Emerickus embarks on a tirade that would put “In Catilinam Prima” to shame.

Thrashing against King Lucius’ unwavering grip on the chain linking his cuffs, he screams until his throat is sore, cursing his lineage, his future progeny, and even the blood coursing through his veins.

Drawing on the torture training he underwent as a child, King Lucius remains silent. He swiftly transports himself to a happier place, aided by the overwhelming beauty and familiarity of the brush behind the castle. He pulls Emerickus along like an insolent child.

Back in his childhood stomping grounds for the first time in years, King Lucius can’t help but crack a wry smile.

He spent his youth getting lost in the brush, hopping fences, and crawling through tunnels, finding his way into the recesses of Maukhetra.

While his father was in meetings and making appearances, he was exploring the back channels of the neighboring kingdoms, creating mischief with the other locked-away boys of the royal families, temporarily safe from the prying eyes of their subjects. It's thanks to those days that he had the crude outlines of the land, relics of their plans for secret meetings, which he reformed to pave the way for this day.

King Lucius floats in childish reverie as he adjusts his hold on Emerickus, smiling absentmindedly as he recalls the hours of hide-and-seek, the days of games ended with pauses and draws when they heard the evening bells toll from afar.

The well-loved earth beneath the olive trees squelches beneath his shoes, reminding him of the days of stashing his shoes near the castle’s secret entrance, for fear of tracking mud through the halls. Coming home with splinters and scratched-up arms. Covered in dander from the babblers, always grazing too closely as they zoomed past.

The warmth and brilliance of his memories completely drown out the exasperated screams being cast at him from not a foot away.

What is with this guy? Emery fumes, squirming helplessly in his hold.

It’s been at least 30 minutes since they’d left the castle, and like a soldier with a thousand-yard-stare, Lucius has been completely unresponsive to all of Emery’s threats and slander.

He said any and everything that came to mind to shock him, to get him to loosen that iron grip he held on the shackles for just a second. If he could get even the slightest opening, Lucius would surely pay.

He glances around for a potential escape route as they step out from beneath the lemon trees lining the start of the shore. Taking a moment to deftly eye the horizon, Lucius set forth through the early afternoon warmth, beelining to the section of the Coast that is off-limits to commoners.

Emery digs his feet in the sand, writhes, and tries to leverage gravity against Lucius, hoping to use his admittedly low body weight to pull the two of them to the ground. But he doesn’t budge. Like an iron tank, broad-shouldered Lucius treks on unaffected.

“Please behave, Emerickus,” Lucius mutters as the wind cools, the sure sign of them reaching the water. Emery scoffs in indignance.

Behave? After being caged like a rabid dog, shackled like a common thief, and rag-dolled across the city against his will?

He doesn’t have time to string together a coherent retort before he is unceremoniously lifted and dropped into the mouth of a rickety boat. Before he can try to flip himself into the water and out of Lucius’ grasp, the young man is standing over him, trapping him between his legs as he unwinds a spool of thick rope.

Gaping like a fish out of water, Emerickus is frozen in disbelief as he is faced downward and wrangled under the boat’s wooden seats. The chain linking his cuffed hands where they are tensed against his lower back is quickly tied to a hook beneath the seat.

Cheek pressed against the warm floor of the boat, Emery is stunned into silence as his dark skin becomes flushed with a magenta rage. Without further ado, Lucius sets himself in the boat, planting his feet on either side of Emery’s torso. He unhooks the oars from where they hang on the sides of the boat and diligently starts rowing toward the Cove.

Voice shot from screaming bloody murder, Emery closes his eyes, deciding to let the kid win this round. Breathing deeply, he tucks away thoughts of the violent promises he intends to fulfill the second that the Full Moon rises, with or without these ridiculous ‘anti-magic’ cuffs on or not.

He instead conserves his energy, allowing the early evening air to work over him, cooling the burning sensation in his chest.

The boy will get what’s coming to him soon.

King Lucius welcomes the quiet but is unsettled, to say the very least. He watches Emerickus cycle through all five stages of grief in a matter of seconds, face blanching as the gravity of his predicament finally dawns on him.

His feet are planted on either side of the most legendary wizard to grace Maukhetrean soil, the only one to survive the Purging. His shaking hands are rowing the oars that are carrying said legendary wizard to commit an irredeemable blasphemy against his will.

He quietly swallows the saliva that’s gathered in his jowls, ignoring the thin sheen of sweat developing on his forehead.

As the Cove burgeons on the horizon, King Lucius tries to calm himself down by mentally rehearsing his lines.

‘Now, Emerickus,’ he’d command, holding his father’s enchanted dagger, strong enough to gnaw through stone, up to the man’s neck. ‘You’ll cast this spell, verbatim,’ he’d say, passing along the spell script he’d spent weeks writing. ‘If you dare utter the wrong syllable, you will force my hand.’

He replays it time and time again, tweaking here and there, perfecting his delivery. It’s authoritative, haughty, and threatening enough to give Emerickus pause should he consider retaliating. He might tremble a little while doing it, but it’s foolproof.

Emerickus would recite the ancient Maukhetrean spell in its customary accent, word by word, as King Lucius’ fingers would tighten around the blade. With the words in the air, a covenant with their True Mother, Gaia, he would slap the cuffs back onto Emerickus’ shifty hands before they had the chance to wreak any havoc.

The air surrounding them would run thinner, gradually thickening as it swirled nearer to Miu’s Cove. For a brief moment, they would be breathless as Miu’s weakened lungs would slowly inflate with air, overfilling as her weary spirit began to leak out of her gaping, sleeping mouth. Peacefully, and with dignity, she would depart to the warm bosom of her Creator, and the air would return to its normal concentration.

With a grim countenance, King Lucius would turn back to the boat, tethering Emerickus there to preserve the tenderness of the moment. He would rinse his hands with the rainwater he had prepared, sure to enter Miu’s space cleanly and with the respect due to her.

He would remove his shoes and enter quietly, kneeling next to the cat with his eyes downcast. King Lucius would bow his head and pray for her safe travels in the afterworld, sending her off with the same well-wishes he did his father. With one last solemn gaze, he would leave and usher Emerickus back into the boat.

It’s set in his head, but as he rows onto the shore of the Cove, a stray pit begins to grow in his stomach. Attributing it to nerves, he lets out one last deep sigh, exhaling his worries as he stands to his feet and climbs out of the boat.

He leaves Emerickus where he is still lying under the seats, unmoving. Resting his haversack in the sand, he prepares himself for the ritual.

King Lucius is sure to double and triple-check that he has the script safe in his robe’s pocket, the dagger in his hand, and an extra rope dangling from where it’s tacked to Emerickus’ cuffs’ link.

As confident as he’ll ever be, King Lucius stands, cautiously peering over the side of the boat at Emerickus.

To his surprise, the man looks utterly defeated. His cheek is pressed to the floor, seemingly unmoved from where it was laid an hour ago. His eyes are half-lidded, focused unblinkingly on the patch of the boat in front of him. If it weren’t for the slow rising and sinking of his back betraying his steady breathing, King Lucius would have thought him dead.

Hesitantly, he begins untying the knot linking Emerickus’ limp body to the seat, tensing as he anticipates the wild bucking starting again. But it doesn’t.

With his eyebrows cocked suspiciously, King Lucius quickly, but gently begins maneuvering Emerickus’ lithe body from where it’s slotted, growing more and more curious at the lack of fight in the man. He doesn’t even try to shift his weight to inconvenience him as he carries him out of the boat.

Standing face-to-face, with his hand tightly gripping the rope dangling from the cuffs, King Lucius bores his eyes intently into Emerickus’ where they are pitched to the sand, searching for something, anything. But it seems that no one is home.

“Look alive, Emerickus,” he commands. “We’ve arrived.” He gestures to the hulking landform ahead of them, a cluster of jagged, mountainous ruins, giving way to a shallow pool, and the mouth of what will be Miu’s final resting place.

Emerickus nods, briefly gazing up at the cave entrance.

King Lucius studies him, racking his mind to make sense of the sudden change in spirit. Trying to assess it for potential danger.

Unsure of what to say, or if he should say anything at all, King Lucius sighs, choking down the lump of guilt in his throat.

With a shaky hand, he brings the dagger up to Emerickus’ unflinching face. “I’m going to untie you now. Don’t move, Emerickus,” he says, surprising himself with the authority dominating his voice. His eyes hang onto Emerickus’ apathetic gaze as he fishes the cuff key from his robe, fumbling to set it in the keyhole.

Emerickus sighs once his wrists are free, rubbing and flexing them. King Lucius stares at them unblinkingly, watching for a tell-tale flash of light to course over them, poised to sink his knife into the man.

“Now, Emerickus, you’ll read this script,” he instructs, passing a paper from his pocket to Emerickus’ waiting hands. “Verbatim. If you dare utter the wrong syllable, you will force my hand.”

It takes every iota of restraint in Emery’s body to stop him from breaking character. Now, Emerickus, he repeats in a mocking tone in his head, internally snickering at the boy’s childish performance of bravado.

It only takes him a split second to process the mess scrawled on the sheet in front of him, but, unable to look this kid in the eye without cracking, he keeps his eyes glued to the paper, gliding his eyes back and forth blankly as if attempting to commit the drivel to memory.

This ignorant skeptic of a runt has no idea what he’s about to get himself into with this butchered attempt at a Maukhetrean breath spell. Emery’s eyes crinkle slightly in amusement as he realizes he won’t even have to dirty his hands to put the last of this rotten bloodline in its place. The swift hand of karma would do it for him.

His facial muscles are starting to ache where he is schooling them into this solemn expression, waiting for Lucius to get on with it. After a beat, he finally looks up. And Emery is not disappointed with what he finds in the boy’s eyes: the arrogance unique to uninitiated, faithless mortals who dabble in matters far above the purview.

The dagger—the same toy knife he’d shown him in the dungeon—drops threateningly to his neck.

“Start.”

Yes, Sire.

Emery starts the recitation, pitching his voice to the octave unique to the magic-wielding class of ancient Maukhetreans. He sings with his eyes cast at the paper, prepping the punchline by giving Lucius the added assurance of knowing he wasn’t going off-script; he is going to receive precisely what he asked for.

As he sings, lime-green bits of Gaian essence flow from his mouth, beautifully peppering the azure backdrop of the sky.

Lucius watches in shock as the particles swirl in the air, darting around as they grow in numbers, becoming a green slash in the sky, moving as one.

He’s mesmerized as they fly overhead, darting into Miu’s Cove. While his back is turned, a second round of wisps flows from Emery’s mouth, sneakily darting themselves into Lucius’ ears. Just as Emery’s mouth begins to curve into a grin, a sudden gust of wind forces its way past his teeth, forcing the final strand of essence, the one that was supposed to swirl upward to Gaia, back down his throat, distorting the final note.

Emery’s eyes fly open in horror as he freezes, realizing what’s happened. Before he can come up with an additional verse, some sort of amendment to the spell, his vision slowly fades to black as Lucius falls backward into his arms.