Prologue: One Lifetime Ago
The ancient centaur with milky white irises almost dropped her scroll. Her face ashen, as pale as her wild hair, as the Faerie King grasped the corner of her violet robes embroidered with golden stars as he peered over the cursive quill print: Yuri Plisetsky shall die by the hands of his beloved.
With a twisted smile, the King let go of her thin frame, so frail as if a strong gush of wind could reduce her to a bag of bones, "how dare you speak ill of my son," his voice shrilling, his golden hair gleamed as light from the cruelest moon, "throw her into the Arena."
She neither begged nor cried, of course she knew her own fate to come.
Despite her blindness, she saw the world with such crystalline clarity more than anybody else on earth. She stood tall, defiant, and dignified until the masked Faerie guards dragged her away.
She threw her head back and laughed.
Otabek's eyes adapted to the darkness, he hid a shard of rock under the pocket of his tattered black robes. He scratched the side of the dungeon to keep track of days he spent in the darkness. Thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight, he ran his hands along the lines he carved into stone. He wondered if he stayed here long enough he would forget his own name.
The remaining prisoners whimpered as they huddled together, as helpless as livestock awaiting to be slaughtered. Their numbers dwindled day by day. Every morning the guards came, chipping away at the crowd.
Above them, the Arena floor shuddered as the lesser demons chased the prisoners until exhaustion and fear froze them in their tracks. On occasion warm drops blood seeped through the wooden floor. Otabek shuddered as he reminisced of time he woke up to the taste of metallic blood dripping into his hair and through the crevasse at the corner of his mouth.
Tyrants, he bit his lip until he tasted blood as he cursed the Faerie King and his Faceless Ones - sworn loyalty to him for generations.
The Faerie King's powers seeped through the land like poison snaking into the once fertile ground, until nothing alive sprang from the earth.
The Faceless raided demon and shapeshifter villages with the excuses for not being able to pay the hefty tax warranting protection. They took captives like himself as payment instead, manacled, starved, and sent to the Arena to die while the Nobles watched.
Then footsteps approached, the villagers shuffled to the back of the cell, clinging onto each other with fear of being chosen. Otabek sat up, the chains bounding his hands and feet piled on the ground as a serpent awaiting for his prey.
The Faceless One with a midnight blue mask pointed one finger at him, "that one looks like he'd last longer."
He clenched his fists, as he plotted which guard to strangle first with his chains. But to his disappointment, they activated the Demon Manacle bounding his right wrist. He loathed the sliver of silver almost as much as the Faerie King. With ancient runes studded on its surface, the magic within the Demon Manacle inflicted excruciating pain ever time he even thought about escaping. A secret dark sect of Mages forged those forbidden artifacts them and sold them to the tyrant King through the black market.
The white hot pain spread from his wrist to the rest of his body, mimicking the sensation of him being ripped to shreds.
The next thing he knew, they dragged him by the metal ring around his neck from this cell. He swore in silence because he left his secret shard of rock that he carved lines on the wall, keeping track of time and his sanity.
Otabek memorized the map of the dungeons down to every crease and crevasse to heart, biding his time for escape.
He overheard the guards mumbling, "Prince Yuri is going to be thrown into the Arena soon."
The other masked Faceless shoved the place between Otabek's shoulder blades with the butt of his spear sending him lurching forward violently responded, "he deserves it, his little rebellion was futile, the King squashed it like flies. I wish I had that day off so I can watch."
Prince Yuri, Otabek heard of him before. He should be twenty one this year, if Otabek recalled correctly. The tyrant King fathered many children, most he drowned or killed in their crib for fear of them usurping his crown.
At last they arrived before a cell, more spacious than the rest, at the lowest level of the place without light, with a silver leaf etched into the metal bar on top of the gate. Otabek understood that symbol, this cell's harboured Royalty.
One guard fumbled through his robes for a large ring with a single black key at the end, opened the gate with practiced hastiness and shoved him inside, "You are to serve the traitor Prince, until you are thrown into the Arena with him." He laughed.
Then a flash of gold and white accompanied by the sound of even more chains uncoiling like a serpent striking. The other guard gasped for air as he begged for mercy.
The Faerie Prince's hand reached through the bars and clasped around the other guard's windpipe ready to deliver the fatal blow, "take off his chains, or else."
The first guard cursed, as Otabek reached his wrist through the bars until the familiar weight of the black chains left him feeling as if he could fly.
Satisfied, the Faerie Prince shoved the guard by his neck as hard as he could, almost knocking the wind out of him when his body hit the opposite side of the dark dungeon walls. He yelped with pain, while fixing his tilted mask. Taking off their mask before others was considered taboo amongst the Faceless Ones. They swore an oath to renounce their name, origins and their entire past.
Before they left, the guard Yuri almost killed spat at him, "I am going to enjoy watching the demons rip you into pieces."
Yuri ignored him, as he settled down onto his makeshift bed made of straws, his chains trailed after him, "what's your name?"
Nobody asked him that question for days, Otabek's swallowed, his mouth as dry as cotton. He wondered without that shard of rock he carved one line per day, whether he would forget even his name. "Does it matter?" He towered over the Faerie Prince with golden hair down to his shoulders and one earring ending in an emerald the same shade as his eyes.
"It does to me," Yuri propped his chin up with his palm, resting his elbow on his crossed legs.
"Otabek. Otabek Altin," his own name now foreign on his chapped lips.
Yuri stood up and from the depth of his cell, he poured water from a dull silver jug into an old goblet. Reading Otabek's hesitance, he sipped it first.
Before he knew it, Otabek emptied the cup and already started drinking from the jug Yuri handed to him.
He never tasted something more delicious in his life, better than the purest apple cider and his town's best ale.
He never knew he loved water this much.
He drank half of it and wiped his cracked lips with the back of his hand, a trail trickled from the corner of his mouth onto the back of his bare feet. What a waste, he shook his head.
"It's alright," Yuri chuckled, "even though I am condemned for treason, they would still give me water if I asked. It's alright, Otabek, you don't have to save the rest for me."
How could he still laugh at a time like this? Perplexed, he mumbled thanks and downed the rest of the contents of the scratched silver jug, resisting every temptation to pour the rest over his head to feel clean again.
Yuri regarded him, half amused.
Then he noticed the indescribable sadness etched within Yuri's forest green eyes.
With the ghost of the chains that bound his hands, neck, and feet, Otabek sat at the other side of the dungeon five feet away from the Faerie Prince.
They didn't say much more for the rest of that night, or for the next few days.
Yuri tugged onto the sleeves of his white shift as drumming resembling the beginning of a battle reverberated from the world above. His face ashen, his breaths uneven.
Otabek paused in mid motion. He knew the rhythm of those drums, resonating with his heartbeats. Thump thump! Thump thump! Thump thump! They slowed down and faded. Meant to mimic fading heartbeats, he cussed the Faerie King's twisted ways, beating the drum like this meant one thing: an execution.
"Damnit!" Yuri's fist thrusted into the pile of hay sending wisps flying.
Otabek leapt up and caught his wrist in midair, his knuckles now bloody, "stop it."
"Let go of me!" Yuri hissed as he struggled to break free, his chains clanking together.
The drum stopped, time froze as the surface of a lake in the dead of winter.
Then cheering crowd followed.
"No!" Yuri's green eyes wide, his vision bleary. He clasped his half opened mouth with his hand, barely able to breathe.
From the gossip from the guards passing by, Otabek pieced the events together.
Yuri's brother, along with the remaining forces of their rebellion perished on this day, extinguished like moths plummeting into the flames.
Yuri shoved him with his other arm. Despite his strength, Otabek kneeled next to him, unshaken.
Without realizing his own actions, Otabek wrapped his strong arms around him.
Yuri stiffened. His shoulders shuddered, as hot drops soaked through the front of Otabek's tattered robes. Otabek ran his hands through Yuri's golden locks, rubbed his back until his silent sobs faded.
He held Yuri until he fell asleep that night.
They didn't know when Yuri begun to sleep nestled against Otabek's chest. Perhaps it was ever since that night that everyone else from Yuri's rebellion perished.
Otabek didn't mind.
Sometimes Yuri presented with strange requests. His emerald eyes sparkled as Otabek sang to him, an ancient lullaby named "Demon Song" in the ancient version the demons' language.
In exchange, Yuri recounted stories about stars. The Centaurs raised him as one of their own, after all. Otabek confess to fantasized about being free, and lying in the grass with Yuri's head on his shoulder and zoning in and out while Yuri spoke of legends in such an vivid manner, filled with life. Yuri spoke of the of Orion the hunter in the sky, of Sirius, the lone wolf, and Altair, the lonely shepherd who could only meet his lover once per year over a bridge made of birds.
From time to time, they almost forgotten that they would be sent to their death in the Arena at any given moment.
They lost count of the number of days spent inside the dungeon. The same set of guards dropped off trays of bland food and left without words.
Even they grew sympathetic, because they listened to Yuri speaking often of all lives being equal and precious.
The old guard with a midnight mask, who always made sure the water jug stayed filled, one day grasped the bars as he slumped his shoulder over with defeat, he shook his head and passed the silver container to Yuri, "my Prince, I'm so sorry."
Yuri thanked him as he bowed his head, acknowledging the elderly with respect, "when?"
"Tomorrow."
"Can I ask you for a few things?" Yuri whispered into the old man's ear and he nodded.
Yuri spent the rest of the day leaning against Otabek's chest, unwilling to part with him for even a second.
"I don't care about tomorrow, Beka, for tonight," Yuri wouldn't let go of his hand, "stay with me."
Otabek parted his lips and nodded, his pulse accelerating. Could he mean?
Yuri paid the old guard with the single golden cuff he removed from his ear worth more than the guard's salary for a lifetime in exchange for a lamp, a bar of soap, a warm bucket filled with water, and two slices of pecan pies. The guard's footstep faded, leaving them alone in the darkness.
The finished their pies in silence.
"Beka, turn around," Yuri whispered, "they won't disturb us tonight."
Otabek heard the sound of Yuri's robes coming undone and him stepping into the large bucket. A few splashes of warm water hit the top of his feet like midsummer's rain. His face burning. In the twenty three years of his life, he took his fair share of lovers. He knew he wasn't too shabby when it came to looks. Demon and mage girls alike giggled behind him. One night, he recalled a mage girl with soft brown hair, golden eyes insisted on leading him to the barn where they rolled around in hay. Her breasts soft against his muscular chest, her face flushed as he pushed her deeper into the pile. It wasn't my fault, she wanted it, he reminded himself as she undid her bodice revealing her pink nipples.
Was it pleasurable? Of course, he would be a liar if he said he didn't enjoy it. But he never grew attached to her in the same way he felt about the Faerie Prince. An emotion he couldn't put down in words.
For the first time in his life, he found someone he wanted to hold onto.
He cursed the Demon Manacle bonding his wrist, the cold sliver of silver that brought excruciating pain every time he even thought about escaping. He wished he could reconnect to his powers of fire and burn this place to the ground. He clenched his fist, he loathed his powerlessness.
He would give up his life over and over if Yuri could be set free. At same time, he knew Yuri wouldn't leave this place without him.
Two more splashes followed by wet footsteps on the cold ground signaled Yuri finishing his bath.
Otabek restrained himself from turning around.
He heard Yuri covering himself again with his white shift.
"Your turn," Yuri sat crosslegged on the ground, facing away from the wooden bucket, his wet hair leaving translucent streaks on his white shift.
Otabek obeyed in silence, self conscious all of a sudden. How long had it been? He didn't remember, since his skin touched warm water. In the dark pens where he waited for his turn to be devoured by demons in the Arena, from time to time the guards herded the into a smaller cell and splashed cold water at them. He confronted the choice between keeping his mouth wide to catch some drops versus the grease, scent of impending doom lingering on his body.
He submerged himself into the wooden bucket and opened his eyes. The lamp Yuri traded his ear cuff for flickered from above the surface of the water.
He ran the soap across his skin, scrubbing the dirt from under his nails, and every inch of his hair. He felt alive again. For when his turn came to fight to the death, he regained that small victory — his dignity.
He stepped out in silence, pulled his undergarments and tattered pants back on. Before he reached for his black tunic rumpled on the ground. Yuri stood up and pinned him against the wall. His golden hair pasted against his scalp, his skin translucent in the lamplight. Despite clad in the simple white shift of a prisoner, he never lost his regal air, he was the Faerie Prince after all.
Caught by surprise, cold stone wall dug into Otabek's back, while Yuri's hand on his shoulder hot and burning.
Yuri stepped closer until his fingers traced the lines on Otabek's bare chest, making his intentions crystal clear.
"I never told anyone this before," Yuri watched his every move. His hands travelled up as he stroked the side of Otabek's face as if he was the most precious thing in the world, "the Centaurs read the stars for all of us born into the royal family, whether we liked it or not."
Otabek closed his eyes and listened to his own heart flutter out of control. Growing up a warrior, a guardian of his village, and walking along the cusp of death multiple times, he never experienced anything like this.
"I never heard something so absurd in my life, 'Yuri Plisetsky shall die by the hands of his beloved,' they told me," Yuri laughed, "stupid isn't it, love," he nestled his head under Otabek's chin as his arms snaked around Otabek's bare skin, "my father is a monster incapable of empathy," he narrowed his eyes, "my mother died young, I don't even remember what she looks like. And my brother," he almost choked on those words, "his head and wings are are probably still on display on a spike." He shuddered.
"Yuri, I'm so sorry," Otabek held him tight, his lips gentle against the top of Yuri's beautiful head. He stroked Yuri's soft wet locks between his fingers.
"I didn't believe in this thing called love," Yuri pulled away from his embrace and their eyes met, he stood on tiptoes because of their height difference, until their lips mere inches apart, "until I -"
Otabek's heart almost stopped when Yuri pressed his soft lips against his for the first time.
Yuri didn't need to finish.
Until I met you.
Otabek cupped the Faerie Prince's face, he parted Yuri's lips with his tongue. Yuri opened up and let him in. If only, we met under any other circumstances than this. Pain one thousand times the intensity of anything physical pierced through his body as he kissed Yuri back with desperation and intensity he never even fanthomed before.
Breathless, with pink tinged cheeks, Yuri pulled back an inch, no longer on his tiptoes, "Beka, we won't live to see another sunset," he continued in a practical, matter of fact manner way, like the calm before the storm, "but tonight, I am yours, if you'd have me." He watched Otabek through his curtain of golden mane, already knowing his answer.
Otabek, at loss for words, picked him up instead. One of his arm lifted Yuri's from behind the knees and the other around his shoulder. Though lean, the Faerie Prince was surprisingly heavy. Otabek carried him to their makeshift bed.
"Wait," Yuri tilted his chin in the direction of the lamp he borrowed from the guard, "take me to the lamp."
Puzzled, Otabek lowered him until he picked it up and blew out the flickering flame, leaving them alone in the darkness.
Yuri threw the lamp onto the ground and the top shattered, exposing the glistening oil amidst the broken shards. He smirked with a hint of shyness mixed with mischief, and dipped his fingers into it as if showing Otabek what a clueless idiot he had been, "now I'm ready."
Otabek inhaled sharply when he realized the real reason Yuri asked for lamp. His heart pounding wild in his chest, blood whirling, buzzing through his veins. With trembling hands the knot that fastened Yuri's white shift came undone.
Otabek traced his lip along Yuri's neck, the place next to his pulse as Yuri unravelled him with slender fingers.
They stopped caring about tomorrow and the horror, undignified injustice awaiting for them ahead.
Yuri surrendered to him, still regal, still proud. He clawed at the straw as Otabek stroked his flanks leaving a trail of lamp oil and asked with the gentlest voice from on top, "am I hurting you?"
Yuri shook his head and clasped his mouth with the back of his hand, to prevent any sound he couldn't control from escaping, "Beka," he strained to speak because Otabek took him to the cusp between pleasure and pain, "when I die out there tomorrow, make me remember you."
Otabek wished time and this night would never end. He wrapped his arms around Yuri and buried his face into the Faerie's ivory skin pressing soft kisses on on his back, his neck, and every inch of him. His body rippled with pleasure until he no longer held back. Yuri followed him thereafter.
Yuri sat up straddling Otabek's hips, he kissed Otabek's eyes, his nose, and his Cupid's bow. Otabek, caught off guard, sighed from the sheer contrast of Yuri's softness, from his intensity just moments before.
Yuri's forest green eyes met his, as he tucked a stray golden strand behind Yuri's pointed ear.
Yuri removed the single emerald earring ending in an intricate golden leaf and fastened it on the chain around Otabek's neck, "Imagine Beka, some day, there will be a world where all lives are equal, no more Royalty, no more servants, no more Arena Fights."
"Let's meet again in that world," Otabek squeezed Yuri's hand interlaced with his own.
"I'll find you, Beka," Yuri squeezed back, "don't you dare forget me." He bit the place next to Otabek's collarbone.
"Never," Otabek touched the place where Yuri left his mark, then he squeezed Yuri's earring fastened next to his heart. He watched Yuri fall asleep in his arms, the most beautiful being he ever laid his eyes on before darkness claimed him too.
Without notice, rough hands and masked figures surrounded them, grasping them by the shoulders disentangling them.
Otabek knew what he had to do in the Arena. He refused to let Yuri become the last one standing, to be ripped from limb to limb by demons that the Faeries drove insane with starvation and their poisonous incense.
Before the first gate unleashing the monster opened, the crowd chanted, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"
"Beka, come, fight me for real," Yuuri drew his sword and smirked, "You never showed me how you fight."
Otabek's sword clashed with his, surprised by Yuri's light hearted expression at a time like this. The Cursed Demon manacle at his wrist burnt, forcing him to raise his sword against his will.
He endured through the white hot pain as the demon with curled horns, resembling the Minotaur clawed the dirt with his hooves from behind them. He leapt out of the way just in time. In a fit of rage, the beast stomped the ground, as earth rumbled. Its breaths putrid, impregnated with the scent of death, despair, and decaying flesh.
While the demon chased Otabek across the Arena, Yuri's searched for something in the crowd, then he met his father's cold, snake like eyes, identical shade as his own. With all of his strength, he threw his sword at the tyrant King. He knew the futility of his resistance, as his father's masked entourage of Faceless Ones congregated, stacking their own flesh as a living shield before their Master. The sword's tip drove into the wooden plank inches from his father's brow while the audience held their breaths. The Arena then exploded into whistles and cheers.
"Release them all," the Faerie King waved a hand in cold rage then a twisted smirk as he recovered from his moment of uncertainty.
Chains shuddered followed by the creaking sounds of wooden gates hoisting open. The beasts behind the the cages let out unearthly shrieks reverberating through the Arena.
Otabek blocked the demon coyote with skeletal rib cage and missing patches of the fur, while protecting Yuri, now sword-less.
To his surprise, Yuri clasped into the monster's neck and twisted, giving the starving animal a quick and clean death. Yuri didn't need his protection after all.
Another wolf attacked, biting into Otabek's forearm, ripping away a chunk of flesh as hot blood trickled down the hilt of his sword.
They couldn't last forever, despite both of their strengths combined. Nobody could.
A glistening trail of sweat followed the stream of congealed blood and dirt dripped along Otabek's arm, throbbing with white hot pain. The demons they fought laid in heaps of mangy fur and claws.
Then demons surrounded them, eyes sallow exuding hunger from every pore. The massive one resembling a Minotaur growled as he stalked a few steps closer towards the unarmed Faerie Prince.
Then Otabek's lips parted with shock, the same flood of warm indescribable emotions coursed through his being, like when their bodies joined last night without beginning or end.
Defiant, and unfazed, without a hint of fear, Yuri raised a hand and touched the monster wet snout.
The crowd gasped as they held their breaths as the Minotaur's growl softened and bowed.
Yuri turned and flashed a brilliant smile.
"Shoot them," the Faerie King spat out from the stand.
With unparalleled reflex, Otabek deflected the shower of arrows whistling in their direction.
A new silence filled the arena, the demons retreating into the perimeters, Yuri faced Otabek while the rest of the world melted away into irrelevance, as if they were the only tow people in the universe. Yuri touched his face, his dark hair, and the place where he left a mark on his skin last night. He flashed a smile meant for Otabek alone.
They no longer needed words, Otabek gripped tightened around the hilt of the sword until his knuckles pale and he closed the distance between them, their hearts pressed together.
"Promise me you'd find me," Yuri whispered into his lips, "in our next lifetime."
"I promise," Otabek closed his eyes. A strange sense of serenity surrounded him, of completeness, of realizing the exact place where he belonged.
He thrusted the blade through both of them.
Before the darkness claimed him, with their hot blood mixed together, becoming one, before his senses betrayed him, he comprehended from the shapes of four words from Yuri's lips he could no longer hear.
I love you.
Always.