Chapter Text
It wasn't a good look for a child of the Great Darkness to predict the next one, especially so soon after the last, and the one before that.
In times past, they could have gone many decades, even a full century without seeing even one occurrence; a third so soon was bound to draw whispers and questions. Esharra checked his numbers again and again, but no matter how he approached the calculations, they all bore out to the same thing. The gods were angry, and would show their wrath in the way they always did.
As little as Esharra wished to bear this news, the longer he delayed, the less time they would have to prepare, to warn the royal family.
Though the last Great Darkness had come and gone without casualty, the king had passed tragically not long after. As the new king, Ashur-etil-ilani, had ascended to his throne, there were murmurings among the elder priests at the temple, a sense of motion, deliberation. It wasn't the first time Esharra had felt the vague outlines of the machinations at work among those more senior than he, and it wasn't the first he had vowed to stay far away from it.
So, he had dedicated himself instead to calculations, to studies, to observations of the heavens, rather than the gravitational forces that pulled and pushed at each other closer by.
And that was what led him now to the high priest's office one quiet pre-dawn, after a night spent observing the movements in the night skies, and what they meant for those down below.
The high priest was an ancient man who had always held this role, as far as the other priests could remember. Where some grew round as they aged, the high priest had instead shrunk into himself, becoming ever narrower, until a skeleton could have worn his robes with as much strain on the fabric. He stared down at Esharra's notes for a long while, tracing every single marking in the soft clay, before he looked up with a glare.
"Tell me, young one—are you causing this?"
"The calculations are correct," said Esharra stiffly. They could doubt him all they wanted, but they couldn't doubt math. "You need only do them yourself."
"No need to get snippy with me," the high priest responded. "And I didn't ask about the calculations."
No, thought Esharra, he had merely asked if Esharra had reached into the heavens and caused this cataclysm himself. If he had such powers, what would he be doing here?
"We must make preparations," Esharra pointed out. "I understand that in the last Great Darkening, no ill befell the royal family, due to our prompt action. How is it done, the Ritual of Essences? We must act swiftly, if we hope to weather this one as well as the last."
The high priest squinted up at him, then pushed the tablet back. "If your elders have not seen fit to inform you of the details, then it is none of your concern. Leave me. Send me instead the ones serving the king, whoever they are now."
"Nabonidus," said Esharra, startled that the high priest wouldn't even know. "And Semiramis, of course."
"Yes, yes," the high priest said, waving dismissively. "Their names do me no good, it is their persons I wanted you to fetch. At once, young one, at once."
***
When the priests came asking about his dreams again, Ashur was wiser. He was much older now, and king, and most importantly, he had been through this before: the scar giving new crease to his palm was proof of that. He looked between Nabonidus and Semiramis, both so innocently inquisitive, and smirked.
"It was most curious. Once again, in my dream, I took the form of a falcon."
Even after all these years, Nabonidus still perked up. The only deference to his age was the hand he immediately put over his chin, trying to reign in his enthusiasm with a solemn look. The jet black fingernails looked like polished beetles as they tapped thoughtfully. This time, at least, he didn't interrupt.
"As I soared through the sky, feeling the warmth of the sun on my wings, what should appear before me but the hallowed halls of your own temple? I flew in through the upper windows, and landed amongst a number of bowed, praying forms. How very strange. I wonder what it could have meant?"
Because Nabonidus had been leaning in, the sudden motion of him drawing back was all the more pronounced. Even Semiramis, normally unshakable, took an unconscious step backward.
"But that can't be! The priesthood have taken vows of abstinence," Nabonidus said, and was quickly shushed by Semiramis beside him.
"What an interesting dream, Sire," she said, the visible portion of her face stiff and unamused. "We will need to consult with our elders as to what this might mean."
Ashur crowed to himself for all of an afternoon, but his victory was short-lived. Soon enough, Nabonidus and Semiramis were back and beckoning to him. Ashur nearly protested, but he had feigned ignorance of the meaning of their earlier question, and now he had to commit to his ruse.
Wordlessly, he followed them back out into the hot sun, and then into the cool dark of the temple. Even kinged, he had little reason to visit these halls, and they still felt just as eerily foreign to him as they had last time. Even on feast days, dedications were made in the palace, not in the echoing depths of the high temple.
Once again, they led him through a labyrinth of tunnels. There was the sense that they were descending ever deeper into the earth, though there were no downward steps, and if the floor was sloped, it was so gradual as to escape notice.
He couldn't have said if the chamber they finally stopped at was the same one, but a glimpse told him it was again set with the vases of roses, the crackling fireplace, the implements hung over the walls.
Knelt within it was a young man, thin where the blacksmith had been broad. Though divested of his split robes, the black tattoos running down his left arm marked him as one of the priesthood, perhaps a novitiate, from his age. This one had been allowed his modesty in the form of a sleeveless shift in a colorless gray. His hands weren't bound, and he held them in his lap, one marked, one bare, fanned out over each thigh.
"Your Imperial Majesty," he said smoothly, when Ashur entered, lowering his forehead until it kissed the ground. "My name is Esharra, if it pleases you. How may I be of service?"
"Surely you must know," Ashur said, heading straight for the bed. "It is your gods and your priests that command this of us."
"I have only been told that I may help guard you against the ill omen of the heavens. Beyond that, the specifics of the ritual are not disclosed to us."
Ashur studied the young man for any hint of deception. Though he'd given up on reading his own priests long ago, he couldn't help but feel that this youth earnestly bowed before him, stripped of the voluminous protection of his robes, was as open to him as those two were closed. "Very well. In that case, you can start with those daggers. Heat two of them in the fire, and bring them to me."
Esharra paled, but obeyed. His movements were halting, birdlike, as if used to frequent correction, and allowing ample pauses for it to be delivered. Ashur held his peace, observing the one who would die in his place prepare the ritual that would be necessary beforehand.
At his bidding, Esharra brought over the first of the two daggers, and knelt between his spread legs, holding it up with his arms over his head, like a sacrament. Ashur hooked him in closer, caging him with his legs, and draped the arms across each of his thighs. They were slender, nothing like the blacksmith's, what had his name been. But there was something so similar in the absolute acquiescence, surrendering his own limbs to Ashur to do as he willed.
The left arm was marked with ink, the kind every priest had scrawled over their skin. Ashur trailed a few of the lines idly with a finger, waiting for the knife to cool. Though he'd seen Nabonidus's and Semiramis's every day of his life, he'd never looked closely enough to notice that they made actual geometric shapes: circles and spirals, inscribed and intersected. He felt almost as if he could read a message within them, if he stared long enough.
"Each priest bears his own unique markings, Sire," Esharra offered diffidently. "The gods instruct us in a vision, and we display upon our bodies what we have been told."
Under his staring, Esharra's arm had started to appear disjoint: an artwork, rather than attached to a person. Dragging his eyes to Esharra's face had the jarring reverse effect, and Ashur couldn't afford that.
This was no longer a person, no more than his last substitute had been. Just a body to take his place, and that only long enough to die.
"Good of them to leave your right arm free for this," Ashur said, and brought the dagger down.
To Esharra's credit, he didn't scream, or flinch, or try to pull away. There was a whimper building in his throat, but he kept it low, as if not to disturb the one carving into him.
In his memories of the last Ritual of Essences, Ashur had remembered this part being difficult. What he had forgotten was how easily a sharp blade sliced into skin, welling the ruby blood to the surface. With Esharra's arms angled upward this time, the blood ran away from the incision, leaving clear skin for him to work with. By the time he made it to the back of Esharra's hand, there was red staining his tunic, dripping onto his lap, and he felt a strange relish for it, as if he were taking in the essence that his substitute was bleeding out, rather than the other way around.
"The next knife," Ashur commanded, tossing the current one aside with a clatter.
Esharra, so far holding in his noises, let out a little sob at that. His face was pale, his lips even whiter where he had been pressing them, but he staggered to his feet, and fetched the next blade as bid. Again, he returned to his place, and again, he returned his arms to Ashur's lap, one black, one now streaked with red.
Ashur blew onto the blade, as if cooling a porridge. Then he cut into his own palm, just under the original scar, and clasped it over the back of Esharra's hand.
As their blood mingled, Esharra stared dumbfounded, as if he'd expected the second knife to be for him as well.
"As your essence leaves, mine will enter," Ashur said, and Esharra blinked, then shook himself into focus. He looked down at their joined hands with a new curiosity, clearly puzzling over the words through the pain.
"What is the Ritual of Essences?" he wondered, strangely innocent for one of the priesthood.
It was more personality than an object, a sacrifice, was meant to show.
Ashur released him, and pushed him away.
"Not over, is what it is," he said curtly, swinging himself fully onto the bed, and lying back. There was blood on his tunic, blood on the sheets, blood on his hands yet again—but he found that it didn't bother him. "For now, though, you can see to our wounds. Then we'll continue."
As Esharra swayed to his feet, decidedly lightheaded, Ashur turned to watch the young man move around the room. The thin slip he wore left little to the imagination, especially as he bent to pick up the bandages, and nearly lost his balance. Ashur pictured pushing him the rest of the way over, dragging the hem of that thin fabric up his thighs.
"The priests of Ashur are celibate, are they not?" he said as he extended his hand, so that Esharra could clean the weeping cut. As the blood wiped away, Esharra froze at the sight of the thick old scar next to the fresh wound: its twin. Ashur had to snap his uninjured hand to regain the substitute's attention.
"Oh, yes, Sire," Esharra said hastily, resuming his work. "We dedicate our lives and our bodies wholly to our god."
"To Ashur," said Ashur, pointedly, and Esharra looked up, more sharp than he appeared, before he remembered himself.
"Yes, Sire," he said, voice faltering slightly. "To Ashur."
He moved on to wrap his own arm, fumbling awkwardly with the bandages. Ashur made no move to help. Every ginger move spoke of pain, but he did his work without complaint, only made his best attempt at pulling the bandages tight over the incisions. The end result didn't look half bad; perhaps the priests were trained in healing arts.
"Well, I have good news for you, little priest. Today, you will be called upon to dedicate your life and your body to Ashur more directly."
Esharra's eyes flicked up again, then back down. He swallowed, which drew Ashur's attention to the pale flesh of his throat, where a pulse was beating rapidly. "I don't follow your meaning, Sire."
Ashur lifted his hand, and wrapped it around that slender column, thumb pressing at the pulse point. For a moment the substitute froze, down to the half breath in his lungs. Then Ashur shifted, tucking his thumb into that open mouth. He touched grazing teeth, wet soft tongue, before Esharra was pulling back in terror.
"Please, Sire," he said. "I don't understand. What happens now?"
"Now," Ashur parted his own tunic, and watched Esharra's gaze follow the slow reveal of chest, then abdomen, and then his cock, already lifting up from its thatch of hair. "You come to bed with me."
It took longer than it should have for Esharra to tear his eyes away. Long enough for Ashur to arrange his teeth in a wide, hungry grin. Perhaps the little priest had never seen another person's manhood before. Perhaps some of that fear in his eyes was his own fascination.
"I have taken a vow," he said, "to Ash— to the gods. Please, Sire, if I break the vow, I will be cast out from the temple, from my service."
"Have your gods not commanded you," Ashur reached out and hooked an arm around the priest, "to serve in the Ritual of Essences?" When he pulled, Esharra came without much resistance, though his entire body was trembling.
"This is part of the ritual?" he breathed.
Ashur tugged until Esharra was all but lying on top of him, close enough to devour. "As your essence leaves," he said solemnly, cupping between Esharra's legs, "mine will enter." And with one more tug, he had the substitute close enough to capture his mouth in a kiss.
Esharra stuttered against him at first, whined, began to pull away—but seemed unwilling to resist further. "I... I have dedicated my life in service to the temple, but the temple, in turn, serves you. If this is what you desire—"
"It's not what I desire," Ashur corrected. "This is the ritual that your own priesthood ordained."
The ritual that he had thought to turn against them, trap them in a contradiction of their own making. Instead, they sent him the youngest, most innocent of their number to defile. So they were prepared even to sacrifice their own.
"I understand," said Esharra, collapsing into him, defeat and resignation in his slack limbs. "What must I do?"
With a growl, Ashur flipped atop the substitute, and set upon him, tearing his slip away from him like cobweb, attacking the pale throat he'd been staring at far too long. As he bit down, Esharra cried out, made an abortive gesture as if to try to push him away, before remembering he had already accepted this fate. Ashur continued to nip and suck his way down the smooth skin of Esharra's abdomen, reveling in each squirm, each cry.
"No one has ever seen you like this?" he wondered, palming together the plush, vulnerable softness of Esharra's cock and balls, and felt a thrill of pleasure as Esharra shook his head.
"No one must be allowed to see us naked, once we have donned the robes of the priesthood."
"Those robes are far from you now," Ashur remarked, and pushed Esharra's legs back, to show his ass to best effect. Though the rest of him was flat, those robes had hidden two ample curves here, and Ashur grasped them each in turn, enjoying the way the priest gasped and moaned at the slightest touch. Had he been so sensitive when he'd been a virgin? Surely not.
There was something especially tender about this priest's skin, long concealed from look and touch. Such a pure, innocent thing deserved to be taken with gentle care his first time.
Instead, Ashur spat into his good hand, and began to work that innocent hole open. Though Esharra had borne the knife in his arm without a protest, he cried out now, as the foreign intrusion began to ravage his entrance.
"Relax," Ashur said, a command, rather than a reassurance. "Do not deny me."
It took time, and persistence, and even once Ashur was able to slide one finger in past the ring of resistance, it came more as an act of tired acquiescence rather than any kind of welcome.
But acquiescence would do.
He stroked inside briefly, letting the substitute get used to the sensation, letting him believe the worst was over. He even groped around until he found an angle that made Esharra's hips jerk, his mouth gape in shocked pleasure. Then he did it again.
"See what you've been missing all this time, little priest?" he said, but Esharra was beyond response. There were tears pouring from his eyes, broken cries from his lips, but his hips continued to twitch involuntarily to the cadence of Ashur's motions. Whatever protests lingered in his mind, his body was learning to enjoy it.
So Ashur added a finger. Then another. Soon he was fucking his substitute with all his digits, impaling him mercilessly, and the poor thing didn't seem to know what to do with himself, squirming, hands moving restlessly, trying to find something to grasp, to hold, to bargain with.
"How does this feel?"
Esharra didn't respond at first, so Ashur gave a particularly vicious thrust, as if to push the words out of him.
"I've been keeping my body pure my whole life," the priest said, around choked whimpers that were as delicious as they seemed to pain him. "Never an impure touch. An impure look. An impure thought."
"Yes?" Ashur prodded, with voice and fingers both, keeping his angle and rhythm steady. The little priest looked ready to unravel beneath him. Any moment now. "How do you feel?"
"I feel—" Esharra said, voice choked. Every thrust ended in a gasp, as Ashur continued to fuck into him with his fingers, every jerk drawing out a whimper, a clenching of that already tight ring of muscle, as if Esharra was loath to let him go. "I've been—"
"You've been what, little priest?"
"I've been," Esharra sobs grew to a crescendo, but Ashur didn't let up the relentless pace, wouldn't, until finally he wailed, "Oh, by the gods—I've been ruined!"
At the final word, the devastation on his face, Ashur felt his own dick jump, his fingers involuntarily spasm, press in deeper and harder than he meant to. Esharra's eyes rolled back as his own cock spent, shooting white seed all over his belly, the bed, even speckling up to his own throat, still marked with Ashur's teeth.
"That you have been," Ashur said, pulling his hand all the way out, and this time the tight little ass was relaxed enough to finally let him go.
He cleaned himself on a corner of Esharra's shift, even as he began, "as your essence leaves—"
"Yours will enter," Esharra finished for him. He'd been bright enough to put two and two together and come to the obvious conclusion. There were still tears on his cheeks, but he made no move to cover himself as Ashur leaned over him, nor to resist the kiss Ashur pressed to his lips. He even half turned over, presenting the entrance now prepared for Ashur's ease of use.
This was not a person, Ashur reminded himself, running a propriety finger around that abused rim. This was a sacrifice for the future of the kingdom.
This was a young man choking back whimpers of pain as he lifted shaking hands, and spread those lovely cheeks, offering himself to be further defiled.
"I can't do it," Ashur realized abruptly.
"What?" gasped the sacrifice beneath him. "But, Sire, please—"
"I won't."
Ashur swept off the bed and pulled his bloody tunic back on, cock so sensitive and wanting it protested even the rough touch of linen. Esharra painfully scrambled upright on the bed, but he was too weak, too slow. Like a cold drench of water, the certainty washed over Ashur, and became clearer and clearer with each moment.
Out in the hall, Nabonidus and Semiramis quickly straightened up, turning to him with identical expressions of shock as he burst out of the room.
"I won't do it," Ashur told them without stopping. "I won't complete the ritual, and damn your priest."
"Sire!" Nabonidus came towards him, but Ashur pushed right past.
"Who is king?" he demanded, even as he strode away. "Me, or your priesthood? I said I'm done here, and my word is law."
"Yes, of course, but the gods—"
Ashur was already at the first bend in the hallway. He wasn't sure which direction would lead out of this place, so he picked one at random. "Whatever the gods have to say about the matter," he called back, "let me hear it from them directly."
***
If there was an uproar, Ashur insulated himself from it. He made his way to his bedchambers, and gave orders for the royal guard not to admit anyone. Then he stormed about inside, wearing holes into the floor and trying to figure out where he'd gone wrong. Was it running away from his duty? Or was it even allowing this poisonous ritual in the first place?
Eventually, he worked himself into enough of a fury that he collapsed into bed, and somehow managed to fall asleep. His dreams were chaotic, vicious things, flashes of sound and light and sensation, and throughout it all, the addictive touch of a trembling body yielding to his.
When he woke, it was nighttime. The windows had been left uncovered, and the last sliver of moon was still bright enough to shine through. In one of the silvery patches of light, he saw that he was not alone.
"Esharra?" he whispered, and the form knelt by his bed jerked, moonlight dancing over his bowed head.
"Sire."
"How did you get in here?"
"Life in the temple involves a great deal of sneaking around," said Esharra, with the slightest bitten-off corner of a laugh.
"Let me rephrase that," Ashur said. "Why have you come here?"
In the long silence that followed, Ashur sat up, and looked around. In the dim light, he could see that his chambers were undisturbed, the doors still shut. Only the kneeling form beside him suggested that anything had passed through his palace, his guard, and his sealed doors, to make it all the way to his bedside.
"You have already taken my vows from me," said the priest slowly, "ruined me for that which I previously thought to devote my entire existence. I can hardly deny that this is your sovereign right, to toy with my life for your amusement, and cast me aside. But if so, will you not at least..."
"At least what?"
"At least consummate the act?"
This last was said in a whisper that Ashur had to strain to make out from the silence. Even then, he was certain he'd misheard. "Even after what I have done to you? This is what you creep to my bedside to seek?"
"I am yours," Esharra murmured, reaching for Ashur's hand, and planting a kiss upon the bandages. "And once I am no longer yours, I am nothing. Can you blame me for wanting to delay that?"
Seeing no protest, Esharra climbed into bed, the heat and weight of him a warm stripe against Ashur's side. "You've left me undone," he said, into the crook of Ashur's neck, and took a small nibble, too faint and careful to be real imitation of Ashur's earlier ferocity. "And yet you completed me in a way I'd never felt. Will you not allow me to return the favor?"
There was something surreal about all this, waking from his dream to find Esharra here, climbing astride him, lifting his thin garment over his head—but as he watched the pull of cloth against skin, it all seemed to solidify. Even the moonlight showed clearly the tattoos down one arm, bandages up the other, pale torso in between marked all over with the imprints of teeth marks.
Ashur's teeth marks.
The stark reality cleared the fog-like dream in Ashur's head, and imbued him with a fresh want.
Ashur bucked his hips upward, cock already awakened long before the rest of him. Together they lifted Esharra's hips high enough to slot him into place. His entrance wasn't as loose and slick as it had been when Ashur had been working his fingers inside, but neither was it the clenched, impenetrable barrier that it had been when they'd started. The memory of how Esharra had looked earlier, had sounded and felt, choked and pliant beneath him, had Ashur pressing into the waiting hole with a desperation that shocked even himself. There was only the slick of precome to ease his way in, that and pure lust, but Esharra bore it, gasping, jaw working, as he slowly sank down, grunting and shifting and taking it into himself like he'd been exquisitely crafted for this single purpose.
"You left me longing for a sensation I didn't even know," he confessed, and then cut off in a strangled cry as he bottomed out. "Oh, by the gods, it was worth finding you again, just for this."
They settled into urgent rhythm, Ashur bucking upwards with a force that sent Esharra bouncing on his cock, pushing little gasps from his lips with every thrust, Esharra driving downwards with equally as much force and desire, as if attempting to seal himself into place.
Almost more than the sensation, it was the little mewls that sent him over the edge, Esharra whining and whimpering like this was all he'd ever sought or longed for. Too soon, Ashur was clutching at Esharra's hips, heedless of the new marks he was leaving there, as he pulled Esharra down, closer, closer, driving himself up in one final, shattering thrust as he released his seed and drove it deep within his substitute.
"As my essence leaves, yours will enter," Esharra's voice broke through the haze that followed, touching the stickiness between them with wonder: his own pleasure, spent between them.
"Oh, Esharra," Ashur said. "What have you done to me? What have you done to yourself?"
Esharra only smiled back, sweetly sated. He still didn't know.
"This is the end," Ashur told him. "The end for you."
"I understand." Esharra tried to sit up, but only succeeded in shifting upon Ashur's cock, still impaled within him. "I... don't know where I'll go from here."
Ashur pushed him off, rather than look at him, and began feeling around over the pillows. "You don't need to worry about that."
"What do you mean?"
"Only remember that I did not want this for you. I tried to save you from it."
Esharra frowned, quick mind visibly turning, processing the meaning in those words. "Do you mean, you feared to make me a target for your enemies? Is that why you didn't want to finish what you started?" The hope blossoming in his eyes was painful to look at. "But you'll protect me, won't you? As king?"
"No, Esharra, I rather think you'll be the one to protect me."
Ashur's groping fingers finally found the crown, lost in the depths of the bed. He swept in onto Esharra's head, pressing down firmly, stamping it into place. Then he sat up, to perform a half bow from the waist. "Your Imperial Majesty."
"What?" Esharra put his hands up, but didn't quite touch. "Why would you say that—"
The doors to the bedchambers opened, spilling in torchlight from the hall. Ashur should have known it wouldn't be his own guards waiting out there, but who else—Nabonidus, smiling widely, and Semiramis, with her flashing eyelashes.
As they came forward to pull Esharra from the bed, the substitute turned to look desperately back at Ashur, question in his eyes unasked even as they dragged him away.
Ashur tried to wipe the sight from his mind, but he couldn't forget.
Not as he scrubbed himself down.
Not when the priests came back for him, to lead him the other way, down into the darkness.
Not when he was finally settled into the underground chambers that he'd already twice visited, where he'd be hidden from the prying celestial eyes of the heavens, and remain safe, for a few days more.