XYLON
Darkness. Stench. Stone.
My world is a cage of these three things. The darkness is thick, broken only by the thin slice of torchlight under the iron gate. The stench is my own—filth and stale blood and the bitter stink of despair that clings to this pit. The stone is a constant pressure, cold against my back, rough under my claws, unyielding. It is the fourth wall of my prison. The chains are the other three.
They are heavy. Always heavy. They bite into the flesh of my wrists and my throat, a cold, constant reminder. But the iron is not the worst pain. The curse is a fire that burns under my skin, a ceaseless, agonizing heat that never cools. It is a red haze behind my eyes, a frantic drumbeat in my skull that screams one word, over and over.Rage.
The beast agrees. The beast wants to tear and break and shatter. It wants to feel the stone groan under the pressure of my claws. It wants to taste blood. It is a simple, honest hunger. Most of the time, I let it roar. It is easier than remembering.
A sound. Metal scraping on metal. The gate.
My head lifts from the stone floor. The movement sends a jolt of fire through the magical scars on my neck. The beast inside me stirs, a low growl building in my chest. A guard. The scent of them is always the same—oily metal, sweat, and the thin, sharp smell of cruelty. Food will follow. The beast wants the meat. The man… the man remembers a time when he was not fed like a dog. The memory is a shard of glass in my mind. I push it down.
But the scent that follows the guard is different.
It cuts through the rot and the filth of the kennels like a clean, sharp knife. It is the smell of warm bread fresh from the oven. It is the smell of rain on dry earth. It is something clean. Something… good.
A small shape follows the guard. Female. Human. The beast notes her fragility, the way her bones would snap like twigs. Prey. But the scent… it is not the scent of prey. It does not carry the sharp tang of fear I smell on the others. There is fear in it, yes, buried deep. But layered over it is something else. The scent of stubborn courage.
She carries the bucket of meat. The coppery aroma makes my stomach clench. Hunger is a claw, scraping the inside of my gut. But it is her scent that holds me. It is a cool balm on the fire beneath my skin. The red haze in my vision seems to thin, the roaring in my skull quieting to a low hum.
The guard leaves. The gate clangs shut. I am alone with her. With the scent.
She does not throw the food as the others do. She walks into my cage.
The beast screams in my mind.Foolish. Weak. Tear her apart.My muscles tense. A growl rips from my throat, a sound like stone grinding against stone. I want her to run. I want the clean scent to stay. The two thoughts are a war.
She stops. I can hear the frantic, bird-wing flutter of her heart. She whispers something. The words are lost in the haze,but the sound of her voice… it is like her scent. A low, gentle hum that settles over the rage-drum in my head. It does not extinguish the fire, but it soothes the worst of the burn. For a moment, the pain is distant.
She sets the bucket down. Then she does something that makes no sense. From a pocket, she takes something small. Bread. Her own. She places it on the stone floor. An offering. Given freely.
The scent of warm bread hits me, and the world shatters.
…the fire is warm, a great bonfire in the stronghold. Drums beat a rhythm that is the heart of my people. The sun is a blessing on my skin. My mother smiles, her tusks small and white. Her hands, strong and kind, offer me a piece of bread, still steaming…
Pain. Agony. The memory is a lightning strike, brilliant and devastating, and then it is gone, leaving only the dark, aching void of what I have lost. A roar of grief and fury tears itself from my lungs, but the sound is trapped in this monstrous throat, emerging only as a guttural cry. The beast hates the memory. Memory is a weakness. The memory is pain.
I hate the beast.
My eyes focus on the bread. It sits on the cold, filthy stone, a small, impossible piece of a life that is no longer mine. The beast screams.Food. Take it. Devour.My claws descend into the floor, the rock scraping under the pressure. Hunger is a physical thing, a burning sensation that climbs my throat. It would be so easy to lunge, to swallow the bread and the meat and forget the memory, forget the pain.
But I do not move.
The man inside me, the Orc chieftain’s son they thought they had burned away, holds the beast still. He sees not just food. He sees the gesture. The kindness. It is a thing I have not knownsince my mother’s hands. It is a thing this world of dark elves does not allow. She gave it anyway.
She is watching me. I can feel her gaze, feel the warmth of her body across the small space. I can smell the stubborn courage on her, and I understand. She is not like them.
And then the guard returns.
The scent of his malice is a foul poison in the air. His voice is a lash. “What are you doing, you stupid girl?”
A thud. Her scent sharpens with a spike of pain and sudden fear.
The rage that floods me is no longer the mindless, burning fire of the beast. This is different. This is cold. This is sharp. This is mine. It is the fury of a warrior seeing one under his protection harmed. The thought is a thunderclap, clear and absolute in my mind.Mine.
Protect.
A surge of power, of will I didn’t know I still possessed, floods my limbs. The rage is a focused point of pure, intelligent fury. I will tear him apart for touching her. I will shatter his bones and rip the flesh from them. The beast inside me roars its approval, a savage satisfaction that shakes my very bones. This is a rage we can agree on.
