Chapter Text
“Make your farewell to her, the Alexandria you are losing”
-The God Abandoning Anthony.
The envoy’s ragged breaths sounded painfully loud in the expectant quiet of Calyx’s council room. Calyx gripped his armrest tightly to contain his twitches of impatience. The envoy had clearly run as fast as a soldier in his prime could, Calyx could hardly blow air into his lungs to make him regain his breath faster. He would have to wait, knowing that every second wasted on deliberation took the Empress a step closer to his city.
Once the envoy had caught enough air to speak, he rushed into a torrent of stumbled words. “They’re approaching, sire, you wouldn’t believe the size of their battering rams, the cannons as big as houses, the explosives, many of them when only one would tear the entire south wall apart in one blow.”
“Explosives?” Calyx shook off his anxious dizziness with a deep breath. Too deep, if the look his advisor Aeschylus shot him from his seat beside him was anything to go by.
“So many, we don’t stand a chance, sire,” the envoy whispered.
“Permission to advise?” Aeschylus asked.
Calyx nodded, despite knowing exactly what his counsel would be. It would be how most anyone would react upon hearing the news of explosives. He didn’t need to be reminded that they did not have explosives themselves to counter with. They had no access to mines. The Empress had taken control over that area, steadily encroaching upon them and sucking them resource-dry. Still, he bristled at the superiority Aeschylus thought his wrinkles of experience lent him.
Calyx did not like to feel underestimated. The Empress had not contended with him yet. He, who’d seen potential in a worthless rundown city, like a sculptor staring at an indeterminate slab of granite. He’d not been regarded as such, had been forced to claw his way up with only his wits and determination to be acknowledged as the fashioner of cities he knew he could be. It had worked so well, how could he possibly be asked to leave it all behind?
Yet Aeschylus was nothing but pragmatic. “We must surrender, and hope the Empress is merciful enough to leave at least part of this city standing. Should we play her game, meet her at the battlefield, she will raze this place to the ground, without a doubt. Go for the option that leaves us at least a chance of survival, she’s been merciful when met with obedience before.”
He briefly entertained the idea of withstanding the Empress’s onslaught. They wouldn’t win, he wasn’t deluded. Yet perhaps under his command, the city could resist enough to dissuade the Empress from trying harder. She was a clever ruler, she knew she could turn her explosive’s fire on smaller fish if Calyx proved himself willful enough. She knew Calyx wasn’t an expansionist, wouldn’t attack her unless she struck first. She could turn a blind eye to his little corner of the world, switching her imperial gaze on more rewarding endeavors.
Calyx shook his head at them halfheartedly, knowing the tide of opinion was close to pulling him under. “Defeatists, all of you. Were you in charge, you’d tumble down the walls yourselves before she even came.”
And yet, looking at the envoy’s grim face, the glinting red tinge of blood of his lip from biting it, doubt stirred. It would not do, having poured so much of his soul into this city, to lead it to its doom through misguided heroism.
Although, Calyx thought with rising panic, he’d lead it to its doom regardless through indecision, at this rate. To fight, to surrender, the fight to surrender, the surrender to fighting. Unfolding and folding his strategy, the Empress was no doubt inching closer. He could not decide.
There was only one solution left. Where he had always gone, whenever he was paralysed by uncertainty. Down the steps of his tower, after excusing himself and ordering the war council’s reconvening within an hour’s time, to the cave under the citadel with its dampness that clogged his throat.
To consult the oracle.
The oracle had never faltered in her predictions. He remembered kneeling before her in his uncertain youth, the sound of her voice, heavy with omen, telling him he’d be ruler one day. Here he was, ruler as foretold, despite all the obstacles in his path. She knew Calyx would overcome then, perhaps he could overcome now too.
He could not see her, veiled as she was in aromatic smoke. Overpowering by far, he wondered how she could stand it. He swallowed down a cough.
Pitching his voice to carry, knowing time was of the essence, he jumped straight to the question. “Will I win against the Empress?”
A breathspan of hesitation. Ominous. She had always been so quick to answer. Calyx steeled himself.
“You will succumb to her and be left in bondage.” Her voice, scratchy like a nail scraped against sandstone, sent a shiver of goosebumps down his arms.
Defeat and slavery then. So that was the fate that awaited him, despite the squashing of idealistic what-ifs, he could not find it in him to be entirely surprised. He thanked the oracle and ascended the stairs with the heavy steps of regretful certainty. Best to surrender voluntarily, perhaps something could be salvaged.
Facing his war council once again, he doled out instructions, diverting manpower from his army to his citadel, like a captain on a sinking ship. Ordering his soldiers to pull back, his staff to prepare the citadel for her, his papers to be put in order lest she thought him disposable. At least he could ease the path of the handover for his people.
“She will not encounter resistance here,” Calyx said, instructing his envoy to send the message of surrender.
Having done all that, he left the room and then the citadel. Steeling himself, he closed the door behind him. Looking for the last time at a city freely his, he knelt down upon the cold slab of the citadel to wait in surrender.
“His mind grows sick with lust. Kisses linger on his lips. Every inch of his flesh is wracked by longing.”
-In the Twenty-fifth Year of His Life
The fateful tap-tap of tightly laced boots heralded her arrival. Calyx fought the desire to stare head-on at his judge, jury, and possible executioner. There would be no doubt about the last role if he did not display his submission to her satisfaction.
He kept his eyes firmly lowered, until he was staring at her loose pants billowing in the wind. The city, usually bustling at this hour with riotous sounds of urban life, held its breath to hear her verdict.
He wished she would hurry, the cold cobblestones dug sharply into his knees. He wasn’t entirely unused to kneeling, but past times had been more pleasurable by far, without the uncertainty of his fate hanging over him.
“Look at me.” Came her commanding voice from above, filled with the unshakable confidence of one who held all the cards and had never failed in her strategic use of them.
He obeyed, tilting his head up. From his angle, she loomed tall in his field of vision. Her face, as beautiful as was rumored, betrayed no emotion save for focused calculation. Stuck in her spiderweb, the hundredth ruler ensnared, he wondered if she could see his silent plea for mercy, his desire to see his city flourish. If she would even be moved by it.
“So this is your surrender?”
Inadequacy flushed hotly through him. Was this not enough for her imperial highness?
“If it pleases you, I’ll kneel before you from this day hence,” Calyx replied, hoping his voice did not come out as shaky as it sounded to him. He slipped the citadel key from where it hung from his belt, and offered it up to her with lowered eyes. “My city is yours, should you desire it.”
She took the key from him with the assurance of one taking back what was rightfully theirs. As if she had only lent him the city for while, as one lends a toy untouched and ignored at the bottom of their toy-chest. She’d let him have his fun with it, uncaring as she was of such a tattered thing, and decided she wanted it back now that she had seen how it had flourished under Calyx’s ownership. Calyx wondered how long the Empress had been watching, at what point she had decided that Calyx had fashioned it into a city worthy of conquest.
“I accept your surrender. This city is now under imperial rule, as are you.”
The finality of it all settled sickly. There was nothing that could be done against such a proclamation except nod his head in acceptance.
She extended a hand to him. “It would please me to dine with you, there is much for us to discuss.”
Calyx took her hand, her grip firm as she pulled him up. He resisted the urge to rub away the tinge in his protesting knee, brush off the feel of her branding palm on his. They were almost the same height standing up, but he still felt as though he was on his knees staring up at her, waiting with an anticipation-dry throat for her command.
He hated himself for it, but he pushed down on his self-recrimination, telling himself that bravery was a versatile thing. The most courageous he could be would be to keep her pleased. So he swallowed his pride and licked away the sour taste. He followed her inside as she turned the key in the lock, striding in like she owned the place.
He ordered the best of the cellar brought to his dining room saying, “if we want to be spared, then no expense should be.”
He explained the functions and details of each area they passed on the way to his dining room. He had to remind himself perpetually not to grit his teeth, willing himself to sound eager instead. To imply that he had merely been a custodian of what had always been her property.
By the time they reached the dining room, delicacies were spread out across the table. She took a place at the head of the table, turning the chair into her throne through her stately presence. His chair, Calyx thought viciously.
At her raised eyebrow, Calyx wiped the grimace from his face and sat down on her right-hand side, trying to morph his features into a placid expression. His facial arrangement felt wrong, his skin stretched taunt and itching to squirm.
“What a place you have built,” she said, leaning back on her chair like the empress she was. Like this, Calyx could imagine her on her throne, jade dress he’d seen her wear in portraits clinging to her pale skin, like water rippling with each movement. Gold chain wrapped around her waist, clinking as she crossed a leg over the other.
A glimmer of hopeful pride sparked in him. Perhaps she would be gracious with his city, treat it with the care it deserved.
She took a truffle between two fingers and ate it in one swallow. “I cannot help but admire it most ardently.”
“Thank you, Empress.” Calyx bowed his head, throat too dry to eat anything. He took a swing of his drink instead, wondering if it would be his last, how long he could last before displeasing her.
A corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. “I could take so much: empty your treasury of gold, your silos of food, your museums of art,” she mused, “and then burn it all down in an instant. Dust unto dust.”
“Don’t,” he begged instinctively, despite knowing with bone-chilling certainty the uselessness of his protest.
She selected a pastry and ate it with sadistically small bites. Calyx burned with panicked anger, cursing the day she had deigned him worthy of toying with.
“I won’t, for now. The city is but the reflection of its ruler.” She set a hand lightly on his arm. “Such a glorious one speaks volumes of you. I don’t think you’ve reached your end quite yet, perhaps this was all a prelude to a great trajectory I would much like to see unfold.” She tightened her grip. “But I can and will cut it short, should you displease me. Remember that.”
Her hand retreated to take another pastry. Calyx could almost imagine the mark left on his arm, despite the layer of fabric.
Her touch had sprung an idea in his mind, taking the risk, hoping it would prove his ultimate obedience, Calyx placed his palm upturned in her direction. “Take a portion of them, set your tax rate but leave us with some, take me in lieu of the rest.”
Satisfaction crossed her face, as if Calyx had played perfectly the part she had envisioned for him in a play he did not know he would be in. Despite hating feeling outpaced, Calyx’s simmering nerves calmed at the confirmation that he had done something right.
She laced her smooth fingers through Calyx’s, closing his upturned palm and tugging him up with her as she stood, pushing back her chair with her foot.
She likely had hundreds lining up to satisfy her. He’d have to measure up to them. He’d not shy away from this challenge.
“Very well, I will take my due,” she said.
And she did. Taking Calyx’s surrender atop his bedsheets, she ran her hands and tongue over bare skin, led him to the very edge and pulled back cruelly each time, pushed his face into her folds, pushed him back and pinned his wrists down so he could not touch.
Calyx burned. In themselves, he had done all the acts before. Pounding out the stress of hours toiling at the roads, overseeing construction, pulling the strings of the theatre he called his city. Or having it pounded away. And yet, there was something to be said of the thrill the sway of power she held over sent racing through him.
She could destroy him, in one whispered command. Recklessly, the twisting dread in his stomach begged for release. Mind fogged, a please slipped from his lips before he could swallow it back.
Her hand reached up to circle the vulnerable skin of his neck. She squeezed, cutting off his breath, threatening what she could do without consequences, for Calyx had knelt before her and given her his life. “I should leave you here like this, wracked with longing, waiting for my return.”
Calyx’s vision blurred, yet he remained traitorously hard. “Should I let you have your fun while I am away? How tight a leash should I keep on you?” She lessened her grip enough that Calyx could take in a shuddering breath.
She stroked the tense line of his neck, stroking the tense line of his neck. “It’s only to keep you on the right path, I wouldn’t want you to stray.”
She left him like that, granted the mercy of keeping his life and denied the mercy of the little death.