Work Text:
There was a shift in the air as Addilyn approached him. She had no talent for pymary, no sense for the khert and its delicate intricacies—and yet the air felt heavier here, thicker in a way she could not explain. It was as if the khert had shrunk away from this place, unwilling to be tainted by the slaughter that had occurred. Blood and viscera had turned the earth to mud, her every step sounding with a revolting squelch as her boots sunk into the fetid sludge.
And in the middle of it all stood Lemuel Adelier, drenched in gore and bits of flesh, a grotesque grin splitting his features.
A laugh then pierced the quiet, the sound grating and manic, and Addilyn froze. It was not at all the charming chuckle she’d become so familiar with. Even when dancing on the edge of madness, she’d never heard Lemuel emit such a shrill cacophony.
“Oh, what a day,” he said, the laughter tapering off into an almost euphoric moan. He sounded wrong; that delightful tenor dipping into a sinister baritone. Had she not known any better, she would have sworn that an entirely different man stood before her—but his golden hair shone bright in the light of the setting sun, Ataret and Kossaul in hand and streaked with Gefendur blood.
And yet her blood turned to ice in her veins as she watched him, her skin prickling with unease.
“Captain,” she tried, her voice low, hardly even a croak as her too dry throat forced the simple word from her lips.
Almost lazily, Lemuel turned to face her, a strange expression crossing his blood spattered face. It was akin to irritation, but with the slightest undercurrent of curiosity.
Her confusion only mounted as he stared at her, unrecognizing.
“If you’ve come to grovel, your head’s a bit high for my liking,” he said, the words cold and lacking any playful bite.
“Sir,” she tried again, her heart stuttering out a staccato rhythm as a thin trickle of fear began to slither its way down her spine. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. “We’re regrouping to the north. We need to head out if we’re going to link up with the battalion.”
He stared at her for a beat longer, his annoyance seeming to momentarily morph into something closer to anger, but it quickly vanished, and at last there was a flash of recognition in his eyes.
“Ah,” he said simply, that monstrous grin returning, and Addilyn had the brief thought that she rather preferred his ire. “The Lioness. And here I thought I’d never have the pleasure of a formal introduction.”
A nervous laugh was all she could muster, her body going rigid with the inexplicable urge to flee. “Very funny, sir. Never heard that one before.”
“You haunt his every thought,” Lemuel continued, stalking forward with the preternatural grace of a predator on the hunt. “It was fairly fucking irritating that he worked so hard to keep me at bay where you were concerned. You and his doe-eyed brat.”
The sun hung low in the sky, but still painted the area in a bright, crimson glow. The shadows grew long and deep and dark as dusk loomed, and so Addilyn had not questioned the shadows that seemed to fall over Lemuel’s features.
But as he drew closer, she realized it was neither shadows nor streaks of quickly drying blood that coated his face, but solid black markings. They lined his jaw, symmetrical in their placement, starting from the corners of his eyes and ending at his chin. A single slash of ebony crossed the center of his nose, while a strange symbol sat painted upon his forehead.
It left her speechless, and she fought the urge to step back as he closed in.
“But it looks like he didn’t account for how hard it would be to shove me back in my cage once he deigned to set me loose,” he drawled, his voice entirely unfamiliar. At this proximity, she realized that his eyes glowed an insidious shade of red, their warm, golden hue entirely absent. “Such is the usual gambit borne of human desperation.”
Addilyn moved to draw her blade, muscle memory taking hold as alarm bells rang out loudly in her mind.
WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG
The sword was scarcely out of its scabbard when he moved, nearly too fast for her eyes to register. One moment her blade was in hand, the next a loud clang resounded through the piercing silence, a sharp pain shooting up her arm as the weapon was knocked free of her grip. It fell to the earth with a dull splat a few feet from where she stood, the heavy steel sinking slightly into the putrid mixture of mud and viscous fluid.
And all the while, she stared up at Lemuel in horror. She knew how he fought down to her very bones. There was strength behind each movement, though there was always a thoughtless precision that came with each slash and parry, drilled into him from decades spent on training grounds and battlefields.
But there had been no finesse in how he had disarmed her, no elegant violence, merely raw power.
A horrifying realization dawned, and it left her near paralyzed with utter terror.
“What are you?” she demanded, a pathetic tremor undercutting her words.
The creature wearing Lemuel’s face grinned lasciviously and raised Ataret to her throat. Just beneath each eye, a second pair of smaller, crimson colored irises stared back at her. “A question your dear captain probably should have asked, Lioness.”
Not him. Panic gripped at her lungs tight enough to burn. Not him, not him, not him.
Addilyn didn’t think, couldn’t allow herself to think. She ducked back and out of reach of the blade’s tip, knocking the scarlet stained steel away with her armored forearm. She turned to bolt, unsure of where to go, only that she had to get away. Away from this thing that had claimed Lemuel’s visage as its own.
But it hardly mattered, a deranged cackle splitting the air as the creature reached for her. Her head jerked back as she felt its fingers bury themselves in her hair, the clawed tips of its gauntlets digging painfully into the flesh of her scalp.
“Now, now,” it chided, tugging her back toward it. She latched onto its wrist, desperate to wrest herself from its grasp—but its hold remained solid, immovable. Even without Lemuel’s plate armor in the way, she doubted her feeble attempts would have amounted to much. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I haven’t dismissed you yet, Private.”
“Where is he?” she ground out, her jaw clenched to the point of aching. Tears welled in her eyes from the pain along her scalp, blurring her vision. “What have you done to him, nuofhen?”
“Ever the loyal little soldier,” it crooned, its free hand coming up to grip at her chin. “More sacrificial lamb than fierce lioness.”
Belatedly, Addilyn realized it no longer wielded Lemuel’s blades. It had likely discarded them when she tried to run. In a stroke of hysteria induced insanity, all she could think about was how furious Lemuel would be to see his prized swords festering in a pool of blood and entrails.
“Answer me.” Her voice continued to tremble as she glared at it, warm rivulets of blood beginning to soak into her hair where the gauntlets had cut through skin. Nausea ate away at her gut as she met its gaze. She had never seen such gleeful malice etched into Lemuel’s face before.
“He lurks,” the creature said, the claws at her chin digging into the sensitive flesh as it angled her face upwards. “He’s been quiet since the culling began. Willing to sit back and let me have my fun.” It chuckled darkly, the sound an ugly and repulsive thing. “Oh, the sins etched upon his soul, little lamb. So ready to do whatever is necessary, the consequences be damned.”
It pulled her closer, its nose nearly brushing her own. It smelled of death, of sickly sweet rot and the metallic tang of blood. There was no lingering scent of vliegeng musk, no heady aroma of sweat and hodo. It was as if the creature had snuffed out Lemuel entirely, like a flame smothered beneath a woolen quilt.
“Though every human has a line they won't cross. No matter their resolve.” The creature licked its lips, and Addilyn’s stomach turned, the urge to rip the flesh from its face all consuming. Anything to tear away the depravity carved into Lemuel’s features. “Why don't we find his?”
A fresh agony burst to life at her scalp, ripping a strangled cry from her lips as the creature forced her to her knees. The panic that had curdled within her veins melted into white hot fury as thick, pungent muck soaked through her trousers. Fury at the debasement, at the shame that flooded her like a burst dam. And all at this creature’s hand—this hellish thing that appeared to her wearing Lemuel Adelier’s face.
The throwing dagger was in her hand before she even thought to reach for it, torn from the sheath built into the armor at Lemuel’s hip. Rage clouded her mind, her eyes unseeing as she drove the knife into its thigh, relishing in the give of flesh beneath a freshly sharpened blade.
But the creature did not cry out, nor did it so much as loosen its hold upon her. A low chuckle instead filled the silence, fiendish and foreboding in its tenor, chilling the fire that had sparked to life within her.
“And so the claws finally come out,” it rumbled, its gaze never wavering. Its eyes unblinking. Addilyn’s hands began to shake. “Brazen little wretch.”
It struck fast, swift as an adder as it sent her sprawling with a backhand that made her vision go white. She fell to the ground, her ears ringing with the force of the blow as she struggled to push herself to her feet. Her cheek burned like hellfire, and she realized it had likely sliced at least one sizable gash in the skin.
But then there was a sudden weight at her back, pushing her down into the putrid muck. Pressing the air from her lungs. Dragging a pitiful mewl from her throat.
“Bleat away, little lamb,” the creature said, its breath tickling the shell of her ear as it dug its knee further into her spine. Addilyn clawed at the earth, trying not to think of what slimy bits were tangled between her fingers. “He’s yet to stir.”
“Maafit!” Addilyn bit out, only for a ragged scream to leap from her tongue as it stabbed the throwing knife through her hand, piercing the meager armor lining her glove.
“Careful, girl,” it purred, the tips of its clawed gauntlets dancing up the length of her arm. Addilyn could only sag where she lay, her fingers twitching helplessly as the dagger continued to cut through muscle and tendon with each minute movement. Bile churned within the depths of her stomach and she swallowed the urge to vomit. “You’d do well to mind who you bare those teeth to.”
The crushing pressure suddenly lifted as the creature rolled her onto her back, allowing her a brief moment to suck in a greedy breath—only for its weight to settle at her hips. Straddling her. Trapping her.
And then its hands were at her neck, its teeth bared in depraved delight.
Logic fled as instinct took hold. Addilyn thrashed beneath it, her feet struggling for purchase in the slippery mud. Her back arching in a vain attempt to escape. Her fingers tearing at its steel bracers. Desperate to dislodge its grip. Desperate to get away. Desperate to breathe.
“Writhe all you like,” it said, its voice like honey. Deep and sultry. Though its eyes were wild. Manic. Addilyn dimly thought of how frighteningly familiar the expression seemed on Lemuel’s face. “It seems he’s left you to your fate, Lioness.”
A soft wheeze was all she could manage, her lungs spasming violently within her chest as her vision narrowed. The hands at her neck were cold, the armor like ice against her feverish skin. She tried to pry them away, but her fingers had grown numb, her limbs like unwieldy lead blocks as that dark void loomed, pulling her under…
“... —ilyn!”
“...dilyn!”
“Addilyn!”
Addilyn jolted upright with a gasp. The earth seemed to tilt beneath her as she choked and gagged and heaved, only adding to the vile concoction of bodily fluids seeping into the ground. Her throat throbbed in time with the erratic beating of her heart, the muscles beneath the abused flesh aching with an intensity that could only suggest severe bruising was yet to come.
And then there was a weight upon her back, the touch gentle and tentative—and she immediately knocked it away with a strangled yelp, moving to scramble back from it. She had to get away. She had to—
“Addilyn!” Lemuel grabbed for her, keeping her in place. “Addilyn, it’s me. Stop it. Stop! ”
Addilyn froze, daring to meet his gaze, her hands trembling as she tried to keep herself from crying. From begging and pleading.
But his eyes were a warm, welcoming gold, and his face devoid of the black markings that seemed to signify the presence of the creature. The only sign it had been there at all were a pair of small scars below each eye. Where that extra set of scarlet irises had stared back at her.
She gaped at him, shaking like the last leaf on a dying tree. Her horror must have been clearly written upon her face, as Lemuel’s gaze softened, his brow furrowed in what she could only assume was concern.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice soft, thick. A far cry from the malicious drawl that had come from his lips before. “Say something, da lledeol.”
Lemuel reached up toward her face, as if to brush the hair from her eyes or to wipe the blood from her cheeks, but she flinched back, a pathetic whimper leaping forth unbidden. He froze, something like hurt flashing across his features. Hurt, and maybe the slightest hint of guilt.
“Addilyn, I—”
“What—” she rasped, a violent coughing fit wracking her body. It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. Each breath akin to a thousand shards of glass shoved down the length of her throat. But still she stared at him, unwilling to rein in the fear. The anger. The revulsion. “What did you do.”
His face fell, and he let his arm drop back down to his side. She expected shame to be reflected back in his gaze. Shame for what he had done. For what he had almost done.
But his eyes only darkened, his mouth set in a firm line as he pushed himself to his feet. And in that moment, she could see a shadow of the creature that had so delighted in her torment.
“What was necessary.”