Chapter Text
Mydei wakes up with a jump, heart leaping into his mouth as the loud bang! bang! bang! of something slamming repeatedly against the floor reverberates through the stone. It is accompanied by a series of loud, roaring noises that echo through the corridors of the defiles and echo Aquila’s grating caw of a laughter like a mockery of a battle cry.
He’s already up before he’s even fully aware of what's happening. Mouth dry, chest heaving, eyes wild as his gaze roams blindly through the camp.
There isn’t a moon in the sky that night. Oronyx’s long veil came to cover it all, hiding all light but the few twinkle of stars that do nothing to dissipate the dark. The campfires have burnt out, the smell of scorched wood still lingering in the air.
He can’t distinguish much. Shadows and silhouettes of his men around in the same state as him, screaming, yelling, cursing and moving around. A few sparks come from a corner as someone tries to start a fire. In the distance, Mydei can see the shape of one of their dromas, Kopopo, judging by the sound of the roar, stomping widely. Is it on his feet?
No. Mydei squints, watching as the long shape of his neck moves around, searching for something.
Sparks fly, a fire lits before it snuffles out as the wind blows and howls through the corridors of the defiles, letting out a low, somewhat daunting, tone. The flash of light is fleeting, but is long enough for him to see Kopopo’s head snap in his direction and let out a long, sharp roar.
Mydei’s eyes widen, and, abiding by Kopopo’s urgent plea, he jumps out of the way.
But he doesn’t know what he’s dodging. It’s not far enough. He’s too slow.
His hand falls to the floor.
It takes a second for him to register it. The cut far too neat. Blood spills onto the ground and hot white pain bursts, like a current of electricity, from his arm, under his eyes, nearly blinding him. He half-curses, half-screams.
There’s a loud chorus of “Mydeimos!” coming from all directions and the plap-plap-plapping of feet against the floor like a stampede.
“Quiet!” He yells back, breathing harshly, body spasming. The smell of copper and metal fills the air. His other hand slaps onto the stump where his hand used to be. It burns. His body blazes. Nerves fried on end. Nothing that he hasn’t felt before, but it still hurts.
But there’s no time to lick little wounds.
Mydei grits his teeth, forces his ragged breathing to come to a halt, back into a normal rhythm as his eyes search for his attacker in the dark. Ears straining over the howling winds, Kopopo’s panicked roars, the detachment’s hustle, the drip-drip-drip of his blood spilling to the floor like torrential rain, the fast thump-thump-thump of his heart beating in his chest and the pain.
Sparks fly, another flame snuffled by the wind, three golden tears in the fleeting light.
“Oh, you bastard!” Mydei spits.
Mydei ducks, adrenaline thrumming in his veins. He doesn’t know where the assassin is; they intertwine indistinguishably with the night, as if Zagreus had stolen a piece of Oronyx’s veil and draped them tight, like the moon that night. But the assassin sure knows where Mydei is; he feels it—A slash on his wrist, on his chest, on his shoulder, on his leg, on the bridge of his nose, all in quick succession.
So Mydei keeps moving, moving, moving, feeling the cold exhale of the silver blade edging to sink deeper into him. The sound of the blade cutting through the air makes the howling of the winds come out as a keen cry.
How in the hell, Mydei thinks, did they manage to sneak upon us?
It had been five days, after all, since they had ventured into the defiles. Long, slow days of treading on paths that looked the same, with the same walls of the same washed out grays of the same length with the same dirt tracks.
Long, slow days without any indication they were being tailed.
They even had to spend an entire day backtracking after one of the paths they had taken in one of the many bifurcations ended up being blocked by debris from what once seemed to be a natural stone arch.
Surely, they would have seen the assassin on the way back, right?
Ha, clearly not.
Admittedly, their guard had lowered over time. It was the reason why Mydei had decided not to use gauntlets to sleep. But they had established a rotation ever since the night of the attack on the inn. Today had been no different, with three men stationed around the camp mounting guard.
…Actually, why were the campfires burnt out? Where were the men mounting guard?
His back hits a wall. Death approaches.
A pool of blood rests neatly on Mydei’s cupped hand. He presses, condenses and, in a flash, blood crystals burst all around himself. A ragged sound followed by a harsh hiss arises from his right, giving away the location of his prey.
Mydei springs forwards, hand closing blindly in the dark. His fingers grasp onto something soft and he pulls. Sparks fly, fly and fly again. A fire lits up in some corner of the camp against the unforgiving wind. It illuminates the night just in time for him to see the assassin cut the piece of cloak caught in between Mydei’s fingers and jump backwards.
They turn towards the source of light, sharply, surely intent on snuffing it out, but an arrow embeds itself deep into their shoulder before they can even think of taking a step towards it.
The assassin staggers, dodges another arrow and immediately has to bring their hook upwards to par Hephaestion’s sword away, just to jump out of the way to avoid being impaled by Ptolemy’s lance and then having to block Leonnius’ sword.
“Pretty gutsy, aren’t you?” Leonnius snarls before he’s thrown back. He’s immediately replaced by Ptolemy, who answers for the assassin, “More like stupid. Who in their right mind would sneak into a kremonan detachment and expect to get out unscathed?”
More fires are lit, more arrows shot, more weapons wielded. The clash and bang of metal against metal, a common kremonan song, fills the air. The assassin holds their own, impressibly so, up until Mydei manages to put one of his gauntlets and joins in the fray, and they soon come to realize they are terribly, terribly, out of their depth.
After a few seconds that feel like hours filled by the clash of blades and singing of blood, with a kick so strong that it makes the crack of broken bones echo through the camp, the assassin sends one soldier crashing into a Mydei and a bunch of others before he turns around and bolts.
Again.
Mydei growls. His blood boils, bubbles and burns.
Coward, coward, coward!
He shoves the poor soldier thrown at him off, a bit too harshly in his haste to give chase, snatching one of the many torches that were lit up along the way. “Come back, HKS!” He demands, voice booming. Aquila’s caw of laughter echoes back at him. It only enrages him more. “You don’t get to run away!”
They venture deep into the corridors, the assassin seemingly twisting left, right, right, left, and right at random. Mydei follows, uncaring about where he might end.
The fire in the torch crackles and flickers as Mydei runs. The light encompassing the path of the corridors upon corridors upon corridors, casting large shadows of both Mydei’s figure and the assassin, merely a few steps away, but seemingly unreachable no matter how much he tries. Their steps are silent, contrasting with the loud plap, plap, plap of Mydei’s bare feet against the stone. He hadn’t had the time to put on his boots.
“Stop with your tricks, filthy hyena! Come!” He screams while Aquila laughs and laughs and laughs. Every blood crystal he throws merely grazes the other before burrowing into the walls. “Come and fight me upfront!”
The assassin doesn’t pay him any mind, twisting left, left, right, center, right, left, center and Mydei follows, tracing their steps. Dirt and stone sticking into his feet—until he twists left and his foot is met with empty air as he runs into a cliff.
Mydei curses, loudly.
His toes dig into the ground to stop the momentum of the race as he throws all the weight of his body backwards. He manages to settle the foot dangling in the air back into the floor.
Just for the world to tilt as his body is pushed forward immediately after.
Ha! Though luck. Like hell he’s falling on his own.
He lets the torch go and twists his body backwards. The loud bang of a body slamming into the floor as Mydei catches onto the assassin’s leg as he falls is drowned by the ear grating screech of claws digging into the floor.
Mydei feels both of them, slowly but surely, being dragged down, down, down into the cliff before coming to a sharp, sudden halt.
He blinks.
He looks upwards, squinting against the dark. The general image escapes him, but he is able to make out the vague outline of the assassin’s body. The long legs, the hips, the torso up to their shoulders, where their arms disappear, holding tooth and nail into the ground.
A bead of sweat slips from his temple down to his chin, before breaking out and falling. He looks downwards, seeing nothing but the daunting sight of a dark void.
A few seconds later, he can barely make out the faint drip of the bead of sweat against the floor. Probably not that long of a drop, then. Not enough to die, but enough to break a bone or two.
A slow breath interrupts his thoughts.
“Stop holding onto me.”
“Hmph, so you can talk.” Mydei answers irritably. “Who would have thought?”
“I don’t remember ever saying I was mute.”
“No, you didn’t say anything. That’s why I thought you were, idiot.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” The assassin scoffs, shaking their leg a little. There’s a shaky quality in their words, most likely from where they are holding the weight of two people. Who’s fault is that, Mydei damn near wonders. “Should I have made small talk before killing you? Ask about the weather? Introduce myself, maybe?”
What a brat, Mydei thinks. “Before killing me? Ha, last time I saw you didn’t do shit.”
“I,” The assassin shakes their leg more insistently, “am on it.”
The movement makes Mydei’s hand slip from their leg down onto their ankle. “Stop wiggling so much.” He snaps, pulling his body upwards and having his other arm hug onto their calf—It’s a weak grasp, but is the most he can do, with his hand still gone and all.
“Stop holding onto me. You are heavy.” The assassin hisses, strained. “You will make me fall.”
Mydei tightens his grip. The assassin’s body edges further into the cliff. “We are going to fall.”
“Absolutely not. Let go.”
“No.”
“Let go.” The heel of their other foot taps once in Mydei’s head, as if making sure he really is there, before they lift their leg and stomp down on him.
Hard.
“Let go.” The assassin repeats once more, stomping onto him again and again and again at the same time Mydei lets out a loud, “HKS!” as he lowers his head to avoid getting something in his face broken or dislocated.
Mydei’s grip doesn’t falter, even as he feels something warm start to trickle down his face, but he can feel that they are slipping, little by little, the assassin’s body pulled further and further down with the rash movements. Briefly, he wonders if they are simply that impulsive or that stupid not to notice—or if maybe they simply do not care for their life.
Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter to him, but it is annoying having his head stomped on.
Mydei brings his knees up to his chest, and, with all the strength he can muster from his position, kicks down Into empty air.
Immediately after, the stone breaks and he lets go.
He jabs his finger into the wall, breaking into it as Mydei attempts to slow his fall. Sparks fly and crash with the friction of metal against stone, and his fingertips burn as the gauntlet slowly heats up. Mydei grits his teeth and presses his hand deeper, bringing his feet to the wall too. The speed gnaws at the sole of his feet, ripping skin and leaving trails of blood along the claw marks in the stone.
But he comes to a stop.
Mydei heaves, feeling sweat and blood roll off him in waves. His body burns, his muscles ache. He closes his eyes, lets his forehead rest against the stone, the cold surface a relief on his heated skin and allows himself a moment of respite.
Deep breaths, in and out—all cut short as claws dig all the way from his shoulders to his hips in less than a second, shedding his skin to ribbons.
Mydei lets out a gruntled yell, feeling his skin shred more and more as the assassin, honest to Nikador, straight-up climbs him. “Who is holding onto w—ack!” He breaks off as an arm snakes its way under his chin and comes to crush his neck. At the same time, two legs squeeze onto his hip hard enough for Mydei to feel his ribs start to crack.
He gasps, air cut short. The hand that isn’t holding onto the wall comes to grab the arm choking him, just for it to simply bump against it because his hand was cut off. How much longer until that thing grows back?
His mouth opens and closes, attempting to take in oxygen as his chest stutters. Some of his blood gets in his eye.
Damn this goddamn bastard of a coward to hell and back, Mydei thinks, as he twists his body and slams the assassin onto the wall.
There’s a choked sound, but the assassin’s grip doesn’t loosen one bit. Undeterred, and more than a little lightheaded, Mydei slams, slams and slams them over and over again. A bruise forming on his shoulder.
Cracks extend over the stone like spiderwebs, the space denting under the force. Mydei’s muscles burn with exertion and, after what feels like an eternity, the assassin lets go and falls with a ‘splash!’
Mydei coughs up a storm, chest burning as he gulps mouthfuls of air. It feels like nails being dragged through his throat. He swallows. It hurts and he blinks hard, not sure if there are dark spots in his vision or if it is just the night.
Once he recovers, Mydei lets go of the wall, sliding gently down the slope into the ground.
The sections where skin ripped in his feet burn as he settles against the floor. Any other person would have been rendered unable to walk, but not Mydei—Never Mydei. It’s a familiar sensation; he was raised on it in the River of Souls.
He stays still. Body coiling in anticipation, searching for shadows in the dark. The sound of rushing water fills the air, like one of Phaogousa’s cups filled to the brim and spilled to the side. A cascade, maybe. It’s a deceptively calm sound.
Interrupted when something breaks from the water.
Mydei whips around, trying to pinpoint the direction where muffled coughs come from. He hears something clatter to the ground, coughs becoming clearer, before he hears a retching followed by the unmistakable sound of someone throwing up. It makes Aquila laugh.
There.
He runs towards the source of the sound. The plap, plap of his steps are wet, leaving red footprints behind. He can see the assassin’s shadow whipping in his direction and standing upright—But it’s too late by then.
Mydei tackles them down to the floor.
They devolve into a mess of limbs and blood. It splatters against the walls, against the floor, into the water, into their wounds, into their mouths, to the point that Mydei can not tell if the blood running through his veins is his own or the assassin’s.
It’s not pretty.
The assassin attempts to choke him, Mydei attempts to drown them. Mydei attempts to rip them apart, the assassin attempts to gouge his eyes out. There’s no dignity nor finesse in it. Long left behind the pretenses of power or technique, the distinction of humans and animals—like a lion fighting a snake. They punch and kick, curse and scream, hiss and roar, claw and bite into every inch of skin they can find.
All under the intimacy of the night.
(Not even the moon is there to watch.)
They coil around his body as Mydei smothers them down. They dig his hands into his back to try to rip his heart out as Mydei bites into their neck. The pitched keen sends fire through his veins and a part of him thinks,
I want to devour them whole.
No, it’s not pretty, but there’s a certain exhilaration to it all.
—But, in the end, all that is left is the quiet sound of two ragged breaths, mixing in their closeness, as they each breathe the exhalation of the other.
It smells like blood.
The assassin remains pinned to the ground, like a butterfly, as Mydei presses his arm without a hand onto their neck as the other pushes onto their chest. Drops of blood, sweat and water fall from his face into the assassin’s and he has to swallow a mouthful of saliva before he speaks.
“You,” It’s a whisper, but not less weak for that. “Who are you?”
Silence.
“Answer me.”
“Heh, is that,” They ask with breathless words. Chest heaving under the exertion. The frantic thump-thump-thump of his heart, beating at the tandem akin to a rabbit’s, pulsates through Mydei’s palm. His voice sounds distinctly male. “The question you should be asking now?”
“Hmph, would you tell me who sent you?”
“Maybe if you asked nicely.”
“I’m being plenty of nice.”
“Oh, really.” The assassin huffs, attempting to break free. Mydei presses his arm further into his neck, just enough to make it difficult to breathe, as a warning.
“You are still alive, are you not?”
“How,” A cough. “How kind.”
He ignores him. “Besides, I do not care for the coward who won’t even deign to pick up a blade and yet still wants my head.”
“Heh. So you did want an introduction, after all.” The assassin lets out. Mydei narrows his eyes. Despite the taunt in his tone, his voice has been a steady, monotonous thing. It makes his teeth ich. “I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be. The coward that attacks from the shadow is not much better.”
The assassin spits on him.
In a quick motion, Mydei raises him and bashes his head onto the ground. Hard. Something wet splatters against his arm. “Sore spot?” He asks between gritted teeth.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“But you do. That’s why you get mad.”
The assassin doesn’t answer, opting to try to shake him off him, legs kicking. His left hand comes to claw against the arm in his neck. “If you were not a coward,” He adds, pressing his forehead against the assassin’s, feeling his struggle. The mask lay discarded merely a breath away. He had taken it off when he vomited earlier, but the dark does not allow Mydei to discern any of his features. It bothers him, intrinsically so. “You would tell me who you are and fight me upfront.”
“And why the hell should I listen to you? I’m an assassin, not a warrior.” He hisses, all venom and spades. “Whatever standard of honor you have, it's all lost on me. Stop using it as an excuse. If you are scared of dying, just say so.”
Him.
Scared?
Of dying?
The notion is so ridiculous that it makes Mydei laugh out loud. Oh, the nerve of this man! “Who is scared?”
“You are the one demanding me to fight you upfront. Hm! Say, is it because you know otherwise you wouldn’t win?”
“As if a win against someone like you would be of any worth."
Mydei can’t see it, but he can practically feel the smile drawing upon the assassin’s lips. It’s a mean, twisted little thing. “You didn’t answer my question, your Highness.”
How can a person talk so damn much? “What’s there to answer?” He asks, pressing his arm forward into his neck, relinquishing in the little gasp of cut air he receives. “You won’t kill me—can’t kill me. Fair fight or not.”
“You are unusually cocky,” The assassin says, words gaining a punched out quality as his windpipe is pressed. “For someone who would have already died if not for your friend’s intervention, or have you forgotten?”
That much, is true. His grip loosens, conceding a point, and yet, “There are no ‘if’s’ or ‘almost’s’ in battle, HKS.”
“Yet you almost died.”
Mydei scoffs. How inane. How childish. He truly is no warrior. “And you feel proud of that ‘almost’? Would you have felt proud of that ‘victory’ too?”
“A victory is a victory, your Highness,” He exhales, words uttered in a mutter, shared almost as a secret. “No matter how you see it.”
Something crashes against his head from the right. Bits of and pieces of the golden tears in the mask breaking upon impact. It’s not enough for Mydei to pass out, that would just be embarrassing, but it is enough for him to stagger. His hold loosens, for less than a second, but it’s more than enough for the assassin to push him off.
Blood crystals burst around him in an attempt to cage the assassin, but it’s too late by then, with a loud splash, the assassin throws himself down the cascade.
And just like that, he’s gone.
━━━━━━━━━━
Let it not be said that the late Eye of Twilight, arrogant as he may have been, is an indifferent being.
As a reward for the laughs, perhaps, when the first rays of sun bring clarity into the world, dissipating the shadows and offering respite from the creatures of the night, one of his eyes wink, revealing a glint of silver forgotten in their haste sunk in the bottom of the lake.
It’s a reaping hook.