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"I understand that there were…complications during your mission today."
The shame of his failure settled heavily on Hunter's shoulders, flattening his ears and threatening to push him into a slump. It was only his soldier's training that kept his spine rigid where he sat, shoulders back and chin raised, his eyes trained dutifully on the Emperor sat, unmasked, across from him. There was a bottle in Belos' hand—green like the curse across his face, glass, a worn parchment label barely clinging to the front—and he was surveying it carefully, eyes darting back and forth as he seemed to contemplate the faded lettering there.
"And so soon after your other failure at the Ulnar Ridge." The Emperor frowned. "Your performance has been lacking as of late. Or have you simply decided that mediocrity is acceptable in your duties?"
Hunter couldn't help it—he flinched. "They caught us–"
Belos' eyes snapped sharply to him, staring from beneath the jut of his brow, and Hunter's mouth clacked shut. Of course, the Emperor didn't want excuses—unintentional or not, he had failed. Failure was disobedience, disobedience required correction, and correction was to be endured. To offer excuses was only to offer further transgression.
"I do hope that I'm mistaken," Belos continued as though Hunter hadn't spoken, his little outburst smoothly ignored. "I would hate to think that you, of all people, would willfully disappoint me." With his thumb, he dislodged the bottle's cork. It bounced once off the table, then landed on the floor and rolled away; Hunter heard the tok of it hitting some piece of furniture. The liquid in the bottle was a ruddy amber colour when Belos poured it into the waiting glass, and when the glass had been filled to the brim, he pushed it with two fingers at the base across the table to Hunter.
The command, unspoken though it was, was clear: drink. And dutifully, Hunter obeyed.
As he lifted the glass to his lips, Hunter was struck first by the smell: sweet like fruit left to blacken and wither in the sun, with a chemical undertone reminiscent of the wing where the Potions Coven kept their workshops. It made his nose scrunch in distaste, but he tilted his head back regardless, and swallowed the stuff in one gulp. The flavour was sharper than the wine that he had had before, on the rare occasions he was allowed to sample it—the sort you tasted more with your nose than with your tongue—and it burned his throat on the way down; he felt it likewise in his stomach once he was finished. But at least it was done, and he set the now-emptied glass on the table with a bitten-back cough and a clink.
The entire time, Belos' eyes remained fixed on him. And before Hunter's hand had left the glass, he reached for the bottle again.
"Recount to me," the Emperor ordered, "exactly what happened."
Hunter grimaced, both at the subject at hand and because the drink had left a sour taste in his mouth. Thankfully, Belos had dropped his eyes once more to the label and its long-faded script, and so missed that little show of insubordination.
He recounted the day's events much the same as he had in the throne room earlier during his official debrief, elaborating whenever a glance from Belos indicated that he required further detail. It had been a disaster from the start—the targets had been tipped-off about their arrival somehow, and had prepared a surprise attack. Of the twelve scouts Hunter had brought on the mission, eight had been sent to the Healing Coven immediately upon return to the castle, and another two were still unaccounted for even as he sat comfortably in the Emperor's private chamber.
Hunter couldn't blame the disaster entirely on the incompetence of the scouts, of course—he had been the one in charge, after all, so any failure of theirs reflected on his own ability. He had anticipated a simple round-up mission, and neglected to account for the unpredictability of a wild witch backed into a corner. He should have brought more experienced scouts, or armed them with immobilising spells for when the targets grew unruly. He suggested the latter aloud, perhaps to aide them when they next tracked the pair of outlaws; a glance from Belos cut the suggestion short.
As Hunter spoke, his uncle poured another glassful of the liquid, and nodded toward it. He paused in his report; the previous glass was still churning in his stomach and souring his tongue, he couldn't imagine drinking any more. "…thank you, Emperor Belos. But–"
"I did not ask for your opinion, Hunter." Belos pushed his chin toward the glass, and this time commanded aloud: "Drink."
With no other options, Hunter took the glass in hand once more, and swiftly threw it down his throat. It wasn't as bad this time, now that he knew what to expect, and could brace himself against the chemical flavour. But apparently this was not what Belos wanted, as his brow knit in displeasure, and he poured another the moment Hunter had lowered the empty glass.
"Slowly," he chided. "You don't want this to be over too quickly."
And if his uncle wanted him to take his time—well, then, that was what he had earned, and he would endure it as he always did.
This time when Hunter drank, he sealed his lips at the rim of the glass and sipped at the liquid, taking care not to slurp. It was definitely worse this way, the sour taste allowed to linger on his tongue rather than disappearing down his throat. And as he drank, he began to notice its effects: a queer delay to his vision, his sight seeming to take a moment to catch up with the movement of his eyes; his eyelids felt thicker, somehow, and heavy; his head felt likewise. A deep yawn began in his throat, and he swallowed it down before it could form.
Through it all, Hunter continued his report, wincing every time he slurred or stumbled over his words. He was halfway finished—with glass and report both—when his body seemed to reject the drink outright: his throat clenched, refusing to swallow, and what was in his mouth spilt back into the glass with a retch. He quickly lowered the glass in case his coughing caused it to spill; the liquid in his stomach crawled up his spine in a shudder, radiating through his limbs.
"Uncle–"
Belos reached across the table and pressed the tips of his long fingers to the bottom of the glass—pushing, tipping it back into Hunter's mouth. The rim knocked sharply against his teeth, rattling his jaw, and the liquid sloshed messily into his mouth and down his chin, spilling onto his shirt.
'Endure it.' He swallowed what he could, and choked on what he couldn't. 'Just endure it.'
Once all the liquid had gone—down Hunter's throat or down his front, either way—Belos pulled the glass away to fill it once again. Through the fog now clouding his brain, Hunter noted that the bottle looked to be almost empty, a sight which filled him with a sense of relief. That relief was immediately followed by a flush of shame—it was a comfort he did not deserve, he knew, his punishment was–
When the glass was filled, Hunter swallowed the contents all at once, gulping with such force that more spilt down his front. One of Belos' eyebrows arched upward at the display; the expression struck Hunter as inexplicably hilarious, and he only barely managed not to laugh aloud. It was then that he recalled that his uncle had instructed him to slow down, and the shameful flush at the back of his neck spread.
His stomach was roiling, now. It had already been twisting when he arrived in Belos' chamber, as it always did when he had missed a meal, but that was a familiar ache that Hunter knew by now how to ignore. This was heavier, like a stone in his gut—weighing him down, trying to drag him from his seat onto the floor like a drowsing ratworm. Still, he continued recounting his failure the best he could, stumbling through the events of the day. He no longer elaborated on Belos' cue, no longer able to read the meaning behind his glances until the moment had passed. 'Endure, endure.'
He didn't conclude his report so much as he simply ran out of things to say, trailing off into nonsense. Belos seemed to accept it regardless. The next pour emptied the bottle, the glass nowhere near as full as before; Hunter lifted it himself before his uncle had to prompt him, gasping around the rim before gulping it down. 'Endure, endure, endure.' When he was done, he lurched forward, nearly throwing the glass away from himself. It banged against the table, and he winced at the sound—he hadn't meant to set it down that hard.
"I didn't" –he hiccupped with enough force to jerk his entire body– "I didn't mean to."
The smile Belos gave him was almost fond, or so Hunter thought; it was hard to tell with his vision swimming, his eyes slipping in and out of focus. The hand that had previously gripped the bottle reached out, and even addled as he was, Hunter remembered to brace himself for the blow; but Belos simply rested that hand on his face, cradling his flushed cheek. His gauntleted palm was blessedly cool, and Hunter leaned into the contact with a blissful sigh. The next time he blinked, his eyelids remained closed.
"I'm disappointed in you, Hunter," his uncle said. "I thought you had more self-control than this."
The words came from miles away, yet still close enough to slice deeper than any wrathful strike ever had. And when the hand retreated, Hunter whimpered at its loss.
"Return to your room," was Belos' next command. "See to it that you sleep off this disgraceful state."
Again the shame pushed down, and this time, Hunter didn't have the strength to push back. He forced his eyelids open, and the room swam into view, unfocused and hazy. He lurched to his feet, despite the world spinning around him, half-tripping over the chair as he went. His arms swung like heavy pendulums in their sockets, and when he went to steady himself against the table, his hands missed, and he stumbled.
He somehow managed to right himself, and with faltering steps he made his way to the door, discerning the correct direction only by some deeply-embedded muscle memory. It took him two tries to open it, and when it pulled inward he swayed along, clutching the knob for support.
"And Hunter?"
He turned, leaning heavily on the door when the movement caused the world to spin around him. His head listed broken-necked against his shoulder.
"Your presence will not be needed on tomorrow's mission." His uncle didn't even deign to look at him, already turned away and attending to other, more important business. "You would hardly be of use in your current condition."
Hunter didn't remember most of the walk back to his own room, save for a handful of memory snapshots drowned and distorted in amber: tripping into a banister hard enough to bruise his hip; rubbing his burning face against the cold flagstones of the floor; laughing hysterically at an empty corridor while tears poured down his cheeks. Even fainter was the memory of falling into bed in a heap, waking some undetermined time later to strip off his trousers and boots and crawl under the covers.
He woke next to the world still spinning, his mouth full of cotton and his face a mess of tears and drool. He realised that he was shaking as if from cold, though his skin still felt honey-hot and flushed.
"I'm disappointed in you, Hunter."
"Endure it," he slurred against his pillow, and slipped back into unconsciousness.