Fabric shifted, and was gently peeled back. Cold air bit into his exposed skin, and he shivered at the shock of it, as if he’d just been dunked into the sea.

Esra awoke, bleary eyed, and was struck with an immediate sense of vulnerability.

Without the comforting buzz of the wine, his body was wracked with tiny pains. There was a distracting twinge along his muscles and joints from how he’d been pushed and pulled at like a ragdoll, along with that new, disturbing sensation: the hollowness deep inside of him that smarted bitterly when he moved.

Still half stuck in his dreams, Esra rolled to his side and reached for the blanket. He wanted to cover himself, to hide his bare skin from the harsh morning light, when he felt warm leather skim over his thigh.

Then, he was too afraid to move.

“Good morning.”

That rumbling voice was loud enough to have him wincing.

The knight sat, fully armored, on the edge of the bed, looming over his stilled prey.

He had yet to don his mask, but the gleaming black armor alone made Esra feel even more exposed in his nudity. Steel contrasted so sharply with tender flesh. He had to fight the urge to cocoon himself in the blankets, shield his body from sight, but he didn’t dare. Not with Umbra’s warm hand resting upon his thigh.

The knight was hard to focus on, and smiled his dangerous smile when Esra looked nervously up at him. Morning light bloomed too brightly behind him, glinting off the edges of the dark steel. It took too long for Esra to realize that the shuttered window had been opened to let the daylight in. Esra squinted, head aching, raising one slender hand to shield his too-dry eyes.

“G-good… morning, Sir Knight,” he said thickly. His voice, well-worn, was an exhausted whisper to his own ears. His head felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton.

Something about the youth’s attempt at courtesy despite his miserable state made Umbra’s smile, his entire demeanour, soften.

The knight’s ash blond hair was slightly damp, his pale skin scrubbed clean. Esra saw, by the full bathtub in the corner of the room, that he’d already washed himself of the previous night’s activities. Now, in his full regalia, he looked untouchable. Perfect. The God King’s gleaming knight.

His magnificence made Esra acutely aware of how filthy he felt, smeared with Umbra’s sweat and secretions. He must look like some disposable toy.
The sight of the bathtub brought with it a new, dawning horror. He’d been so stricken with exhaustion, so completely worn out, that he hadn’t even awoken when strangers had come up the stairs with it, and filled it with fresh water for the knight.

How many eyes had seen him there, lying naked in the tangled sheets for the knight’s pleasure?

He shuddered a little as Umbra’s smoky eyes raked over his skin, the light of day revealing things that had seemed less forbidden by candlelight. It was mortifying to have Umbra hovering so close above him, seeing him so clearly exposed, to picture what Esra had been last night in his arms.

He tried to cover himself, to shift his body back, but Umbra moved his fingers to Esra’s hand, closed them over the thin wrist, and unfolded him again to the sunlight. Esra’s breath hitched. He lay still where he’d been placed, and did not dare move again, though his face burned hot under the examination.

The knight’s gloved hand moved over Esra’s side, that possessive touch. His fingers trailing down the youth’s hip to stroke a slim thigh, before settling in the dip of his hipbone.

Umbra’s touch was gentle, despite his great strength. Esra knew how easily those same hands could hold and hurt, and he knew he hadn’t even suffered the full extent of the knight’s strength. The fact that he was being petted now, with something akin to care, left him feeling breathless.

Esra did not dare speak, did not know what was expected of him. There was something of the beast restrained about Umbra, and with the light behind him, Esra saw in him the salamander from his dreams, ember-eyed, with a heart that glowed for him.

Then the sun passed behind a cloud.

“I want you to eat something,” Umbra gestured at the side table next to the bed, where breakfast had been prepared for him: bread, water and some of last night’s stew. “Afterwards, you may rest, clean yourself, do whatever it is you need to do. You can wander about outside, if you want.”

Esra made a small panicked sound at that, the mere idea of it, but Umbra shushed him.

“None of the men will lay a finger on you,” he assured Esra, a smile curling the corner of his mouth. “Unless they fancy losing it, of course.” A long pause. “Don't do anything stupid, like try to run away, and you will be unharmed.”

“I won't, Sir Knight,” Esra promised sincerely. His mouth felt dry.

Umbra petted his hip. “Sir Knight, out there,” he said, a gentle order. The touch turned into a caress that had Esra trembling. “Umbra, in here.”

Esra swallowed, blushing at the correction, at the knight’s easy handling of him. Smoky eyes followed the bob of his throat. “Yes... Umbra.”

Something dark bristled through the knight, like Esra’s naming of him had been a summoning spell. “Good boy,” he rumbled, a nerve in his elegant jaw twitching.

He leaned in swiftly, that predator grace sparking fear in Esra again, caught helpless between the desire to flee, and succumb. His heart pounded.

But Umbra only dropped a kiss onto Esra's worried mouth, tender, almost chaste. His lips were gentle before they broke apart.

Esra felt hypnotized.

Umbra was alarmingly beautiful so close, in the light of the morning sun. His pale skin almost glowed. The rays put flecks of burning gold in his deep grey eyes, glistened over his lashes as his gaze swept over Esra’s face.

My salamander, came the thought unbidden, rising golden to the surface of Esra's mind. He very tentatively reached forward, caught in the dream. His movement caused a flicker of surprise to spark in the knight’s eyes, as Esra brushed his fingers over a smoothly shaven cheek. Then his lashes swept down, and he leaned very slightly into Esra’s touch.

The knight’s startled reaction, and then cautious acceptance, tore something in the youth’s gentle soul.

Esra’s breath caught in his chest. For just one moment, he did not think about the bonfires, the bodies, the soldiers circling outside like carrion birds.

Umbra’s skin was so warm, his expression so serene, that Esra could feel nothing but a deep sense of awe at the luxury of being allowed to touch him like this. Esra had never been strong, but for a small moment, he felt it through the tamed beast that leaned into his palm. A dark force harnessed, as though it was his own.

It couldn’t last.

The knight looked away from him and rose smoothly to his full height. He swung the dark cloak over his shoulders, the heavy fabric sending dust spiralling up from the floorboards, and took up his deadly scythe. He had become, once again, the living shadow of Death.

“Be back here at noon,” he ordered, eyes focused somewhere out the window, then donned his pointed mask and swept out of the room.

* * *

Esra lay in bed, trying to still his trembling.

As long as he stayed there, the world could be the same as it had been the day before. The village intact, and all its people, moving through the world with their unique purpose. With his eyes closed, he could be in his own bed, and he could almost hear the familiar sounds of the men waking up all around him, the yawns, the idle conversation, the tugging on of jackets and shoes. His father would already be up, planning for the day that lay ahead. Everything would be all right.

The moment he awoke, the dream would be over.

He stayed there for a long time, curled up, near meditative. But he could not stop the rising sun. It had been years since he had slept in; that indulgence was only allowed for children. The more light crept into the room the harder it was to hold onto his illusion.

If he could pretend himself a child again... but no, that time was long past. Too much of his innocence lost.

He could hear the raucous cry of gulls from outside the window.

Slowly, Esra sat up, blinking his bleary eyes.

He ate breakfast, as he’d been bade, although he had no appetite. As he chewed, he stretched out his aching joints under the blankets to try and soothe the twinges. When he finally dared to slide out of bed, he hissed, stumbled, pain arcing through him. It paralysed him. For a while he just stood there, leaning on the sideboard, his breath coming in little cramped gasps, waiting for the pain to become background noise.

His skin was still filthy, his hair tangled from where Umbra had fisted his hand into it. He feared leaving the room, but the idea of calling for fresh bathwater, of who might bring it, made him nauseous.

He would have to get dressed, and go outside.

* * *

The village lay eerily still in the morning light. The gulls were crying overhead, flocking in the sky. There were swarms of them, as many as there were as when a fishing boat came home to harbor. The familiar buildings were quiet, the pathways empty. The bonfires that had blazed all night were now piles of ashes that dusted in the sea breeze. 

Esra shivered in the sunlight.

There were no bodies for him to recognise on the ground anymore. They’d have been tumbled into the mass grave outside the village, buried out of reach of tide. The gulls were circling, white wings beating, drawn to the helpless staked figures at the perimeter.  Esra forced his eyes downward to his feet.

Fighting back nausea, he made his way in the direction of the river.

There were soldiers, still, of course. Fewer than before, as many had been sent away to track down refugees and other nonbelievers. Those that remained mostly lounged about and gossiped, with nothing much to do. It brought to mind a pack of wolves lolling in the sunshine after a hunt, their appetites sated now that they'd had their fun. The death and destruction that surrounded them… it was just another job for the men of Balor’s Fist.

Every time Esra passed a cluster of soldiers, his heart clenched with fear and shame. They must all know what happened to him, what the knight had done. But they barely glanced at him as he limped by, and none made comment. Just as Umbra had promised, their eyes almost seemed to slide off him, as if they were afraid of being caught looking.

There was a small group of prisoners left, ankles chained together so they couldn’t run. They slouched on the ground by the huts, trying to blend into the background. Huddled together, they looked hurt, broken. Soon, they’d be taken by cart to market, and sold.

Most of them had marks and bruises; all of them looked scuffed and dirty. Esra’s own unblemished skin made him feel even dirtier in comparison.

Their familiar faces stared at him with knowledge in their eyes.

Esra flushed with shame, his eyes hot with fought-back tears. Even as he turned away from their judging gaze he could feel their anger, their pity, stone-heavy upon his back.

All these people who knew him, they knew what had happened to him. They’d have heard of the unspeakable things he had done.

Now the chimney of the smithy was smoking again.

The knight must be in there with his father.

* * *

In Esra’s earliest memories, it was always his father.

How strong he was, how easily he swept Esra up and spun him around or held him high so that he could see the world from a dizzying point of view. His warm embrace, his booming laugh. In Esra’s eyes, he could hold up the world.

Esra must have been in his fourth or fifth summer when his father attempted to teach him how to swim.

He remembered how the sunlight glittered off the water, the whispering rush of the river, his own giggling excitement. How his father held him in the water, encouraging him to splash and kick.

But something had gone wrong. His breath became short; his chest seized up with a tight wheeze. He went under and as he gasped for breath, he swallowed water. Water filled his eyes, his nose and mouth and throat. He had never felt such desperate fear in all his young life.

His father pulled him up quickly, with Esra coughing and gagging, still gasping for air. A practiced blow to the chest to make him spit up the water, and his father patted his back, held him and soothed him until Esra’s breath could calm again.

His father, his savior.

Now Esra stood in that same river, and Marten was in the smithy with the black knight. There was nothing Esra could do. His father was in the hands of the enemy, and branded as a traitor. There was no way he would be allowed to survive.

That seizing panic in Esra’s chest, the desperate, strangling fear in his throat, the overwhelming helplessness... it was all the same. He was drowning all over again, but this time, there would be no one to pull him out.

The last of his strength left him, and in something close to a plea for forgiveness, Esra knelt in the water until he was near submerged. With no one else around, he finally allowed himself to cry.

* * *

Later, Esra scrubbed at his skin, trying to erase the traces of the previous night.

He rubbed at his tearful face with both hands, pulled angrily at the knots in his hair. He needed to wash every place where he’d been touched, near-scouring himself as he scrubbed. He felt sullied, unclean. If he closed his eyes he could still feel those hands upon him, claiming him--

His own fingers left white scratches on his sun-kissed skin, but of the knight, there was no mark.

It made no sense. He had been grabbed and held down; he’d been tugged about, hurt, and pleasured. He had been changed, reshaped into something new. He’d expected bruising. Surely such acts would leave their mark.

Inside, he ached terribly, but his skin was smooth and unharmed. Perhaps a shadow of a fingertip by his hipbone, and a faint raw redness to his knees, but nothing more.

Part of Umbra’s job was taking people apart. Esra supposed that the knight knew exactly where to strike, if his goal was to mark skin, and where to hold, if he wanted to leave no sign of himself. He had left Esra looking virginal.

But what could it mean, if Esra’s body had so readily accepted what had been done to him?

He felt the hot sting of betrayal, at his own body, at himself. As his eyes started to blur, he saw the pale shapes of his reflection merge with the water, then vanish.

The river washed away his tears, but it could not wash away the shame of what he'd done.