I gripped the gladius, its blade still slick with a crimson glow, and burst into the hall—a forest of silent stone men, frozen in endless vigil.
"Show yourself, Tenebrarum! I swear by the Styx, I'll carve you open and brew a pudding from your blood!"
My voice echoed off the obsidian walls, a challenge thrown into the void. No answer came. Only the silence of the statues, their empty stone eyes watching me with eternal patience.
Then—a trembling voice, soft as a lamb's, answered from the shadows:
"Please… do not."
Out from the columns crept a boy. Small. Golden-locked. His eyes burned like twin embers of the same infernal flame I hunted. He was fair as a god's dream, his features delicate, almost feminine. His hands shook like leaves in an autumn gale, and his tunic was torn, revealing the fragile bones of his collarbone.
He must be afraid.
I lowered my sword—just a fraction.
"Child, who are you? Come—I will lead you to safety beyond this cursed place."
He looked up. Tears streaked his dusted cheeks, cutting pale channels through the grime. His lower lip trembled.
"I am Tenebrarum," he whispered. "And I loathe what I am. I am so afraid…"
Then he flung his arms about my waist.
"What?!"
I thrust him back. The point of my sword kissed his throat—a silver promise against his pale skin. His eyes widened. Tears spilled faster.
His voice rose, a desperate chant breaking against the stone:
"Do not slay me! Do not slay me! Do not slay me!"
The walls caught his cry, flinging it back a thousandfold—a chorus of terror that would not fade. My own voice multiplied, distorted, screaming back at me from every direction.
Do not slay me... do not slay me... do not slay me...
My grip wavered. The sword trembled in my hand.
No—this cannot be. This is but phantasm. A lie of the mind.
The boy's face twisted. His golden hair darkened, deepening to the color of a moonless night. His eyes blazed brighter, the embers becoming a conflagration. The warmth of his small body against mine turned cold—unnaturally cold, like the touch of a corpse.
His features shifted. The delicate jaw sharpened. The soft mouth curved into something cruel.
And then I was falling.
The world dissolved. The walls, the statues, the boy—all of it bled away like paint in rain. The sounds faded—the chanting, the echoes, the desperate plea—until only silence remained.
I gasped. My body returned to me—heavy, aching, chained. The cold bite of iron dug into my wrists. The throbbing of my broken finger pulsed with every heartbeat.
The chamber was gone.
Only the bright light burnt my eyes.
It was the breaking of a new day.
I wiped the sweat from my brow, still trembling from the vision, when a voice cut through the gloom—sharp as a blade, laced with mockery.
"Oh, you stir at last... I thought the Fates had claimed you by starvation's hand."
The woman laughed—a cruel, hollow sound that echoed off the marble walls.
Fool. Harlot. She dares to mock me, when I am destined for greater things. I am no puppet for Tenebrarum's strings. I will drive my blade through his black heart before he ever claims mine. I will burn every shadow-spawn from this earth—and yes, even my whore of a mother, who bore me only to curse my name.
The gods have turned their faces from me. The heavens are silent as tombs. So be it. I shall be their reckoning. I shall be the sword they refused to wield.
You—all of you—shall pay for my father's ashes. For my sister's broken breath.
Flavia... gentle Flavia... she did nothing to deserve the dark's embrace.
The tears came unbidden, hot against my cheeks. I did not wipe them away.
"You are mad," spat the first woman, her voice dripping with contempt. "You rave like a brain-addled fool, fresh-born and mewling. I pray Lord Tenebrarum ends your miserable existence soon."
She strode to the window and flung the shutters wide, and the infernal light of that wretched realm seared my eyes like hot irons.
"That was unkind, Cornelia. She is but mortal—and frightened, I wager." A second voice, softer, almost tender. A hand extended toward me, pale and open. "I am Luna. Do not be afraid. Take my hand, and rise from this cold stone."
Did I ask for her pity? Did I beg for her touch?
"I would sooner greet death than let your fingers sully my skin!" I shrieked, my voice cracking against the vaulted ceiling.
Cornelia sneered. "You hear that, Luna? She is filth, through and through. Rise when you will—but know this: our Lord demands our presence upon the podium before the first bell. And you, wretched thing, would not care to be dragged there by your hair."
She turned, her sandals scraping the stone, and the shadows drank her form.
I remained on the floor, fists clenched, tears still falling—but my heart burned with only one ember.
Tenebrarum. I will end you. I swear it by the ashes of my blood.
---
Luna's smile did not falter—a gentle, infuriating thing, like moonlight on still water.
"It is well," she said softly. "You do not wish to be dragged, and I do not blame you. Every soul here carries their own burden. I too did not choose this life... but destiny, cruel mistress that she is, wove my thread regardless."
"Destiny?" I spat, venom dripping from every syllable. "You dare speak to me of destiny? You are a foul thing—a blight upon creation, a mistake the heavens themselves regret! You and all your kind know nothing but suffering. You are suffering given flesh. Do not speak to me of stories—you have not lived mine! You have not watched your father's blood pool at your feet! You have not held your sister's cold hand as the light fled her eyes!"
My voice cracked like a whip against the stone.
Luna bowed her head, her expression unreadable. "I will leave you, then. When your fury cools, come to the podium. He does not suffer tardiness lightly."
She turned and vanished into the shadows, her footsteps fading like a dying whisper.
I laughed—a bitter, hollow sound. What care I for a demon's anger? What worse could he do than has already been done? Let him come. Let him try.
---
Barely a handful of breaths passed before I found myself screaming down the corridors, my ankles bound in iron chains, my arms wrenched behind my back. Two hulking brutes of shadow and bone dragged me across the cold stone, my knees scraping raw, my robes tearing against the jagged floor.
"Release me, you mongrels of the pit!" I howled, thrashing like a wild beast caught in a snare. "I am no plaything for your master! I will see him dead! Do you hear me? DEAD!"
The corridors echoed my fury back at me, twisted and mocking, until even my own voice sounded strange to my ears.
And still they dragged me onward—toward the podium, toward the burning light, toward the one whose name I had sworn to carve from this world.
Tenebrarum.
The chamber swallowed all light—darker than the womb of the earth, darker than the space between stars. Only one form emerged from the void: a throne of obsidian, and upon it, a figure whose back faced me like a wall of stone.
The door groaned shut behind me, sealing my fate.
He rose. Slow. Deliberate. His mask gleamed faintly—a face of silver death, hollow-eyed and grinning. Each step toward me was a drumbeat of doom upon the marble floor.
"Monster!" I shrieked, my voice raw and cracking. "Release me! Kill me if you must! Strike me down! I care not!"
Tass!
My head snapped sideways. The world spun—fire exploded across my cheek, and my skull struck the ground with a crack that echoed through my very bones.
He stood over me, his voice low as distant thunder, cold as the grave's embrace. "You are untrained. Rude. Foolish. You should be carrion by now. I have never—never—kept a toy so defiant. But do not squander my mercy. Do not."
His words cut deeper than his hand. Was it the slap that burned so fiercely? Or the hunger gnawing at my hollow belly? I could not tell. All I knew was the hate that coiled in my chest like a serpent ready to strike.
I hate him. By all the ashes I have wept over, I hate him.
"Vasile."
A voice emerged from the shadows—smooth, obedient. "Yes, Master."
My neck was too weak, my head too heavy to lift. I could only stare at the cold stone beneath me, my breath shallow, my vision swimming.
"Take her to the room... the one I keep for dogs. And give her the scroll... prepare her for the ceremony."
The words hung in the air like a sentence of doom.
The room for dogs.
What is that?
------------------------------
To be continued...