From Cursed Scum to Supreme Sovereign

Stones and Spite

Fang’s howl cut off, leaving silence so heavy it felt carved from stone. The arena held its breath. Even the monster… fangs dripping, claw hovering above Kael’s throat… had gone still, as if that small pup’s cry had clawed open some memory in its twisted brain.

But nothing in Kael’s life stayed still for long. The silence cracked, and memory came rushing in, black and bitter as floodwater.

***

Two weeks after he’d found Fang, Kael carried the half-healed pup through Eryndor’s market. Fang’s legs still buckled too easily, so Kael held him close, his warmth pressed against Kael’s ribs. The heartbeat there was fast, fragile, alive.

“There he is—the cursed wretch!” a voice cut through the din of barter. “And he’s got that diseased mutt with him!”

Kael flinched. Before he could turn, small hands grabbed his sleeves, his hair, and tugged at his clothes. A pack of children, teeth bared in cruel grins. Korrath, Torin’s younger brother, stood at their head. Twelve years old, voice breaking, rage borrowed straight from his father.

“Cursed scum!” Korrath shouted. “My father says you bring plague wherever you go!”

Another child, a girl barely ten, shrieked, “Kill it! Kill them both!”

The first stone struck Kael’s shoulder, jarring him. Then another slammed into his thigh. Soon, the air filled with rock, broken pottery, and even handfuls of dung. Laughter rose with every hit, ugly and wild.

Kael twisted, curling around Fang, shielding him with his own body. “Please,” he gasped, his voice breaking. “He’s just a pup. He won’t hurt anyone.”

Korrath’s answer was a brick, sharp-edged, that split Kael’s brow. Blood blurred his vision. “Neither could the plague rats,” Korrath spat. “But they still spread death.”

One stone caught Fang in the ribs. The pup yelped—a sound so small, so pained, Kael felt his own breath choke out of him. Rage swelled hot behind his eyes, but what could he do? They were only children. He couldn’t strike them. He couldn’t fight back. He could only hunch lower, take every hit, his body a shield of flesh and bone.

“Look! It bleeds!” one of the girls giggled. “Even its blood’s cursed!”

“Maybe if we kill it, the priests will bless us,” a boy chimed, already reaching for another stone.

“Cursed scum! Cursed scum!” The chant rose, high and triumphant, echoing down the market street. Little fists. Little faces twisted with inherited hate. For them, it wasn’t play… it was justice.

And maybe they would have finished it… beaten him to death right there, body curled over a pup in the mud… if not for footsteps. A grown man rounding the corner. In an instant, the children scattered, dissolving into alleys and doorways like vermin at the torchlight. Leaving Kael bloodied and bent on the cobbles.

Fang pressed his tiny tongue to the cuts on Kael’s cheek, warm against skin split and raw.

“It’s alright,” Kael whispered, tasting iron on his tongue. “We’re alright. They can’t touch what we have.”

But the words rang hollow even then, hollow as an empty stomach.

***

“Cursed scum! Cursed scum!”

The chant snapped him back to the present. Not children this time, but thousands of voices, rising like a storm, filling the arena with a hatred old as his birth. The weight of it pressed down harder than chains.

Nineteen years of stones. Nineteen years of spit, boots, jeers, all carried forward into this one moment.

The beast moved again.

Its claw ripped across Kael’s left arm, skin tearing like wet cloth. Four deep gouges split from shoulder to wrist, white bone flashing beneath the torn meat. Blood sprayed across the marble altar, sizzling where it landed.

Kael’s scream tore out of him, raw and cracked. Pain burned so hot it turned everything white, searing him open from the inside out.

“Yes!” a man bellowed from the seats. “First real blood!”

“Make it suffer!” a woman shrieked, her voice high with excitement. “Let it feel what it’s given us!”

The Eclipse Mark beneath his collar stirred. A faint pulse at first, a buried ember in ash. Each throb twisted the pain… not easing it, but reshaping it, feeding it forward into something hotter, heavier.

Kael stumbled back, blood streaming down his arm, pooling dark at his feet. His vision tunneled, the world blurring to shadow at the edges.

At the barrier, Fang barked himself hoarse, hurling his small body against the iron again and again. Each strike rattled, desperate. His amber eyes burned with fury far too big for his fragile body.

“Finish him!” The cry rose from the nobles’ tier, a wave that spread quickly and sure. “Finish him! Finish him!”

Lord Garrett leaned over the railing, jewels glinting in the firelight. “Come now, beast! Don’t toy with scraps!”

“My gold’s on a quick kill!” Lady Morwyn snapped, her earlier grace lost in the haze of bloodlust. “End it already!”

Aelric, all golden hair and easy smile, lounged back in his ivory throne. “Perhaps our monster is bored,” he called. “The cursed one offers little sport.”

Their laughter followed, light, careless. The kind of laughter only people who had never tasted fear could manage.

“Finish him! Finish him!”

The beast answered their hunger. It lunged, front paws slamming into Kael’s chest. The blow dropped him flat, air blasted from his lungs. Chains clattered loudly against stone as his body hit the floor.

He tried to roll, but weight bore down on him… tons of muscle and sinew pressing him into the cold marble. Claws punched through fabric into his shoulders, pinning him like an insect.

The monster lowered its head, jaws opening wide above his throat. Fangs gleamed inches away, saliva dripping onto his skin, each drop burning like acid. Its breath carried rot and iron, a stench of things long dead.

“Please,” Kael whispered. The word was barely sound, almost a prayer.

The beast’s eyes met his. For the span of a heartbeat, something flickered there. Not mercy… too much had been lost for that. But maybe recognition. Broken seeing broken.

And then it was gone.

The jaws widened further. Hot drool spattered his cheek. The chanting reached fever pitch, a roar of thousands pounding for his death.

The Mark blazed hotter now. The pulse turned to a drumbeat, heat rushing down his spine, coiling in his chest, thick with promise. Power whispered, dark and certain.

All he had to do was take it.

All he had to do was open the door.

The beast’s fangs dropped, slicing through the air, hunger snapping shut around the last inches between life and death.

And in that breathless space… blood pooling, stone cold against his back, the crowd howling for his end… Kael made his choice.