Chapter Text
"Please, your Majesty, he's very dangerous. It might not be wise to….”
Royal glares have a definite sound. The captain falls silent.
The click of expensive shoes, a ripple of fabric just at the edges of his peripheral vision. A stern female voice: “And this is the one who attacked Pallas Korilath?”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“Why?”
Captain Rhoden’s boots shuffle nervously beside him. “We…ah, we don’t know. We interrogated the prisoner, but he refuses to say.”
That wasn’t what had actually happened in the interrogation cell, but it hardly matters why he’d done it. The accusation alone is enough to convict him five times over, and Stinger besides.
Stinger . Stinger had stepped in for him like a thrice-damned idiot, and his clipping is scheduled for the next day. Couldn’t keep his head out of it, couldn’t leave well enough alone, couldn’t just acknowledge that Caine has been a hopeless case from the start…
“….don’t I try asking him?”
“Your Majesty –“Rhoden’s plea ends in a squeak. “He’s a feral splice with a bad sequence. With all due respect, these things usually aren’t handled by Entitled, and he’s scheduled to be – “
“ Excuse me ?”
The room gets tangibly colder. Rhoden stops breathing. The pairs of boots to his left and right make an aborted twitch backwards.
“Are you insinuating, Captain , that I am in any way unaware of my position or responsibilities?”
“No, Your Majesty, I…”
“Then perhaps you were referring to the length of my reign as Queen.”
A gulp. “No, Your Majesty.”
“Or maybe you were just insulting my intelligence directly.”
“N-no! No, Your Majesty. I beg your forgiveness.”
“Good. Then you and your men can leave and let me speak to the prisoner alone.”
“Please, Your Majesty…” Rhoden’s voice is definitely trembling now. If the Abrasax sovereign ends up as the next victim of the infamous freak lycantant, then his neck is on the chopping block. “I speak only in concern for your safety when I say –“
“For crying out loud! You have him muzzled and cuffed to the floor. I highly doubt that he is going to manage to fight his way out of all of that and kill me in the next five minutes. Now get out .”
“But –“
“ Out!”
Hurrying feet, pounding pulses, the click of the door sliding closed.
It’s just him and her majesty, now.
In the dead silence of the atrium his own stifled breathing sounds overwhelmingly loud; a wet, cloying thing that moistens the inner surface of the muzzle and forces more stale air back into his nose. The Entitled – Her Majesty, Nea-Seraphi – is coming closer, walking forward with deliberate, slow steps to stop only a few feet in front of him. He still hasn’t looked up at her.
“So. You’re the one who attacked Lord Korilath at the Strivador portal.”
There is no point in answering her. He’s guilty, and they both know it. The queen huffs impatiently.
“What’s your name?”
“Caine – “he swallows, his tongue sticky and muffled. “Caine W –“
“Oh, for goodness’ sake –“
And then she is crossing the space between them, her hands scrabbling at the straps of the muzzle. Caine jerks back against the cuffs – he hasn’t welcomed outside touch since those first desperate years at the splicer’s, and the interrogation had not been pleasant. But then she finds the buckles, tugs at the release catches and...
Ah. Ah.
Air. Fresh and sweet. The world of scent and subtle taste that makes up nearly half of a lycantant’s perception of the world. Caine gulps in breath after breath, aware that he is panting and probably drooling like a dog in front of someone who could afford to have him ground up for Regenex fodder in a heartbeat, but he can’t bring himself to care. He can breathe properly, smell properly, speak properly again. Lycantants might be brute animals, but with the muzzle off it’s easier to pretend he isn’t.
“ Thank you. Thank you, your Majesty…”
“Don’t.” Her voice is cold, coming again from a few feet away. He hears the dull thump of the muzzle being tossed aside. “Tell me your name.”
“Caine Wise.”
“And you wouldn’t tell the Aegis why you bit Pallas?”
“I….”
The mag-cuffs chaining his ankles to the floor feel like they are cutting off his circulation, even through his boots. What can he say? That he has racked his brains every single night in the holding cell, and he can’t come up with anything besides that sudden, violent impulse to attack ? That the space where Pallas Korilath’s mutilation should be is nothing but a blank? That the judge is probably right, and he’s nothing more than a defective product whose expiration date has finally come due?
“I…I don’t remember, Majesty. I don’t know why I did it. I can’t remember anything beyond…beyond seeing him in person for the first time.”
She hmm’s. “Your commanding officer said you were under his orders when you did it.”
Caine’s head snaps up. “No!”
“No?” Nea-Seraphi – the nets hadn’t lied about her beauty, he notes distantly– raises an elegant eyebrow.
“No! No, please – “ Caine jerks forward on his knees, barely registering the warning buzz of the shock lines in the cuffs – “Stinger – Commander Apini had nothing to do with it. He only said it to protect me, he never issued any orders, I was acting completely of my own volition.”
“…really?”
“I swear!”
The queen has to understand this, she has to. It wasn’t Stinger’s fault, any of it, he can’t drag anyone else down into his black hole of a life. Before he can think twice, Caine shuffles forward as far as the mag-cuffs will let him; bowing forward so his forehead rests nearly against the cool deck surface. Supplication – surely a royal will understand this. If he can just get his hands free, take one of her hands, her ankles, kiss her feet, something – anything – to make her understand that he is the only one who needs to be punished here.
“Please. Please , Majesty, it wasn’t his fault, he doesn’t deserve to be clipped, it was all my fault. Please. ”
Utter silence.
Caine’s breathing is loud again - gasps that sound too much like sobs echoing back into his face where it is still pressed against the floor. Under that layer of cloying royal perfume, he can smell her – traces of sweat, irritation…surprise?
“…wow.”
Caine doesn’t dare look up at the odd, un-Entitled expression.
“You…plead his case pretty impressively, Mr. Wise.”
“He’s a good officer,” Caine rasps into the floor. “A good man, one of the best. Ask anyone. He only covered for me because he felt guilty. He doesn’t deserve the discharge.”
“And you do?” Her gown makes a soft sound that must be her crossing her arms. “I’ve seen your record. What makes the difference between you two?”
“I’m guilty. He isn’t.”
“We’ll see about that. Eye contact, please”
Slowly, carefully, Caine looks up.
Nea-Seraphi looks less the languid, disaffected Entitled and more like the iron fist without the velvet glove. She is wrapped in a straight sheath of grey, metallic silk that leaves her arms bare but her throat (thank the stars) covered. Her hair is pulled back into a severe bun that leaves no gentle framing curls to soften the piercing glare of her dark eyes – eyes which are currently focused on Caine as though he were a particularly frustrating puzzle to be solved. The matriarch of House Abrasax projects imperious command like a tangible field around her.
No retinue, though. No attendant seneschals or pages, no guards, not even a servitant. She has chosen to meet with a violent, defective splice alone. Caine fights down an absurd surge of protective indignation. He doesn’t have any business worrying about what her Majesty chooses to do with her safety; Stinger’s clipping is getting closer by the hour, and only a royal edict will move with the speed needed to save him.
“That’s better.” A hint of wry amusement. “So. You can’t tell me why you bit Lord Korilath.”
Caine takes a deep breath. “No.”
“You have no idea why you did it.”
“No.”
“And you aren’t going to ask for lenience in your sentence.”
“No, Majesty.” Why bother? Stinger is never going to want to see him again, and he certainly won’t survive his gene-debt in the Deadlands. Hell, maybe he’ll just lie down and relax when the prison transport dumps him on the surface. Enjoy five minutes of knowing there is nothing more he can do before some other criminal comes along and slits his throat. He is so very tired.
“But you will ask for lenience for your commander.”
“ Please. He’s the best officer any of us in his company has ever had. He’s worth…” More than Caine Wise. More than ten of Caine Wise, and certainly more than a passing attempt to drag out a death sentence.
“…worth a lot. To the Legion. His commission would more than pay for itself, if he were pardoned.”
“Is that why you’re so concerned for Commander Apini’s welfare, Mr. Wise? So he can pay back the worth of his commission?”
“He…Commander Apini…he was good to me. I owe him a debt.”
“You must care for him a great deal, then, to ask for his safety before your own.” The odd note is in her voice again. She sounds faintly incredulous, as though she couldn’t ever understand the idea of caring for – of loving someone else that much. Typical Abrasax. “If I order his discharge revoked, your sentence to the Deadlands automatically reverts to immediate execution.”
“He’s my friend, Majesty. I don’t want to see him hurt.”
There it is. That is everything he’s ever had, all his cards on the table, his soft underbelly bared to the mercy of one of the most vicious predators in the gyre. Caine chokes down a whimper as Nea-Seraphi’s eyes travel slowly over him. The silence in the room is a palpable thing, tense and humming like the moment before a drop. If Her Majesty decides to destroy him now, to cut down Stinger despite everything, he won’t even get to take his pride intact into the Deadlands.
But…no. An indefinable something changes in her face, some internal decision made. Her Majesty takes a short, sharp breath. “Guards!”
Caine has a full three seconds' worth of despair as Captain Rhoden and his escort come barreling back in. It must show on his face, because Nea-Seraphi raises a hand. “I’ll speak to the judge about Commander Apini’s sentence. In the meantime…”
She snaps her fingers, pointing. Rhoden’s men yank him up from his knees, de-magnetizing the ankle cuffs and hauling him towards the door at the other end of the court vessel’s atrium. The queen strides elegantly away in the other direction, her voice floating carelessly back over her shoulder as he tries to turn and hear:
“…consider yourself under my jurisdiction, Mr. Wise.”