Page 28 of Gilded Lies

“I-” Corvo’s face flushed as he struggled to move his legs.

Aurelius held the sword lightly by the hilt as he stepped closer. “You’re not so confident now that the tables are turned. You’re the powerless one, and I can see the fear in your face. You have no idea how much that fucking delights me.”

Corvo reached for his weapon and got as far as drawing it before Aurelius shook his head. His face grew slack, and Aurelius pointed. “Toss it.”

Corvo threw it, and the sword clanged on the floor. With the control gone, he gaped at his weapon, now out of his reach.

“Don’t bother reaching for your dagger. I could make you do whatever I command, and that includes not attacking. I know exactly what I’m going to do to you. I want you aware and desperate for every second of it just like I was aware and desperate for it to stop every time you fucking used and beat me-”

“I had to,” Corvo suddenly said as sweat blossomed on his forehead. “King David commanded, and I had no choice.”

“Shut up.” Aurelius paused a few feet away, crouched, and rested the tip of the sword on the floor as he turned the rug gold. Corvo could die surrounded by what he wanted too.

A woman in a black servant’s dress and apron suddenly came from the Hall and stopped. Her eyes went to the bloody sword, and she dropped the vase she’d been holding. It hit the floor, and white shards skittered in every direction. She clutched onto theedge of the other closed door and covered her mouth with one hand.

“I don’t want to be disturbed,” said Aurelius.

She didn’t need further convincing. Shrieking, she ran towards the back of the entrance hall and disappeared through a door that must have led to the servant’s passage. “Elira, have mercy!”

“She probably thinks I skewer her.” Aurelius turned his attention to Corvo who was shaking, and a drop of sweat ran down his face.

“Can you let me up? Please?”

“No.”

“If you ordered someone under your command to-”

“I said to shut up,” Aurelius said in a deadly quiet voice that made Corvo close his mouth. “If I told someone in my command to do something so disgusting, hopefully, they’d be decent enough to refuse. Besides, I can’t undo something once it’s gold. In fact, it’s not even gilding anymore, is it? But what else should I call it? Still, you wanted gold, so you should be happy that I’m finally being a good boy and giving you what you wanted. When did you ever let me up or stop when I begged in the early days? David also knew you like teenage boys. You’re a sadist because you clearly-”

“Aurelius, please.”

“Don’t interrupt me, and don’t you dare ever use my fucking name again!” The rest of the floor visible around the edges of the rug turned as more sweat rolled down Corvo’s face. “You cut me for my blood, and you loved it every time you used me. You allowed me to be gang raped twice and only healed me so you could keep me alive to torture some more. You still act like you did nothing truly wrong, and you’re sick a fuck who should have dangled from a noose years ago.”

Aurelius laid the sword down and crawled over to close the last few inches. Corvo leaned back as his lip trembled.

“I’m on my knees right now, and you’re utterly terrified. You have no idea how much it thrills me to see you just as terrified as I used to be every time you came in the boxcart or when I was brought into your pathetic little house.”

Corvo flinched as Aurelius’s hand lashed out, but he only took the dagger from his belt, and he shifted back to squat. If only his other brothers were there too. Not the fairy ones. The ones he vaguely remembered from before. They couldn’t be his brothers, but they were, and he struggled as he tried to class those vague memories from those in his life as a fairy. He was only supposed to have three, not these others that he kept getting vague flashes of.

He sucked in a breath as the little toneless voice whispered that his fairy brothers didn’t matter unless he wanted to kill Gullveig. Other than that, he should try to find the others, especially his two favorites. Perhaps that bitch had done something to them.

They never should have split up before. He couldn’t get a real grasp on what they looked like. It had been too long ago, and they were surely gone. He was alone in this realm now.

Just like Aurelius himself was alone. He’d never see Jari again. Corvo’s breathing turned ragged as he wisely kept his mouth shut, and Aurelius’s gaze drifted back to him.

“You’re probably proud of that thing you got between your legs. I’m going to remove it.”

“You c-can’t,” stammered Corvo.

“You don’t have a choice in the matter.” Aurelius chuckled and stood while he toyed with the dagger. “I'm going to make you choke on it.”

***

Aurelius stared at himself in the looking glass. His bloody clothes lay on the floor behind him, and seeing himself dressed in plain black servant’s clothes was…odd. Shouldn’t he be bigger? Why would he? A memory that was his and not his of the ground being far away flashed in his mind.

The rose, the same color as his hair, gleamed by his ear where he’d tucked it again. The water in the basin was tinted red since he’d washed every inch of his body and removed every single trace of that man’s blood since it had splattered on him. It was too disgusting to keep on him. He’d even left the dagger on the floor.

The new one he’d taken from the servant’s quarters would do just fine even though it was rather plain. The back area had been empty, so that servant must have told everyone to get out. That was fine. He was used to being alone.

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