“You must be hungry,” Umbra said. His voice was low, with its own hunger. “Sit with me.”

The words put a shiver in Esra. The knight had said the same thing to him in the meeting hall, that violent night. How sharp his terror, cold as a blade; not knowing what the knight wanted from him, what was expected of him. Outside, the bonfires rippled against the dark sky.

But all was different now, with the sunlight and the birdsong, this quiet morning.

Esra took a seat. He was starving, but he knew to wait his turn. He obediently folded his hands at the table, to show his deference, so that the knight might have his first choice in everything.

“Go on, Esra,” Umbra urged him. “No need for courtesy, now. You have not eaten a full day, and you are such a fragile thing that you might collapse.”

Esra hesitantly reached for the bread, his eyes on Umbra the whole time, to make sure this wasn’t some sort of trap. But no rebuke came, and even when he raised the bread to his mouth, Umbra only gave an encouraging nod in return. With that, Esra finally relaxed, and eagerly began to fill his stomach with the hearty offerings the villagers had made.

He was trespassing, he was sure, into the rights of one much greater than himself. But famished as he was, he was grateful for the permission.

Umbra’s chair creaked as he settled back to take in the serenity of their morning scene, and to watch his captive break his fast.

* * *

The air smelled crisp and fresh. Vaughn trotted over green and luscious grass, by where flowers uncurled their petals. The filtered sunlight through young leaves cast ethereal shapes along the forest path. It dappled them in light and shadow, and glinted off Umbra’s armor in slivered flashes, like how sunlight would glimmer atop the ocean.

Their path, a dirt trail, eventually met a tended road. Esra caught sight of chimneys, roofs, smoke curling into the air. Not one, but two tall towers he could see over the trees, signs of a place more populated and clustered than he had ever seen before in his young life.

“Is that the capital, Sir Knight?” he asked, his hand clutching the black cloak. “There must be so many living there!”

He heard Umbra's throat catch, and then the knight coughed to suppress a laugh.

“It's Hornfast,” he said. “Only a township that trades in… building materials, I believe. Not entirely sure. They look after the Rest. We ate their food for breakfast. Ah,” he added, a touch forlorn. “If only the journey could be so short.”

Even shielded by his mask, Esra could tell that the knight was eager to be home.

As they passed by on the widening road, Esra took in the township of Hornfast in the distance; its many homes and halls, and its people, although he could only see them as busy dots bustling from place to place. His little village seemed bare in comparison.

He rested his cheek on Umbra’s back. How little he had seen of the world…

Umbra petted his leg.

“If you think that Hornfast is impressive, you may swoon when you see Balor’s Throne.”

At the edge of town, a tall pole of dark wood jutted up into the sky, higher than the church, higher than the towers. Like an evergreen pine, stripped bare of all its branches.

“Umbra,” he asked. “What is that structure...?”

Umbra glanced over. “It’s a God’s Reach,” he said. “They are in all small towns such as this one. On certain days, they send up tributes to the God King.”

Tributes? Offerings, perhaps, maybe animals, or…

Esra swallowed hard. His mind throbbed with sudden comprehension.

When he was a child, a young woman came to their village. She arrived in the early evening hours, covered in dust from the roads, her slender body on the verge of collapse from exhaustion. Marten received her in the meeting hall, as he often did with new arrivals, to calm their nerves and welcome them with food and drink. At that age, Esra had clung to his father’s side as often as he was allowed, provided that he did not get in the way. He hid in the doorway, secretly listening, as she told Marten her story.

Her family was going to sacrifice her, she said. Sacrifice was the word Esra hadn’t understood at the time. But she outwitted her guards and run off into the wilds the night before she could be sent up to Balor. Afterwards, she had nowhere to go. She could not seek refuge in another town, for fear of discovery. The townspeople would immediately cast her out, or worse, once they discovered who she was. And she certainly couldn’t go back to her family.

Yet, the girl confessed, she did not blame them, for they too were afraid, of both Balor’s wrath, and the other townspeople. Then she had broken down and sobbed, loud, heart-wrenching sounds, with an intensity that frightened young Esra.

He had thought of her as a grown woman, at the time. But now, thinking upon it, he realised she’d been quite young, only 16 or 17 at the most.

As Esra grew older, he came to learn that every town and village in Fomoria had a God’s Reach, signs of the seabeast’s dominion over the peasantry.

Balor demanded that his followers give tribute. A gift of something precious, as the saying went.

Usually it was a young woman. One of their own daughters, fair of face and form, whose appearance would please the God King. Whenever the priest had a vision foretelling that their town was soon to be blessed by the presence of the God King, an offering had to be made. It was a great honor to be chosen, the other villagers would say, as they lashed the maiden to the Reach, and raised her up to be plucked from the clouds by Balor’s monstrous hand.

The story had horrified Esra. For how could the townspeople be driven to do such a thing, and to one of their own?

“They do it for peace,” his father had told him. “The people live in fear, and in sacrificing just one, they believe they guarantee the safety of the village as a whole. The enormity of the act itself is thrilling, and afterwards, there is a feeling of great relief, almost gratitude towards Balor. Faith is compelling, and this ritual gives the peasants an illusion of power over their helpless situation.”

To be a sacrifice was an honored position. She must give up her life willingly, as a gift to the God that had granted her so much. In running away, the girl from his childhood had committed the most blasphemous sin a peasant could. Esra could not imagine the feeling of betrayal, the horrible loneliness and shame.

Marten had looked his young son in the eyes. “This is what ritual is for, Esra. To train the body for submission.”

Esra shivered against Umbra’s back, averting his eyes from the God’s Reach, trying not to think of how many had lost their lives there. If the knight felt him trembling, he said nothing, and for that Esra was grateful.

* * *

His first glimpse of the castle came the moment they rounded the pillar cliffs - a tall twin peaked citadel in the far off distance, white against the green fields, reaching higher than the mountains into the clear blue sky. His gasp amused Umbra.

“That is the capital. Balor’s Throne. When the God King came from the blessed ocean to these lands, he raised it from the ground himself. It’s the largest city in Fomoria. And, I think, the most beautiful.”

“And you live there?” Esra asked, in quiet awe.

“Yes.”

He could hear the smile in Umbra’s words, and understood his pride. Balor’s Throne was truly a sight to behold. Although Esra had heard tell the tales, the absolute grandeur of this graceful, high-walled city dwarfed anything he could have possibly conjured in his mind. He couldn’t quite comprehend the size of it.

Despite its beauty, there was something strangely foreboding about the magnificent structure. The perfection of the shapes in its construction, the bright whiteness of the walls, made Esra’s eyes hurt if he gazed upon it for too long. For such a castle to be built by human hands… it was impossible.

Vaughn walked steadily on.

“The city itself is home to all sorts of folk,” Umbra told him. “From wealthy to poor. The castle is at the highest point of the city. Its lower wings are for the nobles and other honored people. The servants and slaves live in the belly. Balor, and his knights of the Order, live in the upper wings.”

Esra tried to imagine where he might fit in that arrangement, in the servants’ quarters, or as a slave, or... “Umbra, forgive me,” he ventured, tremulous, “But w-where will I be living?”

The knight tilted his head towards Esra. “With me, of course. Hold close.”

He steered Vaughn faster, ending the conversation.

* * *

They passed small farm villages that dotted the lands outside the city, past the barracks of Balor’s Fist that sprawled out from alongside the high walls of the capital. The walls were so high that Esra could not glimpse the city within. Only the castle, high and piercing, rose above the towering stone barrier, as if it were to trespass the sky.

The roads widened, and grew busier. He heard the sounds of the city as they approached. Not only were they entering Balor’s Throne, Esra would soon be surrounded by more people than he had ever seen in his entire life. Instinctively, he clutched tighter to Umbra’s back.

“It’s all right, my boy,” Umbra said to him, for he could feel Esra’s panic. “Stay close to me. None will bother you.”

It did something to soothe him, the simple order. Even so, his heart beat faster as they approached the stronghold of the enemy.

Seagulls wheeled overhead, cawing at the travellers. There was one entryway to the city, an ornate arch that breached the high walls, tall enough for a giant, and bustling with carriages, piled high carts, and other folk, lone wanderers, merchants, families, soldiers. There were many guards at the gate, and men and women in official robes, checking paperwork with weary expressions.

Esra gasped when he glimpsed inside, rows of flagstone streets and houses of wood, brick, stone all the way up the hill, so bursting with life he couldn’t comprehend it. Trees rose up above fine buildings, and the roads were filled with workers, horse-drawn carriages, merchants calling out praise of their wares. A wide river split the city, crisscrossed with bridges, spilling out the gates to the port, to the ocean.

All startled when they saw the imposing black knight. The crowds moved aside for him. The officials bowed him through the arch with murmurs of welcome. There were no queues, no checks, for the Order of Balor. However, a few curious eyes slid over the gracile youth in worn peasant garb who rode pillion. Esra, already shy, tried his best not to notice. He kept his eyes on his surroundings, or the black breadth of Umbra’s back.

Vaughn trotted proudly through the flagstone streets, swishing his tail. Esra couldn’t help but be in wonderment at the sights, the sounds. A town crier called out the news, of a criminal caught, of an execution. The streets were packed with people, lined with a motley of stores, inns and taverns. Grand guild buildings rose high, with their colored banners flapping outside. He could see towards the sea gate where industry lay, large buildings by the packed port, and beyond it, the familiar expanse of the ocean.

Most of the citizenry were reverent of the passing knight, but the children who darted the streets had no such compulsion, calling out ‘Sir Knight!’ as they passed, giggling red faced when Umbra gallantly tipped his head at them. This sweet tableau, like something from a hero's tale, startled Esra when he compared it with his own experience.

Among the children of Esra’s village, the black knight was a fearsome figment that existed only in nightmares. He was the story they told each other in hushed whispers on dark nights.

The reality, Esra knew, was even worse. For no child could imagine that one day a black knight might come to their little village, and bring with him such sweeping death and horrible flame to consume all they knew.

But here, in Balor’s Throne, the knight was hailed as a hero. The people celebrated him. His deadly scythe a badge of valor, his gleaming black armor a sign of the righteous, and children called out to him in delight.

Despite the tumult around them, Umbra rode through the crowded streets of Balor's Throne just as he had ridden through the wilds. He had his own pace, and he expected the world to move for him.

As the streets wound higher, the buildings became more grand, and the citizens more finely dressed, with coiffed hair and clad in colored fabrics, jewelry and fur. The black knight stood out starkly in his midnight steel among the bright city folk, and he drew much attention as they passed.

It was jarring, to see the people’s excitement, and to know the gruesome details of the knight’s sacred duty that they celebrated. Would they shout so joyfully, if they could see the staked bodies and the bloodshed? Would they still run towards him, if they knew the tortures of the smithy?

Or would they not care?

The people clustered closer, trying to get a glimpse of the black knight. Their crowded, upturned faces struck a new fear in him. I am the only one, thought Esra wildly, the only one who knows. His entire body tensed with a building pressure, steam inside a pot, a scream that he could not let out.

In his rural peasant garb, Esra stood out just as vividly as his knight. He was unused to being looked at. His entire life, he knew his difference, so he tried his best to be small, unobtrusive, so that no one would pay him any mind. But eyes surrounded him now.

They must all know. Just by the look of him, a peasant riding pillion to a knight of the Order, they could tell what he was, what he had done to secure his survival. Just as the soldiers had known, and the villagers, and Kian…

They were all talking about it, how you had whored yourself to the knight.

Esra’s skin crawled.

The traitor’s son, the only son of the leader of the resistance, had been conquered and bedded by Balor’s black knight. Esra had known who Umbra was, and still he had submitted, kept submitting. He felt hotly the uncleanliness upon his skin, and burned with shame.

Wherever he looked, there was a sea of faces, their judging eyes. In desperation he turned to the castle as it loomed above him, the way the spires seemed to pierce the sky. The unnatural smoothness of the white walls made him think of polished bone, and his stomach lurched, his head swimming, vision blurring with tears --

“Esra?” came Umbra’s low voice, barely audible over the roar of shame in Esra’s head. “Are you all right?”

“I…” Esra whispered, pressing his forehead to Umbra’s back and squeezing his eyes shut. His lips moved, but no words came out.

“This must be overwhelming for you,” Umbra murmured. He patted Esra’s thigh. “Not to worry. We will be there soon.”

Esra, unable to help himself, leaned into the steadiness of Umbra’s back. He felt, absurdly, grateful for the knight’s concern, and cursed his own weakness.

“Make way,” Umbra declared to the crowd. The throngs parted, and the knight spurred his steed up the city streets.