<i>“My turn!” <br/>
<br/>
Every morning he had the dream.<br/>
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Every morning he had to watch.<br/>
<br/>
His father. His brothers. Now his very own wife. In their savage quest to remove the family from the throne, they sought to defile it all, even if her only connection to it was a marriage not of their making. She had been thrust upon him by royal decree, an innocent, beautiful Princess from a distant land. Now she had to suffer for the sins of his family. How many had gone at her? How many more would follow? He did not know. He did not wish to know. But such blessed ignorance was forbidden to him. They made him watch, proud Prince of Ostavia. Sword to his neck, a hand in his hair to hold his face up, hard steel keeping his jaw raised, arms bound behind his back. They made him watch as they ravished her, one after the other. <br/>
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It never seemed to end. <br/>
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They disabled her first. Physically, she was of little threat to them. They were cold hearted soldiers, rebels who delighted in the brutalizing of innocents. No, they clamped a strange collar around her neck, uncaring that it choked her, that her beautiful, silky hair got caught. They quickly remedied that, pulling on it hard as they ravished her, right before his very sight. There was no one left to save her. Or him.<br/>
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“Watch!” They jeered at him. “Watch, or we’ll gorge out your eyes. And it’ll be the last sight you ever see.” They even scarred him, marking two shallow lines down from his orbs, so that even to cry would bring on a stinging agony. And all the while, they tormented his wife in ways he never thought possible.  <br/>
<br/>
Through fear, manipulation, and malicious cunning, they had weakened, sapped, and broken the strength of the Crown. His eldest brother, his wife, his infant children, killed by poison. His middle brother, drawn into an ambush and pierced with many arrows, with his pregnant bride killing herself upon presentation of his corpse. His father, blackmailed into surrendering himself, only to be felled upon when he presented himself and brutally slain. It was only fortunate his mother was long since deceased, not having to witness the end of their family. Now he was all that was left, him and his young bride. <br/>
<br/>
“Listen to her squeal! Do you like that, pale-faced cunt?” <br/>
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They had their fill and he was made to watch as they each took a turn violating her, hurting her, slapping and insulting her. When they were done, they dragged her battered, bruised body into a dirty grain sack and sewed it up, before two men grasped either side and took her to the cliff, overlooking the fast, strong flowing river that passed through the castle-fortress. With three heaves, they tossed her over, to be drowned and killed. Perhaps that would have been more final and merciful than what followed. <br/>
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No last words. No final looks. Just like that, his wife of a mere two years, who would have carried his children and been his partner for life…was gone. <br/>
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He was last, just as he was last of the dynasty of Ostavia. There was none left but him. He had tried to fight, to defend his home, with the last of those loyal and unbowed by fear. Now there was none. And he was the last. The battle had scarcely ended when they had seized him and his life-companion, bringing them here for their final moments. Now he was alone, his wife’s torment and agony almost over, except for what would be her final cruel moments of drowning, as he had thought then. The collar restricted her, keep her powers dormant, but not entirely. Yet he had no hope of such salvation. They put him on the edge and aimed a crossbow at him, the sole tool that could allow any lowborn peasant to kill a man of noble birth or background. <br/>
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Two things happened when they shot him, aiming for his heart. Perhaps some mechanical defect of the bow shot the bolt mere inches to the right of his heart, missing the lung and simply piercing him in a non-fatal way. The blow shoved him back off the cliff, to fall the several dozen feet through the air to slap into the roaring water with a numbing blow. By all accounts he should have sunk himself, weighed by his armour. Perhaps they forgot that if overturned, the lamellar armour could slip right off over his head, as it did. Perhaps they also forgot they had been dumping bodies in the river for days. There was still many, clogged and drifted, bloating from decomposition. He managed to latch on, struggling to keep his head above the water. It was desperate, disgusting, and pathetic.<br/>
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But he survived. He floated a long time until it was safe to worm his way ashore. A sharp rock managed to get the binds off. And then he searched. He searched for her. And he found her. And when it moved, protected by some strange aura or bubble, he wept as he tore it open, where before he had watched with reddened eyes her violations. It was the first and only time he ever displayed emotion to her, when he cradled her live, breathing body in his arms…</i><br/><br/>That had been almost two months ago. And every morning he relived it.<br/><br/>Aicanassë Larenzac, formerly Prince of Ostavia, now awoke every morning with his wife cradled to him. It was not as comfortable as it seemed, strewn under a towering pine tree with branches prodding into his back and moss itching at his flesh. Every night he dreamt of his own bed, now occupied by usurpers and their fiends, and every morning he awoke to the cool autumn breeze with the promise of chill. Not a few times would they awake with their hair frozen to the ground. Or rumbling aches in their bellies from malnourishment. Or damp and shivering from having been soaked by a nighttime rain shower.<br/><br/>Once he had been a strong man, with broad shoulders, a wide chest, a slim waist and toned calves. He had a head of hair groomed in the style of his land, the majority gathered into a bun upon his head, with a few strands dangling down his shoulders and back. Now he was slim, starving, his body still toned but greatly reduced in mass. His hair was messy. His beard unkempt. His ribs showed on some day through his withering flesh. His stamina, which had been mighty as he trained and drilled with the sword, mace, and spear, could barely sustain hard labour for long. He was weak. He was tired. He was miserable. He was ashamed. It bore heavily on his body and mind, exhausting him even before the day began.<br/><br/>Even a ceiling above their heads seemed a luxury, where before they had been encased in walls of cold stone and high ceilings. Every morning they scrambled to light a fire, to shake off the brisk chill in their bones and look on with mournful faces as the task of acquiring food came to the fore of their minds. For fifty days or more, they had wandered aimlessly in the frontier woodlands of<i>Bleakwood Vale</i>, a horrendous, dreary forest on the borders of Ostavia where they had washed up. Few people dwelt here. None had any manners. They had already encountered a few unfriendly faces. It was only fortunate they had the desperation of cornered, wounded animals, bitter in combat. Aica was even more bitter out of it.<br/><br/>“Wake up.” He snapped without much pomp, seizing his wife, Vesta Larenzac, Princess of the Purple, by her shoulders and thrusting her out of the protective, warm custody of his limbs. Today was another day, one fraught with worry, anxiety and fear. It didn’t help that he had<i>her</i>to care for. Having already failed in his duty as a husband to protect her, he was even more inclined to utterly rule and dictate all her actions, so as to prevent any such catastrophe again. It did not matter to him if she found it inconsiderate, disruptive, and downright cruel. She ought to know the price of disobeying him by now. Marks on her wrists and along her jawline, fading bruises on her cheek and even her inner thighs, were a reminder enough. And they were the marks of a husband, not of the animals who violated her impiously.<br/><br/>Every morning, after the same dream, Aica distracted himself by taking stock of their meagre inventory and equipment. A few berries would be their fare this dawn. Two knives, one scarcely shorter than his forearm, served as their only means of defense. Lengths of rope, that had bound his hands or those of other dead prisoners flung into the water, was perhaps their best tool, to create snares and traps. Their torn and tattered garments, supplemented again by what could be taken off the dead, ensured they could have some warmth and modesty. Boots, for himself and her. Cloaks. A spare to make a satchel whenever they found a decent load of food to carry.<i>Her collar.</i><br/><br/>Aica knew not what it was. Only that it was stuck on her. Tightly. Sealed by some power that prevented its unraveling. Vesta, the poor girl, would have a small cut on her lower jaw, where he had tried to remove it by force with a blade and only ended up cutting her. It would not be removed.<br/><br/>Every morning they wandered aimlessly. What was there to do? Where could they go? Vesta had ideas but Aica disregarded them. This was his home, the land of his birth, and his legacy to uphold now that his family was dead. The third son of a King, he was never destined to rule, but to be a soldier, a captain of men, a leader into battle. He had trained for combat and running away from a potential fight was never in his psyche. He would not depart Ostavia. He had to stay and fight.<br/><br/><i>But how?</i><br/><br/>Every day he led his wife in circles, in aimless directions, searching for some sign or possibility of reclaiming his home. Late summer had turned to autumn. The trees, silent and tall, remained firm, but the climate grew cold and increasingly inhospitable. Yet still Aica made no decision, no sign of leaving this place. He could not. And he would not. Revenge is what drove him. Anger bubbled within him. His fury was ready to lash at any and everything, even towards his own wife. He could not see the prize he had, in that she remained with him despite all that happened to her in coming to Ostavia. She was his, a prize indeed, to be protected, ruled, and kept safe and secure. Even if it meant hurting her to accomplish it. Yes, as her sole guardian now, as her husband, sometimes Aica relieved his frustrations on her. That was a wife was for?<i>To console.</i><br/><br/>Yet he was never consoled.<br/><br/>“Are you deaf woman? Get the fire started.” Aica hissed again. He issued no such command before but it ought to be drilled into her now. He made no move to help, standing over the spread cloak with his knives and few other oddities strewn out. He took several sniffs of the air, as if it might bring him some sign or clue. It was much fresher in this place.