#kifuwrites

I rose to my feet, using the nearest wall as support. I was lightheaded, but that wasn’t a surprise. My stomach languished at its emptiness. It had been days since it had seen food.

Once I could see and balance, I tottered out of the ally and into the street. I had no idea where I was. I knew from experience, by running away from my mother in the first place, that the city was huge. I could potentially wander for days without finding the little bit of familiarity I had in it. And what was home to me was a much worse place than where my mother lived without me. Her shop was in a nice place. Clean. Free of thieves and whores like me. I didn’t know it.

If anything, I was dressed in my clothes. I didn’t look like the dirty whore I was. The chances of interacting with people and not immediately chased off was good. If I could find another person.

I wandered down the street, following it to the next and the one after that. Nothing struck me as familiar.

I grabbed the first person I saw. “Excuse me!” I called to her. She waved at me and continued walking with determination. “Quick question,” I added, laying on some speed to catch up with her.

She finally paused, confusion passing through her eyes. “Is everything okay?”

I suppressed my flash of irritation. People always wanted to coddle me. “I’m a little lost. Can you point me to the market?”

“Aren’t you a little young to be traveling alone?”

With that question, I no longer cared to hide my expression. “No. Market. Please.”

Her lips pursed and I about spun away from her in frustration. But then she explained, laying down a long verbal map. We parted with her instructions forcefully looping through my brain to remember.

I found the market the woman had detailed, only to quickly realize it wasn’t the right one. I knew the buildings well in the market by my mother’s shop. These weren’t them. I could do my discounted shopping and get away with it without scrutiny, but it didn’t help me find my mother. It didn’t bring me back to Seb.

I hauled my unsteady body to the nearest vendor. “Do you know where another market is?” I asked. “I’m in the wrong one.”

I received new instructions, no more easy to follow. I repeated them through my head with a new handful of sausage links to nibble on. My vagabond presence went unquestioned, my acquisition of my bounty unnoticed. I deserved some food.

I arrived at the next market by happenstance and empty-handed. I lost track of the directions I had been given and added a few turns, but the sound of people talking lured me in.

It wasn’t the right market, either. Panic squeezed my heart. What if I never returned to Seb? What if their last memory of me was me turning my back on them in their weakest moment?

I had to walk down a few stalls before I found one where the vendor wasn’t busy. “Do you know where I can find another market? I’m looking for someone.”

The woman contemplated. “There’s one a ten minute walk that way.”

I shook my head. “I came from there. This market is near the edge of the city?”

“I think there’s one past that market on the edge of civilization.” She sounded uncertain. If she was right, I had gone the wrong direction. If she was wrong, I was wasting time I probably didn’t have.

I rubbed my fingers into my temple before my lat as I walked away. Finding the correct market wasn’t supposed to be the challenge. I didn’t know why I had to figure out where I was in the first place.

I took a handful of cakes on my way out of that market, much like the ones that Theo had liked to feed me. They kept well and were easy on the stomach. Hopefully enough to tame the sausages in my tummy. Something both Seb and I needed. The bigger issue was pacing myself so that I didn’t accidentally eat them all.

I made my way back through the first market I’d been pointed toward, eyes sharp for anything I could use to help me or Seb out. I passed by a smithy and hovered around the tools he created, but got shooed away before I could find anything of use. Even clothed, I couldn’t pull off the right kind of look for a blacksmith’s clientele.

Finding the next market was difficult. I didn’t have real instructions to follow. All the direction I had was the sun at my back until it, too, was too high to be of real use. My familiarity with the area didn’t lie, however. The moment I caught sight of recognizable architecture, I knew how to find my mother’s place.

I tucked the remaining cakes away, using folds of my clothing as a makeshift pocket, and I entered through her door. I whimpered at the sight of her predatory gaze, immediately dropping to an unassuming posture.

“Where have you been, Malxir?” she demanded. I felt my headache flare, but it wasn’t from one of her mind splinters.

“Lost,” I squeaked. “I didn’t know where I was.”

“All night and morning?” my mother asked with heavy skepticism. “Did you dirty your clothes?”

“No.”

“You have time to take care of Sebazin before you meet Bertram again.” She was dismissive. Distracted. I wasn’t looking that gift horse in the mouth.

As much as I wanted to return to Seb, I was afraid to. I tried to settle my nerves by exploring the cavern for anything of use. They had some books, a couple rugs, but nothing sharp, pointy, or of use for picking a lock. I did find something far more useful than tools: a natural spring. It was slight and weak, but it was a source of water.

I dashed to Seb, excited with the spring in sights and cakes on my person. I heard muttering from the other side of the door, but it quieted the moment the door made noise. Sebazin glared at me, breaths laborious, but the chains too taunt above their head to rattle.

“Seb! I found water!” I exclaimed.

Seb winced, turning their head away from me. “Go away,” they rasped, voice barely catching air. “Go away. Leave me alone. Go away.”

My blood froze. I stopped in my tracks, drooping in place. “What?” I knew I’d left them. They’d begged after me. I didn’t have another option. “Seb, it’s me.”

Seb whined, their tail drawing tighter around themselves. “Fuck off. Shut up. Go away.” They hid their eyes from me, the tattoos swallowing up the remainder of their expression. All I had was that they breathed through their mouth, lip drawing and dropping around their fangs.

“I’m sorry, Seb,” I choked, feeling sobs bubble up my throat. I threw myself to my knees at their cell door, resting my horns on the bars. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I’m doing all I can.”

Seb continued to mutter, but each sound was more incomprehensible than their last. This was Seb in unbridled fear, like I’d walked in on one of their nightmares they never talked about. Seb admitted to fear plenty, but succumbing to it was rare. What had they been going through when I was locked away?

It took me a moment to realize that I couldn’t follow them down their path of panic. As much as it hurt to see Seb working their weak body to get away from me, I couldn’t stop caring for them. Not when I finally had the means to get them more water. When I had cereal cakes to throw to them.

The cup I’d given them the day before was knocked over and rolled to the far wall. With Seb’s lack of lucidity, I wouldn’t know if that method had worked at all. The bucket did. Or they’d have died far earlier. I needed the bucket, well within Seb’s reach but far outside of my own.

“Sebazin, I need you to listen to me.” I tried to be firm. Sometimes it worked to snap them out of it, but they usually didn’t get so bad.

Their knee drew up until the shackles around their ankles stopped them. Their torso twisted away until their arm completely hid their face. I couldn’t make out words from their stream of soft sound, though it sounded like they were shushing me?

“Seb, I need the bucket. Give me the bucket, Seb.”

It was terrifying, really, to see someone like Seb, that put themselves bodily in the thick of trouble for someone, that rose first for the occasion of confrontation, to be reduce to a mumbling, sick mess. I’d seen them cut, I’d seen them give up, and I’d seen the very life leave their body. This was something else. Like their essence was taken away. Seb did not resort to cowardice and hide, no matter how bad it got.

“Sebazin!” I screeched, falling into coughs for my efforts. I had a finite amount tries to get this right and they were making it more difficult than it needed to be. I got my throat back under control and turned back to Seb. They eyed me warily. “Are you back?”

“You’re real,” Seb whispered so quietly, I needed to read it from their lips. My insides twisted. This really was a nightmare for Seb. A living one. If they couldn’t distinguish dream from reality … I didn’t know what to do.

“Get me out of here,” Seb begged. They twisted in their chains, their tail unfurling from around them. “Please, please. Mal, please.”

“I can’t,” I choked. The words cut on their way out.

“Why? Why are we here?” A foot scrambled for purchase. Failed. “Mal, let me out.”

“Seb, I need the bucket,” I told them. The persistent numbness all my life wrapped about me, staying my tears. “I can get you water.”

The moment of clarity passed. Seb hid their face again, resuming the unintelligible muttering. They were bodily weak and their sanity slipped, but they still had fight if I could reach them. Water, however, was a lost cause. Not without their help.

“I stole the cakes you like,” I heard my voice. I didn’t remember opening my mouth. “It’s the best I could do.” I dug them out of the folds of my clothes and lobbed them one at a time at Seb. One rolled away, but the rest remained somewhere in the padding of their gambeson.

“I’m sorry, Sebazin,” I mumbled. I’d said it so many times, the words felt empty. I found my feet, my balance coming from somewhere else outside of my body.

It was worse when Gabe was busy and Seb briefly took over the lesson. It wasn’t that Seb taught differently or took a different approach, I just couldn’t read their writing as well. Their prompts didn’t work with their muddy accent making different letters sound the same.

The others had found out that I was – Gabe called it illiterate. Skrit seemed to have known from the beginning and oddly never made a deal of it. Wyst, on the other hand, tried fawning over me about it for weeks.

I hated it. I hated the attention and pity. I hated the lessons. I hated how present I needed to be for them and how tired I felt after them. Seb usually had some offering after the fact to soften the ordeal, but that made it all no less patronizing. I saw the way Alice stared at me when she thought I was too busy concentrating, like I was stupid and not merely unlearned.

It was slightly better when it was just me and Gabe. When the others had their own things that needed done. Our group was busier, considering we’d committed to a path that strayed far from civilization for weeks. No matter how well we prepared, we couldn’t feasibly pack so much in the last city before heading out.

We made it work. Rather well, really. Skrit and Seb went off to track and hunt when we needed it. Alice and Wyst identified and collected edible plants. Gabe set up camp and made surprising spreads of everything gathered to keep us fed and going.

I was the worthless imbecile with nothing to do but fail to write proper words. Gabe always asked me what a word I’d written was, only to write it down better for my to practice my sounds. The sound it out method didn’t even work for me. As abysmal as Seb’s accent was, mine was even worse. I couldn’t make all the sounds Gabe tried to teach me, no matter how I twisted my tongue or held my jaw.

I tapped Gabe’s leg with the tablet to catch his attention and held it over my head. He paused what he was doing and took it from my hands. “Okay, let’s see what you have here,” he mumbled.

I waited for him to decipher meaning out of my made up words and stared off at our packs and Seb’s discarded armor. I could have made myself useful and made our bed. It was an easy enough task, considering I continued sharing bed rolls with Gabe and Seb. Most nights. Gabe let me know when it wasn’t one of the nights I got to use Seb as a heater. No matter how the night started, Seb usually ended up wrapped around me by the time morning rolled in. Seb wasn’t mine. I understood Gabe not wanting to share them.

I didn’t move, however. It was Gabe speaking again that made me realize I’d stopped paying attention to anything.

“Very good, Malxir,” Gabe praised. That was a lie. We both knew it. “May I have the chalk, please?”

I handed over the stump of chalk and stared back at the packs. He’d have my spelling corrected, my letters fixed, and a reply written out too quickly for me to do anything. Even if he could understand my sentence, it wouldn’t be free of error. It never was.

Gabe deposited both the board and chalk back into my lap, immediately returning to building a fire. “Alright. Read me back what I wrote, Malxir.”

My eyes bounced over his pretty, fluid letters. “‘Do you like it … bet-ter when the sun is warm?’”

The sentences we used were stupid, too. ‘Is the sun warm today?’ ‘No, it is trees.’ I wouldn’t answer so poorly if we spoke, but the question was ridiculous anyway. I only didn’t know how to spell the words I wanted and I hated how much Gabe needed to correct me when I did try.

“Very good!” Gabe exclaimed in a way I knew he meant to be encouraging. I stayed my fangs from flashing. “Okay, do you see what mistake you made?”

I searched for his calculated chalk strokes amongst my chicken scratch. “Trees has two Es?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Even the words we used were stupid with stupid rules.

“You remember your numbers,” Gabe pointed out with a gleeful smile. “That’s great, Malxir.”

I wrinkled my nose and pointedly avoided his brown eyes.

“I’m serious, Malxir,” Gabe consoled. “That’s very good. Okay, go ahead and erase your old answer and write your new one. Try to come up with more than a one word answer.”

I contemplated over the way to spell “yeah” when the brush surrounding our camp admitted Skrit sans Seb. She strode up to Gabe to throw two dead rabbits at his feet. “It’s what we got,” she said to Gabe’s imploring stare.

“Where is Sebazin?” Gabe asked.

“Fuck if I know. They didn’t want to come back.”

Gabe cursed, though the word turned out to be a magic one for him to light the fire.

I watched the two of them, too distracted to continue struggling over my writing.

“Are you two having a fight?” Skrit asked.

“No, it’s not that,” Gabe sighed. He massaged over his face. “They’re starting to slip and it makes me nervous when you or I are not around to correct them. Alone time is the opposite of what they need right now.”

Skrit eyed Gabe with critical intent. “Is Seb about the one to snap – or you? Because they were fine out there. Looking for bullshit, sure, but that’s nothing new.”

“I could use a break,” Gabe admitted. “Sebazin is pushing us hard to more temperate climate to beat the winter. I’m not as young as I once was.”

“You’re not old, either,” Skrit grunted.

Gabe set his mouth. “I’m feeling these longer days.”

“Well, no shit,” Skrit said matter-of-fact. “You’re carrying the group. You do all our cooking, you keep Seb under control, you’re teaching the kid to read, and tutoring Wyst in her studies. When the fuck do you have time for yourself? Something’s got to give.”

Skrit strode over to Seb’s pack, plucking a knife from its contents.

“All of this needs done,” Gabe argued.

“Yeah, and Seb or Alice can do the cooking. Wyst doesn’t need your tutelage. She managed fine before you. The kid isn’t going to die if he can’t read and Seb can keep up on his math. The big guy, well, you’re stuck with them.”

I wouldn’t have minded my lessons in reading and writing coming to a close. I wasn’t a fan of the way Seb ran their economic lessons, either, but I could make do with less overall learning. I could do something useful to help Gabe and group instead. Take over cooking with Seb, maybe.

“Your definition of ‘needs done’ differs from mine.”

Skrit hauled the rabbits to a different patch of moss to tear into them, ripping the fur cleaning off of them. “Because yours is stupid. Seb’s help in tracking is nice, but I don’t need it. It’ll slow me down without them, but I can still get the game we need.”

“You’re contorting the problem out of proportion,” Gabe sighed. “Everything’s fine, I promise.”

“Whatever. I’ll take care of this until Alice is back. Food might be bland tonight, but at least the kid will appreciate it. Go and hit your partner or whatever it is you do.”

“I do not -”

Skrit snapped the feet off the rabbit, cutting through the tendons with her borrowed knife. She gut each one in moments. It didn’t take her long for the carcasses to look presentable.

“Malxir, lesson’s over,” she announced. “Help me get this started so Gabe can go plan a scene.”

Gabe turned to look at me, like he was surprised to see me. “Oh, fu-”

I stared at him quizzically. Hopefully. I was okay with cutting the lesson short, but Gabe was the one that decided when we were finished.

Gabe buried his head in his hand, back to ignoring me for the time being. “I can’t believe they told you that,” he griped.

“I can’t believe it’s true!”

“Sebazin is a miserable liar,” Gabe said. “They still try anyway, but you can tell when they’re making up stories.”

Gabe hadn’t given me an answer for whether or not I’d be abandoning my sentence to help Skrit begin preparing food. “Gabe?”

“I’m not leaving, Malxir,” he finally decided. “Write.”

“Gabe -”

Gabe cut Skrit off. “I appreciate the help, Skrit. Thank-you. I do not, however, require you to alleviate my responsibilities to – to plan a scene. That’s not how things work.” He grabbed the travel cauldron to bring it to the fire.

So much for cutting the lesson short. I frowned at my chalk board, rereading Gabe’s question to recall the answer I’d come up with. I had wanted to figure out how to spell “yeah”. It still took too much concentration to pick apart the word and remember the alphabet.

“What do you do, then?” Skrit asked curiously, adopting more decorum for Gabe than she ever did Seb.

“I am not discussing my sex life,” Gabe said. “I’m not! I’m not sure why Seb is!”

“I give him a list of what I’m craving and he ignores it all anyway.” Sebazin’s voice joining the conversation made me jump. Skrit’s face snapped in their direction. “He’s a Dom, not a sadist,” they told her.

“For fuck’s sake,” Gabe whispered in exasperation.

Seb walked forward and plucked the cauldron from beside Gabe, stopping to pull him into a kiss despite the frustration sharp over his features. Gabe took his time in fight Seb off of him.

“Quit talking about our private life,” he scolded, his finger in Seb’s face.

Seb spun away with an impish grin. “Why? Are you afraid someone might notice that we do it? We’ve fucked beside Mal while Mal slept. You don’t mind the risk, love.”

They had done what? My jaw dropped despite myself. Seb caught my eye and tossed me a wink.

“There is no reasoning with you.”

Seb chuckled and swung the cauldron as they stepped away. “I’ll fill this up.”

Gabe switched his irritation to Skrit. “Did they put you up to this?”

She held her hands up defensively. “They don’t need my interference.”

“No,” Gabe sighed. “I suppose not. For someone that doesn’t care for it, you sure live vicariously through Sebazin.”

Skrit shrugged, but had nothing to say in response.

His attention switched to me again, waiting patiently for me to return the favor. I still tried to process the shock of sleeping in the same bed as they had sex beside me. I blinked, closing my mouth, regaining some composure. “Malxir, focus,” he said softly. I very well was focusing. Only not on what he wanted me to work on.

When both Gabe and Skrit settled down, however, it was easier to form each sound on my lips to figure out how yeah should have been spelled. I got through the entire word by the time Seb came back. I wanted to add that I hated being cold. That I was always cold. It hadn’t been something I adjusted to well, even though I’d spent a fair amount of my childhood freezing my tail off. I had often lost color in my fingers getting the things done outside that I needed to live. Not that Gabe needed to know most of that.

“I don’t sleep,” Wyst said. “Not really.”

“Must be nice,” Seb grumbled. “No dreams?”

“What was it about?” she asked gently.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t want to talk about it? It could help.” Wyst had her kid gloves on, treating Seb with the type of care she did for me when she thought I was acting irrationally.

“No,” Seb said sharply.

“Is it the same thing every night?”

“I’m not talking about this with you,” Seb snapped. I heard their bare feet on the ground, pacing. When they got closer to my bed, I could even hear their tail whip angrily through the air.

Wyst let them have a moment to cool down. The night was still. Quiet, except for a few crickets and toads.

“How long has this been going on?” Wyst asked.

“Long enough I can deal with it on my own,” Seb grumbled, deep and low.

“Does Gabe know?”

“Yes,” Seb hissed. “There’s nothing he can do, either. Fucking leave me alone. I need to walk it off and I’ll be back to sleep.”

Wyst sighed, something pent up yet hesitant. “Sebazin, I want you to stay away from Malxir.”

“What?” Seb barked.

“I think you’re leading her on,” Wyst explained softly.

“I’ve been very fucking clear,” Seb growled.

“Why are you sleeping with her?”

What did Wyst mean? I had one night with Seb. That was all. Forever. Seb was right. They’d been explicit with what to expect from them. I had to admire them from a distance, maybe without them fully knowing. And that was okay.

“What the fuck do you think we’re doing?” Seb sneered.

It occurred to me that the cool sweat on my back wasn’t necessarily mine. Seb had beckoned me over. Invited me into their bed. I explored with my tail to run into what must have been Gabe. He slumbered on, oblivious to his partner’s plight.

“Don’t you think you’re a little too old for her?” Wyst’s voice gained an edge, something to contend with Seb’s.

“This isn’t sexual!” They growled lightly. “Doesn’t need to be to share space.”

“Are we going to pretend the scabs on your ribs are platonic, then?” Wyst asked snidely. The marks that I had left on them. The enjoyment Seb had gotten out of my nails raking down their side and between their scars had been genuine. I hadn’t meant to get too exuberant about it. Especially not enough to draw blood and leave evidence days later.

“No,” Seb scoffed. “Don’t you think if my end goal was to bed Malxir, I’d have left by now instead of asking Gabe if he’d convince you to travel with us?”

“This was your idea.” Wyst didn’t ask. She stated it like fact.

“No. Gabe already planned on asking you to join. For you, despite Malxir.” Right. Because Gabe didn’t like Seb sleeping around. I would be a constant reminder that Seb wasn’t entirely faithful. He treated me well anyway. Like he cared. Genuinely.

“Why did you want us to?” Wyst asked in wonder.

“For Malxir,” Seb answered immediately. “Have you ever seen how skinny Malxir is?”

“I can see -”

“Under the shirt,” Seb amended.

“No.”

“No, of course not,” Seb agreed. “You’re jealous of me for that, aren’t you?”

Wyst didn’t reply. I’d have loved an answer. Why would Wyst be jealous of Seb? And more importantly, over me? That made no sense.

“Is it because Malxir approached me first? Because I set aside my age and fucked Mal anyway? Or maybe it’s because I’ve known Malxir for days and Mal’s sleeping in my bed tonight, hmm?”

“I am not jealous of you,” Wyst emphasized.

“Right,” Seb drawled. “Did you tell Malxir you were interested? Or was Mal supposed to catch the hint? Do you think I slept with Mal because Mal beat around the bush?” Seb snorted. They asked many questions, but in the kind of way where they already knew the answers.

“You. You are -” Wyst cut herself off.

Seb let her struggle over her accusation for a moment. “An asshole?” they supplied casually. “Can’t bring yourself to say it? You shouldn’t have stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, little elf.”

I didn’t like that their conversation turned into a fight over me. I wasn’t worth it. I appreciated that I continued to have Wyst’s support. She deserved my loyalties. But pitting herself against an ally wasn’t helping anyone. Seb wasn’t a threat. I was sure of it.

It also felt wrong to reveal that I’d been eavesdropping. I was already the center of attention. I didn’t need to be present for it, too.

“Mal is my teammate,” Wyst seethed.

“And so am I,” Seb sneered. “If you want Gabe’s knowledge, you’re going to have to accept that I’m his and we have an interest in Malxir as long as the kid lets us near. I don’t know what the fuck Mal sees in me, but I’m using it as a way in. I gather Malxir doesn’t do that much.”

“No,” Wyst agreed begrudgingly. “I’ve tried getting to know her.”

“Yeah,” Seb said softly. Like they were diffusing the argument. “Let me try and help.”

I didn’t need help. I’d never asked for it. I’d only petitioned Sebazin to stay. Something for me.

“Hey.” Skrit’s voice cut across the camp, sharp and cross. “Shut the fuck up. Some people are trying to sleep.”

Seb sniffed a laugh that sounded genuine. “Sorry, Skrit. It’s my fault.”

“Your gods damned fucking nightmares aren’t our problem,” Skrit snapped. “Don’t make it now.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Seb stressed. “Wystralei didn’t know yet.”

“What kind of adult has nightmares that keeps them up anyway?” Skrit grumbled, no less irate.

“One damned by the gods, I guess,” Seb muttered. “Good night, Skrit.” Seb paced closer, dropping to their knees between me and Gabe. “You, too, Wyst,” they said. “This conversation is over. I won’t have it again.”

“Which one?”

“Both.”

“That’s not how that works,” she said haughtily.

The blanket lifted from me, touching me with chilled night air in the stamp of where Seb had been. They wriggled into place, their back to me rather than their arm around me as before.

“It will be,” they warned, voice too soft to possibly carry threat. I heard it anyway. “I won’t entertain it again.”

I scooted subtly back into them until the pattern of their scars were tangible through my shirt. Their tail wrapped around mine, curling over my ankles, in response.

“Good night, Wyst.”

Their face twitched and their ribs jumped. “Malxir?”

“Sebazin!” The relief about knocked me off my feet.

“You left me,” they accused. “How long’s it been?” Their words were barely intelligible. It was only years of traveling with them as their accent ebbed and flowed and compounded with drunken or concussed slurring that let me understand.

“I had to,” I whined. I needed to again. Besides the fact that I had no idea what an hour felt like, I also didn’t have an indication of how long I’d been free from Bertram’s home. “I must again.”

“No, don’t leave me,” Seb gasped. “Please don’t leave me alone anymore.”

I eyed the contents of their cell around them. The bucket had moved closer to them, still upright. Whether or not there was any water left, I couldn’t see. The bread was gone. No traced of it remained. Either Seb shared their cell with many rats and mice, or they’d figured out how to get it and eat it. The straw bedding was pushed around them, the floor beneath them bare stone.

“I need to go,” I said numbly. They were alive. There was nothing for me to do. The food my mother had given me and I’d saved for them was still in her home. If they had water, it had to be enough.

“Malxir!” Seb shouted, their voice cracking in the effort. “I can’t,” they rasped as soon as they could. “I can’t do this. Don’t leave me alone.”

I hugged myself tightly against the shroud of Seb’s thin cries and pleads. The raw sound of my name weighted me down even after I no longer physically heard them.

My mother waited for me in her shop when I climbed the ladder back into daylight. Late daylight, judging by its long shadows cast about the floor.

“Close the door,” she ordered. The tone in her voice was daggers. If I thought I could, I’d have jumped back down the hole to get away from her.

My mother didn’t give me any time to think or worry about it. The moment I’d swung the lid more closed than open, a pain so much worse than anything she’d used on me before ripped through my body. I collapsed, my sight blackening. My scream sounded as if it came from someone else.

I panted on the floor where I’d dropped, too afraid to curl up into myself. I must have lost enough time that I was late. I’d tried to do everything she wanted. Her magic hurt worse than anything I suffered traveling as a mercenary.

“You’re a worthless, pathetic child,” my mother sneered, venom dripping from her voice. “Why can’t you do anything? You can’t even do what I raised you to do!”

Oh fuck, what did she raise me to do? She used me and sold me. I usually found my own food. She’d never taught me anything specific except to stay quiet and still while she was around. I could do that. I’d always done that. I hadn’t said anything!

“You couldn’t be a man to Lowdie, could you?” my mother barked. The familiar mind splinter, no less damaging, pierced through my skull

I wrapped my arms around my head and sobbed. The liquid from my nose could have been snot or blood. I was well beyond the point of dignity and composure. My mother would make it worse for crying on her floor, but it was the only escape that I had left.

I couldn’t remember my time with Lowdie. I wasn’t sure how I got out of that room in that house. I thought I could do things I normally couldn’t when I went to the other place. I shouldn’t have disappointed anybody.

“Get up off my floor,” my mother demanded.

No. I couldn’t. I had no control over my tears. My body wasn’t working.

Another mind splinter scrambled my brain. “Get up, Malxir.”

How was I to do that? I didn’t know how to anymore. But then I did it. The height of standing was too much and I had no clue how I got there, but I had followed her command.

“Clean up,” my mother demanded off hand. “You’ve soaked your clothes in blood.”

I jerked my attention to my chest, staring at the stains in question. I didn’t remember how they’d gotten there. I hadn’t been wearing my clothes through the worst of the day.

“How?” I asked.

My mother’s lips formed around her magic. I reeled back in a panic, trying to physically ward off the attack with my hands. I didn’t have the means to take another one of her assaults.

“Nononono, please,” I sobbed. My back smacked into the counter. “Please, no.” I wasn’t trying to be glib. I didn’t want to be smart. I truly had no idea how I was supposed to do everything she demanded of me. I was tasked with keeping Seb alive, but without the tools to do so. She didn’t give me enough to live off of. And she kept me locked up so that I couldn’t do any of it myself. Now she wanted me to take out blood with no soap? No water?

“I want to,” I gasped when no pain came. She held off her disappointed punishment. “I want to, but I don’t know – how?” Granted, I had the knowledge. After years of traveling as a mercenary, it was practical clean up. My mother simply didn’t have what I needed.

My mother sneered at me, but she didn’t hurt me. “Get in the room,” she ordered. “Out of my sight.”

I didn’t trust my legs to support me. I crawled past her, tail tucked tight. I had no more answers than before, but I was going to accept her dismissal in haste. She couldn’t hurt me if she couldn’t see me.

My stomach protested at me when I collapsed on the floor beside the bed. It remembered the food I’d stored away for Seb, even if I hadn’t gotten it to them yet. I was weak and tired. I knew food helped when I felt like this, but I couldn’t do that to Seb. I had to try.

My mother kicked me awake. I startled back into the bed frame, cracking my spine on the edge of the wood.

“You never took care of your clothes,” she noted. “What kind of lazy worthless are you, Malxir?”

I stared silently up at her. There was no point in trying to defend myself. She would do with me as she saw fit regardless.

“Why didn’t you clean yourself?” my mother demanded.

It took me a second to comprehend that she expected an answer. “I don’t have water or soap.” My voice sounded foreign, far too raw and cracked to sound like my own.

“I gave you water to clean up yesterday. What did you do with it?” My mother was far from sympathetic. I found myself curling up against her quick anger, fully expecting a psychic attack.

“Soap?” The syllable was so faint, it hardly reached my own ears. I hadn’t thought to scrub my tunic. As soon as I’d left my m other’s line of sight, a bloody spot on my clothing had vacated my mind. Granted, I hadn’t meant to pass out on the floor, but cleaning up wasn’t the thing I’d accidentally avoided.

“Give me your clothing,” she sneered. “You don’t really get the luxury of present nice to Lowdie anymore.”

I whimpered despite myself. I was going to repeat that encounter? How many times until they gave up? Until I remembered something? I couldn’t pretend when I hated that function of my body so thoroughly.

As much as I hated it all, I automatically moved to comply. Fast action to my mother’s orders lessened the punishments. The punishments that caused the bloody clothing in the first place. I whipped off my tunic and wriggled out of my chausses, shoving them all in my mother’s direction. I swore I saw a brief moment of satisfaction. She gathered it up without another word and swept out of the room, leaving me behind without direction.

It was bright again, in the little I could see outside. I’d slept through the night on the floor where I’d collapsed. The soreness in my body could have been from the position I’d slept in or from the shackles at Bertram’s. Probably both.

I wobbled to my feet, taking my time to adjust my balance. My body responded sluggishly and my tail didn’t counter as well as it normally did. It moved, just not correctly. My tail wasn’t something I had to think about to stay upright.

I tried the door after my mother to find it steadfast in place. It wasn’t a surprise, of course. I expected it. I needed to try anyway. I checked the door to outside as well, wiggling the lock I could break through in seconds with the right tools.

I was still her prisoner.

I had nothing to do but wait.

My mother appeared again about half of the day later. She looked no happier than before. “Today you’ll take care of Sebazin first and then wait for Bertram in the cavern,” she told me. “Do not make him wait for you.”

“Yes, Mother,” I mumbled. They really were going to try again. It would never work.

She left me trembling in her wake, no further explanation. It gave me time to collect my wits, and then hunt down the meal my mother had given me the day previously and one of her cups with the only water I had available to me. It wrenched at me, the thought of offering dirty water to Seb, but it was all we had. I couldn’t bring myself to quench my thirst with it, but given a couple days in Seb’s position and I wouldn’t hesitate. I used to drink from murky puddles, when those had been available to me.

Getting past my mother without her noticing what I carried was easy. She didn’t care for what I did once it followed the path of her intentions. I struggled again down the ladder, and then I was temporarily free.

“Seb?” I asked in the door as I let myself in.

Seb was still. They’d brought their tail in tight in some sort of self-placating wrap. Something I normally resorted to. Not Seb. If it weren’t for the tension in their tail, I would have thought them gone again. It scared me, how little they breathed.

“Seb,” I tried again. I hoped the volume of my voice woke them. It didn’t. I couldn’t be too late. Bringing them their food. Replenishing their water. This couldn’t be the way I lost them.

“Sebazin, please,” I begged, rattling the door with my words. I could pretend that I had time. I could talk to them like they wanted. I missed them, even if their haunting cries after me was my first thought of them every time they crossed my mind.

I contemplated the food in my arm and threw it at them. I wanted to hit them, to see if I could physically startle them awake. They needed the food. I couldn’t throw too hard and risk anything bouncing out of their reach. I didn’t know if they’d gotten anything from the bread I stole for them.

The food could survive getting thrown. The cup of water, on the other hand, required a different method.

I wasn’t reaching Seb’s bucket. I didn’t need to try to know it would never work. All I had was shoving the cup into their cell as far as I could like I had with the bucket, careful not to snag the cup on the floor and spill its contents. It would take luck for Seb to reach it and pull it closer, but luck was all the two of us had left.

I sat and used the toes of both feet to keep the cup steady. I strained as hard as I could against the iron, ignoring its pressure into my groin. When the cup was as far as it was going to get, my job was done. They hadn’t stirred once.

“I love you, Sebazin,” I murmured. It didn’t matter that they wouldn’t hear. “I love you so much.” I did. I always had, since I met them.

I wiped my sleeve across my face and sniffled when I rose back to my feet. They were going to wake up, find the food, drink enough water, and they were going to live. My mother would slip eventually. She couldn’t leave Seb strung up forever. We were going to get out.

We had to.

I scrambled into the living half of the building, seizing the bucket for water. It was empty.

“No,” I whined. “No!” An unfamiliar violent rage settled into my skin. It made it difficult to breathe on top of the issues I’d already incurred.

I wanted to throw the bucket. I wanted to smash and destroy everything that belonged to her. Everything that made her life comfortable and easy while she left me to find rotten food in the streets or in the bed with a stranger for gold I never got to see or benefit from. She took everything from me and she was trying to take Seb, too. My lover. My life.

I couldn’t let her.

After years away, I didn’t remember where to find water. It occurred to me that I probably never knew, resorting to slurping water form the tops of barrels in the street. Eating snow in the winter. It wasn’t until traveling with Wyst did I realize most civilizations had a well. Even if I had never found it, this city couldn’t have been different.

My path to outside had been padlocked off from the living side of the building. I tested the customer side, bringing the bucket with me. It had a lock, but was accessible from the inside like Theo’s shop door. I flicked it open and threw myself into sunshine. The brilliance made me stumble. I didn’t have the time to feel this disoriented.

I staggered to the nearest person, nearly collapsing onto them. “Water,” I begged, holding up my bucket.

The human studied me after her alarm wore off. Her coif about her hair hid her eyes. “Do I know you?” she asked suspiciously.

“No. Please. Where is the water?”

She bent around me to stare at the doorway that produced me. “Where are you staying?”

“Water!” I shouted urgently, the simmering fury lending strength to my word.

The woman jumped, taking a step back. She lifted a hand to point. “Around the corner and down the street on the edge of market square.”

I left her, taking off after her directions. I dodged people with ease, taking ill heed to their shouts of alarm and threat. I found the well and filled my bucket with as much water as I dared for expedient flight.

The scent of fresh bread kept me from taking off. My mouth immediately watered off the taste of it in the air. And Seb? They’d been kept in worse conditions than me.

I knew better than to mess with street vendors when I had no money. I wasn’t anonymous enough to get away with lifting gold off of anyone. To get away with stealing food. Not dressed as I was. I had to make it work.

I left the bucket behind, drifting toward the smell of food. All I had to do was grab something quickly. It didn’t matter what. I couldn’t afford to be picky. I chose a nearby vendor with her back turned. I took an entire loaf of bread. It didn’t matter that other patrons had seen me. I already had a reputation for those that recalled me. I’d deal with the consequences of my haste later.

“Hey!” the vendor shouted. “Stop him!”

I was a him now? Maybe it would take a little longer than I thought to be remembered.

I made it four steps before strong arms caught me. “That doesn’t belong to you, does it?” the accompanying voice asked me.

I squirmed in his grip, Seb’s training slipping my mind. “I’m sorry. I know. I need it.” Whatever combination of words he needed let me go. “Please.”

“Can you pay for that?”

Fuck him. I didn’t have time for him to hold me back. I sunk my fangs into him, biting down until he shouted and let go.

I spit the taste of blood out of my mouth, clutching the loaf of bread safely to my chest as I continued my sprint. I snatched the bucket of water as I went without taking the time to stop and assess the hubbub I left in my wake. All I had time to worry about was what little I had left of the hour to get back to Seb and hand over my findings.

No one stopped me again. I made it to my mother’s store front and slammed the door close, locking it behind me.

My mother made a sound of surprise. “What were you doing out there?” she demanded. I didn’t like the fury in her tone.

Electing to ignore her, I put myself far too close to her to get back to the trap door. Juggling the bucket and loaf without losing balance on the ladder was almost a failing battle, especially with my mother’s continuing tirade above me. What mattered was that she didn’t stop me. Despite the odds against me, I made it safely to the bottom.

Seb was awake again when I made it back. Their chains rattled at my footsteps.

“I brought water,” I announced through gasping breath. I set the bucket on the ground before their door.

“Mal? How long has it been?” Seb didn’t have anywhere near the same strength to their voice than they did telling my mother off.

I hugged the loaf into my chest. “I don’t know. Six days?”

Seb exhaled long and low, a slight shake to their limbs and chest I didn’t much like. “What’s going on, Mal? She left me here after I … I bit her.”

“Why did you bite her?” I asked. Like I had room to talk.

“It felt like the right thing to do. I woke up in shackles. I didn’t know where you were. I don’t know how I got here.”

I stared down at the bucket, though it couldn’t have been out of shame. The bucket presented a problem I hadn’t thought of.

“That’s your mother, then?” Seb asked. I nodded. “I don’t think I like her.”

Yeah, me neither.

I couldn’t get the bucket through the bars. It was too wide. Seb couldn’t reach it from where they were, even if their ankles weren’t bound together.

“How much do you know, Mal?”

Not enough. Too much. Th worst of both. “I can’t get this water to you,” I said miserably, falling to my knees. I let the bread rest on my thigh. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this.”

Seb was quiet a moment. “You’re here under duress,” they observed. I didn’t recognize the sound from them. “Mal, I need you to hold it together. I can’t make it without you.”

I bit back the rising keen. “How do I get water to you?” I asked. A problem for a distraction. A really pressing problem that decided whether or not Seb continued to live. The fall hadn’t killed them. There was still a chance.

“You can’t pick the lock?” Seb asked, almost inaudible.

“No, Seb,” I snapped. “She took everything from me.” And only sort of gave back Seb, but only to make things worse for me. As happy as I was to see them alive, I didn’t have the means to keep them that way. It was all on me anyway.

“Okay,” Seb said, that defeat overtaking their voice. They set their head back against the wall and shut their eyes. I had enough time to wonder if they’d fallen asleep.

When they moved again, it was lethargic. They lifted their head with effort and forced their tail across themselves to slap the bucket beside them. It rolled in my direction, Seb’s calculations preventing it from careening away.

“Fill that through the bars. Push it back as far as you can reach.” They sounded like they’d just woken up, slurring well beyond their accent.

“That’s a shit bucket.”

“Don’t really care, love. I haven’t used it.”

“How are you going to drink from it?”

Seb grimaced, their wrists chattering in the chains as they tried to pull their arms down against them. “I don’t know.” They moaned miserably, like they were trying to hold back tears. “Mal, I’m going to die like this.” No, they would cry if they could. “Please don’t leave me to die alone. Don’t leave me.”

I didn’t have a choice. I held Seb’s tears in my eyes for them. “Don’t do that,” I mumbled. They couldn’t’ beg me when I was so powerless. They couldn’t leave me behind with my mother.

I reached for the bucket on Seb’s side of the bars and pulled it forward to set it up to receive. The bread slid to the floor as I poured, but Seb had bigger worries than dirty food. I missed a fair portion of water in the transfer, but it was enough to last them if they could get a hold of it. Sticking my legs between the bars, I pushed the bucket as far as my toes would reach.

Seb eyed the bucket, open-mouthed and exhausted. They needed more help that I had no means to give.

“Will that work?” I asked. It was out of reach of their toes with the way they sat, but not their tail. Seb usually had strength to their tail.

“Talk to me,” Seb rasped.

What? What good was that going to do? It wasn’t going to get water in their system. “Drink, Sebazin,” I pleaded. I visualized coming back to their corpse the next time my mother let me down. They needed to try.

They dropped their head. “I’m so tired, Malxir.”

I was not going to watch them die. Not again. “Sebazin!”

They blinked, breathing shallow.

“Drink, Sebazin,” I demanded. I wasn’t sure how much time that I had left. How long had it taken me to fetch water from the well?

“I can’t.” The words barely carried on their breath.

I gripped the door and rattled it out of frustration. “Drink!” I screamed. Seb remained still, unreactive. I pushed to my feet in a hurry, digging my fingers into the crust of the bread to bring it up with me. I chucked it through the bars at them, bouncing it off their arm. It rolled across the cell, out of our reaches. I risked people remembering my shitty reputation for that loaf. It wouldn’t be long until I was chased and beaten again.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, Sebazin! Fuck you for giving up!”

Pain seeped through Seb’s eyes. They twisted their feet against their bindings. “No,” they whispered.

I needed to leave before I found out what my mother would do if I was late. I didn’t know what an hour felt like. The time frame was too vague. Even if her cruelty was not. I turned on Seb.

“Mal, please,” Seb begged. “Don’t leave me alone again.”

I didn’t have that option. I left them with a heavy weight on my chest and a sinister hand at my throat. Seb’s broken, hushed words repeated through my mind. Was that how I was going to remember them?

My mother waited for me beside the trap door, swinging it shut the moment I pulled myself out of the tunnels. Her lock clicked ominously in place. I knew where Seb was, but that didn’t make them any less out of reach.

“You are not to leave here without my permission,” she barked the moment she stood back up. She meant to be intimidating, pushing into my space, but I was furious. My last words to Seb were hurtful.

I pushed back at her, stumbling in my effort. “You killed them!” I screamed. “You left them to rot and wouldn’t let me help them! You killed them!”

My mother’s fingers wrapped around my throat. The knee jerk spike of arousal immediately smothered out to the fear. “You ungrateful little shit,” my mother seethed. “Nothing is ever good enough for you, is it?”

I grasped at her wrists and kicked out to get her off me. “You’ve given me nothing! Sebazin’s given me everything. I loved them!” Warmth oozed from my nose.

“You’re disgusting.” Physical assault not working out for her, my mother resorted back to magic. My sight blackened in the pain. When I was next aware, I was bent over my knees on the floor.

“Sebazin is dead?” she asked coldly.

My eyes watered as blood dripped off my chin. “They will be.”

Another scathing word sent her mind splinter through my brain. I huddled with my hands over the back of my head. It wouldn’t help, but it felt better.

“You’re a liar, too,” she sneered. “I thought it was your job to take care of him? If he dies, it’s your fault.” My mother told me their life was in my hands, but I wasn’t allowed to do anything to take care of them.

“What do you want me to do? Feed them and give them water with what?”

“That isn’t really my problem, is it?”

I slapped my hands to the floor to pick up my head, a spurt of blood spilling down my face. “I need to leave to bring that back for them!” The point was moot. Seb already quit fighting. I’d learned to survive off of practically nothing before. I could do it again.

“You haven’t earned that.” Her lip curled at me. “Look at you. Do you think anybody wants to see that?”

My lip was split and fat. Blood streamed from my nose. I could feel the hollowness to my cheeks, the tightness to my skin. I was stripped of my clothes and tools. It was all her doing.

“Seb doesn’t care! They’re dying!”

“Go into the other room,” my mother ordered, narrowing her eyes. “That’s enough out of you.”

My mother pretended as if nothing was amiss. She’d ignore me like she always had. We slept in the same bed like we had when I was growing up. I’d woken up a couple times to her shoving me off of her, accustomed as I was to Seb holding me in their sleep. I didn’t sleep well without them.

I barely had hope on my side. The more days between between Seb’s fall and maybe seeing them again, the more sure I was that they hadn’t survived. There was no reason for keeping us separate. My mother didn’t need me back to haunt her space. I was difficult. A disappointment. Both points she ensured I understood.

“Come with me,” my mother demanded one day.

I lifted my eyes to check she’d been talking to me. There was no one else. So far, I’d been sequestered from other people. That was bound to change. I was her whore, right? It was time for me to earn my keep again.

“Now,” she stressed.

I followed her to the shop side of the building in silence. I automatically glanced to the trap door. It was unlocked. Wanting.

“Wait for me at the bottom.”

Concern flashed through me. “Is Sebazin okay?”

I should have expected the smack. I did my best to keep from flinching from the sharp sting. I’d been better than this, once.

“He is none of your concern anymore.” She pointed down to the trap door. “I’ll find you a job if that’s what you need so bad.”

No. No, I liked being in control of whom I slept with. I wanted it to only be Seb. We were going to get married. The misery was supposed to be over.

I stumbled to the hatch, nearly falling into the pit when I opened it. I found the top rung of a ladder and followed it down until my bare toes met dirt. And stone. Seb hadn’t had a soft landing.

I hugged myself as I waited for my eyes to adjust and my mother to join me. The air felt damp and significantly cooler under the earth. It was uncomfortable on my feet. It reminded me of the underdark, when Wyst had led us on a shortcut through it long before Gabe died.

My mother led me down the tunnel, partially natural from the appearances of the ceiling. She gripped on to my shirt to ensure I followed and didn’t slip away on her. It made my gait awkward, but I dealt with the poor balance without complaint. My tail made things easier.

She dragged me along for what felt like a few city blocks. Not for too long. The tunnel we followed opened up into a cavern lit with low candlelight for the humans that waited for us in its center. An elder, unassuming man with a well kept beard and carefully styled hair looked up at our approach.

“Jozren, this is your son?” he asked. He had a calm voice.

“Say nothing,” my mother ordered for only me to hear, pushing me forward. I stumbled to a carpeted place before the man, hugging myself and avoiding his eyes. My mother already had a job for me in mind. He could finishing unclothing me himself.

He reached forward, touching my face with chilled fingers to study me. His nose and eyelids were heavy with age. “This is Traust’s son?” he asked my mother.

“Yes.” I had a known father?

His eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”

“Without a doubt,” my mother answered with a fair amount of annoyance.

“I don’t see him here at all.” His fingers dropped my face to wipe at his robes like I had soiled them.

“Malxir takes on my mother’s features,” my mother explained shortly.

The man hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose he has.”

I wasn’t about to be used, then? This man knew my father. My grandmother. I hadn’t known either existed. My entire life had been my mother and endless strangers. It always felt foreign whenever Seb talked about their lineage, like it was normal to understand what all made you up.

“He had no magic?” the man asked.

“Fire,” my mother corrected. “He has hellfire. No connection to anything else. Bertran, he’s of no use to us.”

“Are you sure the magic hasn’t skipped a generation?” He stepped away from me, out of my peripheral. “Traust was nearly as powerful as you. It’s hard to believe the combined potency of your sorcery would end.”

“This has been my disappointment for twenty years,” my mother muttered. “Malxir doesn’t even think he’s a man.”

“Whose fault is that, Jozren?” Bertram asked with veiled disdain. “Why would this other tiefling be better? He’s also not a sorcerer.”

I jerked my head up. Sebazin. They lived through the sedative and the fall.

“Sebazin is the last remaining Krimzik of our old, rival clan. He slaughtered them all, presumably. We could revitalize his clan and claim its rights as our own.”

“This Krimzik clan,” Bertram mused. “Is that the trafficking clan from the west coast?”

“Yes.”

I looked between my mother and Bertram. Seb told me they didn’t remember what their clan did.

“Why would he be a better choice?”

“Rumor was that no one in the Krimzik clan was less than half blood devil,” my mother explained. “Anyone less than was murdered. Sebazin was the heir to the main branch of the family. A tight, controlled bloodline.”

“Inbred,” Bertram deadpanned.

“Does that matter to us? He’s more fiend than human.”

They were talking about Seb like they were some sort of breeding prospect. The chill air prickled my skin, gathering it into fierce goosebumps.

Bertram considered, turning his eyes back to me in an appraising manner. “Take his seed for yourself, Jozren. I prefer the idea of this one for Lowdie. A cumulation of you and Traust can’t be worthless.”

Me? Me as breeding stock. I glanced sharply at my mother, pleading silently. What kind of person talked about people like this? What kind of mother about her child? I was going to fight it. I couldn’t, once my mother realized she could threaten Seb on me.

“I’m too old to carry another child,” my mother said, displeasure dripping from her voice. “I will not subject myself to another parasite. Malxir nearly killed me.”

“Then is Sebazin also too old? He’d be around your age, wouldn’t he?”

“He’s been running with my son,” my mother grated. “He’s a disgusting homosexual, but he’s capable of trying. Believe me.”

I took a step back, dread compounding in my chest. My mother took the opportunity of us showing up with far, far too much intention. She’d used me as revenue for most of my life, renting me out to pedophiles that would pay to touch me and fuck me, but using Seb and me as some sort of breeders felt earth shattering. I’d never had the thought of conceiving a child before. I wasn’t meant to sire one.

“This one is about to bolt, Jozren,” Bertram said.

“Let him. He won’t get far,” my mother said.

They were talking about me. I felt their eyes touching me, dissecting me in a whole new way. I owned getting raised as a whore. I was not going to produce any progeny.

“Give me time to think about it,” Bertram sighed. He turned to the two silent men stationed behind him. “The options are a nice change. Though I do wish you would reconsider taking child with the Krimzik heir to test your theory. You would have full support if the pregnancy was as rough as your last.”

“I’m in my forties, Bertram. Traust and I had a difficult time conceiving. Sebazin bites. No.”

Hope spilled into my chest. Seb was alive and fighting. They did bite, though they’d only bitten me when they were buried inside me. Or so unraveled before we’d even touched. Always when they were lost to their lust. Never out of spite.

I needed to see them. I stared pleadingly at my mother. No words; I knew better.

“You suggest I allow him with my daughter when he’d half feral?” Bertram asked snidely. Daughter? How old was she? Bertram was ancient.

“He can be gagged,” my mother said. Her red eyes passed coldly over me, a knowing smile playing at the corner of her lips. “He wouldn’t dare harm her.”

Bertram sighed, turning his hips to signal the final closing of the conversation. “We will discuss.”

My mother nodded and motioned for me to join her. I complied without hesitation. “He believes you left him,” my mother told me in a low voice. She led me in a new direction. “Come with me and we’ll straighten that out right now.”

“Thank you,” I said with intense desperation. “Oh, please, thank you so much.”

She eyed me sideways, expression carefully neutral. “You’ve learned to beg.”

My shoulders jumped. I did. I shouldn’t have used it on my mother.

She remained quiet, lost in her thoughts, as she led me the rest of the way to Seb. We walked down a short, craggy hall that led to a heavy wooden door. The door opened to a small cavern with two iron bar gates.

Seb was strung up behind one. Their wrists were shackled together, their gambeson bunched up to their elbows. They had enough chain lead from a wrought anchor to rest their forearms onto their head from a half-sitting position. Their tail lay listless beside their manacled ankles, their feet bare with boots nowhere to be found.

I darted past my mother and collapsed into the bars, grasping the chilled metal into my palms. “Sebazin!”

Seb’s chin jerked up and their eyes lazily slid in my direction. “Hey.” Their lips were ashen and chapped, so dry under the cracks of blood.

“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. The cell reeked of stale piss with some straw haphazardly tossed in Seb’s direction. A tipped bucket rested beside them. “I can’t do anything. I’m so sorry. I miss you so much.”

“Shh,” Seb inserted between my breaths until I finally bit back my apologies. “Enough of that.” Their tongue swiped uselessly over their lips. “I thought I told you to run.”

My horns clinked against the bars, my fingers grasping tighter. “I couldn’t leave you.”

“Why, little one?” I was taken aback by their use of their old pet name for me, before we’d become lovers. “What good comes from us both suffering?”

My mother grumbled and fixed her fingers through my shirt. “That’s enough. There’s your proof, Sebazin.”

“No,” I moaned. I tried to shake her hold. I’d seen that emptiness in Seb’s eyes before. They were giving up.

“It’s okay, Mal,” Seb lied breathlessly, hanging their head back down.

“Sebazin!” I shouted, only to be cuffed upside the head. I lost my grip on the bars. My mother tugged me away.

“Let me take care of them!” I begged. “Please?” They weren’t well. Something was wrong. “Please, Mother. Let me take care of them.” I dug my feet in, staring at Seb as their chest barely moved the gambeson with each breath.

My mother scoffed. “How do you think you’re going to do that?”

“I took care of myself before I left you,” I snapped. I jerked back when her fingers released my shirt. “I’ve taken care of Seb before.”

“Oh, really?” my mother asked. “Fine. Take care of him. His life is in your hands now. He can’t leave and if you do, he dies.” A grin overtook her. “If you realize it’s too difficult, he dies. I need him, Malxir. I need him more than I need you.”

“What? To rebuild the Krimzik clan? Abandon your sorcerers?” I demanded.

My mother’s sinister smile dropped and the back of her hand hit my mouth hard enough to draw blood. I staggered back, gripping Seb’s cell door to stay upright as the room spun about me. “I’m doing you a favor, insolent brat,” she spat.

I moaned softly while I focused back on her, blinking hard to settle her images into one. “Stop hitting me.” I didn’t manage to show the anger I felt.

Seb groaned behind me, too weak for their usual growl. The chains clattered as they shifted. “Abuse your child in front of me, you’ll give me revenge to look forward to, bitch,” they panted. “You want my baby? My heir? Do you think I just need to get a woman pregnant and you can use my name? What happens if it’s born a girl? Is a girl going to mean anything in your ideal clan? Girls meant nothing in my family.” Seb grimaced, baring their fangs. “High blood ones made more boys. More foot men.” They swallowed.

“Your clan is dead This is -”

“My name,” Seb cut in. “If you want the Krimzik name, a man needs to carry it. It’s not very respectable otherwise, even in your world. Is it?”

My mother pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

“You can’t produce a son out of me and expect people to respect the name. I’m known across the continent, for better or worse. Will that still be the case in another twenty years? Will my clan finally fade into obscurity where it belongs?”

“Your clan is ancient and legend -”

“Shut up,” Seb barked. They coughed, chains rattling as they tried to draw in. Their breaths came heavy when the coughs quieted.

“I need to raise him,” Seb croaked, “as mine. Claim him. Do you know how difficult and expensive it is to keep a prisoner long term? I’ll never be of willing flesh. Not unless you fuck my brain, but then you’ll never know how to run the clan like a Krimzik. I’m the only one that knows everything. Maybe that won’t matter when my son is old enough, but then what’s the point of my name? The clan is dead. Fucking leave it that way.”

They’d told me they didn’t know what their clan had done before they killed them all. Were they lying to me? Or my mother?

I recognized the word of magic from my mother, even if the spell wasn’t directed at me. Seb jerked with a strangled noise before slumping against the chains.

“Seb!” I cried weakly, grabbing back on to the bars.

“You have one hour each day to care for them, from the time I unlock the door to the tunnels. You will be back home before that hour is up.”

I whipped around to face her, my shoulder blades pressing into the bars. “Unlock this?” I asked.

“No.”

I was dumbfounded, rendered speechless for a moment. “Then how do I take care of them?”

My mother shrugged, spinning on her heel. “You’ll figure it out if it matters. He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in days. I don’t think he can go another. You have one hour, Malxir. Don’t waste it with your theatrics.”

She left me alone with Seb with no tools or direction. Seb was shackled opposite the door, too far to reach. I believed her, that they didn’t have time to waste. But unconscious, out of reach, what was I supposed to do?

“Don’t you ever do that to me again, Malxir,” she threatened.

I held a hand gently over where she hit, shrinking back and blinking back the tears from my eyes. Showing weakness would make it worse. I couldn’t cry. She hated that. It wouldn’t help Seb anyway.

“Take off his armor,” she reminded me with a sneer. She paced back to the table, lifting her cup to her perfect, unmarked lips. It was like my fire had done nothing to her at all.

I bit back my whimper, but I slunk over to Seb to kneel beside them. I pet my fingers over their cheek, willing them to open their eyes. They needed to be stronger than the sedative. My mother wanted them and that could not be good. We needed to get away before she sunk her claws in too deep.

I didn’t get anything out of Seb. Not even a light twitch at my touch. If not for their breath, I would have thought them dead again. They looked older like this, like it was the first time I really saw their age.

“You won’t run out the time,” my mother told me conversationally. “He’s not coming to in time to save you. Get to work, Malxir.”

Seb only wore the big pieces when we traveled I knew how they came off. I unbuckled all I could reach, pulling on them and tugging on their armor to separate them. The way Seb moved to my manipulations was unnatural. Like they were no longer real. It turned my stomach.

My mother grabbed the first piece I took off, turning it over in her hands. “This is original to the Krimzik clan,” she muttered. She stared at them contemplatively. “He’s destroyed any indication of his family crest, but the evidence remains.”

I pushed against Seb’s chest with my feet to roll them, bracing to keep from sliding. My mother tossed aside the piece she’d been holding, and even though it didn’t startle me, I flinched away from the clatter.

“Did you know who he was?” my mother asked me.

I swallowed. “Yes.” Not at first. Not until a few years of people recognizing them and Seb reluctantly explaining to me. But I learned. Who Seb was before didn’t matter as much. To me. To other people, Seb’s past meant more than how they acted presently. Like the twenty years difference meant nothing.

“Did you really think he could make your life better?” she sneered.

Yes. Life had been better with Seb. Even during the bad parts. The times we fought or Seb had hurt me. All of it had been better than living under my mother’s thumb.

“No,” I mumble. She required an answer to a question. Truth, on the other hand, only mattered if it impacted her.

I stopped pushing on Seb, the air in my lungs spiteful against me. I couldn’t go through this all again. All of the fear Seb had brushed aside for me came back tenfold, settling heavily in my chest.

“You’re not finished,” my mother scolded. “Keep going.”

I shook my head, fighting simultaneously for breath and to hold back looming ears. Immediately, the sharp spike of pain of her cantrip rammed through my brain. I buckled forward at this one, clutching my head in fruitless desperation.

“Stop!” I wailed. Unbidden sobs followed the frightened word. “Please. I’m doing what you want.”

“You lost your manners,” she tutted. “You were never very good at them. I shouldn’t be too surprised.”

I wasn’t going to do anything to purposefully spite her. Not when she had Sebazin captive. I couldn’t be perfect like she’d wanted. I’d always found a way to mess it up.

“Please,” I panted. “I’m trying, Mother.”

“Hand me his sword,” she ordered.

I sucked in a shaky breath and did just that, passing it to her with sheath and belt. I flinched when she pulled it, the hasp of the metal too loud in the small room.

“It’s nice,” she commented. “He has a knack for fine things. But it’s not from his clan.” She slammed the blade back, the hilt clicking against the scabbard.

I jumped, resuming my efforts in pulling off the last piece of armor. I freed it with one final heave.

“Not yours,” my mother instructed.

I unbuckled my belts and threw the contents on the table without looking. No, I kept my eyes locked on Seb’s vulnerable form. As a mode of protection? As an admittance of guilt?

I untied my armor in quick succession, grappling it over my head just as swiftly. It joined Seb’s armor beside them.

“Lock picks,” my mother observed.

My eyes shot up to her in alarm as she rifled through the contents of my pockets. Fuck, I needed those.

“What sorts of naughty things have you been getting up to, Malxir?” Her red eyes met mine. “Was running off to play Sebazin Krimzik’s whore not enough for you?” Her fingers danced over my muzzled blades.

“Those clothes are too nice for a disloyal brat like you. Take them off.”

No, what was the point of it all if I was only to return to what I was? Seb and I were finally free of it all, so near to the end of our adventure when we could settle down as married lovers. Our fight was over.

I took off the gambeson slowly, letting the shame crawl into its place. I hesitated with the tunic, running the familiar fabric between my fingers. Knowing better, I looked up pleadingly at my mother anyway. “Let me keep it,” I begged her. The tunic meant too much to discard. “Please, Mother.”

My vision fractured into darkness at the force of her spell. I heard my cries come back to me off the surface of her walls. I didn’t have much left in me. I panted miserably on my hands and knees, the pain of falling to her cantrip reaching my brain with every heartbeat.

“Where did you learn to talk back, Malxir?” she inquired venomously. “This is unacceptable.”

The tears I had temporarily stayed as I undressed spilled down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I warbled. I didn’t know what I was apologizing for. “Please stop hurting me.”

“I would never hurt you, Malxir,” my mother said, voice suddenly velvety soft. “You’ve forgotten your manners. You need to be taught again. Those clothes you’re wearing are too nice for you. You’re going to ruin them if you keep wearing them.”

I’d had the under clothes, the chausses, and the boots for five years. The tunic for two. If I was going to ruin them, I’d had plenty of chances. I picked my hands off the floor and knelt, my tail tightly around my legs and my fingers clutched back into the fabric of the tunic. “But Seb got it with me.”

I recognized the distaste for me on my mother’s face. “That makes it his, doesn’t it? Do you really want to be responsible for something so nice that doesn’t belong to you?”

It was mine. I did the work to get it. Even the things Seb did buy for me, they’d stressed belonged to me.

I didn’t have her grace to protest again. Another one of her attacks would knock me out. My entire world wavered as I struggled to stay upright. I had no choice.

I struggle to push the tunic past my horns, taking care to fold it neatly before putting it aside. She continued watching me expectantly. It wasn’t enough for her.

Twisting to move my legs from under me, I untied my boots and placed them beside the tunic. Those boots were made special for me. Seb made sure of it. Even if they’d treated me terribly for a couple weeks to break my stubborn resolve that my comfort didn’t matter. It turned out, they were wrong all along about that. I’d suffered their worst to be proven right in the end.

It was so difficult to remember what I was supposed to be. I added my chausses to the tunic and looked up at my mother imploringly. Surely she didn’t want me bare. She’d always let me have my shirt and braies before.

“Was that so difficult?” my mother asked. She tipped back her cup and set it on the table to open a door opposite the one we’d entered through. She exited briefly, leaving me alone in a deep seeded belief that I wouldn’t flee. I couldn’t.

She returned soon enough to stand over Seb with contemplation and inconvenience in her expression. “I’ll help you drag him.”

I stared at her, breathless. “What?”

“Malxir,” she snapped, ferocious red eyes on me. I shrunk. “Grab his arm.”

I was either going to help her or she was going to punish me until I did. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

The room teetered dangerously when I stood. Darkness threatened the edges of my vision. She had chased all of my strength out of me, but I had no choice but to try.

We each grabbed one of Seb’s arms and pulled them across the room. My vision abandoned me in my efforts, though I stayed functional. The floor eventually became wooden and my mother paused. My sight cleared at the passing exertion.

We stood in what could only be described as a shop. It was quaint, the inventory innocuous enough. The counter reminded me of the one Theo had in his shop, in the brief time I’d lived with him. Except my mother had a gaping trap door behind her counter. I had been a whisper of a step away from falling in.

A whine broke from my chest and I turned to my mother in alarm. I couldn’t see the bottom to the hole.

“Enough,” my mother hissed. “Push him in.”

Seb was going to die. “Please,” I whimpered.

Another slap sent me reeling. “You obstinate cur! He’s fat enough to be fine.”

She was going to make me or figure it out herself and make me feel worse for not helping. Seb was going to get hurt.

I positioned myself beside my mother to push until Seb’s body disappeared into the dark. It hit ground with a sickening smack. I bit into the flesh of my hand until I tasted blood. My stomach churned. My mother made me kill them.

“I’m going to tie him up so he can’t get anywhere when he comes to,” my mother told me conversationally. Like Seb could wake up from death on their own. “You’re going to go back into the other room and wait quietly. You won’t go anywhere else, will you?”

“No,” I promised meekly. I dropped my had to my side.

“Go,” she ordered.

I returned dejectedly to her living space. I could leave, but I’d be sentencing Seb to death if they hadn’t died already. I eyed my sword, fantasizing about using it against her. I was an ambush predator. Catching her off guard when she came back was my best chance.

What if I missed? I didn’t have Seb to move in and hold her off to keep her from retaliating against me. I was one strike away from passing out, dizzy from the mind splinters she’d used as punishments.

Could I really kill my mother? I wasn’t bad. Only desperate.

“What are they talking about?” It wasn’t that I suddenly cared because Seb did. I wanted to prove that Seb didn’t need to be there. Or, at least, could talk to me instead.

“No idea,” Seb admitted. “Something magic.”

“Then why are you listening?” I asked flatly. Better to do something that interested them.

“Because look at him,” Seb said, that smile growing to something with real substance. “This is what he lives for.”

To me, Gabe looked concentrated, bordering on irate. It was clear him and Wyst didn’t see eye to eye in their discussion, only just on the side of civility.

“Gabe tried to teach me magic,” Seb explained, voice far away but black eyes present and swimming in the reflective firelight. “I lack the subtlety for the kind he knows. I can’t connect to the power or energy without him.”

“Don’t you use magic?” I crawled over the tree Seb sat upon to sidle up beside them. If they weren’t moving, I’d join them. It was better than staring into the woods on my own.

“Yeah, just a little blood magic.” Their arm settled over my shoulders, pulling me into their side by sheer weight. “Like your green fire, but different. That’s our connection to our devil heritage. To the hells. It’s not the same as the magic Gabe and Wyst learned.”

“How are you not bored when you don’t understand and can’t understand what they’re talking about?” I grumbled.

Seb hummed again, though I felt it more than heard it, pressed against their chest. “Before we ran into you three, it had only been me, Gabe, and Skrit for a while. Skrit’s smart, but her interests don’t really overlap with Gabe’s. The two of us get along better than she does with him. And before it was us three, we’ve never grouped up with another wizard like him. Other magic users, sure: Warlocks, clerics, rangers.”

“How long have you been traveling around?” Seb made it sound like years.

“Doing merc work like this? Since around the time I met Gabe, before we started fucking. Gabe was, uh, an idiot outside of academia, but he got better.” Seb chuckled softly, pure contentment on their face. Their attention lapsed, defaulting back to Gabe as he executed a long winded explanation.

“Anyway, Wyst is his first intellectual match in his area of expertise. I love what it’s doing to him.” I believed them, their bottom eyelids drawn up, the weight of their cheeks lifted.

“I don’t get it,” I mumbled.

Seb sniffed a small laugh, hugging me in tighter with a rub over my chest. “I can’t be his everything, little one,” they snickered. “But I want to be around for it.”

I felt a little pang at that. There was a depth to their relationship I had never before seen. The likes of which I’d never have, even if Seb didn’t let me go anymore, either. It was silly to feel like I was missing anything, considering Seb had done more than stay like they’d promised. I had their attention whenever I wanted it. But beside Gabe, I stood in his shadow.

I was lucky, anyway, to have these three at my side. Skrit and Alice had my back when it mattered, too. The group was sometimes more than I knew what to do with. It was good.