"Blood ties mean nothing if cruelty is the only thing binding them."
Past Timeline
The chamber beneath the Beaumont estate reeked of metal and sweat.
Candlelight wavered across the stone walls, bending over patches of dried blood that no servant ever dared to scrub. The flicker turned Owen Beaumont's face into a mask—half noble refinement, half hunger.
Aldric hung restrained before him, wrists bound, body bruised, pride frayed to a thread. The ropes creaked whenever he breathed.
Owen's gloved hand caught his chin, forcing Aldric's face toward the firelight.
"Look at me," he said, almost tender, the words dripping venom.
"You carry her eyes, you know—the belle of the family Isabella. Father's favourite one night mistake."
His smile never reached his eyes. "It's fitting that you should end what she began."
Aldric refused to speak. His silence only made Owen's grin widen.
"You thought yourself free after your mother died from our clutches? A bastard's dream."
He let go, pacing slowly around the bound boy. The spurs at his heels rang against the stones. "The world needs to remember what unclean blood costs. And I, your dear brother, will be the reminder."
Aldric's stomach turned. He tried to steady his voice. "Whatever filth you think I am—you'll never own me."
Owen stopped beside him, close enough that Aldric could feel the heat from the fire on his skin.
"Oh, sweet child," he whispered, "everyone can be owned. It only takes the right pain."
He folded his arms, studying the trembling figure before him with the calm cruelty of a collector considering how best to destroy his prize.
"Tell me," Owen went on, voice low, "that friend of yours—the church's boy, what was his name? Elias?" His tone sharpened into mockery. "Perhaps he was the one who sold you. Who else could have known where to find you after you ran? He looked too soft for the world; softness breeds betrayal."
Aldric's eyes snapped open. "Don't speak his name!"
Owen chuckled. "So you do care. How sentimental."
For a heartbeat, only the fire crackled. Then came the sound of leather sliding against leather.
Pain followed—a slash across Aldric's chest, shallow but deliberate.
He gasped, the air tearing in his throat.
"There. Now you're listening," Owen murmured. "Remember this lesson each time you think of that name."
The night stretched into a blur of agony and fear. Owen's voice was the only anchor, rising and falling like a priest's litany, preaching obedience through suffering. When Aldric finally sagged against his restraints, Owen crouched in front of him, eyes bright with satisfaction.
"Look at yourself," he whispered. "You hate me now, but one day you'll understand why I had to purify you. We cleanse the family name through fire."
He reached out, brushing dirt from Aldric's cheek with an almost brotherly gesture.
"Do better next time, my dearest brother."
The door slammed. The lock turned. Silence returned—heavy, absolute.
Aldric hung there in the dark, half‑conscious, thinking of Elias's face. Of warmth beside a church hearth, of laughter wrapped in herbs and sunlight. He clung to that memory—not as hope, but as proof that once, before the darkness, something kind had touched his life.
Aftermath
Hours later, servants unshackled him. None met his eyes. They left his bruised body on linen too costly to soil, trembling and feverish.
He stared at the ceiling until dawn painted the cracks gold.
In that stillness, he made a vow—quiet, venomous, irrevocable.
I will never bow to him again. And I will make the Beaumont name choke on its own blood before I die.
Somewhere far from the manor, as the first light touched Valencrest's chapel windows, Elias woke from a nightmare and pressed a hand to his chest, feeling a sharp pain that wasn't his.
He whispered into the empty air, voice shaking,
"Aldric… forgive me."