An expletive cried out in my mind, echoing through my skull in its loneliness. Because as sick as this situation was, I did want someone to accept me, and to love me, and to tell me I wasn't messed up. The past day and a half had just been a long chain of “Run, save us, help us, fight for us, and are you worthy?” And the days before that were just a scrambled mess of me screaming and bleeding.
What did it say about me? my damaged mind asked. What did it say, that these things were the ones trying to call me family?
Wes, Breena whispered. We're ready. I'm sorry that took so long.
And everything's going to be okay, she added. I promise.
I felt my mind pull back from these feelings, just a little. Just a step or two away from the edge of the cliff I had been mentally walking toward, and back towards safer ground.
I sighed in relief. She's right. I'm going to be okay.
I laughed. I don't know if I sounded crazy or relieved, but it felt good to laugh.
“You will accept, wayward prince?” Cess' voice was still hopeful. “You will come back home? So that we can love you?”
“I just realized I didn’t do it all my own,” I said. “I did have help. I did have acceptance. I did have love. Lots of it, in fact. It just didn't feel like it at the time.”
Breena stiffened next to me for a moment. I continued anyway. “Heck, on my bad days, it still feels like I'm all alone. But I didn't just will my legs and brain to work again. I was given an opportunity. Probably the rarest possible.”
“There is no honor greater, or more rare, than what we now offer you, wayward prince,” the monster replied calmly.
“I get that you think that,” I replied. “I really do. But you're coming at me now, when I've already got my legs and brain back. When I'm already a mighty warrior that can shoot lightning and probably punch a hole in a stone wall.”
“Um, you can't do that yet, Wes,” Breena interjected carefully. “Don't try. You'll hurt your hand.”
“You were always a mighty warrior, great prince,” Cess insisted. “You could not be anything else.”
“No, I wasn't,” I corrected. “I had the potential to be, though it wasn't obvious to anyone. Except for one person. One woman. She took a glance at me and decided I was amazing, incredible, everything she needed. She was prepared to offer me everything...”
“So are we, great prince,” the monster interrupted.
“Not quite,” I replied. “Everything you're offering me benefits you. You were just talking about how you'd gain all of these rewards if you could bring me back into the fold. And that you'd gain power from associating with me. I'm a cross between some kind of steroid and a super-reference on a résumé for you guys.”
He cocked his head at that, probably because he had never heard about job interviews or illegal performance enhancements.
“But she was prepared to humiliate herself for me, if I had let her. And she didn't get anything out of me joining her team. No wealth, no magic power-up. No immortality or increase in status. I just would have helped a lot of other people she cared about. And that was enough for her to beg and cry, if I had let her. But I didn't, and she gave me a brand new world right from the start. That magic and power you talked about? She made all of that possible. All the growth I could want. All of the power, even. She wasn't afraid of me,” I continued, remembering Stell, and all her different appearances and jokes and funny t-shirts. Then I remembered how she had cried when she learned that the Horde had come back to one of her worlds, and how I had encountered them, and how she had held me and thanked me for stopping them, and soothed me when I revealed how frightened I had been with their claims of kinship to me. And I remembered how the Horde had gone after part of her, the part currently floating far in front of me, trying to put herself back together.
“She didn't try to bind me, like you say prey does,” I continued. “Instead she told me to take all the growth I wanted, all of the power I wanted. She said I could have it all not because of my birthright, or because of some prophecy that said I was worthy of conquering the galaxy or whatever. She just thought I was kind enough to use the power well, and good enough to not abuse it. So she didn't care. She said she believed in me, because she could see right through all the nonsense people had piled on top of me, and the only thing that agreed with her was some dumb magic rock that she had probably built herself.”
I grinned again. Because, in spite of the danger and stress and uncertainty, thinking about Stell still made me happy.
“And when I was being beaten, and tortured, and murdered, she taught me how I could use those indignities to become even more powerful. And that's why you're noticing me right now. That, and not the magic bloodline you insist is coursing through my veins, is how I keep getting back up again, and getting stronger every time. That's why, as messed up as all of today is, you think I have something to give.”
And thank you, I thought at Breena. She didn't reply, and I didn't care. So I turned back to look at the monster trying to play 'stranger with candy.'
“So here's my counter-offer,” I continued, giving him my best don't-screw-with-me-right-now, the-trail-of-bodies-behind-me-still-has-room-for-one-or-two-more stare. “Stand down. Cease your attacks on the Starsown's Satellite completely. Withdraw and allow her to leave and heal on her own, so that she can approach me peacefully. Then never bother her or any of the other Satellites again. That's your prince's first demand.”
“I...” The monster hesitated. “Your command is... difficult, great one. She is promised to another. A mighty other. The same other the little pretty prey next to you is promised to. They are the payment that allowed us to expand from the Lost Deeps. We owe much to this being, and he is favored by Grandfather. But so is the Father of your bloodline,” the creature said quickly, after I stepped in front of Breena and gave it my best stare so far. “A Starsown's Satellite would be prey worthy of you, and who are we to deny the Father's favored? You could surpass the other’s power, perhaps in a few decades. Sooner, perhaps. He may even forget about them if he finds their Starsown. Let us see what can be done, after you grow in power. But we would be honored to provide you prey of such quality, if we but could.”
“I'll be very, very generous,” I growled. “And take that as a sign of compliance. The next order is that you stand down on all worlds. You will help me convey that order. That the Horde is to no longer attack the natives of any world. We will instead assist them in battling the Members of Malus, until that organization is driven off.”
The horse-like head cocked at me.
“You would have us treat Grandfather's other children as prey?” it asked curiously.
“I'm taking that comment to mean that 'Grandfather' is Malus?” I asked.
That just might count as useful information, although it didn't explain why Stell had treated that name as a myth in the past.
“He has many names. But even we are only worthy enough to utter a few.”
Breena suddenly took a deep breath.
“I take it you didn't know?” I asked quietly. And I thought you were busy casting a spell? I thought, but couldn't ask.
“No one's ever been able to learn this much from Horde, Wes,” she whispered back.
“But in answer to your question,” I continued. “If you have truly submitted to my authority, the Malus Members will be your only remaining enemies. You will direct all resources on destroying them.”
“Our distant kin are now our enemies,” the Spawn said thoughtfully. “I suppose it has been done before... what then, prince? What will be our prey then? What will feed the Pits and all our cravings?”
I shrugged.
“Not people of any sapient race, certainly. If your group can eat plants then you're welcome to grow crops, and I can probably find someone to teach you. Or I can find someone to show you how to raise livestock. But no more eating anything that can talk or reason with you.”
The air grew quiet, and even more tense.
&nbs
p; “The purpose of prey, wayward prince,” Cess began, “is to satisfy all of our cravings. Not merely that of the belly. Livestock and plants are not enough. For the place of prey is to lose its position, its dignity, so that we might gain greatness.”
“No,” I replied. “You don’t gain anything at all from abusing something else. Anyone, any being, that says otherwise is a liar. Even if that voice comes from inside yourself. And that voice doesn’t have to define you either.”
My voice caught again. My father had figuratively pounded that lesson into my mind. Just because you feel like you need to do something bad, son, doesn't mean you have to do it. And having that voice inside doesn’t automatically make you a bad person. In fact, it can make you the opposite, make you better, if you can train your heart and mind to resist it. Temptation is dangerous, but it's also an opportunity to grow, and change, and rise.
He had said that, and words like that, over and over. Throughout all of my childhood. He had done that with both me and my sister, but especially with me. I had always wondered why he focused more on me, until this awful moment.
You knew, I thought sadly. You knew, somehow. You knew moments like this would come.
“I...see,” the monster repeated, though this time his voice was flat. “You would have us deny all of our urges. Become something else.”
“Yeah, I would, because what you are right now sucks,” I replied without blinking. “And I get that you don’t agree, and that you have all been doing things this way for an amount of time I can’t possibly comprehend. But take a moment and ask yourself if all of that freaky stuff you want to do to other people answers all of your urges. Ask yourself if any of your desires don’t involve prey, don’t involve hurting someone else. Then ask yourself what would happen if you focused on those.”
It was a long shot. I didn't even know when, or why, I had decided to try and convert this thing. I thought I wasn't really interested. Hell, I thought I was just buying my team time to cast a spell. Break parley with a surprise attack.
Instead, I wanted to see if these things, disgusting and nightmarish though they were, could be more.
I turned out to be more than a cripple-head, a quiet part of my mind finally confessed. I want to see if this thing claiming to love me can do the same.
The gangly, horse-faced creature cocked his head again at my words.
“I...” The creature hesitated.
“Am being tricked,” the Horde on the right shore shouted. “He is trying to bind us, like he has been bound! We are being tricked!”
“Tricked!” the Horde on the opposite shore screamed. “The traitor-prince has spoken, and we have listened! Defilement! He is defilement! We are being changed!” Panic colored the monster's voice.
“They...” Cess turned his head to look backwards. “Are right. You seek to twist us, traitor-prince. And you do not even realize it. You are lost to us,” the thing hissed, sounding...sad, of all things. “I thought I could save you. I thought I could change you back to how you were meant to be. I thought you'd come back, if you'd just realize what pleasure prey could give you when you forced it to. I was prepared to give you the rarest, riskiest, most priceless prey available,” the thing said as he glanced at Breena. “I wanted to show you the joy of your birthright. But you are too far gone... I am sorry, traitor-prince.”
He meant every shred of remorse that he put into those words. And I hated the fact that I could tell. And I was horrified by the fact that, despite what he was, and that what he was offering completely disgusted me, his regret mirrored mine. Is this the trauma? I asked myself. Do I feel this sad because of how damaged I am?
“I guess I wanted to save you all too,” I admitted. “Or at least make something in this universe a little less twisted. Somehow.”
“No, traitor-prince,” Cess sighed. “You are the one who was twisted. Something bright and burning has taken you from us and laid claim to you, when you were too young and unprotected to resist. I thought I could reverse the damage that was done. I was wrong. I can only put you to rest, and save some of your blood, so that the real you can one day be reborn. Then maybe one day you will reincarnate, and realize your true worth, and all the prey you have let yourself crave and be deprived of will be thrown at your feet, and you can drain them dry of all of the dignity and sustenance they denied you before.”
“That is probably the grossest and creepiest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I said dryly. “But now it's time to act on the urges I have now, the ones that tell me to help others, and to try and save my friend.”
“We will remember you, traitor-prince,” the Spawn said as he rose to his full height. “And we will guard our next prince better, because of your example.”
Fine, I decided. He can have the last word.
“Now, Breena,” I whispered softly. “You're clear for whatever it is you're going to do.”
Head still hanging low, Cess and the other Spawn began the old chant, except this time there was a mournful pitch to it.
“Lost seed, lost child, taken from our Father's womb! Slit his throat and stop his heart and save the traitor-prince!”
We're ready, she sent back. Go get 'em.
My legs coiled, and I shot forward.
Cess grunted as he twisted out of the way, the tip of my cleaver still catching across his chest. But the cut wasn't deep and his vital guard had to be at least as strong as mine, so he ignored it, lifted his long, spindly arm, and brought his massive hand straight down on me. I saw the blow coming a long time ago, but to my surprise his arm followed my dodge and slammed down onto me, knocking the air out of my lungs and my feet right off of the ground.
“You could have been stronger,” the Spawn growled, angry and remorseful at the same time. “But—”
Still spinning in the air, I struck again with a horizontal swing that slashed across his torso.
This time, my strike followed his dodge, and a pained snarl drawled out of his equine head. He staggered away from me as his vital guard worked to contain a second, deeper cut straight across his wrinkled torso.
I managed to land on my feet, and got a terrible premonition of something angry and horrible blazing toward my back.
“Kill him!” the Spawns behind me called. “Kill the traitor-prince!”
I fell forward just as two black, burning balls the size of my entire torso blazed over me. Heat and something unclean seared all along my back, and I screamed as metal heated and padding smoldered all over me.
“Breena!” I cried in pain and impatience. “Come on!”
“Now!” the little fairy shouted at the same time I screamed at her. Still hovering in the air, she threw her hands down and let out a high-pitched wordless scream. Far behind me, the earth beneath the other two Spawn suddenly disappeared, and they fell waist-deep into a giant hole. They swung their long claws down to pull themselves back up, but then a whirlwind began whipping dust all around them. Two man-sized clouds appeared, one hovering over each of their respective heads. They rumbled, then began pounding each of the Spawn with relentless, fist-sized hail and periodic, three-inch thick bolts of lightning. Another quick glance showed Breena, Karim, Eadric, and Weylin to be clenching their jaws, keeping their hands pointed downward.
But Cess was the only Spawn unaffected by their magic, meaning he was still my problem to solve. As he swung another hand at me, this one burning with more dark magic, I swung my cleaver into it. To my surprise, the weapon clanged off of his arm, and both of us were forced away by the power of our respective attacks.
“Even wielding one of our weapons to slay us, and doing so effortlessly,” the monster growled, his voice still maintaining its tragic edge. “You mock your heritage, traitor-prince. Without even knowing how.”
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