Chapter 18: Noble Servant.

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Noble Servant.

He remembered this place.

It was dark, and it was empty now, and the torches weren’t burning, but he knew he could never forget this hall, with its dark stone floors and high, gilded balconies, and three regal thrones set upon a royal dais.

The stone was still cold underfoot, but he could feel more than that right now, as though no time had passed at all –could still feel that chill under his bare, torn, bleeding feet, and the way his knees had shuddered and cried out when he’d been forced to kneel. Even though he was alone here, tonight, he remembered feeling the eyes of hundreds of people on him, all staring and watching with scorn and pity and resentment.

It had been raining, and the silence had been like nothing else.

Khobi slowly walked forwards, feet padding softly on the stone and his footsteps echoing slightly. It felt so big, and felt so empty. Like a giant, dark cage pierced by slivers of moonlight. It made him uneasy, but at the same time, it was a sight to behold in awe. The walls stretched high, and shadows swallowed up the crowns of the stone pillars that he wove between. Aimlessly, he searched the shadows, looking for a route out that promised escape –barely realising where he stood until the stairs that led up to those intricate three thrones, lay but only a few paces away. They were ugly, he thought, as he lingered there –standing in the spot where he had knelt in his own blood not all that long ago, and had his desperate hope for freedom stamped into the dirt.

Distantly, he wondered if any of his blood still stained the ground. The stone was black, how would they tell?

And with that thought, something twisted in his gut, and he had to take a step back –and then another.

Maybe he should’ve been running again, already. He’d come far, he thought, and encountered no guards. And maybe he didn’t have far to go. But there was something disquieting about this room, and he wasn’t sure if what he was feeling was cold anger, or something else. On one hand, it was the gateway to a new kind of prison, and the dark stone floors felt like the old.

But on the other hand...Scargga had once had a throne room just like it.

Well, it had its differences. scargga’s had always been light and full of life. The floor was polished white marble, and its decorations simple and bright, and even empty, there was a warmth that had always lingered behind, something comforting. A reminder that you weren’t alone.

Something like a home.

This place didn’t feel like that. Khobi shivered.

But despite that, what remained constant, was the three thrones that sat upon that dais. The foremost, the heart of the room, had been for Khnoji. The one at his left was for his wife, and the one at the right reserved for his beloved brother –and then, when he passed and left only a son, Khobi. He’d been too small for the throne, back then, and it had been uncomfortable and hard –made of nought but wood and iron and the love of Khnoji’s forefather’s –and since he hated sitting in the thing, he rarely did.

His uncle had never complained about it though. His aunt told him that it was because he respected those who sat there before him, those who had painstakingly carved the way for them with all they had. Because he too, intended to follow their footsteps.

"With one’s heart and soul". That had been his motto. And he’d lived by it up until the last time Khobi had ever seen him –head held high and sword in hand, with blood streaming down his face as he stood with his people when Silas had stormed their lands.

Swallowing down the bitterness that rose with the memory, and letting the distant images of a smiling king and queen fade from thought, Khobi turned his gaze aside.

It was then, that he heard footsteps.

He froze in place, suddenly feeling strangely small in such an open space. Khobi’s body tensed, ready to spring into flight at the first sign of his guards, but he could hear a mere lone pair of footsteps; calm. Unhurried. Not the heavy, urgent footsteps of his guards that he’d grown accustomed to. And yet, something about the sound –so steady, so deliberate –set him on edge, and made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle into life. His eyes flashed as he backed away towards the nearest corridor –never mind where it might lead – and scanned the shadows for whoever was bold and foolish enough to approach him alone.

And then there was a glint of grey in a shard of moonlight that had trickled in through the gap in the window shutters, and Khobi found himself staring into a pair of dangerous silver eyes.

"It’s getting late, my Lord," Binny’s voice murmured from the shadows, low and echoing eerily through the darkness of the throne room. He took a slow step forwards as though feigning a bow, and his lips quirked up into a small smirk. The playfulness was still there in his voice, but there was something else there as well –something that Khobi had seen before and that had made him wary.

Something that had made him think that there was more to Binny than servitude.

"You should really be getting back to your room."

Perhaps he’d meant it as a suggestion, but there was a lilt to his voice that sounded distinctly like a threat. Khobi’s expression curled into a scowl.

"I am grateful, you know?" Binny assured him; sincere, but with a touch of regret, stepping forwards on light feet, "...But I do still have my masters, and as long as they don’t want you to run free –" He trailed off, letting his words hang in the air as he shrugged, as though it couldn’t be helped, and maybe it couldn’t be.

At least, for what it was worth, he truly looked apologetic when he pulled out a thin knife and twirled it between his fingers like it belonged in his hand. Khobii watched the blade move, watched the skill and finesse with which Binny’s lithe fingers handled it without fear, without hesitation, and without a single scratch. Anger abruptly flared up behind Khobi’s eyes at how stupid he’d been to have underestimated the kind of man who had always sparked warning bells in the back of his mind.

But even though his body tensed, and his eyes narrowed, expecting an assault, Binny made no move to approach him. Instead, he merely sighed, rubbing his forehead with his free hand and shrugging with his other.

"Look," he started, his expression serious, "I don’t want to have to do this. Really I don’t."

"I dunno," Khobi retorted flatly, glaring at him with heat and eyeing the knife venomously. He rolled a shoulder and the resulting crack ricocheted ominously off the walls. "...I might enjoy this."

Binny had the audacity to look exasperated.

"Just come back to your room, Khobi," he advised, and huffed when Khobi made no move to obey, wildfire dancing warningly behind his eyes. And Binny must have seen the flames burning in red irises, because his own gaze turned to steel as he added, "Fine then, I’ll level with you."

If Khobi had expected him to say ’you’re stronger than me’ he was sorely disappointed.

" –I haven’t done this in a long time," was what he said instead, and his eyes flashed and what might have been a small grin licked at the corners of his lips, "...I might be a little out of practice." He chuckled at that, taking a step forwards and giving Khobi time to brace himself –and then, with a flash of something thrilled, his sharp eyes lit up.

"You probably should have run."

An instantaneous, icy chill washed over Khobi, and sudden, unexplained dread surged through his body, screaming of danger. And without a shred of hesitation, he flung himself to one side –his reflexes the singular thing that saved him from in that moment, receiving a cold steel blade between the eyes.

He rolled to the side, heart thrumming to the beat of what he distantly recognised as footsteps. Sensing a blitz attack while he was caught unawares by the blade, he spun to confront Binny again, ready to strike out at him when he was within reach and weapon-less. But his blow caught on nothing but thin air and dust, and he staggered –his heavy stumbling the only sound that broke the silence that wore on within the throne room.

Something felt wrong.

There was only silence, and when he zeroed in on his assailant, he noticed Binny hadn’t moved. Instead, his head was merely bowed to someone as if in submission –a sincere mockery of it if one cared to look, because although he was stooped, he was smirking, and his eyes glinting up through his fringe, were burning.

Instinctively, Khobi spun –turned too late, and in a blur of mottled green and the belated realisation that he had never heard the clatter of a knife falling upon stone, found an edge of cold steel kissing his bared throat. A feral snarl escaped his throat, but before he could wrench away, a hand closed around a fistful of his hair and yanked his neck taut, the thin blade of Binny’s knife pressing into his skin.

"What the fuck –" Khobi growled, hissing as the blade nicked him just so –a warning to be still or suffer the consequences. Whoever had him in their grasp was strong –stronger than Bongo even, and fast, too –he’d barely had time to blink before they’d had him trapped and pinned like some kind of animal.

"It is futile to resist," his captor declared, his voice deep and stern, and his tone one of finality. It was condescending, and cold, demanded no argument –but of course Khobi could not grant him that luxury. He glared up at his assailant with all the heat he could muster and would have lashed out, had he not felt the fist clenched in his hair tighten warningly.

Despite himself, Khobi swallowed audibly, but fury danced across his vision.

The emerald eyes that his gaze met were unwavering and resolute, and stonier than the lonely hall that surrounded them as though cut from the same rock. His was a face he’d seen at the elbow of the king of Crade, and was one that he’d paid no mind to. But this close, close enough to see the steel in his eyes, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that like Binny –even more so, if anything –this man was dangerous, and not to be trifled with.

"Make no mistake," he said sternly, eyes haughty and scathing, "I am not as lenient as the fools who let you escape." There was contempt in his words, and they made Khobi stiffen as he understood the truth of it. This man was not one of his guards –his tone was humourless and disapproving, apathetic at the very least, and scornful at best. He meant business, obviously, but anger smouldered in his blood at the mere thought of yielding –and he refused to let a man like this think he would just submit.

"You think you can just –" Khobi began to snarl, but even as his fist struck out to deliver a crushing, devastating blow to the man’s gut, there was a sharp yank on his hair and burning pain in his left leg, and before he knew what was happening, he was on his knees –one pinned to the ground by a heavy foot and Binny’s knife tucked tightly and unflinchingly under his chin.

Khobi’s breath shuddered, his eyes wide in disbelief and a sudden surge of adrenaline churning through his veins.

What the fuck...

"Back to your room, Prince Khobi," his captor ordered flatly –breathing even, tone bored and leaving no room for argument. Struck utterly wordless by that single moment, Khobi remained unmoving, on his knees –the cold stone feeling all too cruelly familiar beneath him. But then that hand twisted in his hand again –not so hard that it stung, but hard enough to make him obey, like one might lead a particularly insolent dog, and he grudgingly returned to his feet.

Once standing again, he let out a groan as the hand left his hair and instead sharply twisted his arm up behind his back –no doubt to ensure his continued compliance. Khobi tested the man’s grip with a sharp tug, his blood burning hot when it wouldn’t give way, and his resistance caused his captor’s restraint on him to tighten none too kindly.

Scowling, and disgusted with himself, he glared through the mottled web of moonlight in the hopes that some of the livid fire in his eyes and in his blood might sear Binny in punishment for betraying him so suddenly –so easily. Not that it had been a betrayal. And perhaps that knowledge was what made the anger in Khobi’s veins turn to a kind of bitterness he was unaccustomed to, and which stung more than he would care to admit. Betrayal implied loyalty. And Binny had always made it clear that his did not lie with him.

But the taunt that he’d been waiting for never came. Strange, when the servant had never missed an opportunity to tease and laugh at him, and feed the illusion that they were more than just strangers. He seemed to take delight when Khobi’s escapes went awry, so seemed like he’d be the kind to gloat if he had a hand in thwarting him. And yet, he said nothing, and when Khobii was wheeled unceremoniously across the throne room –back the way he’d come, he saw that the servant was still unmoved; locked in his own kind of bow.

He seemed smaller. And all the cocky bravado he’d been wearing when he’d drawn his knife seemed to have dissipated into the air. For some reason, it made Khobii uncomfortable.

"...My apologies...Prince Khobii," he heard him say in a cracked murmur, startling the redhead somewhat with how uncomfortably sincere the sentiment seemed despite the use of the tacked on title that Khobi so detested. But the words sounded stiff, as though his tongue felt thick around them. And there was a touch of something strained in his voice when he added, as they passed him by, "...I hope I was of service...Lord Vogrid."

At first Khobii didn’t realise that Binny was addressing the man behind him. And from the way he didn’t even pause in his stride, it might have seemed like he didn’t realise it either.

"Hmph." At first, that was the only indication that he’d heard. But then he stilled, if only for a moment, to add as an indifferent afterthought, "Your intervention was unnecessary."

Was it Khobi’s imagination, or did some of the light wither from Binny’s eyes?

And just like that, they were in motion again, two sets of footsteps echoing out of time around the pillars of the hall –Binny’s reply lingering after them with a kind of disquiet to it that for some reason, made Khobi’s heart lurch, just a little.

"Ah. Of course...m’lord."

"...However, in future..." Vogrid added, not pausing to look back, his voice hard. "...I would advise that you remember that it is not a servant’s place to interfere." He paused, and for the first time during this encounter the knife at Khobi’s neck quivered slightly. But it might have just been his imagination since Vogrid’s voice was as steady as ever. "Nor do you have any business carrying a weapon."

Binny closed his eyes.

"Yes. Of course...."

Khobi felt long fingers tightening on his arm indicating that it was time to go, but in protest of his treatment decided to take as damn long as he figured he could get away with without getting his head smacked in. And it was as he lingered there in the darkness of that cavernous hall, just for a moment, that he heard Binny whisper under his breath.

"I forgot myself, Vector."

If Vogrid heard too, he didn’t show it.