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The boy vowed to kill his father in the most vile and painful ways--as mercilessly as the hatred Lord Praecepsia had shown toward his son.
And whatever beast lived inside of him.
* * *
It was not long before brighter light trickled through the treetops, glistening across the untouched snow. The baron had walked through the night to morning, his limbs stiff and cold, his feet aching. He paused to lean against a tree, closing his eyes to settle his mind. Except, the only thought that lingered there was his father fucking his aunt.
New rage bubbled up inside of the boy, and gritting his teeth, he slammed his fist into the trunk of the tree on which he leaned. The sound of crackling had him opening his eyes, and he lifted his gaze toward the leafy canopy above, which tottered precariously back and forth.
“Oh shit.” The baron backed up a step, unsure of which way the tree would inevitably choose to fall. At the sound of splitting wood, he jumped backward, just as the pale beech toppled over, away from him, and crashed to the ground on an explosion of bracken and snow.
Wide-eyed, he stared at the splintered threads of wood, where the trunk lay completely sundered from its roots. It was not the first time the boy had done something which defied human ability and strength, and a niggling sensation of unease crept over his skin. He lifted his hands, imagining black scales and tentacle-like appendages protruding out of him.
No. He was not the same as his father. Not the same!
Movement from the corner of his eye seized his attention, and he turned to find a small mouse trapped beneath one of the fallen branches. It squirmed and squealed to no avail. The sight of it disgusted him, reminding him of his own weakness, trapped beneath his father’s cruel and unyielding lordship over him. Its squeaking sounds wrapped around his senses like blades scraping over bone, and he clamped his eyes shut.
“You’re weak and pathetic! Just like your mother!”
The words of his father chimed inside his head, stirring his rage, until jagged flashes of red flickered behind his eyelids.He lifted his boot to stomp on the mouse, his keen sight picking up the reflection of his foot in the mouse’s round black eyes. The animal stopped moving, staring up at him, as if accepting its fate. A thought that twisted the baron’s revulsion all the more.
It was in that moment that a sound reached his ears. Soft, feminine laughter echoing through the trees. Lowering his boot and briefly sparing the mouse, he looked around for the source of the laughter, which soon turned to quiet chatter. With his hearing sharper than most, the sound could’ve been a few steps away, or halfway across the forest, and he followed it over fallen trees and tangles of woody debris toward a clearing, not far from where he’d stood.
At the opposite side of a meadow, a young girl in a black hooded cloak, perhaps just a few years his minor, sat atop a branchless log. Long, black plaits of hair spilled from the corners of her raised hood, a contrast to her flawless, pale skin, and his hands curled at his sides as he imagined the silky surface gliding beneath his fingertips. Beams of sunlight seemed to reach for her, as if they longed to touch her, too. At her feet, a half dozen mice scrambled about, and she tossed crumbs onto the snow, inciting a frenzy. She laughed again, and the baron’s spine snapped to attention.
He wanted to capture the sound, bottle it away, so he could study its pitch and euphony. Instead, it died out to wistful humming, which turned to singing in a voice that clenched his chest. So beautiful, it pained him to listen, but he did. He watched her for far longer than he’d intended, as she sat feeding the mice.
She stopped suddenly and pointed a finger down at the creatures, as if to count them. “I could’ve sworn there were seven of you before. What happened to your brother? Hmmm? Has he wandered off?”
The baron glanced back at the fallen branch, where the mouse had been trapped by the fallen tree. Against all his good sense, he tromped back through the woods to where the small mouse still lay trapped by its tail. As he closed his palm around the creature, it nipped his flesh, and the baron snarled, drawing his hand back into a fist.
The sound of the girl’s voice reached him again. Like a warm, soothing tea, it sent an inexplicable calm through him, and he ignored the mouse’s protests as he held it in the palm of one hand and lifted the fallen branch with the other.
As though sensing his intent, the mouse squirmed less, and the baron was able to get a good look at the smashed and bloodied end of its tail. Something curled inside of him at the sight of it. Pity. He’d never felt remorseful toward an animal that way before, but the thought of the girl seeing the mouse in such a condition made him uneasy. As he ran his finger over the wound, he imagined the tail as it was before. Light flickered between his fingers, followed by a dull heat, and when he released the tail, he could see tiny bolts of lightning dance over the wound.
Frowning in confusion, he watched as the wound’s edges moved on their own, toward each other, sealing the bloody flesh between. Not even a minute later, the wound appeared completely healed.
How?
He lifted his hand, staring down at his fingertips where he still felt a small vibration beneath his skin. The flickering bolts disappeared into his flesh and the sensation withered.
He uncurled his fingers from around the mouse, which stood up onto its back feet on his hand and ran its front paws over its face, cleaning itself.
It didn’t try to run from him.
As if it no longer feared him.
Hand held out in front of him, he carried the mouse back across the woods toward the clearing, where the girl still sat. The baron lowered to one knee and rested his palm against the snow, allowing the mouse to run off. At first, it didn’t. Paws curled at its chest, it stared back at him with those wide, black eyes.
The baron flicked his fingers. “Go on now,” he whispered. Only then did the small creature scamper off, and the boy watched it hop across the clearing toward the girl.
“There you are!” she said, tossing crumbs toward the mouse. “For a moment, I swore an owl had gotten you.”
The baron quietly chuckled to himself, but as if she’d heard it, she lifted her gaze in his direction. Fortunately, he stood cloaked by the trees, yet he still slipped behind the trunk of the nearest. On spinning around, he met the tip of a blade propped beneath his chin, his father’s henchman, Alaric, staring him dead in the eye. Behind him, the baron’s father dismounted his horse and strode up to the boy, a wicked, bastardly smile stretched across the elder lord’s face.
“It seems you like to spy.” He leaned forward and, lips to the boy’s ear, whispered, “Come now, Son. Let us hear just how much your keen eyes have seen.”
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