Chapter Fifty-Two: Final, Deadly
Cold, numbing fear chilled his blood as the elder prince yanked him along. So far he’d survived Bayram, and his predictable, fragile ego. But soon he’d have to face Cemil again.
What if I’m wrong about what happens next? Osmund had kept himself away from thoughts like that all morning, but now, on destiny’s doorstep, doubt was beginning to take root. What if our connection isn’t as strong as I think it is?
No. He had to have faith. Not just in Cemil, but in himself, and in this thing they’d nurtured between them.
Bayram finally released him in the central space between the two encampments. It was a wide, neutral buffer zone for peace of mind among soldiers who’d mingled freely over food and drink but still preferred to lay their head down among their fellows. Osmund looked about anxiously. Onlookers were already amassing at this new location, sensing something big about to unfold.
“Bring out my brother,” the elder prince bellowed. “We’ll settle this like men of the Empire.”
Finally, a glimpse of the familiar—Gudrun, followed by Nienos and the other mercs, their groggy hungover faces breaking with surprise at the sight of Osmund beside Bayram. He saw their mouths moving, but it was lost in the indistinct buzz of the crowd. There may as well have been an ocean between them; they were in a world apart from him now.
The voices died away in a single, gradual wave. The gathered bystanders parted. Each and every gaze turned as one. And without yet seeing him, Osmund knew.
“Ah, Cemil, you’ve come,” Bayram hailed, his jovial façade for once not concealing his hatred, nor his bloodlust. “And you’ve left your godless weapon behind. I won’t let it be said of you that you were craven at the end.”
Cemil stepped into the circle, and Osmund’s breath caught. He was beautiful and terrifying and he looked so endlessly distant and so utterly unreachable, a mythological figure born from the pages of an epic. His hard features were as immovable as stone, and in one hand he wielded a basic, undecorated scimitar.
He can win. This knowledge came to him deep in his heart. It was impossible to behold Cemil as he stood there now like a force of nature and believe otherwise. And he’s beaten Bayram once before.
The elder prince visibly bristled at the silence. “Lost your voice, have you?” he taunted.
“I have nothing to say to you. If you wish to forfeit your life, then I’ll grant you the death you seek.”
Cemil’s glacial tone sent a ripple through the crowd. Bayram’s face changed again. Without warning he turned and moved to Osmund, seizing him by his loose hair and dragging him forward. The bite of pain was sharp and sudden, and the Tolmishman went nearly toppling to his knees. “I’ve found something of yours,” he sneered.
As set as Cemil’s face was, on noticing Osmund for the first time, he reacted. His eyes widened, and his lips slightly parted. “He came to me, in fact,” Bayram went on. “Seeking safe harbor.”
Osmund’s gaze met Cemil’s. It was so intense it nearly burned, but it was impossible to turn away. He couldn’t tell whether the Meskato prince yearned to embrace him, or to put a sword through his gut. Or whether Cemil knew, himself.
A cruel tap on the back of his neck sent his head dipping again. Osmund realized for the first time that the elder prince had purposely dressed him in his own colors: orange and grey, and almost wished he was back in Cemil’s ragged shirt. “This toy of yours wasn’t very loyal after seeing your true nature. But I do feel for you, brother. There’s nothing I despise more than a two-faced servant.”
Muttering started again in the crowd. Osmund chanced a look and saw the mercs, their dumbstruck expressions giving way to grim acceptance. And he knew they were already seeing a dead man.
But wait a moment—there, just beside them! Someone, lurking! Just a glimmer, then gone again.
“Well?” Bayram prompted, and this time Osmund could feel the eyes boring into his back. “Have you anything to add to that, foreigner?”
He must’ve seemed so strange and distracted, still scanning the rows of faces for the figure he’d just seen. That had been Zeyni, hadn’t it?! No one else had reacted to her skulking shape, but Osmund remembered how it had felt to see her in Kaliany. Her presence was like water, difficult to linger on; illusionists, after all, had to want to be seen. “Perhaps you might beg your master’s forgiveness? He may be feeling merciful, since you’ve provided him such good service.” Bayram seemed keen on drawing out this horrific show as long as possible.
Osmund’s focus split into two as his mind worked. The illusionist had been holding something. Something long and slender, carried in both hands. The shamshir made from a magical creature. She was poised to draw it herself, taking matters into her own hands. But what was she waiting for? For Lalezar and Nadir to make it a safe distance away? If so, there was still time!
Harsh fingers dug into his skull and forced him to look across the field at Cemil. His face had barely changed, but Osmund read every emotion nested there. Anger. Pain. Horror. Sorrow. Longing. And of course, betrayal.
He tried to make the Meskato prince aware of what was written on his own heart, too.
“I-I’m sorry, Şehzade Cemil, sir!” Osmund gibbered, using the title he never ever remembered to add, in a display so ostentatious that “confusion” now won out on Cemil’s face. “If you need to whip or punish me, I understand, but please spare my life! I’ll do anything you ask! Definitely don’t kill me right here in front of everyone! Anaya’s pen needs cleaning!!”
Please trust me, he said with his soul, looking Cemil directly in the eyes and praying that, even without spoken language, they could understand each other in this moment. Please trust me.
Cemil didn’t respond right away. Then, a mask dropped over his face. It was pure resolve. “Give him to me. I’ll deal with him myself.”
In a swift motion, he unsheathed his sword. Bayram obligingly gave Osmund a rude shove, sending him careening into the space between the two princes. Directly towards Cemil, and towards that outstretched blade.
A gasp went through the crowd. Osmund choked. His chin nudged Cemil’s shoulder. He could smell the other man’s hair, and the musk of his sweat. Cold steel brushed Osmund’s belly. But the blade’s tip hadn’t penetrated.
A hand came up and nestled itself against his back, holding him still. With the angled-away sword hidden from sight by Cemil’s dangling sleeve, this must look from the outside like a final, deadly lover’s embrace.
Osmund breathed in and leaned, just so, towards Cemil’s ear. This was the private audience he’d been granted. “I need a little bit of time,” he whispered. Then, “You can beat him.”
Cemil gave no reply. The only indication that he’d heard was a slightly increased pressure from the hand on Osmund’s back, but it was enough. And then–
Then the earth came up to meet him. He’d been dropped like so much dead weight. Osmund curled up at Cemil’s feet, tightly cradling an abdominal wound that wasn’t there. Blearily he opened one eye and caught a flash of Cemil roughly jabbing his body with his foot while pretending to wipe blood from his sword. “Get this mess out of my sight,” he heard the Meskato prince snap to somebody. It hadn’t hurt, but from the outside it must’ve looked a heartless gesture.
Thank you for trusting me, Osmund thought with his eyes squeezed shut as he felt himself being lifted up off the ground. And then, while he swayed in an unknown person’s arms, he very convincingly died.
“No mercy, even for your lover?” Bayram continued his provocation, jeering face still visible in the mind’s eye. He’d wanted the whole camp to see Cemil execute, without hesitation, the man who’d shared his bed. That was the elder prince’s cruel nature that Osmund had been counting on; otherwise, he knew, Bayram would have simply killed Osmund himself. “So his fear of you was grounded in truth. A word of advice, little brother, if you don’t treat your whores more gently, they’ll seek out better employment. I hope your soldiers rank higher in your regard.”
If Osmund wasn’t so busy being dead, he would’ve cheered when he heard Cemil’s unflappable response. “Will you draw your sword, or no?”
Osmund could just picture the rage on Bayram’s face. Cemil wasn’t giving him the gratification of his anger. There was the sheer sound of steel. Weapons, bared.
Get him, Osmund thought. You can do it! It was torture not being able to watch. But, watching would have been its own agony, too.
Meanwhile, the movement of his body being carried slowed and then stopped. He felt himself being lowered to the ground—so delicate. “Is he dead?” he heard, a familiar voice. Was that…Kasri?
“I don’t see blood.” Keldin.
“Move his hands!” Gudrun.
Osmund cracked an eye open. The faces of the mercenary band formed a tight circle around him. He was lying in Nienos’ arms.
None of the surrounding soldiers were paying attention, their eyes fixed on the duel. Osmund subtly moved a finger to his lips. I’m dead! he mouthed to his fellows.
The others looked at each other, puzzled. After a moment’s hesitation, Keldin shed his pale blue cloak and wrapped it around Osmund, drawing up the hood to cover his distinctive blond hair. Osmund rose to his feet.
“There’s a mage in the crowd with a dangerous cursed weapon!” he hissed to the mercs. Their eyes went comically wide. “There’s no time to explain, but I need to find her!”
“What’s she look like?” Gudrun demanded.
“Um—wobbly! You know—an illusionist! Hard to focus on!”
“Need diversion?” Nienos offered. “Yell, ‘gryphon!’ or something like that? Make everybody run?”
Osmund considered it. The proposal would mean sowing mayhem among a crowd of so many agitated soldiers as well as two dangerous princes currently trying to out-kill each other, and they’d never catch their target in the chaos. “I’ll find her,” Osmund vowed. “I can see through her spell! Cover me!”
To the mercs’ credit, they quickly got over the surprise of their friendly, but useless Tolmish companion suddenly dispensing orders. It clearly wasn’t the strangest twist they’d encountered after years on the job. “You got it, boss,” Ratface said merrily. Osmund turned and weaved through the crowd.
Clang. Clang. Over the rumble of onlookers came the metallic clash of swords meeting. He stole a gaze towards the center of the circle where Cemil and Bayram were exchanging strikes. It was a mesmerizing sight—the two princes were in lockstep, evenly matched. Then, a bright flash of fire!
Bayram was using his magic and his sword in tandem!
Osmund’s heart leapt into his throat, but Cemil expertly stepped out of the way, rhythm unbroken, like he didn’t have the handicap of no offensive magic. His motions looked effortless, but a sheen of sweat glistened on his brow, and a singed sleeve trailed his action. A fraction of a second slower, and it’d have been skin in place of fabric.
Forcing himself to turn away again, Osmund resumed the furious hunt, pulse still pounding in his chest. If that cursed blade—the most profane of creations, born of a slow, unending murder— was drawn from its scabbard, how instantaneous would their deaths be? Would life extinguish like a pinched flame? Or would these soldiers feel their souls being ripped from their bodies, piece by piece?
At last he saw her. Zeyni—the spider. She was standing in the circle’s inner ring apart from everyone, in plain view, but invisible the way a single blade of grass was invisible, cradling the shamshir in shaking hands.
On her cheeks, a shimmering wetness.
Osmund didn’t take his eyes off her for a second, powering through the unnatural urge to look away and forget her presence. He charged.
Zeyni didn’t notice his approach until it was too late. She seemed to startle as her eyes fell upon Osmund, who was very much not dead, but she mastered herself quickly. She threw up her hands and the world blurred, hazy and indistinct. Osmund didn’t turn away and didn’t blink. He knew to expect the illusions, and they felt more like a parlor trick now.
Her hand flew to the sword’s handle, but Osmund caught her arm. “You can’t!” he exclaimed. “I won’t let you!”
The surrounding crowd started to take notice. Zeyni struggled against his grip, but her bony frame couldn’t match him in strength. Her shawl started to slip, and he saw it—the something embedded in her shoulder.
Is this what’s controlling her, or keeping her alive? If so, then by removing it, she’d…
Abruptly, Osmund’s grip started to fail. That cruel something in Zeyni’s shoulder glittered. Where was this strength coming from?! “Stop!” he hollered. “Someone, help!”
But the soldiers were backing away, fearful. Their eyes were locked on the blade, which had started to pulse with energy. Oh no, Osmund thought. Oh no no no.