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What gets him, in the end, is this: this was not the ambush Jace was expecting. Of course he was expecting an ambush; he was walking into Rakdos territory on a semi-informal basis with no one who knew where he was, let alone following him. In retrospect that was a terrible idea, but it had seemed reasonable at the time. Jace's presence alone could be reasonably considered a threat. As long as he could do something to be less threatening, he should. So he doesn't try to disguise himself, and he doesn't carry a weapon other than his own existence, and he goes alone.
He's expecting a physical attack if anything, though. ("Pleasure or pain?" "I'm about to find out.") Jace is brushing over every mind he can get a hold of, reading location and intention and then letting go, and the information forms a safe halo around him where he's probably not about to get killed.
Jace takes a shallow breath that even he admits is buying time. "I'm here to speak to Exava."
There isn't anything to his left and behind him. Jace knows that, because nothing is thinking there, no points of light he can zero in on. But something hits him from that direction, sharp at the back of his neck, and the limited awareness he was extending around him cracks so that for a second he's seeing through a dozen people's eyes, breathing with their lungs—
He falls.
-
When Jace finally recovers a degree of sense of himself here's a hand touching his cheek, tilting his face up too far, not violent but unyielding; Jace meets Exava's eyes, unwillingly, and she says, "Welcome back."
He's come to on his knees, with one hand bracing himself on the floor. There's a circle cleared around him and Exava, and out of the corners of his eyes he can see the club's patrons clustered at that invisible boundary, see how many of them are already watching and hear the dull roar of those who aren't. Jace gropes for memories, finds them hazy, shot through with how stupid he feels at the fact that he hadn't realized this was going to happen.
Whatever they've done to him, he can't keep himself inside his head. The minds of the Rakdos revelers around him are bleeding into Jace's consciousness, everything they give themselves over to compounding, breaking down what little veneer of self-control he had left. He's intensely aware of everything he can feel, not to mention the phantom eddies of sensation that keep hitting him. This isn't supposed to be happening.
Jace pays attention to everything, always, but doesn't give much priority his body as a matter of course. There's no real benefit to it as anything but a tool to be used. Injury's pointless, he takes that much care, but this kind of overwhelming sensation is alien. He's not supposed to be present like this. He's aware of the bruises forming all over him, of the textures of his clothes—the jarring wrongness of them having ripped his cloak off as the crowd shoved him towards Exava—the building ache in his knees, the gash on his forehead that's left half of his face tacky with dried blood. It's all-consuming but paradoxically nowhere near enough data. He feels like he's on fire, Exava's fingers on his burning skin cool by comparison, his breathing shallow and uneven.
She's still forcing him to meet her eyes when he wants to get up and run or slump forward in exhaustion. "They said you came here to speak with me, but you look like you want something else, Beleren. How about you tell us what it is?"
"I—" No, he tells himself, and you're in danger, get out, get out, get out. "Please," he says.
"That's not an answer. Although at least you're polite." A nod to the members of the crowd who are watching, a wide grin that stays this time. "But we're all dying to know what you want. Go on."
For her to let him go. To be anywhere but here. His voice breaks on something he never wants to hear himself say again.
In a flash she has a fistful of his hair and she's dragging him backwards by it, forcing his spine into an arc, throwing him off-balance. He wants to deny the whine this wrenches out of him. "Anything?" she says, almost a snarl. "If you care that little I might as well just throw you to them and move on!"
No, Jace thinks. There's a surge of interest from the crowd, the knowledge that at least they'd do something, even though he doesn't understand it, and his voice betrays him. "Yes, please, do something—"
"You'd let me cut you open and leave you on the floor to bleed out when you bored me?"
"Yes, I would, I would, I will—" Jace finds himself twisting his head to the side, chasing the spike of pain fighting her grip on his hair gives. He… No, there's not another word for it, he whines again. "I said—I meant—please—"
"I'm inclined to make you earn it," Exava says, and the tide of feeling that almost makes him go limp is—it's not his. He thinks. "How about it? What would you do for me?"
"Anything," Jace says, again, again.
"Anything." Exava makes a show of mulling it over. "Dangerous promise to make, isn't it?" That's directed out to the crowd again. To Jace, she says, "What if I made you an evangelist? Had you take the other guilds one by one and convert them to our faith, bring them under Lord Rakdos' will? How about it, Guildpact?"
He feels a stab of shame at the use of his title but it's not enough to stop himself from talking. Jace wouldn't betray the peace he worked so hard for, the peace Emmara could have died for, how could he? But still he says, almost sobbing, "Yes, I would, I would, please—"
Exava's still looking down at him, not wild the way he'd seen her before, not anything he can dismiss as some unstoppable force of passion he could just sidestep if he moved fast enough. Jace has survived long enough to know his weaknesses and the part of him still capable of full trains of thought admits he underestimated her, and he hates himself for it. To her subordinates—her peers?—whatever they are in comparison, she's an example to be followed but when it's what will work she's this, standing above him, overriding how badly Jace should want to be anywhere but here with his desperation to do something, anything, that will bring her closer. He's still on his knees.
Exava turns away from him, assuming—rightfully, hatefully so—that he's not going anywhere, shouts to the crowd directly with a dramatic swing of her arm. "What do you think? Do you believe it?"
Through the resulting cacophony he can make out that the general opinion is "no"; Jace flinches. He's afraid that means she'll go on. He's afraid that means she'll stop. Their minds are overflowing into his and he doesn't understand, doesn't know what this means, is getting swept up in their frenetic intensity anyway. This isn't something Jace is supposed to feel. He doesn't understand, and in the face of things he doesn't understand he's defenseless.
Apparently he hasn't shown enough of a reaction, though, not visible to anyone but Exava, the opposite of what she wants. Suddenly her thumb is digging into the gash above his eyebrow, splitting the scab open again, her grip on his head keeping him from looking away to try to get some of himself back. This hurts, Jace tells himself, this is bad, this is worse, but he's leaning into her hand anyway, hears himself moan loud enough for the audience to catch. Yes, more of this, more of anything.
"Anyone, really? How about that elf girl you were so fond of? Would you tear her away from Selesnya, take her devotion until she wouldn't believe it was ever there?"
That actually hurts. Jace can manage—usually manage—to dismiss any kind of physical input when it's not actually necessary, the way he should be able to ignore Exava's hands in his hair and her nails digging into his skin. But when things hit him on a conscious level he can't afford not to care. And he's threatened someone else like that, which means on some level he must want to have the freedom to reach into someone without putting limits on his power, just control, just take and grip and twist until the person they were is gone—
"For me?"
So they don't just want him dead, the peace broken before it's even really set in. He's not a sacrifice. He's a weapon. The Rakdos intend to use Jace to stab the other guilds in the back just as Ravnica's powers have tentatively decided to trust him, and he can't even think his way out of this, can't reach his magic, can't even stand, can't entirely believe he doesn't want Exava to keep touching him.
Please let that be the breaking point, he begs inside his head, a suggested atrocity so bad he'll snap back into his right mind. He reshaped Emmara's mind once already, and that was on her request and was still bad enough. He couldn't—he couldn't. He's done it that to himself. He can't.
Jace has given up on stopping the noises he makes on every exhale, the way he whimpers every time Exava pushes harder or rips part of the wound open again, is about ready to give up the hope that the sounds at least don't carry. He's given up on trying to keep his voice even, on keeping the volume down. His begging carries clearly through the room: "Fine, fine, please, I will, please, I swear, I will—"
Exava jerks his head back by the hair again. He knows what sensation to expect but it's progressively more overwhelming every time. For one glorious second his brain whites out and all he feels is the pain rolling through his body. That should be terrifying, a second of not even being able to think, of not existing, but instead it just drags another broken sound out of him, all naked desperation.
"How about yourself," she says, and it takes him a conscious moment to work out the words. "Would you remake your own mind? Leave yourself unable to remember how being a heretic even felt, why you'd ever have wanted it? Give yourself over entirely? All that, for, what, for a touch?" There's laughter in her voice, and venom, and cruel, pure joy.
Jace reshaped his own mind once and it's the worst pain he's ever felt, it's the worst of all possible worlds, the idea that not only what he is would turn against him but that he'd have been the architect of its betrayal. He'd done it because he thought he was saving someone's life. He'd failed. Even then, he wasn't changing who he was more than to the degree that Jace is what he knows. Further than that would be going too far.
"Yes," he says. "I will, I will, I'll do anything, just—please, I need—" His voice breaks again, cuts off. In its absence he whines, high in his throat, still trying to form words.
It feels like something just snapped. Jace hears Exava breathe out, hard, before shouting, "All right! You heard the man!"
There's a moment, there, an instant of blankness after Exava's declaration, where Jace has just enough time to wonder what she's going to do. He doesn't breathe.
When she lets go of his hair Jace overbalances, falls backwards, and hits the floor, his breath knocked out of him. His knees finally go, leaving him sprawled helplessly; after that long time kneeling he's not sure he'd be able to get up if he tried. He doesn't try. He lies there panting and Exava straddles him, puts her hands on his shoulders and leans heavily enough to hold him down when he strains towards her, rakes her fingers down the side of his neck and jerks another startlingly loud moan out of him.
Exava leans down and Jace braces himself, but she barely brushes her lips across his—-and it's agony, it's just enough contact for the need for everything he's missing to overwhelm Jace again. "Shh," she says, gently, and Jace keens. Her hands on his shoulders, whatever that just was, it's nowhere near the nebulous idea of enough he's chasing but compared to earlier it's overwhelming because any increase in sensation is. He doesn't know what to ask for, he doesn't know how he'd ask, he doesn't even know if he's allowed to.
Jace doesn't understand the Rakdos, he doesn't understand Exava, he doesn't understand, and every time he can feel his heartbeat in the blood rushing through the delicate points of his neck and his wrists that knowledge beats along with it. Somehow this ignorance is more or less acceptable. He wouldn't have thought—if asked—that Exava could do anything gently, but of course she can if it's what will draw out the mix of pain and pleasure she wants. She wants him to be seen giving up, obviously, publicly, she's showing restraint to force him to give in and beg for her to stop doing so; that's how she intends to break him. Jace can't help but think he'll be glad when she succeeds.
No. No, he can't believe that. Not when she succeeds but if.
"Please—"
If she manages to break him, if, oh gods, she takes one of her knives and slices across his cheek, through the scars that are already there, and the possibilities in his mind are if she breaks him, as he's begging desperately for her to keep going until her hand on his throat cuts off his air, if—
When.
It's been beyond Jace to put a name to what he's feeling—he's not even confident he could hold a train of thought for long enough to really try. Comparing it to the concept of arousal (itself something that exists just to get over with, to Jace's mind) is such a difference in scale that it's comical, but when Exava shifts so she's holding him down with a knee between his legs Jace shouts incoherently, surprising himself, rolling his hips with more desperation than he'd thought he still had in him. Now that it's come to the forefront of his mind it can't be pushed back again. Apparently he's been so hard for so long that bucking against her leg hurts, it's too much and almost enough, like leaning up into her hand fixed across his neck until Jace wonders if he's going to die. He can't focus, he can't think, and he wants his mind back, he wants to come, he wants to feel like this forever, just this, just pain and pleasure and the knowledge that his abandon pleases her.
Exava drags two fingers across the new cut on his cheek, which is bleeding freely, and shoves them into his open mouth. When Jace wraps his lips around them it stifles his moaning somewhat and his own blood on his tongue hits him like a blow. He doesn't know how he's never noticed the taste of blood before despite ample opportunities to do so. Jace sucks at her fingers like he's trying to make up for it, gets a tiny intake of breath from her when he starts licking them clean. The taste of blood is sharp and warm in his mouth and it's finally, finally enough. He must have made some sound because there's a spike of sensation that can't possibly be all his, and Jace's body jerks upwards without his consent, eyes closed, and even the lingering alarm at not being able to think clearly leaves him. It takes a moment for him to even stop shaking, and yet that feels like a pause, not an end. He should be drained and oversensitive but instead the unchecked desperation is still there; Jace didn't know he could do that and his body clamors at him to find out what else he's been missing. Exava licks a stripe across his bleeding cheek and it feels like a benediction.
The shouting has faded out, leaving him focused on Exava alone, but Jace's mind is open to the point where he's given up wondering whether the way his heart is hammering is his own fault or theirs. From Exava, though—in this moment of clarity he can wonder what happens next—though he reaches towards her thoughts with all the paltry force he can muster, he gets only expectation, amusement. She draws one knife leisurely across the side of his face that isn't bleeding, not cutting yet but offering a suggestion that makes Jace shudder against her. "And here I barely touched you," she says. Jace whimpers. There's a bit of scorn in her voice when she adds, "Is that all you can take—" (scorn from the crowd, with a side of hushed anticipation for whatever happens if he says so; curiosity) "—or do you want more?"
He knows what's expected of him. He knows what he wants, more than anything. He says both. "Yes," Jace says, and he feels like it's been torn out of him. The crowd approves emphatically and he relaxes into it, lets their minds buoy him. "Please, I want, I need more. Please."
"Good boy," the blood witch says.