Lucien didn't sleep much.
He sat on a wooden crate outside a broken inn, staring at nothing.
He had no money.
So unfortunately he won't have the luxury of a room and a pussy.
The wind was cold tonight, but he didn't shiver.
The sky was gray again, as usual.
Velthros didn't have happy skies.
He wasn't thinking about what came next.
He was thinking about where it all started.
"I wasn't born in a stable," he said. "That would've been too romantic."
A rat ran across the dirt road.
Lucien nodded at it like an old friend.
"I was born in a room behind the servant's hall. My mother was a maid. Pretty. Quiet. Good at stitching."
He rubbed his thumb against the edge of the crate.
"She died when I was five. Poison. They said it was bad stew. She was the only one who ate it."
He looked up at the clouds.
"I always thought someone made sure of that."
Lucien was the bastard son of Lord Veylan Drakar, head of House Drakar of Blackvale, an old noble house in western Eronthia.
Not powerful.
Not rich.
But with just enough bloodline pride to be cruel about it.
"House Drakar," he muttered. "Our motto was 'Duty Before Desire.' Real inspirational."
He snorted.
"What it meant was. 'Do what we say, not what we do.'"
They had a keep, but it was falling apart.
Half the banners were moth-eaten.
The wine cellar was always dry.
Their lands were foggy, rocky, full of old trees and dead wives.
"But they acted like kings," Lucien said. "And I was the stain on their rug."
He remembered the halls.
Cold stone.
Tapestries with faded lions.
Servants who looked the other way when he bled.
His father never hit him.
He just ignored him.
Which was worse.
"Bastard children don't get swords or titles," Lucien said. "They get silence. And sometimes a dog bite."
His half-brothers, Jarek and Rhys, hated him.
His half-sister, Myla, pretended he wasn't real.
The only one who didn't spit at him was the cook's wife, and she died of fever when he was ten.
"So I read," he said. "While the rest of them learned to bow and duel, I hid in the library and memorized bloodlines, battles, gods, and seduction curses. Just in case."
He cracked his neck.
"I knew I'd need them."
He looked down at his hands.
Small scars ran across his knuckles and fingers.
"Jarek once broke my fingers with a chair. Said it was training."
He flexed his hand.
"They never healed straight. I use it now to pick locks."
Lucien stood, walked down the dirt road.
His boots were wet, but he didn't care.
He remembered the first time he kissed a girl.
Her name was Elira Varnell.
A minor noble's daughter.
She had bright eyes and soft hands and laughed like she didn't care who heard her.
"She saw me in the garden," Lucien said. "I was reading about ancient oaths. She asked if I believed in love."
He chuckled.
"I said no. She said that was sad. So we kept talking."
Elira was engaged.
To Sir Kaelen Valenhardt, a knight from the Ivory Lance Order.
Noble.
Pure.
Polished like a statue with a stick up his ass.
"But she liked me," Lucien said. "Not for my name. Just for me."
He closed his eyes.
"We kissed. Once."
He remembered her lips.
How she hesitated.
How she pulled away with a smile.
And how, two days later, guards dragged him out of his room at dawn.
"She told her father I used magic on her. Said I enchanted her to touch me."
Lucien stopped walking.
"That was a lie."
His voice was low now.
"But no one cared."
He remembered the trial.
His father standing off to the side.
Silent.
Sir Kaelen staring down at him like he was dirt.
Elira with her eyes cast down, tears in her lashes.
"They said I was cursed. That I was born with seducer's blood."
He touched his chest.
"They burned the mark into me. The Sigil of Lust. Right here."
He pulled back his coat and stared at where it used to be.
Now replaced with the black spiral of Vel'Zheron's mark.
"But back then, it was silver. Holy fire. Carved by a priest. I passed out halfway through."
They threw him into a cart.
Hauled him to the Weeping Hollow, a place where they dumped sinners too valuable to kill outright.
Blackvale's forgotten pit.
"They said I should be grateful," he muttered. "I was."
He smiled.
"Instead of death, I found the forbidden ancient power. Now unfortunately for them there will come a time in future when I shall return and that is when my revenge will be completed."
He kept walking.
"My family erased me. My name. My place. Even in their records. My bedroom became a storage room. My books were burned."
He stopped by a well and looked into it.
"But I'm still here."
He tossed a coin in.
"Guess that makes me a ghost."
He turned and kept walking.
"Pitiful puny minds made me a villain a long ago" he said. "I have studied villains. I read about seduction, betrayal, manipulation. The stuff they pretend doesn't exist in noble halls."
He passed a signpost nailed into the mud.
It pointed toward a place called Edrin's Reach.
A small town near the edge of Eronthia.
He knew the name.
There was a wedding planned there.
A noble daughter.
And a knight in white armor.
Lucien tilted his head.
"I used to believe in love," he said. "Then love sold me for the price of her reputation."
He stepped past the sign.
"So now, I believe in revenge."
The wind whispered through the trees.
The rain slowed.
Lucien smiled.
"Let's test their vows."
Back in the Hollow, deep beneath the roots of cursed trees, a candle flared in the dark.
Vel'Zheron laughed.
Not loud.
Not cruel.
Just... pleased.
For he could see the darkness the will soon swallow the whole world.