Andrei and Rhian

The brown-eyed boy lived on for years without regret. The people believed him when he blamed his master’s death on an intruder. A stranger, brown hair, about yea high with a nasty snarl. The villagers took pity on the twice-orphaned boy, now the sole inheritor of his abuser’s estate. The house, the land, the memories—it was all too much until the day he burned it to the ground. Seventeen and alone, he left Oskari for a new life to the north.

The township of Istok. Fish, fish, and more bloody fish. There was also a lot of wood, which was good on account of our boy became a carpenter and not a fisherman. Like father, like son. And like his father, he grew a business from the ground up until his was the name around town. Must’ve been twenty-three by the time he had it all. Success, admiration, all the women and whatnot.

He spent his nights at the Bountiful Blessing brothel—where the women would come and go and no longer be his at the end of a payment. He’d patronize each night, and each night the barmaid would ask, “The usual?” and each night it was. He’d sit alone, toward the back of the room while the hopefuls fawned over the handsome man and the prospect of earnings. He’d select one, and with at least two drinks downed, they’d retreat to a room with nothing but a curtain for privacy.

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But our brown-eyed boy didn’t want sex, did he? He had plenty of that, and it never made him feel. What the poor man needed was a good lashing. One, two, six, fifty. Whip, crack went the belt against his back. None of it mattered. Reputation? It’d fade like the memory of his parents. Money? It’d be spoiled like his sister. Women? Gone at the end of the night.

The drink and the abuse consumed our protagonist, all else around him failing in a self-fulfilling prophecy. His reputation may as well have never been, while the money disappeared, and the women along with it. Until he met her—Isabella. Of all the women at the Blessing, he could never use her, and he pained inside when another man would. Our boy wanted her like he’d wanted no other, but he didn’t think he deserved a wife, or a family, or a decent life after what he’d done. He was a murderer—a fraud.

He had no way of knowing Isabella would see his pain and know it like her own. Whip, crack went the belt against his back while she peeked through the hole in the curtain. She wondered how he’d been damaged, and she wondered how she could fix it. In that moment, she felt like she knew him, and in that moment, she knew she’d always love him.