Chapter Text
Chosen on Midwinter's Night
A monster for to lull
That's never seen in waking light
In new moon or in full
And then before Midsummer's Eve
The beast's heart you must win
Or else be whisked away and gone
And never seen again.
On Midwinter morning, Laurent awakens to a dying fire and the pealing of the great bells in the temple. He lies silent in the cool half-darkness, wondering which poor Veretian has been chosen this year.
Finally the chill deepens into something approaching real cold, and he's on the point of rising to stir the coals of the fire when the door of his bedchamber opens to reveal his personal guard.
"The oracles have chosen, then?" Laurent asks.
Even in the gray dawn light, Jord looks pale, and Orlant's ever-grim expression is even more dire than usual. That can only mean ill news, and there are few enough things that could cause such unease in his guard this morning.
It does not take him long to guess which 'poor Veretian' has been chosen. "Of course," Laurent says. He had expected some ploy from his uncle, to keep the throne for himself, but he had not expected that he would risk the gods' wrath in such a way.
He rises from the bed, pulling a heavy winter robe from where it lies over the carved footboard. He ties the belt firmly over his nightclothes and crosses the room to stir the coals of the fire.
Do they expect him to say something more? He is to be sent to the mountaintop, an offering to appease the deadly monster that lives there. What more remains to be said?
"It shouldn't be allowed," Jord bursts out. "You're the prince, the heir. You're all that Vere has left."
Laurent turns away from the mantelpiece to face them. "I don't think we can fault the gods for overlooking such petty things as mortal bloodlines."
Not that he believes the gods had anything to do with this choice. He wonders idly how one bribes an oracle, but even those sworn to the gods must have some human weaknesses.
Jord drops to one knee and bows his head. "Then let me go in your place."
Laurent has learned not to expect loyalty from anyone in the royal court, but perhaps that lesson has done a disservice to his personal guard. Few would make such an offer, even to their prince.
"No," Laurent says, "though I thank you for the gesture. Even if the gods did not consider it blasphemy, the people certainly would, and they are already indisposed to look kindly upon me."
"Then what will you do?" Jord rises slowly to his feet.
Orlant stirs, and he speaks for the first time. "What he has always done, without gain or gratitude." He meets Laurent's eyes. "His duty."
"There is no benefit in flattering me; I won't be in court much longer," Laurent reminds him.
"You know I have never been one for flattery, your highness."
Laurent falters at the sound of the title that would have belonged to him in little more than half a year. He had thought he would have time, before his twenty-first birthday, to become accustomed to the sound of it. Now, it seems, that adjustment is unnecessary.
"Then I will thank you, as well, and let the matter rest. How long do I have?"
"The procession will leave at midday, but your uncle wishes to see you before you depart."
Of course he does. He will want to see that Laurent knows he is utterly defeated. Ignoring the wary prickling at the back of his neck, Laurent crosses the room to the wardrobe. "Tell me, what does one wear to be sacrificed to an immortal monster?"
He knows Jord and Orlant won't answer; he also knows that they won't leave the room. They always leave him to dress himself, returning only to tie the lacings at Laurent's back and wrists—the ones too difficult or too awkward to manage alone. But today they remain, looking miserable beneath stoic facades.
They will have been ordered to stay, to allow Laurent no chance to spoil the gods' command. The lesson had been hard-learned in Vere, after a number of the chosen offerings had chosen for themselves a different path—suicide, or escape. Laurent can even understand it, how a quick death or a lifetime in hiding might be preferable to the unknown fate that lurks at the mountain's peak.
But he will not give his uncle the satisfaction of such spectacle. After all, so long as he lives, he is not truly defeated, and his uncle will not rest easy upon the throne.
Once Laurent is dressed, Orlant steps forward to tie the lacings, a routine so familiar that it seems out of place on such a morning. Jord watches, frowning.
"What will we do now?" he asks.
He isn't speaking of his position. Both of them will be reassigned the moment that Laurent is out of sight on the mountain path. "Keep an eye on the servants and the pages—Nicaise, especially. If my uncle tires of his service and releases him, he may find himself in danger. Even if he knows no useful secrets, that wouldn't stop a spy from torturing him to find out."
Orlant nods. "We'll watch over them for you, as we can. And we'll go with you as far as the mountain."
Laurent inclines his head in response, finding that no words will suffice.
He leaves his rooms as the sun is rising. Ordinarily, the palace would be quiet still, but the spreading news of the oracles' choice has roused most of the court from their beds. Those who catch sight of Laurent look away quickly, as though his misfortune might be contagious. No one speaks to him, but that is hardly unusual.
He stops before the doors of the Regent's study, just off the throne room. He takes a breath, preparing himself to enter. Facing the monster at the top of the mountain seems a fate infinitely preferable to this. Then again, it's likely the last time he'll ever have to enter these rooms, which is something of a comfort.
As he reaches for the doorknob, a short, tousled shadow separates itself from the corridor wall.
"So it's really true?" Nicaise asks. Even fresh from sleep, his hair glints with jeweled pins.
Laurent lets his hand fall from the door, not displeased at the opportunity to delay his entrance. "It appears so."
"Oh."
"Yes, well." Laurent turns away, steeling himself to face whatever parting indignities his uncle has planned for him.
"I hope you come back," Nicaise says in a rush.
It's enough to make Laurent turn back a second time. "Do you? It would mean a drop in your status, to be page to a councillor instead of a regent."
Nicaise's brow wrinkles into something between a frown and a pout. "That doesn't mean I want you to be dead. I'm not that awful."
"No, you aren't." Despite the Regent's best efforts to the contrary.
Nicaise's expression smooths out again, and he grins. "Besides, a new king will also have need of a page, won't he?"
"You may apply to my steward in due time," Laurent says dryly. It isn't a terrible idea, on its face. Taking on Nicaise as a royal page would prevent him from ill treatment by any of the nobles in the court. He tamps down an old fury at the thought of what kind of treatment Nicaise is already accustomed to. "Go on," he adds. "It's early, and you can't have eaten yet."
"Yes, mother," Nicaise mutters, and he slips away down the corridor.
With nothing left to delay him, Laurent knocks on the door.
"Come in," a voice says.
Laurent opens the door and faces his uncle.
The Regent is dressed already for the day. He must have risen early to hear the oracles name the offering. His jacket is a blue only one shade lighter than black, with dark lacings instead of gold, befitting the solemnity of the occasion. Veretian blue has never suited his uncle's complexion, a fact which has always given Laurent a faint sense of satisfaction.
The Regent eyes him for just a moment too long before nodding. "Laurent. Are you well this morning?"
"Of course, Uncle. Why ever should I not be?"
"I was present at the summoning—I heard the oracles call your name. I grieve to think of your absence, but the gods demand a great deal from us, and we cannot fail in our duty to them."
"Yes. I am sure the crown will be a heavy burden for you."
He clucks his tongue. "Now, now," he admonishes, laying a heavy hand on Laurent's shoulder. "Do not despair. You may be the one who will break the curse and return to us."
Through layers of velvet and linen, his touch burns like a brand. "I certainly hope so," Laurent replies carefully. He steps aside, and his uncle's hand falls away.
"Come. The court is gathering to farewell you."
The Regent steps through a side door that opens into the throne room. Laurent waits a petty heartbeat before following him.
Dozens of nobles and courtiers have gathered in the throne room, each having heard some wild rumor or another. The Regent raises a hand for silence.
"You have undoubtedly heard that the oracles have made their choice. It grieves me to confirm that my nephew, your prince, has been called by the gods to make the journey to the mountaintop."
A low murmur runs through the room. Laurent clenches his jaw and schools his own face to blank dignity, letting the hollow words wash over him without impact. He learned long ago not to betray himself with a reaction to his uncle's words.
"We worship the gods and their unfathomable wisdom. Though we cannot imagine what they intend by taking our prince from us, we must have faith. Surely there are reasons for their choosing that our minds cannot conceive."
He turns to Laurent, again reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder—here, where Laurent dare not shake him off. "Be well, Prince Laurent. Our hearts go with you to the mountaintop."
Their hearts, perhaps, but not their bodies. Indeed, if there is any mercy to be found here, it is that his uncle will not accompany him in the journey. As regent, he is needed in the palace, of course, where he will continue gathering support for his rule. At least he will have to wait until after Midsummer to take the crown for himself.
On Midsummer's morning, the priests and sages will gather at the foot of the mountain, to await the return of the offering. If the curse is broken, if the monster and the sacrifice have come to love one another, then they will descend from the mountaintop and be celebrated. If the offering fails to appear, then they are mourned with honor.
After a century of formalities, only a handful make the last journey to the mountain's base. Laurent understands; the summers are hot, and it is hard to bear such repeated disappointment.
Only after Laurent fails to return at Midsummer will his uncle be permitted to hold his coronation. Laurent hopes that every day of waiting chafes at him like a sack-cloth tunic.
The arrangements are made swiftly—Vere has had a great deal of practice at this particular art. The procession departs before the sun has reached its zenith. Laurent's bag is packed and borne by a servant, to prevent him from trying to take some weapon into the monster's lair. The general attitude is that he is a respected but tightly guarded prisoner. At least Jord and Orlant will join him for the first part of the journey. A pair of familiar—if stoic—faces is one sure thing among the tumult, like a rock piercing the surface of the sea.
The journey to the mountain itself is not arduous. Piety forbids the priests from riding, so they walk. Age forbids them from walking swiftly, so their pace wavers between slow and unbearable. The delay affords Laurent too much time to think, and he wishes they might have been permitted to ride.
A rider could have reached the foot of the mountain in two days, but their slow procession takes nearly five. On the final night, they camp in the very shadow of the mountain's peak. As ever, Laurent is attended at all hours, even while he lies in the dark, waiting for a sleep that does not come to him.
The next morning dawns colder than any before it. Frost crunches beneath their footsteps, and Laurent's breath plumes white in front of him.
This is where his guard must leave him. Only the priests and penitents will set foot on the mountain path with him.
It is a moment for farewells, but Laurent can find nothing to say. Jord and Orlant have served him steadfastly, even as the Regent's machinations had all but destroyed Laurent's reputation among the court. What words could match such loyalty?
"You're worth more than the whole lot of them—council, oracles, and Regent alike," Orlant says abruptly, loud enough to be overheard by the priests. "I'll pray for your safe return."
"Thank you," is all that Laurent can say. "Thank you both."
Before the remaining pilgrims begin the climb, Laurent endures a last blessing from the priests. They drone on about the wisdom, the mercy, the justice of the gods, but each word rings false to Laurent's ears. What evidence of those qualities have the gods ever shown to him? If there was mercy, then his father or his brother might have been spared on the field at Marlas. If there was wisdom, the gods might have foreseen his uncle's ambition.
And if there was any justice… Laurent has learned not to think on that. He follows the procession along the footpath, into the thick pine forest that clings to the lower slope of the mountain. The carpet of pine needles muffles every sound, so that they might as well be ghosts passing among the trees.
The penitents begin to fall away in ones and twos, considering their penance paid by the work of their journey. Some few toil along with the priests for another hour or more, up to the edge of the tree-line. There, even the priests stop, leaving Laurent to make the last part of the climb alone. He will carry nothing to the mountaintop but himself and the clothes he wears.
He has considered making a speech, rallying the few who accompany him to the defense of Vere, but these are priests and pilgrims, not soldiers. Instead, he steps forward in silence, out from beneath the last pine trees and onto bare, snow-rimed rock. Let them remember him like this, with his back straight and his head held high.
Let them remember that he did not look back.
Laurent maintains his royal bearing until the path takes him well beyond the sight of the trees. Then he allows his spine to bow into a more natural posture, and he stretches the ache from his shoulders. He will need every bit of strength to face what lies before him.
There is still a path of sorts, thin and winding as it crawls its way up the mountainside. Even if he had been permitted an escort, they would have had to follow at a distance, strung along the length of the path like pearls on a cord.
The sun passes over his shoulders and slips behind the mountaintop, leaving Laurent in cold shadow despite the early afternoon. Twice he considers the merits of stepping off one of the frequent cliff-faces and saving the trouble of being murdered, but he could never abide a forfeit—he will play this game through to the end, whatever end that might be. He isn't foolish enough to believe it is a game he can win.
In late afternoon, the path levels out, and Laurent rounds one last bend to find himself standing before a pair of carved stone doors.
He had expected the mountaintop lair of an infamous monster to be cavernous at best, and a true cavern, at worst. He had not expected grandeur.
The stone doors are twelve feet high and carved with reliefs of dizzying intricacy, battles and feasts and stories from myth, rendered in forms scarcely a hand-span in height. The doors look as though they should weigh a thousand pounds, but when Laurent reaches out, they swing inward at a single touch, as though unseen servants are pulling them open from within.
The entryway is dimmer than the afternoon light outside, and for a moment the passage resembles a great, gaping mouth set to swallow him whole. He knows it is only a trick of the light, but as omens go, it can hardly be considered ideal.
It is curiosity more than courage that makes him step inside. The doors close behind him with a finality that belies their lightness, and the heavy sound stops Laurent in his tracks. He turns, already reaching out to push the doors open, but he knows it will be futile. If it was so easy to return, surely someone would have done so long before now. With an effort, he lowers his hands to his sides and turns his back on the door.
His eyes quickly adjust to the light that radiates from lamps and braziers scattered through the long hall. His boots sink into thick rugs underfoot, quieting any noise as he walks down the empty hall.
The narrow hall opens onto a courtyard, where a fountain murmurs and splashes into a tiled pool. There are doors set into the walls around him, and the space between each door is adorned with tapestries, fluttering in a draft that makes the figures woven into them seem alive. The ceiling rises high above him, lost in the darkness beyond the reach of the lamp-light. It might almost be open to the sky itself.
Aside from the quiet sound of the fountain, the courtyard is entombed in silence. He finds no servants, no footmen or retainers. Even a hunting hound would have been a welcome sign of life. Instead, he finds only marble floors and pillars of wrought stone as smooth as glass. And it is warm here—unexpectedly so, after the chill of winter beyond the doors. Laurent unfastens his fur-lined cloak and carries it over his arm. He'll see if one of the doors lining the courtyard conceals a coat-room.
He may as well find out, as he has little else to fill the hours before nightfall. The first door reveals a staircase that descends to a bath-house full of deep, warm pools fed by some hidden hot spring, and shelves and chests filled with soaps and perfumes. But where an attendant would stand, waiting to help a bather disrobe, there is only a shelf of thick, soft towels.
Laurent leaves his coat hanging on a peg meant to store a bather's clothing, as it seems as good a place as any. He returns to the courtyard and tries the door to the right of the first, and then the next, and the next. Beyond each door he finds something different—a dining hall that would seat half the court in Arles, a parlor lined with oil paintings, a sparring room full of any type of weaponry he might imagine. (All blunted—he cannot stop himself from testing the edges, wondering if he might use them to defend himself against the monster.)
One door opens onto a library filled with leather-bound books. There is even a shelf of latticed cubby-holes housing ancient scrolls, flawlessly preserved. Laurent feels a pang of longing, as though the bookish boy who had once roamed the library at Arles had briefly resurfaced.
Each room is lit with lamps or candles, and there are no windows that open onto a view of the mountainside. It feels uncomfortably close, after the open windows and carved screens at Arles. Perhaps the monster is not fond of heights.
When Laurent passes the dining hall again, the candles are lit, and supper has been laid on the long oaken table. He has heard nothing, not footsteps or the clink of dishes, nor smelled the roast cooking in some unseen kitchen. He is beginning to suspect that the monster who dwells in this place is not the only magical thing about it.
There is only one place set at the table, so it appears the monster will not be joining him. Laurent has scarcely eaten since Midwinter morning, and he has no wish to insult the palace servants by ignoring their efforts. He dines lightly on roast and stew and sweet apple tarts, and the water in its crystal goblet as cold and crisp as any he has tasted in his life. He takes no wine, though a decanter has been left on the table for him; he lost his taste for it long ago.
Though there are no windows to judge the time nor clocks to chime the hour, he can feel the approach of evening like a weight on his mind. But he has tried nearly every door, and something is yet missing from his explorations.
The last door, half-hidden by a tapestry, opens onto a spiral staircase that winds twenty feet or more through a column carved in the stone. When the staircase ends at last, Laurent is sure that he must be under the very peak of the mountain.
The door opens onto a bedchamber—the only bedchamber that he has found in his search of the monster's lair. A vast canopied bed stands against one wall, piled high with pillows and blankets. Opposite the bed, a wide balcony opens to the eastern sky, and Laurent's growing claustrophobia begins to fade. Heavy velvet curtains are tied back to reveal the barren winter valley below the mountain, fading in the growing shadow. Evening is coming, and with it…
He turns away from the balcony. There is no fireplace in this room, but the chill of winter is nowhere to be found. He kneels to press one palm to the floor and finds it warm. He thinks of the bath-house below the main hall and imagines pipes that heat the floors by passing the water of the hot spring beneath the flagstones.
When he rises once more, he finds that there are clothes laid upon the bed for him. They had not been there when he looked away; moreover, he had not brought any clothing with him save what he is still wearing, so the garments might have been conjured from thin air.
Dressing for bed seems pointless, in a number of ways, but it still seems more sensible than trying to sleep in the heavy winter clothes he had worn for the journey. Boots and leggings are removed easily enough, but difficulties arise when he begins to remove his jacket.
It is awkward to think about, now, but it has been years since he undressed without aid. His clothing is designed to be removed by someone else, either a lover or a trusted servant.
Fortunately, the lacings at his wrists can be untied by pulling at one end of the knot, and loosening the cords is easy enough from there. The lacing at the back is a different matter. It is tied at the small of his back, which is no trouble, but loosening the cords up the length of his spine is an exercise in contortion. He is grateful that no one is present to witness it.
He puts on the linen shirt and leggings left out for him, as though it will make any difference once night falls. Though the stories about the mountaintop are necessarily based on rumor and conjecture, it's only logical to conclude that sharing a bed with an ageless monster will require more of him than mere sleep.
That expectation grows more oppressive as the light fades, leaving the room in hazy half-darkness. There are no lamps to light, because he is forbidden to look upon the monster. Helplessness gnaws at Laurent's resolve, hollow and achingly familiar. The years since the battle at Marlas seem to fall away, and he might as well be thirteen again, lost and alone and trembling with a grief he cannot begin to comprehend. He sits against the headboard with his knees drawn up to his chest, counting slow breaths as the light in the room fades from blue to gray.
Perhaps he dozes off in spite of himself; it has been a long day. But suddenly the room is true-dark, no different with his eyes open or closed, and there is someone standing at the foot of the bed. He cannot say just how he knows it, but there is no doubt. The darkness gives life to Laurent's worst thoughts, and he envisions fangs and bat-wings and curling horns, sharpened like spears. His heart races, and his breath trembles in his chest.
"Midwinter already?" a voice asks, in astonishingly clear Veretian. "I hadn't thought it was so late in the year as that."
Laurent had prepared himself for any number of things that might happen in this room, but polite conversation is not one of them. "It is."
"Of course it must be, if you're here. Midwinter to midsummer, without fail. Well, then, do you take the left or the right side of the bed?"
"The…left," Laurent says blankly. His confusion is resolved when footsteps approach his side of the bed—the monster only wanted to know how best to reach him. Laurent draws in a breath and holds it, determined not to flinch away.
In response to Laurent's gasp, the monster gives a low, rumbling chuckle. "Ah, your left. Of course." The footsteps retreat, skirting the foot of the bed and approaching the other side. The thick feather mattress dips as someone settles into it, someone with rather more weight than Laurent himself possesses.
When the voice comes again, it is startlingly close. "I hope that you do not mind sharing. I am told that this place will provide anything you ask, except another bed. The spell is rather particular about that. But I don't snore, or I don't believe that I do. No one has told me so, in any case. Do you?"
"Do I…?"
"Snore?"
"Oh. I…no, I don't believe so."
A sigh and another faint bounce of the mattress. Laurent imagines the monster curling up on one side of the bed, wings tucked around him like a leathery blanket. "I doubt it would matter, anyway. There's not much that can wake me. Do sleep well," the monster says.
And to Laurent's surprise, he does.
When he wakes in the morning, the monster is gone. A strange sort of monster, to be sure, and unexpectedly well-mannered.
And gifted with uncommon restraint, at that. Laurent does not expect that restraint to last.
The curtains are drawn back once more, flooding the bedchamber with dawn light. It is a strangely restful sight, and Laurent contents himself for a time to sit against the headboard and look out over the valley while the sun shimmers on distant streams. For the first time in years, perhaps the first time in his life, he has no duties, no appointments or council meetings or dinner parties. It's liberating.
Of course, there is a cost to that liberty, and it will come due in time. Best to make the most of things while he can.
When he rises, he considers the travel-worn clothes that he had brought with him, and then on a whim opens the armoire that stands against one wall of the bedchamber. It is filled with clothing in the Veretian style, rich silks and velvets in shades of white and blue. Laurent selects and outfit and, instead of dressing, descends to the baths below.
He spends an hour or more soaking in water nearly too hot to bear, loosening muscles strained by the long climb up the mountainside. He is accustomed to riding and sparring, but mountain-climbing is not considered a suitable pastime for a Veretian prince, and his body is reminding him of that fact.
He dries off and reaches for his clothing, again struck by the realization that there is no one to attend him. He might manage to tie the laces at his back, though not tightly, but the ones at his wrists will be impossible to manage one-handed. He could ask the monster to assist him at nightfall. The absurdity nearly amuses him.
On closer examination of the shirtsleeves, he finds that some mysterious tailor has made allowance for the difficulty of dressing oneself. Though the cuffs appear to be fastened by gold cords, there is a clever button sewn on the inside of the wrists, with a corresponding loop on the opposite side. With some patience, Laurent is able to fasten his cuffs unaided. The fit is not quite as true as it might otherwise be, but it is a comfort to feel properly dressed, at least.
He climbs the stairs back to the courtyard. As soon as he thinks that perhaps he might like to eat, he finds breakfast laid on a table in the grand hall. It may not be as rich and varied as the meals served at the palace, but it is well-seasoned and hearty, nonetheless.
He spends the rest of the day in the sparring room, examining each of the practice weapons there. He moves through a few drills against one of the straw-stuffed mannequins that line the walls, but it is a poor substitute for the training masters at home. His form will be a disaster when he leaves here.
If he leaves here.
He channels the surge of anxiety into a flurry of strikes against the mannequin, burying the stirrings of fear beneath the familiar strain of muscles and the rasp of his breath in his throat.
When he is finished, his arms are aching, but his fears of the future lie dormant once more.
The lack of windows in the monster's lair distorts Laurent's perspective of time. Were it not for the meals that appear at intervals in the grand hall, he might drift through the day with no awareness of the passing hours.
Still, as evening approaches, he feels the same faint pull towards the spiral staircase and the bedchamber above, as though unseen hands are urging him forward. His skin crawls at the thought of the enchantments in this place creeping inside him. "A chime to sound the hour would work just as well," he says sourly, but he climbs the stairs anyway and dresses for bed.
This time he is determined to remain awake, to note the exact moment when the monster appears. The curtains fall over the open balcony as night approaches, lest Laurent be able to see the monster in the faint light of the stars.
A breath of wind swirls through the room without shifting the heavy curtains, and the monster is here, without any sense of how he had arrived.
"Good evening," the monster says.
"Good night, I would say," Laurent replies, then immediately curses himself for correcting the monster who holds all the power here.
"I suppose that's true. Have you found this place to your liking?"
"It keeps the rain off."
"Rain and snow as well," the monster says, his voice almost wistful.
"The bedchamber could use some light, though."
The monster pauses. "Do not think to bring a light here," he warns. "You are forbidden to see me, and the gods are not forgiving of those who would defy them."
Then it is the gods who are meant to punish him, not the monster himself. That is an interesting thought. Laurent recalls his suspicions about the oracles' choosing, and he hopes that the monster is right. Divine judgment against the Regent would deprive Laurent of a certain personal satisfaction, but anything that might remove his uncle from power is to be welcomed.
Laurent finds himself speaking again, thoughtlessly. "Do you have a name?"
"Do you?" the monster retorts.
"My name is Laurent." The rest of the title is irrelevant now—he's unlikely to lay claim to it again in this life.
"Damen."
"Damen," he echoes. It's an oddly fitting name for a monster, so close to demon. Perhaps that was whence it had come, softening over the decades to something more like a name than a curse.
"That is what I was called by those who knew me."
What he was called? Then he has not always been a monster, dwelling alone in this mountaintop. The legends in Vere make no mention of the monster's past, of how he had come to be here. Then again, how could anyone in Vere know? No one has ever returned from the mountaintop.
That reminder chills any of Laurent's desire to continue the conversation, so he lies down, turning away from the monster to face the edge of the bed. He closes his eyes and listens to the shuffling sounds of the monster crossing the room and lying down on the bed beside him. Laurent waits for the moment when the monster will reach out and take his due, but it does not come.
Once more, he sleeps.
Each night when Damen arrives, Laurent tenses, wondering if this is the night when the façade of civility will be breached by the monster's rapacious nature. But a week passes in exchanges of rote pleasantries, and Damen always retires without laying a hand on him.
Finally, Laurent can no longer abide the nightly dread and its slow unwinding. When the stirring breeze marks Damen's arrival, he finds himself bypassing the light conversation entirely.
"If you are planning to take me, I wish you would do it sooner rather than later. The waiting is the worst of all."
He hears a hiss of indrawn breath, just short of a gasp. "Do you want me to take you?"
"I was sent here as an offering to appease you. My preferences are of little import."
"Answer the question." Damen's voice is calm and firm.
"No," Laurent replies in the same tone. "I don't."
"Then the matter is settled."
"That simply? Because I don't wish it, then you'll content yourself to chastely sharing a bed with me?"
"I may be a monster, but I am not so monstrous as that."
"I see." Laurent nearly ventures an apology, at the rough emotion in Damen's voice, but he alters the subject instead, extending his words like an offering of peace. "You said before that you were once called Damen. Does that mean you have not lived your whole life here? Where do you hail from?"
"It doesn't matter any longer."
"Then tell me how you came to be here. Surely that is a story that still matters."
Damen sighs and draws back the blankets to settle on his half of the bed. "I was young and proud, and I made a boast of my skills in a grove sacred to the gods. At the time, I did not know the grove was sacred…but I doubt that it would have altered my behavior if I had known. I was arrogant and very foolish."
"What did you say that angered them so?"
"I claimed that no mortal man could best me on the battlefield, and the gods turned my pride into a vow. They gave me strength of arms such that I could not be defeated—but I was sworn to their service, to fight each day and return here at night to sleep and heal. That was a hundred years ago, or nearly. I find I have lost count."
Well, now he knows where Damen goes, when dawn reaches the mountain. And the time-span matches Laurent's recollection of old history lessons. "That would make sense. It was around a century ago when the offerings began."
"Offerings?" Damen has the audacity to sound puzzled. "You used that word once before. What do you mean?"
"The men and women sent here, like me. We are summoned by the gods to…attend you. How many have there been?"
"I don't remember. Dozens, at the least."
So callous, so cold—Laurent had been a fool to think that Damen was any less of a monster than he had been told. Anger overpowers his caution, and his words grow sharp. "Midwinter to midsummer, without fail. That is what you said when I arrived. So what is it you do to them, on Midsummer's Day? Do you throw them from this parapet? Drown them in the baths? Or do you simply strangle them here in this bed, since you're such a great warrior?"
The bed creaks sharply, as though Damen has recoiled. "Do to them? I don't do anything. They are simply gone when I return at nightfall. Do they not come home?"
"No," Laurent says, between his teeth. "They do not."
Damen falls silent for a moment. "I am sorry. But if they are harmed, it is by some other force than me."
Laurent lies down, contemplating this new information. If Damen does not kill the offerings, then what becomes of them?
He is nearly asleep when the mattress bounces, and Damen speaks again, urgently.
"Laurent."
"Hm?"
"Until tonight, when we spoke now, you thought that I would—attack you, rape you, and after half a year of such mistreatment I would kill you? And you still came here?"
He turns away. "I wasn't given a choice. None of us are."
"You didn't fight?"
"What was there to fight? It is the will of the gods." Exhaustion weighs on Laurent like a physical thing, a reminder of his own helplessness.
Damen lies back on the bed, and Laurent can almost imagine a frown on his face. "I would have fought. I wouldn't go to my death calmly, like a sheep to slaughter."
"Then you would have gone to your death bound and beaten and carried up the mountain like a sack of turnips. You may have been the greatest warrior alive, but even you would be no match against a city full of people who believe that your rebellion will bring down divine wrath upon them."
Damen makes a sound of irritation and turns over.
"Besides," Laurent says, after a long moment. "There are other ways to fight."
But Damen is already asleep.
Laurent decides to dedicate the bulk of his time to the library. It houses ten times the number of books he could read between now and midsummer, but he intends to make the effort anyway.
He starts by cataloging the titles, organizing them according to the ones that are oldest, rarest, or most interesting to him. Some few are centuries old and should have fallen to brittle pieces long ago. Yet they stand on the shelves as crisp as the day they were bound. Many others should not even be in such a library, having been written long after the monster—Damen—made his home here. It is impossible to think that pilgrims or offerings carried these hundreds of books to the mountaintop, so it must be yet another part of the enchantment that fills this place.
Laurent's hand pauses over a red leather book. A History of the Lineages of the Continent. The gold-stamped spine looks new, but the contents might be centuries old. He leafs through the pages and pauses over a passage near the beginning.
He was wrong—the book is not ancient, but quite recent, written within the last twenty years at most. The lines of Vask and Kempt are current, and the line of Akielos ends in the last century with Theomedes II, as it should. The footnote on that page delves into lurid detail about the mysterious death of his son, which Laurent recalls from history lessons in his youth. The prince's body had never been recovered, and Theomedes had refused to accept his death and appoint another heir. When Theomedes himself died some few years later, the chaos of succession threw the country into a state of civil war, where it has remained for decades. Various bastards and pretenders have held power since then, but it seems that those exchanges of power did not interest the author.
He turns to the last page of the Veretian lineage, hoping against hope, and catches his breath at the final line.
Aleron I, King – Auguste, his heir
In the years since the battle at Marlas, volumes like this have all but disappeared from Arles. First they vanished from the library, and then even the copies Laurent kept in his study. A less-suspicious mind might presume that they were only lost, but Laurent knows that the Regent and his servants had worked carefully to destroy any reminder of Auguste and his death. Finding this book, here, is like finding some fragment of his brother still alive.
He leaves the book on the library table, closed to preserve the spine, and retires to the bedroom feeling unexpectedly at peace.
When Damen arrives, he seems to feel equally peaceful. He drops onto the bed with a sigh of contentment. "And how did you pass your day today, Laurent?"
"Reading," he says simply. He cannot explain to Damen what a comfort it was, to find his brother's name in that book.
"Is that what you like to do in your leisure, then? You do not…weave, or whittle, or any such thing?"
"I play chess. But playing match after match against oneself is hardly revelatory."
Damen chuckles. "I imagine not. I would offer to play, but you would find me a poor opponent. I never mastered the trick of holding all the pieces in my mind."
"No? But you were a soldier—or a fighter of some sort, weren't you? If you were as good as you say, you must have held some sort of command. Chess is only a battle-map, writ small."
"Hardly." Damen's voice is sharp. "The stakes are entirely different. If I lose a chess match, what have I lost? A few coins, if I wagered them. Perhaps a bit of pride. If a battle is lost, then people pay with their lives. People with friends and families, husbands and wives and children. I can recall the sand-trays of every battle I ever fought, but why should I care which pawn my opponent moved three turns before?"
His words distract Laurent from the thrust of the argument. "Sand-trays. You're Akielon, then?"
"Don't start," he warns. "I know how you Veretians prize your maps. Always more concerned with the immutable terrain than the constantly shifting armies. It's no wonder you're so easily overrun on the field."
"Unlike the Akielons, who are so easily ambushed given a mere hill, or a copse of trees."
Laurent is surprised when his retort is met with tired laughter instead of a flare of temper. "It doesn't sound as though much has changed in all these years."
"It might not seem so, if you look at it from a century's remove. For the rest of us, the changes may be small, but their effects are far more immediate."
"Is Akielos at war with Vere?" Damen ventures.
"Akielos is at war with itself, but that is nothing new."
Damen sighs. "No, I suppose it isn't." He turns over. "Good night, Laurent."
Laurent frowns into the darkness, wondering at the change in their conversation. They had been talking—or arguing—in good humor, until Damen had abruptly put an end to it.
Perhaps he is only exhausted, and Laurent could hardly blame him for that. Or had Laurent said something to irritate him? And if so, why does that bother him so much?
Over the next few days, Laurent redoubles his dedication to the library. Among the tomes of history and philosophy are inkwells and pens and blank pages, suitable for taking notes as one reads. Instead, Laurent resolves to write about his experience here. If he survives, perhaps he will take the journal along with him, to remember his time here.
If not, his memoirs might serve the next offering in better stead.
He has never dared to put his thoughts in writing before. In the palace, a journal was evidence that could all too easily be turned against him, and the court is filled with nobles who will beg or bribe or steal anything that might prove advantageous. To say nothing of what his uncle might have done, with a collection of Laurent's unguarded thoughts.
When he climbs the staircase to the bedchamber, he realizes that the view to the east has begun to change. It has been a month or more since Midwinter, and the mountains to the north are heavy with snow. But in the fields and valleys below, the snowfalls are rarer, lesser. It is not spring, not yet, but the worst of winter's snows are over. The seasons are beginning to change.
Laurent turns his back on the window and dresses for bed.
Not long after, the last of the light fades from the sky, and the curtains fall closed of their own accord. Laurent waits for the rush of air that announces Damen's arrival.
This time, the whisper of wind is joined by a low thump, like someone falling. Laurent sits up in bed. "Damen?"
For a moment, he hears nothing. Then a breath, harsh and panting.
"Is that you?" he asks, as though it could be anyone else.
"Yes." The response from the foot of the bed is rough, like it's being torn from him.
"Did you fall? What is happening?"
Damen doesn't answer, but he doesn't need to. A smell is rising in the air like copper, like rust. Laurent scrambles out of bed. "You're hurt. Light—we need light, and bandages, and clean water—"
"No," Damen grits out. "No light. You can't. I don't…it just hurts. I'll be all right."
"How do you know? You can't even see how bad it is." Laurent's voice is loud and tight, his calm stolen by the realization of his own uselessness. He could wash and wrap a cut, but what other help could he give? He does not know how to mend a tattered wing or splint a scorpion's tail.
"I can't be killed, not on the battlefield. If I could, I never would have lasted this long. I'll be healed by morning." He laughs, but the sound is pained. "I'm very good, but I haven't fought for a century and come out entirely unscathed."
Laurent allows himself a moment to absorb Damen's words. If he is not truly in danger, there is less urgency. But he cannot stand by and do nothing while Damen is in pain. Even a monster does not deserve to suffer alone. He takes a shuffling step around the edge of the bed, one hand on the bedclothes to orient himself. "Where are you? Keep talking so I can help you to bed."
"No," Damen says. "Don't touch me. You can't…you'll get blood all over yourself, and you can't see where the wounds are. You won't be able to touch me without hurting me."
He stops horrified. "Gods, what did they do to you?"
"Arrows, I think."
"You only think it was arrows?"
"I don't feel it, when it happens. I have so little control, so little awareness. Even if I did know what happened, it never hurts until nightfall." As he speaks, he draws himself upright, clear from the shifting location of his voice. The bedpost groans a little, like Damen is leaning on it for support.
"You can be wounded but not bested; you bleed but cannot die. It sounds like a bad riddle."
A pained chuckle. "It does."
"What will you do now? Do you just intend to bleed all over the blankets tonight?"
"I'll endeavor to keep the blood on my side of the bed."
His voice is still thin, but if Damen can make light of the situation at all, it is a good thing. Laurent hears the rustle of the bedclothes being thrown back, and then Damen lowers himself onto the bed with a sigh of mingled pain and relief.
"Perhaps I should sleep elsewhere tonight," Laurent begins. There is a cushioned bench below the window, and with his pillow it will be comfortable enough. "I don't want to make matters worse."
"You needn't, I promise. I should have told you that this could happen—I am sorry for frightening you."
"Don't be ridiculous." In his rush to help Damen, Laurent has stepped away from the edge of the bed, and the darkness around him is suddenly dizzying. He feels his way back towards where he thinks the bed should be, and he encounters it at a disorienting angle.
"At least let me call for a cup of wine," he offers. "Surely that can be brought here in the dark."
"A kind offer, but I don't need wine. I haven't needed food or drink in a hundred years."
"Not at all?" Laurent asks, lying down beside Damen.
"No. Besides, griva is better for dulling pain. Pain of a fresh wound, or a broken heart."
"That's nearly poetic."
"Is it? I was never one for poetry."
Laurent shifts in bed, frowning. "It isn't fair. You fight their battles for them—they might at least ease your pain."
"Don't blaspheme." Damen's voice is weary. "That's what began all of this in the first place, remember?"
"I remember. Go to sleep, then. And…be careful, if you can," he adds awkwardly. "Even if you cannot be killed in battle, I…do not like to think of you in pain."
Damen's answer is a blurred whisper, already half-asleep. "Thank you."
In the morning, there is no blood on the bedclothes, or the floor at the foot of the bed. Their encounter last night might never have happened at all.
It occupies Laurent's thoughts for most of the day, even while he bathes and reads and practices forms in the sparring room. Damen is somewhere, fighting, while Laurent reads poetry and philosophy. Who is he fighting now—Kempt, or Patras, or Vere? Have the gods set him against his own people in Akielos? Is some distant archer nocking an arrow, taking aim at Damen's unguarded back?
The thought drives him to distraction, and he sets down his book in favor of pacing the courtyard. The tapestries along the walls billow in a half-felt breeze, making the woven fiigures dance with an imitation of life. Most of the scenes depicted on the tapestries are warlike as well, which does little to settle Laurent's mind.
Before supper, he steps into the grand hall and speaks a careful request to the empty air. When he returns for the meal, he finds that his request has been answered. He carries it up to the bedchamber and dresses for bed, and then he waits.
Damen arrives, mercifully without a sound of pain or the scent of blood. "Good evening," he says.
"Good evening to you, as well. There's a cup of griva on the table beside the bed."
"Griva? What—why?"
"The cup is pewter, not glass, so it won't cut you if you drop it."
Laurent's ears pick up the sounds so clearly now that he can almost watch the events unfold. The creak of the bed-frame as Damen sits on the edge of the mattress, the slide of a hand across the polished wood of the bedside table. The ringing vibration of the cup being pushed across the surface before it is gripped and picked up. A pause, and then a heavy clunk as the pewter cup is set firmly back on the table.
Damen releases a sigh of what Laurent hopes is satisfaction, followed by a faint cough. "I had forgotten how it kicks," he says, but his voice is warm and pleased. "I thank you…but why?"
"You said you missed it. Not that I can begin to fathom why—I tasted it."
"Horrible, isn't it?" Damen asks brightly.
"It tastes like a stable smells in summer."
"You're not wrong about that. But you haven't answered my question. I said I missed the taste of griva, but that did not oblige you to bring it for me."
Laurent stops. He had not questioned his own motives in bringing Damen the cup. "My brother once told me that a kindness withheld was no better than cruelty. It was in my power to give you…something. Some comfort. And you have not been unkind to me, so why should I not do it?"
"You have a brother?"
Laurent wonders if anyone has ever asked him that question before. Auguste had been a constant presence in his life, and a constant absence in death. "I had a brother," he replies with gentle emphasis.
"I see. I did, too. A long time ago."
Even if Damen's brother had been a child when he was taken away, he would be long-dead by now. Laurent wonders if the pain gets easier to bear with the passing of decades, or if this hollowness will persist until he dies.
"What can I give you in exchange?" Damen asks, steering the conversation mercifully to another subject. "What kindness would you have from me?"
Release me, Laurent wants to say, but he knows that is not within Damen's power—monster or no, he is as much a prisoner as Laurent. Perhaps more so, for at least Laurent has the days to himself.
"It's lonely here," he says at last. His voice comes out thinner than he wants; instead of aloof and wry, his words sound plaintive, almost sad. "Not that there's anything you can do to change that."
"No? I take it you don't know about the mirror, then."
"I don't," Laurent admits.
"There are enchantments laid on the mirror in the parlor. One of my previous…companions…discovered it a few decades ago. On the evening before the full moon, and the morning after, you can speak one name to the mirror. If there is a looking-glass where that person is, you will see them, and can speak with them."
"That's impossible."
"Of course it is. It's magic."
"How could it have remained secret, then? Surely if someone had found a way to pass a message from here, the rumor would have spread."
"Would it?" Damen counters. "Would you tell anyone, if you had spoken to someone through an enchanted mirror? The people who didn't believe that you were lying or dreaming would think that you had gone mad."
Laurent cannot deny the likelihood of that. The mirror may have remained secret for fear of shame rather than any other reason. "In any case, I will find out tomorrow—the moon is nearly full."
"I look forward to being proven right," Damen says, smug and satisfied.
Despite Damen's assurances, Laurent approaches the mirror in the sitting room with little expectation of success. The enchantments in this place seem rather more designed to separate it from the world, and to maintain self-sufficiency. A connection to life beyond the mountaintop would not fit with what he knows of Damen's home.
Home. It's strange to think that this place could be someone's home. Laurent wonders if Damen thinks of the mountaintop as his home, or if home, to him, is an Akielos that no longer exists.
He returns his focus to the mirror. There are not many in Arles that he would wish to speak to, and even fewer that he would trust with a secret method of communication. Orlant and Jord, or even Nicaise.
He would like to know that Nicaise is well, but any conversation with him is too likely to be witnessed, and by the people Laurent trusts the least. That leaves his former guard, and of the two, Jord is younger and slightly more vain—meaning that he is more likely to have a mirror in his quarters.
Laurent stands in front of the mirror and speaks Jord's name, feeling entirely foolish. So it is with no little surprise that he watches the mirror fog over and clear, no longer showing Laurent's reflection but the small, private bunk of a palace guard.
Jord is engaged in some sort of exercise routine, endless repetitions of movements designed to stretch idle muscles.
"Good to see you're keeping busy," Laurent says after a moment.
Jord crashes to one side, rolling into a defensive crouch. Laurent watches him scan the small room for intruders. His eyes sweep from the door towards the back of the room, passing the mirror. Then he freezes and turns to face the mirror itself.
"Prince Laurent?"
"Jord," Laurent replies. "Are you well?"
"I—yes, but—what's happening? How are you doing this?"
"Magic, it seems. Damen was right, and I expect him to be insufferable about it."
Jord steps up close to the mirror, peering all around the edges as though trying to see through some deception. "You're still on the mountaintop? This isn't a trick?"
"Not at all."
Jord sinks down onto the edge of his bunk. "Well, it's damned good to see you, if you'll permit me to say so. You look all right—how are you faring?"
"Remarkably well," Laurent admits. "The monster is…not at all as I had expected. How are matters at the palace?"
Jord glances away, hesitating. "That is…complicated. Wait a moment, if you will." He vanishes from view and returns a moment later. "I wanted to be certain the door was locked. There isn't much news, but the Regent is carrying on as though you are already dead. He's still wearing mourning colors, because it's only proper, but it hasn't slowed his ambitions. I'm to be assigned to the front, near Fortaine, and Orlant is to remain in the palace."
"Sensible. He wants you as far away from each other as possible. Spread my allies thin, and they'll be less effective. Watch your back, on the journey and at Fortaine itself. Tell Orlant to do the same."
Jord grins. "Orlant will never believe I really spoke to you."
"Orlant is more susceptible to fairy-stories than you think," Laurent replies. Indeed, so much so that he doubts Orlant will want Laurent to visit him through a possibly-cursed mirror. "It's almost nightfall, and I need to go—but I should be able to speak to you on the night before each full moon, and perhaps the morning after. As long as there is a looking-glass in the room with you."
"I'll make sure there is." Jord dips his head in a half-bow. "Be well, my lord."
"And you."
Laurent steps away from the mirror. When he looks back, the surface shows only the reflection of the sitting room. There is no indication that it has ever shown anything else.
But when Damen arrives at nightfall, Laurent feels more at ease than he has since midwinter.
"I spoke to a friend today, through the mirror. It was a comfort, and I thank you for telling me about it."
"I am sure it was nice to see a familiar face," Damen replies.
"Or any face at all?"
"Or that. Fighting through the days and spending nights in darkness has cured me of vanity, if nothing else."
"You were vain?" Laurent asks. He has wondered more than once what Damen might have been like before he was carried off and turned into a monster.
"Vain and proud and a fool." Some of the levity fades from Damen's voice.
"And your brother called you Damen."
"Sometimes. There were other names, too, but they don't matter anymore."
"No? Why not?"
"I don't want to talk about it," he says, a strained finality in his tone. "Anyone who might have called me by another name is dead now, so what is the use?"
Laurent falls silent. This is not the conversation he had thought they were having.
When Damen speaks again, his voice is quiet—he might be speaking to Laurent, or only to himself. "It's been a century. Everyone I knew will have died. My father, my brother. Every aide and attendant and ambassador. Even the children playing in the marketplace. There is no one left."
The empty grief in his voice is more than Laurent can stand, and he speaks without thinking. "There's me."
"Till Midsummer, at least."
"Yes," Laurent says at last. "Till then."