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 thisreward, darling. She’s here for you to take out all your frustrations on. Use her however you want. Just like you, she isobedient.”
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. Thestrange 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 youdo?” 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.”
Chapter 48
Lysara may be the Goddess of Death, but Ravess’s influence is adjacent to hers. The God of Rot and Carrion may sound terrible, and his Godforged certainly are, but he has never taken up the blade himself. Once upon a time, he was the god whom farmers would look to for fruitful crops. Growth climbs from the dead, and were Lysara gone, it would be his Realm that the dead would go to.
~Cedric Penrose, A Treatise on the Gods and Their Powers
Fiona
I wake in the morning to an empty bed. Crimson and black blankets cover my naked body. I sit up and rub my eyes, expecting Azric to be nearby, but he’s nowhere to be found. Instead, on his pillow lies a folded sheet of paper.
Fiona,
I don’t know what happened last night. I wish I did so I could help you overcome it. You are still new to this world I live in, but I am not. I can help you with whatever it is. There are very few things in Nyth that I cannot deal with, but you must let me in.
