Yissle slumped back into his chair, loosing a long sigh whilst cradling his head in his hand, brow furrowed together. The room was dark and gloomy by this point, the sun no longer granting the luxury of its free light, so Leo decided to step up in turn, summoning a small mote of fire, which cast long shadows on the surrounding mess…almost too long, actually.
He couldn’t quite place it, but something about the shadows just looked unnatural. Even just looking at them left a subtle disquieting feeling in his chest. Leo strengthened the fire, banishing the shadows further from the room.
“Hey…Yissle, I…have a question for you,” Leo asked, shifting uncomfortably in his plush seat.
“Hm?” Yissle looked up, eyes barely holding in the moment.
“The students here…why do they hate us so much? Even the soldiers sent to kill us never had so much…vitriol. It’s like…”
“They blame you for everything?”
“...yeah.”
“Some of these kids came from Verulik, Leo. I couldn’t even count how many family and friends they lost in the collapse of Aria, in the civil war in Zerital, in the battle of Wyrm’s Perch. And imagine how the kids from Lagasia feel. Their king, their nation, wants Trenton dead, not to mention the family they’ve lost in the war, parents and brothers ripped to shreds like little puppets in a meaningless battle. No one is happy; no one is winning. And these kids can only sit and watch as they’re lives fall apart a thousand miles away from them for so long before they start to lose it. They’re angry, frustrated, lost,” Yissle took a big breath in, squaring his shoulders and looking Leo dead in the eye. “Every day we catch another kid trying to kill themself because they can’t bear their grief anymore. It’s tearing these kids apart while we’re helpless to do anything to help. They want, they need, an outlet, something to loose their anger upon. But blaming someone as grand as the Bloody or something as intangible as an invisible assassination force isn’t enough. They need something to bleed, to wring with their own hands,” Yissle sat forward, settling an intense glare upon Leo. “Leo, these kids hate you, and they hate Trenton even more. You were lucky to get off as light as you did earlier today. Most of the kids wouldn't dare raise a hand against you, what be it cowardice or weakness, but not all. Some can and will kill you if given the chance. I’m doing what I can to keep things calm, but I don’t know how much longer that’ll last. Tensions only worsen by the day. You want my advice? Leave. As much as it pains me to say, I don’t want you here come morning.”
“Leave where? Even if Era can figure out what Trenton is before morning, we’ve no idea where the cloud isles emissary is. Wimbleton knew, but he never told us. Yissle, we don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Anywhere is better than here. And besides,” Yissle scrounged an envelope with a broken seal resembling that silver pendant Wimbleton always wore on his cloak. He held it out to Leo, “Wimbleton thought ahead.”
Leo took the letter, “What is it?”
“The emissaries approximate location. Wimbleton sent it to us just after-”
Yissle whipped his head to the side, inspecting the encroaching darkness wide eyed. Somehow, despite Leo’s light, it had managed to reclaim its supremacy over them, a thick black well of shadows nearly suffocating them. Leo was right. The shadows were too long. He doubled the size of his flame, holding a blazing fireball of light in his hand, but the shadows didn’t recede. In fact, they approached even closer, Leo jumping back towards Yissle to avoid touching the inky substance.
“he…he…he…….Leo? Why won’t…you play with me…?”
All around them, tall rounded shadows, each somehow and even deeper blackness than the void all about them, rose to towering heights, each one sliding slowly towards Yissle and Leo like reapers come to claim. But they weren’t the source of the voice, the all too familiar voice.
From the darkness, somewhere by where Leo was sure the window was supposed to be, a gangly, mutilated figure of hanging, twisted limbs stumbled towards them, mouth ajar with their jaw hanging far too low, darkness spilling like water from every orifice, blue skin tinted slightly black.
“Leo…it…hurts…Trenton…..please…..help….me…”
No…it was wrong. It had to be. Surely he was…dreaming or hallucinating or something else that could explain what his eyes were showing him. This wasn’t reality. It couldn’t be. It…couldn’t…Leo keeled over, hurling the contents of his stomach as he stared into the eyes of that abomination, body trembling. There was no denying it. Millie begged for his help, and he was absolutely powerless to give it.
***
Karfice didn’t care much for his own life. He hadn’t for many years, not since he first earned his scars and swore that never again would he raise a finger against another living creature. If he died, then it was simply meant to be. If he lived, then it was another day where he might repent for his sins.
He didn’t even mind when the kids broke into the sanctum, didn’t mind when they grabbed and tore at his flesh, failing to truly injure him in any meaningful way, didn’t mind when they dragged him from the room by whatever handhold they could possibly grab. He didn’t even bother fighting back. It wasn’t worth the energy.
But when they grabbed Mar, screaming as they ripped fistfuls of her hair from her head, kicking at her legs and arms like she was a test dummy, something…snapped in his mind, the dam he’d so peerlessly forged and maintained all these years cracking for the first time in a decade.
It was as if the whole world went black, and for a moment, he lost himself in the bloodlust, ripping and tearing at anything nearby he could grab, rending skin from muscle, muscle from bone, and bone from body. And it felt…so…good. He felt as a shark feasting for the first time in a millenia. It was intoxicating, a single drop of blood all it took to dredge from the depths his old memories.
“Karfice! Karfice! KARFICE!”
Karfice froze. In his hand, he held the battered and broken body of a random child, one of the students that jumped them. The child’s jaw hung loose from their mouth, no longer allowing them to even beg for their life, the sound of gurgling blood the only one they could muster. All around them, other children in similar states lay, alive, if only barely.
Maria clung to Karfice’s arm, desperately pulling him away from the child, tears streaming down her face, an incoherent babble of syllables streaming from her mouth in an attempt to get Karfice to stop his onslaught. What had he done? Oh gods what had he done?
“I can’t believe I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Hen was right about you, monster each and every one,” a bitter voice called out from behind Karfice.
As Karfice stared agape at the blood coating his body, thick spatial chains surrounded him and Maria and, in but a blink of the eye, the scenery around them shifted, switching from a brightly lit corridor at dusk to a dark and dingy dungeon lined with gray bricks and torches.
The moment he touched ground, the chains surrounding his body leapt upwards, connecting him to a spatial bar hanging overhead, suspending his body aloft with Maria, Avardis, Kiva, and Garrote all lined up to his left, each bound and gagged just like him. Their eyes alighted upon him and Maria with something akin to helplessness, Garrote the only one still trying to struggle against the bindings.
“Where’s the red haired boy, and Trenton?” An older boy said as he stepped forward into the light, inspecting each of them with a grimace.
Behind him, a small audience stood, no more than a couple dozen other students, each with presence no less than a boiling pot, their vessels teeming with visible rage.
Off to the side, a white haired boy shrugged, flopping against the side wall, arms crossed and eyes closed, “Fire boy and Trenton are with Yissle, so they’re no goes. Just go ahead and start already. We can get them later,” the boy said, Karfice recognizing it as the same one that he’d just heard outside the sanctum.”
“Is that tone I hear?” The other boy whipped his head towards the white hair, eyes ablaze with fury.
“Yes, it is. And you’ll be hearing a lot more of it if you don’t start the damn ceremony. You were the one that said it had to be all proper like,” the white haired boy shot back, opening his eyes to glare at the older boy.
“Without them there’s hardly even a point to any of this! He needs to suffer, to watch them bleed helpless to do anything. I told you to get all of them,” the older boy swiftly strided over the white hair, standing over him eyes wide.
“And this was all I could scrounge,” the white boy threw his arms into the air, standing to his feet to meet the older boy mostly eye to eye. “You want the others? I’d be happy to teleport you up myself. Tell me how that goes for you.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Gods, could you two go half a minute without bickering like children!?” Another boy stepped forward, this one markedly handsome, with the sharp eyes of a fox. “It’ll hurt him just as much to see the corpses of everyone he loves splayed before him as seeing them die. Maybe then I’ll call it even.”
The handsome boy stepped towards the ramshackle wooden platform, above which they hung. He walked down the line, meticulously noting every little detail adorning their faces, their bodies, stopping when he got to Kiva. He cupped his hand around her jaw, leaning forward uncomfortably close.
“Well aren’t you just a doll?” He looked down, taking his sweet time exploring her helpless form as she tried everything in her power to pull away from him. “I never quite understood it. With looks like yours, any noble the kingdoms over would be head over heels to have you. Luxury, leisure, anything your dainty little heart could desire,” the boy raised his hand and snapped, “like that. And yet, you choose to roam the plains with these rats. It makes no sense. You deny yourself your purpose, and if you ask me, bedswervers like you deserve to be,” he leaned forward even further until his forehead lay against Kiva’s, his left hand slowly making its way down her neck, breaching the safety of her collar as it ventured down towards places unmentionable, “punished.”
But the moment he did so, Garrote’s body went stiff, a look of pure hatred, of murder, overcoming him. The fox boy flew from the podium before he could go even an inch further, his body slamming against the back wall hard enough to form a large crater in the stone. And even then, Garrote did not stop, pressing harder and harder until the boy squealed in pain.
“S-stop him! RAICHUS!” The fox boy called out.
“Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to see you suffer a bit. I told you to keep your hands to yourself,” the white haired boy raised his arm into the air, twisting it around while clenching his fists.
Several more chains wound their way around Garrote’s body, digging deeper into his flesh than before, stopping only once the audible crack of bones sounded out from Garrote’s body. At once, Garrote’s magic stream ceased, his mind no longer able to bear the brunt of such strenuous concentration with so much pain alive within his body.
The hoard of students surged forward towards Garrote, hands glowing with a wide variety of magics, each one ready and willing to kill for his transgression. But before they could make the podium, the older boy stepped forward again, blocking them from taking another step forward.
“This needs to be done right. I’ll not have you raising arms until I say,” the older boy stated, quelling, more or less, the audacity of the hoard.
Shakily, the fox boy rose to his feet, staggering a couple steps back forward as he wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, his calm and clever demeanor completely dropped for one much more vile and malevolent, “You can perfect cast? YOU!? Do you have any idea how long we study here to even attempt magic like that!? DO YOU!?” He screamed, leaping back onto the podium and slamming his fist across Garrote’s face. “YOU WANT TO SHOW ME UP!? GO AHEAD! THE FLOOR IS YOURS!” Once again, he struck Garrote in his abdomen, summoning forth a steady stream of blood from beneath the hem of Garrote’s shirt. “I LOST EVERYTHING BECAUSE OF YOU!” Once more to Garrote’s chest. “ALL OF YOU! CUT MY FATHER DOWN WITHOUT AN OUNCE OF REMORSE! BASH HIM INTO A PILE OF BLOOD AND BONES!? DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER!?!?”
Over and over and over again, the boy laid into Garrote, everyone helpless to act as the pile of blood on the ground grew ever larger. Everyone that was, except for Karfice. He was fully capable of perfect casting, of walling everyone out from dealing them any harm. But…he couldn’t. Everytime he tried to well his magic, a little voice in the back of his mind spoke dirty truths. “Worthless” it called him. “Murderer” it called him. “Monster” it called him. So as Garrote got beat to death, little by little, Karfice simply watched, torn between worlds and pains unimaginable.
“That’s enough Hen…HEN!” The older boy leapt forward, pulling the fox boy from Garrote and dragging him back from the podium.
“I’LL KILL HIM! I SWEAR I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM!” Hen shouted into the air as tears streamed down his face, seemingly, simultaneously, angry and sad at everything, the whole world his enemy.
“Gods he won’t sit still! Hold him! I’ll finish this!” The older boy shouted, handing Hen’s struggling form off to the hoard of children behind himself.
The older boy stepped forward, picking up a rusty, chipped executioner's axe from a dusty wrack of weapons pushed off into the corner. He approached Karfice, carefully lifting himself up while taking care not to cut himself.
“Your lives in this world bring nothing but suffering and pain to all unfortunate enough to know you. Everyone here has lost someone important to them due to your war. You’ve dragged us into your problems, so we will deliver the due justice no one else will. This world no longer needs you. Rot in hell,” the older boy lifted the axe into the air, the white-haired boy watching with passive interest.
Maybe…he was right. Maybe Karfice really didn’t deserve to live anymore. He thought he was better. He thought he was stronger, but…if he can’t control himself, he’s no better than a savage animal fit for the block. He deserved this…he deserved this…he…
Karfice blinked.
He stood the snowy tundra of the Thalian, amidst the ruins of a little village coated with fresh corpses, a place he remembered quite well.
“Was it worth it, boy? We did not commit the treason. We did not hurt you. So why? Why us? We didn’t deserve this.”
A corpse rose from the snow, shambling upright despite the notable black hue to its skin, the holes adorning itself. It stared at him with forlorn eyes, judgment that he deserved fully and truly.
“No, you didn’t,” Karfice admitted.
“Did you enjoy it? Was it worth it? It won’t bring her back. You know it won’t.”
Another corpse rose, speaking the words he’d long told himself once he realized.
“I did…but it didn’t mean a thing…I’m so sorry,” Karfice wept, collapsing to his knees.
“Regret doesn’t change the past, boy. You made a mistake, and you can never take it back.”
One by one, the corpses rose, each one lamenting his failure, digging into him with everything he never wanted to face. They circled him on every side, chanting to “pay penance for your sins” as the world turned black and the mountain scene faded away to nothing. He deserved this. He deserved to suffer. Cold and alone, that was how he was destined to die. It was time to let go. It was time to repent.
.
.
.
“Really? You’re going to give up? Just like that? I thought you were stronger than that.”
And just like that, he was no longer alone. Next to him, gleaming with a subtle radiance, Trenton stood, bold and proud against the encroaching darkness, hand outstretched towards Karfice’s crumpled form.
“I can’t do it…I’m sorry, Trenton…you were wrong to put your faith in me. I told you, I’m weak. Weaker than anyone else could ever be.”
“You chose to follow me, Karfice. Why? What was it that called you forth after so many years of peace? You could’ve lived the rest of your life never again seeing battle. But you chose to step forward, knowing full well the consequences. You don’t step into the fire unless you know you can handle it. It wasn’t your apathy that let you return to the battle, it was your courage, your strength. For a moment, that day in Zerital, you believed in yourself, you believed in me. You told yourself that while you were by my side, the world would never be quite so dark, that my fire would pierce even the deepest shadows. So tell me, Karfice. Do you still believe in me?”
Karfice squinted at Trenton, his form wavering ever so slightly under closer scrutiny. These words, they didn’t sound like Trenton’s, but whose were they? It was so hard to tell, his mind so rife with messy wires.
“I do, of course I do.”
“Then you believe in yourself. Take my hand, child, and remember the warmth of my fire. No longer shall winter bind you, be it in my summer will you repent. Stride forth from this darkness and light this world ablaze. They need you.”
Of course, how could he forget? The fires which forged his first regret? Karfice took Trenton’s hand, and together, they burst with brilliant light, that of the sun upon the perfect august day.
In an instant, the shadows were banished from mind and body, hissing and shrieking the tune of familiar voices at the slightest contact with his light. It could stand no match against the brilliance of summer. Next to him, Kiva, Garrote, and Maria’s bodies all lay crumpled on top of the wooden platform, each one twisted slightly, but without the plague of darkness, which circled around them, looking for any way to approach.
At the border of his light, Karfice saw mutilated corpses resembling the boys that had threatened to kill them just a moment ago, darkness pouring out of their faces, every feature warped nearly beyond recognition. They spoke to Karfice, demanding he yield, telling him he was a failure, telling him he no longer deserved to live, but somehow, someway, despite the objective loneliness about him, he felt comforted. He wasn’t alone, never could he be again. Now to figure a way out of there.
“WAIT SLOW DOWN SLOW DOWN SLOW DOWN SLOW-”
Karfice grabbed the unconscious bodies of his friends, stepping back just as two figures crashed through the stone ceiling, falling with a small pile of rubble and completely shattering the wooden execution platform.
“That,” from the rubble, a familiar figure rose, brushing dirt and dust off of himself–Gyrus–the ever-persistent gate guard, “could have gone better.”
Another figure rose from the mess, nearly doubled over, left hand over his stomach laughing, other hand pointing at Gyrus. It was a wonderful sound, bright and jubilant, like the merriment of an entire village on Christmas all pooled into the form of one boy, “I told you to slow down,” he said, higher pitched, chipper tone completely unburdened with the situation around them.
The strong tip of his ears betrayed his elvish nature, short raven black hair and soft features tussling slightly as he rose to his full height, which itself was not very impressive. He wiped the tears from his eyes as he scanned the room, the smile never leaving his face.
“Oh wow, you guys actually survived that? Color me impressed!” The elvish boy exclaimed, sticking out his hand towards Karfice, who very obviously had no hands available to shake. “Name’s Wyll! Gyrus was telling me all about how-”
“YOU’RE ALIVE!” Gyrus leapt forward, suddenly noticing Karfice, wrapping his whole body around Karfice like he were a lamppost, nearly toppling the both of them over in the process. His time as a Korak, gate guard certainly did much to help his vigor.
“Sure am. Good to see you, Gyrus,” Karfice responded.
“I heard them planning and scheming and then I heard they wanted to kill you and they were going to take you down and kill you and and and I panicked because I didn’t know where they were going to take you but they could teleport so I couldn’t follow them and-”
“Let’s focus on getting out of this alive, first, Gyrus, and then we can worry about catching up,” Wyll put his hand down, gazing up into the hole they’d just punched through the ceiling. “Looks like we’re going up, gentleman. Last one to the top is a sour crout!” Wyll leapt into the air, hoisting himself into the hole and disappearing from view, his laughter echoing down after him.
Well, this oughta be interesting.