Darkness.
Was all I felt...
along with the cold, suffocating darkness that pressed against me like a physical weight.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't think....at least, am barely thinking I guess.
The last thing I remembered was pain, the all consuming pain as Colonel Volkov's men beat me to death in Tatiana's bedroom. Then... nothing. Just this void.
Was this hell? Purgatory? Some kind of limbo between life and death?
Am I really dead?
The thought should have terrified me, but I felt... numb. Detached. Like I was floating in an endless ocean of nothingness.
Then I heard them.
Voices. Distant at first, muffled, like listening underwater. But they were getting closer. Clearer.
"—not breathing!"
"Check his pulse again, damn it!"
The voices spoke a language I've never heard before. It felt Lyrical, almost musical.
But somehow... I understood every word.
"Nothing. He's dead." A male voice, rough, panicked. "The human died during transport."
"Fuck!" Another male, younger, higher-pitched with fear. "The Queen purchased him for five thousand gold pieces! She'll have our fucking heads for this!"
Queen? Gold pieces? What the hell were they talking about?
"Maybe... maybe we can buy another human and—"
"Are you fucking insane?!" The first voice cut him off sharply. "She specifically wanted THIS one! She saw his portrait at the auction house and—"
My chest suddenly EXPLODED with sensation.
It felt like I was caught on Fire. Ice. Lightning. All at once, like someone had jumpstarted my heart with a thousand volts.
I GASPED....a horrible, rattling inhale that felt like swallowing broken glass and razor blades. My lungs burned as I gasped for air.
Every nerve ending in my body ignited with agony.
"GODS ABOVE AND BELOW!" someone shrieked.
"HE'S ALIVE!"
"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! I CHECKED, HE WAS DEAD! HE HAD NO PULSE, NO BREATH, NOTHING!"
Light exploded behind my eyelids...It was too bright. I tried to scream but only managed a choking cough.
My eyes flew open.
Two faces hovered above me, both twisted in expressions of absolute horror and disbelief.
They weren't human.
What the fuck—
They had pointed ears. Sharp, elegant features. Eyes that seemed too large, too vibrant.....one pair golden like a cat's, the other pale blue like ice. They had skin so pale it was almost luminescent in the dim light.
Elves.
Actual fucking elves.
"How?!" The one with golden eyes grabbed my shoulder, shaking me. "How are you alive?! You had no heartbeat! Your skin was cold!"
I tried to speak. My mouth opened. Sound came out.
But it wasn't English.
"I... where... what..." The words that emerged were in that same flowing, musical language they'd been speaking. How the fuck am I speaking Elvish?!
"He's confused. Probably brain damage from oxygen deprivation." The blue eyed one leaned back, running a hand through his silver hair. "The Queen is going to kill us anyway. A damaged human is worse than a dead one."
"Maybe she won't notice—"
"Won't NOTICE?! She's the fucking QUEEN! She notices everything!"
I tried to sit up from the ground. I Failed.
My body felt wrong...weak, unfamiliar, like wearing clothes that didn't quite fit. I managed to lift my head enough to look down at myself.
I was naked except for a rough cloth covering my groin. My body was... different. Thinner than I remembered. Younger maybe.....
But I was covered in bruises...purple and yellow splotches across my ribs, my arms, my thighs. Cuts and welts from what looked like whip marks.
And around my neck, a thick metal collar etched with glowing symbols that pulsed with a faint blue light.
What the actual fuck is happening?
"Make him presentable," Golden-Eyes snapped. "We're already three days late. If we delay any longer—"
"I know, I know!" Blue-Eyes fumbled with a waterskin, pressing it to my lips. "Drink, human. We need you conscious."
Water hit my tongue...it was cold, clean, the best thing I'd ever tasted. I gulped it down greedily, some of it spilling down my chin.
As I drank, fragments started coming back. But were Not my memories...
Someone else's..
I was running through a burning village.
There was smoke and screams.
Soldiers on horseback...elven soldiers with silver armor with cruel smiles.
"Take the young ones. Kill the rest." Said the one with a golden helmet on his head.
I was caught....I got dragged away in chains.
While my mother's screams behind me.
All I could smell was the smell of burning flesh.
Next thing I knew, I was at aslave market....
I Standing on a platform, naked...like butt naked, while nobles examined me like livestock.
They were even hands touching, prodding, measuring 'me'.
"How much for this one?" Asked an elf man wearing a black suit which matched his blonde hair.
"Two hundred gold, my lord." Said the servant in charge.
"'Its' not worth it. Humans are weak....They break too easily."
'I' spent days in a cage....Eating scraps.
While other slaves were dying around me.
Then... i met HER.
The memory hit me like a physical blow.
A woman entering the auction house...no, not just a woman.
A PRESENCE.
Everyone had gone silent. Even the auctioneer had stammered.
She'd been impossibly beautiful. Silver-white hair that cascaded down her back like moonlight.
Crimson eyes that seemed to glow in the dim light. Skin like porcelain. A black dress that clung to curves that would make grown men weep.
And the POWER radiating from her. Like standing near a bonfire.....it was Overwhelming.
She walked past dozens of slaves without a glance. Then stopped in front of my cage.
Those red eyes had studied me with an intensity that made me want to disappear. To cease existing under that gaze.
"This one," she'd said. Her voice like that of an angel. "I'll take this one."
"Y-Your Majesty!" The auctioneer had practically fallen over himself. "Of course! For you, a discount—"
"I'll pay five thousand." She said while still staring at me....or maybe, at my soul.
The room had gone silent.
"F-Five thousand?! Your Majesty, that's far too much for a human slave—"
"Are you suggesting," her voice had dropped to something deadly quiet, "that I don't know the value of my purchases?"
"N-No! Of course not! Five thousand it is!"
She'd left....she didn't pay the cash...it was like she said "put it on my tab".
And I....no, the body's original owner, Caelan, that was his name...had been loaded into a transport cart that same day.
The journey had been... rough. The guards had been resentful.
After all, their lady just spent Five thousand gold for a human trash...
They took out their frustration with fists and boots and whips.
Three days into the journey, during a particularly brutal beating...
Caelan had died.
And I had woken up.
Holy shit.