Chapter Text
“I do wonder, sometimes,” the Lady Aranessa says, in the idle stillness of the night, “what if things were different.”
And somewhere, in some dark place, a shattered piece of something that used to reside in Occtis Tachonis begins to resonate, soft as butterfly wings.
For there might be a world, where House Royce stood with the Falconers.
Where the doors to Faerie did not close.
Where, through great sacrifice, impossible things were done.
Many worlds are possible. Many things are possible, for the right price.
In this particular world, Occtis Tachonis does not exist, because existing would be very dangerous for him. It was only by dim luck that he lives at all; he had been left with a servant, at a lesser holding, and she had fled with him before the Royce forces had descended.
So now he does not exist. Otto Stillen, an aspiring wizard, on the other hand, sleeps in the attic of the bookshop at which he works, saves his coin and learns what he can from hanging about bars where the real students of the Penteveral gather. Occasionally he thinks about applying for a scholarship, but that feels like it might attract too much attention.
So he keeps his head down, and joins the queues for the public lectures on occasion; he tithes as he should, milk and honey, and he learns to sing Falcon’s Victory when someone strikes up the chorus after the third round of drinks, and he absolutely does not let anyone know that the heroes that they speak of are the nightmares of his childhood.
Thjazi Fang, who commands not just shadows but a swarm of pixies that will tear your eyes out in your sleep. Lady Royce, who channelled the magic of pure Faerie to destroy Castle Tachonis, guarded by a knight enchanted to know neither pain nor fear nor mercy.
He does not know how much of which stories are true; although Dol-Makjar is a stronghold of the Falconers, he has taken a great deal of care to ensure that Otto is exceedingly unremarkable, a mere dabbler in the arcane, a common sight about the Penteveral, and not the sort of person who would be invited to anywhere a war hero would be.
Alas, it is Dol-Makjar, and everyone goes to the theatre. Even Occtis, who has finally run out of excuses not to, when the ticket was offered free.
“Oh!” one of his friends says, gazing up, delighted. “Thjazi Fang came.”
“It’s the premiere,” another says. “He always comes for the premieres. Look, the Lady too!”
Sure enough, on stage Thjazi Fang has come down to give his brother a swift embrace, laughing as Halandil Fang loudly reminds the audience that they should all behave and take their seats so the play can begin, shoving him in the direction of one of the box seats. Already waiting there, a woman seated, resplendent in green and gold, another, smaller, winged, barely visible at this distance, hovering just above her head, and an armoured man standing behind them.
Occtis has the terrible feeling the man in armour is looking at him. There’s no reason he should feel that way at all; he is crowded together, shoulder to shoulder, in the cheap seats, a nobody in a sea of nobodies, but the feeling persists. It persists through Thjazi Fang taking his seat, the pixie settling to his shoulder. Throughout the play, through death scenes and beautiful reunions and triumphant solos that echo off the painted walls of the Hallowed Round.
He tells himself he is imagining it. Goes for drinks with the others, afterwards, nurses the single cup he can afford and laughs on cue when everyone teases Ilez about her blatant crush on Shadia Fang.
Walks home.
Nearly makes it.
It’s not that he’s uncautious—there are thieves on the streets, sometimes, although most of the local pickpockets know by now he’s not really worth their time. It’s merely that between one breath and the next, some dark shadow throws him into a wall, a hand sheathed in metal pressing against his throat.
He knows who it is immediately—not that he would know the Royce knight by face, but the eyes are unnaturally bright in the night, a blank field of swirling green and gold that make the identity of his attacker more than clear. The man leans in like he’s searching for something. “Tachonis.” he says, in a rasping voice, grins, and then, as Occtis scrabbles for breath, trying to loosen the hand around his throat, pulls something else up with his other hand.
It’s a butterfly, Occtis thinks, confused, before the thing is set loose and immediately clamps itself over his mouth, muzzling him. Bad. Very Bad. Not that this was not already very bad, so possibly he should upgrade this to Extremely Bad. Is This How I Die? Bad.
But the knight does not unsheathe his sword. He merely picks Occtis up, unceremoniously, hoists him over one shoulder, and leaps, using the sharp points at the end of the gauntleted hand to find purchase in a wall, scrambling upwards—
—men should not be able to do that, Occtis thinks breathlessly, as they land on a roof and the knight begins sprinting, leaping across rooftops, but he has heard it said that the Lady Royce’s knight is not a man at all. Was, once, perhaps. Or was never at all.
Whatever he is, his grip is like steel. Occtis has little choice but to hope he doesn’t get dropped off a rooftop as they zig-zag across Dol-Makjar.
All too soon, his confusion as to where they are going is ended as the knight lands them on a beautiful balcony of stone, shoving the doors open with a shoulder and stomping into a small ante-room beyond, where he unceremoniously deposits Occtis on the floor.
In front of Thjazi Fang, who is completely naked, glass of drink in hand, and looks at this sight with a sigh of annoyance, raising his free hand to gesture at the knight. “Really? All of his will in the palm of your hand, and you still can’t teach him to knock?”
The knight does not respond. His head merely turns to the side, where after a short moment, the Lady Royce emerges from behind a door. She is not naked, Occtis notes, although that probably has little relevance to how screwed he is right now. “You know how Julien gets on the hunt, Thjazi. I at least made him wait until the play was done.”
“Tachonis.” The knight rasps again.
“Yes, dearling, excellent job. Not the one I was hoping you’d caught the scent of, but so be it.” The lady steps forward, scrutinizing him. “I don’t know this one, actually. Thjazi?”
Thjazi Fang takes a long swallow of his drink before he answers. “Looks too young to have fought, not that that would narrow it down. Tachonis always did breed like rats. Hold a sec, I have a spare—”
He wanders back into the room the lady had emerged from, returning with trousers on and holding in one hand an elaborate golden wrist-cuff. Occtis, in the meantime, has managed to at least put as much distance between himself and the knight as possible, even if that does mean wedging himself between a chair and the wall, and has taken stock of what is around him, none of it really helpful. The lady watches him, calmly. The knight watches him, utterly expressionless. Other than the door Thjazi had just come from, and the balcony, there don’t seem to be any other way out. The thing over his mouth does not feel like it will come loose without tearing flesh, and even then perhaps not at all, although he hasn’t dared to try with the lady watching him.
Thjazi Fang leans down, snatches his wrist, clamps the cuff around it and then releases the muzzle with a gesture, folding it by the wings as if it were paper and flicking it towards the knight, who silently catches it. “There we go. Now, who are you?”
As foolish as it is, he tries to tell his usual lies, but his tongue stills when he tries, bright pain at his wrist, forcing the truth out of his mouth. “Occtis Tachonis, eighth child of Primus Tachonis.”
Thjazi twists back around towards the Lady Royce. “Eighth. Where did the man even find the time to sink into the depths of depravity, do you think?”
Lady Royce laughs softly. “How did you get into the city? You must have avoided the checks at the gates somehow.”
The checks—oh. Occtis remembers those. “They—uh—they only check for sorcerers. I’m not—”
Thjazi guffaws, a cruel barking laugh. “Oh, bad luck for you lad, eh? Or good luck. You just made it far less likely that I’ll feed you to my lady’s hound.”
There’s a dog, too? Is all Occtis can think.
Lady Royce tuts. “Will you cease spreading those rumours? Julien does not eat my enemies, the thing with the heart was one time, and necessary to the casting, which you well know.”
Occtis is so confused, he almost forgets to be terrified. Thjazi stands, shrugs. “If you don’t have a use for this one, I’ve a project in mind.”
“Occtis Tachonis, you don’t know the location of your brother Ethrand, by any chance?” Lady Royce says, sweetly.
“I haven’t seen him in more than ten years.” Occtis answers. At least this one he doesn’t mind answering honestly. Ethrand was never exactly much of a brother to him.
The moment he says it, her gaze drifts away from him, disinterested. “All yours.” The Lady Royce tells her husband, turning on her heel. The knight, thankfully, also turns his too-bright gaze away from Occtis the moment she turns, heading to follow her.
Thjazi Fang shakes his head, grins at Occtis. “She gets so mad when I call him her hound, but he does shed, and I know she lets him sleep on the bed when I’m not about.”
Occtis only stares at him mutely. What can he say? What would get Thjazi Fang to let him go? Nothing, he suspects, and so he says nothing.
Thjazi Fang looks around, grabs what looks like an expensive vase, opens the balcony doors to tip the contents over the side, and plunks it down on the floor. “If you need to piss. Never liked it anyway. Sleep on one of the chairs, or the floor for all I care. You won’t like what happens if you try to leave this room, so don’t even bother.”
“Will you kill me?” Occtis finds the courage to say.
Another loud, harsh laugh. “Oh, no, Tachonis, not personally. Tearing my lady’s enemies apart at her command is one of the few things that brings joy to what’s left of Davinos, and who am I to deny a dog a bone?” Thjazi Fang’s teeth glitter bright in the dark room. “It was your father’s heart she fed him, by the way. Sleep tight.”
He does not sleep. Can’t, with all the images swirling around his mind, visions of the awful past and terrible, terrible futures. He barely remembers his father; Primus Tachonis had little interest in things that were not useful to him. He heard of his death only as rumours on the road, little detail beyond the fact that the Tachonis had fallen, no chance to risk asking more questions.
Now Thjazi Fang has left him with a bright and bloody image of how it might have happened.
As the morning light shines through the balcony, and Occtis lies on the floor, staring at the ceiling and listening for any clue to what is to come, the door swings open and a pixie flies through. “Huh.” she says. “There really is a Tachonis on the balcony. Thought he was joking.”
She leaves the door open when she flies back into the room. Occtis eyes it warily. That feels like too obvious a trap. With the door open, he can hear relatively normal noises from inside the room – dishes being moved around, light conversation—and smell fresh bread, warm meat.
They are having breakfast, he realises. Occtis is waiting here to find out by what means he will die, and Thjazi Fang is—eating toast?
The pixie flies back in, munching on a plum the size of her head, and settles on top of one of the chairs. “Thjazi says go in. We’re leaving soon.”
Despite her size, there is something fierce and sharp about the pixie. She’s armed, two blades at her side, and Occtis does not feel it would be wise to argue. Slowly, cautiously—and giving the pixie and her eye-gouging implements as a wide a berth as possible—he steps into the room.
It is a sitting room, which is indeed set up with a breakfast table, at which is seated Thjazi Fang and the Lady Royce. The knight, bizarrely, is seated at Lady Royce’s feet, out of his armour except for the one clawed gauntlet. As Occtis nudges further into the room, keeping as far away from this tableau as possible, she reaches down and offers him some tidbit from her fingers. Thjazi’s references to dogs, the night before, become suddenly much clearer. He tries not to look at the knight. That feels like inviting the knight to notice him again.
Thjazi Fang, for his part, tosses something at Occtis’ head without looking, which, after Occtis fumbles it and picks it up from the floor, appears to be a cranberry bun of some sort. “Eat.” Thjazi Fang says, and then when Occtis hesitates, “Or starve. I’m not fussed.”
He nibbles at the bun, silently, standing careful and still in the corner. They thankfully pay him no mind; after a while the Lady goes to make ready, the knight following her into some far room, and Thjazi and the pixie, who from context Occtis has gleaned is named Thimble, grab items from a chest.
One of them is a hooded cloak, which Thjazi tosses around Occtis’ shoulders. “Follow.” he says, and with little other option Occtis pulls the edges of the cloak close around himself and does. The cloak is of good quality, and smells of pine sap and something unfamiliar and sweet. He can hear Thjazi and Thimble calling out greetings, occasionally orders, as they move from the building, but he keeps his eyes on Thjazi Fang’s heels, because so far being obliging and not a nuisance has resulted in him living.
From the building they go to a carriage, where the knight stands at attention and the Lady Royce sits inside. Occtis tucks himself into the far corner indicated, trying to take up as little room as possible. Once they are seated, the knight joins them, although as soon as the doors are closed he collapses down onto the floor, like a puppet with his strings cut, head leaning heavily against the Lady Royce’s knees.
They make idle conversation, the pixie talking with Thjazi about Timmony, something about dogs and a riding-rabbit, about fruits and wines. The Lady Royce adds commentary here and there, but mostly she just sits quietly with her hand resting atop her knight’s head.
The knight does not at any point leap up and tear Occtis limb from limb but he holds very still and quiet anyway, just in case. When the carriage pauses and the others step out for a break, the lady leaves the knight to guard him.
It might be unwise, but Occtis can’t help but try to observe the knight in these moments, while the Lady and Thjazi Fang aren’t there to tell him not to. The knight doesn’t speak, or at least hasn’t in Occtis’ hearing since the night before, and in the day his eyes are mostly human, although the green of his iris is ringed with gold. The Lady sometimes commands him with words, although she always says please. Other times it seems she uses a gesture or the knight moves with no visible command at all.
Perhaps it is some type of Geas? The main benefit of Occtis’ employment is not the attic room, small and stuffy, awfully hot in the summer, but getting to browse the tomes when his other work is done, so while he is not yet capable of any of the greater magics, he’s studied them as much as he can. There are limitations to such spells. Parameters by which they are bound. Even someone like the Lady Royce must surely have limits.
If he understood by what logic the knight is commanded. If he could use that to manufacture a situation by which the knight would go to his lady’s side and leave Occtis long enough to cast. If they don’t figure out he’s got a hidden pouch strapped to his waist with all the components he needs for an escape. If he casts Invisibility, and then Expeditious Retreat. If that can get him far enough away that the knight cannot track him.
A whole stack of ifs, but he doesn’t quite feel ready to give up yet.
The next stop is just by the road, at the edge of dark woods, as Occtis discovers when Thjazi commands him out of the carriage, gives him bread and cheese and a waterskin. “Don’t go beyond the flags.” he says, indicating a line of trees with golden banners looped around their trunks. “Beyond that’s Faerie territory, and we’ve a deal. You go in there, I’d have to let them keep you.”
Yes, he’s heard stories. In his early days in Dol-Makjar, they caught a man—once a Halovar vassal, it was said, who had killed one of the fair-folk, and thus the Lady Royce’s decision was that he should be given to the forest in recompense. Justice, delivered blood for blood. And all around him, people had said good. Had seemed to delight in the idea that a man who had been part of the hated priestly houses would die screaming in the dark.
They see it as fair, in Dol-Makjar, that the world should be so divided. The deep places of the forests belong to Faerie, to the Royce. The cities are for the Falconers, for those the Shapers left behind, given freedom as long as they abide by the rules. The tithes that are asked are small things, people say. The world is better, with the Sundered Houses gone or under control of the Royce. A man can be anything he likes, as long as he doesn’t walk too deep into the forest or pluck the wrong flower without asking permission, or have the misfortune of being born of Tachonis blood.
He eats, drinks, relieves himself, mechanically, under Thjazi Fang’s gaze. There is no chance for even the smallest cantrip to go un-noticed, so he doesn’t bother. He needs to save it all, every drop of the limited magic he possesses, for the moment when a chance arises for freedom.
There has to be some way. Thjazi Fang hasn’t bothered to muzzle him again or bind him, beyond the cuff that prevents lies, doesn’t seem to count him any sort of threat—which is fair, because Occtis doesn’t think he’d have any chance at all in a fight.
He’s not looking for a fight, though. He just needs a moment.
It does not come.
Instead, he sits quietly when ordered back to the carriage, putting things in order in his head. The Lady mentions visiting the Orchard, in a way that sounds like she’s going to go alone—perhaps his best chance is to wait, until the Lady and Thjazi split up? The knight would go with her, and Thimble, the pixie, often flies far from Thjazi, scouting ahead or just for fun, looping through the window with a feather or a flower or some other find from the roadside.
They will be at their destination by the evening, it seems. Some stronghold—not the Orchard. He wishes he’d paid more attention to wider geography. On one hand, more people means more potential enemies to escape from. On the other hand, more people might mean Thjazi leaves him under guard of somebody less scary than Thjazi Fang, which is nearly everybody not currently in this carriage. A crowd is useful, he finds, when you’re trying to be anonymous.
The cuff might even be useful, if he can get it off. Magical items are expensive, and hard to obtain. It might make a good bribe, or he can use it to barter with if he gets away.
At any rate, he doesn’t have much choice in the matter of whether to make his escape before they get to the next destination or not, because the carriage does not stop again before they enter the stronghold. It’s high-walled although not guarded with many men that he can see, as he emerges into the courtyard, servants bustling about taking the luggage from the carriage. Vines climb over the walls and flowers bloom here and there.
Okay, new plan. This doesn’t look like a place that’s going to be easy to escape from, but Thjazi Fang wouldn’t have brought him here just to kill him, because he could have had the knight do that any time he liked. So he’ll be agreeable. Useful. Occtis is good at being those two things. He’s had to be, to survive.
A man with strange sunset-eyes, perhaps a sorcerer although fairly well-armoured, comes hurrying out into the courtyard, smiling, and Thjazi and the Lady Royce come forward to greet him, the pixie Thimble flying straight to him like an arrow between them both. “Azune!”
Occtis stays standing by the carriage as the servants move around him, waiting on instruction. There is nothing useful for him in the conversation that he can hear, just general greetings and something about wine in one of the packs. Finally, the Lady Royce smiles and wags a stern finger at Thjazi. “Dinner with Azune sounds lovely, which means do not lock yourself downstairs with your toys all night, husband of mine.”
“Certainly.” Thjazi Fang says. “I’ll just get the new lad settled. You two pick out a wine. Thimble—don’t let them throw out all my Yahrgraz.”
“I’ve been using it for the recruits.” Azune says. “To teach them what it feels like to be poisoned. This way, my lady.”
He looks curiously over at Occtis, but doesn’t ask, just walks away into the depths of the stronghold, the pixie settling on his shoulder as the knight follows after the Lady Royce.
The coachman has taken the carriage away to the stables. There’s just Occtis, standing there, as Thjazi watches the rest of the group proceed inside. For a moment, he thinks Thjazi might be looking away, and his hand starts to form the somatics automatically – maybe he can find somewhere to hide, then sneak out the gates invisibly—but a shadowy hand grips his wrist. “I don’t think so.” says the thing holding him, with Thjazi Fang’s voice. Thjazi Fang turns around, and the shadow dissipates. “And you’d been so well-behaved up until now, little Tachonis.”
“Sorry.” He doesn’t know what else to say.
After a long moment, Thjazi shrugs. “Don’t blame water for flowing downhill, eh? Come on, this way.”
This way is through a locked gate, and down a spiralling set of stairs, and to another corridor where Thjazi bids him wait. “Just walk to the other end, and through.” he says. “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t let go of the shadow.”
A shadowy hand slips into his, tugs him forward before he can ask for details. There are statues in alcoves on either side, and ahead, an arch with a heavy metal door inset. It doesn’t open; rather, the shadow puts both hands on his shoulders, and pushes down.
He falls for a brief, terrifying moment, and then stumbles out sideways through a different arch into a new room. Thjazi Fang appears behind him a moment later. “Bucket to your left if you’re nauseous. Don’t touch anything without my say-so.”
The nausea isn’t that bad, actually. Occtis looks up and gasps, because this is—this is the sort of place every wizard dreams of. High shelves filled with books, artefacts, potions, tables laid out with half-worked experiments, an alchemical set visible on the far wall that makes the simple alembic Occtis saved and scrimped for look like a child’s toy, and a series of doors to further rooms that presumably contain further wonders.
Maybe the deal is Thjazi is going to imprison him here to work on magic for him? Occtis might be okay with that if he gets to read even half of these books.
“This way.” Thjazi says. There’s some strange noises in the background; running water somewhere, like a fountain bubbling, the rhythmic clanking of chains, a low murmuring from behind a door nearby. Thjazi gestures to the door. “Don’t mind the praying; that’s just the Halovar.”
Occtis’ blood curdles in his veins. The Halovar are dead, every last one. Monsters who drank the blood of celestials, that’s the story. Put down, as monsters must be, for the good of the people. For Thjazi Fang to admit otherwise, so casually— Occtis is definitely not leaving here.
But Thjazi Fang is striding onwards, away from the door, past more shelves that have Occtis wishing he had pockets to shove his hands in. He wants to touch everything. The books, the crystals, the alchemical ingredients— the artefacts. Here a carved statue of a horse, all in obsidian but with a mane and tail made of whispy smoke, next to it a long wand of ivory all set about with blue gems, and on the shelf below three small cages each containing strange theatrical masks, each locked securely away behind dark iron.
To touch anything in a place like this would be extremely unwise even if Thjazi Fang had not told him to, though, so he curls his hands into fists and hurries after Thjazi. Finally, they enter a room less cluttered than the others, a large stone table in the centre, another long one with a variety of items and papers along the back wall. It makes Occtis feel uneasy, for reasons that might have more to do with childhood memories than anything Thjazi has done since bringing him down here. There’s no reason he’s more likely to die having walked through this door than he was the moment the knight caught him, and yet.
“Just as well you didn’t know anything about your brother.” Thjazi Fang says. “I understand Aranessa’s desire to watch him bleed out—the General was a good man—but it would have been most inconvenient if she’d taken an interest in you.”
Very much none of this makes any sense, other than the bit about the Lady Royce wanting his brother dead. “I’m sorry, I don’t—"
“Do you know why I call him a hound, her knight?” Thjazi Fang asks, cutting across the apology. He continues without waiting for Occtis to confirm one way or another. “It’s because that’s what I used to call him in jest, when he was a man. I’d call him her hound, and he’d sneer at me and insult some combination of my pedigree, my loyalty, and my manners in return. When I first met Davinos, you know, I thought he was a vain little asshole with a superiority complex; when I got to know him better, I realised my first impression was entirely correct. But right from the start, there was one thing we agreed on.”
He pauses then, staring at Occtis. “I—uh—”
“Take a guess, lad. Otherwise this is going to turn into a monologue, and you know what they say about people who monologue.”
Occtis does not, actually. “Was it something about killing my entire family?”
He regrets it the moment it comes out, but Thjazi Fang only laughs sharply, grinning. “Not a bad guess, but that part came later. No—we agreed that when it came down to it, Aranessa’s life was far more important than his own. He volunteered, you know. When we realised what was necessary to bridge the planes, bring her the power she needed to wield against your wretched kin. More than that—he was eager for it. Hungry for a glorious death. He thought he’d die, you see—we all did, there was barely enough fae blood in the Davinos line to make the entire thing even possible.”
This information makes several very vague grumblings Occtis has heard from drunken wizards about the Lady Royce suddenly fit together into a clear and awful tapestry. He has read enough, heard enough, to make some educated guesses about the sort of magic Thjazi is talking about. None of them are pleasant guesses. To volunteer yourself for such a thing would be madness. “But he lived.”
Thjazi Fang wriggles one hand from side to side noncommittally. “If you call that alive, sure. Half of me thinks he’s just too stubborn to die. Half of me thinks it’s her who can’t let him go. Either way, there’s not enough left of him to understand the consequences. It’s Aranessa who has to live with that. The choice she made. She’s bloodied her hands many times for our cause, but he’s the one she wishes she could regret. The point is, I try not to burden her with the dirty work, when I can avoid it. Far better she should fuss with Azune over the details of the wine, and pretend she doesn't know what I'm up to down here. I mean, you—you’re entirely innocent.”
Something about the way he says it gives Occtis a very bad feeling. “So that means you’re going to let me go? Because I didn’t do anything?”
Thjazi shakes his head. “’Fraid not, lad. Because I’ve had my hands in a lot of Tachonis guts, and until you turned up every one of your filthy relatives would have sworn there were only seven children to Primus Tachonis. Which means he went and hid you on purpose. Paranoid fucker, your father. Had a lot of failsafes. Hid a lot of interesting things in a lot of interesting places.” He picks up a knife from the far table, a long curved silver thing. It looks like something Mother would have used.
Occtis backs up against the wall. “I don’t have anything. He didn’t give me anything.” Just a name that has never brought him anything but bad luck. “You don’t have to do this.”
Thjazi Fang smiles at him, and two shadows pin Occtis’ hands to the wall. His eyes are suddenly black as night. He gestures, and the door slams shut behind them. “Sorry, lad, but I do. You see, I can still hear the falcon’s cry. Day and night, that little fucker never shuts up. And until it finally does, I’m not going to be able to stop.”
Occtis doesn’t dream anymore, what with the not-sleeping, but when the Lady Aranessa says what if things were different, he feels himself jolt, as if he’s just woken up from a nightmare he can’t quite remember. “I don’t know if different would be better. But it would have to be, surely?”
“Wonderful.” Sir Julien says, heavy with sarcasm. “The dead boy is an optimist. Although I’ll grant you, I couldn’t see it getting much worse.”