In the silent dark, Archibald Desnay let out a pained breath.
He’d have said it was a miracle, if not for the fact that Stonefell and the Duke still needed him alive.
Chained against the wall, he thanked his ancestors for his strength, and the gods for their mercy. If not for his dwarven heritage, the Duke would’ve left him a bloody smear on the wall of Kerrion Stonefell’s dungeons.
Stonefell. That monster.
A few moons previously, the Kestrel had leaked the date of the next meeting of the Briarwoods’ cabal. Merse, their best archer, had tried to put an arrow through the monster’s thick skull as he and his guards traveled up to the castle. Merse missed by an inch.
The next morning, every house on that street was ash.
Archibald closed his eyes shut, both out of pain (oh Pelor, please say that his arms weren’t broken) and to keep the tears back. But a few hours ago, he’d seen Merse and several of his other friends killed by those damn giants.
The pain of his wounds lingered, festering, in the quiet dark. With every beat of his heart, a new ache shot through his body. Despite the pain, he knew he had to rest. Otherwise he might very well be broken by the Duke’s hand.
In the soundless midnight, his thoughts drifted into a haze of pain and incoherence, neither asleep nor alert.
At some point, sounds broke through the restless silence. His eyelids twitched at the disturbance, and pain flickered beneath his skull. Was it time already?
He sagged in his chains. Maybe if he pretended to be too wounded to be coherent- which would barely be an act, at this point- he’d have more time.
No, no… at this point, it might be better to let them finish him off. He was no use to Whitestone, not in his current state.
The noises continued, and he let out a soft moan. Was a little peace in the face of the reaper too much to ask?
The sounds grew louder, slowly, slowly, until there was a discernable cadence to them, like a mix of drums and violins.
Oh? Oh…
So that was it, then. He’d passed already, and the darkness he’d thought to be his cell was instead the lightlessness of death. Why, then, was he still in pain?
A crash broke through the musical twilight, and his eyes shot open. Light? Was his judgement already passed? Had the darkness been the ephemeral embrace of the Raven Queen?
His sight focused, and his breath caught in his throat. Percy…?
It was him. Why him, of all people, Archibald was not sure. He suspected, though.
He’d failed Whitestone, failed to protect its people, failed to protect his fellows… so why did Percy de Rolo, hair as white as an angel, one of the first victims of the Briarwoods, look so relieved?
“Thank you,” the spirit said. “Thank you, for fighting.”
With a wave of vertigo, he world careened from light to dark to light to dark, and he felt the near-forgotten weight of his shackles suddenly lifted.
Then he was slumped over someone’s shoulder, and lucidity crashed through his veins.
He was still alive. As was Percival. And, from the looks of the situation, Whitestone’s rebellion had received some unexpected reinforcements.
Archie took a breath and gathered his strength. He wasn’t done fighting yet.
---
Archibald Desnay shot one final glance at the burning manor of the late Kerrion Stonefell, and the childhood friend that was taking in that same view.
Sympathy swirled in Archie’s stomach. Percival had not been the first person he’d seen consumed with the rage of vengeance. The first few months after the Briarwoods’ coup were now a haze to him, but he’d seen many people- man, woman, child- throw themselves at the monsters of Whitestone with the fury of the aggrieved.
Percy has been one of the scant few to survive that leap, though. And the change that had passed over his face when he’d been told of Cassandra’s survival was a comfort. Perhaps Percival could come back from the ledge that so many others had fallen from.
Archibald wasn’t sure, though. (He wasn’t sure of many things these days.) For a few pure moments in that dungeon, he’d been convinced he was dead, and seen the ghost of his childhood friend. A pain-induced hallucination, he knew now, but a convincing one nonetheless.
Perhaps in a way, he really had seen the ghost of the friend he’d once known, perished as surely as many others had on that wretched night. Some part of the hearts of all in Whitestone had curled in the pallor of death in those hours. Archibald himself was far from the hoodlum he’d been five years past.
Yes, he’d indeed seen the ghost of who Percy had been. The real question, then, is as thus: who is the Percy he’d met today?