arms and in his body. He'd had hoped to tell Xanthus of the love he held for him, and it saddened him he may never know the depth of it. Would never know that he had saved him. When they first found each other, Elyon had carried the burden of an unrequited love so long that he had not recognised it for what it had been. A lifting of the weight, a weight he had finally settled down at last.

How deeply would Xanthus mourn him? For how long? It was only this which gave him regret now. That his end may bring sadness to him he'd loved. Perhaps, on balance, it was better to have not shared one's soul? 

He heard a sound then. The sound of a lock being turned, a latch being lifted, a door opening. A soft scrape against stone.

Female.

At first, he thought it was the princess come to visit him, but the scent was not that of Theodan's female. It was less... rich... less sweet.  The scent in fact was... strange, familiar. It was as though.... No. It could not be.... His weakened, hungry mind played tricks upon him. 

She drifted toward him, the heels of her shoes hammering softly on the stone as she walked. 

Her scent reminded him of woodsmoke; of how the remains of a forest fire may smell days after the last branch had long burned. Though he could see nothing for the cell was dark and she kept close to the shadows, an acrid bitter taste touched his tongue as she drew closer.  He felt a thrum of power move over him and he shifted against the binds which held his hands and feet, the cage they'd forced him in creaking as he did.

A mage of some sort, or one with some power, for he felt it push against him now. Felt her presence slip unbidden into his mind, probing, searching through its hidden places like a practiced thief. What she was looking for he knew not, and so he cleared his thoughts, emptying them quickly of everything and anyone who might betray him to this female.

Finally, she moved into the light of the moon and he saw her for the first time. Or rather, saw what she had not hidden from him now. A mask of woven lace covered her face, a heavy cloak upon her shoulders with the hood pulled up over her head.

Then he heard it; a quiet, but incessant chanting.  In fact, he'd heard it some moments before but had assumed it to be coming from outside the cell, somewhere far above.  It was coming from her. A chorus of voices filling the air, although he and the female were entirely alone. 

She stopped before him and tilted her in study, saying nothing for some moments.

'I advise you kill me witch or you will feel a wrath unlike any you have ever known when I am free.'

Through the mask her eyes smiled, bluest blue turning almost white. 

'You truly think you have ever been free?' She asked as she walked closer. She reached out a slim hand toward him, and he felt her scrape a gloved hand over his abdomen. Heat emanated from her touch, a dark insidious heat he tried to repel with every part of him. 'None of us are free, Leothine. Not I. Not you. Not even the Gods are truly free.' Her voice rattled with the power of a thousand voices speaking at once.

When she brought her hand lower, to the weight between his legs that lay heavy and dormant, he tried to twist away from her. Cruelly almost, she curled her hand around him and squeezed it, forcing her heat into it.  A shocking, unwanted jolt of pleasure pulsed through him, cock to spine to chest to tongue. He hardened. Thirst flooding his mouth.

An image forcing its way into his mind, which he was certain she had put there.

He tore himself free of the Leoth steel binds that held him and pounced upon her, turning her into the wall, raising her gown, and taking her violently whether she desired it or not.

Ashamed, cheeks hot, Elyon turned his head.

He heard her laugh softly, an unkind laugh which left him cold.

'I would not fight you, warrior, not as hard as you imagine I might.' She loosened her grip and her hand fell away from him.

He felt a loss he did not care for. 

'Who are you?' He asked through gritted teeth. She had begun to walk again, and he twisted his head as far as he could to watch her as she moved behind him out of sight.

'It is not who I am,' she answered. 'But who I shall become. To you, at least.'

He smirked. 'Then I am sorry to disappoint you. For even if you are to be my executioner, witch, you will still mean very little to me.'

She appeared from the other side, her head still tilted upwards toward him, observing.

'Oh, I have no plans to execute you, Elyon of Lethane.' She shook her head delicately.  'You are far too valuable a weapon to die here in the bowels of this castle. You have yet a purpose within you. One I intend to see fulfilled.'

' I die with my purpose to my realm and my commander already fulfilled, female.'

'Your commander...' she hummed. Had the chanting stopped? Yet when he listened, he heard it still, fainter now. 'Yes... we shall talk about him soon. Soon you will tell me everything I wish to know about the one called Theodan of Teredia.'

'f you think I will betray him to you, you have yet to learn the measure of me. I will die first.'

She smiled softly and took a step closer. 'So strong. So devoted. So confident that death is the worst outcome imaginable. Though I suppose they have bred you for it, honed you for it, and so you believe now it is to be your right. Such arrogance lives within Gods and men alike...'

'What do you know of Gods?' He growled. He did not like how the proximity of her caused his senses to awaken, his need to rouse again from its weakened slumber. His thirst becoming an urgent thing that thrashed and snapped within him. It clawed it's way up his throat and across his tongue, forcing his gaze to the pale exposed throat that she brought closer on a feminine sigh.

Sensing that need, she turned her head and pulled back her hood slightly to show him her neck. 'Would you like to taste me, Elyon of Lethane?' She asked, seductive.

Instead, he bit down on his own tongue and let the tasteless fluid of his own lifeblood drip down his throat. So this was to be Zybar's torture for what he had done? It certainly showed more invention than he had thought.

'I want nothing of you,' he told her.

She turned her head and even through the mask he saw a look so dark that he was reminded of a soulless ocean.

'Not yet...' she said. 'But soon you will. Soon, I shall be all you desire. All you think of... soon I shall be your master. Your mistress. Your God.'

For the first time, he felt a tremor of fear move through him.

'I have but one God, and He is not you.'

She let out a soft laugh, sweetened with femininity.

'Can you be so sure?' Her tone was playful now. 'Perhaps I am the Dark One himself standing before you now - how would you prove otherwise?'

'For there is naught but evil seeping from you. I feel it.'

She giggled again, but this time it was thickened with malice. 'And you think the Gods who shaped every inch of this world did so from benevolence?' She tutted. 'No. They have designed each horror of this world just so; every thrash of pain, every monstrous deed, all of it has been brought upon you by those you worship Elyon of Lethane. You are but playthings to them.'

He gazed down at her, momentarily stunned. 'And you are not?'

A strange look crossed her face. 'I have made them fear me as I shall make you fear me. But before that, I shall make you worship me.'

'I doubt that female; death will most certainly take me first.'

Another smile beneath the mask.

'Guards!' She called and the door to the cell was thrown open.  The guards moved in and without being commanded went toward him and behind. The sound of iron shifting and scraping, the click of something slotting into place, before he began to tilt backward. A rack.

When he was laid upon his back, she ordered the guards to leave them.  When the door had been bolted closed she spoke again, quiet again but with that same power.

'Do you know, Elyon of Lethane, that I have lived since the dawn of this world and I am yet to meet a male - god or otherwise - who does not bow to the needs of his own desires.'

He could not see her now, she had disappeared from his view but he felt her close.

'What are you, truly?' He asked, hating the weakness in his voice. 

'Fate.' She said as he felt the first patter of it on his lips.

Blood.

Stronger and more potent than he had ever known. He pressed his lips closed tight. He would not take it. Would die first.

Yet, his body wanted it. The thirst ravaged him from the inside. His blood and heart screaming for him to end the torture.

The chanting grew. Louder, louder, louder; a cacophony of female voices that had sounded then like the sweetest song he'd ever heard.

He twisted and tore against the Leoth steel that bound him.

What do you want from me?!! He asked, the scream only in his mind, not daring to part his lips and let her nectar taint him. It crept ever closer to his hungry tongue.

He heard her reply in his mind. Voiceless: Your power, your freedom, our vengeance.

Again, he answered in his mind. Look around you, I have none of these things. I have not harmed you! What cause have you of vengeance against me?

Suddenly the chanting stopped and all was silent. When he felt her climb atop him, he opened his eyes. She no longer wore her mask, no longer wore her hood, and he saw for the first time that she was not human. Not a mage or witch either; she was a Leoth.

He had sensed it before but owed it to the weakness of his mind.  A notion borne from his nearness to death.

No, not a Leoth, his mind said. For they did not bear that name; they bore another, one rarely uttered. A name almost lost to Ethis. 

She was a Foresworn.

Blood dripped from her lips, Leothine lips, Leothine teeth. She smiled at him and for a moment she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. His heart stopped for the briefest, fleeting of moments.

Her lips blood red with poison, she leaned down and kissed him.

~ THE END ~

*** COMING IN 2021***