A few days passed by before Aurora realized, even if he’d assumed already, that something was indeed wrong with Lucius. He claimed to have been bandaged and while they had tied something—Aurora assumed it was simply a spare scrap of cloth—around the wound, they certainly hadn’t taken any measures to ensure the wound wouldn’t become infected. It became apparent with his limp, worsening when every day, and the pained expression that never seemed to leave the boy’s face that his condition was, in fact, spiraling downward.

His skin, whatever was visible beneath the cloak he insisted on wearing, often seemed to shine with sweat even in the cold of the cell. The thought of fever, something more severe than Aurora felt comfortable dealing with, scared him. Infection would run rampant in a place where they only had water, nothing else, to clean it.

Pacing was the one thing that kept his mind occupied.

Lucius would watch him, not saying a word most days while occasionally he tried to engage in nervous conversation. He would reply, of course, but they never went on for more than a few moments before they fell silent again.

“Why do you do that?” Lucius asked.

“Do what?”

“You’re been walking back and forth for hours. I’m getting tired just watching you,” he answered, staggering upward into a halfway standing position.

“Sit down. You’re not going to heal if you aggravate that leg,” Aurora called sternly, pausing briefly before he went back to pacing.

Lucius ignored him, limping towards the bars with teeth gritting together and eyes downcast.

“Sit down-“

“I’m just stretching my legs. Sitting down can’t be good for it anyway.”

Aurora didn’t stop again, folding his hands behind his back. The Dravara would come soon enough, he thought. Every two days was beginning to be the average amount of time they returned. At times, it was longer but any shorter amount of time and he got anxious.

He often sat awake wondering why he hadn’t been treated worse. Aurora was fed rather regularly, given water and even provided something other than stone to sleep on. His time in the cell wasn’t really suffering and instead, while equally horrible in some ways, was maddeningly boring.

The dripping started again.

“Do you hear it?” he breathed.

Lucius looked confused.

“The water,” Aurora sung. “It never stops.”

The boy cleared his throat. “I…don’t hear any water.”

“It’s right there,” he growled then, “why can’t you hear it?”

Aurora stopped for a moment, walking to grasp at the bars of his door.

“I’m sorry, maybe I just don’t hear so well, but, what are you doing?”

“Thinking, now, be quiet for five seconds. You’re well worse than Daniel,” Aurora muttered softly.

Lucius frowned. “You were friends with him, right?”

“Daniel?”

He pushed off the wall, walking towards the front of his cell to look over at Aurora with his head titled off to one side. “Yeah, Daniel.”

“Yes, we were friends, why are you asking?”

“Why are you here then? Doesn’t he believe you? I thought he was there when…”

Aurora’s eyes narrowed. “He was there, yes.”

“He doesn’t remember what happened,” Lucius called softly.

“He doesn’t?”

The boy nodded.

Aurora blinked, turning his gaze to the darkness once more. “I…just assumed he chose to ignore-“

“He’s gone now, you know? He left the stronghold weeks ago.”

He was there at the bars between them then, watching as Lucius shrank backwards with wide eyes. “What do you mean left?”

“Stepped down from his rank and when he was strong enough…he left. No one really said why he left. I think he just wanted to go.”

Aurora stepped back, beginning to pace and feeling a prick of anger creep its way back into his mind. The lack of a memory wasn’t his fault but Daniel hadn’t even tried to set things straight, to confirm whatever lies he had been told. If Daniel had abandoned him, Aurora was truly alone for the first time in a long while.

There was something deeper than rage, stronger than sorrow and more potent than simple grief. Betrayal, one he should have expected but never once thought he’d ever experience. For a long while, Aurora had chosen to ignore the feelings of loss that prodded at him since he arrived in the cell. The darkness was his shield, drowning out everything he could have felt.

Numbness was better than feeling in his case.

“I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

Aurora turned to face him sharply, stalking forward to snatch at the bars between them once more. Lucius stumbled backwards, reaching out to grasp hold before he was able to fall.

“Sorry? What do you have to be sorry for? Do you understand that the word means nothing to me?” he seethed.

“I-“

“My best friend said that to me after he told me to fire the vexing gun! I killed her and do you know what he did?” Aurora snapped. “Do you?”

Lucius raised a hand outward towards him. “C-calm down…I-I didn’t mean anything-“

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down. ‘I’m sorry’, that’s what he said when all of it was his fault,” he growled. “I should have known this would happen. I trusted him, knowing he’d turn on me.”

Lucius didn’t reply, limping back to the wall and pulling his leg up against his body. Aurora snorted, blood pounding in his ears, a thundering compared to the silence that swelled in the prison. He stalked back to the wall, leaning his head back and trying to quell the fire burning in his chest.

“I-I know you said it doesn’t mean anything but I swear, I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

Aurora sighed, head rolling to one side to look towards the boy. “I know. Just…”

“I’m going to try to sleep. I think it’s late. If the Dravara come-“

“I’ll wake you.”

Lucius looked over at Aurora, nodding his head before pulling himself over to the makeshift bed nearby. Silence fell and Aurora was left with something he almost didn’t believe was guilt replacing his anger. He hadn’t meant to snap, to raise his voice at all to someone who had nothing to do with his own mistakes.

His fuse, while it had never been very long, was getting the best of him more often. He didn’t want it to be that way but as much as he tried, he always felt as if he was within an inch of losing every ounce of control he still had. It was driving him ever close to snapping completely every minute he spent in the same four walls.

That was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it?

Another week went by before Aurora awoke to stifled sobs in the cell just beside him. He sat up quickly, stumbling to his feet and reaching for the nonexistent weapon at his side, a habit that had long since become obsolete. Aurora squinted, blinking sleep from his eyes and trying to locate the source of the sound.

“Lucius?”

The other prisoner didn’t reply, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and keeping his head down. Aurora stepped away from the straw pile, half cursing the fact he’d woken up from the first sleep he’d had in a long time. He leaned against the bars, sitting down and tapping his fingers against the metal. “Lucius, are you alright?”

“I can’t do this.”

“What are you-“

“I give up. I’m done,” the boy croaked.

“No, you’re not. I swore to you-“

“I don’t care!” Lucius cried. “I’m dying. I know…I am.”

“I intend to keep my promise of getting you out of here. Do you hear me?”

Lucius shook his head, hood still draped over much of his face. “I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten in days and my legs hurts so badly I want to scream. Just,” he broke off, choking on his words, “if you ever make it out of here-“

“Lucius, look at me.”

The other prisoner peered up from the ground, dull eyes swollen and still reddened from the tears running down his cheeks. A laugh rattled in his chest. “What?”

“You are not going to die. Do you understand me? I swore-“

“We both knew what was going to happen. I can’t…I’m sorry but I can’t, A…Au-“

Aurora grit his teeth. “Do you have a family, Lucius?”

Lucius looked up, the pain in his eyes making Aurora instantly regret having said anything. “My father turned me in for running away. My mother disappeared when I was seven and I don’t have any siblings. I don’t have anything out there.”

“Your mother loved you very much, didn’t she?”

The boy nodded.

“My parents were taken from me when I was young too. My brother took care of me after that and when I ran away from the Dravara, he ran with me. But do you know what? We were spotted and Silas was injured but he didn’t give up. He’s gone now too, Lucius. He stayed behind so I could run. I never got the chance to thank him for that. I don’t have any family to fight for either but do you know why I’m still here?”

“No.”

“I fight because I know the people who did love me would want me to. They might be gone but I know what they would want for me. If you say there is nothing left to keep you alive then live for the memory of those who gave you a reason before, alright?”

Lucius’ eyes flashed upward, gaze peering out into the darkness around them. “Not long ago I came here all beaten and bloody. You were the first person to show me actual kindness. The Dravara were nice enough for the most part, but I wasn’t a person to them. You treat me like a person, like something that matters, you know? And I can’t thank you enough but…I can’t do this anymore.”

Aurora snorted, pacing back and forth again. He hated the way their voices sounded, one angry while the other was quiet. He hated what Lucius was saying, his insistence on death and while Aurora couldn’t bring himself to blame him, it disturbed him.

“I’m sorry…” He trailed off, unsure of what to say.

“Why are you apologizing?”

He shrugged, kicking a pebble across the floor. “I don’t know what else to do.”

“I don’t blame you for yelling earlier. I’d get tired of me complaining all the time too. But I’m sorry you have to deal with me-“

“Don’t say that.”

“Fine,” Lucius sighed. “But will you do something for me?”

Aurora nodded.

“Put a bullet in her.”

A chuckle sounded from Aurora before he could stop himself, shaking his head at the boy’s words. “I don’t believe that will be too much trouble for me. I was planning on it already and you’re welcome to join me if you would like that. When we get out of this place, that is.”

Lucius smiled for the first time that day. “When we make it out of here, they’ll wish they never started trouble with us.”

Aurora walked back to the bars, reaching a hand through towards the stable boy. “I promise you, we will cause the most trouble they have ever seen.”

“Thank you…officer”

“I’m not an officer anymore,” he replied, pulling his hand away.

“You deserve the title more than any of them do. Why not keep it? It’s better than stable boy, isn’t it?”

A smile flickered across his lips as he walked towards the door to his cell, skimming his fingers over the lock that he’d tried to pick more than once only to fail. He sighed, reaching to tug at the silver chain around his neck to pull the compass into view, the one thing he had been left with.

“They let you keep it?”

“I wouldn’t let them take it. I started wearing it around my neck when I got here…they decided it was too much of an effort to take it.”

Lucius laughed from beside him. “Maybe they decided you weren’t worth the trouble.”

Aurora snorted. “That’s possible too.”

Silence.

“Ten years.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “That’s how long I’ve been with the Dravara, I believe. It seems so much longer until I think back to getting here with Benjamin and-“

“Who’s Benjamin?”

“The chief officer before Daniel,” Aurora answered flatly. “Benjamin was the one that found us in the inn we had taken up-“

“When were you staying at an inn?” Lucius asked, voice quiet.

“Daniel and I were staying with someone who took us in when we were running away. I guess I should have explained that.”

“Are you alright, Lucius?”

“Blurry,” he mumbled, looking up at Aurora. “I think I’m tired.”

“Would you like me to stop-“

“No, please, keep talking. I don’t like it when it’s quiet in here, you know?”

Aurora nodded his head.

“I couldn’t imagine being here for ten years-“

The words broke off abruptly, breath coming rapidly suddenly form Lucius as his body shuddered once. A groan passed between the boy’s lips, jaw clenched and eyes staring wildly at the ceiling.

“Are you alright?”

“Vex it all,” Lucius whined. “I’m fine…it just hurts.”

“Is that an understatement?”

Lucius laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “A-a bit…but I want to keep talking. They gave me four years for running.”

“I…” Aurora swallowed. “Someone got hurt when I was captured. It was my fault and that’s why my sentence was longer.”

“Ten years is too long,” Lucius replied, head back against the wall.

“I killed someone, Lucius. Ten years doesn’t even approach long enough. It’s far too short for me to be able to be punished for what I did.”

“Oh.”

Aurora found himself chuckling, unable to stop himself as his eyes rose out to the emptiness around them. “You’re right about ten years being a long time though. Ten years in this place is an eternity.”

The two were quiet for a while, hours for all he knew, and Aurora went back to sitting on his straw pile, silently willing something, anything to happen. The silence, the same bars he’d been staring through for months and the ache in his bones that never went away were all driving him mad.

“I don’t want to die-“

“We’re not dying, Lucius.”

“You didn’t let me finish talking,” the boy mumbled.

Aurora sighed, shaking his head and the drowsiness from his mind. He’d been slipping back and forth between consciousness and sleep as he did most nights.

Sleeping never lasted.

“Do you know how to write?”

“Of course,” Aurora answered.

“I don’t.”

He looked up from where he’d been leaning against the wall atop his straw pile. “Are you asking me to teach you?”

“Will you teach me to write my name, Aur…”

Lucius trailed off, looking startled.

“Auroro-“

“Are you alright?”

“I’m having trouble with your name. I-I’m sorry.”

Aurora sat up slowly, groaning at the stiffness in his back and scratching at the itches left behind as he rose from the straw. He swallowed, clearing his throat to keep his words from tumbling out like a croak.

It failed.

“Would you like to call me Rory instead?”

The boy nodded.
“I had someone call me that before.”

Lucius shuffled closer to the bars as Aurora got up only to sit down against them, reaching for a stone, nothing more than a sharp pebble, and pinched it between his fingers.

“Do you know the letters?”

The stable boy nodded. “I was learning them. We were supposed to learn our names the next time I went but…I ran away before I could. I know most of them but some of them are hard to remember, you know?”

“Daniel had trouble with it too,” Aurora laughed, looking down at a flat bit on the stone floor before handing the pebble over to Lucius. “I’m sorry, this is the best thing I have.”

Lucius reached out with a shaking hand, taking it into his hand carefully. “I know what it starts with.”

“Write it then,” Aurora answered, leaning his head against the bars. “Scratch it into floor. I’m sure they won’t mind and even if they did, do we care?”

The stable boy nodded again, trying to steady his arm as he moved to scratch the stone against the floor. He paused then, lifting his hand. “W-which way does it go again?”

“To the right. Do you know what comes next?” Aurora asked.

“No,” Lucius admitted shyly.

“Think about it,” Aurora suggested, leaning over to watch as the boy started writing.

He swallowed, glancing up at Aurora nervously. “My head…hurts. I don’t think I can.”

“L-u.”

The stable boy shook his head, closing his eyes. “I changed my mind. We can do this-“

“You’re almost there.”

“Rory-“

“L-u-c-i-u-s,” he spelled aloud before Lucius could finish. “That’s right, you did it.”

His eyes opened and though his hands shook, Aurora watched him etch his name into the floor, slowly and ever so carefully as if the world depended on every letter he wrote. Aurora grinned when Lucius glanced up again. “Like that?”

“Exactly like that.”

Lucius smiled, looking down at his crooked letters.

“How do I spell yours?”

Next Chapter: Chapter 26