Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 8
Prince Nuada left his dungeon is a fury of ire and wicked anticipation, walking quickly through the halls of Bethmora Palace until he arrived at Bacchante's door. She opened it, standing coquettishly in an elaborate navy blue dress, decorated with fulsome ruffles and rhinestones – she'd curled her hair, and it cascaded down her shoulders in rich ebony tresses. The lady smiled at the sight of Prince Silverlance, but her lips flickered when she noticed that his hair was stained with flecks of the familiar black shine she'd come to recognize as blood. Somehow, she suspected that this time it really wasn't his.
"You look beautiful," the Prince's comment, sudden and disjoined, broke her dark reverie.
"Thank you," she answered slowly, and was about to ask about the blood in his hair when he offered her his hand. She let her fingers hover over his for an instant before she took it, and the Ancient Royal guided her through his Palace's ivy-covered halls.
Bacchante's heart skipped as the Prince led her through the entrance to a dark stairwell, and down into the maze of corridors that tunnelled into the dungeon below.
"Don't let that dress touch the walls," Prince Nuada admonished gently, before the siren had the chance to speak. She'd already noticed the layer of black grease that coated the stone passageway, and with her free hand she lifted the mass of her skirt in front of her to protect the fabric from the filth.
"What is this place?" She dared herself to ask after a spell of silence, her voice fragile with a hint of fear.
"A Prison." The Prince paused a moment after he spoke, looking back at Bacchante in the dismal tunnel, "Don't be frightened; no harm will come to you." Bacchante wondered briefly how he sensed her trepidation, and then the lady remembered that so long as he held her hand is his, he could know her every thought.
After following the long, intricate network of dungeon tunnels for what felt like hours, Bacchante and Prince Nuada at last met the low moans of men in agony. The sound, hollow and inhuman, resonated through the noxious tunnels like an echo, or the whisper of a ghost – and before she could protest, Prince Nuada pulled Bacchante into the dungeon chamber.
She let him lead her to the stone balustrade, and she followed his gaze down into the black pit below. At first, the lady said nothing. The figures, the prisoners shackled to the stakes beneath them looked small and distant to her, as she was standing perhaps two storeys above them. Her eyes passed uneasily over their wounds, their backs mutilated through the torture that had been their punishment. Surely, she thought, they must be dead... They lady's musings broke when she saw movement from the corner of her eye – one of the prisoners, shifting uneasily in his chains.
Horror, a sort of adrenaline washed over Bacchante like a wave. She wondered with dread why the Prince brought her here, why he, who'd shown her the dawn underground and the beautiful solarium, star-ceilinged with the luciferin light-vials, would too show her this...
"Do you recognize them?" The Prince's voice cut through the thick, vile air. It wasn't until he spoke that Bacchante realized he was standing behind her, and feeling him there made her heart flutter and race.
Head spinning from the stench and moans of pain that filled the dungeon, the siren looked closer despite her terror, and saw thick, vaguely yellow grease covering the men, slick over their flayed flesh. Before she could wonder what it was, the Dungeon Master stepped from the shadows with a torch, walking slowly among the condemned. Seeing now that they would be burned alive, burned alive before her eyes, Bacchante turned away in horror, her stomach contorting with panic.
Still, she heeded what her Prince had said – that she should know these men, that she would recognize them. Sick with consternation, she turned to study the faces of the prisoners she could see; it was at the exact moment that she recognized one of them as her former captor, as one of the pirates who'd kidnapped her, who'd killed her sister and niece, who'd kept her in cages like an animal and ravished her like a whore, that the Dungeon Master touched his torch to the man's flesh, setting him in flames.
What followed was a scream of violent anguish the siren had not heard the likes of before. The mortal, moments from his death, uttered a cry of such pain and shame and terror and regret that it stilled the lady's blood and made bile rise in her throat. Bacchante held her breath as each man was lit aflame, writhing in screaming, brutal agony. It was only moments after the first had been torched that the putrid stench of burning flesh rose from the pit to the galleries above.
"They can't see you," Prince Nuada whispered to her, much closer now, his chest gently pressing against her back and his lips brushing her ear, "Not anymore." Heart racing, whether from the horror-show in the back pit or from the Prince whispering in her ear like a lover, Bacchante turned her eyes to the man at the center of the pit pinned upon the cross like a butterfly on an Entomologist's corkboard. Through the flames, Bacchante looked at the prisoner, and as if feeling her gaze, he turned his head toward her.
The skin on his face was already blistering and peeling in the fire, but she could still see that he was the man that stole her innocence in a metal cage. Her eyes would have met his, but the lady realized then that he had no eyes – that her rapist looked up at her, silently burning among his screaming comrades with sightless hollow sockets.
Bacchante screamed.
Shaking with fear that made her want to cry or run or fight, the siren tore herself away from the Ancient Royal and ran toward the black corridor that led back to the familiar Palace halls. As if anticipating her flight the Prince let her go, but before she reached the tunnel leading from the dungeon he reached out for her arm and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. His touch was light, hardly a whisper of his skin against hers, but the sensation stopped her dead.
"Before you run, tell me – do you know your way back?" His question was asked so calmly, his tone so completely unaffected by the men burning alive below that it, like a scream, made Bacchante's blood run cold. "The corridors leading from this place are labyrinthine; some go for miles. If you get lost, it's likely you wouldn't be found until morning." The Prince spoke this threat with the metallic coldness of malice, and a hint of caustic pain.
The lady's heart pounded with fear. She'd seen his wrath, his hate – the consequences of it had turned to world to ash and now did the same to the mortal men who'd wronged her; but she'd never felt that derision directed at her. Did he truly think her fear, both of what he'd done and what she'd seen just now was some kind of betrayal? Still, Bacchante feared his abhorrence more than watching her rapists burn alive – more even than spending the night alone in the pitch-black tunnels, covered with ink-like oil and stinking of seared flesh.
The siren let her body relax slightly, and with grim resignation she stepped back to the balcony, turning her eyes to flames and burning bodies. Vaguely, the lady felt Prince Nuada's hands on her arms, his golden fingers only just touching her skin. She shivered deeply at the attention he was playing her, so utterly out of place in the dark prison.
"I want my innocence back." Bacchante whispered absently, only half-referring to what her captors had taken from her.
"Will you settle for revenge?" The lady turned her head to his voice, eyes closed. She did not answer, but she felt that some lingering part of her purity, whatever was left after the pirates had taken her, died along with her rapists and was burned away in the fire.
"One of my men will escort you back to the Palace."
The guard that showed Bacchante from the prison offered to walk her to her chambers, but the lady refused and instead found a familiar spot on the elaborate stone balcony overlooking the city. Bethmora was silent, deserted and dark, the glow of the luciferin vials made dim in order to replicate the night. As she looked back toward the steep stairway from which she'd climbed, the siren saw tendrils of smoke rising from the dungeon, as if from some infernal fire. The noxious ash rose up into the cathedral-ceiling of the city and lingered there like candle smoke would linger in a church. She, too, remained, all sense of time lost in her reflection, until Prince Silverlance emerged from the dungeon passageway.
"It's past midnight; you should go to bed," the Ancient Prince commented softly, stepping alongside the siren.
"I don't think I could sleep if I tried."
"Did what you see disturb you?" Prince Nuada's eyes flashed, almost wickedly. Bacchante did not look at them, for when he spoke to her like this his questions had the power to peel away her defences; the Prince of Bethmora could undress her at will with words alone.
"Like nothing I've ever seen."
"For that, I apologize." The lady scoffed, half-smiling and silence followed.
"You fear me." Prince Silverlance spoke finally, sombre in the stillness.
"I fear what you've done tonight, your rage, this... vengeance..."
"You've no reason to; I promised you once that no harm would come to you."
Bacchante looked up at him, "You promised me that I wouldn't suffer."
At her words, Prince Nuada stepped before the siren, pinning her between himself and the stone railing, his golden eyes blazing,"Are you suffering?"
Before she could answer, the Ancient Prince lifted his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her into a deep kiss. This was nothing like the one he'd given her in his training room – this time, the Elvish Prince didn't hesitate to claim the siren's mouth with his. Still, Prince Nuada was forceful without being violent, and Bacchante bent easily to his will.
When the Ancient Royal pulled away, he left the lady trembling, faint, heart fluttering like a mad butterfly in her ribcage. For a moment he stood before her, and to keep her hands from shaking Bacchante dared to rest them on his chest. A part of her was still terrified to touch him, intimidated by the absolute authority he commanded and the power he exacted over her, so effortlessly...
"I meant it when I said that I would never hurt you," Prince Nuada cooed silkily, snaking his arms around her waist and pulling her closer to him. He kissed her neck, earning a soft, breathless moan from the siren, who clutched the fabric of his shirt tightly in her fingers. Without warning, the Elvish Prince stepped back and wrapped his hand around Bacchante's throat, as if to choke her, but he didn't tighten his grasp. Instead, he spun her around fiercely and pushed her up against the hallway's opposite wall, her back hitting the stone hard enough to wind her. His mouth covering hers in a ferocious kiss, the Prince turned the handle to a nearby door, opened it, and pushed her inside.
The chamber was a guestroom not unlike the one Bacchante had been given. Before the lady could discern any more than this, Prince Nuada shut the door behind them and trapped her against it, his fingers still on her neck.
"My Prince," Bacchante whispered darkly as Nuada's hands moved to her back and unlaced her navy blue dress, letting it fall to her feet. Prince Silverlance ran his teeth over the soft skin on her neck, turning his attention to removing her corset, unlacing its myriad of strings with practiced ease. He pulled the garment away from her and cast it aside, uttering something between a growl and a low moan at the sight of her standing before him. Wordlessly, he clutched her bare shoulders in his hands and pushed her, somewhat more softly, onto the bed.
Prince Nuada was over her in an instant, trailing his hand down her chest and kissing her deeply. In a momentary pause, the siren lifted her hands to his shirt and tore it from him, letting the black article fall from her hand to the floor beside the bed. For an instant, the lady's eyes fell upon the wound that she had stitched for him, the thread still holding his skin together. Softly, Bacchante lifted her fingertips to the healed scars on his chest, running her hands over what were now almost familiar imperfections. On a whim, the lady lifted herself slightly from the bed and pressed her lips against one of the scars, nearest his shoulder. Her action induced a soft growl from her lover, but for a moment he let her continue worshipping his marred flesh with kisses.
Gently, Prince Nuada pressed his hand against Bacchante's chest and forced her back down to the bed; before she could protest, he pushed himself inside her. His action earned a sharp gasp of surprise from the siren – a breath that quickly turned to moans of rapture. Dizzy with pleasure, the lady raked her fingernails over his back, never hard enough to break the skin. The moment he climaxed, the Prince sank his teeth into her neck hard, leaving small drops of her blood smeared on his lips, and staining her porcelain flesh.
She sighed deeply as he pulled out of her and sank down to the bed beside her in satisfied repose. With a breathless moan, she curled her body up against his and rested her head on his chest, her hand over his breastbone. Beneath her fingertips, she felt the slow, steady pulse of his heart, nothing at all like the frantic cadence he so often affected in hers; it was to this that Bacchante fell asleep.