Lucien stood alone in the training hall, the morning sun casting long shadows across the polished stone floor. He began with the basics... stretching every limb until the tightness gave way, then dropped into a rhythm of push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups, a hundred set for each of them.
Sweat began to bead on his brow as he transitioned into a ten-kilometre run around the courtyard, boots pounding against the ground with determined force.
Returning breathless but focused, he took up his sword and drilled through the fundamentals.
Vertical slashes, diagonal cuts, horizontal sweeps, precise stabs... again and again, his blade moved through the air with practiced precision.
After getting into rhythm he soon added movement into his swordplay.
Starting from simple steps followed by a pivot, a defensive guard.
By noon, fatigue crept into his limbs, but he only allowed himself a short break. He made his way to the kitchen, scarfed down a quick lunch, and before his muscles could stiffen, he was back in the training room, sword in hand.
'It too quiet,' Lucien thought as he looked around. The other trainees were nowhere to be seen, but he brushed the thought aside. Solitude was a good thing to him.
He raised his sword and began again. One swing. Two. Then three. But by the fourth, the edge of his vision blurred. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He blinked, shook his head, tried to focus.
"I just need water," he muttered to himself.
But thirty seconds later, the sword slipped from his grasp. The world tilted sideways.
Then everything went black.
***
As the world slowly began to reveal itself again, Lucien Balmore's head pounded with pain. His eyes could only register light... blinding, all-consuming brightness that overwhelmed his vision.
Nothing made sense.
His body felt like dead weight, immobile and unresponsive. A sharp ringing filled his ears, gravity shifted unnaturally beneath him, and nausea churned in his gut, threatening to rise. Distant, muffled voices tried to reach him but failed, their words were nothing but scattered fragments.
"…for… on… her… wat?..."
"…Su…dis…"
He couldn't piece the sounds together. His mind, fogged and sluggish, refused to focus.
Then, at his fingertips, he felt a soft touch... subtle, calming. It stirred something in him.
'What is this?' he thought.
Following that touch, his vision began to slowly recover. The brightness dimmed into forms and colours, eventually settling into a clearer scene. A girl lay beneath him, blonde hair spread across the ground, eyes wide and blue like the ocean... terrified.
Lucien's heavy limbs responded just enough to lift his upper body. Confusion gnawed at him as he stared at her horrified expression.
"What…?" he whispered hoarsely.
His voice was dry, his mind spinning. The girl moved, mouth parting.
"Get off me!" she cried, voice trembling. Her hands pushed at him weakly. But Lucien wasn't holding her down... he was just there, disoriented.
Tears welled in her eyes, and the scream she let out made the ringing in his head worse.
.
RING!
Lucien summoned what little strength he had and rolled to the side, collapsing on the soft surface beneath him. For a moment, his thoughts sharpened.
He was on a bed.
The girl beside him had blonde hair and deep blue eyes—features that seemed familiar, though his memory failed him. Then something else hit him.
She was naked.
His senses caught up all at once.
Cold air. Skin exposed. A soft surface under him.
He was naked.
Lucien's body shivered violently.
'It's cold? But… why?' he thought. He was certain there should be no reason to feel this exposed.
The realization made his nausea spike again, but before he could process more, a thunderous voice shattered the silence.
"YOU! WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE!"
The voice slammed into him like a hammer. Lucien's body flinched, and the girl beside him... Elara... trembled even harder. He turned his head toward the doorway.
A man and a woman stood there. The man, regal and fuming, looked ready to explode. The woman beside him had an expression that shifted from amusement to startled pain in a heartbeat.
Her face… Lucien felt as though he had seen it countless times.
"Who…?" he croaked.
The man pointed furiously at him. "How dare you! You think you can disgrace me and my family like this?"
Lucien's eyes widened. His head throbbed from the effort of trying to make sense of it.
The girl, Elara, still sobbing, looked at the man. Her voice wavered.
"He… I don't know... he grabbed me in the hall, and I…I think he dragged me in here. I didn't know what to do… I couldn't stop him."
The man's voice cracked as he said with pity. "I understand"
The woman stepped forward, her tone laced with a sorrow that felt too perfectly performed. "Lucien… how could you do this… I know you were weird but raping my niece is just another level entirely."
Lucien's thoughts reeled.
'Virelia…?'
The name fell into place with eerie familiarity and then it hit him.
'Fuck,' Lucien thought with horror. "Father, no! I didn't! I swear I didn't do anything!"
But Count Edric simply shook his head slowly, his face frowning in anger as he stared at the blood stain on the bed. "I wish I could believe you, Lucien. But everything here tells me I can't."
Lucien's breath caught in his throat as his eyes also went to the bed where the blood and baby splatter was. His eyes moved to Elara's thighs and the semen leaking from her thigh as well as the finger imprints on her lap.
Evidently someone had indeed used force on her.
He didn't need to be told who it was. Even without remembering, he knew.
It was him.
'Looks like I indeed fell into her trap this time... but it there should be a way to get out of this… I mean… do I even…'
"Explain yourselves," his father commanded, voice sharp and low cutting his thought process off.
Lucien's stomach twisted. Elara's cries pierced the air.
Even though he knew he was in a tight spot he did not think this would be hard to get out off, his father couldn't really punish him because of the descendant of a baron, that would speak really bad on him and the Count family of Balmore.
"Father, please! I don't know how this happened. I swear... I didn't do anything!"
"This is not even as bad as the other crimes you committed, if it was just this, we would just marry you to her and that would solve all of it but now…"
Lucien's nausea surged again. Something in Virelia's tone triggered an instinctive dread.
The Count's gaze fell on Lucien.
At that moment, Lucien felt as if his entire being was being crushed by invisible forces, suffocated beneath the weight of the man's stare.
"Kurghk—!"
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. And then—
SPILL!
The bile came up violently, splattering the floor. Voices rose in disgust around him.
"Disgusting…"
"What a disgrace…"
The Count didn't flinch.
"Guards," he said coldly, "Take him away."
Lucien's screams echoed. "Father, please! You have to understand!"
Lucien couldn't resist as the guards approached. One of them struck him hard across the head.
Pain bloomed.
Then...
Darkness.