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16-A High Price to Pay

Caspian slid out of the carriage as fluid as liquid. His long, lean legs carried him to the three men. Behind the lord, his long black cape rippled. Harlan's gaze was frozen on the dark material, on the sea of black which was coming to consume them all. In the serpentine embrace of the tree branch, Harlan gasped for breath knowing they were about to drown. Caspian was a menacing storm coming over the horizon, a tempest of grand disaster. Harlan did not have to ask who the monster before them was. He and his sons were clear that this was the frightening, murdering legend they had been hearing about all their lives.

With his pallid, reptilian skin turning iridescent and oddly ethereal under the highlights of the moon, Caspian loomed over them. The beast's eyes bore into Harlan and though they were as blue as blue can be, Harlan felt as though this is what Hell must look like, blue as frozen ice, not red as blazing fire.

Caspian sniffed the air. He snapped his head towards Julian's satchel and saw a drop of blood trickling out of a broken stitch.

"You dare not only to trespass but steal from my land," Caspian's booming tone shattered the silence like a hammer upon a mirror sending splinters to each one of the Hershel men.

Julian was always brave, but not now. His father saw him trembling like a new-born foal. Caspian stormed to the older lad, reached for him and in one swift gesture pulled Julian off his horse and onto the snowy ground. Julian's steed would have taken off in a frenzy if Caspian had not taken control and grabbed hold of its reins once its master fell. The lord looked into the animal's brown eyes. He held the steed's gaze and stared into the animal until he found its soul and shattered it silently. The horse's flesh twitched like a hundred insects were crawling under it but otherwise, the animal stayed still. Once the horse had been silenced, Caspian released it and looked over to Harlan's stallion.

Harlan's horse remained docile, as well. Caspian did not need to come into contact with the animal for the spell had found it, too.

By his horse's hooves, Julian struggled to sit up. Caspian seized the bag holstered to Julian's saddle and pulled out a bloody cottontail rabbit still fresh from the kill.

"These rabbits will cost you dearly," Caspian's voice was a low rumble. He fell to his knees before Julian, the snow crunching under his weight, and held the rabbit over the boy's face. Blood from the cottontail's wounds trickled over Julian's face and stained his cheeks as it zig-zagged towards the cupid's bow of his lips.

"No! Please!" Harlan hollered but when he tried to run to his boy weeds stormed out of the ground and wrapped themselves around his ankles, holding him prisoner.

Caspian's side-long gaze hushed Harlan but the man was terrified for his children. Harlan Hershel knew that he was helpless. His heart ached for what good is a father who cannot help his own flesh and blood?

"We will pay," Harlan's voice came out a croak. He cleared his throat and repeated. "We will pay for the rabbits. I have coin, enough to buy your forgiveness. Do not harm my sons, I beg of you."

"I could just take one of your sons as payment," Caspian uttered under his breath as he straddled Julian and rubbed the rabbit's blood over the young man's lips with the ball of his thumb. The angry lord inched to Julian's ear, his words, though barely audible, were razor blades. "I can see you strapped to a pillar. Your body riddled with arrows. Your perfect skin pierced a million times over like Saint Sebastian bare and bloodied, crying tears and blood solely for me." Before Julian could make a sound, Caspian grabbed the trembling male by the throat with his free hand and Julian's eyes went wide. "I could eat those beautiful eyes of yours," Caspian whispered, dangling the dead rabbit like a pendulum above the young man's brown eyes.