Chapter 4: Morning After Shame
The warmth was the first thing he noticed.
It was a deep, golden ember glowing in the pit of his stomach, radiating a soporific heat through his limbs. Elias lay on his back, eyes closed, swimming in the last dredges of a perfect, dreamless sleep. His body felt loose, limbs heavy and satisfied. A faint, sweet aftertaste lingered at the back of his throat.
Then he opened his eyes.
The low, water-stained ceiling of the inn’s rented room came into focus. Morning light, thin and grey, sliced through the single dirty window. Memory returned not as a flood, but as a series of sharp, frozen images: the black marble, the amber eyes, the feel of stone against his back. The crushing weight. The taste.
He sat up so fast the room tilted.
“No.”
The word was a dry crack in the silent room. He looked down at his body. He was naked. His skin was clean. Someone—Asterion—had wiped him down. The absence of the physical evidence felt like a deeper violation. His stomach, however, felt full. Sated. The warm, sleepy feeling was a phantom limb of pleasure, still clinging to him.
Revulsion, hot and acidic, burned through the cozy haze. He scrambled from the bed, his feet tangling in the rough blanket, and stumbled to the small washbasin in the corner. He grabbed the pitcher, water slopping over the sides, and poured it over his head. The cold was a shock. He scrubbed at his face with his hands, digging his nails into his scalp, trying to scour the memory from his skin.
He caught his reflection in the dented metal mirror above the basin. His eyes were bloodshot. A faint, yellowing bruise was coming up on his cheekbone where the minotaur’s cock had tapped and smeared. His lips looked… normal. They didn’t look used. They didn’t look like they’d been stretched around…
Elias turned away, gripping the edge of the basin until his knuckles turned white. He breathed, sharp gusts through his nose. It was a mistake. A terrible, humiliating mistake. He’d been weak. Exhausted. The monster had used some trick, some sorcery in its musk. That was all.
The warmth in his belly pulsed, gentle and reassuring.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
He dressed mechanically, pulling on clean-ish smallclothes, a coarse linen shirt, his battered leather trousers. Every movement felt off. His body was too relaxed, his mind too sharp with panic. He strapped on his empty sword belt, the absence of weight a fresh jab of shame. He’d need to pawn something to buy a new one. Something else.
Downstairs, the common room was mostly empty. The smell of stale ale and old smoke hung in the air. Two figures sat at a corner table, backs to the wall: Onyx, his dark beard neatly trimmed, sharpening a dagger with a slow, rhythmic scrape, and Tommen, broad and florid, already working on a tankard of morning ale.
Onyx saw him first. A slow smirk spread across his face. “Look what the cat dragged in. Or, more accurately, what the minotaur didn’t bother to eat.”
Tommen swiveled, his chair groaning. He let out a low whistle. “Gods, Vance. You look like shit warmed over. That bad?”
Elias approached, his feet feeling like blocks of wood. He slid onto the bench opposite them. “I lost,” he said, the words ash.
“Obviously,” Onyx said, not unkindly. He set his dagger down with a soft click. “But you’re walking. You’re sitting. No visible entrails.” He leaned forward, his dark eyes scanning Elias’s face. “Hell, you don’t even look that injured. Just tired. Bruised ego, mostly.”
Tommen laughed, a booming sound that made Elias flinch. “He’s right! No broken arms, no limp. You’re all in one piece, Vance. That’s a victory against a horned king. You must’ve given him a decent scrap before he mopped the floor with you.”
Elias stared at the whorls in the wooden table. A decent scrap. He remembered the feeling of his sword shattering, the helpless weight pinning him. The fight had been nothing. The aftermath was what had broken him. The warm, full feeling in his gut chose that moment to tighten, a cozy, shameful cramp. He shifted on the bench.
“Yeah,” he managed. “A scrap.”
“See?” Tommen said, slapping the table. “Nothing to mope about. We waited for you at the bar last night, figured we’d celebrate you not being dead. Drank a whole keg to your health. Well, to your continued breathing, anyway.”
Onyx picked up his tankard. “Where’d you vanish to? We figured you’d come stumbling back here to lick your wounds.”
We figured you’d come stumbling back here to lick your wounds.”
“I was exhausted,” Elias said, the lie coming out flat and too quick. He kept his eyes on the table. “Came in the back. Went right to bed.”
Tommen nodded, taking a long pull of ale. “Smart. We had a rowdy night of it. That barmaid, the one with the crooked smile? She’s got a mouth on her.”
Onyx chuckled, a low, knowing sound. “She does indeed. Followed me out to the stable for a smoke. Ended up with her knees in the straw.” He leaned back, reminiscing. “Gods, the way she took it all. No gagging, just hungry for it. Swallowed every drop like she was dying of thirst.”
Elias didn’t visibly react. He stared at a deep gouge in the wood, his fingers tracing its edge. But his mind flashed, unbidden: the feeling of a different, impossible thickness filling his own mouth, the bitter-salt flood hitting his tongue, the automatic, convulsive swallows that followed. The phantom warmth in his stomach twitched.
He stood up abruptly, the bench legs screeching against the floor. “Need to see about a new sword.”
He moved away from their table, from the laughter, and into the muted chaos of the inn’s morning routine. He spent the next hours in a dull, mechanical haze. He haggled with a surly blacksmith over the price of a cheap, serviceable longsword, the weight of it all wrong in his hand. He bought a whetstone and a hard roll from a stall, chewing without tasting.
As he passed the inn’s main door, the innkeep—a bald man with ink-stained fingers—looked up from his ledger. His eyes, pale and shrewd, scanned Elias head to toe, pausing on the empty scabbard, then the bruise.
“Back in one piece, Vance,” the man said, not a question. He wiped his hands on a rag. “So? You beat the minotaur yet?”
The question was casual, everyday. It hung in the air like a physical blow. Elias felt the warm, sated feeling in his gut evaporate, replaced by a sudden, hollow chill. The memory of defeat wasn’t of a battle, but of a yielding. Of opened lips and a stuffed mouth and obedient swallowing.
“No,” Elias heard himself say, his voice distant. “Not yet.”
The innkeeper’s pale eyes crinkled at the corners. A faint, knowing grin tugged at his lips as he returned to his ledger. “Keep trying,” he said, the words a casual dismissal that felt like a knife between Elias’s ribs.
The hollow chill in Elias’s gut didn’t lift. It settled, a leaden weight. He walked out into the muddy lane, the new sword an awkward burden on his hip. The morning sun was higher now, but it offered no warmth. The cozy, sated glow from his waking moments was a distant memory, snuffed out by Tommen’s crude story and the innkeep’s grin.
Irritation pricked at him, sharp and sudden. It was a hot, restless energy under his skin. The blacksmith’s surly face floated in his mind, and Elias clenched his jaw, wishing he’d haggled harder. A child bumped into his leg, squealing, and he barely suppressed a snarl, shoving past.
He spent the afternoon on a stump at the edge of the forest, dragging the whetstone down the cheap blade. The repetitive shriek of metal on stone grated his nerves. Each pass felt useless. The sword was inferior steel, poorly balanced.
The sword was inferior steel, poorly balanced. The grating shriek of the whetstone became a monotonous punishment. Each swipe revealed pocks and flaws in the metal, a mirror of his own ragged state.
His stomach grumbled, not with hunger, but with a hollow, vacant ache. The peculiar warmth that had cradled him upon waking was gone, completely. In its place was a faint, itchy dissatisfaction, a vague sense that something was chemically off inside him. He felt mildly shitty, like the first hint of a coming fever, but without the heat.
He couldn’t pinpoint why. His body just felt wrong.
The memory of Asterion’s laugh, rich and booming in the cavern, scraped across his nerves. The image of the innkeep’s knowing grin followed. Elias stood up, sheathing the sorry blade with a violent shove. The indignity of it was a live coal in his chest. He couldn’t suffer it. Not the defeat, not the humiliating aftermath, not the way that beast had looked at him like a entertaining morsel.
He walked into the deeper woods, away from the path. He found a clearing where the afternoon light dappled the moss. He drew the sword. Its weight was a lie; it felt dead in his hand.
He began to train.
He drilled basic forms until his shoulders screamed, the clumsy blade cutting useless arcs in the air. He imagined the minotaur’s bulk, the sweep of a horn, the casual backhand that had disarmed him. He parried phantom blows, his feet scrambling on the uneven ground. Every movement felt slow, graceless, infuriating.
“Again,” he hissed to the empty clearing.
He charged a imaginary Asterion, a raw yell tearing from his throat, and brought the sword down in a two-handed chop aimed at a thick birch trunk. The impact juddered up his arms. The cheap steel bit into the wood, but not deeply. He wrenched it free, panting. Sweat stung his eyes.
His lungs burned. The hollow feeling in his gut yawned wider, a pit that the physical exertion couldn’t fill. It felt like exhaustion, but deeper, marrow-deep. He leaned against the birch, the bark rough against his sweaty back. He slid down to the moss.
He stared at his hands. They were shaking. From fatigue, he told himself. Just from the training.
But the tremors felt familiar. They were the same fine vibrations that had wracked him on the black marble floor, before the fight had even begun. The memory of that peculiar, spiced musk wafted through his mind, unbidden. His mouth watered, just slightly, then went dry.
“No,” he muttered. He pushed himself up. He sheathed the sword. The determination was a cold, hard knot in his throat. This wasn’t over. He would get stronger. He would learn. He would go back.
He would beat that fucking monster.
The walk back to the inn was quiet. The vague, shitty feeling clung to him, a faint nausea in his blood. Inside, the common room was louder. Onyx and Tommen had been joined by a few others, their table now crowded with tankards and a haunch of greasy meat.
“There’s the ghost!” Tommen boomed, his face flushed. “Get over here, Vance. You look like you need a drink more than any of us.”
Elias approached, the noise pressing in on him. He took a vacant stool.
“Where’d you vanish to all day?” Onyx asked, pushing a full tankard toward him. His eyes were sharper than Tommen’s, missing little.
“Training,” Elias said. He took a long swallow. The ale was warm and slightly sour. It did nothing for the hollow ache.
“Training?” A mercenary named Kelt, with a scar bisecting his lip, snorted. “For what? Another go at the horned king?” He laughed, a wet, unpleasant sound. “Save your coin for whores, kid. It’s a better use of your time.”
The table chuckled. Elias’s grip tightened on the tankard handle.
“He’s got spirit,” Tommen said, clapping Elias on the back. “I’ll give him that.”
Onyx was watching him. “What’s your plan, then? Different sword? Different tactic? Pray harder?”
Elias met his gaze. “I’ll figure it out.”
“He’s got to get past the smell, first,” Kelt said, leaning in with a conspiratorial leer. “That’s what old Brenn told me. He fought one, years back, up north. Said the stink of the thing alone will foul your blood, make your head swim. Like rotten flowers and hot bullshit.”
The description was crude, wrong. Elias’s mind supplied the accurate, haunting detail: cloying sweetness, spiced honey, musk. His traitorous tongue remembered the salted, bitter cream of its finish. The hollow feeling in his stomach twisted, a sudden, sharp pang of something that felt alarmingly like want.
He shoved the feeling down, drowning it with another gulp of ale. “I’ll manage,” he said, his voice flat.
“Sure you will,” Kelt said, winking. “Bring us back a horn as a trophy. I’ll buy the drinks.”
The conversation moved on, to bounties and bar fights and the upcoming fair. Elias sat silently amidst the roar. The determined knot in his throat remained.
He finished his ale. He stood.
“Turning in already?” Tommen asked.
“More training tomorrow,” Elias said, and it was the truth. He would train until his muscles failed. He would go back to that black marble chamber. He would win.
He had to.
He had to.
The next week passed in a haze of gritted teeth and burning muscles. Dawn found Elias in the forest clearing, his cheap sword a familiar, disappointing weight. He moved through forms until his tendons felt like frayed rope, the blade whispering through the damp morning air. He practiced footwork on the moss-slick roots, drilling pivots and retreats until his calves cramped. The hollow ache in his gut was a constant, dull companion.
It wasn't hunger. It was a vacancy, a quiet wrongness in his blood. Some mornings it was a faint tremor in his hands. Others, a low-grade nausea that made the world seem thinly layered, like paint over rot. He blamed poor sleep. He blamed the inferior food at the inn. He told himself it was the shame, burning a hole through his spirit. The memory of that cavernous chamber, of the warmth that had followed, felt like a dream belonging to someone else.
He found a heavier fallen branch and used it as a makeshift training dummy, hacking at it until splinters flew. He imagined it was a thick, furred limb. He imagined driving his blade deep into amber-eyed arrogance. His strikes grew frantic, fueled by the rising buzz of wrongness under his skin. The impact shuddered up his arms, a dull pain that felt cleaner than the undefined sickness swimming in his veins. He fought until his breath sawed in his throat, until sweat dripped from his chin and pattered on the dry leaves below. Exhaustion, when it came, was a blessing. It drowned out the quieter, needling discomfort.
In the afternoons, he ran. He pounded along deer trails, through thickets that tore at his clothes, up rocky inclines that burned his lungs. The physical punishment was a language he understood. The ragged gasps for air, the stitch in his side, the leaden feeling in his legs—these were honest. They were not this creeping, formless malaise that made his skin feel two sizes too small. Pushing through the wall of fatigue became the only goal. Each day, he tried to run farther, climb higher, lift a heavier rock.
One evening, he returned to the inn later than usual, muscles twitching with pleasant fatigue. The hollow feeling was still there, but buried deeper under layers of honest exhaustion. He felt, for the first time in days, a flicker of something like control. He ate at the bar, tearing into a meat pie, and the simple act of chewing felt grounding.
Onyx slid onto the stool next to him, a tankard in hand. "You smell like a damp dog and look worse. Progress?"
Elias wiped gravy from his chin with the back of his hand. "Some." His voice was hoarse from disuse. "Sword's shit, but I'm getting faster."
"Speed won't help if he catches you." Onyx took a slow drink. "Which he will. He's bigger, stronger, and he knows that maze of a palace blindfolded. You're relying on luck, Vance. And yours is famously terrible."
"Then I'll make my own," Elias grunted, shoveling in another mouthful. The food tasted like nothing, but it was fuel.
The food tasted like nothing, but it was fuel. Onyx just shrugged and gestured with his tankard toward the far side of the common room. A woman with coppery hair was nursing a drink by the fire, her profile sharp in the flickering light. “See that? Arrived today. Merchant’s guard. Looks like she could bend a horseshoe with those hands. Probably likes her men persistent.” She nudged Elias’s boot with her own. “Go buy her a drink. You need to think about something other than getting your skull caved in by livestock.”
Elias followed his gaze. The woman was handsome, with a strong jaw and eyes that missed nothing. A year ago, a week ago, his blood would have quickened. A nervous, eager heat would have pooled in his belly. Now, he just felt a distant, clinical assessment. She was attractive. It meant nothing. The space inside him where that interest should flame was occupied by a colder, more singular focus. “Not tonight,” he said, turning back to his pie. “I’m up at first light.”
Onyx stared at him. “You’re joking.”
Elias pushed his empty plate away. The hollow ache was a familiar throb beneath his ribs. “I’m just not in the mood.”
“No heat,” Onyx repeated, her tone flat with disbelief. She shook her head. “Gods. You’re serious. Maybe you will win next time. You’ve got the focus of a monk now.”
Elias stood, the stool legs scraping on the floorboards. “Something like that.”
The stale air of the inn clung to his clothes as he climbed the stairs. Inside his rented room, the silence felt thicker than the darkness. He stripped, the coarse linen shirt sticking to his damp back. The ghost of a scent, something sweet and animal, seemed to whisper from the folds of his bedding.
He ignored it. Naked, he stood before the basin, splashing tepid water on his face and chest. The candlelight glanced off the lean muscles of his stomach, the faint trail of hair below his navel. His body was a tool. It was harder, leaner than it had been a week ago. It was his.
His hand drifted down, fingers brushing his own soft cock. A routine thought flickered—release some tension, ensure a clear head for tomorrow’s training. He gave himself a few perfunctory tugs. The skin moved. Nothing stirred. No blood-rush, no spark. It was like handling a piece of uncooked dough.
He dropped his hand, frowning at his reflection. He felt no frustration, only a vague puzzlement. His mind, instead of conjuring the coppery-haired guard or any faceless, welcoming woman, served him a single, unwanted image: the cavern’s obsidian mirror, and the huge, dark shape reflected within it. He turned away from the basin and fell into bed, the lack of interest a minor, unremarkable fact.
Sleep, when it came, was thin and full of the sound of steel ringing against stone.
The next five days became a ruthless, self-inflicted liturgy. At dawn, he was in the clearing, a phantom minotaur his only sparring partner. He worked on closing distance, on using his smaller size to duck and weave. He practiced falling, tumbling to cushion impacts, springing back up with the cheap sword already angled for a hamstring or groin. The blade was a disappointment, but his body was learning.
His diet was bread, hard cheese, occasional tough meat. The hollow feeling persisted, a quiet background hum. Sometimes, in the lull between drills, a vivid sense-memory would ambush him: the exact texture of hot, velvety skin against his lips, the shocking bitterness of the seed that had followed. He would shake his head, physically dispelling the thought, and attack the training dummy with renewed, snarling fury.
He wasn’t craving. He was remembering a weapon used against him. The warmth he recalled was a trick, a sedative. This clarity, this focus, was his answer. His body was a coiled spring. The wrongness he felt was just the old shame, being burned away by pure effort.
One afternoon, he caught a rabbit in a snare. He skinned it with efficient, grim movements, roasted it over a small fire. As he ate, the greasy meat satisfying a deep physical hunger, he realized his hands were perfectly steady. The fine tremors were gone. A solid, clean strength had settled into his bones.
He felt good.
Not just determined. Good. The world seemed sharper. The green of the leaves was more vivid, the smell of damp earth more potent. His own sweat carried the honest perfume of hard work, not fear. The memory of the chamber was still there, but it had lost its power to sickened him. Now, it was a problem to be solved. A tactical challenge.
He stood, rolling his shoulders. A current of readiness thrummed under his skin. He was faster. He was smarter. He knew the enemy’s first moves now, knew the crushing weight of him, the mocking tone. He wouldn’t be surprised again. He wouldn’t be overwhelmed.
He hefted the cheap sword. It was still a poorly-made piece of shit. But it was sharp. And he knew exactly where he needed to put it.
Elias Vance walked out of the forest, his stride long and sure. He didn’t head toward the inn. He turned onto the old mountain path, the one that led up to the fissure in the rock, the one that breathed out air cold enough to make your teeth ache.
The hollow feeling was gone. In its place was a single, crystalline purpose. It sat in his gut like a polished stone.
He was going back to the Horned King’s Chamber.
He was going to win.