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They’ve forgotten him.
Again.
It was easier, the first time, to brush this sort of thing off. Oh, I’m sorry, Leiland, the youngest of his elder brothers would say, I’m sure they simply thought you weren’t interested! All the while, Cornelia simpers from the doorway, her hair done up in elaborate coifs of gold, folded over the silver tiara that graces her brow. Leave him to his pouting. The carriage won’t wait forever. A wicked smirk spreading over her painted lips, she corrects, well, maybe it would for me.
Not interested. Not interested in attending his own parents’ anniversary celebration. Not interested in seeing the lights and the finery and all the nobles from the neighbouring kingdoms dolled up in their summer’s best. Not interested in dancing the night away, in stealing his first kiss beneath the eaves, in standing by his siblings’ side as their parents made their introductions to the court.
How could they possibly think that he wasn’t interested?
But he believed the lie, that first time, because the alternative was more than his ten-year-old heart could bear.
He’s fourteen now - a man, nearly - and no elegantly calligraphed invitation sits on his vanity, though he’s checked at least once an hour for the past two days. His sisters have already chosen their gowns, his brothers their best cufflinks and cravates, and his parents have forgotten all about him, again.
No, his mind corrects, in Cornelia’s voice, they haven’t.
They just don’t want you there.
He’s seventh son to a noble house, and Leiland spends the grandest night of the year alone in his room, holding a book up to watering eyes until he despairs of reading it, and finally falls back onto the bed. He thinks instead on all the failed lessons scattered amongst the successes, the swordbouts he’s lost, the times he’s said the wrong things over the past year. He tries and fails to discover the moment it all went wrong, the singular moment where his parents stopped loving him.
Finally, he comes to the answer, in the daydream-like remembrance of all the political tutors he’s never particularly cared for.
It’s not that he’s unwanted.
It’s that he’s unneeded.
He takes up unwarranted space, in a landscape that doesn’t require his presence. If Leiland were to die tomorrow, the kingdom would be no worse off. There are six other heirs before him, ready to take up the mantle. His parents could lose five of their precious children and still not need him, so really, why bother? Why take him along? If he’s not there, all the more time to foster connections for the children who actually matter.
Tonight, he wonders why his parents bothered having him at all.
At sixteen, Leiland bribes a wyvern rider to fly him across the land, once all the others have left. As the wind whips through his hair (too long for his mother’s taste, he knows, he knows, without her needing to say it) he feels at home in a way he never has in any of his parents’ castles. For the first time in his life, he feels reckless, and brave, and powerful.
He arrives uninvited, unwanted, but there, and when he alights on the grand balcony, all eyes turn to him. His suit of armor gleams beneath the crystal lights, finely polished and matched to the filigree of his leathers, and they’re finally looking at him. Mother and Father, from their places on matching thrones, and they’re looking at him-
And he is suddenly, abjectly terrified.
Leiland walks as steadily as he can down the steps, tucking his plumed helm beneath his arm, and sinks to one knee at his parents’ feet. Why did he do this? If they didn’t hate him before, they surely will now. But maybe… maybe they just needed to see, that he could fit in here. That he could belong. And then… and then...
A man in the florid robes of their western rival kingdom steps forward, glancing at Leiland curiously. His grey eyes trail over the familiar crest emblazoned on his breastplate, that marks his house allegiance. “Who is this? Another son of yours?” A ripple of whispers skitter across the balcony. “I had thought you only had the three.” The man takes another step forward, and Leiland’s father holds his hand up.
He manages to look up into his father’s eyes, which means he has the perfect vantage to watch the emotions pass behind them: surprise, frustration, the barest hint of sorrow, and then, beneath it all, a deep, rageful embarrassment that hardens to an ice-cold glare.
“Only the three,” his father confirms, and Leiland doesn’t look at his mother, because his eyes are already filling with tears, and she will see it, and she will not take his side in all of this. He turns away instead, fleeing down the steps towards the ballroom floor, and finds himself face to face with Cornelia before he can make it into the crowd. She takes his arm and drags him away, while behind his back, his father invents an identity for Leiland that doesn’t contradict the lie of omission he’s maintained over the years. Three sons, no more. He hears himself being erased, little by little, until there is nothing left of him at all.
Cornelia spins him and pins him to a wall, just outside of the sight of the rest of the guests.
“You little shit,” she hisses, “how dare you embarrass our family like that? You should feel lucky we’re in public - I’d whip you myself for such behaviour.”
“What do you care?” he hisses back, yanking his arm away. “Your place is secure. Nothing I do could rob you of that crown on your forehead.”
“There is no power in the world that cannot be broken by one person’s foolishness. And you, Leiland, are the biggest fool I’ve ever met.”
“Everything can be broken…” Leiland muses, then grins, his wicked smile matching hers in viciousness. After all, it’s the greatest gift she’s given him over the years - all her lessons, in how to be cruel. “Maybe you’re right.” He reaches up and snatches the tiara from her curled tresses, then slams it over his armored knee. Diamonds scatter across the carpet as the delicate silver band shatters in his hands, and Cornelia shrieks, and he doesn’t feel better at all, but at least someone else is as angry as him.
Well, he is whipped for it, obviously, and Cornelia doesn’t mourn her loss for long, because his parents commission a new crown for her, this one gold and heavy and laden in precious jewels. More than enough to compensate for her brief anguish, though not enough for her to ask his parents to ease his punishment. She is twenty-nine, almost twice his age and equal in pettiness, and he hates her, and hates his other siblings more for taking her side, and hates his parents even more than that for offering him the promise of royal blood, without ever following through.
He hates everyone, and himself most of all.
---
He doesn’t know that the man is a god, at first. He’s just a traveller, a simple man, no more outwardly impressive for being the most beautiful that Leiland’s ever seen. He walks with a heavy presence, flanked by two lieutenants, and when he passes by Leiland on the road, and that gauntleted hand beckons to him, Leiland nearly falls off his horse. He turns his head back and forth, searching for the mysterious someone-else the stranger might be calling out to.
Nobody notices him.
The man asks if there’s a place nearby that he and his men could rest for the night, then smiles, and Leiland is transfixed. His own clothes are dusty after a day of travel, and though his shoulders have broadened from years of sword training - a pastime better approved than the collection of sketchbooks hidden beneath his bed - he still feels small beside this imposing stranger, and he finds, for the first time in his life, that he likes how that feels.
“Why, yes,” he provides, and offers the guest quarters of his family’s castle with alarming speed. His cheeks flush at his own presumption. He’s never met this man before in his life, so why would he-
But the man keeps smiling that smile, and readily accepts his offer, and Leiland laughs nervously and leads him back to his parents’ summer home without another thought.
Strangely, none of the others at the castle complain about the man’s presence. They don’t even question it, as though the stranger is as much a ghost to them as Leiland has become in his own dwelling. He takes his meals in the garden every morning, and Leiland finds excuses to wander by the courtyard, snatching spare glances and both hoping and fearing that the man will call him over again.
When he finally does, a week after his arrival, Leiland trips over his own feet and nearly falls into the petunias. What’s wrong with him? He’s never been this clumsy before.
“Come,” says the man. “Walk with me.”
They wile the day away exploring the many rooms of the castle, Leiland an eager tour guide and the man an attending guest. Leiland’s neck turns a permanent shade of red, flushing each time he catches the man’s eyes watching him. No one has paid him this sort of attention in years.
The evening finds the two on the ramparts, side by side and facing the setting sun. Leiland’s hair is longer now than it was at sixteen, and he keeps it tied back in a neat ponytail. He tugs on the end as he waits for the man to speak again, not wanting the day to end. He can’t pretend to know the man’s interest in him, but if it’s anything like his own, then maybe-
Well, it’s daring to even have the thought, but there’s one place in the castle they haven’t yet explored, and oh, he can’t remember if he left his clothes on the bed this morning, oh n-
“Leiland,” the man says, turning the word over like something sour, and his stomach bottoms out to hear the sudden displeasure in the man’s voice. What could he have possibly done to offend in the last few minutes?
The sudden thought that the man might be able to read minds flashes through his own, and his stomach does another flip as he remembers what he’d just been imagining.
“Y-yes,” he stutters. “That’s my name.”
“Is it?” the man says. “Leiland… such a soft name.” He flinches. He’s been called that before - a soft boy, liver-spoiled, weak - but not as often he took up the blade. Still, it would not surprise him to learn that that tender nature still shines through the hardened muscles, though it cuts him to the core to hear it from someone so admired. “It doesn’t suit you.”
Leiland laughs awkwardly again, not sure what to make of the proclamation. He can’t find where the insult lies, though there must be one hidden in the man’s words. There always is. “It’s the only one I have.”
“Then take another. It’s within your grasp. What would you be called, if you had your heart’s choice?”
Leiland swallows. His treacherous tongue holds the truth behind his lips, but he dare not speak it.
King.
I would be called ‘King’.
The man nods, as though Leiland had spoken aloud. “If you join me, I would give you a name worthy of the strength I see within you.” The man’s fingers trace the edge of Leiland’s jaw, and Leiland moves, chasing the too-brief touch as the man turns away to face the blazing sunset. The skyline turns dark and pinched as the air mists into freezing fog, and Leiland trembles as the name the man never provided fills his mind.
“Zaul’Nazh,” he whispers, and the very stone beneath his feet begins to shake apart as the black speech leaves his lips. He falls to his knees, out of fear and awe and terror at once, too much for his body to support. “What- what do you want from me?”
The Lord of Shadows looks down his nose at Leiland, and smiles that beautiful smile, filled with such approval, before the black helm shimmers out of the air and covers his face. “I would have you serve me, and no other. I would have your loyalty, your unwavering dedication, your very life itself. And in return, I will give you a new name, and the power to destroy all who would stand between you and your destiny. I would make you king of my domain, the first among the undead, ruler of all that curses and screams and bites in the dark.”
Between the parapets, half-formed images of orcs flood over the idyllic landscape, of the rivers boiling, and Leiland sees himself standing at the highest peak, watching it all burn to nothing as he is raised above the others at last. And then the vision crumbles, and he is himself again. Just a man, kneeling and trembling before his better, and he knows, in that instant, that he was meant for more than this sequestered, forgotten life.
He was meant for more.
His grin echoes the glint of teeth beneath the black helm, and when the hand is offered, he takes it.
“Rise, Kraz-Thun, my Umbra Knight, my newforged servant.”
My Umbra Knight. My servant. My my my-
“My Lord,” Kraz-Thun says. “How shall I serve you?”
---
The undeath hurts less than he thought it might, all in all, and his own crown tastes sweetest when he is ripping the golden one from his sister’s head, in the brief moment before she ceases to have a head at all. He takes care to pluck the jewels from the band before tossing it into the pyre of the burning castle as his wyvern takes flight. From so high up, the bodies are little more than specs - his mother and father, three sisters, three brothers, and all the host of the family guard, left to lie on the grass as the fire burns, and burns, and-
Leiland turns away, clutching the jewels in his hands as they soar back over the smoking fields of his childhood, towards the tower that is his new abode, where Zaul-Nazh is waiting to welcome him home.
He promises to himself, as he tucks the rubies and emeralds away into a box in his quarters, that the next one who wears them will be more deserving.
He does not speak to another soul for the two weeks that follow, and cannot put to words the reason why.
---
It’s barely more than a month that Leiland has spent in Zaul’Nazh’s service before Lilith summons him to her quarters. He walks with trepidation, tempered by no small amount of nervous pride. He knows of her, of course. Who could forget the tales one heard as a child, of the dread spider who blotted out the sun and ate the stars above? A nightmare made suddenly real, but no more fearsome than the nightmare he’s become himself.
These days, he hears different tales - vague whisperings throughout the keep, the worst of which have reached his ears: that this spider witch covets his master’s throne. That she was meant to have it, as though it was something deserved, and then denied. That she lies now in anguish, licking her wounds with her multitude of children, and doing little else but awaiting Zaul’Nazh’s downfall. He is utterly prepared to hate her on sight.
And utterly unprepared to find her a gracious, if harried host. Her children scuttle about her enormous body, begging treats and affection, as she leads him deeper into her lair and settles him down into a comfortable chair.
“Leiland,” she says.
“Kraz-Thun,” he corrects. She narrows her eyes in confusion. “Leiland is the name my mother gave me, but I do not claim it. Zaul’Nazh gave me another, one more suited,” he says, and then winces as he realizes the faux-pas. Who would take kindly to having the name of their worst enemy thrown about, even if they both officially serve the same Lord? But Lilith only purses her lips, considering.
“And your mother… what does she call you now?”
“She does not call me anything. Not anymore,” he says darkly, expecting her to flinch at the implication before he remembers where he is, and who he’s talking to. The Lilith of legend would never shrink back from mere matricide.
“You know, cannibalism is a spider’s way. Many parents find themselves eaten by their young before their time.” She strokes a black-tipped finger lovingly over the carapace of the many little spiders adorning her knee. Leiland eyes the horde with still greater apprehension.
There are certainly… a lot of them.
“And… you’re not afraid of the same happening to you?” His voice does not squeak, but it certainly raises an octave.
Lilith smiles. At her back, an orc wriggles in its silken casing, then goes still. “No, no. I would never worry about that.”
“Why not?” He can’t help but be curious, despite his mild alarm.
“My children know that I care for them, above anything else. My special little boys and girls,” she whispers, cooing at the group of children, who chitter and exalt and even blush, if spiders are capable of such things. “I would do anything to protect them. And if I were to one day, for instance, be slain by some awful holy blade, they might then feast upon my flesh - one should never waste good food - but until then… no. A mother’s love is far more sustaining.”
“And if you were to break that bond of love? If you were to, just theoretically, abandon them?”
“Well, then,” Lilith says. “Of course I would never blame them for it. After all, we must all survive the best we can.”
Leiland leaves after another half hour or so, discomforted but unharmed, and when Lilith calls for him again the following week, he goes. He cannot tell what interest she has in him. Maybe it’s to spy on his master, maybe it’s because she sees a boy in need of mothering. Maybe she’s lonely too, in this stone fortress of horrors.
One night, she beckons him to her bed, and he considers it for far less than an instant before turning her down. The incident should have ended their budding friendship in its tracks, but shockingly, the awkwardness he expects never comes. He thinks he almost catches a glimpse of relief in her eyes as he leaves her quarters, safe and sound, and not to meet the morbid fate of her other lovers.
Then he returns to his room, and falls asleep, and dreams of being taken on a dark throne, and when he wakes, it’s to the now-familiar nausea of shame.
---
Deckland is the first of the Knights to be given to his care. When he walks into the throne room and finds another by Zaul’Nazh’s side, wearing a crown that matches his own, he cannot deny the spark of fear that courses through his veins. He has done well on his Lord’s missions, he has… he has scattered the armies of men, led orcs and trolls into glorious battle, won victory upon victory, and now-
Is he truly to be replaced?
Zaul’Nazh sits, spread-legged and resplendent on his throne, as magnificent in obsidian armour as he was in simple traveller’s fare, on the day they met, and Leiland does not drop to a knee however much he may want to, because he will not give up his dignity and his Lord’s favour without a fight.
But the wraith is not there to replace him. He is there to serve, at his command, and Leiland could weep - will weep, when he next gets a moment alone. For the moment, he addresses a staunch ‘thank you’ to the throne, then turns to size up his new subordinate. Tall, handsome in his own way, and looking just as hesitant as Leiland once felt as he steps into this grand throne room, under the shadow of their Lord’s might.
Here, at last, is someone that might understand Leiland’s role in this tower. Even better, here is someone who knows his own place. Leiland still remembers how the advisors would demure to his mother and father, how they would treat even the inanest of his sister’s suggestions with the utmost respect. That is what being a king is, and it is glorious, for a time, to be looked at in the same way. As more and more Vinguri are brought to his side, he feels powerful once more, and respected, and happy.
That is, until the first mission fails. And then another.
The first time he asks Deckland if he’s done a good job, he feels sick to his stomach. A real leader doesn’t require assurances, not from anyone, and certainly not from their subordinates. But Deckland offers them anyway, and he laps them up like spoiled milk, and can’t stop himself from asking again.
Am I alright?
Am I doing enough?
If you are to abandon me in the end, would you at least give me a sign?
---
Leiland’s first meeting with Efink is the opposite of Lilith’s in nearly every way. For one, he’s the one who invites her to his quarters. She’s the Dark Lord’s newest lieutenant, and it seems the polite thing to do.
It’s about at the moment she arrives, dripping puddles all over his lush carpets, that things start to go wrong. She lies sideways on his couch, preening in what might be a very flattering display for a man more swayed by that sort of charm. She’s terrifyingly beautiful, in an objective way, but guileless in her desperation to prove it so. She even refuses his tea, though he’s set out the finest cups in his set, too concerned with her own elegance to lift one to her lips.
(He refuses to think about how much he’d hoped she’d admire them, because the feeling is as desperate as her veritable striptease across his furniture.)
She’s a high elf by birth, he learns, and recipient to not one but two lineages. Her father is the High Lord of Tireath, and her husband, its destined King, and she speaks of both with pride and disdain in alternating sentences, unwilling to dispense with the clout they provide, while still dismissing their importance in her success.
Leiland hates it. He hates every word out of her mouth, for reasons he labels as righteous indignation. She thinks too highly of herself, this woman, prattling on about the grandeur of her visions when she has provided the Dark Lord nothing of substance to date. Zaul’Nazh probably brought her on as an eventual pawn, a token to use against her father, so he wouldn’t be surprised if her supposed powers never manifest at all.
The nerve of her . Putting on graces, when she has discarded all that made her special, the birthright she abandoned, when any sane person would have killed to-
And she begs for compliments in the most distasteful way, asking with her eyes and her body and her mouth for him to praise her, and it turns his stomach, and he is bitter. He throws her out with a curt nod, vowing to only speak to her again when absolutely necessary.
The next day, as he asks Toby if his hair is laying well they enter the throne room, her stupid dripping bangs flash before his eyes. Leiland shakes his head, trying to clear the image from his mind. Whatever Toby says in response to his query, he doesn’t hear it.
---
They have them. They finally have them. After months and months of searching, they’ve found the halflings. Leiland gives the silent order to fan out, and his faithful Vinguri dip silently into the shadows, surrounding the weathered hilltop.
The little fools built a fire. He can smell the burning meat on the air, a scent that might have made his physical body ache with hunger, if it was capable of it anymore. But he is hungry, all right. He has never stopped being hungry.
Toby and Miles almost spoil his dramatic entrance, but he manages to catch them back with a hard glare before they can step out. He carefully adjusts the sword in front of him into a perfectly parallel point before emerging from the shadows.
Appearances are everything, after all.
The four halflings are suitably terrified as he crests the top of the hill, their feet blackened with the remains of the fire as they scramble back. With perfect timing, the other Vinguri emerge at the four additional points of a perfect pentagon, boxing the halflings in. No escape this time.
The youngest two scatter the moment his heavy foot comes down, but the burliest of the group, a stout young woman with golden curls, stands her ground before the shrinking form of his true target. She brandishes a frying pan in her calloused grip, and cries, “You stay away from my mistress!” Leiland grins as he steps forward.
He can admire that: unfaltering courage, in the face of defeat. Yes, he can admire that, even from so small and insignificant a creature. Perhaps he’ll even give her a clean death, rather than the torture and dismemberment that awaits the other three. Loyalty deserves to be rewarded, after all.
The sink of the blade into Drova’s chest is the most satisfying feeling he’s had all year, though… it would be nice, if what he felt right now was pride, instead of desperate relief. This doesn’t feel like so much of a victory as he’d hoped. Instead, it’s the vacuous absence of failure that fills his chest. He wonders, for a brief moment, if he’s allowed to be happy now. If he’ll finally be able to attend meetings without his cold heart constantly clenching in his chest, or look Zaul’Nazh in the eye without any guilt churning in his stomach.
It’s been so long, since he’s been able to breathe.
Then a flaming torch embeds itself in Deckland’s helmet, and another strikes his own, and his hope vanishes with a helpless scream into the night.
---
Who is this ‘Sohkbarr’? How long has he been at the Bloodkeep?
He supposes he should know, but Leiland doesn’t go down to the pits often, and the orcs that grab his wyvern’s chains as he lights upon the balcony seem to change with the seasons. He’s never bothered to learn their names. Which is, perhaps, why it catches him so off-guard the first time the Dark Lord includes the strange lizard hybrid in his general council meeting.
A Boglord of the North, he soon learns, brought in to rally the wargs and bats and all manner of beasts in light of the coming conflict. It rankles Leiland’s sensibilities, to see a glorified stableboy sitting in on such important conversations. His mother and father would never have allowed it, and he tells Zaul’Nazh such, foolishly choosing to waste the brief moments they have alone after the meeting on complaints.
“Do you believe that humans understand military strategy better than myself, Kraz-Thun? Especially ones as ineffectual as your parents?”
“No, my Dark Lord,” he backpedals quickly, ducking his head. “No, of course, I was just-”
“I would not take any council from the one who has failed, yet again, to fulfill their current assignment,” Zaul’Nazh snaps, and if Leiland had looked up in that moment, he might have seen the anger in his Lord’s expression soften to something like remorse as Leiland recoils, but he doesn’t. His eyes are fixed firmly on the ground.
Worthless, worthless. You have always been-
“Yes, my Lord.” He bows again, then swallows down the lump in his throat. “I will do better. I will retrieve the crown by our next meeting, I swear it,” he says, a promise he must, but cannot keep.
Predictably, he fails again, but by the next meeting Zaul’Nazh seems to have forgotten his previous anger. In fact, he seems to have forgotten about Leiland altogether, and doesn’t call on him once during the whole council session.
It should be a relief. He has no more progress to report than the last time.
But somehow, Zaul’Nazh’s silence is worse by far.
---
Now Markus… Leiland doesn’t know what to think of Markus.
The man is a flittering bird, here one day and gone the next. Why a human has chosen to take up employment here at the Bloodkeep, in light of all their goals regarding the general destruction of humanity as a concept, well… he’s never found a polite way to ask.
He wears a mask that might easily hide all manner of deformities, but Markus walks like he wears nothing at all. The gold covering his face, hanging at his throat, is a reflection of his confidence: glittering and bright and immaterial, for all the attention it draws.
He’s just a human. That doesn’t mean much. The man can only rise so far without making the final sacrifice, without giving his soul as Leiland did. At least, that’s what he tries to remind himself. No mere man could be worth so much to the Dark Lord. If not, then Leiland’s sacrifice means...
A pirate, nothing more. Better not to think on him.
Now and again, Markus flashes him a grin beneath that golden mask, his impossibly white teeth bright beneath the dreads of his black beard, and Leiland thinks of nothing else for a week. It’s… very strange. He’s grown accustomed to desire and shame being intermingled, and he’s not sure what to call this newly blooming emotion in his chest, this… something, terrifying in its uncertainty. Markus is kind to him, free with an encouraging word in the brief moments they spend alone, before he darts off to some other grand adventure in the clouds, and Leiland feels-
He’s just a man.
He is nothing, compared to the burning shadow of Zaul’Nazh’s glory.
He’s just…
Just...
Better not to think on him.
---
Zaul’Nazh’s body has been gone for nearly five decades now. It was disturbing at the beginning, of course. Leiland grew used to those muscular shoulders, the black cloak that hung heavy over one arm, the winning grin that so seduced a young man on horseback all those centuries ago.
Now all that remains are the teeth, and the fact that Leiland loves him still only proves to him that it was never physical, not really.
He loves Zaul’Nazh, with a singlemindedness that chokes him far more often than it delights. He has forgotten how to do anything else. It barely occurs to him anymore, that love could be more than a vice in his chest.
Efink knows it, he thinks, but she is too well cultured to say anything, or too self-absorbed to care. He hopes it’s the latter. And besides, as if she’s one to judge him about hopeless love affairs. She still pines for her husband, and Leiland has met the man, and thus is enough of an authority to say that the rightful king of Tireath is nothing more than a buffoon.
His love may be doomed, but at least the subject is worthy of his affections.
Another person knows it too, but is not nearly so polite about it, and Efink grows in inches of esteem in his mind by comparison to the girl. The woman. The object of his eternal frustration.
To Maggie.
Maggie, with her unstylish clothes and her too-loud voice and her flaming hammer and her inability to read a room. He laughed aloud the first time Toby insinuated that she and the Dark Lord had ‘something going on’. Of course, there would be rumours - she was Gogmoth’s daughter, after all, and no pairing could provide juicier gossip - but he believed none of them. He no longer dares to dream that Zaul’Nazh would choose him, but he could not have possibly chosen her.
He arrives to council one day, and finds her splayed akimbo over Zaul’Nazh’s lap, his perfect mouth pressed to hers with such hunger that Leiland’s own mouth runs dry. She winks at him as she passes, or seems to, or... well, maybe she didn’t look at him, but it feels like she did. That show… that disgusting show was meant for him. He’s sure of it.
She knows about his feelings. She tells him so with every backhanded compliment, every insinuation about his many failures, every little dig she throws his way in the Dark Lord’s presence. Jealousy makes her uglier by spades, and he convinces himself that it’s her jealousy that colours his vision red every time they share the same space.
It’s embarrassing, he thinks, as he sidles closer to Zaul’Nazh, trying to slip his body between the two in a way that isn’t obvious.
So yes, he’s not too terribly torn up about Zaul’Nazh’s lost body. Leiland may never get to touch him in the way he has so often dreamt.
But at least for now, neither can she.
---
And then it’s not just his body.
Then Zaul’Nazh is gone, and Leiland has never felt more adrift.
His sense of purpose is shattered, his future uncertain, and all he has left are these people. These people, who he’s found himself surrounded by, are they his allies? How can he know? Will they betray him the moment they get the chance?
A square half of the group outright hates him, he’s sure of it - he was sure of it - but a spare few have been cordial over the decades, and some… he almost enjoys their company. Some, he might deign to call friends, if he were capable of such sentimental tripe.
(He never really had friends, before all this began. Before Zaul’Nazh… he was always alone.)
He pushes the thought from his mind. He really doesn’t need one more reason to feel pathetic at this particular juncture.
So, to the question.
Are they his friends?
Does he have friends?
It had never occurred to him, to treat the Vinguri as such. They were close, but only in the way that a favoured servant might be close to his master. It was all too easy to send Deckland to his death, and he feels barely a smidgen of remorse over that sacrifice.
Could he do the same as easily to Sohkbarr? To Lilith?
To Maggie?
He ponders the question, through fires, and anvils, and bodies falling like stars through a blistered sky.
Are they his friends?
Is that even something he’s allowed to ask?
---
There’s little left of the Bloodkeep by the time the battle is over. Crumbled foundations and broken parapets, scores of slain orcs and goblins - even Lilith’s lair is gone, collapsed under the weight of falling stone. And his room…
All the teasets are broken. Worse, the sketchbooks he’d taken such care to keep away from the elements are scattered all across the floor, burnt by radiant light and ruined by ash and dust.
Leiland sinks to the ground in the middle of the room, then gathers the remains of his possessions in his lap, and sits quietly for a while.
The crown on his head is empty now, in more ways than one. It no longer contains the power of the Dark Lord - or, it never did, as he’s recently discovered - nor does it mean much symbolically without its gifter to claim it. To claim him.
Interesting, how one can be a ‘King’ in name, and still end up trapped under another’s thumb.
Zaul’Nazh is gone, well and truly, and he is glad of it. The vision revealed to him of his Lord’s true nature only cemented what he already knew - that to be used is no better than being forgotten, and he has been used from the very start.
There’s a knock at the door. He doesn’t startle - he’s too tired to startle, or do much of anything, but wait for whoever it is to go away.
“Mind if I come in?”
It’s Markus, unmasked and, for once, barely adorned. He seems almost naked without the finery. Leiland glances at him for only a moment before returning his gaze to the floor.
“Oh, yes. Come in, Markus.” The door creaks shut, or it would, if the latch wasn’t broken. Instead, it swings lightly on its hinges. No privacy then, either. “I thought you meant to head out immediately?”
“Nah,” says Markus. “I’ll stick around a little longer, at least.”
“Didn’t think cleanup operations were quite your style, if I’m honest.” Leiland flips another page in his sketchbook. The Dark Lord’s armor, the Dark Lord’s crown, the Dark Lord’s body, all done up in elegant shades of grey and black.
Embarrassing, really.
He feels sick.
“Not really. But I figured I should at least say my goodbyes properly. Mind if I join you?”
Leiland shrugs, then pats an open space on the floor. “Mind the rubble.”
Markus plops down at his side, closer than Leiland expected, and peers over his shoulder before he can hide what’s in his lap.
“Not bad. Those yours?”
“They’re ruined now,” he snaps, slamming the sketchbook shut. Then, because Markus didn’t deserve that, “...Sorry. It’s been a day.” He snorts. “A century, really.”
A lifetime, if I’m honest.
Markus looks around the room. “I’m sure you can make more. You’ve got the time.”
“Don’t I, indeed.” Leiland snorts again, this time more amused, though not without a hint of melancholy. “I suppose I could… find a new subject, this time around.”
“Who knows? You might even be inspired. Never hurts to get a fresh start.” The look Markus shoots him is meaningful, and he deliberately waits to try and glean that meaning until he’s somewhere private, where even a ghostly blush can’t betray him.
“I dare say you might be right.” He sighs, then takes off the crown and places it on top of the pile of books. “I suppose I could try again.”
“That’s the spirit.” Markus grins, and well… there goes that whole wait to blush until you’re in private plan. Damn the man, and his charming face, and that body, and…
It occurs to Leiland, that for the first time in centuries, he is no longer bound. Not to Zaul’Nazh’s service, or to his own desperate love affair. He is free, to do whatever he likes.
And really, isn’t that what being a king is supposed to be about?
With a courage he didn’t know he possessed, he leans over and pecks Markus on the cheek. The beard scratches against his chin, and his skin is warm, and it feels nice. To do something he wants to do, without fearing the consequence.
Markus is still grinning as he leans back.
“That’s one hell of a goodbye. But I think I can do you one better.”
The second kiss lands on his mouth - soft, and lingering, and he chases the lips when they pull away, but Markus is already standing. He replaces the mask before Leiland can see whether his dark skin holds the same flush, but he can imagine.
“Goodbye,” he murmurs, as Markus heads to the door, and he can’t help the little pang in his heart to see him go, not knowing if this is the last time they’ll see each other.
“Oh,” says Markus, “I think I’ll be back sooner than you think.”
Even past the mask, he still catches the wink.
And then Markus is gone, and Leiland is alone again.
He looks down at the sketchbooks. Shakes his head. Then Leiland sighs, and with one quick flick of his wrist, sets them all alight with black flames. He picks up the crown and sets it on his head, adjusting the iron till it lays just so, and walks off to find Maggie. He did promise her he’d help get the baby’s room set up.
After all, that’s what friends do.