I was only fourteen years old the day my whole world fell apart. It was the day I learned that the world wasn't the warm and happy place I believed it to be. It was the day I lost everything.
No, not the day I lost everything. The day it was taken from me. The day I first saw what cruelty and evil truly looked like. The day my father found me.
And it was on that day that I lost my ability to speak. It wasn't until many years later, long after I'd given up on things like hope and happiness, that I found the will to regain my voice.
I'd grown up in a small town in the east of the Kingdom of Vrayna, near the border with the Beastlands. My mother earned money by washing and mending clothes, working from sunrise to sunset to ensure that I never went hungry.
I spent my days playing by the river, tending our small vegetable garden, and earning copper coins by running small errands for the townsfolk. If I never knew luxury, I never lacked for anything either. I had a full belly and I was loved.
On the day they came for us, it was an unusually hot day in the middle of summer, nearing the end of the seventh moon cycle. I was on my way home with three copper coins in my pocket, having just finished a very profitable afternoon of shoveling horse dung at the local stable.
It was hard work, and I reeked of sweat and dung, but earning a copper for every hour I worked gave me a great sense of pride. Usually, I could only manage to earn three coppers in a whole week. Three coppers was enough to buy us rice or flour for days, or perhaps even some meat.
It was early evening when I began making my way back to our humble home at the edge of the forest. The sky had just begun to turn a gentle shade of orange and there was a gentle breeze blowing, just enough to offer some relief from the day's heat.
Summer would soon give way to autumn when the leaves would change color and the trees would bear fruit. With the sun hidden by distant trees, the walk home felt cool and refreshing after the hours I'd spent working in the heat.
The stable had a thatched roof to protect the horses from the elements, so the sun hadn’t burnt my skin. However, I was sticky and sore from the afternoon's work, my body was still radiating residual heat, and I smelled particularly awful.
I decided to make a detour to the river to wash off the worst of the dirt and sweat from my body. Copper coins or no, it was likely that I would be scolded if I returned home in such a state.
The cold water felt pleasant on my sweaty, hot skin, and I used some sand and small stones to scrape the dust and dung off my body. I took off my shirt, wet it, and wrung it out several times until the water ran clean.
By the time I was done, it was late enough that the sky had taken on a hue that resembled the embers of a dying fire, the last few moments before twilight officially came.
It was around the time that my mother usually finished cooking dinner, and I wanted to get home before the food got cold. I hadn't eaten since morning, and my stomach grumbled in protest after the day's hard work.
I pulled my wet but much cleaner shirt back on and shivered slightly from the cold. Ah, I thought, that feels much better. The chilling sensation of the cold, wet shirt against my skin was a pleasant contrast to the constant heat that pervaded the summer months.
The combination of the cold water and the fresh breeze revived me. Hungry and energized, I decided to run the rest of the way home.
I was a few minutes from home when I realized something was amiss. The path that lead to our house was surrounded on both sides by trees and brush, and no matter what time of day it was, you would always hear the chirping of birds, the snapping of branches, and the rustling of forest creatures moving about. That evening, the ever noisy forest was eerily silent.
I stopped running and stood still for a moment to catch my breath and listen to the forest. Other than the sound of my light panting, there wasn't a single noise to be heard. The trees that lined the path, which usually felt like they were guiding me home, felt ominous, like they were warning me to turn back.
However, an impending sense of dread was building inside me. Instead of turning back, I picked up the pace and raced toward my house.
As I ran, it felt like eyes were watching me from the trees. Dark eyes, angry eyes, eyes that wanted to harm me. I did my best to ignore that feeling and hurried home to my mother.
Before I even got to the clearing where our house was, I could hear my mother screaming from inside. I stopped while I was still covered by the trees and crouched behind to a bush, trying to swallow the overwhelming fear that gripped me. Mom needed me. I had to figure out a way to help her.
I peered around the bush and saw a couple of horses waiting in our open yard, but I didn't see any people. The screams that echoed out the open front door told me that they were probably inside.
I crept forward, trying to be as quiet as possible, but there was no cover to hide my movements. As soon as I was close enough to almost see inside the door, someone grabbed me from behind and pushed me inside.
“Well, look at what I found skulking about,” my captor called out, “I’ve got the kid. We don’t need this bitch to talk no more.”
Inside the house, I could see my mother, her wrists bound behind her back, bent over the table where we usually ate. A skinny man with black hair was pressing her face into the table with violent force. His pants were down around his knees and he looked frustrated as he paused his rough thrusting for a moment to look at us.
"Come on! We only just got started," the man protested, "can't we have some more fun with her before we leave?"
"Hah, I didn't say the fun was over, did I? I just said she doesn’t need to talk." My captor twisted my arm painfully behind my back and forced me to move forward toward the table as he said, "We’ve got all night boys. Let's show this little bastard what happens to whores who run away."
I felt bile rise in my throat as the black-haired man continued his assault with renewed vigor. He grabbed my mother by the hair and forcefully lifted her head so she could see me, before smashing it back down on the table, laughing merrily as he did so. The look in his eyes was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.
In violation of my will, my body went limp from the shock and horror. I wanted to fight them. I wanted to bite my captor's hand and stop these evil bastards, but all I could do was watch helplessly as my mother cried and begged for mercy.
The sun had risen again before they were finished with her. There were five men in all, and they took turns beating and raping her through the night. I was forced to watch the whole thing, one of them always holding me in place to make sure I didn't miss a single moment.
One of them amused himself by giving me a play-by-play of what they were doing every time I tried to close my eyes or look away. He gleefully described their awful violence, telling me how much she secretly enjoyed it, that she was getting what she deserved.
The black haired man seemed determined to harass me in other ways, fondling me through my pants and licking my ear. He probably would have done worse to me if the others hadn't stopped him. They told him I was the Duke's property and not to be used. He took his disappointment out on my mother, watching me with lustful eyes the entire time.
From the verbal abuse they hurled at her, I learned that my poor, commoner mother had once been a servant to the Duke of Ramport, the southern Duchy of Vrayna.
My mother's beauty had attracted the Duke's attention, so he’d imprisoned her and forced himself upon her almost every night for a full moon cycle, eventually resulting in a child: me. After I was born, she somehow found a way to flee the duchy and disappeared.
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The duke's wife had borne him a single daughter. After a difficult childbirth, she was left barren and without hope of ever giving him a son. My mother was my father's solution to that problem. Even if he adored his little girl, an illegitimate son was still more useful than a daughter.
So he searched for my mother for years, and finally found her by chance, thanks to information from a traveling merchant who had passed through our town. He sent his men to find me and told them to dispose of her in whatever way they pleased.
The morning sun was already shining brightly in the sky when they slit my mother's throat and left her broken body for the animals.
Somewhere during that long night, my mind could no longer handle what they were forcing me to watch. The violence, the pain, and the sorrow were all too much for me. With nowhere else to turn, I retreated inward, desperate to escape from the horrors in front of me.
I hoped and I prayed. I willed myself to be anywhere but where I was.
And then it was like a switch flipped in my brain. The part of me that was present in that moment went away. I felt myself drifting and came back to awareness inside of a thick, gray fog. A place where there was nothing at all. I couldn't hear the screams. I couldn't see the violence. I wasn't there anymore.
After they threw my mother away, I was vaguely aware of them binding my wrists behind my back and tossing me into a wagon.
I think one of them poured cold water on me, hoping to get a reaction, but I was too far gone to care.
Tied up in the back of their wagon, and completely disconnected from the things I couldn't accept as reality, they took me to meet my father.
After a few hours on the road, my arms were screaming from the pain of having my wrists bound so tightly. The sun climbed higher in the sky, and the heat from its rays soon became unbearable as it shone down on the open wagon.
I slipped in and out of awareness as we traveled. Despite my hopes that I would drift away forever, the gnawing pain from my bound wrists and the sun that burned my skin kept forcing me back to lucidity. But soon the terror and sorrow would overwhelm me again and I'd let myself slip back into nothingness, embracing the mindless fog whenever it returned to me.
The horrors I had witnessed were still fresh in my waking mind but I didn’t have the luxury of things like self-pity or mourning, so I went to a place where I couldn’t feel anything and tried to forget my own existence.
When my kidnappers stopped for a midday rest, I was finally forced to completely emerge from the fog and assess my situation. They untied my aching arms but immediately retied them with my hands in front of me. It was still too tight, but not so tight as to cause permanent damage.
It was clear that they had been ordered to return the Duke's son in relatively good condition, and I probably wouldn't be seriously injured by them. I had hoped they would kill me, so there was little relief in that knowledge, only a numbing sense of disappointment.
They agreed it would be better if they didn't have to deal with me while traveling, so they decided to drug a flask of water and force me to drink it. I tried to refuse, but they held my nose closed until I was forced to open my mouth for air, and the contents of the flask were poured down my throat.
Instead of the grey fog I'd been floating in, a deep pit of blackness awaited me and I fell into its depths. That was the last thing I remember before arriving in Ramport.
When I regained consciousness again, we were navigating our way through the narrow streets of a city, passing through a crowded marketplace full of stalls and people. The sights and smells overwhelmed my senses.
The market in our small border town couldn't compare to the vibrant scene surrounding me. Had the circumstances been different, it might have been an experience of wonder and delight. But as it was, the bright colors and loud voices made my head spin, and the smell of the food stalls turned my stomach.
I wanted to go home. I wanted my mother. I wanted to die.
We sped through the market at record pace, and soon we were on a lonely road that led to a glittering mansion in the distance.
The mansion itself was a brilliant shade of white, four stories high, with a white stone path leading up to it. Beautiful flowers of every color adorned the grounds. A large terrace surrounded the house, encompassed by a gold and white railing. Where the white stone path ended, a grand staircase began, intersecting the deck and leading up to the majestic golden front door. My father, the Duke, stood at the foot of the gold and white staircase, as if he had somehow anticipated our exact time of arrival.
My father was a well-built man of middle age, no longer youthful in appearance, but still full of vigor and life. He had dark brown hair and piercing green eyes; eyes that perfectly matched mine in color, but possessed a cold, calculating quality that mine certainly lacked.
I was graced with my mother's light hair color, a pale reddish blonde, and I shared her gentler, more rounded features. The Duke had a sharp, hawkish face, with a hooked nose and thin mouth.
But there was no mistaking those eyes; he was indeed my father.
Next to him stood two women who were undoubtedly mother and daughter. Despite their obvious age difference, they were clearly cut from the same cloth.
Both were remarkable beauties with full, pouting lips and bright blue eyes. The mother had blonde hair, fine and silky, that shone with a silver sheen in the sunlight. The daughter, my half sister, had darker hair that resembled her, no, our father's. They both looked at me with hostile gazes, making no effort to hide their contempt.
All three of them were immaculate in appearance, which only served to emphasize my own shabbiness.
I was dragged from the back of the wagon and thrown on my knees before them. I was sunburned, dirty, and I can only imagine how badly I must have smelled. My tattered clothes, which weren't very good to begin with, clashed with the scenery around me.
Not that I cared how I looked to them. These people weren't my family, they were my kidnappers and the people responsible for my precious mother's suffering. I hated them already.
"You dealt with the mother?" My father, the Duke, spoke to my captors first.
"Haha, we sure did. We took real good care of her," laughed a brown-haired man with a thick mustache, who I had come to understand was the leader of the group.
"Ain't that right?" said the black-haired scum next to him. "She cried real pretty for me." He laughed like it was a big joke to him. The memory of his hands on my body made my stomach churn.
I could barely breathe as I choked down the vomit that was rising in my throat. How could these people even be considered human? I kept my head down as I took ragged breaths, trying to hold back the tears that stung my eyes. No, I refused to let them see me cry.
"Pray tell me, Sir Tarlon, was it painful?" I don't know what surprised me more, the fact that her words indicated that the filthy human in front of me was a knight, or the disgustingly sweet tone in which my father's wife spoke. The anticipation in her voice sickened me.
"My lady, most beautiful Duchess of Ramport, I assure you that I took every precaution to ensure her last night on earth was as painful and humiliating as possible. Her screams echoed through the forest for hours," Sir Tarlon assured her with a smile.
"Excellent. That whore thought she could seduce my husband and steal his progeny? I am glad to hear that she has been well punished for her evil deeds." I looked up to see a self-satisfied smile on the Duchess' face. Her daughter beside her looked almost gleeful.
"Right, you'll get your bonus pay in three days," the Duke said to the group of knights, dismissing them. Then he turned to see my figure still collapsed on the ground at the foot of the stairs. "On your feet, boy. I've been looking for you for quite some time, and it took a lot of effort to get you here, so you best not disappoint me."
I remained on my knees, my eyes fixed on the ground in front of me. Perhaps, if I showed enough defiance, I would get lucky and he would kill me outright.
I felt a rough hand grab my hair and pull me to my feet. Forced to look up, I silently met my father's eyes.
"Make no mistake, I saved you from your life as a commoner. I freed you from the life of poverty that your whore of a mother condemned you to. So now, you must obey me, do you understand?" the Duke asked in a threatening whisper, "You will act as my heir, do as I say, and I will not allow you to embarrass me. It's bad enough that you're the son of some useless bitch who couldn't even open her legs properly."
I gazed directly into his eyes as he spoke. I could see his contempt for me clearly reflected in those familiar yet alien green eyes. I was sure he could see the defiance in mine as well.
He dropped me to the ground and landed a sharp kick to my ribcage.
I coughed and sputtered, overwhelmed by the sudden pain, but I forced myself to look up and meet his eyes again.
"What's your name, boy?" he asked me in an even tone.
I remained silent.
The name my mother had given me was Falyn, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. That name was something she had given me, and I refused to share it with him.
The silence stretched on for a moment, before he backhanded me across the face with all his might. I saw stars in my vision and the whole side of my face lit up with pain. I tasted blood and realized that the inside of my mouth had been ripped open by my teeth.
I spat blood on the ground and looked back up at him. I was pretty sure that his earlier kick had broken one of my ribs. I could feel my face already starting to swell.
I looked up at my father again in silence.
"Very well," he said, "you will have to learn things the hard way then. From this day forward, you can forget whatever name that whore called you. You are now Julien de Ramport, son of the Duke of Ramport. Your only purpose is to serve as my heir and not cause me shame. Any shame you do cause will be etched into the skin of your back. Do you understand me?"
I knelt before him in silence, hatred burning in my eyes. But no matter how long he waited, I didn't open my mouth to answer.
Finally, he lost his patience and began beating me in earnest. It was the first time I had ever been beaten like that; endless blows rained down on me, merciless and deliberate. The fog returned, dulling my senses and allowing the beating to fade into the distance.
As I was kicked and stomped into blissful oblivion, I didn't cry out at all.
I didn’t make another noise for over nine years after that day.