[Caleb did not expect the joining of their hands, but he was grateful for the connection and curled his fingers gentle back against Essek's. The hold was light, in case the other man felt the need to draw back as he heard the tale of Caleb's past.
Caleb would not hold it against him.]
Bren Aldric Ermendrud. That was the name I was born with. My parents were not wealthy people, and we lived a simple life. They were good people, and they raised me with love. I loved them very much.
[He still does, near as much as he hates himself.] When I was a teenager, I was selected to attend the Soltryce Academy to study magic. I excelled there, and along with two other students, I caught the attention of a man named Trent Ikithon, a mage who sits on the Cerberus Assembly.
[A name that Essek knows.] I was trained as a Scourger, a Volstrucker. I excelled at this too. I learned to torture and to kill for the good of an Empire I was young and naive enough to believe in the idealistic version of.
[He reached his free hand to trace along the scars visible on his forearms.] Trent's methods for training were not kind. We were isolated and tortured ourselves. Residuum forced into our bodies to augment our arcane abilities. All for the good of the Empire.
[Bitterness has crept into his voice, but it gives way to quiet grief as he continues.] The final test, our graduation, was the cruelest. He altered our memories with magic, false memories of our families being traitors to the Empire. And we were tasked with killing them, to prove our loyalty.
[He cannot meet Essek's gaze any longer and his eyes drop away.]
I was seventeen when I murdered my mother and my father. I lit our home on fire with them inside. But I did not pass Trent's test. The sound of their screams broke something in me, something that rebelled against Trent's magical lies. I spent the next decade locked away, physically and mentally, discarded because I was a broken thing, no use to Ikithon or the Assembly. If the shattered enchantment had not been removed from my mind by a fellow inmate at the Sanitarium, I would likely be there still.
So that is who I am. A murderer who has killed those most dear to me, whose only mistake was loving me. A broken weapon that never should have been forged.
no subject
Caleb would not hold it against him.]
Bren Aldric Ermendrud. That was the name I was born with. My parents were not wealthy people, and we lived a simple life. They were good people, and they raised me with love. I loved them very much.
[He still does, near as much as he hates himself.] When I was a teenager, I was selected to attend the Soltryce Academy to study magic. I excelled there, and along with two other students, I caught the attention of a man named Trent Ikithon, a mage who sits on the Cerberus Assembly.
[A name that Essek knows.] I was trained as a Scourger, a Volstrucker. I excelled at this too. I learned to torture and to kill for the good of an Empire I was young and naive enough to believe in the idealistic version of.
[He reached his free hand to trace along the scars visible on his forearms.] Trent's methods for training were not kind. We were isolated and tortured ourselves. Residuum forced into our bodies to augment our arcane abilities. All for the good of the Empire.
[Bitterness has crept into his voice, but it gives way to quiet grief as he continues.] The final test, our graduation, was the cruelest. He altered our memories with magic, false memories of our families being traitors to the Empire. And we were tasked with killing them, to prove our loyalty.
[He cannot meet Essek's gaze any longer and his eyes drop away.]
I was seventeen when I murdered my mother and my father. I lit our home on fire with them inside. But I did not pass Trent's test. The sound of their screams broke something in me, something that rebelled against Trent's magical lies. I spent the next decade locked away, physically and mentally, discarded because I was a broken thing, no use to Ikithon or the Assembly. If the shattered enchantment had not been removed from my mind by a fellow inmate at the Sanitarium, I would likely be there still.
So that is who I am. A murderer who has killed those most dear to me, whose only mistake was loving me. A broken weapon that never should have been forged.