Chapter 20
Wolves (by Down Like Silver)
"Sire," his deep voice echoed in the cavernous underground prison.
Seiku rose up. As he carried the flaming torch up with him, the shadows grew darker over the girl again. Remy closed her eyes, bracing for the lies they must give. She didn't need to look over her shoulder to know the prince gave no acknowledgment. It wasn't as if she, nor Seiku, had expected any. Seiku continued regardless.
"Roan," Seiku barked, demanding his attention. Finally, the prince coughed out a word of recognition.
"She still lives, Roan. She's alive," insisted the warrior.
Rearing back from the girl, Remy's heart launched into a race. Adrenaline bursting forth. She looked up at Seiku for a split moment- he'd made the choice for them all. Disregarding all that it would mean irreversibly. But Roan's voice was growing, and she felt the water rippling as he clambered to his feet. Remy bent forwards. By Seiku's folly, she's forced to acknowledge the heat radiating off the back of the body before her. Then swipe the black and gold strands from the girl's face. Beneath the muck and hair, burnished scarlet spots lit up her cheeks against the bleached white of the rest of her face. How she had not drowned when she lost the strength to hold herself above the water was a miracle. Her head barely rested on a corner of the sodden saddle pad. It held her mouth just above the waterline.
The prince crossed the cell, slipping in the blood darkened water. Hastily, Roan was crowding around her, his large, calloused hands gingerly lifting her head higher off the waterlogged pad.
"Yes, she lives, but she is dying nonetheless," Remy countered. It would have been wiser, and kinder, to end her suffering and bury her in a stranger's crypt, then what Roan now demanded. His voice crested as he swept up the listless form, and Seiku offered his free hand to adjust her over Roan's shoulder. What is even left to save, Remy wondered. Blood like ink painted the bars and walls of the cell.
At his touch, her eyes half-open, but they are vacant. He gathers her into his arms, laying her over one broad shoulder to keep her back open to the biting air. Weak as a kitten, she mewls pathetically despite the caution he shows in handling her.
"The mighty Wanheda brought low by a mere queen," muttered the bitterly scowling man as he carried her from the hell she'd been kept in. Hauling her close, Roan's breath, the first warmth she'd felt in days, flowed across her neck. He held her tight against him with one arm, a steel band against her weakness. A whimper, barely audible, escaped her. Roan swears it was his name, and it felt like an omen, but of what he doesn't know. "Please" Roan prayed to whatever gods may be "don't let her die now I have got hold of her".
The inevitable fever had taken a solid hold, and there was a sunken, strained look to her skin that spoke of water and food withheld too long. There was a smell originating in that infected mess of her back that the rest of the foul odors of her cell had not masked, and Remy knew she ought to argue. For the girl's sake. She ought, to tell the truth- that this slip of a girl was at least three days past savings. The only honorable solution was a quick ending.
But her prince commanded her, and had she not thrown her lot in with him?
On his head be it. And... Wanheda must be powerful to have survived, with even this faintest ember of life, to remain long enough for their intervention to arrive at all.
Remy would do what she could, even if she should not. "Fresh snow, hot water, a fire with fresh air," Remy began to bark at Seiku the moment they emerged from the dungeons into the light. Seiku did not argue. There was no point in reminding her that he knew the requirements of treating floggings. Most soldiers learned such necessities still as boys. Seiku is gone in a heartbeat's time, and from the hall, they can hear his barking orders for servants to attend.
Into his own bed in the grand suite the queen had deigned to allow her heir upon his return, Roan laid her carefully. The maids had left it made up for him while he was on progression. The bed is wide enough for a man to lay sideways and piled up with layers of thick woven cotton, and wool, soft and precious. Clarke keens a thin wail at the jostling pressure notwithstanding his caution. At least the numerous blankets should soak up the sludge slipping off of her.
It's not how he might have imagined one day having the skai prisa in his bed.
A young woman covering her dress with a sturdy apron darts in on their heels, and just as soon is sent away to bring supplies from Remy's quarters. Others begin to pour in bearing clean cloths, and water and another goes to her knees at the hearth to build the fire. Yet another rushes to the windows and works to let fresh air in upon the healer's command. First, the dark, heavy curtains must be pulled away, then the wood panels removed. Finally, there is sunlight, and a stinging, quick breeze reaching inside to them all.
Golden hair, now blackened and snarled, sticks to her lacerations until the healer eases it away. A tall redheaded girl hustles into the room carrying a heavy leather satchel straight to Remy. Roan distantly recognizes her as one of Remy's daughters. It must be the eldest, he thinks, even as Remy nudges him farther from the bed to make room for the girl to step closer. The moment he does, the girl begins to spread out the satchel's contents with agile hands. The healer first opens a large, heavy vial, it's contents clear like water, yet strong smelling. This she pours onto a clean cloth, heated in the first bucket of hot water carried in, and with a somber set to her mouth, leans over to begin wiping away the blood and muck... Curling her body into itself, at the first touch, Clarke vomits bile onto the blankets. The retching is feeble even, just faint reflexes spasming. Remy's daughter eases Clarke's head, and swipes away the soiled blankets, before returning to the end of the bed. There the girl tugs at the dripping leather boots. When she works them off, they hit the floor with a squashing sound. In unwieldy buckets, the snow finally makes it up to the third floor. Remy reaches in barehanded. Roan shudders as Clarke's mouth falls open in a soundless cry. The scorching damage that is her back from shoulder to hip needs the cold, but her blanched face and discolored lips beg for warmth.
"Seiku, there was a girl. With the prisa. Her second. Blonde like her, and nitblida too. Find out... what happened to her." Roan ordered quietly. Clarke would want to know when she woke. If she woke.
One knee is swollen, garishly bruised, and she is littered with cuts and bruises that speak of her strong will. The blood beneath her fingernails is not her own black, but the dried red of her abusers. Morbidly he notices how clear her face is- dirty, haggard, but untouched. They did not dare mar her beauty even as they whipped her to death. Bastards. Cold relief flushes through Roan as Remy takes a short knife to cut away the breeches that are the only thing Clarke still wears. the same dark, soft leather she'd likely arrived in for they are Trikru in style, still cling to her, sticking and foul, but seemingly intact. Would Nia have allowed the skai prisa to be violated? His mother had never tolerated such depravity before. Not among the ranks of her warriors, nor among the rabble. Yet never before had she dared take a princess of another clan, either. Beneath the fur he throws across her lower half while they work, she shakes and mumbles, crying out. It does not matter what she might try to say. Whatever it is... it remains far too faint to be understood.
By the time Seiku returns with news, Roan does not know how much time had passed.
He only knows that is not until Clarke is settled silently into his bed, remade laboriously around her by shifting and lifting in turns, It had taken six sets of hands to accomplish that, and it'd only began once she'd been cleaned off which itself had taken so long... Then Remy had gotten to the work of dressing, stitching, and wrapping the wounds. Beyond her ruined back, there was a knee injury that Roan did not know how she'd live with if she lived at all. Worse still is the festering belly wound he was not sure how'd survived so long already.
How many hours had it been since he'd found her in that foul hell?
Exhausted by first the merciless pace through the night that Roan had set towards Fron Tenac, then hours attending to the skai prisa, Remy had excused herself. With a promise to wash and return in haste, the healer had left her daughter to watch over the prisa.
Not looking away from Clarke, Roan grunted at Seiku.
"The child remains, at the queen's pleasure, secured in a set of rooms upon this very floor." Seiku began. He paused slightly, eyes drifting towards the cleaned and dried skai prisa upon his prince's bed before he continued. "I did not manage to set my eyes upon her, but Rogi is at her door and swears she lives, unharmed. She was in the dungeons near the prisa until two nights ago. She does not know... the depth of the prisa's condition." he warned.
Roan listened quietly but kept his gaze focused on Clarke. Not even noticing how Seiku's attention had wandered. He nodded slowly. There would be something favorable to tell her... He knew the sky princess cared for her people, and her second surely even greater than most... There would not be much good to tell her in Azgeda, but this was something.
"Tell Rogi..." he paused, lost in thought, "tell Rogi to keep the child safe. He will be rewarded," Roan rumbled.
Seiku took his leave, and the room fell into silence again. The healer's daughter kept her eyes dutifully lowered as she bathed the prisa's face with cool cloths. A bucket of melting snow sat at her feet to dip the cloth in. He did not remember her name, but she'd just been her mother's little redheaded shadow before his banishment. It seemed she had begun a healer's training in the time since. Remy had promised to find another trustworthy healer, at least, if not more, but while she searched, her daughter would remain.
Three days and nights of vigil Roan sits before she opens her eyes again. Her body tightens like a bow's string as the pain registers. He leaned immediately closer, whispering her name... Yet it was only the briefest flash of sky blue before the healer turns back to the bed with a warm, wet cloth, smelling strong of antiseptic to begin cleaning her back with a firm hand. A hoarse, choked sob was the only warning before she went limp onto the bed, with only the faintest breathes to prove she still lived afterward.
It takes a royal summons carried by the head of the queen's guard to pull Roan from his vigil. Even then, he does not leave before Seiku has assumed his place at Clarke's side, watching over the prisa and the healers flitting about her. Two more men he remembers well from before are stationed outside his suite's doors. He has no patience for his mother's games. No interest in her schemes. Not anymore.
The tableau he disturbs with his arrival in the throne room screams of plots, and schemes. The queen sits flanked by her spy, and her gaze disdainfully upon a gray-bearded general whose scars have faded into the wrinkles on his forehead. Still the warrior holds himself as tall and strong as ever.
"The commander's armies have forced their way through the first lines, but our men have held them less than two days march past the border," responded the general.
"Hmmm," murmured the queen coolly. Her eyes flickered away from the bowing general to her son, where he stood stiffly.
"My son, you may be called to attend the front-lines, should these brazen southerners gain another day's hold," she announced silkily.
"The prisa has not yet woken. I will not leave her," Roan's voice was low and cold.
"Why do you care so much if she wakes?" murmured Echo, her voice low, in deference to the queen beside her.
He does not meet the eyes of the spy whose gaze is searching his. Ever assessing, ever in search of information whether she has a right to it, or not.
"If she is strong enough to bring honor to her blood, and to our nation, she will live, and if she dies, we will know she was not. Besides... there is always another nitblida," his mother assured him.
A gasp is cut off at the queen's right hand, and Echo's eyes flick at the sound, a predator scenting easy prey. His mother's pet, Roan ignores completely. The pout upon her face is familiar- Ontari has always been a sullen child, he sees no reason to believe she has grown from that.
"How many men were sent for Wanheda?" asked the crown prince dryly.
"Eleven, under my command," replied the general.
"And how many returned?" "Two, along with myself," replied the leader ever more reluctantly.
"Was Wanheda accompanied by a large unit?" asked Roan, pressing harder.
The general's face darkened further. He spits out- "One Trikru guard, his second, and hers, only, your highness,"
"Ah," murmured Roan after flicking a glance to his mother.
"You should have done the mission yourself, my son," laughedd the queen.
He barely restrained the snort. "I wasn't here, at your own orders," he reminded his mother curtly before turning back to the general.
"How many of your men fell before her guard?" "Three," disclosed the general angrily.
"So, a half dozen respected Azgeda warriors fell while transporting Wanheda from Trikru lands," summarized Roan. His brows raised above a twisted smirk.
"Hmm," the queen murmured noncommittally.
"We were set upon twice by Trikru who spotted us," the general bit out.
"Now Trikru's within our borders, following your scent," retorted Roan. The prince turned his back upon the general and stepped forward towards his mother's throne. "And how many have fled this fortress since learning who resides here against her will?"
"At least five guards, and more than a dozen servants, perhaps fifty residents," answered Echo instead. It wasn't as if the queen bothered with such paltry concerns.
"Traitors, and cowards," dismissed Nia. "How long exactly do you believe you can hold Wanheda unwillingly?" asked Roan grimly.
"Long enough," murmured Nia, a smirk growing wide upon her aged face.
"Flaying the skin from her back will teach her not respect. Only to be more sly in her defiance." gritted out Roan as his parting words as he stormed from his mother's presence.
She does not order her guards to force him to a halt- it's the nearest they'll get to an agreement.
It is another five days of the dim, warm room. The whole suite smelt overwhelmingly of the remedies being poured slowly down her throat. For these, she must be held up for it. These days are taken up by Seiku and Roan arranging her limp form at the healer's commands. Flat on her stomach to tend to her back, but curved marginally upon her side to let her damaged leg rest afterward. Turned, and lifted, and adjusted this way and that to leave room for her wounds to be tended. Too many remedies to count are prepared right in the room, under Roan's observance. They coat her body, and diffuse through the very air kept which is kept contained by tightly closed windows, and doors. The five days of broth dripped into her mouth, of lifting her up and rubbing her throat to keep her from choking on the very things sustaining her. Water-skins filled with melting snow and ice wrapped in a thin blanket are kept at that bruised, swollen knee, night and day. It's taking well over a dozen servants to keep up with the never-ending orders streaming from Remy's mouth.
On a pallet on the floor beside her, the healer sleeps periodically. She never strays far, and Roan remains at her side. The great wanheda cries without sound as she's cared for. Whether he's praying for a miraculous recovery or merciful death for the wretched creature even he doesn't know anymore.
"Well?" he demands of the healer, yet again, as she leans back from yet another attempt to work her craft. Wiping her hands clean, oh so thoroughly, the healer scoffs at him.
"The infection is strong, and she weakens every day that she goes without waking," pronounces the healer flatly.
"Will she walk?" demands Roan relentlessly.
"She might not even wake, much less walk, your highness," said Remy, "If she lives... her leg... it'll never be the same. She'll walk, but will she fight? She won't stay alive long here if not."
"They went too far," acknowledged Roan, averting his face.
Finally, her eyes begin to hint at opening, mere flickers at first, and the healer says she is only dreaming. Still, she prods Roan to fetch someone to wait with the prisa if he must depart before she returns. As if he could leave her defenseless, and alone. As if he could walk away at all.
Whining bursts through his uneasy slumber. With it, Roan wakes. The hounds remain huddled near the fire, yet their heads are up and pointed to him. Quick glances around and focused listening brings no answers as to why they woke him though.. until Roan looks to the bed.
The light is too dim, and the angle too odd for him to tell if her eyes have opened, but Clarke's golden head is turned towards him.
"Roan," she croaks, and he is reminded of that last word whimpered as he carried her from hell.
She's survived it.
But what is left of the Wanheda, fierce and unconquerable, that she once was now that she's made it through? The tribulations are simply ceased for now. It was only the first trial for her now that she is in Azgeda.
"I came as soon as I heard," he croaked, throat tight and the words sticking.
Another whine is the only answer, and it takes yet another for him to realize it's her. She's trying to move, and he draws nearer. Urges her to still.
The mantle of Wanheda stripped away. The blankets of his bed came only to just below the small of her back, and from there emerged a swath of pale linen cloth, bandaged tightly up to her shoulders. At the foot of the bed, the healer's pallet lay neat and empty. Opposite Roan's own pallet at her left side, were tables, and buckets, and scores of supplies that Remy had commandeered for the prisa's sake.
The queen had been tellingly silent throughout their endeavors.
"As soon as I heard you were here, I turned around. I didn't know... I didn't even believe it when I heard, but I... I had to know."
This close he could see the dull gleam of her eyes. His hand is gentle as it brushes her forehead, and her eyes sweep closed again. Her skin is cool. "Finally," he whispers, "your fever broke,"
"Charlotte?" she begged, her hands curling tight near the pillow her head still weighed against.
"Alive. Unharmed. Just on the other side of this floor. Unhappy, but nearby." Roan reported firmly.
"What day is it? How long have I been here?" her voice is faint and cracking, and Roan thinks of the days without water. He crosses to the other side of her bed for water and returns with it in haste. Helps her sip at it, slow and messy, but she's awake. Drinking. Speaking... Roan dabs at the spilled water, hesitant now that she's awake for such attention. Finally, she whispered a demand for an answer... not distracted from her question.
"It's been eight days since I returned. According to the queen, it had been sixdays since your arrival then, and it probably took five days to bring you here."
"I've been away..." Clarke's voice died away as she added it up.
"Nineteen days, give or take one or two at most," Roan confirmed, his own voice somber.
"What's happened? My people?"
Sighing, Roan leaned against the bed frame to look down upon her closely.
"You've slept through the beginning of a war, prisa. The commander's army is only three days march from here, but they're being held back there."
"No!" Clarke cried, scrambling upwards, trying to find her feet, but then sobbing out as at the unmistakable snap of too-tight stitches giving.
Roan brought both hands to bear upon her shoulders. Leaning his weight onto her, he pinned her to the bed, pressing deeper as she tried pitifully to throw him off. The curses she threw were muffled by the pillows her face now pressed into.
Not until she fell limp and quiet again, snuffling bitterly into the damp pillow, that he cautiously eased off her.
He took a quick step back, awaiting her temper, but cringing at the sight he met.
The bandages across her upper back were already spotted black.
"The healer, she only stepped away to check on her daughters- I'll fetch her-" he promised, turning to go.
"No!" Clarke cried. "Don't you dare go!"
"I will return, prisa. Your back- it's-"
"I know! I know exactly what your mother did to me, but you- you were supposed to be... you swore it!" she accused.
Each bitter accusation caused her body to heave with the effort, and the black splotches were blossoming.
"I swore, my blood to yours, and I do not forget it-" he murmured.
"Tell me! The truth! Damn you, the truth! "Lexa, or your mother... Who's side are you on?" she croaked.
Sinking to his knee at the head of her side of the bed, Roan angled himself so that she could see his face without raising her head. With her arms spread slightly, her hands rested near the pillows where she laid her head, turned towards him. Lifting one of those small, bruised hands in his own, Roan eyed the broken nails and considered the strength she had fought with.
His whole focus was narrowed down to her face, and Clarke blinked away from the intensity.
The scars that marked him as Azgeda appeared to be etched deeper into his flesh than she remembered. All that time in the Skybox, her memories of him had softened. Drowned by a madwoman as he fought to preserve the human race.
"Yours," Roan vowed.
