Chapter Text
First came the whippings, each lash like a brand, the lashes not counted in the single digits, but the tens.
Tharkay did not bother to count. He braced his hands against the rough wooden pole, and in his head snarled out every profanity he knew in nine languages.
Next they drowned him, or at least, went through the motions. Vampires did not need to breathe. But their lungs still remembered it, still yearned for it, and somewhere after the tenth dunk, they gasped for breath regardless, and the water rushed in like consumption, choking.
Tharkay occupied himself listing every species of bird he knew across four continents.
Afterwards, they broke his hands. One finger after the other, alternating between right and left. Each time pausing, promising the pain could stop, that blood would be his, if only he gave the confession they desired.
Tharkay did not give it. He barely listened. He was naming every constellation he had ever seen spread across the night sky.
The sky. He missed the sky. He wondered if he would ever see it again.
His captors gave him time to recover between each session, though of course no true recovery would ever be possible, with him so starved. Intermittently they fed him— perhaps every few days, perhaps once a week, perhaps less, he could not reckon. A soupy porridge of rice and blood meal; all a vampire could need, in a single bowl.
It was never enough. It was never anywhere near enough. And as the confinement and the beatings and the demands continued, Tharkay felt his whole world narrowing, thinning to a razor's edge, him balanced upon it, teetering—
He did not fall. Where was there even to fall to? His primary captors were also vampires, at least at first. As he weakened they traded them out for less valuable human guards, wearing peach wood necklaces and carrying jujube seeds and garlic in their pockets. In this state, those tokens were more than sufficient to repel him. He was not sure if he could have fought them even had they been naked and unarmed.
There was no prey here.
"The opium," someone yelled at him; they jangled a scroll in his face. "Confess, tell us you brought it."
"No," Tharkay said.
They hauled him to his feet. Half pushed him, half carried him, through a warren of dark tunnels. He tried to count the turns, as he had the birds and the constellations, but the numbers slipped out of his mind. As he tried to recount them, he realised it was abruptly becoming much brighter.
It seemed he would see the sky again, at least one final time.
There were a multitude of supernatural skills a vampire could cultivate over the courses of their half-lives. There were vampires capable of lifting entire laden carts above their heads, and those who could spin a trance for hours. Since he had been turned, Tharkay had dedicated almost all of his attention and power to one skill over all else: survival.
It was for that reason and that reason alone, that for half a breath there was no pain, only brilliant blue overhead and a gentle warmth, like a caress on his cheek.
And then it began to burn.
Tharkay closed his eyes, for all it accomplished literally nothing, and began to list breeds of dragons in his head.
His spine cracked. His muscles spasmed, contorted. Screamed. His vision went red, then white. The sun was above him, only above him, yet he felt it through his body entire. His rags may have well have burned away. His rags, his skin, his tissue, flayed to the bone. He screamed, he screamed.
He did not even reach 'C' for 'Celestial' before—
Blood.
Sweet, salty, vitalblood.
It filled is mouth, and overflowed, dribbled down his lips, his chin. It buoyed him, rejuvenated him, revived him.
But no. No, something was wrong. Where had the blood come fr—
From Sara.
She seemed to glow in the candlelight, her eyes warm brown pools, her smile gentle and her neck slender, the two red pinpricks marking her as his—
But no. No, that had never happened, he had never drunk from Sara.
Then who? Where had the blood come from?
Nowhere. There was no blood. Not truly. Just a few diluted drops in water. He was dying in a cave somewhere in China—
No. Not dying. Dying would be a mercy.
Tharkay was dimly aware of people moving, people speaking. Sometimes he could even follow their conversation, or respond to them. But more and more, the physical world seemed unreal. His mind was consumed by visions, hallucinations, and even knowing what they were it was hard to resist—
"But you must, Tenzing," Laurence said, clasping his hand. "After all that you have accomplished, surely you will not give up now?"
"I can''t," Tharkay croaked. "I am took weak."
"Then let me give you strength." With those words, he produced a knife, and scored the back of his hand in a single deft gesture. Reverently, like a man at prayer, Tenzing lifted Will's hand to his teeth and drank and drank and drank—
Someone laughed. "Pathetic creature. Look at you." He held out a glass vial, bright red. "Do you wish for blood?" He dangled it above his head.
Tharkay blinked at it. Slowly, he rose to his feet. Though he knew it was foolish, he stumbled forward, stretching out his hand—
The captor laughed, and kicked his legs out from under him. He fell to the floor.
The visions took on a different tint, after that. Darker. More savage.
He was no longer the helpless victim, curled up in the corner, mewling piteously. He was standing tall, strong, at the height of his power—
No. More than his height; at a peak previously never before reached. Had he not always flinched away from it, cowered? Always he had placed checks upon himself, balances. Always pay for his blood; do not take it by force; never drink too fast, or with too much urgency—
To what end?
All those rules, all those manners, they had been for nothing, ultimately.
Now he would take what was his.
He would spring forward— he would break the bars— they would snap just as easily as his captor's spines— they would scream, and they would be the helpless ones. They would try to run, but he would pin them with his gaze. Hold them there, frozen, as drank each of them dry, one after the other. Fangs plunged into unwilling flesh, their blood alive with their final rush of fear and desperation.
Oh, he saw it. The contempt in their eyes, still. Every time they looked at him. But he would find a way. All it would take was a single mistake on their part, a single forgotten open wound. Then he would have them. Then he would kill them all.
"Oh, but Tharkay, that does not sound very much like you at all," Temeraire said, nosing him with his massive muzzle.
Tharkay stiffened, looking away. "You deny that they deserve to die?"
"Not in the least. They have treated you most abominably, and so of course is only natural you should defend yourself." Insistent, the dragon drew him closer. "But there is self-defence, and there is joyful cruelty, and it is important for one to remember where one draws the line."
He was not certain how the massive dragon had fit himself into such a small space; he did not much care anymore. Tharkay leaned against the soothing warm leather of Temeraire's leg, fighting to keep his eyes open. "I do not know what other choice I have."
"Why not fly away?"
"I cannot."
"Yes, you can. We can. Together."
And suddenly Tharkay was aboard Temeraire's back, and the sky was a vast fault of silver stars, and with great massive wing-beats, they were rising, rising, far away from all of this—
He came very close to dying, that time. They spared an entire thimble of blood, to revive him.
"There will be more blood, cups of it, hot and fresh." A gentle hand against his head, close enough to hear the rush in the arteries. He flinched back. "You need only confess. Will you confess?"
"...Yes."
They did not lie to him, not on that score. They gave him blood, a whole spoonful this time, enough that the bones in his shattered hands stitched back together. Which was the intent, for now he could hold a quill again.
"Sign."
For the first time in— in longer than he could name— his vision was steady. He was able to read what was in front of him, the neat characters, black upon white. The quill was light and easy in his hand. Just write his name, on one page, then the next, and the next. Simple. A few strokes, nothing more. And then this pain could all end.
Tenzing Tharkay abruptly recalled himself.
He dropped the quill, and in a single gesture, tore the paper in half.
Even the latest round of beatings Tharkay sustained in punishment was not enough to wholly diminish the rejuvenating effects of the blood they had offered him. His hearing was therefore still keen enough that they could hear his captor's discussion, even through the metal door and down the end of another hall. "—ould have broken by this point. He is useless, a waste of resources."
"Best to kill him now, be done of him," agreed a second.
A third drummed their fingers against the wall. "No. There is still one last thing he might be useful for."
Tharkay rolled over on the palette, and did what little he could to cover his ears.
A pointless gesture, of course. But Tharkay only realised how truly futile everything had been when they pushed none other than William Laurence into his cell.