The elixir was administered every three days in the same manner in which it had first been given. It kept his hunger for human flesh alive. The Ashkin poison was used with regularity to keep him subdued, especially when he was caught pulling at the chain hooks in the wall.

Life was mundane and boring. Trapped within the bars of the cage meant that nothing changed. Day in, day out, the same events transpired as the people who worked in Prince Yernal’s castle went about their duties. The number of servants who dared to enter the hall was now down to a bare minimum, and even when they did enter, it was a rushed affair. No one wanted to experience the same fate as the young male servant that Teal had devoured.

It wasn’t just the servants though. Nobles, officials and soldiers were now being offered to Teal if they dared to cross Prince Yernal. Over the past couple of weeks, Teal had eaten his fair share of humans.

To keep himself occupied, Teal spent his time daydreaming of all the ways he would could torture and eat Prince Yernal. A fast killing would not give him satisfaction. He would have to draw it out. Gnaw off limb by limb and slowly eat Prince Yernal right before his own eyes. On other days, when he wasn’t consumed with rage towards Prince Yernal, Teal would daydream of reuniting with Jale and Lana within the palace. They were wonderful dreams of passion and tender-filled caresses.

Shouts and jeers suddenly came from outside in the courtyard, drawing Teal out of his daydream. Teal guessed they were soldiers.

“See how powerful am I?” Teal heard Prince Yernal shout.

More cheers came from the soldiers.

All of a sudden, the doors dividing the hall and the courtyard outside burst inwards. A dirty ragged person fell face first into a heap onto the floor. Prince Yernal stalked over the threshold, followed by several soldiers.

Teal turned his head in their direction. There on the wind, was that the scent of something familiar?

He frowned.

Prince Yernal left the person on the floor and turned towards Teal’s cage.

“I think you need a little more incentive, Teal.” Prince Yernal walked beside his cage, holding his sword out so it hit each and every bar with a loud clang. “I mean, you certainly are a deterrent of sorts, but I want more.”

“More?” Teal asked. “You have a Lombock locked in a cage who is eating the Lords and officials who have not been following your orders. Your strong and powerful. What more do you want?”

Prince Yernal chuckled viciously. “I want the Kingdom, Teal. I thought that would have been obvious by now.”

Teal scoffed. “You’re deluded. You can’t bribe everyone to follow you.”

Prince Yernal ignored Teal’s rebuke and turned merrily on his heel. “I have one huge task for you, Teal, and you will do what I ask of you.”

Prince Yernal clapped his hands once and pointed to the body on the floor. Two Keglan soldiers stormed towards it and took the person under either arm. They dragged the person forward, the person so weak their head listed forward with oily clumps of hair hiding his features. Legs trailed over the ground. Whoever they were, they were too weak to stand. Under the sweat, dirt and grime, Teal was certain the scent was familiar. Still on his haunches, he edged closer to the bars of his cage.

His stomach turned and his hands clasped the bars. That body, smaller than what he was used to; the hair, the smell…

No! This couldn’t be happening!

Teal scrambled to his feet.

The person was worn and tired looking. His body appeared as if he hadn’t eaten well in a month, as if he had been given only enough to keep him alive. The muscles in his body had deteriorated. He was a shadow of his former self.

Jale was shoved to his knees in front of Teal’s cage. The two soldiers let go of their hold. Jale’s head still lolled from side to side.

“Jale,” Teal breathed.

Jale’s head lifted slowly, and Teal took a step back, aghast.

Jale’s face was bloodied and swollen, his left eye almost shut completely. A large gash held dry blood on his cracked lips. His unswollen eye blinked and a sign of recognition filled his face.

“Teal,” he croaked.

Jale’s eyes fell to the mess in the corner of his cage; the bones and skeletons of the dead he had eaten. Teal kept an even gaze. He wasn’t going to apologize for something that was a basic need.

Before anything could be said between them, Prince Yernal strode over to Jale, lifted his right hand and slammed it into Jale’s left cheekbone. Jale’s head snapped back from the force, and his body fell to the ground again. The men in the room jeered and shouted in joy. The two soldiers lifted Jale back up again. A new welt, two centimetres wide gaped open. Blood flowed freely down the side of his face.

Prince Yernal turned, repositioning the ring on his finger that he had just hit Jale with. A beaming smile plastered itself on his face.

I’ll make it simple for you,” Prince Yernal spoke to Teal. “Do what I’m about to ask, or I murder your lover.”

Teal looked back and forth between Prince Yernal and Jale in disbelief.

“Whatever he’s asking you to do,” Jale stated slowly, “don’t do it.” He spat blood out onto the stone floor.

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Prince Yernal took a step backwards and swung his hand down in one swift motion to backhand Jale over the face again. Jale’s body swayed backwards, and he would have fallen over again if the two guards were not holding him. Now on his opposite cheek, another welt bled freely.

Teal hissed as Prince Yernal laughed, resetting the ring on his finger again.

“I could do this all day,” Prince Yernal chuckled merrily.

“I will kill you!” Teal roared.

Prince Yernal turned back to Teal, and his eyes narrowed. “And if you dared ever try, my two soldiers here will slit Jale’s throat. Or should we just do that now since you’re clearly not up to behaving?”

Prince Yernal spun on his heels again and impatiently waved one of the soldiers away. He replaced the man and held Jale by the hair with one hand. In his other, he swiftly retrieved a dagger from the belt inside his long winter cloak. It glinted in the fire light. He looked at Teal one more time.

“It’s up to you,” he said as he started to lower the knife.

“Fine!” Teal screamed. He turned away and brought his hands to hair, pulling on it in frustration. “I’ll do whatever you ask! Just stop.” He slumped against the bars of the cage.

Delight flickered over Prince Yernal’s face and he lowered his knife, but he kept his hold on Jale’s hair. “Clear the hall,” he demanded, although he waved with his hands for the two soldiers who had held Jale, to remain.

“It’s simple, Teal,” Prince Yernal began after everyone had left. “You’re going to take a little journey to the capital and there, you are going to visit my brother, heir apparent, Prince Weston. You are going to murder Prince Weston.” He lowered the knife back to Jale’s throat. “Or I kill Jale.”

“Are you insane?” Teal cried. “You will be accused of treason.”

Prince Yernal laughed. “Who will try to go against me when I have a Lombock working for me?” He tightened his grip on Jale’s hair and pulled his head higher, lengthening and exposing more of the skin on Jale’s neck. The blade pressed against his unshaven skin.

“You’re mad!” Teal screamed.

“I’ll have Jale locked up in another cage with myself and ten guards. If you fail to complete your task, they will slit his throat, but not before seeing to it that he suffers in pain. They say removing fingernails, breaking fingers, and peeling skin can be quite torturous.”

Silence hung in the air for only a fraction of a second before Teal heard Jale’s voice.

“Don’t do it!” Jale croaked. “If they Prince Weston dies, the only person in the way of him ruling this kingdom is their other brother.”

“Oh yes,” Prince Yernal crooned. “My other brother who is in the far reaches of the kingdom and who has suddenly succumbed to a mysterious illness. He’s currently bedridden and unfortunately, it doesn’t look like he’s going to recover.”

Teal took a step back from the bars of his cage. Dread filled his body. There had to be a way out of this. He couldn’t murder King Weston. His gaze rested on Jale, and he wanted to throw up. How could they beat him to such a state? Jale who had been his rock ever since coming to the palace in Dalenia in the Talbecan Empire, and the man he cared for the most in the entire world.

Teal turned back to Prince Yernal.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

With that Teal slumped onto the ground. For the first time since arriving in the Keglar Kingdom, he was utterly defeated.

<<<>>

The shackles on Jale’s wrists and ankles were tightened. An extra chain wrapped around his neck and was attached to the wall opposite Teal’s cage. He was given a hard kick in the side. Air expelled from his chest. He was exhausted, hungry and very, very sore.

As the last guard left the hall, they took the remaining burning torch with them, and the hall was cast into darkness.

Silence loomed.

It had been several months since he’d last seen Teal. More time than what he had known him for. He had no idea what to say into the silence. What had happened to Teal? Why were there bones in the bottom of his cage? Had he really gone ahead and eaten people?

Fury surged through Jale. All of this could have been prevented if he had only listened to the Emperor. They should have retaliated sooner. They should have hunted down the Hummingbird and Prince Yernal and done away with them once and for all. Prince Yernal’s power and despotic tyrannical path to power had gone on for too long. Who would suffer next? Jale should have fought this head-on ten years ago. He should have faced Prince Yernal immediately after Drean had been murdered and after the coup at the Arina Pass. It was anger that ran deep. It was anger that had been bubbling under his veins for over a decade now. He couldn’t let it fester any longer.

Jale closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing thoughts. It was impossible. All he could think about was running a sword threw Prince Yernal’s face, or heart, either would do.

“I can hear your heart racing,” Teal’s quiet and calm voice echoed from across the hall.

Jale’s head snapped towards Teal’s direction knowing all too well Teal could see him in the darkness. It was such an odd, cold statement. There was something in Teal’s eyes when he had looked at him earlier. Something different. Something new?

What was the meaning behind that? What had happened to Teal since he had said goodbye to him in Dalenia? He was a shadow of the individual who had been walking the halls of the Emperor’s palace. Had it been an act this whole time? Jale had shared his bed with Teal. He had been with Teal at his most vulnerable. There was no way he could have acted that.

“I’m angry,” Jale responded. “For what has been done to you and the fact that I’m in an impossible position to kill Prince Yernal. I should have done it long ago.”

“Yes, you should have,” Teal’s response came.

He heard movement coming from inside of Teal’s cage, steps moving to the side closest to Jale. In Jale’s head, he pictured Teal leaning heavily onto the bars of the cage.

“You’re angry with me?” Jale asked. He had lost so much already. He wouldn’t not be surprised if he lost Teal as well.

“No,” Teal answered.

Relief filled Jale’s chest. “What happened to you, Teal? You’re so different to the Teal I know.”

“They gave me something, a drink,” Teal revealed.

“A drink?”

“Something that stopped the spell. This is the real me.”

Jale remained silent, processing what he had heard.

“You disapprove?” Teal asked, a very small hint of something in his voice that Jale took as a warning.

“No,” Jale responded quickly. “Of course not. It will just take some time for me to adjust. You are different to the person I fell for in Talbec.”

“Fell for?” Teal asked. “You fell for me?”

Jale tutted. “Of course, I did Teal.”

It was Teal’s turn to be silent, and Jale wondered if he was processing his confession.

“Tell me more about this drink,” Jale said.

“I don’t know what is in it. The man who was with Prince Yernal made it, Prince Tolder.”

Jale saw Prince Tolder, the Hummingbird, in his mind’s eye. It was another man who should have met his demise long ago.

“I have had to drink it several times.”

“So, it wears off?” Jale asked.

“I think so,” Teal responded.

“How do you feel?” Jale asked.

“Free,” Teal responded, not missing a beat. “I feel like I have never felt before. I feel like me.”

Jale didn’t like that response but who was he to stop Teal from being who he really was. “I’m…I’m happy for you, Teal, if you feel happy with this new you.”

“Even with all the horror it brings?”

“Well, it is something that we will have to explore later,” Jale chuckled. “It might add some different dynamics in our relationship that’s for sure.”

“Optimistic,” Teal said. “You believe we can escape?”

“Of course,” Jale lied. “There is much that I am yet to accomplish. One of which is seeing the demise of Prince Yernal and Prince Tolder. It’s the least I can do for the Emperor.”

Teal allowed a respectful pause after the mention of the Emperor before he spoke again. “How about I promise that if we both get out of here, I’ll eat them both for you.”

Jale managed a weak laugh. “Only after I run my sword through them first.”

“It’s a deal.”

“Teal,” Jale said quietly.

“Yes.”

“It’s good to see you again despite the circumstances. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Jale.”