I stumble back from the barn, the door creaking shut behind me.
The night air hits my face, cold and wet, but it doesn't wash the stench from my nostrils. I can still hear them. Their laughter, her laughter, pounding against my skull.
For a moment I think of ending it. My hand moves to my belt-knife, the thought of cutting deep into myself flashes bright, sharp, simple. No more shame, no more sight, no more pain. Just silence.
But my grip tightens, and I stop.
Why should I be the one to vanish?
The rage seeps in like fire through cracks. My chest burns. My teeth grind. I see every face I recognized in that barn. Brenn, Odran, Caleb, Tomas. Men who once looked at me with pity, with those strange eyes I never understood. I hear their voices again, words I brushed off at the time:
"Poor boy… always so thin."
"Poor Arthur, not much of a man, is he?"
"Such a fragile lad, he'll never keep a wife."
I thought they meant nothing. Just the mutterings of old men, drunk on their own misery. But no. They were laughing at me long before tonight. They knew. They always knew what they were doing with her.
And Merlin — my Merlin — she smiled through it all. She believed their poison. She gave herself while swearing she was still mine.
I press my hand to my face, shaking. The world feels like it's collapsing inward, every house, every stone, every whisper of this damned village pressing down to crush me.
But I don't break. I don't fall.
I burn.
If they turned her into a ritual, if they all conspired in this grotesque lie, then I will answer with one of my own. Not pity. Not despair. No more "poor boy."
I walk through the dark, every step heavier than the last. The voices from the barn cling to me, laughing, taunting, her voice tangled with theirs. My knife is still at my side, whispering the simplest way out. End it. Cut it. Silence.
But no. I won't give them the satisfaction of my absence.
My head aches with too many thoughts, all tearing at me — run, hide, beg, die. None of them fit. None give me peace. Then the whisper comes again, not from the knife this time, but from somewhere deeper, somewhere that has always been there. A call. My power. The thing I never touched because I was afraid of what it would demand.
It says: bind, claim, command.
I clutch my chest, heart pounding. To use it, I need to prove myself. To bind a creature, I must first defeat it. That is the rule, carved into my blood.
I think of the beasts in the forest — wolves, trolls, spirits. Too strong. They would tear me apart before I even raised my hand. I am no warrior, not yet. I need something weaker. Something I can kill.
And the answer forms clear, cruel, and sharp.
A goblin.
Low vermin, hated by all, small enough that even a man like me might overpower one. Pathetic, yes — but it will be mine. My first step. My escape. My weapon.
I force myself toward the treeline, the knife heavy in my hand. The night feels alive, every rustle louder than thunder, every shadow waiting to test me. My stomach twists with fear, but the rage pushes me forward.
If I cannot have her pure, then I will have her witness me with power. If I cannot stop their laughter, then I will answer it with the screams of things no man can control.
I will find a goblin tonight.
I will spill its blood.
And when I rise from that fight, it will kneel to me — not out of love, not out of pity, but because my will has chained it.
Better a farm of monsters than a life of ridicule.