25 Whelve

Trigger Warning: Mention of assault and its impact on mental health. The theme of this book is dark, there will be more warnings in the future. So keep an eye on that.

P.s UnEdited.

Long ago within the canopy of a sleepless night, during a rattling blizzard that threatened to knock away the derailing rafters of the roof over my head, I sat bundled with layers of scrapes and jute to stop the cold from seeping into my skin. My teeth clattered and my ears rang. With each haunting stroke of wind that slapped this writhing excuse they call shelter, my heart lurched at the thought of losing it to the storm. There wasn't enough wood for the fire to pave through the unannounced disaster.

Or I wasn't a life worth enough for them to be saved.

Chilled sweat soaks the soft edges of my hair, sticking it to my forehead. At eleven years of age, I still had honored what the old man had taught me. To trim my hair like one of the boys from here. To work with them. To serve for men. Every essential that will lead to the ultimate tale of survival. But my female body didn't help with the narration, I was shorter, thinner but smarter than the boys of my age. A combination that made me physically weak but mentally capable of my job. A target of envy and a subject of laughter at the same time.

But mind had always won against brawn in Ivyaki.

I could read and write. Count and recite. I could also hunt if given the precise kind of arrow for the charge. I had the skill to live by, to help this rotting community with what little light I could gleam on. I wanted to be a teacher when I would come of age. A curators apprentice perhaps. So many prospects only because an old man taught me how to read. He gave me a gift that none could snatch from me.

But in the short time he raised me, he failed to teach me the rules of courage.

So when I got blamed for thievery two mornings ago at the curator's home I momentarily worked in after having left the safety of Dorin and his mother's generosity to fare on my own. I hadn't known how to defend. All I could repeat was "It wasn't the truth". I wouldn't do such a thing for I know how harsh curator Tronwoods punishments were when it came to looting the little resources of stimulants that he had. It was his treasure.

But the other boys had proof of it as they emptied my knapsack. Vials and vials of stimulants with old brown corks and scribbled labels had fallen out of it. Something that anyone could have planted to string me up. But my master believed his seventeen-year-old son and the older hirelings that were his friends than my empty words that had no proof.

I had been thrown into the shrouded old storehouse two mornings ago. It also has been two good days since I had food or water or a good breath of air. This room was dark, wet, and smelled of dead mice and stale milk. The moonlight through the creaks on the ceiling that was tearing at its seams was the only source of light on me.

Another burst of a storm and I cower behind a large stack of caskets that the curator sells to the family whose member dies of ill or Ivyaki. With the bristle of tonight's storms, the society is bound to see a funeral or two in upcoming days. And if I cannot find a source of fire soon- it could be me. Will Dorin and his mother mourn for me for more than a day? They had taken me in when I had no one left, I had told them my secret and they accepted me with it. They had taken good care of me with the time and aid they could spare on me. In return, I helped them with everything they might need assistance with. Cleaning, cooking, chopping wood, doing errands for neighbors for tips, growing food while holding smaller jobs on my own.

Even with everything I do, I would never become a family.

The better portion of meat, porridge, and vegetables always ended up in Dorin's bowl.

Which he quietly sometimes would transfer to mine when his mother wasn't looking.

Maybe he is my friend. Maybe he would have defended my honor when I was wronged. He did behave like a good lad- kept to himself, laughed when I read him the same jokes from a book I was reading, pretended to lose some of the made-up games we'll play, or when he got me new boots stitched for the time when I decided to embark on my own. He was a good boy.

I had to remind myself.

Not like the other men who bare their fangs when the situation wasn't in favor of them.

I visit Dorin Rixen once a week. I had days in between before my next visit to them. How long will I keep up with this punishment? How long are the hours are in my day when all I am surrounded is by darkness? Hours seem to have been injected into my minutes I wait for morning to come.

But it doesn't.

Instead, he comes in, the son of the man I work for. The one who put me in here because his father made him learn from me. I was appointed as his tutor and to be taught by someone who was years younger than him did not coddle his ego. He stood tall, very tall for his age. Fed muscle, heavy hair, a slightly crooked nose, and venom in his smile. He was dressed for the cold, up to his neck and bulked. The wind from outside splashes my face as my eyes flutter to keep myself looking.

I see him usher his friends in. Two. No. Three of the boys who snitched on me rush in. Once they close the door and locked in, the room falls to its old pace. The residue of snow in their boots and hair melts as they dump wood in the middle of the room. Lighting it up with fire. The bright yellow flare fills the storehouse as I watch it with utmost compassion. Need. Hope.

I look at them once before scurrying. Crawling towards the fire with my arms thrown in front of me. My teeth clanked as I force my numb fingers to taste the warmth. I hear them snicker at my misery. Laugh they may, but I want to live. I have to live.

"He smells" I only listen as they make fun of me. My face was too pale to blush with embarrassment. "The room reeks because of him"

I would correct them that it's the other way around if my folding pride did not know that they were mocking me. I hate it. I hate them. I have my fair share of tormentors who were older people that I labored for. They would slap me if I was found being lazy during my duty, sometimes they would take away my food and cancel my rations for being late. I once had an employer who used a whip on me. Five lashes. One managed to cut through my shoulder blade. It scarred later. It itched at times.

But none horrified me as these boys who looked down at me as if I was a bug they felt the need to squish under their boots.

With quivering lips, I manage to choke out some words to calm them. To make them see that I am just like them. A person.

"Thank you for the fire. I needed the heat" I say, the vulnerability in my voice scaring me. Just how much has this life broken me?

Suddenly fingers fist through my short hair, scaling it back so I was looking into the dead dark eyes of my employer's son. My scalp cries at the assault and so do I. I am scared. It's time to accept it. I am terrified.

"You think you are fairer than us all Timo. Don't you?" He snarls in my face, I nod sideways in haste.

"No" I choke a sob "I only try to help"

But none of my words make past his steel-like exterior.

"The wise Timo Kasper. The future apprentice. The kind little boy who is better than the rest" he spits the words at me, a very vicious smile lifting his lips up "So little courage and yet all I have to listen to my father say is how bright you are. He should see you like this shouldn't he?"

He then pauses to spare a maniacal glance at his friends.

"Or I have the most prolific idea. He shouldn't see you at all" he says to himself as I push him away, scurring on the ground to find my foot. To leave. To run.

"Don't let him leave" he orders his friends who in jiffy tackle me to the concrete.

"Hold him," says someone. A hand comes down my shoulder latching my arms behind. The employer's son clamps down on my trashing ankle and I feel him take the boots off my left foot. My eyes round in horror as he pulls a metal baton from his coat.

"Please. Let me go. I promise to not return" Tears soaks the neck of my shirt that once was Dorins that he outgrew. I beg with no shame- but there was not a morsel of mercy in the heart of the demons that have me confined.

The boy's lips twist with a snarl.

"You sound like a Girl Timo. Pathetic"

Not a word I let out after that as I watch.

I watch him twist the baton by the fire, scorching it up.

When he grabbed my ankle again I opened my mouth to scream only for a hand from behind to muffle it up. I twist, I cry, I break into a thousand pieces when I felt the baton on the sole of my feet. My skin. My flesh. It was a pain that numbed my world for the moment. And on that night after years of having fought the darkness, I had let it consume me.

I remember them having carried me to one of the caskets and locking me in it.

The void- it didn't scare me anymore.

This time I did not wait for the morning.

But wished for the night to never end.

***

I remember ambling out of the casket when someone opened it for me the next day. The storm had passed leaving in its farewell a prizing morning where the sun shone. I hadn't lifted my gaze to look at who released me from the confinement. I had dragged my steps, the dilapidated sole hissing with the need for treatment. Tugging my boots on I took upon the journey and never once whirled to look at what I had left behind until I knocked on the door of Dorin Rixens paupers refuge.

The rusty door had creaked a slit to reveal Dorin, he saw me. He hadn't bothered with questions. He only gathered me in his embrace and took me in. Shutting the panel behind us. I hadn't left of house for six full moons. Or spoke of what had happened.

I had let my hair grow to its free length, choosing not to hide one part of me that was mine and none could change. Dorin has sewn me a honey blonde toupee while his mother donated a part of her long tress for the cause.

When I had ventured back into the wilds and the world I lived in, no one took notice of the change of the colour in my hair or the worry in my absence. No one remembered my name or me. Just another face in this prison existing until there won't be anything in the heart to exist for.

But the difference between them and me was.

I lived because I had to leave.

They lived for they were scared of death.

There wasn't an explanation for the memories of my laden past resurfacing while there are good other emotions that could fluently subdue my current feelings. I was angry. I was ashamed. I was betrayed.

Again.

Seated in a ligneous writing table in the middle of an empty cabin within the forest that Erix Morana claims as his advisor's task house, I watch him pace the small area of the crib as if the great bout of strolling with his legs will grant him a complete understanding of what he had learned from me.

What he coaxed out of me.

A cold sweat breaks over my temple, trailing down the side of my cheek as fire from the hearth and wall sconces sends no help to tame the shiver that tickles down my nerves.

Erix knows.

I had told him everything.

He took it from me.

When the stimulant began to charm my tongue, mind, and heart to dance on his commands, I had eagerly followed him like a pup to where he led us both into the deeper cavity of Forrest and a little further away from the warrior's camp where I had been residing in. He said the small house was camouflaged between the woods. Almost a splintering chalet that no one would dare enter from the outside to a cozy, strong structure once you step in. Two different worlds. The trick of illusion.

Erix told me that it's safe here for us to talk.

A gentlemanly rendition of what he knows he was about to do with me.

I watch him pace again. His fingers tear at the roots of his silver hair as his painfully attractive face twists with exposed guilt when his eyes latched with mine. He halts. He spares a second. He walks again.

With the stimulant still in my blood and with the night so young, I exhale with the levity that has my head in choke. I can't even lie in my conscience. If someone asks me of the sordid fantasies that I have nurtured during my leisure hours of peace, I would gladly tell them.

With details.

And maybe more.

And in more, I might end up with the blood of The Northern Defenders on my hands if I wager and let my present thoughts of homicide morph into action. I want to hurt him. Hurt him as much as he has hurt me tonight.

He knows what he wanted. He knows where I came from. He knows about the Ring. He knows of what had happened in Dern. He knows of Arran, of visions, of prophecies, of the end. I also told him about Ezdan's plans for the heist- and the certainty that he was still unaware that I carry the leverage he seeks to gain from the theft in Azure in my body.

For most of my narration, I had kept my head down to my lap with my open hair curtaining the sides of my face, the stings of threatening tears at the back of my eyes faded after I realized its useless to cry in front of people like Erix. He was no better than the employer's son who had burned his hatred through my skin. While one monster branded my body the other had invaded my mind.

Something that I had tried so hard to hide from these men.

I had dissolved a little when I learned that Ezdan could read my feelings.

Today I sit here at desk, ruined a little more.

I soak his presence while remembering the sheer astonishment he demonstrated when he learned from where the source of my ability comes from. He paled, shades less than what I thought could be possible on his natural white skin. Though he forced himself to remain steady, the horror of such an unexplainable revelation emitted a stark reaction from him.

He had asked me if I knew what it meant if the ring had a host.

I admitted I didn't. I had no one to ask- Marlon would've answered me as there as no texts or books on the subject in the library to cite from. Understandable since it's a sensitive doctrine of the crown and not something for the whole town to know. But to ask Marlon would be to raise a suspicion that I am not adept to be confronted with. He is ventim. He would see through my lies.

But I do remember how Ezdan had once mentioned that he wished to seize the Ring to break our curse. Which i have no clue of how?

But Erix was patient with me as if sensing the rage boiling in me for him. Or it could be a different standpoint after I had declared him my condition. Either way, there's a dark thickness of unexplainable emotions as he explained it to me patiently.

"It has the power to change the future" he had said "The readings of oracles, the prophecy of seers, the destiny of the world, the prediction of a curse. Nothing matters when a host lives with the ability to rewrite the story"

Then slowly, but surely the complex night of orphic began to make sense. The accordance with my vision where castle has died in the lightning strike, and yet she lives on to this day because of my intervention. I had saved her. And also the words of Ezdan where he believed he could get us both to live.

The change.

Something that's in me to bring.

That's a concerning thought that chews my insides comprehending that I am not the least capable of deciding what I would crave for dinner, let alone a future in this war-infested realm. I would make a circus out of this world if left to.

Erix halts his frantic motions, his chest heaving. The blue eyes rests on me. This wise- in a long span. Unmoving. Unreadable. Fierce. He moves towards where I sit- nearing enough that my knee brushes against his thigh. For once I was glad that I, in randomness chose to sit on an elevated platform. I looked him in the eye.

"This changes everything," He says, his face dips. The front of his hair hangs low- catching the golden light of fire in his whiteness. He keeps his arms, on either side of me on the table. He leans, closer than he ever has. I push myself away the slightest, but his eyes flutter close as a weak sigh leaves his parted lips. He tilts, tipping his forehead against the crook of my shoulder as if he was too tired to even hold the weight of it.

My body becomes metal. Tight and confused. What should I be retorting with?

Pet his hair? Twist his neck? Kick his crotch?

"Please, don't push me aside" his breath is cold on my neck. His voice a distant whisper. The musky scent of lime and pure ice whiffs into me "I am completely spent"

"That shouldn't be a facet of my concern Lord Morana" I conveyed the perfect portion of my abhorrence to which I heard him breathe a sultry chuckle. It drips through my arm he diligently had laid his head on.

"I do not know what to do with you?"

"Why does that bother you?" I express, with stimulant-droused honesty as he finally lifts his head from my shoulder, easing my pose and breath. He poured his navy gaze into my flickering, indignant ones. "Use me"

His expression laxes, a flash of livid worry mixed with anger snaps in his stare but he blinks it away. Worry?- I wish to laugh. For what? Who does he concern for?

"Iris"

He says my name. It was never a secret. But with the warning and heat he utters it with it might as well be.

"Tell me, My Lord. Am I a tool to deplete on the war front? Or even better- to be auctioned for readings in other courts and kingdoms to fill the Antarian treasury? Have you learned anything from how to wield and manipulate me from your exemplar Arran or your rival, Ezdan?" Breaching through my need to stay quiet I let my mouth run, spill my heart's truth to this man while I can. He got his answers. And now I will sing my fury.

Only that, I do not expect him to listen so intently.

"If you have lost your catalogue of cruel deeds to do for the day, may I suggest you some tips that I have picked up along my journey as a- as a-

I swallow my scorn as two of his fingers lift my chin up, his thumb smears away a hot trail of tears that has traitorously managed to fall through my facade. His stare lingers at them, then they are back to captivating my eyes. My face. And the fragile and coward of a girl I hid beneath my mask. He seems to see it all. Read it all. Savor it all.

"The power that has been given to you can as easily be taken Iris. You haven't harnessed it yet so you are still vulnerable to the danger. The Origens are desperate enough to raid the most secured grounds of Antar and we both know they were here for you. It only means they are aware of what you possess. I need you to trust me and let me protect you. I want you to leave this place and hide within an arrangement that I provide" he breathes, his jaw tight with tension "I do not want to use you. I want to keep you safe"

When his long line of attempted manipulation meets with my glare. He drops his touch on me.

"I don't deserve to be forgiven for how I learned your secrets," he says "But I can give you mine so you'll stop looking at me with such resentful eyes"

It chills my bones to see him behave this strangely. From the moment he walked in through my fight with Evander Hollins till now- a different aura looms by him that cannot be explained. Could it be that I was dreaming this sequence or I had hit my skull so hard during the duel that I might be hallucinating the rest?

He stood straighter, a bust of conviction and confidence from his ambiance fills the room.

"I won't trust a word that would come out of your mouth" I assert, I swerve my legs slowly, back and forth. Doing any other thing than facing him. I must look like a kid throwing a fit at him. But I play my honest reactions. My mouth has forgotten how to remain shut. Erix made sure of that.

"It's not mere today's event is it?" He said, his brows pulled low "You have hated me since the day we first met"

I try. I struggle to keep my lips sealed.

"Even before that"

There is a pause.

He knows what he has to do to reap an answer out of me.

Ask.

He simply has to ask.

"Why?"

Like a dog lurching for the bone, the reasons tumbles out of me.

"I saw you kill an innocent girl in Keld. You had her ordered to stalk me- when she failed. You sculpted her to death" I recite the night out of my memory. A precise look of calmness serenes his composure. He looks, almost lighter than before. As if a weight on his chest has evaporated. Like what I was saying wasn't worthy of his stress.

"And how did you see that?"

"With my eyes" the stimulant-induced tongue answers the only the precise query asked.

A caress of his soft chuckle feathers the cabin. He shakes his head.

"Allow me to rephrase this. Who made you see that?" His brows arched, the tip of his tongue grazes the corner of his teeth. A glint of amusement shines in his stare as if he has me directed to the corner where he wants me to be.

"Ezdan" my voice squirms when I take his name. My mouth parched at the thought of what he had revealed himself to be. Something dark, dangerous, and powerful. I hadn't seen him in days or heard of him, and the peaceful absence of him from my life wasn't a green ticket to have my thoughts exempt from the knowledge that I was still bound to him.

I don't feel him mourn. Neither is there a speck of grief or loss. I suppress myself from searching the evidence of his existence. He is there- somewhere, sitting on his ornate throne- adorned with the fabrics that are suitable for a king. A crown that shimmers with dark jewels. His posture always radiated confidence and his poise, demanding authority, and now he has the power to wield it in any manner he pleases. It's his time of reign, the start of an era.

And I was his end. Maybe not if I change our destiny.

But yet he saved me from the Avloths. He had always saved me from the threats that came my way. I dimly think of the night when we first met- when I was about to curiously dip my fingers into the body of a poisonous pond. His strong assertive voice had stopped me- and it wouldn't be the first time he would protect me from the unknowns.

"You have begun to trust that Mongrel, haven't you?" Erix's controlled demeanor has lost its firmness, his lids hood and I swallow my words. Or I try to.

"He hasn't hurt me so far"

I suppress a shudder when a glint of something feral passes his features. I am surprised how it wasn't a shameless 'yes' to Erix's question that I thought it would be. But Erix has other things to say- things I have overseen till now to venture upon.

"The girl wasn't a saint. She was an assassin. Had killed innocent families for a load in her pockets. I tried to use her by keeping her secret as a leverage- if anything. I granted her a merciful death, lenient that what the law abides by" A nausea weaves through me at his utterance that I know is sincere, there is not an inkling of deception with the way he said or stood. If anything- he looked furiously calm.

As if he was keeping a hurricane of frustration at bay. As if unleashed, it'll cause a line of wreckage.

My stomach knots. I lace my fingers within each other in lap- not knowing what else to do.

"I- I was shown, from the way I saw-

"It's good to believe what you see Iris" My ears are feverish with demure at his smooth take on my name, my name that he keeps taking in every few sentences like a chant. I watch him slip a hand inside the pocket of his black trousers, he withdraws a familiar lace that sat there wrapped between his long lean fingers. "But sometimes you have to see beyond what's shown to you"

It was my wristlet from Blessingway. The only thing from my past that Arran did not take from me. My name scribbled on it. I remembered how the frost had covered the walls of my room in Moranas palatial mansion when I had ran there to change into the disguise after what happened with Ezdan and Avloths. I had to scurry past the dead bodies of Avloths that I knew were once following me and Ezdan.

In the rush and frenzy, i hadn't stayed to inspect who had been to the chamber hunting the monsters off for us that night. I had suspected it to be one of the Armins from house Morana- but with the little stolen tag fluttering between the fingers of Erix, something I was certain I had lost in the flee during the ball night, I now know what to make of it.

Erix had been there.

His hands are frigid when they pry mine, he turns them- laying the silk of my wristlet on my palm. He is so close again, but this time my thoughts don't wander to create a havoc of brutal scenarios. Instead, I watch him perplexed.

"Seek for the earliest memory this can take you to" he breathes. A silent tremble in his voice. I look up. In this dimly lit room, my heart is a wild stallion, racing to the beats like a drum. I clutch at the band looking at him with wide eyes.

It's not as if my thoughts never went there. It has always been a paralyzing fear of what I might see. And to see into the past and how I had lost myself in the grasp of timeless power after my pursuit with Arran, I had been terrified to try any of such adventures alone.

"I- I cannot-" I stutter. More confused of how this would benefit Erix as he compels.

"I am here to bring you back if you stray," he says, pushing me deeper into my need "I promise"

And with an abrupt rush of faith in a man I had loathed in recent times, I close my eyes like a child who waits for her surprise. I clutch the entity of my resource harder- biting my lower lip in frustration whennothing happens, all while feeling Erix's gaze flush upon me.

But then, an unexpected cold hand drapes the top of my tight fist.

I feel his whisper in my ear.

"Breath"

I do.

And I am done.

The world, air, and any significance I seem to have with present blurs and melts away from me. I become an intricate part of an unfamiliar surrounding as a symphony of noises surrounds me. A laugh, with a sound similar to mine echoes behind me. I shift in the tidy and sterile brick chamber to see a beautiful woman in bed beside a wooden crib in which an infant slept. My steps are slow, as if boulders are tied to my ankles holding me from walking further.

The woman laughs at something a man with her says, her eyes crinkling with pure joy. Verdant eyes. Like mine.

My Mother traced invisible patterns with her slender fingers as she talked with a handsome man who watched her with love and adoration. A knot tights in my chest as I realize that I may have received my eyes and voice from my mother. But my face- is a gentler and feminine creation of my Father's facial attributes.

The infant in the crib is peaceful, unknown to the horrors of her fate as a knock jostles me to look at the door. A glorious woman with silver hair and a grey gown paces in elegantly, and a young boy in a white suit and the same shade of hair as who I presumed was his mother trails shyly behind her with a basket of ripe apples on his small hands.

This wise I do not hold in the violent gasp when the boy catches the sight of the infant on the crib and lifts his head to peak.

The little Erix Meir Morana blushes pink when his mother asks him to present the basket of fruit to my father and greet them. He does it so with timid gestures, his eyes slipping back on the tiny human ever so often as it seems to fascinate him more than the adult chatters.

"Is that a little person Ma?" His young voice is nasal and soft, not a trace of the resonant deep vocals that he will grow into in the future. He points at the newborn as the others laugh at what he said. His cheeks acquire a deeper shade of pink that I did not know was possible. But I was severely plunged in shock to stray enough and adore this doll of a boy that once was Erix.

This was not Ivyaki.

This was Antar.

I was born four years after the banishment. But not in ivyaki. I was born in Antar. This vision, The humid air, The presence of fruit in a basket, The healthy looking people- it's the testimony.

Another lie I have been living with. Another betrayal.

"Do you want to see her?" His mother guides him when he nods, He strains on his toe tip to see better. When he fails, he scurries to drag a wooden chair. He hops on it and leans by the bar to peer.

"Isn't she beautiful?" His mother says, he goes silent. Thoughtfully.

"She has very short hair for a girl" he places his opinion as Lady Morana giggles.

"It'll grow. And so will she" She strokes her son's hair behind his ears. He nods at the reasoning, seriously contemplative "Then she can play with you are your friends in our house"

He goes stiff. A pause before he turns to her.

"But I have no friends"

Lady Morana's visor falls as a whip of sadness washes her smile away. But she dons the mask again.

"If so. Iris will become your first friend" she says. The boy is quiet for a moment, then a joyous spark fills his innocent blue eyes as he looks away from his mother's encouraging wave to the girl. He extends his hand, an index finger at the small palm of the girl, barely the size of a coin. As if sensing the offer of a friend, her fingers curl around his.

"Friends" he whispers with a beaming smile with his gaze established on the pastel name engraved on her wristlet.

My legs falter as the room spins, or it was me who remained through not wanting to let go of the addictive yearning to halt this time in the past. I wanted to remain here. Live here. Stay here forever and ever as a blanket of security wraps my mind and I entirely forget that I have to be somewhere else.

A cold grip claws through my hand. I feel someone's skin on my bare neck. Cupping me shaking me. A distinct voice bellowed, ordering me to wake up. But from what? Dreams?- Are these dreams? If yes, then I refuse to let go. I won't wake up. Not when I have found my home.

No.

There's a scream inside my mind as I slide. My body was being swept away while I try to grasp at the seams of this place. A burst of light and I am plunged into night. I lay on the wet black marble floor of a colossal dark area, lying on my stomach upon the cool damp surface was a solitary refuge from the recent events. But a soft rustle of an animalistic whimper makes me crane my neck up.

My hair falls to my face as I use my palms to hoist myself up, but I do not get on my feet- discarded in the position I sat on the wet floor- I watch the atrocious scene before me unfold. The silver hair of Erix gleams in the moonlight that streaks from the clear glass dome that roofed the place. He is on his knees, only a black trouser sat in his waist and covered his legs. His bare back, a canvas of bloody welts, horrifying scars -old and new mapped his shoulders, waist and spine. His head was down, wet drips of water from his hair drops to the ground. He is smaller, lankier, and not more than Twelve years of age here. Thers a shivering pup scooped in both his arms as he had it coddled to his chest.

And sooner than ever I know what I had collapsed into.

In his past.

The last I remember was someone's hand on my neck to revive me into the presence.

His unsheathed, bare hands.

The touch of his. The portal. The past.

Oh Erix!

I look at him as a tall man wrapped in a silver robe and a crown jewel circling his forehead emerges from the shadow. He drags a woman by her hair. Not any woman- But Lady Morana. Older. Gone is her beauty as lines of bruises sheened her face. Her dirty gown was torn in places as she pleads to the monster on whose grasp she was in.

"Please Daman. Not our son" she begs, though she cried- the tears are dry in her eyes. As if there wasn't any left to fall.

The man, Daman Morana- the preceding Lord and Father of Erix hoofs his hands into her hair in response. A clean hiss tore through the air from Lady Morana's lips as Erix finally looked up at her from the floor. The dog in his embrace lets out a squeaky bark.

There is something far worse than tears in the eyes of Erix. An emotion that doesn't have a justified word yet. But it's an amalgamation of loneliness, defeat, sorrow and death. Something that sings a ballad of a soul dying.

His father crouches on a knee in front of him, the monster has his son's eyes- but there, in the blues there is a rotting decay. It's so vile that I want to gouge it out with my bare hands for looking at the boy with that.

"Kill the dog Erix" he seethes.

I freeze. My heart pulsed in my ears at what was happening.

"No" comes the faintest whispers of Erix as he worms the dog further in as if he could hide it from the Lord's vision.

"You will do as I say" the Lord says, his lower lip curling inward as if in disgust "Such a miserable, fragile waste you are. Always kind to weak. Always the foolish need for human bonds. Bringing shame to my legacy. A liability that will tarnish my name. The throne demands a ruler- not a pretty boy who thinks with a silly heart and worthless mind"

There's a silence before he yells aloud.

"Kill the Dog"

The stature of Erix jumps with shock. But he doesn't do as asked.

"Please" he begs softly again. "No"

But this time the Lord held his Mother's battered face up for him to see.

"Let's bid on who you Honor son" The Lord smiles wickedly as the fear registers in Erix's eyes. I squirm my eyes close as Erix begins to beg. His cries blend with the wheezes, cracks, and kicks, I don't know for how long it goes, But in the mayhem, somewhere Erix agrees to kill his dog.

A sharp sting of pain graces my cheek and it's the last thing I remember before I open my eyes to a raftered ceiling. I lay in a chaise as the familiar atmosphere fondles me into a veil of security. I turn my neck, the satin pillow on which my head rests nuzzles into me as I see Erix on the seat opposite mine. The older Erix. The present Erix. My lids are heavy and my blink is lazy- but I breathe from a new niche of relief when I take in the Lord and the cascading concern for me that elopes him. He retires from his seat, his movements jerky, too undone to care for the act of ice that he always keeps up.

I have so many questions, a mountain of doubts, and a sky of apprehensions. But none makes me quiver anymore when he helps me up with his arms to my shoulder, I shudder at the haze of headache and the scent of him. There's a small, confiscating smile on his face. A ghost of it, it's gone when I tilt to get a better view of it.

It's not as similar to the boy of my past. But neither is it different. The slyness, the beauty, and the pure bliss of integrity shone with every movement in the manner he managed me. He had known me in a world where I wasn't as corrupted as I am now. And I had accidentally seen the piece of his ruin in making. My throat constricts and my heart lurches, a film of tears gathers as I look away.

But there was a distraction awaiting me as a man in long hooded lead grey attire analyzed me with a neutral dissatisfaction. The copper buttons on his fleece coat have a snow carved. Strands of his grey-white hair peek through his covered head. Not as bright silver as Erix's, but still a trait of House Morana. When none of us made an effort to speak- Erix opens his mouth to help us.

"That's Rune Vizar. My advisor" he says narrowing his gaze at the regally good-looking man in a silent communication, that his advisor blankly ignores. "He is also my cousin. He- he is someone I have faith in"

It's when I snap my attention to the large mounted mirror on the wall to take in my appearance. As suspected, I was not disguised. But before the shock of it marbles me- Erix assures me again.

"We can trust him snowflake" he mutters, fixing a lock of my wild hair behind my ears. I also notice how he has resorted to addressing me with the other monicker he had invariably used until today. He continued as I watched the tall, the young man regarded a molten piece of candle wax on his dinner table with more interest than he had bestowed on us.

"What happened?" I ask Erix wondering what had caused my mind to lock the way it had, I had lost consciousness more times since I had stepped into the Antarian soil than I had in my whole life, I need to know what makes my mind so weak. knowing the answers myself I still want to hear it from him. The chamber, his Father, the Torture - all a hues into rebuilding and altering my perspective for this man beside me. I am smiling at the five-year-old boy who had wanted to be my friend, Breaking for the twelve-year-old begging for compassion, Forgetting the hate I had for this Lord of a man all too soon that I don't know if I am the same person anymore.

I don't know who he is and what he has become in his life. But the pieces of him that I am aware of- I know he is as broken as I am. Made by similar demons, who chewed and spat us in a world to fend.

"I think you did not wish to return," he says, a thick tension in tone that he clears his throat after "It happens to some seers, they get lost in time and refuse to come back- so I had to wind you. But you took hold of my arm and began to feed on my energy"

Even if he suspects that I had intruded on his past, he doesn't say anything. My gaze drops to the crescent moons from my nails on his forearms just beneath the folded sleeve of his shirt.

But instead of apologizing, I ask urgently.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No. Not even the slightest" he frowns, then smiles slowly. And the mischief of his that I am accustomed to has resurfaced. He is enjoying my first display of worry for him. I can tell that much. But then it's gone. "I had to aid you out of the trance. I had to do something that would startle you. So-

He trails, his eyes gingerly darting to my right cheek.

My lips part in shock, but understanding as I nod- suddenly feeling the itch and mild sting.

"You smacked me" I enunciate.

A band of silence saturates the living area.

"I did it" came the sharp and hollow confession from the man I had unconciously forgotten about. Rune- as Erix had introduced him as glanced at the imprint of his hand on my cheek for a sliver of distracted second before renewing his focus on an inanimate object, this wise the foot of a chair. Refusing to elaborate.

From what Erix continued to tell me, it was Rune's cabin- and by his monotonous behavior I can tell we certainly weren't welcome here. He perhaps was tolerating this invasion because of his Lord or he simply had no empathy. But i was grateful that he returned not only to find us in time - But to also have smacked me hard enough to pummel me back into time.

"Thank you?" I offer him my gratitude as his stare goes and stays at Erix as if he would rather confront him than a stranger who is me. Not a muscle in his body moves, like he was sculpted of clay and stone he merely remained concrete in a corner standing.

Waiting.

Questioning.

Something we are akin to need from Erix. A set of questions about what had been revealed to me and what I had accidentally taken from him suffocates me. After days and days and days of wanting to run away from their world, his world, I now burn while leaning into them. To know more. To need more.

To see beyond what's shown.

To understand that perhaps, I was naive when it came to Ezdan and what he embarks to mold me as. He has a realm to save and rule. He has a duty to behold. For him it's the power I carry that he is after- he needs Arrans possession to win the war. To null the curse. To protect his people.

And if I had it in my heart to aid him in the revolution. I would stand by him and these highborns to save their world from corrupting. But now, I need to start from somewhere where my loyalty should begin. And it will be with me and my heart which solicits me to let The Northern Defender take reins of my safety.

Which I must be deluded to even consider. But here I sat as he slowly stood to his full frame. Crowding every last dilemma and doubt I had out in a chasm.

"I won't forsake my friends" my breath is callused, standing up on my feet i face his chest. When I look up- my face starts to shimmer with hot tingles at the attentiveness of him. As if every other thing in the moment was secondary to the importance of my needy demands. "I will not leave them behind and hide while leaving them to be interrogated and baited on my behalf"

Dorin wasn't an option. He was a family. And as for Castle and her brother Atticus who was under the guidance of a regnant nursing house, I have long forgiven her for the betrayal since she had wildly tried to save my life in orphic. Putting her life at risk. Something I know wasn't fraudulent because I had seen her die once.

"It'll be arranged" he agrees without a feud, faster than the bat of a wing, I blink. Pausing. He waits. "Is there anything else you wish to tell me?"

He looked able and ready enough to throw me anything i asked with all sincerity and seriousness. As if he didn't know what else to do than to fulfill my wishes.

When I remain mum. He continues.

"For what you have asked of me, I profess to carry out. But you are my priority Snowflake- so once I know you are safe and settled. Your friends will join you" I open my mouth to protest but a soft glare from him seals me up "Allow me a span of three days and on full Lunar Night- I want you to come here. I will be waiting with the right gauges to do what needs to be done"

Three days.

So it's what it has come to.

Three small days to break and alter a cycle. Once I am gone I would no longer be a part of this srategic prison that Julian Ezdan had made for me. Where he had given me the perfect amount of peace and illusion to not let me think of an escape. I don't know when I will be seeing him again, the belief that he will embark to find me and drag me back to this prison for his cause rattles and twists my guts.

My hideaway from Ivyaki did not stop him from giving up. He had found and captured me from the depths of frozen hell with the smartly laid trap.

What makes me think that hiding under the tarp of his own sunken kingdom will be a successful quest?

I then stare at Erix and the determination that coarses from him, it was my answer. I might be too blinded to stitch the bigger picture after what my visions had shown me. I might still be foolish to believe this man. But when Erix gently tells me that we shall talk about it later- I listen. When he makes Rune loan his coat and tugs the hood atop of my head to conceal the dirt from my earlier fight with Evander Hollins, I relish. When he makes a blatantly unwilling Rune to escort me back to the base, I allow.

And when I look back to see him standing by the door watching us leave. Watching me with that undivided prominence.

I smile.

It's small.

He may not even see it in the darkness of night and the shadows of trees.

But I think.

I see him smile too.

The sentries do not ambush me when I enter the base with Erix's advisor, They know better than to question my return when they had seen me leave with my mentor. When they grunt a greeting at Rune, he doesn't bother to tip his head to feign the etiquette. The most response I had out of him was the discreet glances he kept stealing through the corner of his eyes when we walked here. I memorized the route and he maintained his aura of enigma as if twitching a muscle in his face was a felony he wouldn't commit.

He stood on the shorter side than Erix, not towering. But intimidating enough. Ash grey suit sat lighter on his frame. Airy, like he wasn't building muscles for war. He doesn't need to. He was a member of counsel, not Arminhood. His nose is straight and eyes hazel- and I never knew that color so warm as golden sunlight can linger so empty.

"Remember the Lord's instructions" To my surprise he says, his voice placid like sleeping water "Whoever you are"

With that, he prowled away back into the gloom of the woods.

For the three days, I violate any thought of changing my plans. The base is a place where privacy wasn't a luxury. We had guards and stewards patrolling every half hour to foresee the discipline among us warriors. Tough the Aces were favored and provided with separate quarters, which I shared with Evander Hollins, Calla Zen, and Dorin Rixen, the three male aces along with an impersonator me- I seldom try to avoid the other two boys and stuck to the side of Dorin. I also take the bed in the farthest corner and sleep only after Evander and his dark eyes cease glaring at me from his shades.

If he hated me before. After losing the fight to me- he is unclad with his hostility for me.

As for the other Ace Calla Zen, he is mostly seen polishing and arranging his combat daggers or eating his food with enthusiasm isolated in his bed. I also see the friendly bond that has developed between Calla and Dorin in the talks they share and the smiles they offer each other. But none of them dared to extend their connection to Evander.

He was a lone wolf.

And a very aggressive one.

As for me, I have submerged myself into a quiet routine that Dorin and Castle seem to have grasped on. When we eat in the lunch hall, although we cannot speak of it since Slate Willow is still a clueless and oblivious person among us three- I study the spice of questioning stares orchestrated by Castle and Dorin at me.

"Is there something troubling you? Apart from the apparent " Dorin asks as i swallow the food down my throat with pressure. Unknown to how long my stomach could muster in the dinner as my nerves strangled my inners into a twist. It was the Lunar Night. It's the night I leave. It's the night where I have to decide my future. In literal sense as a Ring Bearer which means I could in entirety change my fate by doing the opposite of what I intend to do.

"You haven't been the same since you came back after the Nothern Lord took you out for your lessons" Castle signs boldly since no one here other than us knows the language of her fingers- she is unhinged with her reflections "I believed only Julian Ezdan and his obedient council of goons had the penchant to derail and use us. Did the Lord do something to you too?"

Dorin frowns. Slate eats. I quake.

Guilt sears through me as I hide my surprise with a benign cough. She was the hostage of Marlon saga and Dorin was of Hann slantis. Though I am aware that Hann had seen me in my true form that night- he hasn't acted on his duty to take my life as an oath. I haven't even seen him in days and it's a whisper of a bad hunch. It was calm. Tremendously calm to think there wasn't something shifting behind the screens and beneath our feet.

I am guilty of leaving my friends behind tonight to these anomalies.

I haven't revealed a hair of the problem I am willing to create. It's better for them to know less for it'll only burden them with more danger. Especially Castle if she is made to take the stimulant of verity. Yes, it's what the potion that Erix Morana tricked me into taking is called. I learned of it simply by asking Slate Willow if he knows of a truth stimulant.

Indeed such horrendous thing was a common practice.

But-

It worked only on humans.

It doesn't scratch a dime's worth of effect on high blood. Which nails my intuition that I am- indeed a human and not a natural high blood. All my abilities are from array source. And as Erix had indicted so assuredly- something that has been given, can be taken.

Erix Morana was another mystery in my life I refuse to indulge- for now. But in bed as I toss and turn to the jitters of one less day between us meeting. I am spent. I fall into a pit of delusions and fears. So much doubt and paranoia that I expect my dreams to be plagued by the tints of his painful past.

But it always gets washed away by the nightmare of Avloths claws on my ankle and the flare of dark power that had killed them. Only that, in my lucid state- the black storm engulfs me. It takes the form of a hand reaching me through the pitch-dark cloud. Terrified I seek to glide my body away from it, but another smoke of an arm snakes me from behind. And soon I feel it everywhere, on my waist, upon my breast, behind my neck, on my thigh, in my cheek. It happens until all I see is nothing but the feel of it on my skin, a sensual caress. A carnal hunger.

I must be swiveling into madness to believe this, but after I wake up from the strange horror- I feel the sensation of those touches still roam through me.

Dwindling the reminiscence of the memory, I wait for the night to reach its peak after having taken a very late bath, the only time of the day when the lavatories are empty. I had removed my toupee to let my damp hair dry out as I lay in my bed. The chatters dropped, little by little splintering into a silence so thick that I could hear my heart drum. Soon it became so quiet that it felt as if the room was holding its breath. I peek a look at the stoned form of Dorin in the bed beneath me. He was asleep. The rise and fall of his chest was the only indication that he was alive. The rest mimicked his exhaustion.

I slip, taking the ladder down. From beneath his bed, i pull out my knapsack. I am meek, as docile as a cat when I crouch to lace my boots and pull Rune's grey coat on. I take one last, desperate glance at Dorin before stealthily becoming the one with the silhouettes as I walk away.

The walk to the trivially secured exit of the base is something I had discovered during my dull evening strolls when I was on the lookout for an isolated outer space to sit and brood on. Though the route I will take from there will take longer to reach the cabin, it was the one nook I recognized that's patrolled by two lazy guards. They often leave it unprotected, thus enabling me to slip past for a few good hours of truce.

The moon hung low in the inky sky, casting a silver glow upon the world below. My breaths were a hushed whisper and my footsteps felt like an eternity. I celebrate my first crucial victory when the fence came into view, but a breathy grunt cemented my legs.

Another bold noise cuts through and I turn, a string of defenses waking in my head but none that make sense. My heart is on my neck- pulsing.

I hear a female voice. The wind carries a cry. Soft cry. No- not cry. Moans.

There is no one behind me, only the empty pathway I came from. Then I see the play of shadows behind a wall. The mix of noises, man and woman- it increases with their ecstasy. It takes me a second to understand it. When I do- I don't wait. I haste. But with enough resilience to not make a sound- for once I was glad for someone having a very intimate love life so that they cover the noise of my footsteps with their own panting and groanings.

I do not stop running when I enter the woods. Not until I was convinced that I had reached the middle and wasn't trailed or followed. I could've been escorted by any one from house Morana, but since it will raise suspicion for the Lords Loyalty to his Sarkim- it was evident that I had to do this myself. It's something Erix wasn't convinced entirely about. I hadn't taken the time to disguise, so my free hair flails, curtaining my face with the kisses of sweet breeze. I give a moment for myself to breathe, a moment to rejoice that I have made it this far. But it was soon. Too soon to have celebrated as the rustle of leaves stilled. The wind died and the dreary activities of the grove that had been accompanying me so far seem to have bowed down as if in fear of some monstrous intrusion among them. My toes curled in my boots, and with the moonlight hidden by the canopy of tall trees, all I had were my other senses to distribute.

And it's with my ears that I hear the first rustle of movement. It's near, behind me. Closing with lazy, and precise footsteps as if it knows that it has my attention. Heat gathers in the nape of my spine, though my mind remained frozen, my legs carried me. It was the desperation that guides me into an unfamiliar path. I had forgotten all about the cabin and focused solely on survival. I bury my fingertips into the fluffy fleece of my hood atop my head as I rush through the pebbles, dirt, and fallen leaves into the unknown. The footsteps don't follow me- but I feel its presence everywhere.

The damp, pungent caress of the darkness just like in my dreams.

I made a mistake of turning around to see.

When I see nothing there, hope blooms.

Only for my breath to shatter when a brutal strength took hold of my arm, I careened and struggled like a wild feline caught by a snare. But another arm slips through my waist with malicious vigor- with more force than needed to hold my small frame in place. Almost like a personal anger was injected into its intentions with me. A raw scream builds in my throat but a leather sheated hand smothers it back, making me swallow it.

The faint whiff of a familiar earthy scent fills my nose as he folds me into him. My back felt the dread when it plastered against the span of his broad chest. I closed my eyes as the fight in me sank. So easily. So shamefully.

He removes his hand from my lips, lethargic and slow- taking his time cruelly as he reaches my hood, he peels it away. His fingers comb through my hair once before he gathers them into his fist. He yanks me, angling my face to his benefit as I feel Julian Ezdans breath on my neck, rough and fierce.

"Did I not warn you to not commit this mistake?" his fingers sink into the soft flesh of my waist. I bite in a gasp "You don't ever listen, do you?"

So...Its about to go downhill from now. Thoughts on Erix, Rune, Plot and the wig Iris wears are most welcome. Hope you enjoyed this long ass chapter. Forgive me for not having brushed the typos yet.