Chapter Seven: A Shadow Among Rumors
The Discovery
The pale moon, hidden behind a blood-red haze of clouds, cast a thin veil of cold light over the marble courtyard. It glinted on the ragged stone where the mutilated carcass of Soldier Keal lay. The man's once proud, brutal figure now sprawled lifeless—the heart that had beat with cruel fury torn from his chest as though the very essence of brutality itself had been ripped away.
Around the corpse, the cold ground was painted with plumes of dark blood, swirling in twisted, unnatural patterns. The message—etched deep into the cobblestones—seemed to pulse and writhe, a living sentence scrawled in a crimson script only the damned could read:
"Justice wears my face now."
The guards who found him recoiled in silent horror, their breaths shallow, eyes wide with disbelief as if they were witnessing the first rupture of a nightmare made flesh.
Whispers swelled into a tide of rumor. The nobles gathered in tight knots, their silvered voices set aflame with fear and speculation.
"Someone cloaked in shadow took him down," one hissed. "A specter of revenge."
"Whispers speak of the Shadowborn King," murmured another, trembling. "A demon cast into flesh, returned to undo the oppressive order from within."
In the shadows, soldiers' fingers tightened on weapons. Slaves huddled under the weight of suspicion, their faces a mix of terror and silent yearning.
Lucian blended into the darkness, his eyes pools of coiled ferocity. He watched the chaos erupt, silent and unyielding, his heart both calm and wild.
Beneath his skin, the demon screamed for release:
Kill them all. Strike again. Tear them down.
Lucian clenched his fists beneath his tattered cloak. Not yet. He whispered. Patience.
The Roar Beneath the Silence
The palace was alive with terror. Guards beat down random suspects, their backs raw as the search became frantic and cruel. Fear was a wildfire consuming the court and corridors alike.
Lucian walked among trembling bodies—faces gaunt, eyes warped with pain and disbelief. Each whispered legend he heard was a cut: the demon wrapped in shadow; the curse reborn.
Inside, his own voice was a low growl in the empty spaces of his mind:
"Kill them! Their fear is weakness! Strike! Burn away their cowardice!"
But outwardly, he moved like a shadow at dusk—silent, guarded.
His breath came slow, his resolve sharp.
"Vengeance is not a raging fire but the slow poison in the wound."
Secret Ally in the Darkness
Beneath crumbling stone, where the cold torchlight barely touched, Lucian found Tyren—a healer bound like him in chains fashioned of fear.
Tyren's eyes were sharp, flickering with quiet strength, his fingers deft at tending unseen wounds.
"The fear makes them careless," Tyren whispered, voice a feather against shattered stone. "They'll tear themselves apart looking for a ghost."
Lucian nodded, the weight of their shared silence heavier than iron.
"Let their panic blind them," he said, voice barely more than a breath. "Let their false comfort rot until it festers."
Tyren watched him, concern shadowing his gaze. "You're walking a dangerous path, Lucian. This power you hide... it's changing you."
"I control it," Lucian replied coldly, the promise in his tone sharper than a dagger's edge. "And when I move again, they won't even see me coming."
The Arrival
The heavy iron gates shrieked open as a tall figure draped in obsidian robes entered—an imperial shadow beneath the stars.
The Royal Inquisitor had come.
His cold eyes, dark as polished stone, scanned silently, the faintest smile curling his lips as he knelt beside the mutilated Keal.
"Finally," he murmured, voice a soft knife plunging into velvet. "A true hunt has begun."
His presence was a death sentence whispered before the execution—a harbinger of twisted justice that would soon ensnare the kingdom's deepest secrets.
The Enemy Inside
Lucian's steps echoed faintly beneath broken arches, eyes piercing the dark like twin blades. Below, guards scurried like cornered beasts, tripping over shadows and their own dread.
The demon within clawed wildly, its voice a snake's hiss in Lucian's mind:
"Let me loose. Burn their lies, rend their flesh."
But Lucian silenced the beast with a breath colder than winter's breath.
"We wait," he whispered. "The moment will come when they forget their terror… and then we remind them why screams should have never ceased."
The night swallowed him whole, becoming one with the dark—a storm gathering breath before the thunder.
Dark Reflection and Deepening Resolve
Alone in his solitary cell, Lucian stared at the rough, scarred walls—silent witnesses to all the suffering endured and all the fury yet to be unleashed.
His thoughts were a tempest—memories of broken ribs and shattered hope, his mother's mute agony, his brother's whispered prayers.
He traced the invisible scar beneath his skin, the ever-present pulse of the darkness writhing beneath his flesh—a wound healed but not forgotten.
Blood spilled and promises vowed mixed in his veins.
He was no longer the ragged child who hid from pain. He was a shadow re-made in sorrow and hatred.
They will know my name.
They will bleed beneath my shadow.
Foreshadowing Future Storm
Outside, the court spoke in fevered tones, fearing what this darkness portended. Secrets whispered of ancient bloodlines, of curses chained to forgotten thrones.
Lucian's name tunneled like a blade into palace plots and whispered prayers.
And far above the palace, in an unlit chamber, the devil smiled—a slow, cruel curl of lips.
"The game is set," it whispered. "And the king's reign inches toward its end."
Lucian folded into shadow beneath the crumbling archway, eyes like steel, chest pulsing with life and power.
The night bore witness.
And a voice, cold and sharp as a razor's edge, slipped through the darkness:
"One fallen. Next to bleed… is Raphael."
Silence swallowed the world—only the distant howl of the wind answered.