Chapter Text
Lady Rahela stared at Key blankly. He tried again.
“May I speak in tongues at nature’s treasury?” Key said before kissing her again, kissing deeply in case she was mistaking his intention. His lady continued to kiss back, but he felt a small smile against his lips. Not exactly the reaction such a wanton act usually elicited.
Key sighed. “What is the point of the king?”
He was apparently going to have to be very explicit about this. Key dropped to his knees, sliding his hands along her body until they came to rest at the very spot where the pure white of Lady Rahela’s dress began to bleed a crimson red. In case she was still missing his insinuation, Key looked up and grinned lasciviously.
“Oh! You mean going down.” His lady realized and Key very narrowly bit back his first thoughts. Ladies typically didn’t enjoy being insulted with a sharp tongue before being brought to the edge of reality with it. Even if Lady Rahela’s previous lover was clearly lacking in many of Key’s skills.
“Is that what you say in the palace?” Key asked, slowly curling his fingers around her ankle. His lady drew in a sharp breath. Key’s smile felt like a weapon, a tool he could use to wreck her if he used it right.
“We shouldn’t,” his lady purred. And yet, she still reached down to tightly wrench his hair in her grasp. Key leaned into her grip, pressing his face to the fabric of her rich dress. This dress cost more than his life, but he would tear it to shreds if his lady would only give the word.
Key laughed. “Absolutely we shouldn’t. It would be wrong and wicked.”
The word lingered on his tongue. His lady loved it when they were evil and loved it even more when someone else said it. In any other scenario, a knight kneeling at the foot of his lady would be a sign of respect and fealty. Lady Rahela had to know Key could betray her at any moment, and yet. There he was, right in a position to take her life as well as her meager scraps of innocence, and she was letting him. What was another little wicked thing compared to that?
A drunken laugh came from behind his lady. Key’s eyes snapped up. He could feel the hairs on his neck bristling. A threat.
“Come with me, sweetheart. I’ll show you how a real man-”
Key didn’t let him finish.
“Dies?”
Key had killed so many times before. This was nothing. His knife slid across the man’s neck quickly, even if it wasn’t clean. His face would forever be caught in lechery. Key tried not to smile. If the man had any loved ones, they would know he was killed in shame and weakness. As he should. He had dared to grope Key’s lady and that was a crime deserving far worse than death. But that would mean leaving evidence and that could potentially implicate his lady. He tried to hide his disappointment as he kicked the man into the the abyss and watched his fading figure turn into darkness.
He turned to his lady, watching the man fall where he would never be found. Key hadn’t been clean about it. Blood spattered in small specks around her shoulder and crept up her neck. It would be inappropriate to lean in, to press his mouth to his lady’s neck and lick it clean. But then he remembered,
“I have issues with other people’s blood.” His lady had said instead of beaming with pride when he felled two of the king’s guards to grant the king’s audience for her.
“Sorry.” Key focused on slipping his knife back up his sleeve so he wouldn’t have to see his lady’s horrified expression. “I know you hate blood.”
Key dared a glance up. Lady Rahela didn’t seem concerned. If anything, she seemed bored as she shrugged. “I don’t care.”
He had slaughtered a man, slit his throat just an inch away from a noble born lady, stained her expensive garments, and she didn’t even care? Key felt something dangerously close to an emotion stirring in his chest.
“You don’t mind death.” Key said. “Not the way other people mind it.”
“It’s hard for me to think of the characters around us as real people. Do you understand? Are you like me?” Lady Rahela spoke slowly.
Of course he understood. The cold emotion of killing, the way it terrified others when it brought him glee, of course he understood.
“I think so.”
Lady Rahela’s eyes widened in alarm. Her arm grasped his in a tight grip, as if she was about to tell him a secret worth his life. “You walked into the book too?”
Nevermind. She was speaking in tongues again.
“What book?”
Lady Rahela seemed disappointed. “Ah. You’re a sociopath. My bad.”
A sociopath?
“What’s that?” Key asked. He didn’t know the nobles had a term for people like them, people like him and his lady who knew what was important and really worth something in life and knew how to take it.
“It’s like the children’s book about the stuffed rabbit,” his lady said.
Key rolled his eyes. Nobles and their casual privileges.
“Peasants aren’t taught how to read.” He said. “Do the children kill and stuff the rabbit themselves?”
Key couldn’t imagine nobility actually enjoying a tale that promised quality and entertainment like that. He figured their books were all full of promises that the world was made for them and lies that the poor chose their own lives so they deserved suffering.
Lady Rahela laughed. “It’s a toy rabbit. Because the kid loves it so much and it loves the kid, because they suffer, the rabbit becomes real. If nobody loved it, I guess it never would. Sociopaths don’t have strong emotions about other people, so people and their feelings never become real to them.”
“The merchants always did say there was something wrong with me,” Key said. “So that’s what we are, you and I.”
He watched Lady Rahela’s expression eagerly. She blinked at Key for a moment and he almost thought he might have said something wrong before she nodded at him.
“I liked that story.” Key said. “Tell me more.”
His lady slipped her hand back into his. Key’s heart thrummed in his chest and he squeezed her hand, just for a moment. She led him through the stalls he had seen all his life as if she had any idea where she was going.
“I’ll tell you all the stories you want. I like you even if you struggle with violent impulses.”
Key laughed. “I don’t struggle with violent impulses. I revel in violent impulses. Speaking of, here’s the metalworker’s stall. Nice knives, Strike.”
“Thanks, Villain,” murmured his ex-lover. Strike looked the same as ever, strapping and strong arms covered in swirls of ink.
“Hiii,” his lady said, opening her red velvet bag and dumping the contents on the table. “I need links taken out to make this smaller. You keep the links once you take them out. Since they’re magic, I think they’re priceless. Deal?”
Key strained around to look at what she had dropped. He would never doubt his lady but if, hypothetically, he ever would, now would be the time. Lady Rahela had brought enchanted gauntlets to the Night Market. Key pressed his lips together tightly. He would not laugh, he would not laugh, he would not laugh.
Strike quirked an eyebrow, face turning stony. “Or I could keep the whole thing. You have no power to stop thieves here, my lady.”
His lady leaned her elbows against the stall. “You could keep it, but every noble in the city would unite to burn down the Cauldron and drag out the peasant who held the enchanted weapon for torture, followed by execution. Also if you steal my gauntlet, I will ask Key to kill you.”
He absolutely would. If Lady Rahela asked, he would.
“I would,” confirmed Key. “Sorry, Strike.”
“Are you two friends?” his lady asked.
Forge Strike eyed his lady up and down. “He used to steal weapons out of my shop.”
“As a compliment to your excellent craftsmanship.” Key grinned his most winning smile. “I learned to make weapons watching you. Let’s be friends?”
Strike slammed her hammer down on the stall. “You just announced you’d kill me on this noble’s orders!”
Key rolled his eyes. “Gosh, I said sorry. I wouldn’t say that to just anyone. She’s paying me, it’s not personal.”
“Bootlicker.” Strike spat into the fire burning in the bucket by her side. “I’ll do your job, but I don’t want to see either of you around here again.”
“Deal.” She offered her hand, but Strike sneered. “Never mind that. FYI, I told the doorman at Life in Crisis we used to be a steamy item. Sorry if that’s awkward!”
“I prefer blondes.”
“Guess I’m so sexy, I made you break your own rules!” Rae dropped her a saucy wink. Meeting Strike’s steadily unimpressed gaze, she backed up. “We’ll wait over there.”
Strike didn’t even acknowledge his lady had spoken. “Can I give you some advice, Villain?”
Key smiled but he was suspicious. Nobody in this town gave anything away for free. “Sure, since we’re friends now.”
“Noble ladies love entertainment. You’re nothing more than a night out at the theatre. Don’t think she feels anything once the story’s done. Her jewelled dress alone could pay for the stone you want, with money to spare.”
Key paused. Of course he had known his lady’s splendour and glamour was expensive. Of course he knew it was all beyond his realm of possibility. But the cost of selling a dress like that… Strike was right. Of course someone would want to buy something as fine as this. Lady Rahela’s casual gown would easily make the richest stall owner’s daughter a vision on her wedding day.
“I… didn’t know that,” said Key.
Strike nodded. “I didn’t think you did.”
She bent her head and as much as Key wanted to ask more questions, to ask exactly how much she thought that dress might be worth, he understood she was done talking. He didn’t look behind to see if Lady Rahela was following. He had to think.
Key could steal her dress. That wasn’t the question. The real trick was what to do after. He could cut the dress off his lady, sell the cloth and make the money that way. But as disgraced as she was, Lady Rahela was still a lady and he was still just a knight. She would tell someone or the other and then he would be sent away to be flogged and whipped for crimes of indecency or whatever else they would imagine. Key had already been sent to his death. Twice, really. He wasn’t going through that again.
He came to a rough halt. He had gotten to the ravine faster than he thought he would. His old knife was at his left, so he was here. Right. His father’s grave. This was the first time Key had seen it since he had been sent to the capital as the Hero of the Cauldron. He swore he would be back with a way to pay for a headstone. Even if he didn’t have the money yet, he had brought a way to pay with him. Now he just had to figure out what exactly he was going to do.
Key’s eyes darted to his left. Lady Rahela had followed him, her delicate shoes barely visible under her red skirt. As much as he couldn’t expect Lady Rahela to act like a noblewoman was supposed to, she was still a woman. Women’s hearts bled. Key knew exactly where to strike.
He dug his teeth into the edge of his leather glove and pulled it off. He held his scarred, damaged hands out to her.
Jackpot. Lady Rahela gasped and immediately reached out for his hands, hesitating just an inch away from actually touching him.
Key had forgotten how bad his hands actually looked. He had made a habit of looking away whenever he needed to take his gloves off. He had forgotten the scarred sword marks dancing over his knuckles and the back of his hand. He had forgotten how much he screamed when the marks were bloody and new.
“What happened?” His lady asked quietly.
“Sword coins. For soldiers, and those who uphold the law.”
“I’m so sorry.” She whispered. Key smiled to himself, just a small quirk of the lips. She could pretend to be as worldly and knowledgeable as she wanted, but his lady was still a woman of the court and a woman of finery. She would never see his betrayal coming.
“You said everyone has a backstory, hanging behind them like a shadow. This is how I became the Villain of the Cauldron.” Key began. “The day I was born, I was found on the edge of the ravine. An old peasant who ran errands for the glassblowers’ guild found me before I fell. He gave me to a barren merchant couple, so I’d have a good life. I could have had a good life. But I was broken from a young age. I was never a good child. The merchants, who called themselves my parents, called me a mad dog of a boy. I tried to please them, but I found inappropriate things amusing. I never got scared and clung to them. I wasn’t the son they wanted. I wasn’t a son anybody would want.”
Key dared a glance up. His lady had cupped a hand over her mouth in horror. Right where he wanted her.
“There was a happy ending. But not for me. When I was six the merchant’s wife bore the son they wanted. I was no longer required, so the glassblowers’ guild sold me off. Apprenticed me, they called it. I was small enough to go down chimneys.”
“You had to be a chimney sweep?” His lady asked, horrified at the idea of working to earn a living. As much as he liked this one, he forgot the nobles were all nobles. All obsessed with maintaining their own status and keeping themselves elevated at the cost of people like Key. They weren’t real people. Key had to remember that. Nobles weren’t real people and life was a game that Key had to win to survive.
“I went down chimneys and cut people’s throats while they slept,” Key corrected her. “I can’t clean. When it comes to killing, I have real talent. The children are sent down the chimneys to open doors for assassins. I thought I was being clever cutting out the middleman, but when I opened the door covered in blood I saw I’d made another mistake. The masters sent me in because they wanted a man murdered, yet those precious hypocrites acted shocked when I killed him.”
“I got caught. Soldiers thought I was stealing. They tossed sword coins on the fire, fastened burning metal on my hands, and watched me squirm, then tossed me out once the entertainment was over. The masters left me in the gutter, since I was no use now.”
His laugh sounded genuinely amused.
“Strangest thing. The old man who saved me was still watching me. He got sentimental about baby birds and sick animals. And me. The small thing he saved. I woke in his hut and he sat by the bed, because he’d given me his own bed to sleep in and he was sleeping on the floor. He begged, ‘Please be my good boy.’” Key took a deep breath. “He told me to call him father. Have you ever had the sense – “someone was important, even though they weren’t? That you wanted to belong to them, and have them not throw you away?”
His lady hesitated. “Have I ever… loved someone?”
Love. Was that what it was? It had been so long since Key had remembered that feeling. He had never bothered to think about it long enough to put a name to it. He nodded.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Key mused. “I never did it before or since. I didn’t do it right. I wanted to belong to him. So I was good. I didn’t kill anybody.”
Even when people cheated them. Even when food was scarce and they were hungry. His father insisted they earn their money with honesty. Key didn’t kill another person as long as his father had lived. He traded all those meaningless lives for the one life in the world that had actually meant something.
“A glassblower hired my father to make a delivery in the rain. He caught the fever that finished him in exchange for one bronze leaf. His last words were to buy something for myself. Because I was such a good boy. What an idiot. Don’t you think, my lady? What a stupid old fool.”
His smile grew wider unbidden as he continued to look into the ravine. As if his father was down there, just waiting for him.
“I was in debt by the time he died. I didn’t have money for a stone, so he was buried here in the graves of the unloved dead.”
If Lady Rahela was going to die at the hands of trust, Key owed it to her to understand why. She deserved to know that her death was not meaningless and the reason was worth the entire world.
Key nodded to the knife hilt embedded in the ground at their feet. He briefly considered using that knife to kill his lady. It would be a little messier than using the knives stashed in his boot or his belt, but it would be a little poetic. Almost something like fulfilling a promise.
“My father was a good man. He never said a bad word, never had a wicked thought, worked every day of his life until he dropped dead in the dirt. And what’s left of him? An unmarked grave and a killer. That’s where goodness gets you. Let’s never be fools like that, my lady.”
He had gotten distracted by feeling and emotion. He had danced the line of becoming a fool like that. All for the price of his employer promising him a lie.
His lady reached out and touched the scars on Key’s hands lightly. A jolt ran down his arm. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.” He said, because why else would she willingly touch the parts of him that were scarred and ugly? Why else would she reach out and really see for herself that life had jagged edges and that it hurt for some people. Key looked his lady in the eyes and continued.
“I was the best cut-throat in the city. People called me the Villain of the Cauldron. Coming home from a job, I heard one of the glassblowers’ guild say he was sorry the old fool had died. Now they had to actually pay someone to do the work my father had done for food and shelter. That night I went to the glassblowers’ guild and killed them all. I gave my father every life who counted his life worth nothing. I set the guild house on fire.”
Key shook his head. He wished he had planned it all out. Maybe then, he could really revel in the irony of it all and the knowledge that he bested each and every one of them on purpose.
“I’m not a planner like you. I lived. The good citizens of Themesvar believed ghouls laid waste to the guild, and I was the loyal servant who fought in their defence. The merchants who wouldn’t spit on me suddenly called me the Hero of the Cauldron, and the king summoned me for a royal reward. The people of the Cauldron know the truth. Now so do you. I’ll always be the Villain. You said we were friends. You said you’re like me. Maybe you can understand what I have to do.”
He pulled his hands from hers, picking up his gloves and sliding them back on. He reached out and traced her throat with his fingertips to memorize the lines. Key had decided he would strangle her to take the dress. It was the quickest option. His lady wouldn’t suffer too much and she wouldn’t spill any blood on the fabric. Her heartbeat quickened under his gloved touch. Normally, this was the part of the kill that he loved–the feeling of being a predator and his prey realizing there was no escape.
Except Lady Rahela rolled her eyes and stepped away. “I understand what I have to do. Unbutton me.”
Key… hadn’t been expecting that. Well, he had offered to take a bite from the tree of temptation, so he could grant her that much at least.
“That story inspired an amorous mood?”
His lady didn’t bother with a response, instead turning her back and wriggling her shoulders as if she was shimmying out of her clothes. Key stepped in close. It couldn’t be that easy. Nothing was ever that easy.
Key’s fingers didn’t fumble for a moment as he undid the buttons of her gown.
“Stand guard at the door, please.”
She had lost her mind. Lady Rahela had lost her mind.
“You’re… climbing into a tomb?” Key asked. He wasn’t sure she had figured out that he planned to kill her, but willingly going into the home of death? He wasn’t sure how it was done in the Capital but in the Cauldron, entering a tomb was risking your life and almost a guarantee of returning as a ghoul.
“Have some sense, there are no ladies’ changing rooms! Hold my cloak.”
Key was a knight. Even if he didn’t understand his lady’s death wish, he averted his eyes and draped her cloak over his arm to guard her from any prying eyes.
“My cloak,” his lady commanded and he dutifully obeyed. Lady Rahela Domitia exited the tomb in nothing but her undergarments, a cloak, and her head held high.
She strode off into the distance and Key followed.
“New deal.” Lady Rahela lay her dress across Forge Strike’s stall as if she was offering her guantlets to be mended again. “You can keep whatever money is left over, if you take this dress and buy the stone for Key’s father.”
Key’s heart stopped.
What was the catch? There was no way she would gain anything from this. The dress was worth enough that he had been planning to kill her over it and she was just… giving it away? Just like that? He ran through every possible scenario in his head and nothing. She already had his loyalty as much as he could promise. Forge Strike was going to mend the gauntlets anyway.
He would have preferred if his lady had stabbed him, actually. At least he could have figured that one out.
She glanced at him. “Oh, sorry. Did you want to pick the stone out yourself?”
Key opened and closed his mouth. What was he supposed to say to that? He shook his head.
“Can she not be trusted?” His lady worried her brow.
The words took a moment to process in his brain. Key might have actually stopped thinking. He might not have even been on Eyam in that moment because he might have died from shock for a brief moment and seen a glimpse of heaven, where people who made pretty promises got everything they asked for.
“Strike doesn’t go back on deals,” Key said, after a moment.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Key couldn’t understand. He saw every moment of his lady’s thinking process and yet, he was dumbfounded. She was offering him everything that he ever wanted without even thinking and she was confused why he was reacting the way he was? If he wasn’t so overcome with feeling everything, he might have been almost angry. How dare she give him the one thing he ever really wanted and still wonder what else was left? How dare she complete his mission in life for him as if it was no big deal to give him the rest of his life back?
Strike eyed Key’s hesitation and snatched Lady Rahela’s dress. “There’s no problem.”
“Great!” His lady turned to Key. “Can we go back to the palace? I must execute my evil scheme. Plus there will be huge trouble if the royal guards catch me outside the palace walls in my undergarments.”
She headed alone down the path by the ravine.
Key followed. In that moment, he knew he would always follow. She had spent a few breaths and a moment to offer Key a precious gift worth more than his own life. Key would spend the rest of his life following wherever his lady commanded.