The Scars We Leave — Chapter One

A trans boy is caught by slavers and sold to a dangerous sadist, but something darker still lurks beneath the nobleman’s mansion.

Erotic short story, dark fantasy. 6.2K words.

Header by Lance Reis via Unsplash.

Chapter One: The Hand That Holds the Knife

When Aeryn is captured by slavers, he finds himself sold to a noble family’s country house and in the clutches of a violent, possessive man. But the manor is built atop something much older, and a more dangerous power is lurking where the light can’t reach.

You can find a directory of chapters in The Scars We Leave here.

Trans M/Cis M, 6231 words. Aeryn’s body is described with the words “breasts,” “tits,” “pussy,” “cunt,” “hole,” “womb”

CWs and Tags:

• Non-consensual sex
• Slavery
• Public humiliation
• Bondage
• Collar/leash
• Graphic descriptions of violence (not guro, to be clear)
• Defloration kink
• Bloodplay/knifeplay kink
• Scarification

The thunder of galloping hooves was the first sign of their coming. Shouts went up from the small town’s lone watchtower as a parade of horsemen came into view down the road, vague silhouettes of riders under the moonlight. A moment later, the warning bell rang out, its toll stirring every villager from bed and sending them running to shelter or reaching for weapons. This far into the frontier, no one was coming to help them: It was flee or fight for themselves.

Two members of the town’s militia met the cavalry at the threshold of the village, brandishing spears and padded cloth armor, praying this would not be the night they lost their lives. The first rider stormed past them, and a crack split the night air. One of the men cried out in pain as the whip stung his arms, and another marauder reared up before him. The rider thrust down with a long staff tipped with half-circle metal prongs, pushing the guard to the dirt and pinning him in the weapon’s grip.

The other militia man watched with dawning realization. Whips and mancatchers: The attackers were slavers. He leveled his spear at the rider before him. “T-This place is a protectorate of Duke Ivan!” He yelled. “You’ll all be hanged before the next moon!”

“Duke Ivan is dead,” the horseman spat. “He died in his sleep two weeks ago, without an heir. This town’s free territory, which means it’s free picking.”

“You bastards!” The guard thrust his spear up at the slaver, but another rider swept up to him and jabbed a blunt staff into his ribs, sending him gasping for breath onto his knees. Another catch pole clamped around him, and more riders galloped past, the slavers spreading out into the town unopposed.

Aeryn sat up in his cot at the sound of the bell, jolted to alertness. He fumbled for his cloak, which had a dagger sheathed on the inside, and swept it over his shoulders.

“Luka?” He looked up at the bed next to him. “Luka, wake up.” He was from the city, here to care for his ailing half-sister. She had come down with some kind of affliction in her lungs, and he’d stayed at her side for days now.

She coughed as Aeryn shook her awake, her eyes widening when she heard the bell. “Wha–an attack?”

Shouts and the pounding of hooves echoed from outside. “It must be,” he said anxiously. “Let’s go out the back.”

Aeryn went first, one hand wrapped in Luka’s and the other clutching his dagger. The village was in chaos: The militia was battling the attackers, but they were outnumbered and on foot against cavalry. Behind them, townspeople were fleeing, but most were run down by riders with staves and mancatchers, knocked to the ground and pinned.

The siblings picked the direction with the clearest path and ran. If they had made it, perhaps they would have tried to make for the nearest city, or hide out in the woods until it was safe to return. But they didn’t get far enough to make the decision.

A slaver bolted into their path, yanking the reins on his wild horse to come to a stop. He flicked a whip in their direction, his face unreadable behind a metal helmet. There was no way for Aeryn to reach him from the ground, so the boy pulled his hand back and hurled the dagger with a frightened shout. It sailed past its mark and disappeared into the night, and then the whip came down.

The battle, if it could be called that, was over quickly. The makeshift town guards were no match for an organized fighting force, and the resistance was put down without casualties. As the townspeople were bound and sorted, the other slavers broke into the houses and businesses to take anything of value, like vultures stripping a corpse. By morning, the village would be a ghost town.

Ravenna, the only woman among the company, rode in last, only as the battle ended. She surveyed the scene with a discontented frown. The money was good, but this was always her least favorite part of the job. It made her feel more like a bandit, which bothered her only because it wasn’t far from the truth.

Gareth saw her and nudged his horse, trotting over next to her. “Pretty average haul tonight,” He said. “Ben picked up a pretty one he wanted you to take a look at, though. Left her in that house.” He gestured vaguely towards the hut.

Ravenna nodded, dismounting and picking her way past the aftermath of the fight towards the small building. Inside, the girl was trembling, stripped naked, bound by the wrists, and tossed against a dresser. The woman rolled her eyes. Could they stand to be even a little gentle?

“It’s okay, young lady,” she said softly. “I’m not here to hurt you. What’s your name?”

“Aeryn. And…I’m a boy.” He averted his eyes and shamefully covered his chest with his hands.

“Of course, dear,” Ravenna agreed, looking him over carefully. He was pretty, pale-skinned with a waifish build, modest hips and small breasts. He had thick, wavy hair, the color of snow, which fell several inches past his shoulders. His wide eyes were light grey, fixed above a small button nose. He was lightly dusted with freckles, a few scattered across his cheeks and more sprinkled down his chest, stomach, and limbs. His hair suggested distant elvish blood, though his ears were human.

“I’m here to ask you a few questions.” She smiled gently. “Just to get an idea of things. I’m on your side, so it’ll be easier for everyone if you go along.”

Aeryn swallowed and nodded, still not meeting her eyes.

“How old are you?”

“This will be my nineteenth winter.”

“Do you have any family?”

“An uncle and a sister. My sister was with me, they separated us. Is she–?” He asked frantically.

“I’m sure she’s alright,” Ravenna assured him. “Everyone was under orders not to harm.”

“I…okay.” His posture sagged, but he didn’t press her further.

“One more question. Are you a virgin?”

Aeryn started and suddenly looked up at her, his face reddening. “I–why do you–“

“Tell me, please.”

He stared at the ground. “Y-Yes…”

She put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ve been very helpful, Aeryn. I know this is frightening, but I’ll make sure you end up with people who will treat you well.” Ravenna smiled. “We’re not monsters, after all.”

When she left, he was staring vacantly at the wall, knees huddled to his body and bound hands tightly clutching his wrists.

The new slaves were rounded up in the center of town, some bruised and winded from attempting to fight back. They were organized into groups by age and ability, and their rope bindings were replaced with metal shackles, locked to long chains to force them all to march in a line. Aeryn, still naked and now fitted with a locked, black leather collar, strained to see Luka in the crowd. He caught a flash of her red hair, but lost her among the lines of people and clusters of horses blocking his vision.

The march back to civilization was hard and humiliating, walking with chains clattering every step, the eyes of the slavers on him at all times. Breaks were infrequent, and the food was plain trail rations; bread, cheese, and dried meat twice a day. No one hit him, or really paid him much mind at all, but any of the others who yelled, fought, or tried to run were whipped and kept in line with more restraints.

Their first stop at a city, several days in, saw some of the horses swapped for a caravan of covered wagons, picking up the pace and giving Aeryn’s bruised feet some rest. Before they left, the group thinned, many of the prisoners taken out to auction and sold. It was the last time he caught a glimpse of his sister in the crowd. But he remained where he was, his ankles now chained to his seat in the wagon. He wouldn’t have his own day until their next destination, the bustling trade city of Dreistan.

Ravenna took Aeryn to bathe and groom before he was to be sold. The two were led to a small washroom in the company’s building, and his restraints were temporarily removed. She let him wash himself, sitting primly on a stool and watching.

“You’ll be on the platform in a few hours,” she told him. “Be on your best behavior, dear; you’ll be advertised in the Upper Court, and if you’re presentable, you could go to a nobleman or a wealthy merchant.” Ravenna smiled. “An easy life of light work, a soft bed, and good food doesn’t sound too bad, hm?”

“Mm,” Aeryn intoned dully in response, rinsing soap off his arm. He’d gotten used to strangers staring at his body, now, but the woman being so close as he bathed himself was still uncomfortably intimate. He dreaded to think what was next for him, and wondered if being a slave to a noble house was as easy as she made it sound. I doubt it.

“Step out, and I’ll dry you off and brush your hair.” Ravenna ran her fingers through its white length. “You really have such beautiful hair. I think you’ll catch quite a few eyes.”

The auction platform was a raised, circular wooden stand placed prominently in the center of a courtyard. Aeryn was one of several slaves led up the steps to be sold to the rich folk of the Upper Court. Lined up before the appraising eyes of nobles and guildmasters was the most desirable of the merchandise, those who were young, attractive, muscular, healthy, or otherwise capable of fetching a higher price.

One of the slavers tied his arms behind a pole and wrenched his legs apart, shackling Aeryn’s ankles in a wide stance to hooks set into the stage. The position left him unable to move and left absolutely nothing to the imagination for every onlooker, exposing his pale skin, breasts, and open cunt to anyone who wanted to see them. He wasn’t a person anymore, just a piece of flesh for the critique of the buyers.

A crowd began to gather for the scheduled auction as the slaves were brought to the posts. More than a few fixed their eyes on Aeryn with undisguised interest, and he found it was easier to just close his eyes and try to block it all out. The cold iron on his ankles, the roughness of the wood against his back, the wind on his bare skin, the barks of the crowd, the smell of the marketplace; every sensation pressed in on him, threatening to overwhelm him. He fought to push it all away, rip himself out of reality.

Time passed like it was crawling. One, then two, then three of the other slaves were purchased. Coin changed hands and bodies were led away, keys given to new masters. The sound of someone sobbing cut through Aeryn’s body, and he shook, finally unable to stop the tears from escaping to roll down his face.

He could feel it when the attention moved onto him. In his head, he counted, recited poems, sung songs, anything to keep himself from hearing what was being said. He did not want to know how much he was being sold for. There was no amount that wouldn’t be devastating.

“Open your eyes, kid,” a gruff voice said in Aeryn’s ear. “You’ve got a new home.”

The man who purchased him was a scion of the Deacon family, a noble house who owned land in and around Dreistan. Aeryn had heard the name before; they were often involved in conflicts between duchies, funding their preferred side or contributing mercenaries to the battle. Supposedly their line began with a general who had been bestowed peerage for winning a war, but the land had gone through so many kings and kingdoms over the years, he wasn’t sure which one the Deacons traced their nobility to.

Aeryn soon learned he wouldn’t be staying in the city: Setting him on a horse, they rode out and up into the hills, an entourage of servants and guards surrounding the nobleman. Past the grassy knolls, a few hours away, the Deacon country home stood sheltered in a valley. It was a three-story mansion built in antique woodwork, encircled by hedges and delicately tended gardens. An isolated castle.

A grim-faced butler led him away when they reached the grounds. “Welcome to the household.” The man’s voice was rough and bored. “It is a privilege to serve the Deacon family.”

It didn’t feel like one.

The butler took him down a narrow hallway, into the quarters for the slaves and servants. “Lord William tells me you are to be the personal…attendant for his brother, Marcus. Thus, you will have your own quarters.”

“Attendant…?”

His question was ignored. “The young master is away on a campaign right now, and I understand you are to be a gift for his return. Please be patient, and in the meantime I shall see to your needs.”

The butler opened one of the doors lining the hallway and ushered Aeryn in. The room was spartan, with a bed, a small cabinet, and no windows. “I will fetch clothes and a meal for you.”

The door closed, and he heard the small click of it locking.

That night, Aeryn had dreams, the first ones he could remember since being captured. He was a bird, soaring over a field of slopes blanketed in trees. The clouds drifted past him as he dove, settling into a glide above a deep valley. Out of the valley, a tower rose, a slim, needle-like structure made of dark stone. In the dream, he could see in far greater detail than he could in reality. He watched tiny etchings carve themselves into the slabs of rock, curving, sharp patterns like claws and elegant, sweeping ones like waves. Color followed in their wake, lighting up the runes in orange, blue, purple, and more, casting the tower in a faint glow.

He swept into a window on the top floor, his talons touching down and suddenly becoming human feet again, his body unfolding out of the feathers. He tried to look around, but the room was unnaturally dark, shadows creeping up over the sunlight let in by the window and swallowing it.

The threads of blackness writhed and shifted, becoming lines pointing back to the far side of the room. The darkness flexed and stretched like a creature waking up from a long sleep. A form began to appear, a person seen only by their outline, featureless in the mass of shadows.

They reached out and placed their hand on Aeryn’s shoulder, and in that moment, he woke up.

He knew when Marcus had arrived, three days later, because a small group of servants (notably without collars) came to fetch him for the baths. Heedless of his protests that he’d do it himself, they scrubbed him down, washed out his hair, and carefully shaved him.

Although Aeryn had already figured he knew what “attendant” meant, the clothes they set out for him confirmed his fears.

When he was delivered to Marcus’s bedchamber, he was dressed in sheer black thigh-high stockings, a matching lacey garter belt, and thin ribbons around his wrists. Most of all, the slave collar that had stayed with him all this time, fixed now with a long chain-link leash.

The young lord slid his feet off the bed and stood up. Marcus was shirtless, wearing only a loose pair of evening trousers. He was tall, with fair skin, a wiry, athletic build, and smartly cut black hair. His features were angular and his smile was dark.

“So you’re the pet my brother bought.” The door slammed shut behind Aeryn. “Will knows my taste. I’ll have to thank him.”

He curled a fist in the boy’s hair and yanked his face up to lock eyes. “Behave, and we’ll get along fine.”

“I–“ Aeryn opened his mouth to say something, and an open hand immediately stung his face.

“You don’t speak unless I tell you to.” Marcus wrapped the leash around his fingers and pulled it taut, straining the collar. His sinister smile widened. “You’ll live longer if you respect me. If I like you, you’ll live well. Understand, pet?”

Trying not to choke on the tightened collar, Aeryn nodded. The pressure on his neck lessened, and he sagged, the taller man’s grip in his hair keeping his head up even as his shoulders slumped.

Marcus dragged him to the bed and pushed him down onto his back. The fabric was soft, softer than anything he’d felt in weeks. The blankets were a rich man’s luxury and, his naked body pressed roughly into them, so was Aeryn. The nobleman climbed up after him, straddling his stomach and pinning the boy under his greater weight. Marcus ran a hand up his side, scraping fingernails on bare skin, and Aeryn flinched, struggling not to hyperventilate, pushing down the disgust rising in his throat and the panic flooding his mind.

“Do you know why I make sure my pets are virgins, slave?” Marcus’s fingers slid over Aeryn’s tit, holding it loosely, putting pressure on his nipple. He closed his eyes and bit his lip to stop himself making a sound, his skin crawling with fear and revulsion. “Because when I fuck you, and mark you, you’ll be mine. I’m the only man you’ll ever know, and you’ll exist for my pleasure. You’ll crave me, and I’m the only release you’ll ever have.”

Marcus leaned in close. Aeryn’s eyelids fluttered and he felt hot breath on his face. “I think that kind of relationship is beautiful, don’t you?” The nobleman’s lips came down, but it was for his neck, not his mouth. Aeryn’s voice finally escaped him as he gasped in pain, with teeth grinding across his skin, pulling it up, sucking it and bruising him. Further down, he felt a discomforting warmth as Marcus’s arousal grew, his cock pushing against the boy’s stomach through the trousers holding it.

Marcus bit until the pain was enough to make his pet groan, shifting and squirming under his body. He kept going, and Aeryn cried out as blood oozed out into his captor’s mouth. Finally, he pulled away, looking down with a manic, euphoric grin and teeth stained in little red rivulets. He pressed his hips down harder against Aeryn’s stomach, rolling his cock against him.

“I’ve been on the battlefield for a month. Sleeping in a tent and eating bread and gruel,” Marcus said. He cupped Aeryn’s face with his hands. “Make it up to me, slave. Welcome me home.” Their kiss was bloody and forceful, Aeryn trying to pull away while Marcus rammed his tongue into the boy’s mouth and nearly split his lip scraping it between his teeth. Aeryn whimpered, the scent of iron in his nose, pain pressing through him. Hands drifted off his cheeks and found his breasts, twisting his nipples and leaving long red scratches in his skin with sharp fingernails. The closeness, the twisted, forced intimacy was agonizing. But every time he struggled, the monster on top of him only pushed him down harder.

Marcus lifted his head up, slowly, letting saliva trickle off his tongue and slide over Aeryn’s lips. His prey gasped for breath in the momentary reprieve, holding the bleeding tooth-marks on his neck with one hand. He rolled off the boy and shed his trousers, letting Aeryn see the cock that would claim his body. Not that he had much frame of reference, but Marcus was big, and the anxious anticipation left him trembling.

The nobleman opened a drawer on the nightstand and pulled something out. It was a sheathed dagger. Aeryn’s eyes widened as he saw it, suddenly fearing for his life.

Marcus knew the question was on his mind. “I’m not going to kill you,” he reassured. “Like I said, I’m going to mark you.” He drew the blade out of its scabbard and pressed the ornate piece against his face, almost lovingly. “You’ll never forget this night, pet, I promise you.”

He pulled Aeryn’s legs apart and slid into the space, his shaft resting on the boy’s thigh. Marcus leaned over, still holding the knife in his right hand, and wrapped his left in Aeryn’s leash. With a shuffle, he pushed their bodies closer together, the tip of his dick brushing the boy’s hole.

“Mine,” Marcus hissed, his cock sliding into Aeryn’s cunt, splitting him open, violating him in an essential way that would emerge in his nightmares for years to come. Aeryn whimpered, his hips quivering, his fingers dug into the blankets like he was holding on for his life. It hurt, not in the sharp, throbbing way that the bites had, but in a heavier, deeper, uncomfortable way. “Now, be still.”

He froze as the tip of the dagger came to rest on his cheek. Marcus drove their hips closer together, his cock piercing further into Aeryn’s body, and at the same time, the edge of the knife broke his skin.

Aeryn bit his tongue not to scream, terrified. The dagger was right in front of his eyes, and its details etched themselves into his mind. A thin, silvery blade with a wavy, inward curve near the curling handguard. Silver filigree on the hilt, wrapped around a ruby on each side, the crimson gem serving as the centerpiece of the design.

Marcus rocked his hips slowly, working him open, forcing his body to respond with arousal. The pain in his cunt bloomed into weighty pleasure even as the knife pressed upwards over his cheek. It drew a thin line of blood, the soldier’s steady, practiced hand keeping it perfectly straight until it stopped under his left eye.

Aeryn sobbed, his legs shaking, his pussy barely drooling around the man’s shaft. The knife turned, carving up in a quarter circle, level to his eye, before it finally left his skin. It dropped out of Marcus’s hand, staining the white sheets with little blossoming red flowers.

The boy groaned as Marcus pulled his body down onto the shaft with his now free hand, fingers digging into his waist. He hilted Aeryn, pressing them as tight as he could, greedily drinking in his naked, bleeding figure. Moaning, fighting the sickening mix of sensations and emotions that swirled like a maelstrom in his head, Aeryn squirmed, trying and failing to wrench them apart.

Marcus moved faster, leaning up again and choking him by the leash. He pumped his hips, slamming his cock back and forth through Aeryn’s cunt, a wild smile on his features. “Marked and claimed, pet,” He whispered. “Belonging to me is a privilege. Thank me for it!”

Aeryn writhed and gasped, shutting his eyes tight, overloaded by the weight in his gut and the fiery pain in his cheek. He responded to Marcus’s words only with a breathy, agonized moan.

“I said thank me.” Marcus pinned him with all his weight and slammed his dick far back into Aeryn’s cunt, making him convulse frantically.

“T-Thank…you…!” Aeryn groaned, desperate to do anything to make it all end.

“Who are you referring to?” Marcus growled. “Address me properly!”

“Thank you…master!” The boy arched his back under the mounting pressure, his fingers clasping and unclasping, searching purposelessly in the blankets.

Marcus grew more manic and feral, pinning Aeryn’s wrists above his head in his own larger hand, wrapping the leash tighter, pumping his cunt furiously. With every thrust, he whipped out to the base of his shaft, then forcefully hilted the boy again.

Aeryn’s eyes rolled back up in his head, blood trickled off his face onto the pillow, and he came, his whole body rocking and shaking under the violent man’s weight. Marcus slammed into him one more time, his cock twitching, before he slowed and stopped, spurting thick cum into Aeryn’s already drenched hole, coating his womb in milky fluid.

Marcus pulled out, smearing juices all over Aeryn’s thighs, letting cum seep unhindered out of his raw, sore cunt. He caught a drop of blood off the boy’s cheek on his finger, holding it up and letting it slide down, cling to his skin, and then fall onto Aeryn’s pale flesh.

When the servants came to fetch him, they rubbed magically prepared ointment on his wounds. By the morning, Aeryn’s bruise was gone, and the cut on his face was healed over into a smooth, white scar. It was a thin, vertical line just under his left eye, that banked off into a quarter circle across his upper cheek. When he saw it in the mirror that afternoon, he started sobbing.

The next night Marcus was even rougher, using his ass and forcing him face-down into the bed, half-smothering him. With the same knife, he left another scar on Aeryn’s lower back. The sadistic noble rid him like a wild beast, greedily clawing and clutching at his skin while his cock ravaged his other hole. Marcus left him like that when he was done, gasping into the sheets.

Over the next week, Aeryn learned the routine quickly. In the afternoon, he was bathed and groomed. In the evening, they left him in Marcus’s chambers, leash fixed to the foot of the bed, to await the lord’s arrival. Marcus would abuse him, rape him, add another scar, and force him, crying all the while, to thank and praise his master. Then the servants would arrive for him, treat his wounds, wash him, feed him, and take him to bed.

Aeryn grew numb to the ordeal surprisingly quickly, dissociating into his thoughts until the pain and the pleasure felt like they were happening to someone else, a distant ripple on the waters far above his conscious mind.

He dreamed of the tower again, and the dark figure within it. This time, before he woke up, the shadow offered him a knife.

It was after his seventh session with his torturer that something changed. Marcus had left him, still bleeding from a cut above his breast, to tend to some other business. Aeryn waited, curled up on the floor away from that dreadful bed, but this time, his usual attendants didn’t arrive.

As he realized that they were late, he slowly crept up off the floor, cringing like someone was going to jump out and scold him.

There was a click from the door, and it swung just barely ajar. But no one entered. Hesitantly, Aeryn opened it and looked out. The hallway was empty.

Something pulled at his mind, insistently, beckoning him to the left. It was the first sharp feeling he’d experienced since the fog had settled over his thoughts, and it startled him.

Wondering if he was dreaming again, Aeryn followed it, padding down the hall and hoping not to be seen. Not many people should be up and about this time of night, he reasoned.

Sometimes, when he came to another door, it seemed to unlock itself for him again, and soon he found himself on the opposite end of the manor house, that strange compulsion guiding him down a dark set of stairs.

A wine cellar? Aeryn looked around at the stacks of barrels and taps, unsure what to do or why he was here. A noise from further in the basement made him flinch, a crack and then a thud like a heavy object hitting the ground.

One wall of the cellar had crumbled, revealing an older section beyond it that had once been bricked up. A section with more detailed, carved architecture, made of black stone. Another set of stairs led even deeper into the earth from there.

At the bottom was a large circular chamber, with a polished floor like dark marble. One half of the room had mostly collapsed, heaps of stone lying in piles of dusty debris. It should have been pitch black, but Aeryn found his eyes adjusting to the dimness with strange ease. In the center of the room was a raised square altar, and perched on it was a cracked, smooth grey stone with an odd, crystalline shape. As he approached it, he could see etchings in its surface, runes like the ones from his dreams.

Hesitantly, he reached out to touch it. Images flashed through his mind–the black tower, trees engulfed by a sea of fire, hulking shapes lurking in the dark. A figure, fingers outstretched, woven from threads of shadow.

He cried out and stumbled, dropping to his knees, but his hand remained fixed to the stone like he’d been nailed to it. The room around him faded, the dimness pressing in until all he could see was the pedestal.

“Little one.” The voice was silky, immaterial, coming from all around him but also nowhere. “Are you in pain?”

“Yes…!” Aeryn gasped out loud, no longer sure if he was dreaming, or hallucinating, or if this surreality was actually happening.

“I’ve watched you. Dragged here against your will, to be a doll for a cruel man. Are you a doll, little one?”

“I…” He sobbed. “No, I…I don’t want this…!” The cut above his breast throbbed. The scar on his face ached.

“This is an ancient place. Long ago, my home stood here, before it was lost to fire and hubris. You stand at the center of my old power, sealed off and forgotten by the fools who dwell here now.”

“Can you help me?” Aeryn grasped the altar and pulled himself up, his legs wobbling. “I…”

“That depends. I cannot heal you, or undo what was done. I cannot offer escape to paradise. What I can give you…is destruction.”

“What…?”

“I long ago stopped counting the years since my fall. I’ve existed here as only a shred of my essence for a terribly long time. As you yearn for freedom, so do I. Let me in, carry me with you, and I will give you my strength to pay back what has been done to you.”

“You’ll help me kill him?” He startled himself with the ferocity in his voice. “…Not just him. All of them. I want them dead.” The faces of the horsemen, riding under the moonlight, passed through his thoughts.

“I will give you the power to do it with your own hand. Do you accept?”

Aeryn took a deep breath. A dark, painful laugh bubbled up out of his chest. “I do.”

Marcus yawned as he stepped back into his room, mentally fatigued from his brother’s endless questions about the war. Not that he minded talking about his exploits, but he only had so much patience for repeating himself.

He glanced at the bed. His slave wasn’t there; the servants must have already picked her up while he was gone. Shrugging, he sat down and began his nightly ritual. Retrieving his knife from the drawer, he unsheathed and began to clean it, wiping off any signs of its previous use. The dagger was his most sentimental possession; not because of who had given it to him, but because of what it represented. It was power, status, control. An ornate symbol of his prestige and a tool that balanced life, blood, and death. He’d never killed anyone with it, but, gripping the hilt, the knowledge that he could was intoxicating.

Marcus almost fell off of his bed when the ground suddenly shook, a violent earthquake that rattled his wardrobe and knocked a portrait of the wall. “Bloody hell–“ He stood up and gripped the post on his bed to keep himself from falling. After a few seconds, the quaking stopped, but it was followed immediately by an ear-shattering roaring sound. It took him a second to realize what it was: Stonework tearing apart, scraping and screaming against itself as it collapsed. He heard people yelling from the rest of the manor. The ground shifted under him, and Marcus realized with horror that the mansion’s foundation was breaking apart.

The chamber filled with living shadows, writhing things that could not properly be called creatures but that nonetheless moved and clawed with something resembling a will. They split the stone, picking apart the walls and the ceiling, worming their way through the cracks to rip the structure apart.

Aeryn rode the wave of darkness upwards, buoyed by the tide. Chunks of floor fell around him as he rose up out of the cellar through one of the holes punched by the overflowing magic. He emerged into the mansion’s dining room, and the shadows set to destroying it, tearing down the walls and slicing through the supports, radiating out from the boy into the rest of the building.

Destruction rained down around his head, but nothing touched him. The pain in his body fled, and there was only grim, resolute purpose. The presence Aeryn had felt trapped in that ancient stone underground now rested inside him, coiled like a sleeping snake around his mind.

Moonlight shone gently on the terrifying scene as the second and third stories of the manor shuddered and collapsed, their debris swept aside and scattered into the grounds by the tearing shadows. It was like a giant had reached down and simply plucked the lid off the building. Screams echoed into the night amidst the sound of splintering wood and cracking stone, people fleeing in fear, stumbling through the wreckage.

Aeryn took a step, and the darkness whorled under his feet, carrying him up and over the crumbled remains. He strode above the ruin, his eyes searching for something. For someone.

He found Marcus picking his way through a collapsed wall near the edge of the building, holding a jagged gash on his shoulder and carrying the ruby dagger in his hand. Aeryn let the shadows ease him down, placing his feet on solid earth to stand before the injured nobleman.

Marcus stared at him. In that moment he saw the boy, naked and pale under the moon, with dark patterns shifting in his irises like a greyscale kaleidoscope, and writhing shadows tearing the land apart behind him, as an angel risen up out of the earth.

Aeryn held out his hand, and an oily ribbon snatched the dagger from Marcus’s grip. It flowed through the blackness until it reached his fingers, power and control delivered to him.

“I don’t…I don’t understand!” Marcus babbled, staggering and clutching a broken wall for support. “What the fuck is happening?”

Aeryn stepped closer, gripping the hilt of the weapon so fiercely his knuckles turned white. “You can’t hurt people forever and not expect someone to eventually hurt you back,” He said, in a voice calmer than he felt. The words did not feel entirely his own.

“Get the fuck away from me!” Marcus screamed in terror. He tried to turn and run, but the coiling shadows wrapped around his ankles and yanked him to the ground. Aeryn stood over him, raising the dagger with only the hint of a tremor in his arm.

“Please!” The cruel, bloody rapist begged. “I can pay you, I can give you…whatever you want, just…!”

The veins in Aeryn’s arm ran black. He lifted his hand, and with unnatural strength, plunged the tip of the blade into Marcus’s forehead. It pierced skin and cracked bone, clawing darkness pulling apart flesh around it. The edge sunk into soft, fragile tissue. Marcus howled in gut-wrenching agony, and then his cries faded into sputtering, dying gasps.

Aeryn yanked the dagger out, and the blood came off it easily, dissolving into the darkness. The shadows wrapped in his arm flowed up and into the weapon, darkening the blade and staining the ornamental rubies black. The boy stared at it, suddenly, awfully afraid of the weapon and everything it represented.

As the sun rose in the dull grey sky, Aeryn sat on the hill above the destroyed mansion, in shock from everything he had experienced. The living nightmare that had destroyed the estate was gone, leaving only a crumbled ruin and a single, glassy-eyed corpse.

Instead of that scene, however, his gaze was fixed on the back of his right hand, the hand that had held the dagger. Welling up from under his skin, a black pattern was forming there. It was a curling, eldritch rune that slowly came into form like a tattoo.

“My mark,” the presence in his mind said. “A symbol of our strength and the means to grasp my power.”

“I didn’t…want any more marks,” Aeryn said in a hollow voice, his scars itching.

“Take it nonetheless, little one. Make it yours, and let no one control you again.”

“What am I going to do now…?” He wondered. The presence didn’t answer.

Going back to the city, especially Dreistan, would be dangerous after what had happened here. Although he had cut the collar off of his neck, the scar on his face was still all too identifiable, and the people who had fled the Deacon estate would tell stories of the pale boy who rode a wave of darkness and destroyed everything he could see. But…there was something he needed to do, regardless of the risk.

I need to find Luka.

Next Chapter: The Fire in Her Eyes.