Summary
Tortured Arthur faces physical and emotional devastation as his captors promise more to come.
Chapter 59 The Day After
Arthur's eyes snapped open, his body quaking uncontrollably as a scream died in his throat – phantom flames still searing his flesh, each breath a battle against smoke that no longer filled his lungs. His trembling hands moved frantically over clothes and hair, mind refusing to believe they remained intact. Yet they did remain whole, his skin uncharred – though pain radiated through every nerve, his throat raw as though he'd truly inhaled the fire's breath. Alive, but marked by the inferno's ghost.
Even as he forced his hands steady, willed his breathing to slow, the experience struck deep and hard – fire licking up his legs, engulfing his torso, his clothes melting into his skin. Flames slapped his face, scorched his eyes, seared his throat with each desperate gasp, while faces writhed in the conflagration around him, their agony mingling with his own. Death's embrace more real than any nightmare could conjure – he'd died upon that pyre. What in God's name had they done to him?
Arthur shook his head, trying to clear the lingering fog. Real or illusion, his body remembered every moment – the horror and blood and death conjured into brutal life before his eyes. The truth crystallized with terrible clarity: they had weaponized memory itself, turning the stolen artifacts into instruments of torture. The realization hollowed him from within as the question formed: What death would they force him to endure next?
His ears caught the snap and hiss of a fire, his vision tracking shadows along the cavern walls, warmth seeping through his feet. Arthur raised his hands to his face – unbound now, though his wrists still stung from the bite of rock. The animal hide beneath him offered little comfort as he studied his palms – deep red crescents marked where his nails had dug in during the torment. His fingers ached from clenching, still stiff from their desperate grip on life itself.
His gaze fell to his wrists, where strips of skin hung loose over raw flesh – battle scars from a fight he had no hope of winning. The ghost of unyielding stone cuffs sent fresh shivers through him. Arthur buried the discomfort beneath years of warrior's discipline, though a deeper truth gnawed at him: against such power, even his trained defenses might prove as fragile as his flesh. What use was a warrior's strength against enemies who could turn his mind against itself?
Arthur cupped his aching hands together, working life back into stiff fingers. The gentle massage mocked his efforts, like pressing feathers against a sword wound. His shoulders ached, his back a map of fire where he'd pressed and writhed against the stone slab. His muscles tensed at every movement, his bare feet absorbing the small comfort of warmth from the firepit beyond the bars.
Prison. Captive. The words lodged like poison in his mind. Not just any prisoner – a king in a cage, where they would keep him until death tired of its torment.
The ground's chill seeped through the meager bedding as he tried to find a less painful position, every movement a new torment. His throat hurt from screaming, each swallow rough as sand. He'd never heard such sounds torn from his own lips before – not in battle, not under the blade. Arthur turned his head into the shadows, as if he could hide from the echo of those cries.
A glint of clay caught his eye – a bowl and cup placed just beyond reach, like a taunt. His body howled for water, yet denied him the strength to claim it. The simple act of rolling over and pushing himself onto his elbows sent waves of pain through overtaxed muscles, but he managed to ease himself to his knees – though not with any grace befitting a king.
He paused there, catching his breath, one hand scrubbing across his chin. The rough stubble of a day's growth reminded him of how long he'd been here, how much had changed in so short a time. His hand dropped away, steadying himself against the ground.
The cup and bowl waited, taunting him with their distance. Rising sent tremors through his limbs, but Arthur made his way to the cell door instead—his first duty to perform. He gripped the handle, his fingers finding only solid iron – unforgiving hinges, an impenetrable lock, and bars that disappeared seamlessly into the stone floor, as permanent as the rock walls around him.
The defeat drove his thirst deeper as he turned to the water. His hand was steadier than he expected when he grasped the cup, though the simple act of bending and then bringing it to his lips sent the room spinning. Leaning against the bars, the water was cool on his tongue, refreshing for the brief moment before a tickling cough rose in his throat. Arthur wiped away dribble and dried blood at the corner of his mouth – Killian's only mark upon him.
Killian. His name conjured images of calculated fury, of a man who'd fashioned revenge into an art. Now Arthur stood trapped, awaiting whatever torment his captor deemed fitting for past sins.
Was any man truly deserving of such torment? Arthur wondered, bracing himself against the solid bars, the cup forgotten in his hand. When he was burning on the pyre, through the roar of flames and his own screams, harsh words had pierced his consciousness: …not as pure and noble as he appears.
Neither pure nor noble. The accusation rang true, already carved into his soul by years of following his father's justice. Arthur squeezed his eyes shut but snapped them open as faces materialized in the darkness – faces of those he'd condemned. His victims – though he'd never allowed himself to name them as such.
The memories set him pacing, each turn heightening his awareness of confinement, each step leaching warmth from his body. For years, he'd seen only traitors to the crown, threats to be eliminated with swift justice. Until that first command at fourteen – when children's cries echoed up from a well's depths, and a young prince learned the true cost of unquestioned loyalty. He'd emptied his stomach over his horse's side that day, but it didn't wash away the guilt. Those screams had followed him into dreams ever since, a reminder that still woke him in cold sweats.
The chill crept deeper as he paced, seeping into his bones as much as his conscience. Over time, he'd challenged his father's tactics – questioned the execution orders, the denial of trials, the slaughter of women and children. The response never varied: 'no quarter.' Each protest earned only his father's wrath and a dismissal from the king's presence.
Arthur's free hand clenched around the bars until his knuckles whitened. These torments, these cruel judgments – how could he not rightly accept them? Each moment of agony served as payment for his transgressions, rendered in blood and pain. Yet how many deaths would it take? The chopping block, the gallows, the well – would he experience them all before his debt was paid?
Bitterness rose. Dare he now lay a portion of these sins at his father's feet? His own birth – steeped in magic and marked by his mother's death – had set the king's hatred ablaze, spawning decades of bloodshed that led inexorably to these moments of final reckoning. The thought tasted of ash in his mouth. Those executions, those battles – he'd wielded the blade himself, led the charge at his king's command. No father's orders, not even grief-driven vengeance, could wash that blood from his hands.
Arthur slammed the cup against the bars, precious water spattering like tears across stone. The cup clattered forgotten to the ground. His studies of magic had stripped away the last of his illusions about the Purge. Merlin and Excalibur had forced him to see what he'd refused to acknowledge: innocents slaughtered by the king's men and his own hand. His father's despair may have lit the pyre, but he had fed its flames willingly enough. Now death would claim him once for each soul they'd condemned – Killian had made that much clear.
Would God's mercy extend even to him? The question haunted Arthur as the inevitability of more torture pressed in on him. This wasn't the familiar fear of battle he'd learned to master through years of training – this terror ran deeper, striking at his very soul, testing the limits of his warrior's discipline in ways no physical combat ever had. His gaze drifted across his prison, taking in each cruel detail.
He pushed away from the bars, scrubbed his forehead, felt his feet in the spilt water. The clay bowl of porridge waited, as cold and uninviting as the stone beneath him. He ignored it, his stomach turning at the mere thought of food. His gaze caught something else in the torchlight – scattered around the base of the stone slab where they'd bound him. He edged to the other side of the cage, his chest tightening.
Guinevere's flowers, torn from his wrist during his torture, crushed under foot. Those sweet moments of her weaving the garland now tainted by their cruelty. And with that came another, Killian's words slicing through his thoughts, sharper than any blade: "Your queen is dead."
"Guinevere..." Her name was a prayer on his lips, bittersweet to his hearing, and when he closed his eyes seeking her face, only the twisted visages of burning victims greeted him. He snapped them open – the dead unwilling to release their hold on him.
Think only of her, he commanded himself. His gaze drifted to the twin cage beside his own, its emptiness both wound and blessing. A bitter gratitude coiled in his chest – her death at Mordred's hand, swift and clean, now seemed a mercy compared to what Killian had planned for her. The thought sickened him even as it brought a horrible relief. Better this way than to hear her screams echo off the cavern walls… or her suffering through his….
A strange numbness crept through him – burning lids betrayed him, tears falling unchecked in the fire light. Every attempt to picture Guinevere's face yielded only fleeting glimpses before visions of the dead stole them away. For brief moments, he could grasp the thickness of her hair, the softness of her skin, the way their bodies fit together, but something dark snatched at these images, twisting them into horror. Her sparkling hazel eyes, her gentle smile appeared and vanished like smoke, as shadows of flame and steel denied him even these simple joys. His fist pressed against his mouth, fighting to contain emotions he couldn't afford to release.
Arthur staggered back to the furs, legs trembling against his will, teeth chattering against the chill. He wrapped his arms around him. The losses mounted like stones upon his chest – his queen, his freedom, his very self. Even now, the reality of his capture seemed more nightmare than truth.
"Merlin…" The name came out as vapor in the freezing air. His closest friend – the only man he'd truly called brother – wrenched from him like everything else. Images flashed like lightning – that glint in his eyes, the familiar grin, the unwavering loyalty even when Arthur had been blind to it, wisdom masked by jest. All reduced to ash and accusation.
His most precious treasures: Guinevere, his heart's light, extinguished by the blade; Merlin, his soul's compass, consumed by flames; and Camelot, his life's purpose, now spiraling into shadow. The first tendrils of despair wound through him as the magnitude of utter loss began to sink in. His heart rebelled against the swiftness of it all – love and loyalty and duty stripped away between one breath and the next. Fresh tears fell, but he no longer had the strength to wipe them away.
Death—his final death—when it came, would be a mercy. At least then he would see them again.
As he settled on the furs, sleep pulled at him with dark fingers, exhaustion finally claiming its due. But one last thought pierced through the devouring shadows: How did they know about a private picnic? So few had been trusted with that secret. Who, then, had betrayed them…?
"Good morning, your majesty."
Sleep's tentative grasp loosened as footsteps echoed through the chamber, the words pulling him from fitful dreams of fire and betrayal. Arthur forced heavy lids open, arms still crossed protectively over his chest, hand tucked under them. He stirred atop the furs, but even that slight movement sent protest through every muscle. A figure approached – not Killian this time, but another man whose gaze raked over him like winter frost.
"Welcome back." The man's voice carried an unsettling note of fascination and a kind of congeniality he had not earned.
Arthur's parched lips cracked as he spoke from where he lay, the water he'd wasted now a bitter regret. "Who are you?"
"Call me Dodd." The man matched Arthur in height and build, but there any similarity ended. Flowing silver hair and mercury-grey eyes marked him as something other – whether by birth or magic, Arthur couldn't tell.
"You should know that I'm rather sore that Killian started without me." Dodd's satin tunic and polished boots, vibrant against the dungeon's gloom, spoke of high-born, as did his cultured tone. Everything about him stood in stark opposition to Killian's weathered warrior presence and Mordred's humble druidic culture. His manner was that of old friends meeting for wine, not torturer addressing victim.
Three of them now – each bringing their own brand of torment to bear. But this man…a smile played at the corners of Dodd's mouth, and Arthur turned his face back to the ceiling's rough stone where firelight cast restless shadows.
"I'm the one who discovered your plans for a private picnic. Apologies for ruining." His laugh scraped against Arthur's ears, the mere mention sending a fresh wave of anguish through him – his precious moments with Guinevere tainted by these men.
"You should eat," he encouraged. The untouched porridge lay neglected beside the furs, Arthur having twice forced himself to try the gray mush only to have his stomach revolt. He glanced at it with deepening loathing. "Regain your strength – your stamina."
"Why?" Arthur bit out. "So that it takes me longer to die for your pleasure?"
"Yes." The simple response stilled something in Arthur, though he schooled his features against the brutal honesty. "Killian insisted we wait until morning before continuing. Something about letting each death..." Dodd's lips pursed with pleasure. "...fully burrow in your mind."
Arthur met his gaze, this time refusing to look away as Dodd studied him with predatory satisfaction. The man seemed to savor each detail, cataloguing what he saw – Arthur's once-fine red linen shirt now a mockery of royal garments, one shoulder torn and sleeves shredded from the rock cuffs. Even without a mirror, Arthur knew his state served their purpose to humiliate him – hair disheveled, face smudged, exposed skin pink beneath the tatters of cloth.
The makeshift bandages peeking from his wrists and ankles drew Dodd's attention next. Arthur fought the urge to hide this small evidence of self-preservation from his captor's scrutiny. He'd worked by firelight to tear the strips from his shirt, fingers clumsy with cold and pain as he wrapped his injuries. These scant bindings were worth the effort, offering little protection, but were all that remained of his dignity – along with his refusal to cower beneath this man's gaze.
"Your courage is legendary across the realms, Arthur." The words slithered from Dodd's mouth like serpents masked in silk. Arthur let his silence speak, his thoughts turning to battlefields where courage had meant something noble, not this perverse game of torment and mind-breaking.
"Hold on to it, your majesty. You'll need your mettle to withstand the fullness of the apparatus." The name alone sent phantom flames crawling across Arthur's skin, but he forced himself to meet Dodd's gaze. Whatever horrors awaited in that device, he would not give this man the satisfaction of seeing him break.
"You know, I truly am vexed at Killian," Dodd repeated, still holding Arthur spellbound, his cultured tone slipping just slightly, a nobleman's mask showing its first crack. "I wanted the honor of first blood from Camelot's golden king. Instead, he started without me—like some common brute lacking finesse." Each word emerged more clipped than the last, his refined bearing warring with rising anger. "I had such artful plans for your first night with us." He prowled outside the cage, a predator ready to pounce, all pretense of nobility falling away and revealing something feral.
"It's not your fault, Arthur, but I guess I'll still have to take it out on you anyway." The casual cruelty in Dodd's voice reminded Arthur of how his father would discuss executions over breakfast. His father, now beyond their reach, leaving him alone to suffer for their shared sins. "Eat up. You'll need it for the gallows."
The word "gallows" dropped in Arthur's gut like lead – a fresh death to experience, another torment to endure. His hands might have trembled where they were tucked, but he forced them still. His only reaction was a blink and cinched jaw, but that was enough for Dodd's lips to curl into a smile. "I'll see you in an hour."
The man turned to leave, but then faced the cage again. "Oh, and try to stay warm. We wouldn't want you to die from cold before we've had our fill." The false concern drained from Dodd's eyes, leaving only dark purpose. As his footsteps faded into shadow, only the crackling fire and Arthur's uneven breathing remained.
Unfurling his arms, Arthur's fingers traced the makeshift bandages – a meager shield against what was to come, yet it was all he had left to him now. That, and the stubborn pride bred into his bones. One hour. Just one hour before the next horror began. Let them have his flesh; Guinevere's memory burned brighter than their flames ever could, and as long as she lived in his heart, they could never truly take her from him.