Magistrates they were, draped in garments of deep purple that nearly brushed the stone ground. It was the color of power, of dominance, of nobility and command. It belonged to the religious sect that kept sacred the punishment deserving of transgressors. Twelve were seated before him, surrounded by their aura of superiority upon wooden arm chairs of floral carvings padded with crimson suede. They were emblems of importance and the representatives of supreme justice and they looked upon him in a manner that only awaited confession. It seemed that the law was already passed in their minds the moment he was brought before the council with the markings of whips and torture intelligently hidden beneath the tunic he was forced to wear.

He was stripped of every weapon of war just as he was bound to the chair from which he was made to listen to paid witnesses proclaim his guilt. One by one, Valec Von Mortem glared at them with his firey eyes. They were lying. He knew, for there was not another soul who had survived to see him kill. He made certain of that with every blow of deliverance that stained the streets with murder. He was a strategist after all, blessed with a keen eye and a childhood that lacked entirely even an ounce of mercy.

His eyes wandered for a moment across the chamber. Over a hundred citizens encircled him as they sat surrounding him upon bleachers above him. He could almost hear them curse from the very expressions echoed by their visages. They were searing with hate and their glares dripped with poison. The situation was completely logical after all. Many of them were widows to the husbands who had suffered to his and his father’s tyranny.

It was only when the inquisitor, a bearded man dressed in gilded black robes began to pace before him that his attentions returned to the trial.

“I call upon Rouen Van Craven to swear her oath of truth.”

The man spoke as his eyes met with Valec’s, almost searching for any form of alarm that might arise instinctively. True enough, however, Von Mortem arched his brow to the moments surprise.

IMPOSSIBLE!

With haste, his gaze shot towards the grand entrance with utter disbelief.

She could never have survived! She perished just like her fa-

The young lord’s thoughts were suspended almost instantaneously as a woman in her celebrated youth, entered the chamber. Unlike most of the females of her age, she was dressed in the garments of a man only tailored to her feminine frame. Upon her face were evidently seen cuts and bruises that were overshadowed by the dried bleeding of her fingertips.

“Rouen Van Craven. It is said that you are the sole survivor of this man’s cruelty. I task you now to tell the world the cause of your injuries and why Valec Von Mortem deserves death!”

Fury surged in his veins as he listened and with violence, he struggled to free himself from his binds, but instead he would be unable to move. All of a sudden, within a blink of an eye he was elsewhere. He found himself in the center of the town square, surrounded by over a thousand spectators of all classes. Man, woman, child, all were there to see the spectacle of a notorious criminal’s demise.

“Death to the murderer!”

They spat with contempt as he began to realize the heat that crept into his body. It was not that of anger but the medium of his punishment.

Fire ignited around him, consuming first the clothing that had surrounded him. Deeply he cried with all his might as the golden flames seared through his skin, hungrily tearing through him, eating through muscle and tissue faster than blood could douse his wounds. And as the scent of his burning flesh spread, he struggled even more with all of his strength upon his binds, but all would be in vain for the friction only caused the ropes to sink unto the bones of his wrist and ankles.

“To every one of you…”

Valec swore by the very life left within him as the fire took to his face, scorching the strands of his hair, the skin of his cheeks and the globes of his eyes. Their thin film began to dry just as the flames turned their emerald hue into a deathly white.

“I vow to you my vengeance. Watch your children and theirs bleed at my mercy. Mark my words that I will not stop till they are bled dry and your lines are no more.”


Melandro rose from his sleep feeling the tremor of fear fill every inch of his body. He was left gasping for breath almost as if he could not breathe. His chest heaved as beads of sweat trickled down his brow. Several times in the past, he had faced nightmares, but none like this, none like this one that had practically left him choking in his waking hours. He could not rid himself of the puzzles that had filled his mind, the scene that played almost realistically in his dreams and the thought of the woman who was his wife.