Chapter Two: The Feast of Silence
═══════•°• ⚠ •°•═══════
The stew was thick tonight.
Rich, buttery, with flecks of spiced garlic and pepper imported from the southern archipelagos. Meant to be his, of course. But it never had been. Nothing ever was.
He watched from the kitchen's arched shadow, arms folded behind his back, the smile already forming on his lips as the servants greedily tore through his feast. They laughed between mouthfuls, poured wine meant for his lips into chipped cups, licked grease from their fingers like starving dogs. They were so loud. So arrogant. So certain in their place.
They'd gotten used to the idea that Killian wouldn't do anything.
That he couldn't.
And why wouldn't they?
For ten years—and six lifetimes—he hadn't.
Not when they struck him. Not when they mocked him. Not when they left his food to rot, his clothes to mildew, his wounds to fester in silence. Not even when they'd taken to using him as a target of casual amusement, kicking his shins, pulling his ears, telling him to bark for bones.
The bruises had faded.
The hatred had not.
And tonight... they would learn.
═══════•°• ⚠ •°•═══════
He had slipped the vyreleaf into the stew an hour before supper. Not much. Just enough to paralyze. Enough to leave their minds awake and aware, screaming in their heads.
He remembered the first time he'd encountered the herb. Life three. A battlefield healer's tent. A man convulsing, locked in place, eyes wide open as maggots fed inside a cauterized wound. Killian had studied his body afterward, with professional detachment.
Tonight, he would put that knowledge to far better use.
═══════•°• ⚠ •°•═══════
The first to notice something wrong was Mirelle, the senior maid, the walking wall of fat and hate. She grunted, then stiffened. Her wine glass dropped, shattering red across the floor.
"What the hell..." she rasped.
Then her eyes widened.
Her tongue no longer obeyed her.
═══════•°• ⚠ •°•═══════
Panic swept through the room like wildfire, but the paralysis outpaced it.
Killian stepped forward from the shadows, slow and deliberate, like a cat entering a cage of chained birds. The heels of his bare feet tapped softly on the stone floor. Not rushed. No need. The show had just begun.
He took a seat at the head of the table—the spot meant for him, though they had always filled it with coats, trays, or greasy elbows. Now, it was his.
"Good evening," he said, voice light, cordial, as if greeting honored guests. "I trust you enjoyed my dinner."
Silence.
Froth formed at the mouth of the potboy, who shook faintly, face wet with tears. Bren, the steward, was trembling so hard the chair beneath him creaked.
"You know, I debated how to handle this." Killian leaned back in the chair, resting his cheek on his fist. "Poison would've been easy. Fire, dramatic. But neither would've been... intimate."
He turned to Mirelle, her eyes now rolled up in horror. "You broke my fingers, once," he said softly. "Made me clean vomit with a fractured hand. Do you remember?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
He didn't need one.
Instead, he stood and walked around the table, his steps soundless, his magic coiled beneath his skin like a snake in heat. He reached into his pocket and drew a scalpel. Not a dagger. Not a blade. A healer's tool, stolen from the infirmary in a past life, summoned now with a flick of his hand.
It gleamed in the firelight.
He tested the edge on his fingertip. Sharp. Just like he remembered.
═══════•°• ⚠ •°•═══════
"Lesson one," he whispered, placing the scalpel against Mirelle's thigh, just beneath the thick, fleshy skirt of her belly. "Pain doesn't need blood."
He pressed, slowly. A measured slide. She screamed behind her eyes. The muscles clenched, spasmed. She couldn't move. Couldn't flee.
He carved upward, shallow, a graceful stroke of anatomical precision. The skin peeled like paper.
"I was a healer, once," he murmured to no one. "Field-trained. Battlefield-hardened. I learned how to keep men alive with holes in their lungs. You know what that means?"
He turned his gaze toward the others. Five pairs of wide, paralyzed eyes.
"It means I know how to hurt you without killing you. And I know how long I can make it last."
═══════•°• ⚠ •°•═══════
And he did.
For hours.
Each one received attention.
Mirelle's tendons were teased apart, one by one. The boy who had spat in his water had his ears crushed beneath slow, precise pressure. The woman who had struck him across the face with a pewter tray had every finger dislocated and reset, again and again, until the joints were ruined.
To Bren, the steward—the one who had smothered him in his first life—Killian saved the most elegant of gestures: a slit across the throat, shallow at first, then deeper, until red spilled down his chest like a broken promise.
He did it all with a smile.
No screaming.
No resistance.
Only the sickening sound of wet flesh, the crack of bone, and the silence of horror.
When it was done—when they lay scattered around the kitchen like discarded puppets, bloodied and shaking, paralyzed by more than just herbs—Killian stood in the middle of the wreckage, bathed in torchlight and silence.
The air was thick with the smell of copper and piss.
He exhaled, slow and deep, letting the tension melt from his shoulders.
Then he spoke, voice low, almost musical.
"You're probably wondering what happens now."
Eyes fluttered. One whimpered through bloodied teeth.
"You'll live," he said softly. "Most of you. Maybe."
He crouched again, bringing his face inches from the youngest girl's—Silla, the one with the crooked smile and the cruel hands. The one who once poured boiling water down his back when he forgot to address her as "mistress."
"You'll heal. But you'll never forget. You'll wake up every night reliving this. Over and over."
He tilted his head slightly, almost curious.
"And if you ever touch me again... I'll cut open your stomach and leave you in the garden for the birds."
He stood with a stretch, blood drying on his arms, none of it his. He breathed in the silence, the fear—the scent of total submission.
"Of course..." he added, more cheerfully now, turning a circle on the heels of his bare feet. "If you try to report me..."
He gave a casual shrug.
"Who would believe you?"
He gestured lazily at the wreckage—shattered bowls, stolen wine, uneaten bread still warm from his share of the palace ovens.
"Servants," he said. "Caught red-handed. Stealing from an imperial prince. Abusing him. Harming him."
He smiled, slow and indulgent.
"Even if I'm a bastard... the blood in my veins is still royal."
He leaned back against the stone wall, arms folded.
"So go ahead. Scream."
None of them did.
They couldn't.
He let the silence settle—long enough for it to become unbearable.
Then, Killian raised one hand—and snapped his fingers.
A ripple of dark gold pulsed outward from his palm, fine and radiant, like an echo from a forgotten god. It washed over the room in silence. No grand light, no sparks—just magic, precise and vicious.
Wounds closed.
Bones aligned.
Flesh knitted.
The blood vanished from their skin like dust on the wind.
They were whole again—physically.
But not healed.
The paralysis remained, still wearing off slowly and cruelly.
Killian looked at them, one by one.
Then said, with a smirk just shy of amusement:
"When the paralysis wears off... clean up."
He took a step toward the door, pausing only briefly.
"I mean the whole tower," he added, voice cool. "Not a single speck of dust left anywhere. I want it gleaming."
He opened the door.
"And be sure to return to your proper duties as well," he said lightly. "Wouldn't want word getting out that the prince's house staff can't even scrub a floor."
He cast one last glance over his shoulder—gold eyes gleaming in the firelight.
"Let this be your lesson."
Then he disappeared into the shadows, bare feet silent on the cold stone.
Behind him, the servants began to twitch—slowly, painfully. Their fingers curled. Their throats made dry, hoarse sounds. And as feeling returned, so too did the memories.
Memories they could not escape.
Would not dare speak of.
Not ever again.
He dragged Bren's body out by the legs, humming to himself.
Through the empty hall. Into the garden.
The night air kissed his cheeks. Cold. Soft. Like his mother's hands.
He laid the body down among the dead ivy and raised one hand.
"Ignis."
Fire coiled upward like a serpent, beautiful and hungry. It took the body in seconds, devouring it, blackening the flesh, then the bones, then nothing. The ash scattered.
Killian didn't look away once.
When it was done, he looked out at the garden.
Ruined. Dead.
Forgotten.
Just like him.
He placed his hand on the soil. Whispered in Elish.
A lullaby.
Soft, broken notes. The kind his mother used to sing to him when she thought he was asleep.
As he sang, the garden trembled.
Roots twitched.
Leaves unfurled.
Petals curled open, kissed by moonlight and dark magic.
He did not stop singing until color returned to the earth.
And when he stood, barefoot in blood-warmed soil, a garden blooming in his shadow and smoke behind him, he smiled.
He was remaking himself.
Piece by piece.
And they would all learn.
═══════•°• ⚠ •°•═══════