Author's Note: Hello all, I'm back once more with yet another story idea. It's a short first chapter but I really just wanted to get it out there and see if there was any reception to it before I really pick it up. Feedback is always appreciated, I hope you enjoy!
"I remember the first person I killed with magic. It occurred in a situation very much like the one we find ourselves in now." The figure stood tall behind the seated man, rough hands sliding over his bare, shivering shoulders. The thick ropes that wound around his torso and legs held him firmly in place; he spent what felt like hours alone, straining to free himself but had only succeeded in further exhaustion. Terror and exhaustion can bring a man to a very dangerous place.
"Except there were two of them then, seated across from each other just like you are now magistrate.
"Tired."
"Cold."
"Confused."
The hands moved up to wrap around his neck and the sensation of flesh was replaced by two hot irons pressing down on his skin. His voice tore out of his throat into a scream, squelching short as the fingers gripped tighter.
"Afraid," he sighed peacefully.
The pressure was released as blackness edged around his vision, breathes coming in heavy gulps. Tears eroded the dirt caked on his face in dark smears, head slung low as he whimpered. Film and spit bubbled on his parched lips as his voice croaked. "Why are you doing this?"
"She struggled until the very end, eyes wide with disgust. Hate. My mother never understood me very well, you see; although a great deal more than my father did. He never said a word through the whole ordeal," he spoke as if having a pleasant conversation with a friend. The soft shifting sound of a knife against leather and the standing figure moved into his point of view once more. It was short and brutal, a mean edge glittering in the low candlelight. A hand gripped his cheeks and snapped his head back, palm pressed firmly over his mouth. The knifepoint hung for a moment above the notch in his neck before beginning to dig a long, shallow cut down his chest. The seated man bit and struggled through the pain, warm blood filling his mouth. A thin strip of flesh peeled away and stuck to his chin as the hand drew back calmly.
He looked over his palm, bemused, arteries pulsing blood out to drip and collect on the floor. He took a step closer and crouched to eye level, face hidden by an unnatural amount of shadow. The darkness began to peel away slowly, almost retreating into his cloak. He looked hard into the smiling face of the man who would kill him. He looked a man just like any other, not young but not yet old. A large, ugly black blotch of skin ran from the center of his cheek down his neck, disappearing into the folds of his clothes. His eyes. Those would be the last thing he saw as the bloody hand pressed and smeared into the wound on his chest.
"Blood serves many purposes, does it not? It keeps us alive. When you spill it, people become afraid. When you preserve it, you become a hero. But when you share it," his excited voice dropped low as he stood tall once more. "It becomes something else entirely. My father learned this the hard way. As will you."
He looked down to his chest, the blood pooling in the base of his pants. They locked eyes and the man in his chair drew back and spit, red saliva and flesh spattered on the robes before him. Anger flashed briefly across the madman's features before reassembling into a cheerful mask.
"I once thought you a smart man, magistrate. Reasonable. But clearly you have no respect for the hospitality I have shown you tonight. You will die, there was no escaping that but I had given you a choice. If you had told me what I wanted to know, you would not have suffered through all this. Your death could have been clean. You will regret your pride, and your family will go up in ashes with you."
The words set his stomach into a free fall. "No."
"They will sic dogs to find all of Maggie's pieces from your estate."
"Don't you say her name," he fought for anger in his voice but the words tangled in his throat.
"Your children will watch her, but take solace in knowing they will not live long enough to be haunted by the memory."
Thick, yellow parchment lay unfurled on the surface of a cluttered table. On its surface it bore the tidy and elegant script of a masterful scribe, a profession employed by many but the seal pressed in ink at the bottom could come from only one man. He sat in silence, eyes never leaving the letter as he raised and emptied the dregs of his thistle tea. The simple fact that the letter had found his current residence was unsettling, even more so that he had not been dragged out and fettered in chains.
'This sets an interesting new precedent doesn't it?'
A grave nod answered the question as he lifted the letter up, holding it between him and the open flame that sprouted from a fresh candle. The parchment folded over on itself as he tilted it, hungry fire catching the corner. He watched the edges rapidly shrink away, producing a short lived gout of fire before it faded to the small corner he held on to. A quick breath snuffed out the burning edges and he released the charred fragment, watching it flitter to the ground.
'This could mean big things for us Sebastian. This could be our way out.'
"You know it won't be that easy."
'When has it ever been?'
Sebastian des Grey looked over the back and palms of his hands, mouth set in a hard line. He gazed around the humble lodgings they had found, weapons scattered and hung around the room. They had never stayed in the same location for more than month. And yet the letter found them there.
'We better get moving, Southshore is a quite a hike from our current locale. Unless of course we acquire a better mode of transportation.'
Another nod as he began to gather the necessary items. There wasn't much need for words between the two of them.