The house no longer felt like a home.
It felt like a cage.
Ace moved through it like a ghost, enduring the blows, swallowing the poison of words, but inside, something had shifted. He wasn't breaking anymore.
And his parents knew it.
⸻
That night, he couldn't sleep. The whispers of Orpheus stirred inside him, heavy as thunderclouds.
"You feel it, don't you? The storm is near. Your parents are no longer merely cruel — they are preparing to hand you over to the Darkness itself."
Ace sat up, his chest tight. "What are you talking about?"
The dragon's voice rumbled low, like stone cracking.
"They seek power. They always did. When cruelty failed to bind you, they turned to shadows. Even now, as you lie here, they summon something in secret — something that reeks of the Eternal Darkness."
Ace's blood ran cold.
⸻
He crept down the hall, barefoot, silent, following the faint flicker of candlelight seeping from beneath the old cellar door. His heart hammered as he pressed his ear against the wood.
Inside, he heard their voices.
"… the boy resists," his mother hissed. "He grows stronger each day. We can't control him much longer."
"We don't need control," his father growled. "We need power. The kind your bloodline promised us."
Then came a third sound. Not human. A whisper, low and guttural, like chains dragging across stone.
Give the child. His suffering is the key. Through him, the gate shall open.
Ace staggered back from the door, bile rising in his throat.
They weren't just abusers.
They weren't just cruel.
They were offering him—to that.
⸻
"Do you see now?" Orpheus's voice thundered in his skull, fierce and unyielding. "You were never their son. You were their sacrifice."
Ace's knees buckled, but the dragon didn't let him fall.
"Stand, Ace Dragon. Stand and face the truth. This is your first trial. If you cannot bear it, you will never defeat what lies ahead."
The cellar door creaked. His parents' voices faded into silence, and footsteps began climbing the stairs. Ace rushed back to his room, his body trembling, his mind screaming.
Orpheus's voice was relentless.
"Answer me, child. Now that you know the truth, will you still cling to the chains of family? Or will you sever them before they drag you into the abyss?"
Ace pressed his hands to his face, shaking, his heart splitting in two. His mother's smile, his father's shadow—they were all he had ever known, twisted though they were.
But the truth was carved into his bones: they were lost.
He wasn't their son. He was their offering.
Slowly, his trembling stilled. His tears dried. And when he finally lowered his hands, the fire in his eyes was new.
"I'll sever them," he whispered. His voice was hoarse, but unyielding. "If it's me or them… then it won't be me."
⸻
In the darkness, Orpheus's presence swelled, deep and satisfied.
"Good. You've taken your first step out of the chains. But remember this, Ace Dragon — to sever blood is not the same as to sever love. One day, you will face that test, too… and that battle will break you in ways fists never could."
The warning coiled in his heart, but Ace didn't flinch.
He was ready to be broken.
As long as he could rise stronger than before.