Summary:
A private discussion during the intermission.
Notes:
Well, dear readers. We finally made it to why this series has the yandere tag and shed some light on wtf is going on.
This is a shorter chapter than usual, but I think it has enough weight to stand on its own.
After reading, are you team Galen, Fenrow, or both? Let me know!
Whispers Below the Arena
Cold. She was so cold. And sore. One ache blurred into the next from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
She slowly cracked open her eyes. It was pitch black.
Was she dead? No, she couldn't be dead. Everything hurt far too much for that. Had she gone blind? She couldn't even make out indistinct shapes, let alone a source of light. She let her eyes fall shut again. It was much too hard to keep them open.
A distant, buzzing clamor reverberated through the walls, but it was muffled. Like she was beneath several layers of rock or soil. Anxiety suddenly spiked until she tasted copper, streaming through her body with every quickening beat of her heart.
Was she back in the Underground? Back in that terrifying, horrible, lightless place? Oh no. No, no, no.
"Fates above and below," a shaking voice said. "Help me get her down from there,"
There was a click, followed by a whoosh as pressure lifted from the back of her neck, her forearms. A clinking sound came from somewhere below, then an echoing thud as a cool brush of air passed across her ankles.
Something very warm touched her arm, stroked her shoulder. She flinched, whimpered.
Her eyes flew open again. Move, she needed to move. She had to hide. Find a corner, make herself small as possible, and hide. She jerked upright and tried to get her legs under her. They instantly buckled, and her arms slipped free from their anchors.
Suddenly, she was weightless. A dim part of her recognized she was falling, her legs too weak to bear her weight, her arms too leaden and numb to throw out for balance.
She braced for the pain of a heavy impact, but it never came.
Arms wrapped around her, pulling her against a hard chest. The smell of smoke and ash curled into her lungs. The firey notes split her in two, the scent immediately comforting and simultaneously stoking the flames of her despair.
"It's okay, Lili," said a low, steadying voice. "Don't worry. I'm here, and I've got you now."
More panic flooded her system, and she thrashed, terror gripping her in an iron fist. She knew what came next. She couldn't bear another touch, couldn't endure another body rutting into hers. No more. She couldn't take any more.
"No, please no," she pleaded, trying to break free of her assailant's grasp. "I'm sorry, please—please just let me go."
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, lowering them to the ground. "My thali, my soul's light, please just let me hold you."
She thrashed even harder, struggling to break free. Her useless nails scrabbled over the stone floor, across feverish skin. She wouldn't let them take her. She wouldn't let them—she couldn't—Her breath was sawing in and out in choked gasps, her raw fear drowning out everything else.
Instinct took over. She didn't think. She sank her teeth into pliant flesh, biting as deep and as hard as she could, needing them to feel even a fraction of her pain. Blood instantly welled in her mouth, and a scalding warmth hit her tongue. It spread down her throat like liquid fire, pooling in her chest and radiating outward until her fingertips tingled and her skin felt too tight and too hot, like she'd swallowed molten metal.
"That's it," the voice said in her ear with a throaty groan. He pulled her on top of his legs and anchored her impossibly deeper into the massive curve of his body. "Mark me. Make me bleed for what I've done. I'm yours. Every drop of my blood already belongs to you."
That warmth spread through her skull, turning her thoughts sluggish and soft. The panic that had gripped her moments ago fell far away, an echo she could barely recall.
The arms around her hadn't slackened. He only continued to hold her, gently rocking her while he stroked her hair. A velvety, lilting tune hummed in the ear pressed to his chest, a song she somehow recognized but could not name. Her jaw started to slacken, and she slowly released the flesh trapped between her teeth. Her head dropped, lolling against his chest.
The lethargic warmth moving through her body had chased away the chill and put her racing mind at ease, sending her drifting like a leaf across rippling waters.
All the while, someone else was drawing nearer, their irregular breaths growing louder. Despite her muddling thoughts struggling to stay afloat, she didn't think those jagged pants were coming from the one weaving that haunting melody.
Something heavenly and soft was wrapped around her, and she snuggled deeper into the broad chest at her back. She found the energy to blink open her eyes, her vision still swimming. This time, she could only just make out faint outlines, the suggestion of a shape with silvery-white hair coming closer. It was still too dark to make out anything more than his towering silhouette.
"This is so much harder than I thought it would be," the masculine voice prowling closer said, his ragged voice strained, "and I already knew it would be hell. I'd prepared myself for this, knew this would be excruciating, but I'm barely keeping it together. Every time I close my eyes, I fantasize about slaughtering those worthless cur above us and flooding the pit red with an ocean of their blood."
The one holding her stopped humming and took a long, shuddering breath. An inky shroud draped over his head and covered the sides of his face, so dark it was as if he wore a hood. "I can't go through with this anymore. Standing by and watching them leer at her, put their hands on her, put their filthy fucking cocks inside her." He was shaking. "I can't keep doing nothing while she suffers out there alone."
"Our blood oath—"
"Fuck the blood oath. Something inside me is dying, brother. And in that wretched void… a monster is taking root. It is covetous, it is cruel, and it… it wants to hurt the very person I treasure most of all." His erratic pulse was pounding against the side of her head. "This is torture. Watching others touch what belongs to me—"
"Belongs to us," the other male snarled.
"—to us," he hissed in reply, "is driving serrated spikes through what little remains of my sanity. I'm thisclose to shedding the last vestige of my restraint and unleashing the nightmare that has made its home under my skin."
"You think you're the only one having to fight tooth and claw against your nature?" He bit off a laugh. "Our drow blood feeds on agony and despair. This place reeks of her intoxicating anguish, and all I want to do is gorge myself on it until I'm sick. I swore to shield her from harm, and yet a part of me savors her suffering like a drug I can't resist. Fates, what am I becoming?"
"There has to be a way around this pact, Fen, there must be. I'll pay any price. Sacrifice my own soul, if that's what it takes." A featherlight touch brushed across her temple. "She'll forgive us, won't she? She'll eventually come to understand why we couldn't go through with this until the end. We'll make her see reason—"
"Listen to me, brother. You know as well as I do that we can't stop this any more than we can go back and undo our vow. If you or I don't fulfill that accursed pact, then her life will be forfeit, and there will be nothing we can do to bring her back!" He'd screamed his last words, his hoarse voice breaking.
Across the room, a heavy object shattered to pieces, and then moments later a chilling laugh filled the cavernous space.
"Eldra Vorn was thorough, I'll give her that." His voice was still a few paces away. "There's no loophole or exploit we can use to free us from these shackles. Our smart little princess knew we'd martyr ourselves at the first opportunity if she didn't trap us. Putting her life on the line was the only chain strong enough to bind us to this insanity."
Libby could barely keep up with their words. Very little penetrated through the mire of her plodding thoughts, and it took every shred of her will just to stay conscious.
A shaky exhale gusted across the top of her head. "You're right. Forgive me. I had a moment of weakness. I haven't been myself since the start of this mad gambit."
A scoff. "Neither have I. In the thousand years we've walked these realms, nothing has ever come close to this living torment." She heard a faint scuffle, and then the voice was close enough that she could feel his breath across her throat, see the barely there impression of mist-pale waves. "It guts me to my marrow to say this, but we can't turn back. We must stay strong for her, even if it destroys us in the process."
Someone reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, only to keep the end trapped in their fingers.
"However, allow me to make one thing exceptionally clear," that same melodic voice continued. "I am going to kill every last one of those filth-born vermin. The ones in this arena, the cowards watching at home. Any and all who have seen her like this must die."
"And the Six?" The arms cradling her tightened possessively. "Think they're as unkillable as the legends claim?"
Another scoff. "Hardly. It's probably just a rumor they concocted to make themselves feel more important. Everything and everyone has a weakness. We just need to find theirs. Besides, you're the master strategist, Galenvael, not me. You found a way to exploit a millenniums-old ritual to suit our nefarious purposes, so I'm sure you'll come up with something."
"True. I do have a theory."
"I am sure you do. You know what, how about this? You take care of the Six, and I'll take care of the other three-hundred-thousand loathsome souls who need to die. We stick to the original plan, well, we stick to our addendum to it, anyway. Libby doesn't need all the sordid details." The one crouched beside them chuckled. It was a deep, manic sound that penetrated through the fog of her thoughts and made the fine hair at the back of her neck stand on end.
"No one leaves this arena alive. And as for the ones at home, well, you scraped their coordinates the moment they registered for the live-stream. You've made it easy for me to find them."
A hand gently grasped her wrist and pressed her palm to the side of a face, a halo of ethereal hair ticking her fingers. "You are my religion, my salvation. My sole reason for existing. There is nothing I wouldn't do to keep you safe, even if that means I have to protect you from yourself. Tell me, should I create a plague that makes them bleed from every orifice? Or perhaps unleash a curse that makes them all so mad that they wrench every limb from their body and feed it to themselves? Tell me, Libby. Which pleases you most?"
She opened her mouth on a silent gasp. Then, between one second and the next, whatever she'd been about to say crumbled and scattered to dust.
"You shouldn't have let her drink so much of your blood, Galen. I don't think she'll retain a lick of what we've said."
"It's fine. She needs the vitalis, anyway. The second half of the trials will take a much harder toll on her, and she'll require as much as possible to make it through to the end. I'd give her all of mine, if such a thing were possible. Be sure to give her some of yours before we return aboveground."
"I was already planning on it. Though afterward, we'll have to give her something to regain her senses. As much as I loathe denying her even the mercy of oblivion, we'll risk drawing too much attention if she's a drooling, unresponsive doll."
A deafening chime went off, and a howling tremor followed it immediately, shaking the very walls of the room.
"How do you think Hell's going to react when they find out there won't be a vessel, but a newly ascended sovereign instead?"
The chest below her rumbled as he bit off a cruel laugh. "Honestly, I think they'll be too busy cleaning up after your little genocide to notice or care." He leaned down and drew a long tongue across the seam of her lips, eliciting an involuntary shudder from her body.
"Hmm. True. A pity, that. I was looking forward to seeing them wallow in disappointment after yet another failure."
The chime went off again, and this time the tremulous howl became the roar of an avalanche.
The male with the shroud of dark hair growled in irritation, his tongue pausing its languorous movements. "I'm not putting her back into that fatesforesaken thing. I don't care about tradition or their meaningless pageantry."
"Fine by me. She would've only been in it for one more round, anyway. I'm sure Pride will manage just fine without it. Besides, the once-fearsome sovereign isn't exactly in a position to worry about tradition, now is he?"
"Couldn't have happened to a more deserving bastard." His tongue fully slipped past her lips, and he used it to explore every inch of her slack mouth. "Once this nightmare is over, I'm never letting the princess out of my sight. I'll lock her in her room and chain her to the bed, if that's what it takes." A knuckle trailed along her jaw before sliding down to gently grip her throat. "Then I'll worship every inch of her, kiss every bruise I cause, and pump my vitalis straight into her until she can't function without one—"
"Or two."
"—or two," he amended, "of our cocks inside her."
"You would dare put the future Sovereign of Greed in chains?" the fair-haired male demanded in a mockery of outrage. He slid his lips across her palm, licking the spaces between her fingers as the other male continued to invade her mouth. "Let's get custom ones, at least. Gold, not iron, and socketed with her favorite gemstones. If we're going to imprison our queen, then we should make sure to do it in style."