Interlude 10
The boy’s tears had dried up months ago.
He was a shell of the boy who’d been brought to the Realm of Death almost a year ago.
Pain was a constant to him. The feeling of his body being disfigured had become as commonplace as eating and breathing had been.
As the Goddess of Death and Beauty walked across the crimson obsidian floor, leaving bloody footprints in her wake, she smiled because today would be different.
The red dragon watched from several yards away, her tail slowly brushing the boy’s naked body in reassurance. She had witnessed every cut, every broken bone, and every cry of despair. She had felt them through their bond.
He had never given in, had never taken up the torturer’s knife.
He had been strong because she had been there for him.
At the end of each day, when the goddess had healed his body, the dragon had helped his mind to relax.
She had reminded him of how beautiful Nyth had been.
She’d sent him images of laughter and sunshine and long summer days.
Inni the Destroyer had chosen the boy’s soul from the Void.
Calyr had told her the hardship the boy would endure and the weight he would bear.
He had seen what Lysara would demand of him.
She’d spent months searching the Void with Vyran to find the perfect soul.
She was responsible for this soul’s suffering, and that is why she had always been at his side.
But she could not bear his suffering any longer. It threatened to break her, something that had never happened to a dragon in all their history.
When the goddess stepped up to the boy, her smile widened. “You are more strong-willed than I’d expected, Azric Cyrus. A year of torture, and you still haven’t broken. You still refuse to do as you’re told.”
On this day, he smiled back. “Must be my father’s blood. He always told me he was a rebellious child.”
“That’s probably partly true,” the goddess said before turning to the red dragon.
“But there’s something I know about your father that you may not.
He would endure all the punishment in the world, but as soon as that punishment was directed toward someone else, his resistance faded.
Today, you’re going to watch as I carve up your precious dragon.
Sadly, I can’t heal her, so anything I do will be permanent. It ought to be quite an exciting day.”
The red dragon snarled at the goddess as she was expected to, but she had known this was coming.
The boy no longer had to be bound in place with magic.
He had learned to endure the pain of his torment without lashing out or trying to escape, but as soon as the goddess’s dagger came into existence, its blade coated in a long-dead god’s blood, he exploded toward her.
He could not shadow walk here, as none of the shadows connected to the Void. Instead, he became stronger and faster. Bones grew over his skin, creating an armor that no one else had ever made. His nails grew long and sharp and as hard as stone.
He leaped toward the goddess, and she didn’t even turn to him. Instead, just as those deadly claws were an inch away from her, his body stopped moving. She’d frozen him in place just as she’d done to his body the first time she’d tortured him.
“Your dragon may leave at any time if she wants, but she will not be allowed back. I value her for the coming war, but I value loyalty from you far more. We will see what the two of you choose to do. Remember, as soon as you do as I say, I’ll stop all of this.
Take up my blade, and you’ll be rewarded, darling. ”
The boy screamed out a cry of anger and pain, but he didn’t give in to the goddess. Frozen mid-air without a scrap of clothes on his body, he wanted to fight her. He wanted to drive his claws into her face and rip her eyes from her skull.
But he couldn’t move.
The goddess took another step toward the dragon, and the dragon tried to move back, but the goddess raised her hand.
For just a moment, the dragon seemed to fight against the goddess’s power.
Her leg quivered and slowly moved through the air, but then the goddess closed her fist, and Inni the Destroyer felt her body locked in a cage just as readily as if Vyran had wrapped his shadows around her.
“Remember, you may leave any time you wish, but until then, you are a resident of my realm, and what happens to you is done at my pleasure.”
The dagger moved toward the crimson dragon, such a tiny thing, much smaller than a dragon’s tooth. But when it pressed against the dragon’s scale, Inni the Destroyer roared in pain. Through the bond the boy and the dragon shared, he felt her pain for the first time.
The light of the scale that the dagger pressed against went out as it shattered, leaving a hole in her side. Another scar that would never truly heal. It was the first the boy had ever seen created, all the rest having been earned before he’d been born.
It broke his resistance. He could endure whatever the goddess did to him, but he couldn’t see his only friend hurt. He couldn’t be strong for her in the way she’d been for him. The boy wanted to, but he couldn’t.
“I’ll do it,” he said through sobs. “I’ll do as you say. Just stop hurting her.”
The Goddess of Death and Beauty pulled the dagger back from the dragon and turned to the boy.
In an instant, he felt the cage around him disappear, freeing his movements as he fell to his knees, the tears flowing like a river.
He looked up at the woman whom he’d thought of as the most beautiful creature alive once.
Now he saw her for what she was. A monster, but a monster that owned him. A monster he could not escape. She smiled as she looked down at him, and she knelt beside him. Her hand went to his cheek, her blood-red nails brushing away the tears.
“Let us start with the man.”
And Azric did what had to be done. It was on this day he became a man and learned that the lessons of his childhood were those meant for children.
Sometimes, even when you want nothing more than to do the right thing, it is impossible, and you must become the monster.
That day, something broke inside the boy.
All the torture hadn’t been able to touch it, not with his dragon at his side.
But when he took up the torturer’s blade, he changed and would never be the same.
The woman hung above the door to the goddess’s home as she’d said, every bone in her body broken.
The man’s balls and tongue lay in a basin somewhere.
It was just as Death had told him, and their blood covered his body.
Their screams rang in his mind. Their pain was his now.
He knew what it had felt like to have these same things happen to him.
He knew it, and he also didn’t regret doing it.
Because he knew his dragon would never have left him, and he couldn’t allow her to hurt to save someone else. He would do whatever it took to protect the only true friend he’d ever had.
As the water ran over his naked body, it flowed away red, taking away the proof of what he’d done.
But that blood would never truly leave him any more than his future victims’ would.
Each wound and death would leave his hands more stained with blood, more coated in pain.
His beautiful soul would forever be tainted by it.
The red ran away from him, leaving his skin the soft tan he’d always had, but something had changed.
The crimson wouldn’t leave his nails. This was the first of many changes that would occur as the goddess trained him, as she forged him into something different.
His hands would never be free of blood again.
Neither would his soul, and his violet eyes gained the slightest touch of orange.
He would accept these changes. His fate was etched into his skin, as dark and cruel as the serpent of his goddess.
He’d tried to fight it, but it had been pointless.
All that pain hadn’t stopped her. The only way he’d have won that battle of wills was to give up Inni, and he would never do that. Some sacrifices are simply too much.
As he stepped out of the shower into his chambers, he was shocked to see Lysara waiting for him with a naked woman beside her. She was beautiful. Young and lithe with lust in her eyes.
“I told you that if you were obedient, if you did as you were told, I would reward you with everything you ever desired. Just because it took a little while to get there doesn’t matter.
You’ve earned this reward, darling. She’s here for you to take out all your frustrations on.
Use her however you want. Just like you, she is obedient. ”
Then the goddess disappeared, leaving the man alone with a woman who wouldn’t disagree with anything he wanted. She would and could be every man’s fantasy, including his. The man stared at her with hate in his eyes, and he smelled her fear.
When the goddess came back to the Prince’s room the next morning, he was sitting in a chair, one leg crossed over the other, without a care in the world as he drank a cup of coffee.
The girl was nowhere to be found. The goddess had expected to find her beaten and bruised, lying exhausted in the man’s bed, his seed seeping out of her. She hoped he’d find her a suitable target for his rage.
“Where is your prize?” the goddess asked. “She was not meant for just one night. You have earned her company until you’re tired of her.”
The man smiled at the goddess he was bound to. “You don’t see her?”
The goddess frowned and looked around the room. If she hadn’t been a goddess, she probably wouldn’t have noticed the slight changes. The bits of white against the crimson marble. The strange texture on the walls, red on red. Then she saw the blonde bits of hair attached to so many of those pieces.
Her eyes opened wide. “What did you do?” she hissed.
“I did as I wished. You can force me to fight for you. You can even force me to die for you, but you will never force me to fuck for you. Every woman who walks into my bedroom will end up just like her. In pieces.”