Chapter 12: Duchy of Inferna [3]
It all began when I was just a newborn."
The moment those words left my mouth, it was as if I had taken the final step off a cliff’s edge.
There was no turning back.
Lies had brought me this far. But in the Duke’s steel-grey eyes, I saw that lies could no longer be my armor.
The cold crystal beneath my palm waited silently.
Like a judge.
I would give them the truth.
Not all of it.
But enough.
Enough to hurt them. To shatter their minds. And to make them see me as more than just a threat.
I placed my hand fully on the crystal. As its coldness seeped into my veins, memories surged like a flood.
"I don’t remember who my family was. All I knew was that I was an abandoned child."
"At least, that’s what Dr. Aris, the man who found me, had said. He told me he found me in the heart of the dark woods."
My eyes swept across the room.
Iris—her beautiful face was taut with worry.
Duchess Seraphina watched me with the instinctive compassion of a mother, yet her eyes held the detached curiosity of a noblewoman.
Captain Elara was as impassive as a statue. To her, I was merely a problem to be solved.
And Duke Kaelan...
His face held an expression I couldn’t decipher.
I took a deep breath, the sharp chemical and blood scent of the laboratory filling my lungs.
"Dr. Aris was no hero who saved me."
"He was the monster who found me and dragged me to that pit of hell—his laboratory."
"There, he used me as a lab rat."
"And I wasn’t the only child in that laboratory."
"There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of us..."
"Forgotten children. The ones no one searched for. The ones whose screams no one heard."
"He tried to create the perfect weapon, the immortal soldier, by fusing us with the genes of animals, of monsters, of ancient and nameless things."
"For as long as I can remember, I was within those sterile, white walls."
"Every day. Every single day."
"I was subjected to experiments that taught my body to feel nothing but pain, and forced my soul to abandon any hope of salvation."
As I spoke, the crystal beneath my palm began to warm.
Its pale blue light bled into a deep crimson. It began to pulse ominously, in time with my own heart.
The shadows on the walls danced and twisted into monstrous shapes.
"Do you know the agony of having your chest carved open while you’re still alive?" I asked, my voice a rasp. "Of having your beating heart torn out and replaced with that of some nameless dragon?"
My eyes locked on the Duke.
"Do you know what it feels like to have your flesh peeled from your bones with scalpels, only to have runes that mean nothing but pain etched onto those bare bones with burning needles?"
"Do you know what it’s like to try to sleep curled in a cold, metal cell, with the scent of your own blood and the screams of other children in the air, only to hope you don’t wake up the next morning?"
My voice was no longer my own. It rose from a whisper to a roar.
"If I told you of the tortures I endured, the horrors I witnessed... which of them could you possibly understand?"
"That emptiness, that depraved curiosity in the eyes of the monster behind the white coat..."
"None of it, could you!"
I had to tell the last part of my story now. The most crucial part. The part where no one could know I was the one who caused the explosion.
"One day, an experiment Dr. Aris was conducting... a bigger one than usual... spun out of his control."
"There was a deafening noise. A white light that swallowed everything. And then a massive explosion."
"I was one of its victims. My body was torn apart. I felt myself die."
"In a way, I did die in that explosion."
"But when I opened my eyes months later, I was buried beneath the earth, seeing the unfiltered sky for the first time. Feeling the snow on my skin. Hearing the wind."
"I was finally free."
"For the first time in my life, I was tasting the priceless sweetness of freedom!"
"But now... now you stand before me, threatening to end my life. The life I barely managed to reclaim!"
My gaze, blazing, turned back to the Duke.
"How dare you, who have spent your lives in palaces, in warm beds, surrounded by love and obedience, see such a right in yourselves?"
I clenched my fist so tightly I felt my nails tear into my flesh.
Warm blood trickled from between my fingers.
It dripped onto the crystal.
The moment it touched, the crimson light within the stone erupted like a supernova.
A blinding brilliance.
A sound—the high-pitched shriek of tortured glass and magic.
When the light vanished, the air smelled of ozone and burnt magic. The crystal’s smooth surface was now covered in a spiderweb of deep cracks.
A deathly silence fell.
Only the sound of Iris’s suppressed sobs, and my own ragged breaths.
The poison I had held inside for years had drained away, leaving only a tired, empty shell.
My knees gave way.
Just as I was about to collapse, a strong hand gripped my arm.
It was Duke Kaelan. He had come around the table.
His expression was no longer just suspicion or severity. In his grey eyes was a complex emotion, like the depths of a stormy sea. For a fleeting moment, I saw a flicker of compassion.
Without releasing my arm, he looked at the cracked crystal, then at the blood on my palm, and finally, into my eyes.
His voice was not the command of a general, but the resonant tone of a leader accepting a truth.
"Your story... the crystal does not lie."
"Your pain is real."
He turned silently to Elara.
"Captain, have the finest room in the South Tower prepared for our guest. There will be no guards at the door."
The command stunned everyone, especially Elara.
"But, my lord..."
The Duke raised a hand, silencing her.
"He is not a prisoner. Not for now. He is a wounded child who has sought refuge behind our walls."
He turned back to me. "You will be our guest, Cassian, until we learn who this Dr. Aris was... and what, exactly, he turned you into."
It was the second time he had used my name. The timbre was different.
Not a threat.
A declaration.
The Duke stepped back and nodded to Iris. "Iris, escort him to his room. See to his wounds."
Iris rushed to my side, helping me to my feet. I looked at the Duke one last time. His eyes were still fixed on the cracked crystal.
I had escaped one cage, yes.
But it seemed I had found myself in the very center of a much larger, more intricate one.
This cage had no iron bars.
Its walls were woven from suspicion, curiosity, and an unknown fate.