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“Have you killed before?”
“Far more than I can count, my liege.”
“Good,” the singular word had never before held such malice in the space between tongue and teeth. Shudders cascaded down Markus’ spine in rivets, waves that pulsed along his fingertips in a manner reminiscent of a soul’s final death throes.
And that’s what it felt like.
A sentence, not to freedom.
But to death of a different kind.
---
Several days earlier…
The hot sand glimmered in the sweltering heat like a thousand rubies of a treasure long forgotten.
The desert was sparse, the distance stretching between each pinprick of green fatally endless to a traveller unprepared. Waves of heat riveted and warped the air above, crafting the characteristic stench of a scorched wasteland - acrid white and poisonous to those unfit to traverse her. A horse’s grey hoof pierced the virgin dunes, tethering to gain footing before sinking firmly to propel its master forward. Eight pairs of gilded hooves followed suit, a steady entourage of armed men staggering towards a singular purpose.
In the very apex of its formation, a solitary figure draped in blue led the spartan force without so much as a word.
From his position, Connor regarded the rolling desert, the scratchy markings on the bartered map, and the rugged warnings that came with that transaction fresh in his mind.
“My liege,” the guard to his northeast requested permission to speak, golden telescope unfolded in gloved hand.
The High Prince tucked the straying silk of his veil to the side, regarding the black peaks of the walled city ghosting across the horizon. Curiously, the glass ceilings of the temple glimmered in the distance. A singular hand gesture and his man was permitted to report:
“We have arrived.”
---
The merchant had warned that the city was not in a state for those faint of heart.
Upon reaching the shattered temple doors, the familiar scent of death had already sent a wave of dread slithering down the company’s spines. Here, Connor realised, the carnage burned brightest, preserved and tucked away from the sandstorms that had ravaged all evidence from the outer walls. Here, all manner of crystal and tile were stained with the coy black of rotten blood. The prince’s practiced grip wound tighter on his jeweled sword, near faltering as his eyes adjusted to the chaos inside.
For an unfathomable amount of time, a grim silence pulsed between his men, a staggering echo of their own fluttering heartbeats pounding against eardrums. Connor was not one unfamiliar to the brutality of battle. Wars have been spurred, and ended, with his hand upon the spear that drew first - and last - blood. He knew the sensation of having all manner of man, from lowly soldier to political enemy, falling to his blade.
But this.
He regarded the string of the priestess’ pearls, untouched by scavengers, scattered across the tiles.
This was a scene unfit for any man.
“A massacre,” the singular whisper seemed to reverberate through the crumbling alcoves. As if in response, a piece of quartz - barely clinging on to the remains of a chandelier’s chain - clattered down to shatter at his feet.
Connor would have left it at that. He would have declared the journey wasted, all but to confirm the rumours that the temple city had indeed, fallen. The land would be then reworked by his men, repopulated by nomadic merchants, perhaps even the economy would be restored in time…
But like sands shifting in the wind, the world as he knew curled into a shape unknown the moment his shadow sneaked into his line of sight.
“My liege!” was the shocked cry that erupted from his guards when the prince pounced into a wild sprint after the phantom form. A billow of crystal powder was kicked up by his sandals.
Betwixt and between the milky white pillars, he found himself chasing after the tails of a creature visible only through its penumbra. The intricate pathways and corridors morphed the temple into a maze with floors slick with oil. In five turns, Connor found himself closing in onto the figure - near enough to catch its airy pants - only to stumble through a broken archway. Sword drawn, his fall was staggered with silvery blade as he steadied himself to a firm halt along the limestone walls.
He permitted himself a moment to curse under his breath.
Ego ruined, the prince straightened himself to his feet, lurching forward to continue his pursuit, only to realise the hallway they traversed had come to an abrupt dead end.
The sound of his sandals skidding across the tile caught the attention of the robed figure at the far end of the passage. Back turned towards Connor, the presumed criminal maintained a rigid demeanour. The prince allowed his eyes to trail along the muscles that peeked from the blackened robes, profiling the anonymous figure to be either guard or servant. Or worse yet, the cause of the massacre in the temple hall.
“Show yourself,” he projected his most authoritative command. As a warning, he sliced a menacing sound through the air with his sword.
To his distaste, the frame of robes seemed to have jerked upwards in a scoff. How insolent--
“And who may you be?” came the voice. Male. Cool. Melodious. Utterly ignorant to the insurmountable danger he found himself in.
Connor hated it.
“I am not obligated to answer that, turn around,” the last two words came out in a spat, acidic and hateful, boiling with newfound resentment. Vaguely, the faint recollection of the last fool to speak out against him chose that moment to resurface. The prince took a firm step forward, sword still unsheathed. If not found guilty for the crimes in the temple, Connor would see to that this insect find himself punished with mirroring severity.
With another condescending quiver he assumed to be a scoff, the robed figure took two full steps to turn himself around, hand neatly curving the linen to shroud the lower half of his face from view.
And it was in that moment, the world around him seemed to recede.
The prince drew in a deep breath.
Those crystalline eyes watched him with a fiery intensity from over the veil.
Green and blue, it took them no effort at all to halt him in his tracks. Connor could feel the white hot dripping of an unnameable sensation slithering down his spine.
“Why are you here?” he demanded. Shamefully his voice broke midway through his interrogation.
The man with green-blue eyes remained unfazed. “The worshippers had long passed when I arrived.”
“An answer to a question I did not ask,” Connor accused.
“But a question that led you to chase me down this path,” quick-witted, the man’s retaliation caused a nerve in the prince’s face to pulse.
“You are guilty,” was his calm, collected verdict. “Why else would you have ran?”
“Perhaps I had other matters to attend to.”
Insolence. Connor found his hatred for this man grow more and more with each cursed word he uttered. If this escalated any further, he would hasten for this tongue to be cut before they reach the palace walls.
“You will return with us to the palace,” he commanded, just as the scurrying footfalls of his men began to drift down the corridor.
“I am compelled to refuse.”
“You will find you have no say in the matter,” Connor’s tone held with it a severe lilt of finality.
Upon that, the man’s grip on his robes fell away to draw out the startling bright sheen of a dagger. With a stance the prince recognised as the practiced form of a killer, the stranger sprinted towards him in a dark blur of shadow and sinew. His own blade caught the momentum of the dagger in the telling screech of metal against metal, Connor locking against the dip of the handle to pivot the weapon out of his assailant’s hand. The deep scars of a man who has known struggle flickered into view as the man’s robe reeled back from the propulsion of his attack.
“My Prince!” the now-repetitive expletive burst forth from the air behind Connor’s shoulder and the prince soon felt the staggering force of the stranger’s blade draw back. His soldiers made quick work of restraining the struggling wretch, drawing him away from their commander.
“Typical,” the stranger spat with what Connor begrudgingly realised was an amused sneer. “Not man enough to fight without your dogs, my liege?”
A breath hitched in the hollow of his throat, a ball of what could only be described as seething anger boiling against his Adam’s apple.
“You will return with us to the palace,” Connor repeated with darker malice, peppered with a breath shallowed from both exertion and nerves. “Where a trial awaits you for your transgressions.”
“Trust me, prince,” the man dared to address him with condescendingly sweet cadence. “No matter what punishment you have for me. You’d be doing me a favour.”
Unwilling to give him the satisfaction of explaining his insufferably vague warning, Connor spitefully commanded his guards to lead him to the horses.
---
His name, he would later learn, was Markus.
A name the prince found most ironic, and now, most befitting.
The broad, hulking guards had been hesitant to grant him access to his cell. They stood at insufferable attention with thick, grimy fingers wrapped around chain leashes that kept the guard-hounds at bay. When prompted, they muttered haphazard excuses of the prison “not being a place for him” and for the good prince to concern himself with more “pressing matters such as the duties of the court”. From the very first word they uttered, Connor had already confirmed that their apprehension had all been the work of Niles.
Typical.
“Men,” he addressed them with contained aggression. He would not misplace his anger, the entire ordeal - execution included - was all the “fault” of the High Court. And he was more than determined to see that corrected. “I wish to seek audience with the convict known as Markus.
“I highly suggest that you let me pass,” he whispered cooly, making a display of his hand brushing against the hilt of his sword. “Should either one of you not wish to suffer a similar fate.”
Sufficiently convinced, the guards were quick to shuffle hastily to the side, allowing passage for the prince down the acrid dark corridor. Adjusting the drape of his robes, Connor forcibly strode past them, paying no heed to the clatter of armour against wall as he made his way to one cell in particular.
Upon seeing his state, a swirl of a breath pressed against his own throat.
The wild stallion was ruined, shamed, a mass of sweat and grime with arms strung up in chains. Upon hearing his approach, the man known as Markus offered a small glance from where he knelt upon the stone. A southward jerk of his head alerted Connor that the prisoner had been listening in to his mild disagreement with the guards. The scoundrel.
“The court is convinced of your guilt,” Connor was the first to speak, as if it was a passing remark.
With that, the distance between them was soon closed, the prince approaching the man with equal confidence as the first day he had found him. He swallowed upon spotting the glisten of the fresh lacerations intersecting along his back, wincing as the whip-marks caught the light of an overhead torch.
Connor drew in a deep breath.
Markus remained wordless for a long, pensive moment before uttering, acid dripping in his voice:
“And what of it, your highness?”
He bristled, though the prince was uncertain whether it was irritation or fascination he felt more strongly. Days upon days had passed and yet the man had remained relentless, unhindered even by the... less conventional interrogation methods he had been subjected to. Connor observed the way the marks from the whips intersected with the old scars already littering Markus’ back. It was almost as if the man felt no pain.
It thrilled him.
“You murdered my people,” Connor accused.
“So you are convinced,” Markus responded with that ambiguity he hated so much.
“Understandably, a fitting price must be paid for such a transgression,” the prince continued, paying no heed to the interjection.
“And that price… is my death alone insufficient to curb that bloodlust?” it was sarcasm more than anything but the singular word he received in return was delivered with a sterling conviction he hadn’t anticipated.
“No.”
A beat.
A throbbing silence surging between them with the intensity hunter studying prey.
Thick. Apprehensive. Cautious.
Connor allowed the moments to trickle past like jewels in an hourglass. For what seemed like an immeasurable amount of time, the two of them remained in silence save for the crackle of the overhead torches.
The prince was the first to break the silence.
“An unsatisfactory price, even to me,” Connor murmured. The gold necklaces and regalia that adorned him clattered upon the stone as the prince knelt down to match Markus’ gaze. A breath. Two. And he was leaning in dangerously close, close enough for their exchange to be inaudible to the guards outside.
Markus shuddered.
Connor smiled, knowingly tracing the hem of his silks along Markus’ thigh.
“Have you killed before?” it was provocative, a sinister question that bore no right answer. All the more sensual when delivered in the prince’s hushed whisper.
The chains clinked as Markus shifted in his bonds.
“Yes,” he confessed.
“How many?”
“Far more than I can count, my liege,” he addressed him with well-placed humility, as if he was beginning to understand the purpose of this meeting.
“Good.”
As if Markus had whispered a secret password, the price withdrew the telling glint of a key from the waist of his robes. Without hesitation, the cold thing was plunged into his shackles, agitating bruised skin before the heavy restraints fell away with a deafening click.
Connor could have sworn he saw the bloodlust flicker in Markus’ eyes, like a beast ready to strike.
Despite the danger, he then smiled, knowing full well that he had made the right choice.
“I am to choose a bodyguard and assassin by next moon,” he explained. “You will be my blade.”
Markus averted his gaze to his own freed hands, tracing calloused fingertips along bruised wrists.
“How do you know I would not kill you?” the question was dark, foreboding, forceful to provoke Connor to think deeply about this decision before he confirmed this cruel fate.
The answer he received in response was unnerving.
“I don't.”
Markus cocked an eyebrow.
“I like to gamble sometimes,” the prince gave a coy smile. “And I feel that I have a winning hand, don't you?"
Another silence, one that passed quicker this time. Because by now Markus understood the entire purpose of this meeting.
“I do not have a choice in this matter, do I?”
“Not unless you’d choose death,” was the matter-of-fact answer.
A sigh.
“So be it.”
His cool smile never faltering, Connor selected a thin, long chain from the many that adorned his neck. Almost ritualistically, he then raised it over Markus’ head, allowing the piece of regalia to slip onto the man’s bare shoulders.
“And with this, Markus, you are mine.”
---
Markus’ first mission came in the form of a dove, half-mauled by the beasts guarding his cell, its tired eyes glassy from the flicker from the overhead torch. Buried deep within, tucked between viscera and ribcage, was a ribbon of white silk bearing a singular name. The name of a king in the neighbouring kingdom.
A political target.
Fingers slick with drying blood, he thumbed away at the curl of the ribbon just as the screeching sound of metal on rusted hinges drew his attention to the doorway.
A servant greeted him with a curt nod of their head. Markus took no time at all to mask his disappointment.
The man wouldn’t admit it but he had been anticipating Connor to visit him again.
“Assassin,” he was addressed, leaving him no time at all to feel the uncertainty of how he should feel of the new title. “Your presence is required in the armoury.”
Assassin.
The word had never sounded sweeter.
---
Markus returned to the palace fifteen days later, body marred with the telling scars of spears and sandstorms, a thin ghost of bristle forming along where a beard was meant to grow.
“How unsightly,” the soft comment left Connor’s lips quicker than he could catch them, a knee-jerk reaction masking the underlying fire swelling in his abdomen.
A singular drop of blood smeared across the turquoise and marble, and Connor barely caught himself as his eyes wildly traced upon each ripple and shudder of Markus’ frame. The assassin fished out what he was now declaring as proof of his mark’s demise but the decapitated head in his hand could have been anything at all; Connor simply could not see anything, anyone else. The rush of blood was deafening against his ears.
From the corner of his eye, he could see the disapproving exhale from his brother, Niles, who was gathering up his robes and exiting the hall without so much of a glance backwards. At his heels, his brother’s own assassin followed suit, purebred and with his ranks glimmering in indiscernible gold shapes along his sleeve. Over the course of the next few days, Connor would realise that this was the politest reaction Markus would ever receive from his court.
He hadn’t known it then but in time, he would consider apathy a blessing. Acceptance of his choices would have gone smoother if not for his “mongrel swiftknife”’s heritage, or more precisely, lack of. Instead, Connor faced the snide comments and the questioning glares of many an advisor in the brief moments just as he approached the entrance to his hall.
The silence and rapidly dissolving conversation had always been nothing but intentional, and Connor boiled with rage at each condescending glance cast towards Markus’ direction.
If the King and Queen hadn’t commanded explicitly against it, Connor would have had them executed and dragged away to the gutters.
---
It was five weeks later when Markus was permitted the room adjoining the prince’s.
The chambers were lavish, far too silken and luxurious than anything he had experienced before.
It was the moments in-between, however, which he took the most pleasure in.
From the slim crevice of the door, he’d be able to discern the soft padding of Connor’s feet as the prince made his careful way to his bedroom. The thin scent of lavender and bath oils followed each evening’s traverse.
Markus would falter each time.
The longing felt like fire.
---
From the comfort of the shade provided by his fortress’ walls, Connor slipped into the arena’s viewing box with an air of calculated poise. His eyes scanned across the gaping centre of the coliseum, gaze pooling into the far left where Markus - his Markus - was engaged in rigorous training.
Languidly, his brother glanced up from where he was draped across the lounge chair. With no words and with a single gesture of his hand, Connor was compelled to stride over to Niles, his gaze never leaving his assassin.
Niles spoke, though Connor took no heed of the content.
He could think of nothing else but Markus undulating under him in cascading waves, a desire as dangerous as a storm in dark seas.
---
Countless moons later, the longing that burned between them would reach a staggering climax.
“Stay.”
Misplaced, the singular command drifted across the cushions and velvet that adorned the prince’s bedchambers. From the mass of pillows, Connor lingered, a needy glint of gold and hunger. At the foot of his bed, the hesitating assassin, soiled with ash and dried blood.
The fire that consumed the prince was a feral beast. A hungry thing that burned and licked at the walls of his very being.
It was in the dead of night, just as Markus was about to retire for the evening. The prince and his company had just returned from a five-day journey from the kingdom beyond the waters. Another target slayed at the hands of his adept assassin.
Intoxicated with the surge of adrenaline, Connor found his fingers winding tightly around the hem of Markus’ robes.
“My liege,” Markus began. “You know I am not permitted--”
“I command you.”
“For your own safety it is--”
“I am safe.”
“How do you know I will not kill you?”
“I don’t,” the confession, a breath of hot air along Markus’ collarbone.
A heated kiss was his only response.
Connor tore through his robes, desperation trembling through his fingertips.
They stumbled onto the mound of pillows and silks. From the base of Connor’s throat, a strained voice drifted along Markus’ lips.
“Defile me.”
A royal command he eagerly obeyed.
~ Epilogue ~
One year later...
Markus seized his horse to a staggering halt, regarding the lonely signpost with the mildest hints of hesitation. The markings carved into the sand-whipped wood spelled out a name unfamiliar to him, one that matched none of the routes nor cities etched upon his map.
“Here, I know the way,” his companion spoke up.
The robed man beside him flashed a knowing smile, coiling the reins of this horse around his index and ring fingers. Without so much of a warning, the stallion was snapped to attention, beast spurred to a rapid eastward gallop. His silhouette burned bright ghosts into Markus’ eyes as he rode towards the blazing sunrise.
A distant blur draped in blue silks.