Unwillingly

to quit

Crrk! Thd. 

Castiel barely had the time to watch Elren’s body fall. Once the bolt flew, he was already on the ground, once white hair stained a sort of off-burgundy where the bolt stuck out.

A spike of anxiety seizes the man’s marrows first, married with perplexion second, and realization third. His gaze trains on the bridge nearby, where the other ‘aheral stood, as well as the plated figure at the forefront wielding a crossbow. His better-judgment considers that what he sees, sprawled motionless on the cobbled street, is a hallucination. It would make sense, after all. What he saw on the shores of the silver citadel, the wayward ship and smiling ‘ker, Cordelia and Sarryn did not notice. 

But the shock cemented into the faces of the crowd were too real — too stark, too raw, and a litany of voices soon called out in protest amid the clang of blade and arrow-rain nearby. The sultry, serpentlike voice in his ear cooed to him a cruel reminder: How long were you counting, before this would happen?

Castiel’s gaze set to the felled Elren, where he quickly sank to his side with a firm shake to the shoulders — he was alive, surely. He doesn’t die this easily.

“Elren? Elren!”

The man stirs just slight, before the quick glint of a blade draws Castiel’s gaze aside. Looming above him, the perpetrator, who tossed to his knees a jingle of shackles. A thunderous voice soon followed to answer all of Castiel’s questions.

“Sillumiran, on me! Seize the undeath and his accomplice!” called the voice, before the helmet set to Castiel with a down-pointed blade. “You — shackle yourself and lay on your front, lest I cut you down where you stand.”

“Alright, easy!” acquiesced Castiel as his palms lofted, before tentatively snaking towards the shackles and fastening them. Less-than-gracefully, the man lowers himself to the cold pavement. A sudden tackle by a guard sends Elren to the nearest wall with a grunt, and the two manage to exchange a quick, desperate glance from one another that revealed a mutual truth: This wasn’t like in Karosgrad. There was no escaping, not unless something damn incredible happens, but luck hasn’t been on Castiel’s side lately.

“Malithor— what is the meaning of this? We are under siege!” he soon hears a feminine voice call out, the voice of the Sohaer Luthien.

Malithor turns, and there follows a verbal spat between the two. He pushes, she pulls, each of them insistent on the priority at hand, while other faces join the dialogue on the walkway in protest of the sudden accost.

Castiel couldn’t hear what was said, but he knew Malithor was being ostracized in the fray. He soon feels another form press their palm to the center of his back, just in time to see Malithor whip away from Luthien. He storms by the Sillumiran guarding Elren with a passing command, and the guard soon shuffles off with him.

The stone his face rests on is warm now. His dejected stare sets somewhere down the avenue, and he abhorred that the Sohaer had chosen to prioritize the siege instead of himself. It means he has more time to rub his nose in the dirt, to mull in what would come of his fate. It caused his stomach to churn, caused his breath to shudder. The female guard holding him down spoke to him, sympathetic of his position, but most of it was tuned out. Instead, a much more venomous voice spoke to him.

How could this have happened?

I don’t know.

A deadly miscalculation on your part. Somewhere along the way, you misstepped. Somewhere along the way, you dug your own grave, and I’ll be here to see you rot in it.

Castiel knew he was being taunted. Death dangled over his head like a hook, and part of him considers the sheer possibility that he might be able to escape. It happened once in Karosgrad — he remembers the chase, but another part of him was uncertain that he would even have the chance to get on his feet.

Soon, the invasion fell to a lull. The faces he saw before had disappeared somewhere else, and he had soon resorted to resting his back against the fence of a flowerbed alongside the guard at his side. Another woman approached.

“Bring him to the cells.”
 

Cold. Absent of light. Castiel is led somewhere underground by a too-gentle hand, down a winding tunnel and soon into a stone carved corridor, filled with a collection of guards and the Sohaer alike. Around its periphery, three prison cells, though his attention is drawn to the first of which and the clamor and clang of its door. Two figures walk out, bringing in tow a third, desecrated body. Elren.

“Do watch him briefly, I do believe I need to take the body to the morgue.” Malithor tells Luthien, before offering Castiel an eerie taunt. “I look forward to our talks.”

Castiel couldn’t subdue the choked breath that caught in his throat. 

The guard escorting him made an attempt to plead with Malithor before he left, though her words were quick to be dismissed. Castiel noted the clammy complexion of the one following him, the way he seemed to hesitate before every breath, every word spoken, and to be honest? He didn’t feel much different. He and this guard, who he’d soon come to know as Phandelver, were in the same boat — a brief glance shared between the two assured this.

Only when Malithor returned did Castiel’s escort begin to coax him into the nearest cell. It’s uncomfortably small, no doubt contributing to his ever-increasing anxiety, so the man takes for peering through the barred window near its front. Malithor followed in tow. Just before he could pass through, however, Luthien’s voice halts him from outside.

“Malithor.”

Castiel notes the disappointment that curled into Malithor’s features. The two lock eyes, but he was quick to put on a different front when he turned to Luthien.

“Ti, Sohaer?”

“What is it you intend to do?”

“Speak to him, is all. If he does not plan to attack like his lliran, there is nothing to fear.”

A pause follows the Sohaer from outside.

“... You will speak to him from a distance. I will watch.”

Malithor allowed the words to hang in the air, before acquiescing. “Very well,” he tells her, before exiting the periphery of the cell. “Search him, Phandelver.”

Phandelver took in a shaken breath, no less clammy and disoriented all the same. Castiel notes the disposition of the guard, the way he’s puppeteered joint by joint, instead seizing it as an opportunity — a weakness in the fortitude Malithor had crafted so far. The sudden clk of a crossbow outside prompts him to peer through the cell’s window instead.

“We’ll make this quick- think of it like a game. You have until I load my crossbow to provide me proof of your lliran’s misdeed, lest you share his same fate.”

You’re running out of time. Better think of something, fast. that voice taunts.

There's nothing I can do.

“I know nothing!” was all he was able to protest with. His mind ran in circles, gaze falling to the crossbow the man worked at. What Malithor sought to pry from him eluded him, because Castiel barely knew how his predicament came to be in the first place. There is nothing for him to hold on to, except for the slimmest chance that his faux-cluelessness or the sympathy of the guards might give him a chance at life. 

“Your friend survived a crossbolt to the head, he revived after we killed him on the way to the morgue, we were forced to dispatch him from his undeath once more. You knew this, confess.” demands Malithor, soon settling his bolt into the crossbow in some smug, entertained fashion. “Why did you not seem surprised when he rose from the dead? Did you return him to life?

Oh, this bastard.

Castiel could believe that Mankind were foolish enough to believe in such outlandish tales, that a man might rise from his grave with a mere touch. He’s evaded their suspicion before, by sheer luck or sheer incompetence — but no matter how often it happened, how true this fact remained, he now knows one thing to be irrefutable.

Malithor knew exactly how to pull the strings.

Inside the cell, Castiel soon feels Phandelver’s hands begin to frisk him, brushing past potions, bottles, and blade alike, and he seizes the opportunity to whisper.

Use Cordelia.

“Show them the notes — my journal. It’s all I have to prove my innocence, that what I pursue in el’cihi is at the behest of Celestia and nothing else. Please, I have a daughter to care for."

Phandelver, after a moment of pause, offers Castiel a sympathetic look. He stares at the notes and journal he had extracted. His mouth hangs agape, but the words did not leave. Though Castiel's words did little to elicit true aid from the guard, he knew that what he said hit close to home, whether he found the softest part of Phandelver's heart, or resonated with a daughter of his own. Perhaps it’d be close enough to afford him a change of mind from the Sohaer.

“Answer me!” Malithor barks through the bars. Outside, Castiel could hear the commotion — a litany of voices that had hoped to reason with this tyrant, yet his gaze remained plastered through the bars with a sickening intent. It's a humiliating thing, to be cornered and held by the point of a bolt like a hog for the slaughter, and Castiel wouldn't be surprised if Malithor was very aware of this fact.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
 

“You lie.” he'd refute, removing the hand crank from his crossbow. “Your next words will determine if you survive this encounter or not. You will tell me what you know, or I swear on Larihei and everything I hold dear I will shoot you dead where you stand and walk myself into the acid pits for betraying el'Sohaer. I advise that you pick your next words very carefully.”
 

He'll kill you anyway.

“The prisoner has willingly exchanged his journal and notes.” protests Phandelver. After a moment's glance outside, he makes for a quick exit of the cell.

Castiel’s mouth was sand-dry, making it difficult to speak, and his head spun. He recalled what Celestia said regarding Haelun’or’s trifling with Haense, and how he had provided information they had not already had. Perhaps he could entertain the idea of a political edge, and pique the Sohaer’s diplomatic interest. Besides, what else was he to do?

“Celestia says I've managed to find information the northmen Valah have not - I can continue to aid your city, but not if I’m dead! I can get more information on the pirates attacking Haelu-”

“This is not about the Mori! I know you are lying to me.” growled Malithor, as he pointed the crossbow through the bars. Castiel watched his finger tempt the trigger. “Farewell.”

Castiel reeled back, his gaze shot around, searching for anything he might use, a corner to save himself behind, but there was nothing. He counted these few final beats with anticipation and a hold of breath.

Thrrk, thd!

“No!”

Through his quickened breaths, the sweat glistening his brow, Castiel’s eye shot open when nothing came. He peers towards the window, spying his savior. It was the female guard who pinned him down earlier. Castiel suspected the following silence from her to be a testament to her fear and the nigh instant regret in her actions.

Malithor stared down, and he smiled. “Very well,” he murmured, before facing Castiel. “You will face trial regardless. I do believe I have paperwork to tend to.”
 

Castiel had only been left alone for two hours, but it felt like an eternity. He hadn’t caught his breath, not in the slightest, and he couldn’t stop staring at his palms and the way they shook. The urge to vomit burned in his chest. He craned his head back, forcing in and out breaths that did little to remedy his unease. Only once he had been afforded water. Outside, faint murmurs are heard between guards and councilmembers, yet nowhere did he see Celestia.

She gave you up so, so easily, after all you did. You were kind. You were patient. She played you like an instrument, and you barely had the chance to accomplish what you came here to do. What a sad, prideless ending this will be for you.

His breath caught in his throat.

Elren isn’t here to rescue you this time. What you saw, and what you feel now are raw and real. No hand will rouse you from a nightmare, no mirage will betray your fate.

“Stop, stop,” he whispered, tucking his head into his knees.

And at the end of the day, when the world is black and your body is incorporeal, ra’drakurz raht roknoth, kuul ra’vaznan amol tul.

The cold clamor of the cell door resounded. Castiel’s head shot up from his curled spot on the ground.

Malithor stared down with a palpable, calculated smile. “I gave you my word I would not kill you, unless proven guilty. You will be searched for foreign markings or scarring. If you have none, we may proceed with a trial.”

This is your last chance, False-Prince. You know what comes next.

The brand.

Although his fear was all too real, Castiel knew he could no longer maintain his story — he walked on glass now. Malithor knew this would be his breaking point. His mind rolled quick with thought, contemplating what last-ditch effort he might make to save himself.

Where his features once twitched and trembled with what were once fear, now with raw contempt. It comes in the way his eye waters, the way his breath shakes through the syllables of his words. The fate he meets now elicited a burning hatred inside of his chest, and he thought- for a moment- that he might be able to leave a mark. If his prediction about Malithor were right, it’s that he still had a chance to turn this around on Celestia.

“Do it, but Just know that Celestia despises you all the same.”

Malithor would sweetly smile as he stared down. “That’s alright with me.”

Castiel’s heart sank.

Kneeling, Malithor then seized one of his arms and unfurled the sleeve. His gaze dotted the accursed scar-like script that lined Castiel’s skin, every contour and curve of his arm, wrist, and palm, before his head slowly lifted towards him.

Castiel is certain to lock eyes with Malithor, and he speaks lowly.

“There is still a chance to pursue something greater than killing me.”

“And what is that?”

“Insurmountable power.”

Castiel had thought that, for a moment, he might be able to pick apart Malithor’s mind. He had learned to recognize these sorts of patterns over the years, the power behind the men who are most greedy for it. If a devil and bargain could persuade the man into undermining everything this encounter had built up to, Castiel may be able to escape alive.

Malithor’s eyes lit up to the words, but the words that followed betrayed the avarice that committed to his features.

“I don’t want power.” he confesses softly. “I just want her love. It is my redemption.”
 

What followed next came first as a blur, then a flood of red over his sight. Somewhere in the distance, Castiel hears the bellow of a prideful tyrant over his mangled corpse, and the world fades. 

Was it still worth it?

What?

The deal.

No.

Then make it worth it.
 

The space around Castiel is bereft of warmth. He doesn't feel anything, and his mind is blank. Time is obsolete in these few, waking moments. No memory lingered except the shine of a plated greave and crack of his own skull, but for all he knew, he was still dead. 

He's submerged in something ‐ a discolored, off-green liquid, and his eye focuses on the world around him. It's a small corridor, he understands, one now familiar to him. He's beneath Avluk, in the alchemy lab. But why?

A hand lofts to reach out. It, too, meets something solid — a barrier between him and the outside world. 

It's a fleeting moment of peace, because a faint ache in his chest tells him he can't breathe. He can’t speak. Panic swells within as he realizes where he is.

Both hands dart up to the glass, frantically pawing about as his gaze darted along the chamber in search of an exit, a level, or a latch he might pull. There was nothing. Instead, he resorts to hurriedly pounding at the glass. His instincts told him to scream, to call for help, but his better-judgment knows the breath he has left is waning. He feels every thump of his heart in his chest, a once inert body ignited to life at the behest of blossoming fear.

He soon braces himself against the tube's structure, realizing truly how little space he had to work with, palms and forearms pressing to the front of the glass. He feels the bubbles weave up his face, his lungs burn, his throat cramps — and he pushes with all the strength he has until his muscle ache.

SHRRK!

His body hurls forth through a rain of glass and alchemical liquid upon the ground. He lands on his elbows with a thud, and the slivers of glass that dug into his knees and palms were a minute thing compared to the heaves of breath he sought to catch. 

The splutters and wet coughs persisted for longer than he’d have liked. He watches the slow creep of blood mix into the pool of liquid on the floor, from his lip hanging a syrupy string of spit which he haphazardly wiped away. Only when his breath returned, did the man lift his gaze, tired, but vindictive.

May divine violence be yours, revenant Prince.