Trigger Warning: This chapter, even more than Katja and Rica's experience in Dust Town, is the reason this part of the story is rated M. This chapter contains scenes of graphic violence and torturous experimentation. There is no explicit sexual content, but there is a bit more than an allusion to a consensual encounter that occurs off-page as well as an on-page depiction of nonconsensual molestation of a character who would be considered a minor in my country if not in-universe. I will try to be as gracious about it as possible, but this experience is canonically both an explicit (experimentation) and an implicit (sexual abuse) part of this character's history, and a transformational one for him. Please skip if you need to at any point, and at all times remember I wrote this in a spirit of compassion and advocacy for those who experience abuse like this in our world today, not in a spirit of sensationalism or exploitation. Enslaved individuals are callously and painfully used for evil purposes in our world today. Young men, as well as women, are abused by guardians who should protect them. It happens. And we should talk about it instead of pretending it doesn't.
9:20 Dragon
Minrathous, The Tevinter Imperium
i.
Leto was roused by a deafening pounding on the door of Amila's fabric stockroom. "Leto! Leto! Amila will have your hide to add to the stores if you're in there!"
"Uunnh," a sleepy soprano groaned. Skin slid on skin, and soft lips pressed against Leto's jaw. "Make him go away."
The sound of the knocking on the door went straight through Leto's head. "Go away," he moaned obediently.
"The sun's been up over the city a full hour by the dial, knife ear! Get your whore out of here and come train, or has lust made you lazy as well as a drunkard?"
Leto was awake now. He sat up. "Say that to my face on the sands, Linden. I dare you."
A laugh. "You think I won't? A trickster's skill on the sands doesn't change what's true. Get up. Amila needs that store room today, and Emerus needs you, Andraste spare us. There's a new fighter he's training. And I'm certain there are legions of men, women, and other lucky bastard knife ears that need your whore."
"I'm a dancer, not a whore, you ass!" Analia yelled, irritated.
Another laugh. "There's a difference?"
Leto stood, disentangling himself from Analia. She was sitting up in their nest of silk, pulled from the bolts in the stockroom, and somewhat the worse for wear. He would launder them for Amila later. She truly might have him lashed for his time with Analia in her stockroom, but she was unlikely to press for too harsh a punishment—and Emerus was unlikely to deal one.
Leto dropped a quick kiss on Analia's head and pulled on his trousers, before opening the door to go out to Linden. He closed it on Analia again behind him.
The older fighter looked him up and down. His lip curled back in a sneer. "There he is."
"Leave," Leto said quietly, refusing to squint against the brighter light of Amila's office. "You've found me. You've delivered your message. I'll be out in the arena shortly. We are done here."
Linden's eyes glittered dangerously. "Or what?" he whispered.
Leto looked back at him. "We are done here," he repeated, levelly.
Linden hated him, Leto knew. The human would kill him, if he could, and once upon a time, he might have been able to. When Leto had first arrived at Emerus's school, he had not been capable of defeating Linden in open combat. He had been very young, and inexperienced with it. Linden had been bigger than he was. Human, he had already had more than five years in the games, had been offered retirement and refused it to continue championing Emerus in the arenas of Minrathous.
Linden had been Emerus's best, then, but even then, he had been as incapable of defeating Leto as Leto had been of defeating him, and it had been years since. Leto had grown in the interim. He was still an elf, slighter and leaner than a human male as were most his kind, but tall for an elf, tall enough to look a human man in the eye. Tall enough to look Linden—another fighter who relied on speed and agility in battle rather than on brute strength—in the eye, and strong. Two years on Emerus's strict diet and training regimen had turned Leto into a weapon, honed and tempered.
Those same years had weathered and broken Linden. He had suffered a bad tendon injury in a fight the year before that had weakened him greatly. Since, he had fallen out of favor with the nobility that had used to finance him. Expensive habits had led him to contract himself back into service with Emerus, more as a secondary instructor and a servant than as a fighter of any real relevance. Two years ago, if Linden had chosen, he could have arranged to have Leto killed off the sands if he could not defeat him on them. These days, Leto doubted that Linden had the influence.
Linden must have gotten some idea of what Leto was thinking, because his eyes narrowed. "You think you're so big, don't you?" he said, lowly, viciously. "Seventeen, the society of Minrathous all in love with you, a beautiful girl stupid enough to sleep with you—oversleep—and valuable enough everyone here will just let you off the hook. I bet life seems pretty perfect to you, Dread Wolf of Seheron. Well, you listen to me.
"You may be a god today, little Leto, but never forget that, in Minrathous, we kill gods. Could be tomorrow. Could be next week. Could be next season or next year. But someday, somebody will take you down. I hope I'm there to see it. And in the meantime, while you're playing the god, remember the bed you bring all your whores back to is a borrowed one—or a stolen closet. You don't own your bed, little Leto. You don't own anything. Not really, and if you think Emerus will let you start trying, as high as you're flying right now—well. You've got another thing coming, don't you?"
He shoved Leto once in the chest, spat off to the side, and then lurched away, limping. Leto rolled his eyes, turned around, and went back into the stockroom.
Analia was there, young and beautiful, clad now in her golden dancer's dress, all soft curves and perfumed skin, with dark eyes and a curtain of black hair all the way to her waist. "Well, he wasn't very hospitable, was he?" she remarked, making a face in the dark.
"He never has been," Leto answered, beginning to hunt through the dim stockroom for his tunic, to fold some of the fallen bolts of cloth and note which were wrinkled, which stained.
Linden had a poisonous sort of point, he thought. He hadn't made it to be helpful. Everything Linden had said was entirely out of spite, and intended to ruin whatever happiness or contentment that Leto felt he had earned here. He knew that. But . . . "Damn him," he muttered. "I'm sorry you heard all that."
"He's just jealous," Analia said frankly, pragmatically. "He's a nasty old washed-up brawler, and I'm not letting him ruin my night with the 'Dread Wolf of Seheron!'" She giggled. "You were lovely, really. So earnest and intense! You'll be fantastic someday, sooner if you let me take some more time to train you up. I'd be more than willing." She reached out for his arm and wrapped her hands around it, stroking up and down with her fingers and pulling him back toward her.
"Analia—"
"Will you be in awful trouble?" He could hear the pout in her voice, and it just worsened the restless, vaguely disgusted feeling he had in his chest and gut now.
"No. There have been other students here caught bringing lovers in. It's usually no more than a reprimand. But I have to go."
Declan had been one of the worst for bringing in girls Leto had ever seen. Declan, the young giant from Ferelden, who had met him the same day Linden had, and who he had bested on the training sands in an even shorter time, but who had never once resented him for it. Declan, who had not been the most skillful fighter in the school, but who had always been very popular with the nobles who arranged the combat games. Declan, who had hoped to retire with enough coin to buy a house for his mother back in Denerim, but whom Emerus had always put off for "one more season."
Declan had died from a mauling he suffered in the games four months previously.
"Do you have to?" Analia was staying. "If you won't be in terrible trouble, stay and finish the wine with me. I can tell you about the horrible scandal Magister Palia's daughter got in with Rogeri, the dance master's cousin. Or—" She cast about for another suitable topic—or unsuitable, rather. Perhaps.
Leto put the unscathed bolts of cloth back onto their proper shelves, made a stack of the ones he would need to treat. He knelt, slid on his sandals, and began to tie them. Analia's voice, which had sounded so alluring in the fog of last night, now sounded shrill and whiny and stupid to him. Her perfume was starting to cloy. He didn't want her here anymore. He was beginning to find it surprising he ever had.
"Oh, I know," she said, brightly. "You'll be interested in this: Did you hear about the tournament that magister is holding for all the warriors in Minrathous?"
Leto was interested in this, and he finished lacing his sandals and stood, but did not ask Analia to leave just yet, though he did open the door and walk with her out of the stockroom. "What tournament? I haven't heard of a fight being arranged."
"Not one of the games, silly. This is different. Bigger," Analia said, dark eyes sparkling now that she had caught his attention. "This magister—Darius or Narius or Danarius or something—he's holding an open tournament for all the warriors in Minrathous. Slaves, freemen, fighters in the combat games, soldiers, whatever." She shrugged elegantly. "He's rented one of the arenas in the city center for the duration, or maybe even bought it. Probably he bought it, I don't remember, but he's offering a position as his personal guard and what he's calling a gift 'beyond description' to the winner, along with a boon of their choice. Personal guard to a magister! Can you imagine the honor?"
"And anyone can enter?" Leto asked, thinking of Emerus, and a magister's advocacy in getting him free of the combat games.
Analia rolled her eyes. "Well. Not really anyone. That was just a figure of speech. You have to apply to the magister's steward in the city. He looks you over, and if you're good enough, you're in! Ooh—Leto, you should apply! I'm sure just everyone would show up to see the Dread Wolf of Seheron fight. It's going to be an even bigger event than any of the combat games."
Leto hummed. "Perhaps I shall, at that."
ii.
Leto could hear the roar of the spectators out in the arena from here. Every fight in Danarius's tournament drew a bigger audience—not just the nobles that came to the usual combat games, but slaves and commoners off the street, excited for their taste of the action and the drama, the novelty of this unusually democratic contest, the idea that any warrior in the city might be elected to the honor of a place at a magister's right hand.
Like Analia had told Leto weeks before, it wasn't any warrior in the city, of course. Before he had been allowed to compete, Leto had had to give Magister Danarius's steward his age, a full martial history, and submit to a complete examination by a mage healer. But it was true that there were more kinds of warriors here than he had ever seen before: former criminals and pirates, fighters from the combat games, slaves and soldiers and mercenaries from a dozen different backgrounds and at least five different native tongues. Men and women, elves and humans—no dwarves, for some reason—but Leto had heard there had been a Tal-Vashoth qunari, though the qunari had been knocked out of the tournament by another contestant a couple of rounds back. Once the steward had declared the tournament begun, it was clear that those that remained were all between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, and in exceptional physical health, but they had little else in common, not even fighting styles, and one might have thought the magister would be seeking a particular kind of bodyguard.
Leto had done well in his first two battles of the tournament—against a mercenary swordswoman from Solas and a slums rogue—and though he had expected some resistance from Emerus over his participation in the tournament, his master had been surprisingly encouraging. Or perhaps not so surprisingly—Emerus had scheduled seven fights for other nobles since the tournament had begun, and received bribes from three to train their own fighters at the school. Leto himself had received a number of gifts from admirers—two entire sets of armor; three fine knives; a pile of letters he could not read, some of them scented; and a number of bottles of oil, perfume, and wine. He had made substantial deposits to the account Amila managed on his behalf, and there was a distinct possibility that before the tournament ended, he would be able to afford his own parcel of land outside the city against his eventual retirement.
If he survived. That was the catch; the magister, Danarius, appeared to care less about the Chantry's outlook on blood sport than was usual for nobles to admit so openly. Of the twelve contests that had taken place over the first three weeks of Danarius's competition so far—some of them duels, some of them melees—eighteen of the original two score and some-odd participants had either been killed outright or died of injuries sustained in combat. The magister had made no objection. Neither had any of the crowd. Of course, they never did, whatever the Chantry brothers said.
Today was another melee, and Leto was . . . apprehensive. The past two years, he had fought in far more duels than he had melees. When the nobles came to see him, they came to see a champion—or a demon. In either case, the narrative was a singular one—one of man against man rather than man against beast or man against many. He had fought multiple opponents back at the gymnasium, but it had been some time.
There was a clatter in the hallway, footsteps. Leto picked up a knife, wary of attackers. Occasionally over the years, opponents or their patrons had tried to see to it that he didn't make a good showing, outside of the arena. And at the moment, distraction would be almost as bad as an attack. "There must be half an hour until the melee," he called. "No visitors before the match."
"Is that a hard and fast rule, Leto?" a voice called back. Leto froze. He knew that voice like he knew his name. He hadn't heard it in five years.
"Verry?" he said. His voice came out strangled, and on the other side of the door to his dressing room, a woman laughed.
Leto stumbled in his haste to open the door. Two elf women stood there in the archway.
The younger of the two was in her early twenties, perhaps. She wasn't pretty—too thin, somewhat pale, and with a rather long, bony face—but she looked sensible and dependable. Her red hair was tied back into a no-nonsense knot at the nape of her neck, a small knife hung at her belt, and her sleeves were longer than they needed to be in the heat of the summer. She was leaning casually on a simple, unadorned staff of yew.
The elder woman was approaching forty. You could tell she was the mother of the first only by the way her darker hair, oak brown but beginning to be shot through with threads of silver, was tied back in exactly the same knot as the other's, and by something about the expression. On the whole, however, her face was the female version of Leto's own.
Leto's throat caught. His eyes burned.
"Leto," Sulin breathed, drinking him in. "Oh, Leto . . ."
"Mother."
Then he was in her arms, and Varania's, and both women were crying, and so was he, and he didn't care who came by or who saw them. Mother kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his hair. Varania complained about how much he had grown, how unfair it was to have to look up to her younger brother.
Then they were all inside Leto's dressing room, sitting on the floor in a circle. Leto couldn't stop staring at them. He could hardly believe it. "How?" he asked finally.
"Miss Xenia is seventeen now, after all, and something of a beauty." Mother said. "The mistress has ambitions for her. I believe the two of them might have run off without the master if he didn't agree to vacation in Minrathous. They hope to snare some minor nobleman."
"And, of course, when presenting Miss Xenia to society, it is helpful for the master to show he is important enough to have slaves with magical ability—even if 'slaves' is only me, and the magical ability as modest as mine is," Varania added. "He made Mother Miss Xenia's maid for the trip here, and, in company, I wait on him."
Leto shook his head. He had forgotten, after all this time, how grasping, greedy, and self-important his old master actually was. When he had looked back, he had remembered only that Bellisti had once protected him when Verry had asked it, and had treated his slaves fairly, in contrast to his cruel wife and daughter. Now he saw that Bellisti had to have chosen his wife, that his protecting Leto had been an exception in a household where the house and field slaves had, as a rule, received little to no protection from the vicious whims and general ill temper of the mistress, her daughter, and her mother; from brutal overseers; or from lecherous visitors to the house.
Not that Domitian, preparing children for the slaughter fields of the endless war against the Qunari, or Emerus, profiting off the blood of warriors and martial artists who were totally dependent upon him, were much better.
Leto said none of this. They were slaves, after all, the three of them. What other options did they have? They accepted what was dealt to them, didn't they?
Varania was still explaining how she and Mother had come to find him. "Master and I heard about the magister's tournament and the great combat games veteran doing so well in it the same day Miss Xenia did. But it was Mother who thought to ask what Leto, the Dread Wolf of Seheron, actually looked like."
Mother was still clasping Leto's hand over the space between them, stroking the back side of it with her warm, dry, work-calloused thumb. "Perhaps it was silly of me to ask; there must be hundreds and thousands of Letos in the Imperium, they said he was from Seheron, and the last we had heard, you were at the gymnasium in Carastes, preparing to muster out to war. But they said he was young too, and I suppose every mother listens to hear news of her child—good or bad, real or imaginary. But this time it was real."
"The master and Miss Xenia thought it was a wonderful joke when we all realized," Varania said. "'Your Leto, one of the top fighters in the Minrathous combat games!' they said. 'Aren't you glad I sent him to the gymnasium?' Master asked. He said you might never have been discovered otherwise. Miss Xenia's placed quite a bet on you. And Master gave both of us leave this morning to come and see you, if we could."
"It's good to see you," Leto said, kissing Mother's hand and reaching out with his other hand to clasp Varania's arm. He noted her wince when he did so, and looked away, saddened but unsurprised.
"And you," Mother said, squeezing his hand. "You're so beautiful. So strong and—" she swallowed. "We had thought we had lost you."
"I'm not so easily lost," Leto told her.
"So it seems," Varania said, wryly. "You're going to have to tell us how you got out of the war, Leto."
"I got lucky," Leto answered simply. "I suppose the master of the gymnasium liked the way I handled swords, arrows, and axes."
The reference to their last conversation made Varania smile. "I never imagined you as a warrior, brother. Truth told, I'm glad it's here, instead of against the Qunari."
"Miss Xenia told us a little about the combat games," Mother said. "She said it can be a good life, for skilled warriors—if a little . . . rigorous in training. They feed you enough, don't they? And let you go to the Chantry on rest days? Do you have a special someone?"
"More than one, more like," Varania put in. "You certainly aren't short on hopefuls. I think I saw at least three women waving various undergarments out there, trying to get in to see you. One or two men right next to them. It took a while for Mother to convince them we're related."
"I—there's no one in . . . in particular," Leto stammered, feeling himself go hot and suddenly feeling altogether too much like a boy.
Varania's eyes sparkled. "A different lover every night then."
"Not—"
She laughed at his face. "Not every night?"
Leto cleared his throat. "Discipline is rather tight, Varania," he said, trying to regain something of his dignity. Mother smiled.
"Oh, I'm sure," Varania teased. "'Dread Wolf of Seheron.' Goes into battle in a wolf's head! Have you ever even been to Seheron, Leto?"
For a moment, Leto half hoped he would be killed in the melee. He bent over, burying his burning face in the folds of Mother's skirt as if he still were a boy, and she smoothed his hair. "It's a character," he said to Mother's lap. "The nobles like it, so my master likes it."
"It's fine, Leto," Mother said, soothingly. "We hear you're very popular."
Leto let Mother stroke his hair for a few moments more, and then sat up. Varania was still grinning with perverse amusement, but in a way, it was just as good as Mother's fingers in his hair, and he smiled at her. She reached out and tweaked his ear, fondly.
"Leto," Mother asked then, quietly, "have you—how many people have you killed, since coming to Minrathous?"
Leto swallowed. Three for certain. Maybe as many as six. I could kill just as many today. Outside of the magister's unusual tournament, deaths in more ordinary combat games were rare, but they did happen. They were more often a consequence of injuries than strictly intentional. Unlike some, Leto took no pleasure in killing, but he always felt it was better to kill than be killed. "Do you really want to know?"
Mother looked sideways, at Varania. Leto's sister had gone very still, her eyes down. Almost involuntarily, it seemed, her hands had wrapped around her sleeved forearms, protecting them. Hiding them. There were things Verry did for her masters that their mother did not want to know about either. The silence stretched between the three of them.
Leto broke it. "Tell me about you," he said. "I haven't heard anything since the sailor, some years ago. You're quick enough to twit me about my lovers, Verry. Do you have one? Or several?"
Varania raised her eyes to meet his, and they were bleak, tired. "No one in particular," she said, mimicking his words from before. She tried for the same, light tone she had been using throughout, but it fell flat. "Master Bellisti has begun asking the same questions, but I suppose I've never been as pretty as you and Mother."
That would have sounded bitter, once upon a time. Now it didn't. Now, if anything, Varania sounded relieved. Leto narrowed his eyes at her. "Is he pressuring you?" If Varania conceived and bore a child into Bellisti's house, the child would also be Bellisti's property, and if it was a mage, Bellisti's status would rise proportionally.
Varania pressed her lips together. "Just let me know that he would not frown upon it, if I were to take a lover," she said. "It's nothing I can't handle, Leto."
Yet hung in the air between them. Mother was more forthcoming. "Don't worry about your sister, Leto. Varania can take care of herself, and Master is not the type to order his slaves to lie with men against their will, thank the Maker."
"And your mistress and her mother?" Leto muttered, feeling anger knot in his stomach.
"Mistress Aster died, three summers ago," Varania told him. "Really, Leto. It's fine."
Leto hummed, noncommittal. "Mother?"
"Oh, nothing has changed much for me," Mother said. "I sew Mistress's gowns, and Miss Xenia's, and do the occasional repair work for the master and guests to the house."
"Her work is more beautiful than ever," Varania said. "Even the society nobles have been complimenting it."
Leto nodded. "I haven't seen anything in Minrathous to equal it."
Mother blushed. "That can't be true, Leto! With the silks they have to work on here and designs that take three seamstresses to make up—"
"The quality still isn't like yours."
She beamed at him. "Well, what do you know anyway? My son's a warrior, not a seamster. It's been getting harder to do the fancy work lately. Age comes to us all, and sometimes my hands ache a bit, but the mistress and Miss Xenia are still pleased, mostly, and I suppose that's what matters."
The door opened before Leto could ask more questions, and Amila bustled in. "It's about time you outfitted for the match, fighter—" she stopped up short, seeing Mother and Varania. "I didn't know you were expecting company."
"Neither did I," Leto told her. "Amila—my mother, Sulin, and my sister, Varania, come with their master from Ventus. He gave them leave to seek me out."
Amila's face cleared, and she smiled, seeing Varania's staff. "You never told me your sister was a mage," she said. She curtsied. "Pleased to meet you—Varania, is it? I'm Amila, quartermaster and outfitter at Emerus's School of Combat."
Varania gave her a wan smile. "Please don't, mistress. I'm not very important. Just a hedgewitch, really, and the slave of my betters just like my brother."
"Hah! If our Leto plays his cards right, he may not be a slave much longer, or at least no ordinary slave," Amila said, proudly. "I have fifty silvers on him taking the entire thing, and I think Emerus has even more. Good odds too, though I think I'll be glad I got in early. He's been something special from day one, you know. The moment I first saw him with a spear in his hand—you get a feeling about the good ones, you know, after twenty years in the business."
"I suppose you must," Mother said, amused.
"You'll be watching, in the stands?" Amila asked. "You couldn't on your own, of course, but if your master's here?"
"I think our master or his daughter will attend a few fights in the tournament," Varania confirmed. "It's likely one or both of us might get to see Leto fight."
"Will I see you again?" Leto asked, aware that he would have to say goodbye to Mother and Verry any moment to let Amila help him into his armor and show him his weapons, and hating the idea. He reached out to Varania, and she clasped his hands.
"Look for us, before or after the fighting," she urged him. "Not during—keep your eyes on your opponents during that. I don't know if the master will let us come back to you like this—"
"But we'll ask him," Mother said. "We'll beg, if we have to. Oh, Leto—"
She embraced him again, kissed him. So did Varania. "Be careful," Verry whispered, fiercely, in his ear. "Don't let them kill you—not for the most important magister in the Imperium."
"I'll do my best," Leto promised. His chest ached, and his eyes stung again, and then Amila was ushering Mother and Verry out of the room and going for his greaves and gauntlets, waiting for him atop a chest.
"Well, they're quite charming," Amila was saying, "for elves and slaves and all. The mage doesn't look much like you and your mother, of course. Is she your sister or half-sister? But she has a lovely humility about her, especially for a mage. Nice to see in a girl of her station. I hope they do come back. I would love to hear more about what it was like for you all back in Seheron—oh, Ventus, of course—forgive me. Funny, how the story sometimes becomes our reality, in our world—"
She prattled on, happy and excited, talking about his opponents today in the melee, their histories, who used which weapon, whom he needed to watch and whom he would find easy to defeat, and Leto tried to listen. Amila's experience and avid enjoyment of the combat games had been valuable to him over the years, and more than once. He had still not fought a melee in months, and never once on this scale. But somehow, right now, that seemed far less important to him than whether or not Mother and Varania would be up in the stands, watching him.
iii.
There was a gap in Iwan's defense. Leto thrust into it, into Iwan's sweating, exposed thigh. The rogue preferred lighter armor, mobility over protection, but today it would be his undoing. Leto knew at once his thrust was fatal. Hot blood spurted—as always, shockingly crimson. It spattered over Leto's face and chest and across the sands of the arena, staining the ground black in moments.
Iwan fell, unable to stand, but it would be minutes before he died. His mouth opened and closed, mutely. Leto looked up, at Magister Danarius, seated low in the stands at the very center of the arena under a crimson pavilion to keep out the sun. The magister's face was in shadow, but the gesture of his hand was clear: You may finish it. Sometimes the magister preferred the losers die slowly.
Leto rotated his spear in his hand, building momentum, and brought the point down through Iwan's skull, feeling the bone splinter and crunch beneath him. The mercenary's loved ones would not thank him for it at burial, but it was by far the quickest way to assure a clean kill. Iwan's eyes emptied. His surprised gasping ceased. Leto planted his foot on the man's torso and leveraged his spear free. A foul smell arose to mingle with the metallic stench of hot blood and sweat on the sand—Iwan had soiled himself.
Leto closed his eyes, breathing through his mouth, and stepped away from the corpse, standing at attention.
The arena was still roaring. Flowers and coins rained down on the sands, along with some of the more intimate gifts Varania had noted when she and Mother had visited three weeks ago. Men and women stamped their feet, clapped, cheered. In this moment, Leto was their champion, their hero—indeed, as Linden had once said, he was their god. Next week, they would be just as happy to see him impaled on someone else's sword or cleft by someone else's axe.
But there would be no next week, because this was the last fight in Danarius's tournament, and Leto, at last, truly was a champion. From this moment on, everything in his life would change.
The air, where it met the blood from Leto's own wounds, was as much sweet as stinging. He relished the feel of it, against cheek, forearm, and heel. Each of the three cuts ran blood, but they were superficial, and Iwan had not taken the precaution of poisoning his blades. Stupid. Far stupider to try and take knives to fight a spearman. Iwan had most likely trusted to his ability to get inside Leto's guard. He had failed, almost entirely.
The roar of the arena was fading to a murmur, and Leto knew that meant that Magister Danarius had risen. He opened his eyes.
The magister was a tall, rangy man, not handsome, with rough, craggy features, something of a large nose, and a wide mouth. He had a full beard but no mustache. Both it and his hair were black, shot through with silver, and looked oiled, even from a distance. He wore the grandest robes Leto had ever seen and radiated power—pure, cold authority.
The blue jewel in the tip of his black, polished staff gleamed, and his voice rose over the stadium, magically amplified so all could hear. "Congratulations, little wolf. I confess, I had hoped this fortnight that it might be you who won the ultimate prize in my little contest. Such prowess as we have seen from you is rare indeed, and I am certain all here feel privileged to have witnessed your ferocity, speed, and determination."
The magister paused for the resulting cheer, another shower of flowers and coin from the stands. It went on for almost another full minute before the crowd quieted again.
"Indeed," the magister said then, "you have earned your place in my house. Are you pleased with the honor?"
There was only one response Leto could possibly make to this. He bowed deeply, until a blue light floated down from Danarius to hover in front of his face.
"Speak," Danarius urged him. "We will hear."
Leto licked his lips and answered. "How could I be anything but pleased, my lord? You are generous, and I hope that I will serve you well." It gave him a turn to hear his own voice, hoarse and rough after his exertions, magnified and soaring over the arena like the magister's.
"You have a gracious tongue," Danarius replied. "It pleases me." He turned to address the crowd at large. "I have experimented more with lyrium and its uses than any mage in the Imperium. This worthy champion shall be the beneficiary of my research—my most valued and valuable servant. You will have power, little wolf, and a place at my side worthy of all your skill. Are you pleased?"
Again, Leto answered that he was, and across the arena, he saw the magister smile, as if he had done something clever. Then the magister turned to Emerus, who, Leto saw, had been given a seat not too far away from Danarius himself. "I realize, of course, that the loss of such a gifted warrior can only grieve his former master," the magister said. "Worthy Emerus, you will be compensated your protégé's value and then some, and I trust your school will not be too much damaged by his performance here."
Emerus bowed and stammered something Leto did not hear but the magister clearly did. He waved a hand, dismissing Leto's former master with it.
"And, of course, I have not forgotten my promise to my champion either," Danarius said. "Along with his very special place in my house and by my side, he shall have the boon of his choosing. Tell me, little wolf, what is your desire? What can your master do for you?"
A dozen thoughts passed through Leto's head then—a plot of land for himself and security to retire to it after the magister had no further need of him; titles and honors and riches; some great, sweeping charity or grant to others that would cement his magnanimity in the minds of these people forever.
Then he saw Mother and Varania in the stands—Verry's bright hair a beacon next to Bellisti, his wife, and his daughter. Both were crying, hands pressed to their hearts in so much the same way. And Leto did not ask for any of the things that had previously occurred to him at all.
"My lord," he said into the floating blue orb, "the honor you grant is enough for me. But I have a family—mother and sister, called Sulin and Varania, in bondage to the farmer Sergius Bellisti outside Qarinus. If you would grant me a boon, it would be that they be freed—free to go where they choose and make their own lives as they will. I want nothing more in all this world."
He saw Mother and Varania flush with surprise, pleasure. Gratitude. And he beamed, feeling a deep sense of well-being, along with a curious emptiness. To his surprise, the magister laughed. "The boy is sweet! Isn't he sweet? How lovely—to ask only freedom for his mother and sister, nothing else! Done! It shall be as you say!" He murmured something to a man seated behind him that his amplification spell did not catch, then clapped his hands. "Now, take him away," he called aloud. "My champion is weary and wounded. Take him to my house. Tend to his wounds and clean him up. We will speak more, little wolf, once you have fully healed and can begin my service."
Uniformed servants came up on either side of Leto to lead him away, and Danarius turned back to the crowd to dismiss them. But Leto did not hear what he said. He looked back at Mother and Varania, waving and kissing their hands to him, until they were lost to him, too distant, too caught up in the press of the crowd for him to even pick out the flame of Verry's hair anymore.
Be well. Be well. Find me.
He hadn't been to a Chantry in years, but the words, he felt, were a kind of prayer.
iv.
"You're looking well," the magister observed, smiling at him. The expression did little to warm his eyes, which, up close, were pale gray, almost colorless.
Leto bowed, feeling prickles of discomfort dancing up and down his spine. In the two weeks since he had come to the magister's house, he had been well treated—better fed and clothed than in his entire life so far. His wounds were completely healed, with even the scars beginning to fade away, and he felt strong and well.
In the entire two weeks, he had seen only a succession of clean male and female servants in uniform that had brought him his food and drink, clothes and medicine in a small room in the servant's quarters, and said very little to him. He had been allowed to roam where he would in the servant's quarters and in the kitchen garden, and quietly discouraged from disturbing the freemen and women in the main parts of the magister's house. He was, he had been told, to focus, for the time being, only on healing. The magister wanted him back at his full strength.
Leto had not seen the magister since the last fight of the tournament, and he had had no reason to doubt his new master. But now, in the man's presence, he found he did not like him. No—the magister repelled him, in a way that he could not qualify, that was mostly unrelated to the long, white fingernails or the scent of perfume coming from his hair and clothes that did not completely hide the scent of blood.
"You sent for me, master," Leto said, simply.
He could not keep his eyes from darting around the room. It was not the place he had expected to speak with his new master for the first time. Instead of a hall or a study, they were in large stone room below the main level, windowless and lit by furnace and torchlight, and mostly barren. There were only a few features of note: a large, stone table in the center of the room, a burning brazier, and several drainage grates set into the floor.
The room set his skin crawling—or perhaps that was the buckets of a strange, glowing blue ore that Leto realized must be lyrium. Raw lyrium—an impossible quantity of the rare substance he had only heard of before. It seemed to pulse, almost to hum. His gaze kept returning to it, even more than to the bare walls, the stone table, and the grates set in the floor.
"I did send for you," the magister confirmed. "Are you ready to receive the benefits of all my research, to fill the place waiting for you at my side?"
Leto bowed again. "What must I do, Master?"
Danarius's wide mouth smiled. "Today—only remain still." He snapped his fingers, and the two male servants that had escorted Leto down to the room took hold of him, along with the two guards the magister had had posted at the door. "Take off his clothes and bind him to the table," he ordered.
Leto was already fighting, kicking, writhing, trying to bite and scratch and strike, to kill, but the four men already had hold of him. They were taking his boots, his trousers, his tunic, and his underthings. The cold of the room bit, and the servants' hands were unyielding.
Leto cried with helplessness, with fear and rage. He cursed at them. "Damn you, let me go! This isn't what I wanted! I thought—let me go, damn you! Maker! Maker!"
Then he saw the shackles that had been hidden behind the legs of the stone table. He roared and actually managed to wrench his arm free from one of the men, before they had him again, and one of them had a knife to his throat. He spat at them. If they had given him a weapon—even a knife—but he had nothing.
"Gag him," his master ordered. "I can't have the creature's bellowing distracting me."
Leto was forced to the table and shackled down, wrist and ankle. A gag of leather and rags was forced between his teeth. It filled his mouth so that he could hardly breathe, and all his cursing and pleading came out strangled, muffled. Only the tears ran down his face unrestrained. He struggled against his bonds uselessly, writhing, freezing in the chill air of the dungeon—for it was a dungeon, he realized. Or a laboratory.
Fear was a sickness, a weakness. Leto thought he had been afraid before—of Mistress Bellisti's displeasure or Miss Xenia's petulant lies, of the lash, of visitors to Bellisti's house, of larger boys at the gymnasium, death on a Qunari blade, death on the blade of another fighter in the games. It was nothing to the overwhelming nausea he felt now, the watery churning of his stomach and the trembling that had overtaken his every limb, this haze of terror in his head. The magister would not kill him; he knew that much. Even a madman would not have spent so much coin and effort hosting such a massive tournament to kill his champion mere weeks later. No—the magister had something worse planned for him.
Danarius walked over to the table. Leto shrank from him, as far as he could—only centimeters. Danarius placed a cool palm on his bare chest. "Now, now, Fenris, little wolf," he said. "Stop all this fighting. This next part might hurt a little, for a while, but it will all be worth it in the end. I promised you power, my Fenris. But first you have to receive it."
Leto, he wanted to scream. My name is Leto! Leto of Ventus! Just let me go, or kill me! I did not know! I don't want whatever you plan to give me!
But the magister wasn't seeing the elf named Leto on his table. He didn't see a person at all. Through the veil of his fear, Leto saw Danarius was looking at him only like an experiment—a thing—to be manipulated, forged, or changed as he would. He was the magister's property, to do with what he wished, and only now did Leto grasp the true extent of what that meant.
"Now," the magister said quietly. "The process I have in mind is something like the valleslin tattoos the Dalish give to their adults, only I intend to use lyrium instead of ink. I've hypothesized that the effects on a living body, treated in such a fashion, could be . . . interesting, to say the least, and quite powerful."
His gray eyes glittered as he spoke, and Leto flinched beneath his hand.
You're mad. You're mad!
"The difficulty," Danarius continued, confidingly, "even aside from lyrium's volatility, is that lyrium, in its natural state, is a solid. Before it can be employed in such a fashion as I design, it must first be heated, with sufficient intensity that it becomes liquid enough to inject." His fingers stroked Leto's chest. "Don't worry, my Fenris. I have practiced on corpses and on animals—not extensively, it is true. Lyrium can be somewhat troublesome and expensive to obtain, even for a magister of the Imperium. But I think I have finally developed a technique that will permeate the skin without the shock and pain of it killing the subject. The lyrium itself might still kill you. As I have said, it is a volatile substance, and people have unpredictable reactions to it. But, as you know, I have taken exquisite pains in choosing my subject." He smiled, a satisfied, catlike smile, and tapped his finger on Leto's chest.
Then he turned to a young woman Leto had not seen before, standing by silently in the shadows. Her well-styled black hair was not enough to fill out her hollow cheeks or shorten her overlong, horse-like, pale face. She had the same colorless, shining eyes as the magister, and she was holding a bound notebook and a quill in her hands. "Make sure you take careful notes, my apprentice," the magister said. "And be ready with your knife if he dies on the table. His blood, at least, must not go to waste."
"Yes, my lord," the woman said in a throaty alto.
"Give me the pen."
"Here, my lord."
One of the servants still in the room handed the magister an instrument more like a very fine paintbrush than a quill. The magister pulled a small pot from a pocket in his robes, placed it on the table by Leto's head, and uncapped it.
Then he began drawing lines in cold, wet ink—across Leto's chin, his neck, his belly. His arms and thighs and hands and feet. When the magister required aid, he would have two of the servants unchain Leto from the table momentarily to adjust his position—to cover him similarly all across his back side.
The feel of the magister's hands on his body was sick, wrong. Leto quivered. He tried to beg the magister to stop from around the gag, but his words were lost in a growling, saliva-trailing, animal groan. He closed his eyes to try and block it out. He tried to breathe in deeply through his nose to dispel the nausea.
I am not here. This is not happening.
But it was. Danarius's hands lingered as he painted the lines over Leto's body. His fingers stroked and squeezed. "Magnificent," he said every now and then. "Beautiful," and "Perfect."
"I couldn't have asked for a better subject," he said, trailing his fingers across the back side of Leto's inner thigh. "Oh, you should be quite spectacular when I am done with you, pet."
Leto vomited. The gag pushed the vomit back into his throat. Leto choked, and he was glad of it.
Let it end. Let it just be over.
But the magister unhooked his gag, and his sick spewed, foul and reeking, over the floor and the stone table. Leto coughed, nose and eyes both streaming, but he was breathing again, gasping, Danarius holding him by the hair up from the pool on the table.
"Squeamish now? You who so viciously split the skulls of your opponents in my arena?" He clucked his tongue softly. "It won't do, Fenris. It just won't do."
"My name is Leto," Leto said. His voice was hoarse.
The magister laughed. "Your name is what I say it is, my boy. Pet, dog, worm, thing." With each epithet, he tugged a little harder at Leto's hair. "You are mine. It pleases me to pay homage to my Dread Wolf of Seheron when I speak of you."
"I'm from Ventus."
"Oh, no, I don't think so. My champion is no common farm slave from Qarinus. He is a feral demon from the wilds of Seheron. All Minrathous heard the announcers say as much." Danarius, looking into Leto's eyes over the puddle of sick on the table, appeared amused. But there was a coldness behind his colorless gray eyes. "Say 'yes, my lord.'" He yanked on Leto's hair again.
Leto had been desperate to scream, to cry out before. Now he would not give this monster the satisfaction of a single word. Rebellious tears continued to leak from his eyes. His neck was beginning to ache from where Danarius was wrenching it up from the filthy table. He was cold all over.
The magister hummed, dissatisfied. Then he patted Leto's cheek. "You will learn," he said. He looked away, and over Leto's head, spoke to the attendants. "Come chain him up on his knees and clean this mess up. And you, fetch food and water. He'll die outright in this state."
"You must try to stop fighting me, boy," he said to Leto then. "You will only exhaust yourself, and I need you strong."
As brutal, unrelenting hands fastened the chains binding him in different positions, bearing him up on his knees on the table despite himself, Leto shook his head. "I will never stop fighting," he said. "You have no right—"
"I have every right, and you asked for this, slave," Danarius snapped, suddenly losing patience. "You killed for it. To go beyond all we know of lyrium, that you were deemed worthy to be given power beyond any that your kind could ever dream of, and all but one or two mages on the bleeding edge—it is an honor. I thought you understood that." One of the attendants came forward with some water in a skin, a pear and a crust of bread on a plate. "Feed him," Danarius ordered the slave.
Leto glanced at the plate. He turned his mouth away from the attendant, from the food and water skin. He shut his mouth.
The woman in the shadows laughed. "Oh, he is sweet," she said, in her low, husky voice. "He thinks he has a choice."
"You can tell, can't you, that he's only ever been the property of those who should be in chains right beside him?" Danarius agreed. "You are tiresome, boy. Do as I ask, or I shall make you."
"Make me then," Leto said, gruffly.
Danarius sighed. He extended his hand, and the woman handed him the little knife. In a single lunge over the now-clean stone table, the magister cut a shallow slice in Leto's forearm. Blood ran out, then, incredibly, upward, more akin to a mist than a liquid. The air shimmered, and rippled, and something was reaching out, toward his mind, into it . . .
Bliss.
He was drifting on a red, hazy sea.
No longer cold. No longer sick. No longer terrified.
He only wanted to please his master.
Open your mouth.
He did.
Eat. Swallow.
He did.
His arm burned. His blood seemed to sing. But it was a long way off.
It didn't matter.
Only the voice in his head mattered.
Until he came to himself, and water was dribbling down a chin from a mouth into which a new gag had been placed. He was prone, chained face up to the table once more. Moreover, there were new, leather straps binding his arms and legs more securely to the table. Beside his head, Leto saw the cut the magister had sliced into his arm, scabbed over, almost healed.
The magister's face was over his, grave with concentration. He was holding some sort of instrument which at first appeared out of focus. Leto thought it was the paintbrush—but that didn't make sense. The magister had already traced designs all over his body. Leto squinted.
Then he saw the needle hovering over his chest. It glowed red hot, steaming with heat. The air around it warped with an eldritch blue light.
It penetrated his skin.
Every vein and artery in his body blazed. His vision went white, and every person and everything in the room vanished. The silent attendants, watching the magister do this to him. The woman apprentice, with her eager eyes and little knife. The magister himself, plying the needle. Every centimeter of Leto's skin tried to flee it, it seemed, but still the needle came. Still the lyrium came.
Leto convulsed. But there was nowhere to convulse to, so securely was he tied to the table.
Still the lyrium came.
Penetrating him. Filling him. He couldn't hold it. He wasn't made to. He would die. Be torn apart.
Good.
He tore his voice out screaming against the gag, felt his nose begin to bleed, gushing out over his face unheeded.
And still the lyrium came, burning, blazing as it went.
"Relax, Fenris," someone was saying, sharply.
Who was Fenris? He didn't know.
Who was speaking?
He didn't know.
My name is Leto. I'm from Ventus. This isn't what I wanted.
Maker, Verry . . . Mother . . .
There was a screaming in his ears. It couldn't be his. He'd already torn his throat out.
Like a wolf. Fenris.
My name is Leto.
I'm from Ventus.
This isn't what I wanted.
This isn't . . .
My name is Leto.
My name is . . .
My name . . .
"Relax, Fenris."
A/N: In effect, this is really a character death chapter. From this point on, the elf Leto no longer exists. Even when Fenris discovers he did once, he can never traverse the gap and recover the boy he was, before Danarius, before the experiments, and similarly to another character I wrote about years ago, he may experience flashes of the life he knew before, but I don't think he will ever recover all of his memories.
Honestly, you could probably write a couple dozen stories of who Leto was, how he came to compete for an honor the magister Danarius offered and how he was qualified to win it, what his relationship was like with his mage sister and his mother before he asked that magister to free them. All we ever learn is just that. But this is my version: a brilliant, cool, and ambitious young polyglot, a killer by necessity, and a trained soldier, arrogant and strong and beautiful but not discourteous, loving only two people in all the world, but fiercely loyal to those two. And by no means deserving of the fate that befell him.
LMS
