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Chapter Thirty-Five
I awake inside a room near a single fire burning brightly from its home in a cavernous fish- mouthed fireplace. My head hurts, and I try to stand. That's when I realize I'm in irons and chained to the wall. Still too groggy to panic, I see several things in this dungeon. The first of these is a strange statue with humanoid legs and arms. It's carved from some kind of white stone, either marble or alabaster. Whoever carved it positioned the statue on all fours atop a plinth that would rise to about my knee were I to stand behind it. It has eyes made of glass, a toothless mouth open as if wailing, and its spine bent so that its ass is in the air. Protruding from its anus is a long and smooth metal rod with a bulb on the end; it's about as thick as my index finger. Its feet are cloven hooves. Horns curl from its forehead amidst a wave of long hair that flows like a mane down its neck to stop at mid-back. The rest of the statue is devoid of hair.
What on earth is this? I think to myself.
Another absurd toy of Dr. Talisac's? Has he found me at last?
My eyes turn to the wall directly across from me. There's a workbench there, and the floor underneath is stained in blood. Shelves just to the left of that workbench hold mason jars both big and small. One contains a human head, staring with white dead eyes from the inside. It floats in some kind of discolored brine. I spot other ghastly things too: several pairs of human genitals hovering in suspension, a whole jar of eyeballs, and a ghastly collection of severed tongues.
Sharing the same room with these horrors forces the fine hairs on my skin to rise.
That's when I become aware of the fact that I'm not the only thing alive in here. Across from me and resting its head on its forward haunches is a magnificent wolf. Its black pelt shines in the red glow from the fire.
How had I not seen this creature before?
It's hot as a furnace in here; sweat drips from my wet hair and runs down my face, neck, and chest. I rotate my wrist but can't manage even the slightest give on the chains; the shackles are so tight they end up only cutting the flesh on my hands. My ankles are shackled too. I'm completely helpless. And with this realization comes the ultimate fright: I could die here.
What was in that drink? I try to think back but recall only dim details. Voices, mamluks, the face of a man dressed in armor that I should know, and then Dr. Talisac. I don't see him but I hear him talking about me.
"Wait until you see him naked," Talisac whispers to someone. "He's the prettiest thing I've ever seen, and I envy you the pleasure you and your men shall have."
Are they speaking of me? I'm no one's slave.
However, the facts say differently.
I tug at my bonds and despair. I want to throw up but can't. Under normal circumstances, I probably would've heard the approach of figures outside the door to this room. But these are far from normal circumstances and (as such) I don't even notice the voices until they're almost on top of me.
There are three, all male. One belongs to the vizier, the second belongs to Talisac, and the third is one I can't quite place. Then it dawns on me that I know who he is. The face of Logan, a Timeron Knight among the infamous gang of seven who wanted to rape me in Soulwarden, appears in my mind!
No! No! No!
Please God, No!
These horrible men were supposed to be all dead. I had nightmares for weeks following the ordeal they put me through. The knights of Taleta drugged me and forced their tongues into my mouth; they fondled my balls like a man measures figs before he eats them.
"Have you seen him yet?" the doctor asks.
There's a brief silence and then Logan speaks, his voice a rich baritone devoid of the cruelty from the day when my ass lay splayed upon his plate. "I haven't. He's a handsome youth then?"
"Amazing to behold; he's like a flawless golden boy ripe for the plucking. He'll make a fine page and heat your bed in the cold of the north," the doctor says.
"Describe him to me," the knight says, lust thick in his tone. "Tell me how YOU see him."
"Kian," he says, using my name, "I must say is a stunning teenager. We removed his clothes temporarily to make sure he didn't have any weapons. I noticed that he's a boy of perhaps fifteen or sixteen? It's so difficult to tell with that age group, but it's possible he could be slightly younger. I know the younger the better, right?"
"Indeed. I like to train them to serve me properly."
"Oh and he will sire. Describe him? Let me begin by saying he has the body of an elite athlete, perhaps the most elite in the world. I measured him quite extensively. The line of his neck traces a severe 45-degree angle up from a pair of flared shoulders. There you'll see a strong Adam's apple-equipped neck and a face untouched by time. The boy has piercing blue eyes and blond hair so pure that it's almost white. Across his stomach is an obvious 8-pack of muscles, which narrows to a V-shaped waist that rides just above two long and narrow legs finished off with slender and finely- boned feet that have high arches. I think this asset will make him a natural sprinter. His toes, my lord, are indescribably wonderful to look upon. They're long and thin, like his fingers, which is why Mahmud mistook him for being elfish even though he's as human as the next man."
"And his cock?"
"Thick, long, heavy, and uncut. Should it bring you no pleasure, I'll surgically remove it as it's an incredible specimen. Only one in a million boys may have something so delectable between their legs."
I hear the smacking of lips. "I'll have to think about it. If it's as magnificent as you say, perhaps I should cut it off myself and eat it in front of him like a fine sausage paired with wine. Then I'll fuck him in his bloody hole. He'll have no use for a tool like that around me. A knight does not suck another man's dick."
"Whatever you decide, my lord," Talisac says, albeit hastily. Then he addresses someone else. "Has the statue that I brought with me from the West arrived?"
"It has," the vizier answers. "It's in the room. What on earth is it?"
"A Tickler of Chagidiel," Talisac states. "I brought it with me to compel the knight to make this purchase."
"The last boys you sold me to act as my page didn't lasted long," Logan says. "The price you want for this one is ten times all those I've bought from you combined. What makes you think he's worth it?"
"Again," Talisac says, "that is why I brought the Tickler. It is magical, and very rare. Did your mother not tell you, 'The best things come to those who wait?'"
"Don't ever speak of my mother."
There's a bit of silence. "Forgive me. Are we ready?"
When no one answers, a few seconds pass. Then the door opens and three men enter. The vizier regards me with a lascivious expression, but I feel too tired to even stand. Next to him stands Logan in his Timeron Knight armor. He looks just as handsome as the day he raped my mouth with his own. Of course Logan is tall, with hair the color of milk chocolate, a cleanly-shaved face, and the warmest brown eyes. But I know behind that fa‡ade is a man with insatiable sexual appetite for boys like me, and he'll stop at nothing to get what he wants. Stepping forward in his full plate armor, the sound his enormous size twelve boots make on the floor is like a drum of terror to me. And in his shadow skulks Talisac much as I remember him, wearing a dirty white lab coat and a smile so greasy I swear it crawled out of a fryer and onto his face.
"The drug's wearing off," the vizier says.
"It's been almost an hour, sire," Talisac replies. "If we're to have this procedure we should do it soon."
"You may begin anytime. I wish to view the extraction myself," the vizier says.
"As you wish," Talisac replies.
The doctor steps out of the room and a moment later returns with a funnel, which he then forces between my lips. I'm too weak to really fight him off, and soon the warm contents of a black bottle are sliding over my tongue. I try spitting it out but some of the liquid flows down my throat anyway, burning and choking as it goes.
"That's good," Logan says. "Release him from his bonds. He's not dangerous...not with me in the room."
"You don't know what this one is capable of," Talisac warns.
"I do know," Logan says, "trust me. And I don't care. I'm a Timeron knight of the Queen of Demons. I've nothing to fear from a delicate flower like this."
Talisac shrugs, and then unlocks my hands and feet. I try to lunge forward but collapse upon the stone floor barely able to hold myself up on my elbows. "W -what have you given me?" I managed to ask.
"It's a poison called saroual and it's harvested from a puffy cactus that grows in the deep desert. The poison's very rare. Victims under the effect of saroual experience incredible arousal within moments of its application." Talisac reaches between my legs and feels my groin. "It's already starting to work on you."
Stricken by my loss of bodily control, I try to force sexual thoughts from my mind. But despite my attempt, I feel my cock go rigid in my pants. It expands down one leg all the way to the knee, and my balls begin to ache with the urgency to breed. The whole of me erupts in a cold sweat, and I stare at my tormenters who are studying me as if I'm a goldfish swimming in a bowl of water.
"You weren't lying," Ser Logan says. "He is gorgeous. I bet his flesh tastes clean with only the hint of salt." The jingle of his spurs brings me back to the time when I stood at his mercy in the temple of the god of wealth.
Talisac smiles and whispers into my ear. "You'll have your revenge, but only after you do exactly as I say."
I turn my head and see his putrid leering face regarding me. How can I dare trust you? I think into the recesses of my mind. But if he is going to grant my revenge, there's no way I can give up the only hand I have to play.
"What do you want of me?" I say in a raspy, dry voice. Sweat falls from my chin and splashes on the floor.
"Good," Talisac says, gently massaging my shoulder. "First stand, undo your trousers, and pull out your penis. I intend to extract the larva from you as promised, but I'll need proper access to ensure that it has descended into your testicles."
I nod and then do as he requests.
I get to my feet, shrugging off the lingering effects of the saroual that has momentarily left me weakened. Then I slip out of my shirt and toss it behind me where it lands against the wall. With the firelight gleaming off my ripped torso, I loosen the strings in front of my dick and drop my pants to my ankles. My rigid penis is so hard it hurts. It almost feels like it wants to grow beyond its twelve inch length by ripping my very skin apart. Directly beneath the slightly hairy base, my balls hang low. They're swollen by the drug, the abuse they've endured in the last day, and the copious amount of royal jelly my body produces. They're easily as large as tangerines right now; I'm so fucked.
"Now what?" I ask.
Talisac motions for me to lean forward and gently presses his fingers to my scrotum. That's when I feel something move down there. The alien thing makes the skin of my scrotum rise; I watch in horror as it curls around one of my testicles. It's easily the size of a severed finger.
"Good," the doctor says before stepping away from me. "Kian, I want you to approach the Tickler of Chagidiel. It's the statue that occupies the center of the room here."
I do as I'm told; when standing behind it I turn to the doctor for my next set of instructions.
"I want you to impale yourself upon it," he says.
I blink with incomprehension. "What?"
"You promised to not question me," Talisac says. "This is an order. You've done the stretches that I told you to do, haven't you? That was your only warning, and you should've taken me seriously. It should be easy for you to insert the sound rising from its anus into your urethra. So do it!"
I turn back to the statue and stare in horror at what he's asked me to do. No I haven't done the stretching exercises, and this metal pole is so huge it's going to rip my dick apart. I just know it. I gulp in terror, but when my eyes lift up from the obscene sculpture, all that I see are Ser Logan in his armor and the vizier, whose hardon is beginning to lift the edge of the "dress" he's wearing. These eyes have no sympathy for me or my plight. They have only one emotion: desire.
"What's the problem?" Talisac asks.
"Please don't make me do this," I say.
"You can and you will," Talisac says with greater urgency. "NOW!"
I swallow my spit; turn my head slightly so that I can stare at him over the bridge of my nose, and say, "Can I at least have some lube?"
"You won't need any," he says with an oily grin.
I look down at the metallic pole as if to point out the obvious but now that I'm looking at it more closely, I see that it's coated in a kind of translucent slime. I touch it with a finger and find it to be very slippery. It also makes my skin tingle just a little, as if it has a kind of numbing quality. That'll be good, I think to myself. Ah well, here goes nothing. I may not have promised him directly, but there was this kind of exchange between us a moment ago. Trusting Talisac is the only card I've to play here if I want to avoid a life of slavery...if I want to keep these men from raping me.
With a kind of sheepish grin that even makes Ser Logan break a smile, I grip the tip of my dick in one fist and aim my piss slit at the silver bulb on the end of this pole-like device. Slowly, I walk forward, careful to insert the tip of the sound past the opening and then wait for my skin to stretch a little before going further. With extreme caution, I move my hips forward inch by inch, slowly and intentionally skewering my massive meat on this thing. And fuck does it ever hurt. The slippery goo drips from the instrument in copious drops, and I gnash my teeth to force this thing down. There's blood. Of course there's blood. I am ripping my most tender flesh by forcing it to endure something three times the size of anything meant to come out. About halfway, I lift my fist from the shaft of my dick and stare at it a moment. I've been gripping myself so hard; I've left the tracks of my fingers as shallow bruises against the veins. And the swell of the instrument is so vast, it makes my prick look like a python trying to swallow another smaller serpent whole. What a mind trip.
"It's exquisite," Logan says, and I arch one eyebrow but continue with my work.
Another minute or so and I've got the entire thing, at least thirteen inches, embedded in my flesh. The pain and the feeling of being incredibly full and wanting to pee are almost too much to handle. But there's a different sensation too. I feel the end moving about inside me as if alive. I look down and see that a bulge forms and disappears in my sac all in the matter of seconds.
"Now what?" I manage to stammer. But inside I'm screaming.
"Now you fuck it," Talisac says with a smile.
You've got to be kidding me.
On my tippy toes, I begin to thrust in and out. More slime falls against the statues marble buttocks, and some of it splashes between my feet leaving large wet spots on the flagstones. Back and forth I go, with the vizier and the knight gazing on with drool falling from their lips.
After a while it gets easier, and I pick up the pace a little. The pain gives way to an odd kind of pleasure as my urethra finally stretches to accommodate this huge intruder. The nerves all up and down the passage are pummeling my brain with sensation after sensation. Pain becomes indistinguishable from pleasure. I lean forward and place my hands on the marble buttocks of the statue fully expecting to encounter stone. But instead my fingers find warm flesh.
"What the hell?" I ask to no one in particular.
That's when the statue's head begins to turn, and the cloven hooves move ever so slightly. Teeth begin to fill its maw, and they look razor sharp.
"Excellent," Dr. Talisac says. "Keep going. You must cum before this is over."
"I-I won't be able to," I say. "It feels good but not THAT good."
Talisac steps to my side and grabs my sweaty hair, jerking my head back. "You've to cum or this won't work."
"Then let me do it my way," I beg. "Please...does the rod need to stay inside me like this?"
Talisac nods.
"Okay. I can work with that. Just trust me."
Talisac lets me go, and I slow my pace, spit on my hand, and then use it to massage my dick ever so slowly. I move my fist up and down the girth, trying to imagine Talen taking it in his mouth and swallowing my semen until it overflows his nose. With the sound in place, I give myself a long even stroke, putting pressure in just the right places, and before long the white royal jelly starts oozing from my dick head. That's when the pressure starts to build. Soon I'm going to cum, and it feels like it'll be a torrent of white.
"Any second now," I say, breathing harder and faster than before.
"Good," Talisac states. "The Tickler is coming to life."
At least one of us is. Exhaustion is claiming mine.
Finally I feel that intense euphoric release that all guys can relate to...the kind that curls hands and fingers and makes the vein in our forehead pop into relief. "Ffffuck," I utter, barely able to contain the sensation. A gush of cum flows around the tight opening in my dick head. But it's not enough to relieve the pressure. It's a fraction of all there is, and the force in my shaft of copious amounts of trapped semen struggling to be free nearly drops me. It's at that exact moment that the sound animates and moves like a worm digging and cutting. I stare in horror and try to back out but can't.
"Help me," I say, staring at Talisac. Blood spurts from my dick.
Then the real pain starts. It's more intense and burning than anything I've ever felt. It's like a flame has been lit in my bladder and any moment now my skin will start smoking. Talisac arrives at my side and puts his arms under my pits to steady me.
"W-what's going--"
"The Tickler is pulling out the larva," he interrupts. "It's claiming it from you. Just let it happen."
Closing my eyes against the tide of pain, I try to think happy thoughts. I try to think of Angelaria's beautiful face and Talen's smile. But these are swept away by the evisceration of my loins.
"It's almost out," Talisac says. "Back away slowly."
I do as he says, my eyes dropping to my bleeding dick. The rise of the squirming worm in my shaft is even a larger diameter than the sound. I can feel it fighting the extraction. Right before it gets to my glans, the pain's so horrible that I scream. Blood squirts from my bruised mushroom head. There's a sloppy wet "pop" and out comes the instrument with the larva held firmly by the bulb. Sometime while it was inside me, the sphere opened into a claw. Now it holds the dripping caterpillar-like thing in its clutches. I stare at its pale body. It has four black eyes and large forward facing pincers. In shock and disbelief I wobble once; then fall on the floor, stricken by a sudden loss of control to my muscles.
I'm burning up; my whole face and chest is glazed in feverish sweat.
The vizier approaches and says, "The saroual's effect is more pronounced now that the larva is no longer inside you."
Trying desperately to focus my eyes, I stare at the worm on the end of the sound. Dr. Talisac reaches over to the statue that I swear is now breathing and places his hand about the base of the metal pole. With one tug, he removes it from its resting place in the Tickler's anus. The statue, for what it's worth, is spattered with a few drops of my semen and some of my blood. Or at least it should be. I must be hallucinating because right before my very eyes, the thing absorbs all the excretions coating its marble skin. Is this really happening?
Talisac takes the still writhing worm and puts it on a plate. Then he takes a knife and cuts the larva in half, offering one piece to the knight. "The head of a larva that's been inside of an Atlantean boy of this caliber, sire, is a delicacy. It'll make you ready for what's next."
Logan smiles, reaches over with two fingers, and plucks one piece from the proffered plate. Then he pops it into his mouth. I note that it's still squirming. I turn my head from the grotesqueness of it, but the sound of his chewing fills the room.
Yeah...it's crunchy. Gross.
Talisac says, "Bon appetite" and consumes the other.
The vizier, now at my side, grips my chin in his fingers. "Your blood is being pumped harder by your heart, which is undergoing a tremendous strain. I think the worm protected you some from this. It's of course not anything a person in your athletic condition should be worried about, but the drug can take years off your life with prolonged use. Its side effects, consequently, are desirable for their stimulating properties as an aphrodisiac as you've just seen. Hard to accomplish without rendering you almost helpless. But, we've discovered that it's excellent to use on slaves such as yourself."
"I'm not a slave," I say to him. My vision's fuzzy, and I've to rest my head against the stone. My skin welcomes the cool feel of the floor. "Don't touch me."
"You are now," the Vizier says, molesting my cock. He puts his hand to his nose and takes a whiff. There's blood and semen all over his fingers, and he licks them clean. After a minute, he continues talking. "Do you know who this is?" The vizier grips my head by the hair and lifts up my face so I can see who he's pointing to. However, even without looking I know it's Ser Logan. Just to be defiant, I shake my head no.
"He's the newly appointed general of an army that's coming here to Kaibar. He's going to make me caliph. But I've to pay him properly for the use of his soldiers. So as much as I'd like you for myself, he's your master. I'll leave the two of you alone to get acquainted as he's in want of milking."
I must have blacked out at that point, but I don't think it was for long. When I open my eyes again, the tall handsome Timeron Knight is the only one I see, although I feel Talisac's presence is near. Logan, still dressed head to toe in his body-hugging full plate armor is hovering over me. But he's removed his codpiece and is stroking his own eight-inch erection. He's propped my head against some crimson cushions; some feeling's coming back to me but I can still only barely move my limbs.
My boots are the only clothing still left on me.
"Please," I manage to say, "help me."
Logan's expression hardens just like the cock in his hands. "Help you? You who like so many others before came to this place to plunder a sacred temple. You're nothing but a despicable thief and a murderer. You can call yourself whatever you want, but I remember you. 'Hunter,'" he says with a sneer. "What a silly name you've given yourself. After all, what do you hunt but those weaker than you. And I hear you killed my commander, Zylander, and that you and your ilk made him suffer. Zy was a greater man than you'll ever be." He stares at me contemptuously, pinching my muscles and skin. "You're not a man at all. After I ream your asshole, I'll keep that thing you're so proud of. Then you'll be my slave. I'll dress you like a woman so that you know what's coming to you when I come back from battle."
"Don't you even fucking think about touching me," I threaten.
Another oily smile. "Don't even pretend that you won't enjoy this. Your body was made for one purpose: sex. So let's indulge it."
He lowers himself to the ground and tugs at my left boot while I struggle against the effects of the drug. But, my efforts are useless. He slips it off and examines me. My foot's covered in sweat and the man holds it by the heel and starts to lick between my sweaty toes. I'm filled with revulsion...at the sensation of this unwanted tongue...and once again try to move but can't. Inside the recesses of my mind, I'm screaming. Tears scald the edges of my eyes.
"Please," I whimper. "Don't do this."
Logan ignores me, managing to remove my other boot. Then dick in hand he pushes my thighs against my chest and begins to swab my hole, fingering me, and preparing me for anal sex. His flesh is there against my sphincter.
The image of the wolf appears in my mind. "You are not a victim! Fight him!"
I bite my lip and with everything I've got, I thrust back at him with my legs. It throws him off. Confused, he gets to his feet. Before he can pin me again, I ball my fist and punch him as hard as I can at the temple. Logan staggers and falls against the marble plinth behind him and some of his blood splashes the statue of the Tickler of Chagidiel. Like a sponge, the red absorbs into the marble.
He puts hand to head and laughs. "You'll pay for that," he utters.
But my eyes are transfixed on the statue. Atop the plinth, the thing moves. Its stone legs make a grating noise and for a second, Logan is completely unaware of what's happening. But then some dust strikes his shoulder and he looks up just in time for the thing to seize him by the throat.
At full height, the Tickler of Chagidiel stands almost seven feet tall. It's impossibly thin and disproportioned, with goat legs and a waist and hips that belong to a human male. It has no genitalia at all and a torso that's as muscular and devoid of fat as mine. But its hands are huge. Six-fingered and at the end of arms that have two elbows, the thing easily scoops the huge knight off the floor, armor and all, and holds him aloft kicking and screaming. Then it breaks his neck.
Blood drips from Logan's mouth; his eyes glaze over as death grips him. Before my eyes, the Tickler rips him to pieces, scooping vast quantities of the bloody flesh into a maw filled with needle- like teeth.
From the far corner of the room, Talisac claps.
"I promised you revenge!" he yells. "Is this not satisfying?"
I stand transfixed in horror and fear. I'd envisioned a different kind of revenge on Logan for sure. This carnage is nothing short of a blood bath. If any part of me could condone this gore I doubt I could ever live with myself, and if my stomach were not already empty the contents of it would be all over the ground. My inner voice urges me to run. It urges me to escape, but my legs aren't paying any attention. That's when the Tickler turns on Talisac.
I swallow hard, coming to the realization that he engineered all of this to birth this abomination into the world.
"Kill me," the perverse doctor says. "Oh great one. I am your humble servant. I offer my soul and the soul of my unborn to give you strength. I have feasted on the worm that harvested the life of the most wicked! I have satisfied all conditions to be reborn at your side in Hell!" Talisac screams once as the demon cleaves the skin from his bones; blood splatters the wall. But something drops to the floor in all that crimson offal. It's the misshapen and deformed fetus that the man carried in a womb he surgically attached to his body. The monstrosity shrieks as the placenta around it collapses, and the white demon scoops it up and devours it whole.
When the Tickler is through with its work, it turns to me. I'm trembling in fear, piss trailing from the end of my dick, and just barely manage to push myself into a corner. The thing leaps across the room, ghastly black wings tearing from its back. I note that they appear made of human skin. One has the face of Logan stitched into it. The other of Dr. Talisac. Seeing them flattened like this, eyes still staring, sends shivers down my spine.
It grabs me by the ankle and I feel a burning in my flesh. A symbol appears: it's the single head of a black dragon rising above a scarlet moon. I swallow hard and stare with eyes open.
"I shall not kill you," the Tickler says. "You no longer have the worm inside you that grants me life because it was allowed to feed on your immortal soul. It is because of you that I live. That and the gift of your loins combined with the blood of those who ate the worm. These are the sacrifices Chagidiel requires for something as great as me to walk this plane." It studies me a moment. "You are not so different than I," the Tickler says with contempt. The smell of blood and other things is ripe on its nauseous breath. "I sense this horror at what you've seen me do. You fear me now because you see me as a demon, but you're my brother whether you admit this or not. It's time you accepted this fact, Kian Lightfoot. It's time you came to terms with what you are."
"I am nothing like you," I say.
"Can you believe your own lies? You are evil and you serve a god who does evil things. The very sword that you seek imprisons the soul of my master, the dreaded demon Bloodbane, and it will refuse a hand that is not worthy of wielding it. A hand that is not capable of destruction and darkness. These are all inside of you. You were created for this purpose. Indeed, you were engineered by your own father."
I shake my head. "My dad loved me."
"Did he?" the demon sneers. "He's in the Lake of Fire. Would you like to speak with him?"
I'm unable to answer.
"It doesn't matter. Your father saw that the Atlanteans would die, that they'd be murdered in a vast genocide that turned the land and the waters of your country red. The Nykorans make capes from the skins of boys just like you. I hear it takes ten bodies to create one majestic enough to be worn by a warrior of bone. Your own father saw this in a vision...he turned to my master, Chagidiel, to create a perfect son from his loins. A perfect man-child that required an Atlantean woman with perfect genes. Only one such family had access to this: a genetically engineered royal family. That's why you're a prince to a kingdom that no longer exists. You are the boy of prophecy. The one who would be so beautiful that none would ever get to know him because all they see is the outside and never desire to look deeper." The Tickler chuckles. "Beautiful...yet terrifying to all those who murdered his people. This is you, Kian. You are a genetically engineered weapon that has but one purpose: to avenge the deaths of your race. You'll send thousands, perhaps millions to Hell in your lifetime. This is what you do. Any who love you will rue the day that they gave their heart to such a scoundrel. This is the price of power. The mark I've given you just now will allow you to fulfill your destiny. Without it, you could not wield the sword that you seek. A sword whose very name only begins to hint at the amount of blood it shall drink before this world ends."
And with that, the Tickler explodes from the room, shattering the door into splinters, leaving me to mull over his words and sob at the misfortune of my fate.
At some point, I look over to where I'd seen the wolf but it isn't there. "Tethyr ... please," I cry out. It's a heartfelt plea to my god, a plea to tell me that this is not the truth.
But there is no answer.
Chapter 36 Next week!