Volume I: Forged

Chapter 8: Legacy Reborn

Antfrost held ramrod still, as he had been trained. "Forced to endure" was closer to accurate. He was only allowed to breathe and blink. Even that was difficult within the confines of his starched suit. The hard couch was uncomfortable against his hips and lower back—even his shoulders were protesting with a dull, thumping ache that reverberated into his skull—but he didn't complain.

He was above such things. He was the son of a lord, theLord Frizen—the sons of lords didn't fidget.

Ant, in reality, wanted to scream.

The room was too cold, the fabric of his suit chafed, and the bruise under his too-tight belt was throbbing. His heart pumped against his ribcage, ready to plow its way out of his body in an effort to escape.

Ant wanted this over with.

Outside the overly-fancy door, he could hear a muffled discussion taking place. His mother's high-pitched fake laugh, his father's low, rumbling baritone, a stranger's quiet question.

Ant was terrified of what the discussion was talking about.

Okay, he knew—but he was pretending it wasn't happening.

It couldn't be happening.

But he knew all too clearly what was occurring on the other side of that door.

His parents were selling him—they were literally paying someone to take him away.

For being a failure, a disparagement on the family name.

It wasn't his fault he had turned into his hybrid form at a gala when he was six—in front of literally anyone of any importance in their corner of the kingdom.

After that catastrophe, no one wanted anything to do with the Frizen family. No one wanted to even be seen with a family looked down upon by the Ancients.

His parents had soon faked his death after that, and now were trying to quietly get rid of the evidence. The living, breathing evidence they had discretely hidden away in their mansion.

They weren't murderers after all.

Instead, they were paying an old acquaintance of the previous late Lord Frizen to take Ant of their hands.

It made Ant want to throw up, but he had done that three times already and had nothing left in his stomach but watery bile. Wasn't like his parents had fed him much these past few days anyway. Something about building 'character.'

Ant stiffened even further than humanly possible when he heard the doorknob turn. His breath quickened, but there was no audible sound that left his mouth, no physical flicker of fear on his face. His gaze remained firmly fixed on the pot on the table, the soft gold fillagree on the crystalline blue—

"—sure you'll find him quite charismatic and lovely—"

Ant cringed at his mother's voice, her heels clicking on the marble flooring, fear crinkling at the base of his spine. His father's footsteps triggered something deeper—a rawer terror that licked at his throat and made it even harder to breathe.

"Antfrost!" his father greeted him much too brightly, voice filled with a feigned cheer Ant had rarely heard. "Stand and greet your new guardian."

Ant did as he was told, knees creaking against the cold of the room, then locking out of habit to keep them from buckling.

And oh, how he wanted to buckle. Buckle and disappear in a black hole and let space rip him apart so he didn't have to feel this way anymore.

Anything to not feel like this way anymore.