DAXEEL

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Daxeel reclines in the wooden chair, “A pound of flesh for each injustice against us.”

In the shadows of the dungeon, Dare wanders, his golden and blue gaze flickering aimlessly from cracks in the stones to the blood pools that he sidesteps. “And against Nari, of course.”

Almost as though the mere mention of her name aches Daxeel deep in his chest, his mouth tenses and his grip on the carving knife stiffens for a beat.

Shadows of darkness flicker over the honeyed hue of his face, but the darkness he held to him for a time in the Sacrament is gone from his body. None curve over his shoulders, no lashes to lick at his heels. Daxeel is again like other dokkalves, belonging to the darkness, melted into it, but not one to hold the strings.

It’s not the absence of the Cursed Shadows that has him feeling that empty ache inside, like someone has taken the carving knife from his hand and done to him what he is going to do to the prisoner hog-tied on the damp floor at his boots. It’s every intrusion of her, even the fleeting mention of just her name from Dare.

With a soft sigh, Daxeel braces his forearms on his thighs and considers the prisoner, the same one he has visited almost each phase for a week, just to release a little of that pain in him. It’s what he finds himself most drawn to in this career. The transfer of pain.

His lashes shut on some ugly understanding.

Just as he thinks it, he feels it. The whisper of her behind him, the graze of her hand down his neck… but she isn’t here, how could she be? It’s his mind, it’s residue of the summit warping him, distorting.

“ Daxeel ,” the haunting sound of her voice trailing behind him. “ Daxeel… please .”

He doesn’t look.

His shoulders are hunched tight, muscles clamped to the bone, and he fears that if he opens his eyes, it won’t be Taroh he finds in front of him, but her face.

He keeps his eyes shut on that chilling sensation skittering up his spine; keeps his eyes shut on the burn that sears him, that he might release a tear—in front of a prisoner, no less.

Dare holds the moment in the dungeon. He senses something amiss in Daxeel—and spares him from it.

“He doesn’t stop, does he?” Dare murmurs.

Daxeel opens his eyes, a stab of caution jolting through him. He tosses his gaze around the dungeon, from Dare leaning against the mossy wall to Taroh slumped over on the ground.

No Nari.

Still, a shudder rinses through him before he turns a frown down at the prisoner.

The strip of fabric muzzling Taroh is as damp as the bloody, dewy dungeon floor. Against it, Taroh’s incessant pleas are muffled.

“Every time we come here,” Dare drones, “there you go—mumbling and mumbling… You have a gag in your mouth ,” Dare enunciates the words, “ We cannot understand you .”

Taroh’s spine shudders with suppressed sobs. He drops his head with a faint whine.

Dare huffs a weary sound and folds his bare, pale arms over his chest. “Finally—a little peace.”

That peace is short-lived.

Taroh sucks in a shaky breath that trembles his chest… then starts all over again, mumbling, mumbling, mumbling.

Dare rolls his eyes.

Unmoving in the shadows, he looks a male carved from marble, a statue that belongs to the forgotten mists that cling to graves. It’s his eyes that give him away, one gleaming bright like fresh shavings of gold, the other crushed crystal, a duality that comes together to thirst for more blood to be spilled.

And still, Taroh mumbles, the same sound, over and over.

“Sounds like promise ,” Dare decides after a pause of deciphering. He frowns and turns his dubious look to Daxeel, who wears blood and strips of flesh. “I didn’t make a promise—did you?”

Daxeel shakes his head, crimson drops dripping from the ends of his inky hair. He lifts his ocean gaze and smiles something dangerous at Taroh. “I did not. I only illuded to one.”

A stillness ripples over the prisoner.

“Not to mention the obvious,” Dare drawls, “but there’s the truth of our deceit. We, unlike the restricted race of our kind, can lie.” The whisper of a smirk ghosts over Dare’s face. “But what will we do with so much flesh?”

Daxeel sighs, his mouth tugged into a half-sneer to bare some sharper teeth, and he looks down to the side of his boot.

Tucked against his boot is a white-furred pup.

Daxeel asks, “Hungry?”

The pup stirs from its fleeting rest, then—as though it understands the question—it blinks against the fatigue of its youth and lifts its expectant gaze to Daxeel.

White eyes gleam up at him, the hunger and plea of a faerie hound.

“It’s not as though we can starve the poor pup.” Dare pushes from the wall and, with wandering steps, circles Taroh’s shivering form. “Nari won’t appreciate it. You know how she is with beasts.”

Daxeel hands Dare the bloodied carving knife. “You see, Taroh, this pup is nothing ordinary. I’m sure if you have half a mind left, you will have figured out exactly what it is. But have you learned its purpose here?”

Dare rounds on Taroh.

Daxeel draws back to sink into the chair. “Your father has been sending assassins from the grave. That is bothersome.”

Dare grunts. “It’s not what I had in mind when I cut his throat open in the middle of Kithe. The dead should stay dead… but bounties do not.”

Taroh flinches.

“Can’t have Nari unprotected, not with that bounty lingering with the surviving collectors.” Daxeel sighs, soft, but though his breathing is calm, his mind is a sudden violent clash of what-could-be’s , all the different ways these assassins could get to her, end her; all because he stole Taroh.

It is his mess.

She is merely living in it.

“The bounty won’t be open now that your father is where he belongs,” Dare says, circling and circling and circling, bootsteps patient and calm around the wracked fae. “But those who accepted—and choose to risk fulfilling the kill for the bounty, well… they are a problem.”

“Nari needs protection,” Daxeel agrees with a faint nod. “A faerie hound is as loyal as it is savage. And I have decided that you, Taroh, will be its first meal away from the teat of its mother.”

On cue, Dare ceases his circling—and he crouches by the side of the wailing fae. With a small smile dancing on his rosy lips, Dare finds his peace and he brings the knife to flesh.

Taroh’s screams are all that come in answer, muffled by the fabric stuffed into his mouth. He shakes his head over and over, rattles against the chains that pin him in place.

Daxeel watches his distress.

It’s Dare who murmurs, with all sincerity, blood spattering his face as he carefully carves out Taroh’s kneecaps, “I think it romantic.”

Daxeel frowns on the thought.

It isn’t romance that motivates him.

The pup serves a purpose. Its protective, fierce instincts, its ability to imprint on a female within the first six months of its life, a chosen mother, these are the reason he will offer it to Nari. He needs the security in knowing she’s guarded by a faerie hound while he’s gone to the human realm.

Not just her, either.

Eamon is at risk, too.

The bounty will reach those who stand too close to Nari’s heart.

For all Daxeel knows, the bounty extends to Eamon as the challenged in the honour duel, the one who fled.

That is a problem for the ancient bloodline of Sgail.

If Daxeel dies in the invasion, and Eamon dies in the bounty fulfilment, the bloodline ends.

And though Daxeel has no fears of the coming invasion, the risk always remains and so should be considered.

A smart little human could figure it out—the best, effective places to strike a dokkalf, the neck, the eyes, the curve of the spine… And just that one human with one arrow and one added second to their life, that could mean his own end.

If it does come to be, he will leave this life without a farewell from Nari. That is the fear burrowing in him.

Nari will not have him, not for a moment, not for a conversation, not for a farewell. She made herself clear.

It’s a truth he doesn’t entertain for a moment longer, it’s a glaring reality he flinches against.

Daxeel rolls the tension out of his shoulders and watches Taroh’s slow demise, flesh cut, piece by piece, tossed at the faerie hound—

And the hound gets too eager.

It runs, limbs too long, ears too floppy for its disproportionate body, and it gallops towards Taroh even while his cries still flood the dungeons.

Dare and the hound work together.

Daxeel finds he doesn’t ache to join them.

He just watches… hollow… distant… tired.

Until Dare pauses his work. He stays crouched for a moment, bloodied hands on his knees, his breaths full and serene. Then, slowly, he lets a smile steal his lips, a smidge of pride in his work, his art .

Then he does Taroh a small favour that has Daxeel frowning. He flicks the carving knife at the muzzle, severing it in two.

The strip falls to the blood on the floor, fast followed by the surge of sick that spills from Taroh’s mouth. He hacks on it a moment, another bile burp that crawls up his throat, then—in a blubbering voice—asks, “I thought you meant to kill her. Why do this? Why do this to me when we can work together for our revenge—”

Daxeel grins something feral, but it is empty, insincere, and if one looks closely, they will see that it is more of a grimace.

The sight of it silences Taroh and twists his face with a wave of obvious defeat.

“I found myself unable to kill her.”

Daxeel’s admission strikes Taroh silent. Not even his sobs echo throughout the chamber. He fights them back.

Dare stays crouched by the prisoner’s side, but he just throws strips of flesh to the faerie hound, who has curled up by his boots and found a deep post-feed sleep.

“I faced her on the summit, that little survivalist, the killer she is beneath the veneer… and I reached for the blade that would bring her no harm.” Daxeel’s bared-teeth grin fades to darkness. “I aimed to be free of the pain she brought me. That was always my intention—to sever our bond. Then…” His mouth twitches into a hybrid of bitterness and nostalgia. “She went and did that thing she does. Steals me completely, renders me entirely useless, and walks away with absolute victory—and my bleeding heart in her hand.”

“Humans call it karma,” Dare’s murmur is bitter.

Daxeel tosses a glare at him.

But not even he can silence Dare’s mind.

With a shrug, Dare twirls the carving knife in his hand, then leans over Taroh again, ready to resume his work. He aims for the underarm, which Daxeel thinks strange for a fleeting moment, then considers how it would feel to have his own underarm muscles cut out, then he understands—and takes a mental note for his own work.

“Karma,” Daxeel echoes.

“That’s what Bee called it.” Dare shoves a ball of fabric into Taroh’s warped mouth. “Karma. What you put out into the universe will come back to you. Bad, good, neutral—it is a cycle.”

Dare’s quiet for a moment before he yanks out the muscle he’s been fishing around for. His hand is slick with blood. “I’ll go to Eamon once I have cleaned up,” he says, and gestures to the bits of flesh all over him. “Find out where to look, where to start looking for her.”

Daxeel lets the doubt be spoken. “This is his friend, he is fond of her. Are you so sure he will lead you to her when you thirst for revenge?”

Dare throws a look up at him.

Without a smile to dance on his lips, or a gleam to glitter in his eyes, Daxeel decides to pity the kinta—pity her for whatever is coming her way.

“I will not kill her,” he concedes.

“Then what will you do?”

“First, get my gold back.”

He offers no second, no third, no fourth—and Daxeel doesn’t pry any further.

Dare has had time to cook up all the ways to enact his revenge on Bee.

Dare is no adversary to be taken lightly. No enemy to be overlooked. Dare is not a male to be slighted, let alone stolen from. That’s what she did. Lured him, drugged him, stole from him… it’s not the gold that is the core of the problem. It is the shame she brought with her slight. Truly, she should have known better, being what she is.

As Nari has learned, these slights aren’t easy to overcome. But then, a thought strikes him.

Is it Nari who learned from the slight… or was it himself?

Daxeel slumps in the chair.

Against the muzzling, Taroh’s screams scrape and claw up the dungeon walls. Daxeel listens. Dare cuts. And when the faerie hound wakes, she devours the flesh until there’s nothing left but bone. It takes a long time, longer than a phase. Then bones are broken and scattered deep out in the bogs.

No one will ever find Taroh, not him, not his bones, not his scent. What does remain is a faerie hound.

?

Daxeel holds the pup to his chest; it is perched on his arm, bouncing with every step he climbs up the narrow staircase.

The stink of mould burns at his nose.

He pushes through a slim door without a handle. Looks torn off, but it swings with a groan, hinges in need of oiling.

He takes the corridor to the third door, the one to Nari’s dwelling.

For a beat, he stands there.

The pup draped over his forearm pants softly, but the sound is irking him. He tosses the pup a dark look before he lifts his stare to the door—and stills.

He opens his senses. Pries them apart.

He listens; he smells; he feels… He waits for any sign of a fae in that dwelling beyond the door.

Nothing comes. No footsteps, no splash of sink water, no rattle of chairs. No steady breaths or rustling of clothes.

No one is home.

His intel comes from all over Hemlock House. Melantha, Morticia, Eamon who visits, Rune, even Tris, when she wanders to the shops to pick up some things, she even returns with whispers of things she saw.

So Daxeel knows that Nari could be in one of four places in Kithe at any given time. The dwelling, the tavern, Forranach’s home, or the strip of low-quality shops just three streets from here.

Given that it’s the middle of the Quiet, and the shops won’t be open, and the hour is inappropriate for visits, he suspects she is at the tavern.

Eamon, too.

The silence beyond the door is still; no one inside.

Balancing the drowsy pup on one arm, Daxeel reaches out his other hand for the grimy doorknob. The scent of decay, of rust and dirt, is strong.

He grips it, firm, then twists—and the door pops open.

A soft huff deflates him.

Both Eamon and Nari should know better than to leave their door unlocked. Not that a trained killer, an assassin the likes of Dare, could be stopped by a locked door. Still, it irritates him enough that his jaw rolls before he steps inside.

A swift glance around the darkness flooding the dwelling, and the disappointment tilts his mouth. Dishes are piled high in the sink, a balancing act of mugs and bowls and spoons, even two pots that are grimed thick with dried oats; crumbs all over the counters; the lounge is dusty and dense with the thick smell of smoke from the sooty hearth; and the floorboards are streaked with filth tracked from outside.

Daxeel has lived in the barracks, he has survived out in the wild for years at a time with his training unit, he has known lives without comfort. It isn’t pretention that has his mouth pinched, but rather that he does not like that she lives this way.

His aim in coming to this dwelling was to bring the pup and leave. He has no speech prepared, no words to offer her—because what can be said?

I am sorry.

Those words ring through him.

Words that will never be enough.

Daxeel reaches out his arm for the kitchen counter, where the crumbs are peppered around smears of butter and a drop of blackberry jam. He releases the pup—and predictably, it gallops for the leftovers.

He watches as it sticks its nose into the paper bag of bread and starts to chew through what’s left.

Now, he should leave.

Close the door and abandon the dwelling.

Nari will come back and find the pup—and that will be that. No words spoken; no interaction.

She doesn’t want to see him.

Why would she?

Of all the boundaries he has crossed, he finds himself stuck at this one. If Nari chooses to never see him again, how can he plague her with his presence?

It would bring no good.

And… if he is honest with himself, seeing her…

It might break him.

So yes, he should leave. Now. Before anyone returns to the dwelling.

Yet, he finds himself reaching for the doorknob and rattling it—his gaze fixed on the latch. Stuck.

He grunts.

It isn’t that Eamon and Nari don’t want to lock their door, but that it doesn’t lock.

He hesitates for a moment, just a moment, before he threads out a small knife from his belt and brings it to the screws on the latch.

Daxeel should leave; and yet, he stays and takes apart the latch, cleans it of the debris built over years, then puts it back together again.

The door locks now. But he isn’t done.

He washes the dishes.

Then, he finds himself at the hearth. Stacked high with ash and soot and stink. He cleans it out.

Every time he thinks he has completed a job and it is time to go, that he is cutting it too close to Nari’s return, he finds another task to do. He oils the hinges of the doors, aligns the crooked windows, takes out the rubbish buried under the sink.

It's when he is in the bedroom of the dwelling, reattaching the lopsided door to the wardrobe that he hears the rattle.

He pauses, forearm braced against the semi-attached door; hand gripping the small knife that cuts into the screws of the hinges—and he listens.

Again, the rattle comes from the other side of the dwelling, this time frustrated. It’s followed by the faint murmur, the voice that slingshots a panicked sensation through him.

A curse from familiar lips.

Nari…

She’s out there, in the hallway, trying to open the door—but it is latched. Locked.

And he is inside, in her bedroom.

An icy sensation flurries through him.

His throat thickens for a beat, then he swerves his stare back to the hinges. He rushes it but twists the knife around and around to tighten the screws.

Outside, in the hallway, the jangle of keys is accompanied by the mutterings of curses. The rattling song of a key being jammed into a lock, it serves as his alarm.

Urgency bolts through him; he hurries to fix the door back into place. The moment it gives that faint click, the front door is kicked open.