Night at my enemy's castle - SHORT STORY

When Eko got up, he looked at the ceiling and drew long, painful breath. His head was exploding.

Behind his eyes, a constellation of all the things that had happened before flashed. The fight had been so long that by the end of it he was just a puppet with a sword. He remembered staggering in the black basement, the coldness and the wetness sticking to his skin, and then glimpses of silver, his skin opening once, twice, three times, blood sparkling.

Now, though, he was in a small room he had never seen. A fire nearby painted the sofa he was lying on orange and irradiated comfortable heat on him. The walls were dark and the wooden floor polished. Everything was clean and tidy, books and weapons were stored in closets with shiny glass doors.

Eko tried to look down. He wasn’t lying down completely. Someone had put pillows under his head and shoulders to keep him slightly up. Slowly, he took the blanket away.

The bandages on his belly and on his legs were stained red. He let out a painful sigh.

Steps. Turning on his right, he saw the black cloak of the person that had attacked him. His heart missed a beat and he tried to get out immediately, but his vision blurred.

“Easy.” Eko fell back on the sofa. On his right, Kan took down their hood. They were younger than he had thought, and had an ugly scar that ran across the left part of their pale face. Their small mouth was open in a surprised expression. “How the hell can you be awake so soon?” They ran fingers on Eko’s neck and checked his pulse. “You can relax. I’m not trying to kill you.”

Eko took in a shaky breath and closed his fist around their wrist. “Why did you bring me here?”

Kan took their hand back and kneeled, the cloak swelling around them. “I didn’t. You came to me.”

Eko’s conscience sank in his chest. They were right. The fight had happened the day before. That night, he had found himself in a far worse situation. He passed a hand on his face.

The other raised their skinny hands over his body. “Calm down. I’ve spent two hours trying to understand what happened to you.”

Eko said nothing.

“Are you okay? What’s going on?” Kan took his hands off. His eyes widened slightly when they saw his face. They extended a hand with a square cloth. On the edge, the letters KS were embroidered with expensive gold thread.

Eko wiped away the tears. “I need to go. I can’t … I can’t stay here.”

Kan looked away. “You’re free to go.” Their elegant hand signaled him the exit door. “But I won’t ever sword fight an opponent in your condition.”

“No!” Eko was enraged. His hands started to shake and his head became light again.

Black light shone in Kan’s eyes as they smirked. “The things you wouldn’t do to kill me and get that Ghala Castle.” They sat down on a small chair next to the sofa, folding their thin arms. “Alright. If you don’t let me heal you and if you don’t tell me all the truth about what happened, I promise not to let you out of my house alive.”

Eko swallowed hard. Blood rushed in his veins again, his breath came in shallow. A hand kept him up, a pair of black eyes stared at him with more humanity than the mask they always wore.

“Calm down, I was just trying to make you talk.”

Eko couldn’t help but tremble. His bandages were itchy on his skin, and the poison in his veins was singing.

Kan kneeled again. With their hands hovering over the boy’s body, they murmured a few words. Pain softened its grip, his lungs expanded.

“Talk.”

But that was harder than fighting, maybe even harder than losing. When he had started feeling feeble during the fight, he had thought it was just because there was no fresh air in the Castle’s basement. But that wasn’t the reason. Eko brought his hands to his face again and his shoulders stiffened. He felt a blanket being softly laid on his back, so he took it and curled up inside.

“But aren’t they your friends?” Kan said, when Eko had finished telling him everything. “Why the hell would they drug you so much? Didn’t they know that your heart would have stopped?”

Eko looked down. Their expressions had been the most horrifying thing he had ever seen. Faces of people he had seen laugh at his jokes, hands that had shaken his, arms that had hugged him. Your heart would have stopped.

He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I’m not even a fighter anymore. I look like a crybaby.”

Kan frowned. “You survived a dose that was meant to kill you, and for what concerns your honor,” they got up, straightening their back, “I’ll see what you’re worth next time we fight. Hell,” they added, in a rough voice, “I’ve never thought I’d ever have to heal someone who’s trying to conquer me ever in my existence.”

This was inspired by a prompt I read some months ago.

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