Chapter 1: The Night of Broken Chains
The wind that swept through the sleeping town felt less like a breeze and more like a merciless blade scraping bone—a chill so deep Lucian barely noticed it, his nerves alive only with terror. Overhead, a pallid moon flickered behind hurried clouds, its light wan and scared, only adding to the feverish sense of panic writhing in his chest.
The King's proclamation had shattered the town's fragile peace: all powerless humans, the "low-graded," to be seized and sent as slaves to work the mines and pits. There were no exceptions—no mercy—only the certainty of loss and humiliation for those without strength.
It was in the faces he passed—the hurried eyes darting away, the way men hurried wives indoors, the clutch of a father's desperate hand around a child's face—as he sprinted home through the night. Lucian's only thought: save his mother, save his brother.
His boots hammered against the stones, every stride a burst of agony through legs that wanted to crumple. The air was a mosaic of smoke and the sharp, coppery scent of fear. From the heart of the town, footsteps and angry voices thundered, slicing through the night; windows split and wood snapped as soldiers crashed through home after home, tearing the world apart.
Lucian was nearly there. He forced himself forward, lungs burning, heart pounding in his ears. Then—he heard a scream, high and fragile, that made his whole world seize.
He turned the corner and froze.
His family's home—his anchor—was under siege. Flames spat from the kitchen window. The front door, skeletal and ruined, was flung wide open. Inside, half a dozen soldiers rampaged. Shadows rushed across the walls in a choreography of violence.
His sickly mother knelt hunched on the splintered floor, silver hair tangled across her shivering shoulders, pinned down by the fist of a soldier who yanked her head so far back Lucian thought her neck might snap. Her lips worked desperately beneath the filthy cloth stuffed into her mouth. Sweat and blood ran from a gash at her temple, drawing a scalding trail to her chin.
Nearby, his brother—smaller, softer, only a child—was curled defensively, his face battered. Another soldier pressed a boot savagely against the child's hand, grinding bone against splinters with a sickening crunch as the boy whimpered. A third soldier leered, swinging a whip in lazy, theatrical arcs, tracing bruises along the backs of both mother and son.
Lucian's mind blanked in horror, then erupted with a tornado of rage. "Let them go!" he screamed, voice raw.
The squad turned, faces remorseless, eyes gleaming with contempt beneath their helms. The tallest—a brute with a nose broken too many times—smiled grimly.
"So the low-graded whelp's come crawling in," he growled. "You want to play hero, boy?"
A fist, huge and armored, rocketed into Lucian's chest before he could retort. He doubled over, gasping. Boots tripped him; a gauntleted hand grabbed his hair and slammed his face into the overturned table.
He tasted blood, rough wood, spit.
Groggy and half-blind, Lucian struggled upright—and received another blow, this time to his jaw. Bright sparks danced at the edges of his vision. Through the pain, he could just see the soldiers dragging his mother upright by her hair, hurling her into a pile of broken crockery as if she weighed nothing.
His brother howled as the whip bit into his small, fleshless shoulders.
A rage so raw it scalded him inside surged up—but another soldier's kick flattened Lucian painfully onto his stomach. He tried to rise; boots stomped down again, again, each blow like a sledgehammer. Ribs cracked. His nose gushed.
"Stay down," jeered the spider-eyed one, kicking Lucian's hand away from the floor. "You've no power—no place but on your face in the dirt."
Neighbors must have heard the chaos, but in the terror-soaked night, no one came. Not a protest, not even a shutter thrown up. Lucian's cries, and his family's screams, vanished into the darkness with every hope of rescue.
They beat him until moving felt like drowning in broken glass. They tied his wrists, tight enough that the skin split. The captain knelt by his ear, voice cool and venomous.
"You're property now. You'll never see this place again. Weakness is a curse—the only legacy the powerless leave is pain."
He looked up. The last thing Lucian saw of his home were the walls—charred, punched through, the family portrait shattered into a thousand memories. Soot and blood painted everything.
Several soldiers took his mother and brother, each rough jerk a fresh wave of humiliation. They yanked Lucian to his feet, and even as agony screamed up his spine, he staggered, refusing them the pleasure of seeing him beg or weep.
They dragged the family out into the icy street, chained like animals, the captain mocking. Whispers from the shadows—neighbors—stole through the night, but Lucian couldn't meet their eyes. Not out of shame for himself—but because he saw his brother, face swollen and streaming, looking to him for hope, and he had none to give.
They herded them through corpse-still streets to a waiting slave cart: iron bars, straw drenched in old blood. His mother, shivering and barely conscious, collapsed into a corner. His brother huddled against her, weeping silently. Lucian sank onto the filthy floor and pressed his forehead to the chains, fighting not to sob.
The doors clanged shut. The cart lurched.
Through the barred window, Lucian watched his home vanish behind him. Night devoured the ruins.
As the cart rattled toward the castle, his last thread of stubborn hope began to unravel.
The soldiers' laughter followed them, crawling over Lucian's thoughts like maggots on a wound. His fingers, slick with blood, tried to find each other where they were tied—yearning for any warmth, any comfort.
He thought of escape. Of vengeance. Of another life. But all he tasted was despair.
And still—the world was watching.
From the darkness beyond the streets, from a shadow beneath an arch or a flicker in an alleyway—unseen eyes tracked the broken family's progress. Not every watcher was human. Not every fate had yet been written.
When dawn finally threatened, Lucian lifted his battered, blood-caked face to the sliver of cold light. In that moment, all warmth and hope was gone—except for a single ember of stubborn promise:
"I will endure. I will not break. But I will make them pay."
The cart rolled on, carrying Lucian and his family into a nightmare of pain and chains, their future lost to the horizon, and a new, merciless day almost begun.
But in the distance, the castle gates loomed, and a new horror waited—one that would test every last shred of Lucian's soul.
End of Chapter One.