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Black chains sank between Ren Tallion’s hands as he sat with his head down in a dimly lit cell. An enchantment on the wall echoed voices through his cell, “Today we have one of the most heinous crimes committed in this land. Ren Tallion stands trial for the rape of our own princess.”. Tears fell down Ren’s face knowing in his heart he was not guilty. The fact he was even here was a deep betrayal from the woman who claimed she loved him. One moment she was saying that they would elope away from this place far away together and the next he was in chains. A chill ran across his ankles as he felt the tightness of the shackles press with a deep discomfort against the ball of his ankle. It would be a struggle to walk out there without a limp. The guard came to the door of the cell and spoke “It’s time for you to get what you deserve Ren” with a maniacal smile on his face. Ren’s heart felt too heavy to deny anything. If the one person he had spent his whole life loving deeply in secret would turn on him the second their love saw the light of day, he didn’t want to exist in a world like that. A sharp pain simultaneously flared through Ren’s ankles and wrists as the guard yanked his chains. He fell to the floor as a wetness ran down his ankles. “Aww you’re bleeding? Get used to that.” As Ren felt a steel toe boot go through his cheek jarring some teeth loose. “Calm down Ackers. We gotta get him to court in one piece.” another guard came up the hallway. Ackers responded, “Just getting my shots in while I can.”. Ren’s vision spun as blackness crept at the edges of his vision beckoning for the sweet relief of sleep. Ren focused with a heavy motivation as he thought “If I’m going to die today, I’m going to make sure I look her in the eyes. That’s the least she can do for stabbing me in the back.” The other guard lifted Ren up from underneath his shoulders, “Stand up. We’re not done with you.”. “That’s a tough bastard.” Ackers was taken aback. “take the other shoulder. Cause you put your boot through his face you’re gonna have to help me drag his ass to court.” the guard said. “well worth it though” Ackers glanced at me with a smile. The walk was quiet for the rest of the hallway and Ackers held me up while the other guard opened a black metal door. As it creaked open, the light blinded Ren and even Ackers covered his eyes, “Damn I gotta lay off the long shifts in the dark and get a little sun here and there.”. Ren was guided into a courtroom full of people surrounding an empty circle in the center of the room. The floor had ornate gem like colors that pulsed with every step. When the guards arrived, Ackers whispered in his ears “don’t get any funny ideas with that magic of yours. Unless you want your death to come sooner. I can definitely oblige that.”. Ackers then threw Ren into the center of the court room in a way that felt like it was boosted by magic. He landed on his back and the air left his lungs as he gasped. Gathering his strength for the trial before him, Ren slowly rolled over to stand. Despite his efforts, his legs gave out and he fell to his knees. When Ren’s eyes looked up he could see a cascade of faces blur and then come into focus. Maven sat with them with a cold face and this invoked a pit inside his chest. Her smile was so fresh in his mind and looking at her now he felt like he never really knew her. His eyes looked up in defiance to the panel that had the whole royal family. Maven Briar, Gavin Briar (her brother), Queen Pricilla Briar, and King Lucian Briar all looked down at him with a cold scorn from a row of ornate and glowing chairs that seemed to silence the whole room without a single need for words. The pressure of their gaze held a weight that magic could never muster. King Lucian spoke, “Ren Tallion, you were once a deeply trusted member of my court. You were my friend and you could have had anyone to wed in the court. Despite that, you pursued an unrequited love to the most heinous of reaches. For this, I cannot be the judge nor the executioner for it’s not even my place as the king to bestow this judgment on you. Appropriately, I leave you to the wrath of the woman you hurt to determine your fate. Even god will not have mercy on your soul for what you have done. Maven made her way to the center ahead of the chairs where a podium rose from the ground like a magic plant sprouting instantly at the first sun of spring. Her eyes were bloodshot which echoed the tension in her body and she clasped her fists around the cuffs of her formal black dress. “Ren, you were my closest friend.” she choked up as tears dripped down her face without pause. “I want you and everyone to know despite my shame that I am with child because of what you did. Every day it grows inside of me like a poison.” The crowd gasped in unison with the whole royal family who seemed to lean forward in protest before Maven gestured a hand for calm. Lucian tensed but reluctantly sat back in his bright red and gold throne. Ren sank his head in defeat and he couldn’t stop the storm of tears and pain that clawed at the reaches of his very being. “This child will share in your crimes. You deserve a fate worse than death. I hereby sentence you to the Tartarus pit for the rest of your short and miserable life. I will birth the child only to slit it’s throat before your eyes.” The crowd gasped again at the statement. Scorn layered Maven’s features into the antithesis of everything that Ren thought he knew. This didn’t make any sense. It was like a nightmare that he wished he could wake up from and be in her loving arms again. What was left to live for anyways? Ren wanted nothing more than an execution. “Take him away” King Lucian stood and decreed as he ushered for Maven to make her way back to her chair. She broke down into tears that made her seem to melt into her chair. Ren’s heart was rushing in his chest and despite the pain, despite the betrayal, his last words as he left the room were quiet and choked “I love you”. Ackers perked up but didn’t quite catch what Ren said. “If you got something to say just f*****g spit it out” he put his finger on Ren’s chin that was bruised and felt broken. Pain shot through Ren’s face at even the slightest touch of Ackers’ finger. He wouldn’t let himself cringe to the likes of him. Ackers shoved his face to the side and pain shot in a rush through Ren’s whole head. The guards made him walk and every step pounded waves of throbbing pain through his head. The cell became a welcome reprieve despite the pain of him being thrown in. His body felt small as he curled up trying to let himself rest on the stone floor. In his dreams, he was a child again on the day he met Maven. The gardens of the palace were surrounded by flowers of magic with diverse vibrant colors that seemed to blend with the very air. Ren could smell the flowers like he was there. Maven was walking through a field of flowers in a white dress as Ren’s eyes followed her in astonishment. Her brown hair flowed with the wind in an almost uniform beauty. The flowers in her dark blue dress seemed to blend with the field where Ren couldn’t tell where the flowers ended and where she began. Even from that distance, Maven caught him staring and offered him a smile. Before Ren realized it, his face was flushed red. “Be careful what you wish for son. Gardens of flowers have more thorns than you will ever know” Ren turned around to see his father and a bashful fear crept into his chest. “Don’t worry.” Ren’s dad winked, “your secret is safe with me”. The dream then went into a smoky window of his father standing in a window without a word. With a side glance back, his father leaped into the darkness without a goodbye. The last memory of Ren’s father wasn’t more than bloodstains on the cobblestone. The memory faded to a smoky contrast to Ren throwing rocks at Maven’s window the night after his father’s suicide. She held him as he broke into tears, “i have nothing left” Ren cried into her chest. “You will have me Ren. I promise.” She lifted his face with a longing look that Ren read. She pulled his head into hers and they kissed deeply until she could feel his tears dropping down her face. When she pulled back she said with a chuckle a she felt a tear dripping down her cheek, “now we both cry your tears”. Ren let out laughter and caught himself glancing out the window. “How can this ever work?” He asked with his arms slacking from her embrace. “Love always finds a way” she smiles, “for now, you should go”. Beyond that night, Ren visited every night. King Lucian actually hired Ren onto the personal guard for Maven (at Maven’s request of course). They staged an incident where a thief broke in and tried to kill Maven and from that night, King Lucian commanded that she be under guard all night. Maven had said she only trusted one guard to that task. That first night, Ren wore lighter armor because seemingly the moment he walked into the room, the kissing started and they made love all through the night. Night after night they made love and Ren was in bliss until King Lucian hosted a ball. A man from a neighboring kingdom asked her to dance and Ren felt a sinking feeling in his chest watching her dance with this man. Beauty put this man under a magnifying glass and Ren saw everything he could never be. Every way he could never measure up to Maven. That night came later and when Maven started to peel his clothes off, he stopped her, “Not tonight”. Ren’s long brown hair sank to his knees as he sat forward on the bed. “What is it?” Maven gestured, “Leon? He’s nothing. Just another bureaucrat trying to work his way into the family. He’s one of many and i simply humor them for my father’s sake.”. Ren looked up at her still with a heaviness in his heart, “I cannot be them. I cannot ever fully be yours. You cannot ever fully be mine.”. “Love finds a way” Maven clutched his head in her hands. “I don’t see how it will anymore” Ren held her hands and her gaze. “Maybe we need to get away from here. A place where we can be who we are and not what we are.” She pulled away and went to the moonlit window to gaze at the dark grey clouds silhouetting the night sky. “Do you know what you’re really planning here? You would give up everything you know and live in poverty. I would risk my life and you would risk living like a caged bird for the rest of your life.” He walked over and touched her shoulder. Maven turned and kissed him and before he let himself melt into her, he felt the ridges of her body pressed supple against him. Into the depths of his soul, he counted the seconds of this moment wishing for these seconds to never end. After some silence passed she spoke, “to live in a poor truth would be exponentially richer than to live in this golden lie.”. Tears filled her eyes and instinct kicked in to hold her head into his chest. “I’ll do it with you.” A breath left Ren’s lips in a sigh of defiance. She looked up and they kissed. When Ren woke, pain shot through his whole head as sunlight from the window shone through. Today would be the day he would be sentenced to Tartarus. Not only would he be a slave for the rest of his days but every night he slept, he would be subject to experiments by artificers of the college. Ren wanted to close his eyes and slip into his dreams again where he was young, naive, and in love. This cell aged him by decades along with his injuries. Eternity seemed to pass though the walls and the floor beneath him didn’t waver. Sleep didn’t find Ren again until the night came. His pain, at that point, became a part of him enough where sleep finally came. Today was not the day they would come. Tonight was a dreamless sleep which invoked despair into Ren’s core. When the next morning came, he woke to being drug out of his cell to a magic prison ship. Daylight pierced his eyes despite Ren shielding his face. Finally, he gave in and gritted through the light, allowing himself to adjust. In the light shone a majestic flying ship of wood hovering in a canal of air. The ship was beautiful in an antithesis to chained and hopeless people being pulled on ushered to the oblivion of Tartarus. Even at a distance Ren could see the death in their eyes. Irises were devoid of hope and humanity itself. Would his eyes shine like moonlight in the sun like theirs? Pleading for darkness as his last words to Maven felt like he left himself behind just as she did. Like even Ren’s shadow hated him and wandered off to live with that hateful and cold stare. Ren couldn’t see Maven’s smile anymore. Ackers happily attached his chains to the next line onto the Tartarus Express. “Welcome to the rest of your pathetic life” Ackers parted with 2 soft playful taps against Ren’s still broken chin. Despite the pain shooting through his face, Ren glared daggers back at Ackers. He longed for nothing more than to burn this man alive with his elemental magic. The line moved and the floating wooden ship ceased to be beautiful. Ahead of Ren was his tunnel to oblivion. Blood now coated dryly on his foot shackles and Ren’s wrists were a deep purple. Black chains absorbed the sunlight even more and the metal started to feel hot around Ren’s wrists. A fruitless attempt was made to curl his wrists into himself to maintain some sort of relief but the people in front of him and behind them pulled the chains tight. “Don’t hide from the pain. If you let the pain win, they win” an older voice came from behind me in broken English from behind me. “I just want to die” i sighed. “We all do son.” He chuckled. “ their healers will make sure that never happens. They reserve the best healers in the nation between war and Tartarus and we aren’t at war.”. “Never thought I’d live to see the day i hoped for war.” Ren laughed keeping his head forward. “What’s your name?” The old man asked. “Ren. You?”, “Gabriel”. Silence filled the gap as we got onto the ship and lined up side by side. Gabriel was an old man in his 70’s with surprisingly good posture. A light gentle smile coated his features despite the contrasting despair in his eyes that everyone around them had. Gabriel had grey hair that was finite in the face of balding. “Welcome to the Vindicator. I’m Captain Uhlgha. I want this to be clear, I do not work for Tartarus, it’s only my job to get your sorry asses to your oblivion. If any of you so much as think of harming my crew or my ship in even the smallest way, you’ll know a hell worse than Tartarus. Now!” She shouted which perked everyone up, “line up and we are going to get everyone healed. I will not be delivering faulty merchandise.”. Some of the dead looks in the crowd seemed to slightly light up in response to that. Ren even looked forward to his jaw not being broken anymore. When the healers started working on Ren, euphoria spread through his body and didn’t leave. “We’re going to unchain you. From what i hear, you’ll also remain unchained in your new homes. Quite frankly for you to keep them would be a waste of perfectly good black metal. There’s not much out there that can withstand magic like that.” Captain Uhlgha continued her speech. Ren felt the shackles come off magically and drop to the floor. This all felt too good to be true. Prisoners looked around confused and one made a sprint to jump off the deck in hopes he would fall to his death but a barrier pushed him back. Uhlgha laughed “good luck with that lad. You won’t be getting off that easy. Also, a word of advice. Try not to f**k each other on my ship. I don’t mind you having a good time but you don’t want to risk bringing a kid into that place.”. Everyone dispersed after that and wandered about the deck. Ren stood at the edge looking down and realized that he didn’t notice the Vindicator take flight. Even the sails didn’t seem to sway and it was baffling to think they’ve been flying that whole time and didn’t notice. Gabriel stood next to Ren as he looked out. “Get a good look son. I don’t imagine we will ever see this place again.” He ushered as the castles and city grew smaller in the horizon. “Good riddance” Ren felt an odd relief. He still loved Maven but maybe getting far away from that life was the best he could hope for. Though he had never heard of Tartarus beyond it being the worst place to get put, he did fantasize about escaping and maybe starting over. “If this ship could take you anywhere in this world, where would you go?” Ren asked. “Frankly, I’d probably find a quiet place in the forests. Elves keep to themselves and at worst they’d be good neighbors. Maybe a wild beast will get me but i don’t really like the idea of dying of old age. That’s too boring if i do say so myself. That sounded like something you thought about too,didn’t you?” He nudged him. A wry smile came on Ren’s lips and Gabriel let out a laugh, “i know there won’t be much to laugh about but I’d like to think we can find our way to at least a little joy while we’re in there.” Gabriel’s smile grew wry too. “Honestly, I never really thought of what life would be outside of Karamhea. I’ve always fallen and had someone to catch me. Just when you think you have nothing left, life finds a way to tell you there’s always something if you look.” Ren stared out into the sky and felt the breeze come past the magic barrier. A thought crossed his mind I wish i could be the wind right now and just fly away. Gabriel chuckled “well i sure as hell won’t catch you. I’m too old for that shit.” He walked away chuckling to himself and Ren couldn’t help but laugh. After a moment, he turned around and looked at all the people scattered through the deck. Maybe meeting the people he would be living with could be beneficial. A woman with short brown hair and piecing eyes called over to him, “hey pretty boy. Come here.”. Ren gestured to himself and got a nod so he awkwardly made his way over there. “What’s your name?”she was forward. “Ren” he shrugged shyly, “oh don’t be so bashful. I’m Celine.” She punched his shoulder. “So I’m thinking the nights might get cold if you know what I mean.” She stroked at his hair. Only in this moment did he realize how badly he smelled and looked. “Think on it” she winked and walked away. She honestly wasn’t bad looking and Ren found himself looking more closely at her as she left. Maybe this was his broken heart talking but he thought it might be nice. Night came and some of the prisoners made their way to the cabin and Captain Uhlgha laughed as she shut the door, “prisoners stay outside. Crew only in the cabins.” As the doors shut there was laughter on the other side as a couple of prisoners sank down next to the door in defeat. Looking around for a spot to sleep he saw Celine curled up next to another prisoner. Ren let out a sigh “I guess I didn’t have long to think.”. The guy she was laying with was tall and lanky with long hair and a bit of a bony face. Gabriel was posted up between a cabin and the rails, “you know, most people don’t really think about this spot as being warmer but they don’t know magic. You want tunnels like this because you can channel a subtle fire spell to keep you warm safely without any issues.” He laid down and let his palm get hot to the point of smoky. Embers formed in his palm and the air got warmer. “You see, people think of conductivity on a more scientific level to the point they limit themselves. They never stopped to question their reality enough to try new things.” they watched the air turn red and glow, “magic conducts magic!” He said enthusiastically, “you try son” he ushered. Ren focused inside of himself and to channel fire he went back mentally to the anger he felt when Maven’s family was looking down at him. His hands grew hot and he channeled that anger through his palm. In breathing through his channeling, Ren was able to create embers in his palm that started to flow with the flux of the air. “If the whole ship did this everyone would be warm” Ren let out a jolt of surprise as he watched the flow of magic circulate the area. “Not everyone can use magic here and the few that can would get outed and punished for doing so.” Gabriel shrugged, “before you ask, don’t worry. We are fine. A couple people can do spells here no problem. But if everyone went and did it, that would be a precedence set that the captain wouldn’t take lightly.”. Silence fell for a moment and Ren just laid down staring at the sky. The edges of Ren’s eyes darkened and he slipped into his own exhaustion. The rising of the sun set a bright flare that pierced Ren’s eyeballs, causing him to come to a state of wakefulness. In a state of instinct he tried to rise but felt a weight on the side of his body. When Ren’s eyes fully opened, he saw Celine curled up under his arm. She looked like a cat curled up so close. “Trouble in paradise?” Ren chuckled to himself as Celine came to a state of wakefulness herself. She was groggy but gave Ren’s arm a little punch. “It’s warm over here.” She curled back into him. Gabriel was already up and raising an eyebrow at Ren. Before Gabriel walked away, Ren just gave a shrug. When Ren looked down, Celine looked up with eyes that seemed to glisten in the morning night, “I like your energy” Celine said softly. Ren looked around for that other guy but he couldn’t spot him as people were getting up. Celine stretched and walked off with a wink, “See you later tiger”. Ren looked up and saw the captain at the front of the ship. She looked out through a spyglass into the distance. Ren was bold enough to approach her, “How long is this journey looking?”. The people around cowered back but Uhlgha was surprisingly gentle and had a smile on her face, “Someone is in a rush to being tortured the rest of their lives”. Ren remained silent and crossed his arms and she shouted to the whole ship, “To anyone that wants to know, this journey will be about a week. Not the easiest journey because they want you to know how hopeless escape is so enjoy the scenery.”.