Burnt Bridges

3- Forgotten Dreams

King

Since my birth I've felt like the heavens themselves had blessed me.

My mother was nothing more but a market beggar, each morning she would dress herself in rags and walk like a cripple through the market, taking spare gold and offerings of food. Once I was four I joined her in the market but as people paid her through generosity it was my job to take what they held back.

I would steal, pickpocket and start fights all while my mother acted like an innocent stranger.

When I was six my mother joined the pleasure house under a fake name, kings and royal guards would travel year round for her services and while they had their way I would take my tip from there discarded garments.

This route went on till I was twelve, a loyal customer of my mother's had proposed to buy her as a Madame for the king of a prospering kingdom. The price was just too high to refuse causing me and my mother to be dragged from our homeland to a faraway land in the mountains. We were promised infinite riches and fame beyond compare, but who would make a whore and her child royalty.

We were stocked in with other servants of pleasure, I was put in the kitchen and my mother locked in the kings chambers as his personal tool.

I despised the king, his guards and even his people. They blindly followed his fat ass no matter what vice he choose to acquire. It wasn't long before I was banished for poisoning the bastard's food. Thou it was really the chief chef who spiced his fish; I was the one who coated his glass with poison.

They put me in a dungeon for two weeks with little to eat but the wildlife crawling around the dark moist floor. On the last night they hog tied me in a sack while a slept.

The next hours were spent in darkness with my sanity relying solely on the creaking of my kidnapper's carriage. By the sixth hour I had hit my head enough times to black out for the remainder of the trip.

By the time they let me out the bag I was too weak to stay conscious, all I could notice were some trees as I crashed to the dirt.

How I ended up inside that bitch's house was a complete blur.

"Mind reminding me what this story has to do with my job," A young voice awoke me from my rambling.

"Oh my bad son seems like I got carried away," I apologized, "Now what was your question again."

"This target, she doesn't have any abilities I should be wary of right?" He asked.

"Not anymore, that child of hers is like a parasite for her. I heard a rumour that he's the reason her husband died," I laughed.

"So the child needs to die too then?" from behind I could hear him snapping his fingers a bit. Guys like him are always eager to kill.

"Not yet if he dies she might get her powers back, plus if best I would like to have a little bit of fun with them before their necks snap," I grinned as I sat up to face the young bounty hunter.

He sat cross-legged on top of a wooden crate with him head resting on one of his hands, and the next calmly brushing his middle and thumb fingers together. He was almost invisible in the dark room thanks to him black jacket, pants and hair with only a white sleeveless shirt exposed under the open jacket. If it wasn't for that and some spots of red on his shoes I wouldn't have made out the misfit.

"So you don't want them dead, just 'toyed with'," he responded in a monotone voice. The movements of his crossing fingers speed up slightly and a spark appeared followed by a small flame sprouting from the tip of his middle finger before spreading across to the neighbouring finger tips. The light created was enough to finally make out his rough pitch black hair almost covering his sharp crimson eyes.

"Indeed," I smiled, "The pub owner must have been right in suggesting your services. Especially since,

"She can't touch someone without a『 soul』, right Rated!"