• PM To Join • The Treachery of Caius Gawyne, Part 1

[Caius Gawyne]

Zi'da 90, 717

It was dark. The arse-end of Zi’da seemed to eagerly anticipate the last of the sun and the utter darkness of Cylus, which felt oddly appropriate for the young Gawyne. Tomorrow, he was supposed to die. Of natural causes, supposedly, but considering he felt in excellent health, the whispers of prophecy that had trickled into his veins from Ziell himself over all the arcs of his life felt as though they were fucking lying. Even the sarding torchlight didn't feel like stretching far enough in the chill that hung greedily in the air, stealing breath while fat snowflakes clung to his cloak as he passed through the doors and into the dungeon proper. Everyone nodded their familiar nods and Caius desperately tried his best not to make eye contact at all, nervously brushing past the guards and quickening his step past the hanging cages—he knew all their twisted faces by now, anyway, every lanky limb, every misshapen form that made sure to moan louder whenever someone who even remotely resembled the living walked past had been etched into his ridiculously accurate memory to haunt him.

He also knew where not to step.

Not everyone did.

It was the stench, really, every fucking time that got him, that tightened his chest and smacked him with an unavoidable nausea, throat burning when the scents of offal and unwashed flesh clawed at his eyes and crawled into his nostrils. There were things the northern noble felt as though he may, in time, grow used to. Then, there were things he knew he never would.

The narrow staircase walls brushed his shoulders, tighter to-trial. Perhaps he was wearing too many layers, though that was unlikely. Since Pythera’s attack, he surely hadn’t pushed his training enough to make that much of a personal difference in terms of strength, either. The tightness was suffocating, and every step felt slower. Down the long stairs, torch in his hand sputtering and angry as if it simply had no will or not enough fuel, refusing to fully illuminate the familiar downward spiral. The inhuman noises grew louder, somewhat expected now though Caius had yet to dare ask what was behind some of those doors in the hallway. Would he ever? Did he ever want to see?

No, he sarding well did not.

He'd seen just enough so far at the beck and call of the Lord Inquisitor that to be here alone, to find the keys at his belt, to know where he was going was strange but not strange enough. No guards had escorted him this far, not even the gruff executioner with his ridiculous hood. Whoever came up with that sort of fashion device was surely a drunk commoner. Bogs—it wasn’t as if it made anything any scarier anyway. What could one possibly do to make anything about this place worse by now?

The young Gawyne was sure he wasn’t made of the right sorts of things to get used to the dungeon, that he hadn't been bred an emotionless monster. He was afraid he'd never really grow callous enough to handle to this part of this Fates-be-damned mage business, especially considering he'd yet to be convinced that magic was even worth this sort of destructive effort. What if even the boy king himself was fucking wrong?

He was asked to be the pretty face, the noble legitimacy, the certificate of authentication ... and that, that he could do. The rest? Caius Gawyne, judge? Ridiculous.

Not that anyone who’d made it into these rooms needed judgement: they’d been sentenced already. The first time he’d ever been down here, he’d been invited to ask questions of the accused and found himself with little to say. What kind of conversation was there to be made with the dead, anyway? The dying didn't need questions. Sometimes, they didn't even want answers. Did Cauis?

No. Not anymore. He just didn't want to think about it, if only because when he did, he just saw her face anyway. Not his family's. Not his sister's, specifically. Not his friends. Not his professors. Not even Pythera's sneering, wicked visage as her dagger tore its way into his shoulder with every intention of ending him. No. Darcyanna's. He was an idiot for loving her, for letting her love him, not knowing what tomorrow, what his last day, would ever bring. He'd hurt her enough and yet—and yet—he couldn't help himself—

Damn it.

❦

[Zip]

There were far too many keys, and Caius grumbled at all of them, shifting them through ink-stained fingers of his free hand even as the warmth of his coat had begun to become far too oppressive in the dank, still, disgusting air this far beneath the dungeon proper. He’d never walked anyone up alone before. He felt as though this was not proper procedure. Maybe he was too early, though his usual habit was to be far too sarding late.

The door should have been heavier, the northern noble shoving it with his good shoulder and a grunt while he tucked the keys away and warily eyed the torch in his hand. He’d been fooled once, lulled by blissful ignorance and innocent trust. He knew better now—defiers could bend the elements to their will, though they certainly wouldn’t spin it that way. The fickle, meager flames remained as they’d been since he plucked the torch from the sconce upstairs, so that was assuring. Holding the flame aloft and clearing his throat, Caius let the weak glow sweep the room as he rest his free hand on the hilt of the saber on his hip,

“Well—” The northern noble never really knew what to say to the condemned, to be honest. It was always an awkward moment to make conversation.

The Order’s crusade against the bane of magic was going strong. They’d caught defiers; they’d caught mages that crossed great distances through portals and walked the air as if it were land; they’d caught beasts who could dive deep into some eldritch well of power inside them and emerge with forms both big and wretched.

But this was the inquisition’s first Etherist.

“Caius…” The voice was hoarse, soft, barely recognizable, but the parts that were dug into him like volareon’s teeth. The Lord Inquisitor had said that an Etherist had the power to steal names from memory, to find faces in them and wear it as their own. He’d said that of all the myriad number of wretched magics out there, Transmutation was the one chief threat to the sovereignty of Rynmere. Above all, he told Caius not to waver at whatever he found down there.

“Caius… my Lord Gawyne…” The voice was a little stronger now, a little surer now. “Caius,” She made a noise that couldn’t decide whether it was gasp or a sob. “You came to save me. Thank the Fates, you came to get me out of here.”

The hair color was all wrong, what little of her bowed head he could see spoke of a softer structure, and the horrible, restrictive attire that kept her tied up told nothing of her figure, but that voice—

More magic, no doubt.

[Caius Gawyne]

“Came to what? No, of course I didn’t. Nice of some sarding guard to slip my name. Title, too? Bastards. Someone’s getting a pay cut.” Uncomfortable with the familiar tone and the softer use of his name, he chose to ignore it, finding the sconce in the wall for the torch so that he could have both hands free even as a wave of nausea swept him at all of his memories from the rooms he’d had glimpses of like this one, “I don’t have any say in what happens from here. I’m no judge to-trial, just escort. Let’s go.”

Maybe that wasn’t entirely true, but it sounded better than any alternatives—

That was definitely a sob.

“Caius.” She tried to move forward, her hands straining to find any part of him, but the huge, ungainly attire bound her to the floor with huge, ribbon-like fabrics. All things considered, she looked like a some off-color jellyfish with the whole thing. “Caius, s-stop joking around. You have to get us out of here! I n-need to tell Oliver I’m okay. I need him to—” The more worked up she got, the more familiarity bled into her voice. “I can’t. I can’t. I need help, Caius.”

“Stop already. I’ve been warned to ignore you.” Caius wasn’t buying it. Not really. Not yet. Well, maybe a little. No one was really supposed to have much of their magical powers down here anyway, if any, at least that was the promise. Right? That worked every time. Well, no. What was trustworthy again? Safety. Surely. His safety.

Scowling because there were simply things that couldn’t be true, he moved instead to make the woman mobile, with only a hint of hesitance. She knew a bit much for his conscience—names, really—but his ignorance allowed him his own fantasies about the kinds of things that magic could make possible. And yet, everything was just odd enough to tug at his thoughts in a direction he’d never before actually considered, the trickle of molten lead in the cavity of his chest was a feeling of doubt he wasn’t at all comfortable with, but when he actually lifted the prisoner from the ground, what doubt he’d felt was flattened like pied type caught in the press,

"Darcyanna—why are you down here? No—by the Seven—this is a fucking strange magic. It's not really you. Right? Darcy, you're not a mage. I would know by now—" It couldn't be. So he continued to deny it, but if it was, the natural cause of his death made sense all of a sudden. Fire coursed through his veins and he felt suddenly dizzy, chest tight and lungs refusing to function as thoughts raced through his mind, trying desperately to piece together every experience he'd shared with the delicate pianist for nearly an entire season.

Had there been something he'd missed?

No. Nothing.

He'd savored every bit, every bleeding trill. He knew what to look for; he’d been taught what to pay attention to. All mages had something that made them different.

This was surely a lie. A magic he didn't yet understand or hadn’t yet been told about,

"—I don't believe you. Where is my birth trial?" He didn't ask when. She would know the question if it was truly Darcy. Her and one other person besides himself. His ink-stained fingers curled into the woman's bicep more tightly than necessary and panic rang in his ears above the roaring of his pulse. This was a lie.

“Caius,” The betrayal in her voice, her eyes, in the way her proverbial rose of a body wilted at his doubt tore into him. The fire inside his veins flooded his chest and an inferno cooked his heart… but she had not answered the question. “Caius, it’s me. It’s sarding me. It’s—” She took a deep breath, and the effort it took her to even achieve something so simple killed him… but she had not answered the question. “They drugged me,” she said in a way that could only mean that it was all her fault. “They drugged me. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. They drugged me and I didn’t do it.”[/b] She reached for him, for his hand, but her hand shook and fell, and she didn’t even have the strength left for that.

“I didn’t mean to keep it from you. I didn’t ever mean to keep it from you, Caius.” She was crying now, huge ugly sobs that shook her entire body, tears streaming down from a face that wasn’t Darcy, and yet somehow so undeniably was. “I was 12 when Pythera got that… that man to put it inside me. I didn’t have a choice...” The hand came up again, and it seemed grief gave her just enough power to fight the starvation, the thirst, the isolation that kept her weak, that kept her from grabbing onto his arm with the desperate, pleading grip of someone with nothing to lose.

The northern noble watched her but was loath to touch her, panic crawling under his too-warm skin and a fear that he’d never felt before digging into his chest, stabbing into his left shoulder where Valkyr had missed.

“Caius, I’m not a mage. You have to tell them I’m not a mage. I’ve never used it. I’ve never, ever used it and you h-have to tell them. Tell Oliver I’m okay. Tell… Fates, what’s going to happen to the name of the Rose? I’m not Alistair. I’m not. Please I’m not. I’m not. I’m—” An uncomfortably long coughing fit ceased her words, forcing her to double over and try to heave out a meal she didn’t have inside her.

It killed him to see her like this, and yet he still doubted.

“Of course Darcy’s not, but you are. Whoever you may be.”

❦

[Zip]

But she didn’t answer the question.

He held onto those 6 words like a mantra. It was the only thing keeping him from holding her tight to his chest and whispering all the love and assurance and oaths that they would get out of this place and burn the Mantises and Pythera and everyone who would ever hurt her to the ground with the fire searing his chest.

“Not you,” she finally said, looking up at him. “Please not you. Don’t look at me like that…. Like I’m a mess needing to be fixed. Like I’m disgusting. Don’t. I… We escaped Anthea Tulburn’s party together.” She smiled. She smiled, and there was a rebellion to it that banished but for a moment the mantle of prisoner and brought back the Ivory Rose.... only for her to wilt again into the sad, tear-streaked shadow of a woman. Of a mage that took her voice and stole the barebones of their memories and regurgitated them like it was nothing, he had to feebly remind himself.

“We’ve been through more since then. Anyone could have seen Darcy and I at that sarding party. You’ll have to try harder than that.” Caius snickered, but his chest ached. He wanted to curl ink-stained fingers into the scar that itched madly, but instead, his hands hung uselessly at his sides. There wasn’t a single part of him that wanted the woman before him to be Darcyanna Venora, for his future Gawyne to be a mage. Never. He’d leave the Kingdom with her before he’d ever see her here waiting for her end on the pyre.

“You promised me you would hunt my sister down and—” Another deep breath, another pained shudder, each one seeming to steal a bit more life from her. If she kept going, she might not even make it to the pyre.

“I’ve promised a lot of things, yes.”

“You told me when you’re going to die. A-an old Gawyne thing, yeah? The date is, uh. The date is—”

“You’d know it if it was you, Darcy. Where. Not when. Where is my birth trial? You’d fucking know. Enough playing. Let’s go.”

Despair slowly crept up her face as it. Despair of knowing something, but absolutely not being able to recall it at the most crucial time. She began banging on the sides of her head, as if trying to hurt the answer back into herself. “I know it, Caius! I know it. Just—” Her grip around his hand tightened. “Please just give me...Give me a bit of time. I know it, I know it, please, I know it. I can prove it to you.”

But she didn’t answer the question.

“Not when, sard it all. Where.” The young Gawyne hissed, shoving away the insidious feelings of attachment that even the faintest hints of familiarity had managed to draw from him, denying whatever connection he desperately wanted to feel and turning them both roughly toward the door, “You’re lying. No more delaying the inevitable with a few last tricks. Come on. We’ve wasted enough time with this ridiculous conversation.”

When he’d first told her, a handful of ten-trials ago, she’d been so angry. There was no forgetting the date his lineage-granted prophetic gift had given, no matter how incredulous Darcy had been when he talked of Immortals and their powers. Caius was adamant now, burying with great difficulty the strange confusion, the way part of him longed for this woman to both be Darcy and also not.

She wasn’t.

But she could be.

Anyone could be a mage, really. Family. Friends. Future wives—no. He was certain of one thing, if nothing else.

Out into the hall he led them both, pausing to reach for the torch which crackled to life at his touch, flaring brighter than it had previously with the force which he tugged it free from the wall. More dragging than leading, jaw clenched and determined to ignore any more words from the creature, telling himself over and over again the woman he led toward the narrow staircase wasn’t Darcyanna and that his delicate pianist was safely back home—their scandalous, lovely home in mid-town that Pythera had yet to find and his parents didn’t have a sarding clue about—instead of in this terrible place. He would have known. He would have figured it out by now, far too familiar with the blonde Venora to have missed the signs of magery. Right? Surely.

Caius passed all the other doors in the hall, their noises louder, more bizarre, more desperate than when he’d passed alone and then pressed the woman ahead of him up the stairs, torch held high above his head, “Go on.”

[Caius Gawyne]

“Umbridge!” she exclaimed, all but spinning around to face him. She exclaimed it as if it was the most important thing in her life - and it was. “It’s Umbridge! You were born in Umbridge!” Her hands found his hand, pleading and desperate and agonizingly aware that this was it, this was the last step between life and oblivion. “I sarding answered your question, Caius! I’m real. Let me out—”

“No, that’s not the question. You’re not sarding listening. I didn’t ask where I was born.” He hissed, confused, afraid, and annoyed that this woman who now held his hands persisted that she was his delicate pianist when she clearly wasn’t. Right? She wasn’t. Maybe. She could be. But then, if she was, she wouldn’t be here. Because Darcy wasn’t a mage.

But if she had been? If she was? They would be here. In this place. Would the Lord Inquisitor make this Caius’ task? Would he have to stand just like this while his Winter Rose begged for her life? If she was a mage, really, just like this—his fingers curled tighter around the woman’s in desperate thought and yet also unthinking, grasping for something he felt but couldn’t see—if she was a mage, would he be able to do this to her? Would he do this had she stood accused? If he knew, where would they go? Would he hide her in Umbridge, in Warren’s End, far from everyone and live with the lie? How could he hide her and no one else? After all who’d burned before her? Would he really stand here in this dark stairwell like this with her pleading?

He’d promised to protect her.

Even from herself—

Fuck.

Wait. What was he doing again?

No.

By the Seven, no.

This wasn’t Darcy. This would never be Darcy. Darcy would have not only understood his question, but also the answer. She’d also have cried the date at him by now, aware of the pale ink tattoo on the inside of his left wrist—the answer to his question—and the date written there as a permanent reminder of his beginning. He knew his end, too. Tomorrow. Tomorrow … supposedly, but he refused to believe that as much as he refused to believe what was happening. This woman knew too much. Just enough. Not the right things and yet—and yet— it tipped the scales of his doubt and tugged at his insides, twisting his organs in knots with confusion. He was desperate to get his hand free from hers, shoving the both of them back up the stairs,

“No. Stop. You’re not Darcy. Enough.”

Caius had expected to march all the way up to the pyre.

Instead, as if by magic itself, the pyre came to them.

One moment the woman who could but should not be Darcy was arguing the case for her life, the next moment they were in the main square, Not-Darcy tied to a pole on a pyre of wood, Caius’ torch hand inexplicably raised to deliver the killing flame that would cleansed the poison from her condemned soul…. Or so the Lord Inquisitor went. They were surrounded by faceless men in hoods who offered no cheer or jeers or contempt towards Not-Darcy.

No, he could feel it. Their judgement was on Caius and Caius alone. This was the turning point. This was the proof of concept that he was an inquisitor of the Order of the Mantis, a true mage hunter committed to carving out the rot that had plagued Rynmere long before the Lotharro shapeshifter threw a door at the highest authority of the land itself.

His proverbial trial by fire as much as it was her literal one.

❦

[Zip]

“Caius!” The girl who could not have been Darcy struggled against the restrains tying her to the pole. “Caius! Don’t let them do this to me!”

The warmth of the torch in his hand spread across his face like the shame and fear that clawed at his insides, and for a heartbeat in the flickering of the flame, everything felt like the floor was being ripped from beneath his feet. His stomach lurched and his heart sank and he looked back to the pleading woman who knew his name but couldn’t have been who she claimed to be, no matter how the ruddy glow of fire twisted her features and made them familiar, perfect, real.

Really her.

"I'm sorry. No one else did this to you—" Caius' first words in far too many conversations with the blonde Venora, spoken out loud or not. He'd made yet another mistake, he could see it now, plain and clear on a pale, terrified face that he'd just wasted far too much time ignoring. He'd done this, all of it. Every fucking minute of it from that alley in the dark to Oliver in the garden, from standing in the Temple after midnight to groaning in his own blood in that carriage, from glowing in the Tulburn's pond to promising her everything he couldn't—his life. And here she was, Darcyanna, revealing that he hadn't been the only one lying.

One choice required another, and every choice had a consequence.

"It's been my fault the whole time."

He had to put his torch down to take her face in both his too-warm hands, familiar but not as it was, for her eyes didn't change color and everything felt foreign against his palms, but it didn't matter because he was sure he'd made the mistake. He'd destroyed everything. And so he did, setting the torch to the pyre before he took Darcy's face one last time, completely undisturbed by the threat to his person as flames licked hungrily upward with curls of thick, choking smoke—what was one day too soon? Fuck prophecy.

"I'm so sorry." Thumbs wiped tears and the young Gawyne's words were weighed down like so much cast off lead type, convinced now that he'd wasted so much time denying the truth before him.

This was it, the fiery sum of all of his mistakes—ignorance.

So there was nothing left to do but kiss her, to kiss her and pretend for a trill or two there were no flames.

And pretense became reality.

The flames spluttered and flickered, as if the weight of his passion, his regrets, his resolve were beating back against it, smothering it to earn this one final chance with the woman who should have been Lady Gwayne. ‘Darcy’ kissed back with all her might, licking messily at his lips like a woman savoring her last meal, and the heat around could do nothing to them.

He gasped as her nails raked over his neck. He felt that gasp turn into a moan as the nails clawed harder. He felt the moan turn into a tightening sensation as her hands wrapped around his neck and the kiss turned into something else, something too-entirely-violent:

A vicious bite.

Her mouth seized upon his upper lip with all the ferocity of a hunting hound smelling blood. Their lips parted… messily. ‘Darcy’ took a splatter of blood and a piece of lip as a souvenir.

Not Darcy now. Definitely not Darcy now.

“This,” The Zipper formerly known as Darcy said, his blood and his lips dripping down from her snarl of a mouth. She was a rose of a different kind, one that was more thorn than flower. “Is completely fuckin’ unacceptable, you daft cunt.”

Not the best way for either party to start a Nightmare in Emea.

To be continued ...

Part 2, the Nightmare, coming soon.

[Whisper]

Caius Gawyne

Awarded Points

15
These points can/cannot be spent in magic

Awarded Knowledge

N/A

Awarded Extras

Loot & Losses	Injuries
None	None
Fame	Devotion
None	None

[/color]

Zipper

Awarded Points

15
These points can/cannot be spent in magic

Awarded Knowledge

words

Awarded Extras

Loot & Losses	Injuries
None	None
Fame	Devotion
None	None

[/color]

Comments

This was really well written - I felt so drawn into the dream, much like I feel when I read a published book by one of my favourite authors!

If you have any questions, comments or criticism about your review, feel free to send me a PM and we can discuss it.
Thank ye.