Private
Room within the Praetorian Hall - Continuous
Lucille’s
heart slams against her ribs, breath shallow and shaking. She can
barely keep her legs beneath her. The hallway outside Caepio’s
office feels colder than it should, the kind of cold that seeps into
bone.
Caepio walks beside her in
silence. Not a word. Not a sound beyond their footsteps. He betrays
nothing on his face. No anger, no satisfaction, no pity. Only that
stone-hard stoicism Lucille has always feared. But there is something
heavy in the set of his shoulders, something reluctant. Something
resigned.
He leads her deeper into
the Praetorian Hall, past the polished marble corridors and ornate
banners of the Great Houses, until the splendor drains away and the
ceilings lower, the walls becoming bare stone and reinforced doors.
They stop before a small,
unused chamber, no windows, no furniture, only a single support
column rising from floor to ceiling and the faint smell of dust.
“This will do,” Caepio
mutters.
He opens the door and
gestures her in. Lucille steps inside on leaden feet.
Caepio closes the door
behind them.
His voice is quiet, but no
less severe for it.
“Domitian.”
She stiffens.
“This punishment is
issued by order of General Tarsa,” he says. “I have no authority
to lessen it, delay it, or replace it. I am… bound to the law.”
Bound. He hates this. She
can smell it, an undercurrent beneath the iron. But duty is duty.
Caepio moves with
precision, never rushing, never hesitating. He takes a length of
coarse rope from a wall hook and steps to the column.
“You will stand.”
Lucille nods, though her
knees wobble. Standing feels impossible, but kneeling would feel like
surrender. He knows that. Maybe that is why he chooses this position.
Then, quietly, “Remove
your jacket.”
Her fingers tremble so
badly he has to loosen the first knot for her. She shrugs the jacket
off and lets it fall.
“Your scarf.”
She unravels it, throat
exposed to the cold air.
“And your shirt.”
Her breath catches, but she
complies. The fabric peels away from her bruised ribs and sore arms,
the punishment from class still fresh. She folds the shirt and sets
it atop the scarf.
Caepio’s voice drops to a
near whisper, still not gentle, but level. “The...under layer as
well. Fabric interferes with the strike. It will only tear.”
He faces the opposite wall
while she removes the last thin garment. He does not look. He does
not turn. The act is clinical, procedural, stripped of anything
resembling cruelty or curiosity. This is duty. Nothing more.
“Place your hands around
the column. Wrists together.”
She obeys. The stone is
cold beneath her palms.
He ties her wrists firmly,
not tight enough to injure, but with no chance of slipping free. When
he’s finished, he steps back and lets her breathe for a moment.
When she is done, he
extends a small block of polished wood, smooth, worn by previous
hands, a relic of older punishments.
“Bite,” he says.
Lucille accepts it. The
wood tastes of resin and age. She fits it between her teeth.
Caepio steps behind her.
The room grows unbearably
quiet.
Lucille shakes, unable to
stop. She stares at the floor, at the faint cracks in the stone. She
tries to steady her breathing, but every inhale trembles, and her
heart refuses to slow.
Caepio stands in silence
for a long moment.
When he finally speaks, it
is low, weighed down with something she cannot name.
“Hold still, Lucille
Domitian.”
He draws in a breath.
“And may this be the last
time such a punishment is ever required.”
The leather is drawn back.
The first lash descends.
Lucille’s scream never
leaves her throat, the wooden bite traps it behind her teeth, but her
body convulses against the column as the first
lash tears across her back. Fire floods her nerves.
Her breath explodes in a ragged grunt. She claws at the stone with
bound hands, fingertips scraping uselessly.
The line of pain runs from
shoulder blade to hip, a perfect, clean arc. Caepio does not pause.
He cannot.
The
second lash snaps through the air like a gunshot. A
crack that rattles her skull. Her ears ring violently; her vision
pulses white. The whip strikes slightly lower, ripping through
already-screaming flesh. Her knees almost buckle, and only the ropes
keep her upright.
Lucille’s breath comes in
sharp, ragged bursts through the wooden bite. She tastes blood, her
own, where her teeth cut into her tongue.
Caepio exhales once through
his nose, almost imperceptibly, then raises the whip again.
The agony of the third lash
fractures her consciousness, and the stone column, the cold room, the
smell of dust and old limestone, all of it drowns beneath a pressure
that feels both crushing and weightless.
Darkness folds around her
like a shroud.
Then a glow, deep, molten
red, slowly traces itself into form.
The helmet
materializes before her, suspended in the void. Blackened metal,
edges charred like something forged in a divine furnace. The crimson
comb glows like a living ember. The visor catches some unseen light
and in its reflection she sees him again, Valroth Kyr, the God of
Sacrifice, the one who demands blood for strength, suffering for
purpose, pain for transcendence.
He does not speak as
mortals speak.
The message comes as a
pressure behind her sternum, a resonance in her bones. A voice that
is not a voice. Words that are not words.
BLOOD MAKES
PURPOSE.
PAIN MAKES FORM.
BREAK TO BECOME.
The meaning burns into her.
This isn’t punishment. This is reshaping.
A sensation like a hand,
massive, unseen, rests against her back where the lash had struck.
YOUR PATH IS CARVED
IN SUFFERING.
YOUR STRENGTH IS PAID FOR IN BLOOD.
YOU WILL
CARRY THIS MARK UNTIL THE DAY YOU USE IT.
Her breath catches. Her
fingers reach for the helmet, not to flee the pain but to claim it.
To claim him.
And then the vision
shatters.
She returns violently to
her body just as the sixth lash rips across her
other shoulder blade. Her cry breaks free when the bite slips from
her teeth and clatters onto the stone floor. She nearly collapses,
knees buckling, her forehead pressing against the cold column as she
gasps raggedly for air.
Her back feels like it’s
been flayed open. Three lashes cut down each side of her spine,
wing-marks, brutal and raw, like an angel freshly stripped
of grace.
Lucille trembles
uncontrollably. Tears streak down her face, not from weakness but
from the sheer, unbearable magnitude of pain flooding her nerves.
Even the twitch of a fingertip sends fire crawling across her back.
Caepio stands behind her,
whip lowered, chest rising and falling in a slow, measured rhythm.
His face is carved from stone, but there’s tension in his jaw,
something grim and unresolved in his eyes.
He steps in quickly,
cutting the rope binding her wrists. The moment she’s free her arms
sag, limp and useless, barely catching herself against the column.
Caepio brings a radio to
his mouth. “Bring a medic,” he orders, voice flat. “Immediate
response. Private room A-3.”
Static crackles. A
confirmation answer follows.
He doesn’t look at her
while he waits, but his posture is rigid, shoulders squared, as if
bracing himself against the weight of what he has just done. Lucille
can barely breathe through the sharp, burning ache across her spine.
The room blurs at the
edges, swimming in and out of focus.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Valroth Kyr’s cryptic
message still hums somewhere in the back of her skull.
Break to become.
And Lucille, sobbing,
shaking, bleeding, understands, she has only just begun.
Private Room within the
Praetorian Hall – Minutes Later
Korvin
storms down the polished corridors of the Praetorian Hall, boots
striking the floor in a rapid, furious rhythm. He barely hears the
echo of his own steps over the blood roaring in his ears.
A Praetorian rounds the
corner ahead of him, lifting a hand as if to intercept. “Instructor
Korvin—”
Korvin doesn’t slow.
“Move.”
“Sir, you can’t—”
Korvin shoves straight past
him, sending the man stumbling into the wall. He doesn’t apologize.
He doesn’t even look back.
Deeper he goes, into the
restricted wings where disciplinary matters are handled, where cadets
are never supposed to be. The halls grow quieter, colder. And then,
voices.
Low chatter from two
Praetorians. The steady murmur of a medic giving orders. And beneath
those, faint, cracking, wet sniffling.
Korvin’s jaw tightens.
He rounds the final corner
and sees them clustered around an open door. One of the Praetorians
immediately steps forward, arms out in a halting gesture.
“Instructor Korvin, you
need to wait—”
“Get out of my way.”
“Captain Caepio hasn’t
authorized—”
“I said,” Korvin
snarls, stepping in close, “get. Out. Of. My. Way.”
The Praetorian stands firm
for all of half a second.
Korvin grabs him by the
front plate of his armor and hurls him sideways into the opposite
wall. The medic jumps. The second Praetorian reaches for Korvin’s
arm, hesitates, and then lifts both hands in surrender.
“Sir,” he says quickly,
“please—just calm—”
“Where is she?” Korvin
demands, voice booming down the hall.
The second Praetorian steps
back, defeated, fear flickering across his face. He gestures toward
the open door. “Inside.”
Korvin doesn’t bother
thanking him.
He pounds toward the
doorway, fury rolling off him like heat from a furnace.
And the Praetorians,
knowing full well what Korvin is capable of, knowing they cannot stop
him and survive with dignity intact, stand down. Letting him through.
Letting him into the room.
Korvin
steps into the room like a storm given human shape. The door
barely shuts behind him before the medic flinches under the weight of
his presence. Lucille kneels on the floor, her shirt discarded beside
her, back wrapped in fresh white bandages already blotched with
spreading red. Her shoulders tremble. Her breath hiccups. She keeps
her head bowed as if afraid even to exist too loudly.
Korvin’s jaw clenches.
“Where,” he growls, low and deadly, “is Captain Caepio?”
The medic swallows hard.
“He left, sir. Immediately after calling us in. He—he said to
tend to her quickly and report to him when finished.”
Korvin doesn’t respond.
His eyes stay fixed on Lucille, on the way she shrinks the moment she
realizes he is staring.
“Lucille,” he says,
voice softening but still iron beneath. He kneels down beside her,
ignoring the way the medic tries to give him space. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t. She can’t.
Her tears drip onto the
stone floor.
Korvin reaches out, slow,
careful, placing a hand on her shoulder. She still flinches. His
entire face darkens.
“What happened to her?”
he demands, turning his gaze onto the medic like a blade unsheathed.
The medic stammers.
“Captain Caepio administered… six stripes. As ordered by General
Tarsa.”
Korvin rises to his full
height. “You think I’m askin' to blame you?” His voice is a
whip-crack. “I am askin' because I need to know exactly how much
damage has been done to my cadet.”
The medic straightens,
terrified. “Deep cuts, sir. All clean. Deliberate. No tearin'.
She’ll scar. She… she lost a lot of blood, but she’ll recover.”
Lucille sniffles, softly,
as if apologizing for making noise.
Korvin breathes in through
his nose, long and slow, forcing control back into his body. He
crouches again, leveling himself with her.
“Lucille,” he says,
quieter this time. “You’re safe now. Do you understand me?”
Her voice is raw, nearly
gone. “Y-yes, sir.”
He nods once. Listens to
the tiny, shaky breaths she takes. And beneath all the control etched
into his features, rage simmers like molten metal ready to spill.
He looks back to the medic.
“Is she stable enough to move?”
The medic nods quickly.
“Yes, sir. She’ll need rest. No physical strain for at least a
day or two.”
Korvin scoffs, bitter.
“Musa will have to live without her brilliance for once.”
He takes Lucille’s jacket
from the floor, drapes it carefully over her shoulders, shielding her
back from any touch. Then he helps her stand, not pulling, just
offering his arm. Lucille grips it like she might fall without it.
When she’s steady on her
feet, Korvin turns to the Praetorians still hovering outside the
doorway.
“You will inform Captain
Caepio that I am looking for him,” he says, voice cold enough to
frost the air. “And if he wishes to avoid a scene in these halls,
he will come find me before I find him.”
Both Praetorians
straighten, stiff as boards.
“Yes, Instructor Korvin.”
He doesn’t spare them
another glance. He bends slightly toward Lucille. “Come,” he
says. “Let’s get you out of here.” And with one arm around her,
protective, furious, unyielding, he guides her out of the room.
Korvin’s Office –
Continuous
Korvin
shuts the door behind them with a soft, deliberate click. The moment
the latch settles, the world outside is cut off, the echoes of
Praetorian armor, murmured orders, Lucille’s own broken breathing.
Silence presses in.
His office is dim, lit only
by a single lamp on his desk. Shadows swallow the corners. It feels
safer than that sterile room… but only barely.
Korvin guides her to the
chair opposite his desk. She moves like a puppet whose strings have
been slashed, shaking, unsteady, but still trying with every scrap of
pride she has not to collapse.
“Sit,” he murmurs,
softer than anyone at the Academy has ever spoken to her.
She obeys. Her hands
tremble violently in her lap, fingers stained with smeared blood. The
bandages across her back are already blooming red.
Korvin lowers himself to a
kneel before her, not out of deference, but to be at her eye level.
To make her look at him. His hands come up, steady and warm, gripping
lightly around her elbows so she doesn’t fold in on herself.
“Lucille,” he says
quietly.
Her breath stutters. Tears
spill over her cheeks in trembling drops she tries, and fails, to
wipe away.
“I tried,” she manages,
voice shredded raw. “I-I tried to stay strong. I tried to… to do
what I was told. I didn’t cry. I—” Her face crumples, and fresh
sobs rip out of her as if torn from her ribs. “I’m… I’m
tryin' to stop. I’m sorry. I’m tryin'—”
“Stop,” Korvin
interrupts, not harsh, but firm. “You don’t apologize to me.”
She presses her shaking
hands to her face, trying to hide her tears. “I shouldn’t— I
shouldn’t be like this—”
“You are fifteen,” he
says, and there’s an edge underneath, a razor cutting through his
controlled tone. Anger, but not at her. Never at her. “And what was
done to you should not be done to anyone your age.”
Her breaths come in gasps,
shoulders twitching with pain each time she inhales.
Korvin tightens his hold
just slightly, not enough to hurt, but enough to anchor her. Enough
to force her to look at him again. His eyes are steady. Focused. And
burning with a quiet fury on her behalf.
“Lucille,” he says,
slower this time, “you survived something that would break grown
soldiers. You did more than stay strong.” He shakes his head once.
“You endured.”
Her lips tremble. “But it
hurt so much,” she whispers, voice splintering. “I tried. I
really did.”
“I know.”
A few tears fall onto his
gloves, darkening the leather.
Korvin doesn’t wipe them
away, he simply stays there, holding her upright by sheer presence.
“You’re safe now,” he
says. “No one will touch you again. Not while you are in my care.
Do you understand?”
Lucille nods weakly, though
another quiet sob follows.
“And you did nothin' wrong,” Korvin adds, softer. “Do not let them make you believe
you did.”
For the first time since
the whipping, something in Lucille’s chest loosens, just a thread,
but enough to breathe.
Her voice breaks into a
whisper. “Thank you… Instructor.”
Korvin stays kneeling,
hands still steady on her arms, refusing to look away from her even
for a moment. As if by watching her, he can keep the world from
hurting her again.
A
sudden knock on the door makes both of them look up. His eyes fall on
the door for a beat.
Korvin
rises slowly, releasing Lucille’s arms only when he’s sure she
won’t crumble without his hands there. His expression hardens, not
at her, never at her, but at the world outside the door that has done
this to a child under his care.
Another frantic knock.
Faster. Sharper. A breath hitching on the other side.
Lucille stiffens, shoulders
trembling. “…It’s Cain,” she whispers.
Korvin studies her face,
tear-streaked, shaken, trying and failing to hold herself upright
with dignity she never should have had to muster. The look in her
eyes tells him everything: she wants him to open the door, but she’s
terrified of being seen like this.
Korvin places a hand
briefly on her shoulder, solid, grounding, before turning toward the
door.
The knocking comes again,
urgent enough that the wood rattles in its frame.
Korvin pulls the door open.
Cain nearly stumbles
inside. He catches himself on the frame, chest heaving, eyes wide and
wild. Sweaty hair sticks to his forehead, and he looks as if he
sprinted the entire breadth of the Academy. When he sees Korvin, he
tries to compose himself, but it’s hopeless; fear has eaten
straight through him.
His chest heaves beneath
his uniform, his knuckles still raised from knocking. The moment he
sees Korvin, his composure fractures; the fear on his face is raw,
unguarded, nothing like the unshakeable prodigy he had been an hour
ago.
“Where is she?” Cain
manages, voice cracking despite his attempt to steady it.
“Instructor, where is Lucille?”
Korvin doesn’t answer
right away. He studies the boy, sees the tremor in his hands, the
flush on his cheeks, the panic flickering beneath his eyes. Cain
Aurellius, son of a General, who should have been untouchable,
unbreakable, immovable….
He looks like a child who
just watched his world get torn in half.
Korvin steps aside.
Cain doesn’t wait for
permission. He moves past Korvin, nearly stumbling, and his gaze
locks onto Lucille where she sits in the chair.
Her eyes are red and
swollen. Tears cling to her lashes. She’s still trembling, thin
shoulders quivering under the blanket Korvin draped over her. Blood
has dried at the edges of the bandages on her back. Her cheeks are
damp, her breathing hitched and uneven.
“Lucille…” Cain
whispers, and the boy looks like he’s been stabbed.
She lifts her head. Just
barely.
“Cain,” she breathes,
voice small, frayed, exhausted.
That single word shatters
whatever fragile restraint he had left. Cain crosses the room in
three quick strides, dropping to his knees in front of her just like
Korvin had earlier. His hands hover, near her arms, near her
shoulders, but he won’t touch her without permission. Won’t risk
hurting her more.
“What did they do to
you?” His voice is barely audible.
Lucille tries to smile, but
it breaks. Her lip trembles. Her eyes fill again. “I-I did
everything they told me,” she whispers. “I tried so hard.”
And Cain’s face twists,
rage, grief, helplessness all battling for dominance.
Korvin watches the two of
them, jaw clenched, hands fisted at his sides. He has never felt more
ashamed of the Praevectus. Of the Academy. Of himself.
Cain’s voice shakes as he
repeats, softer, “I’m here now.”
Lucille nods, a tiny,
broken motion, and a tear slips down her cheek.
Cain doesn’t wipe it
away. He just sits there, knees on the floor, refusing to leave her
side.
And for the first time
since the lashings, Lucille breathes, not steadily, not cleanly, but
with the faintest sense of safety. As if Cain’s presence alone is
enough to keep the world from hurting her again.
Korvin steps forward,
placing a steadying hand on Cain’s shoulder. “Easy, Aurellius.
She’s hurt.” His tone is low, controlled, but the fury simmering
beneath is unmistakable.
Cain’s gaze snaps to
Korvin’s, searching his instructor’s face for answers he isn’t
sure he wants. “Who did this?” His voice is small at first,
shaking, before it hardens into something cold and dangerous. “Who
hurt her?”
Korvin doesn’t answer
immediately. He looks at Lucille instead, kneeling beside her again,
lifting her chin gently so she meets his eyes. “Easy,” he
murmurs. “Breathe. You’re safe here.”
Lucille’s lips tremble.
She tries to speak but no words come, only a broken, helpless sound.
She presses her palms against her thighs, digging her nails into
fabric, grounding herself, trying not to fall apart a second time.
Cain stands frozen, fists
clenched, as if terrified his very presence might break her further.
Korvin straightens, turning
to him with a grave finality. “Close the door, Aurellius.”
Cain obeys silently,
shutting them into the dim and quiet of Korvin’s private office.
When he turns back, he sees
Lucille’s face streaked with tears, her breathing shallow and
ragged. Something inside him cracks.
He takes a slow step toward
her, more cautious this time, and she lifts her arms weakly. Not
asking for pressure, just for him.
Cain kneels in front of
her, mirroring Korvin moments before, and gently takes her hands.
“I’m here,” he whispers, voice thick. “I’m right here.”
Lucille sobs, and this time
it’s not from pain, but from relief so sharp it hurts all the same.
Korvin looks away, giving
them the moment. He knows the storm that will come after this. But
for now… Lucille needs a friend more than she needs answers. And
Cain Aurellius is not letting go.
