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Stolas' head was reeling, and his stomach was lurching—more than that though, his heart was broken, the thought of Blitzø being dead and gone more than his heart could bear.
The tumbling of the locks in the marriage suite's door felt so final, and he felt his resolve tumbling into place with them. Please believe that I will be dead by morning. His words to Andrealphus echoed in his mind, and he nodded slowly, solemnly.
At least he'd planned ahead for this. He settled at the desk and opened a drawer to withdraw a slender, gilded chest, which he opened to consider its contents—a slender, carefully sharpened dagger, its handle made of finest steel and bejeweled in blue topaz and sapphires, Carmine blessed and particularly deadly.
Stolas picked it up, hands unusually still as he considered it. How best to do this sort of thing, he mused. Across his wrists left open the possibility of rescue and recovery—and who knew what would happen to him if he was being watched for fear of a second attempt. A blade through the heart would be a quicker, more efficient end—but would it hurt? Of course—but he'd made certain the blade was as sharp as it could possibly be.
Very well. He lifted the dagger, the blade catching the weak moonlight filtering in through the window, and closed his eyes, readying himself to run the length of the steel through his heart—
"C'mon, Stols—there's not enough perfect breasts in the world to do that to yours."
Stolas' head one-eightied toward the sound of the words, his heart leaping into his throat. Blitzø laid on the conjugal bed, his dark clothes torn and stained as if he'd been through countless speakable trials. His flintlock lay beside him, loosely gripped in his hand.
"Blitzø!" Stolas abandoned the dagger in its case and rushed across the room, all but throwing himself in bed alongside Blitzø, pressing desperate, heady kisses to his face and neck and cradling his face. "Oh stars, Blitzø—"
"Gentle, Stols," Blitzø murmured, returning the kisses in a soft, uncharacteristically subdued way.
"At a time like this—" He pressed more kisses to Blitzø's face with increasing urgency—"that's all you can think to say? 'Gently?'"
He lifted Blitzø's head off the pillow to pull him into a deeper kiss, making Blitzø's eyes widen as he bit out a groan. "Fuck, putmedown—!"
Stolas laid him back against the soft pillows, hands fretting over him for a moment. As Blitzø's eyes closed and his expression softened, the emotion of seeing him alive and well and the gravity of his life made the truth spill from him like wine from a broken cask—"Oh Blitzø, will you ever forgive me?"
He cracked one eye open and smiled wryly. "How badly did you fuck up?"
"Andrealphus and I were wed!" Stolas moaned, laying his head on Blitzø's chest, over his heart. "I never wanted to, but everything happened so fast after the fire swamp, and I tried to think of a way to stop it but he lied to me and—"
"Never happened," Blitzø interrupted.
Stolas stopped mid-gut spill, blinking slowly. "What?"
"Never happened," he repeated, shaking his head.
"Well I'm not wearing this for funsies—" Stolas sat up and indicated his elaborate wedding finery. "I was there, Blitzø—the officiant very clearly named us wed."
"But did you sign any paperwork?" Blitzø countered.
Stolas opened his mouth to argue, then paused. "Well, no," he said slowly. "I admit, we sort of skipped that part."
"I mean, I may be just an Imp," Blitzø said, a note of sarcastic self deprecation coloring the words, "but even I know that it doesn't count for shit if you don't sign the paperwork—"
His gaze shifted to the door, his expression almost taunting. "Sound about right, Frosty the Snowbitch?"
Stolas' heart seized as he sat up, his hands tightening around Blitzø's as he turned toward the door. Marquis Andrealphus was closing the door behind him, his anger making the air in the room several degrees cooler; frost was starting to bloom in fractals on the floor and the floor at his feet. "A technicality which will shortly be remedied." He drew the sword from its scabbard in his hip—long and brightly polished and too deadly looking to be purely ornament—and leveled the blade on them both. "First things first...To the death!"
Blitzø barked a short laugh in reply. "Hardly—to the pain."
For a single moment, Andrealphus faltered. "What—is this some Impish turn of phrase I'm supposed to know?"
"Oh, you're dumb dumb—but hey, daddy likey dummy—" Blitzø fixed the marquis with a disdainful glare. "I'll even break it down small for you, you warthog-faced buffoon."
Andrealphus bristled, the frost around him hardening and leeching out along the floor and walls another several inches. "That may yet be the first time in my life anyone has dared insult me."
"And it won't be the last." Blitzø's voice carried the low, threatening tone of a serpent about to strike. "'To the pain' means you lose your feet at the ankles and your hands at the wrists."
Andrealphus heaved the kind of sigh that only a put-upon rich person could heave. "And then my tongue, I suppose. I killed you far too quickly last time, Imp—a mistake I don't intend to duplicate tonight."
"Oh you're finished so we're done?" Blitzø rolled his eyes, undercutting the edge to Andrealphus' words. "Now we know how your lovers feel—after I take your feet and your hands and your tongue, it'll be the left eye and then the right."
Andrealphus whipped his sword through the air in front of him, the cold air crackling as the blade seemed to underscore his words. "And then my ears—I fucking understand! Now—"
"Wrong!" The force of Blitzø's voice, the projection, filled the room, pushing out the chill from Andrealphus' powers. "I let you keep your ears, and y'know why? So every shriek of everyone who sees your hideousness will be yours to fuckin' cherish. Everyone that weeps at your approach, everyone who says 'what the fuck happened to you?' will echo in your perfect royal ears. That's to the pain—me leaving you wallowing in your fall from grace for the rest of your life."
Andrealphus lifted his chin in defiance—but there was a barely perceptible tremble in it that betrayed him. "I think you're bluffing."
"Oh it's possible, you icy fuck," Blitzø replied. "I might be bluffing. It's one hundred percent a possibility, you miserable sack of shit, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But hey—maybe I have the strength after all." Moving slowly but with great purpose, Blitzø got to his feet, flintlock raising until it was level with the marquis' heart. "Drop. Your. Sword."
The words were no sooner out of Blitzø's mouth than Andrealphus all but threw the blade to the floor between them, and Stolas let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. Blitzø's eyes remained fixed on the marquis as he gestured to one of the chairs in front of the fireplace. "Sit your ass down." As Andrealphus scurried to comply, Blitzø found his pack and tossed Stolas a length of rope. "Tie him up—tight as you want."
As Stolas finished tying Andrealphus to the chair, another Imp staggered into the room, hand pressed to a bleeding wound on his side and bearing a firearm on his back. Blitzø looked at him with something akin to genuine concern. "Moxxie?"
Whatever question was unasked in that moment, the newcomer, Moxie, nodded once, almost solemn, before looking around the bridal suite. "Where's Millie?"
"Christ on a stick, isn't she with you?" Blitzø asked.
Moxxie shook his head, and Blitzø pushed off the bed. "In that case—crap—"
He staggered, and Stolas rushed to his side, looping their arms through one another. "Blitzø—what's wrong?"
"He's been mostly paralyzed all day," Moxie offered. "He's still getting his strength back."
"I knew it!" Andrealphus crowed from his chair. "I knew you were bluffing—I knew the Imp was bluffing…" His bravado faded as he turned to find himself staring down the barrel of Moxxie's firearm.
"Say the word and I'll dispatch him for you," Moxxie said.
"No," Stolas interrupted, looking down at him with disdain. How had he ever let himself lose so much hope that this pathetic demon had ever held power over him? "Whatever happens to us, I want him to live a long life, alone with his shortcomings and his cowardice."
"Moxxie!" A voice, muffled and from a distance, caught their ears. "Blitzø!"
The trio moved to the picture window and threw it open to peer outside. Standing in the courtyard was a third Imp—female, with short dark hair and a massive battleaxe on her back. "There you two are!" she called up, her voice accented with a bright country twang. "I found the royal stables and look—" She lifted her arms. "Four horses! I figured there's gonna be four of us, if'n we find the prince—" She waved brightly. "Hi, Your Highness!"
Stolas lifted his hand to wave back, feeling a surge of warmth and affection for these two Imps whom Blitzø had managed to befriend, not to mention gratitude for helping them reunite.
"So I brought 'em with," she was explaining, "for when we found each other again!"
"Great job, honey!" Moxxie called back.
"Millie you're fucking amazing!" Blitzø praised. "C'mon—we can sneak out of the palace while everyone's distracted."
And sneak out they did, taking the horses and disappearing under the cover of night, the full moon—the symbol of Blitzø and Stolas' union—lighting their path to freedom. As dawn rose over the uttermost edges of the Pride ring, the pair knew that they were safe at last. In the warm glow of a new day—the first day of the rest of their lives—they shared a long overdue kiss.