The metallic sound of chains was barely fading in the confined air of the training room, giving way to a heavy silence, punctuated only by the panting breaths of exhausted slaves. The smell of sweat and stone dust permeated every corner of this underground space, creating an oppressive atmosphere that clung to the skin like second nature.
Mordred was already approaching Adrien, his measured steps echoing faintly on the worn stone floor. Livia, absorbed in training the other slaves, barked her orders in a hoarse voice, whipping the air with her riding crop without paying the slightest attention to the silent exchange brewing in the shadows. Her piercing eyes swept over the moving bodies, searching for the slightest weakness, the slightest hesitation to correct with a brutal gesture.
Mordred crouched slightly to the boy’s level, huddled in a remote corner of the room. Adrien was stretching his quadriceps with almost meditative concentration, his tense muscles bearing witness to the hours of intensive training he imposed on himself daily. The flickering light of torches hanging on the walls cast moving shadows on his youthful face, carving his features with a precocious maturity that only survival could forge.
- "You’re progressing," Mordred murmured, his deep voice carrying a note of appreciation that surprised even the one who spoke it.
Adrien instantly froze, every muscle in his body stiffening under the effect of surprise. His eyes widened, then he straightened quickly, almost too fast, nearly losing his balance. A hint of pride, timid but sincere, passed through his dark eyes like a fleeting flash, briefly illuminating his usually so suspicious gaze.
- "Thank you, master... I mean, Mordred," he stammered, his voice betraying an emotion he was trying in vain to conceal.
He always avoided looking too much into his eyes, instinctively turning his gaze toward an imaginary point on the stone wall. Not out of fear - that primal terror that paralyzed so many other slaves in the presence of their masters - but out of instinctive respect, mixed with an admiration he dared not admit to himself. Mordred felt it in every gesture, every voice inflection, every heartbeat that imperceptibly accelerated. And this made the situation even more unbearable, like a vise slowly tightening around his conscience.
- "You’re stronger. More enduring than the others," he continued in a neutral tone, almost distracted, but his eyes never left the boy’s face, analyzing every micro-expression with the acuity of a predator. "Do you know why?"
Adrien blinked, hesitating, his lips slightly parting as if he were searching for his words in a labyrinth of confused thoughts. He passed a nervous hand through his sweat-dampened hair, letting out an almost inaudible sigh.
- "I... I apply myself. I give my all." His voice gradually strengthened, gaining confidence as he spoke. "And then... I want to get out of here. Live. I want to become strong enough to protect those around me. Those who matter to me."
Mordred observed him with that calm and icy intensity that made the most hardened bend, that particular way he had of probing souls to their depths. But Adrien wasn’t lying. His gaze didn’t flee, didn’t waver under examination. His breath didn’t race in that characteristic way of liars caught in a trap. No micro-expression - too rapid blinking, involuntary contraction of facial muscles, suspicious blushing - betrayed a double intention. He was of disarming sincerity, almost painful to contemplate.
A silence stretched between them, heavy as a lead blanket. Mordred felt something knot in his chest, a sensation he hadn’t experienced in years and refused to name.
- "Come with me," he finally said, breaking the silence with a voice hoarser than he would have liked. "I need your help on a secondary excavation."
- "Right now?" Adrien’s eyes lit up with a gleam of excitement mixed with apprehension.
The tunnel had been dug by hand, centimeter by centimeter, in patient and silent labor that had taken months to accomplish. Far from the monitored corridors and open galleries where guards’ footsteps echoed, this secret artery wound through the fortress’s entrails like a worm in a rotten apple. The air was rarer there, colder, charged with a humidity that seeped into the bones.
Mordred walked ahead with a regular pace, his imposing silhouette casting a dancing shadow on the rough walls. Adrien trotted a few steps behind, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, his slightly ragged breathing testifying to the effort he was making to keep up with his master’s pace. The sound of their steps echoed faintly in the narrow passage, creating a ghostly echo that seemed to pursue them.
- "You said you wanted to progress faster than the others, didn’t you?" Mordred’s voice floated in the confined air, almost detached, as if it came from elsewhere.
The boy nodded vehemently, his cheeks flushed with effort and enthusiasm. His eyes shone with fierce determination that reminded Mordred of his own youth, before the world taught him cruelty.
- "Of course! I want... to be useful. Really useful. Not just dead weight being dragged along."
Mordred didn’t respond immediately. He stopped at the intersection of two bare stone walls, where he had once tested the integrity of the rock layer with a geologist’s patience. Years of imprisonment had taught him to know every grain of sand, every crack, every weakness of his prison. He knelt with feline grace and pointed to an almost invisible crack that ran along the wall.
- "Look at this wall. We’re going to have to stabilize it." His voice had become technical again, professional, masking the storm rumbling in his chest. "Do you see the micro-fractures?"
Adrien approached, squinting in the dim light, lowering his head toward the stone with the concentration of an apprentice goldsmith examining a complex jewel. He instinctively ran his hand over the rough surface, his fingers tracing the invisible lines with surprising delicacy.
- "I think... well, yes, a little. Is it there?" He pointed to a barely perceptible line.
- "Come here." Mordred signaled him to crouch down, right next to him, so close he could feel the warmth emanating from the boy’s body.
The boy complied without suspicion, his movements imbued with that blind confidence that characterized their relationship. He turned his head slightly to ask him a question, his lips parting on words that would never come.
Silence. A movement. Sharp. Implacable.
A single blow, applied just under the temporal bone, with perfect precision born of decades of combat training. His fingers found the exact point where the nerves met, exerting pressure calculated to the milligram. The tension evaporated from the boy’s body in a fraction of a second, as if someone had just cut the strings of a marionette. He slid gently forward, caught without shock by Mordred’s powerful arms.
Not a word. Not a cry. Not an unnecessary breath. Just the deafening silence of consummated betrayal.
Mordred laid him on the cold stone with almost paternal delicacy. The boy’s back rested on the bare slab, his arms relaxed along his body, eyelids closed over calm and regular breathing. His face, relaxed by unconsciousness, had regained that childhood innocence that trials had not yet completely erased.
He remained standing above him for a moment, expressionless, contemplating this sleeping youth with a mixture of fascination and horror. His hands trembled imperceptibly, betraying an emotion he refused to recognize.
His fingers easily found the top of the torso, between the collarbones, where the energy flow of the human body still vibrated faintly, even at rest. He gently parted the coarse fabric of the slave’s tunic, revealing the boy’s pale and vulnerable skin. His left hand moved to his own rib, hesitating for a moment on the irreversible gesture he was about to accomplish.
A short claw sprang forth with a sharp click, barely visible in the dim light, and opened his skin over five centimeters. Blood flowed. Thick. Blackish. Unreal. Saturated with an energy older than words, deeper than the memory of men. It carried within it the heritage of millennia of black magic, the quintessence of a power that had forged and destroyed empires.
He let it drip directly onto the boy’s skin. Three drops. Not one more. Just enough to make awakening sleep, just enough to install what could never be removed.
The blood slowly infiltrated the flesh like a calm poison, absorbed by the organism without resistance. No rune. No light. No visible mark. Just a new presence, imperceptible, silent. And a watch that would never cease, an invisible eye that opened in the depths of Adrien’s soul.
He wiped his palm on his tunic, put the boy’s top back in place with meticulous care, and remained a long moment sitting beside him, his gaze fixed on that peaceful face. Not a word. Just a dull beating in his temple. A thought, frozen like steel of a blade.
"I cannot believe you. But I cannot condemn you".
The paradox tore him apart from within. How to trust someone when mistrust had become second nature? How to condemn innocence when it was so rare, so precious in this world of darkness?
He finally leaned toward Adrien’s peaceful face, observing the relaxed features of artificial sleep. The boy’s breath barely caressed the air, regular and confident. A delicate pressure on his diaphragm, a slight relaxation of the neck, and there he was, half-opening his eyes, slowly, as if pulled from a confused dream.
- "What’s..." Adrien’s voice was thick, disoriented. He blinked several times, trying to chase away the fog that obscured his thoughts.
- "You fainted," Mordred replied calmly, his face charged with feigned, perfect concern. His years of experience in the art of dissimulation allowed him to modulate every expression, every voice inflection with the precision of a consummate actor.
He helped him sit up, supporting his back with a firm but gentle hand.
- "Maybe a drop in blood pressure. Or exhaustion. You haven’t slowed down for three days. You’re pushing your body beyond its limits."
Adrien blinked, visibly dazed, one hand brought to his temple as if to chase away a nascent headache.
- "I... I didn’t see it coming. It’s weird. I feel like I dreamed, but I don’t remember anything."
- "No one will blame you. It’s normal when you push yourself too hard." Mordred slipped an arm under his to help him stabilize. "Catch your breath. We’ll go back slowly."
He helped him stand up, without adding anything, suppressing the words that burned his throat. The boy followed him, still uncertain, his step a little unsteady, but already that blind confidence was returning to his eyes. That confidence that had just sealed his fate.