A Crown Of Blades(ARTK, Book 3)

Chapter 84-85

Jono 17th,3330 A.G

He were everywhere, yet when he screamed none could hear. It were as if he'd become invisible, like he were no better than the very air people walked through each day.

  At first he hadn't been sure where that particular dream had taken him, but then he remembered. However much his mind tried to block it out, that year were always there- his mind always ready to remind him of each and every time it happened.

  Then..... he didn't know another way to describe it, besides that he were looking out of a much younger him's eyes while also able to see from above. He were walking from the square to the house of a common friend who were long since dead (a work accident were all his mother could tell a fourteen year old Andrew without crying).... And he knew, from the first step he took down that road, he knew.

  Over the first few months of that year- or rather most of his life, he'd learned to observe the tells of those around him. The way they walked when angry- even if their facial expressions and tone of voice didn't show it. The way they breathed when in a good mood, and the way they breathed when they wanted to fucking kill someone.

  But most of all he'd learned to observe how people smelled; and as a result his nose used to be aware that someone where in a room a couple of moments before he saw or heard them.

    So it were no real surprise when he walked out of what appeared to be his cottage, just a few away from his friend's- and smiled from ear to ear.

  He had always been happy to see Andrew.

  Andrew..... not so much, but despite his efforts at avoiding the man they'd always ran into one another like that.

  "My lord-" he said, nearly skipping to catch up to him as he tried to walk faster. "What brings you down this road?"

  At the arm the much older man threw around his neck, he flinched- and to him this were unacceptable. In his mind Andrew had belonged to him, were his to do whatever he wished with- and any sign of disrespect warranted a punishment.

  He'd been a child, Andrew often told himself. It weren't his fault that it went on as long as it did, but then another voice in his mind would say he always could have told someone. That it were ridiculous that he hadn't, and that it'd taken him so many years to speak of just the first incident.

  "What was that for?" The man had stopped in his tracks, his strength far superior to an eleven year old Andrew's- and so he'd yelped when his entire mood suddenly changed and both hands were tightly gripping his shoulders. "You are no girl! You will do what I ask at all times, and you will not complain. Do you understand me?"

  With that he were dragging Andrew back into that house-

  The man's skin were against his own-

  He couldn't breath, had to get out of that skin of his that were so unclean-

  The hands were drifting lower and lower after he'd been forced to strip out of his tunic and breeches, after the man had stood there watching as he removed his own, then he were staring at the old headboard of the bed where both of the man's children had been born-

  And then he were awake. Screaming as loud as his throat would allow, but awake. As it were their duty the guards came to check on him- but it'd been the second time that night, so they'd suspected it were just a nightmare of some sort.

   His first instinct that first time had been to reach for Krea- then it quickly sunk in that that would never be happening again, and another round of hyperventilating and a mix between sobbing and screaming were set off.