The Begotten Fiend

Chapter 10: Not Guilty

Thud!

Nash was kicked to the ground--crashing onto the hard floor.

Above him was his father and the nobleman, hanging behind metal bars. "This is where you will stay for the time being," Tristan said coldly. "Please try your best not to be loud. Cries from this cellar can be heard through the walls."

Tristan looked at Nash once, sighed, then closed the bars behind him. "Goodbye, Nash. Ponder over your mistakes."

As their footsteps grew quiet from distance, Nash rolled up--using his legs to push off the ground.

Looking at his surroundings, he felt something weigh on his shoulders.

The ground--though it seemed hard--was packed with straw. There were metal bars separating the cell from the hall, like a true prison cell.

Though that wasn’t all. Around him were dozens of cells, lined up evenly to form an ordered cellar for those in need of punishment.

The walls were stained with a crusty brown ooze, the putrid scent of iron wafting his nose.

He coughed, eyes watering. "Damn, this place stinks," he said, using the wall to his right to prop himself. "You’d think I would’ve seen this place before."

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t discern whether or not there was another person present. The cellar was silent, though he could see bumps on the floor, as if there were people sleeping.

He looked to his own cell, taking note of a weird protrusion in the cell’s corner.

A lump formed in his throat. Without thought, he paced towards the thing, crouching down to uncover the straw blanket concealing it.

A second passed, then two. Finally, he mustered the courage to unveil it. It was--

"Gwahhhhh!" he yelled, stumbling back. Their laid a pile of bones--red and raw. It was the full length of a human body, although it’d piled on top of itself–evidence that someone had come in and done it themselves.

Just as he’d released the carcass, white, squirmy creatures wriggled their way through its cheek bone, eye sockets, and mouth.

They writhed, spreading across the floor--away from the carcass.

With his mouth snapped shut, Nash covered his nose, looking away as he stomped on them.

He kept stomping, yet they still kept wriggling their way up. This continued for well over a minute--discoloring his shoes with a runny green.

Finally, the air hung still. They’d all stopped, either in hiding, or in death.

Nash fell on his back, looking at the ceiling. Again, he looked at the carcass, how it was long, wide. A male, on second glance.

Then he stared at his hands. They weren’t quite as big as the boney hands next to him.

"Damn it," he muttered, covering his eyes with his arm. "What did I do to deserve this?"

He thought of Lysandra. Her smile, the words she spoke as she drugged him and explained her ploy.

His brows furrowed. "Why me..."

Banging his fist on the ground, he gripped some of the loose straw. "I’ll make you pay... I swear, you’re not going to get away with this. Lysandra, I swear..."

Before he finished his words, he turned his face down to face the metal bars. Another face came to mind. Seraphine’s, real and present. Nash blinked, wiped his face, even pinched himself, but she didn’t disappear.

"Seraphine...?" he muttered.

"Present!" she declared, fist to his chest. "Calling for duty!"

"No, Seraphine... you’re not supposed to be here." Shaking his head, Nash got up from the ground, kicking the straw back onto the bones. "Not when I’m like this..."

"Oh, please, you’ve looked worse," she responded, holding a metal bar with her hand. "All that matters is that you’re not crazy."

"Although, I must say, this isn’t a good look, even for you," another person said. It was Milan, standing to the right of Seraphine.

"No, Lady Milan, Seraphine, please, you have to leave--"

"Why, because you don’t want us to know that you’ve been accused of ’assaulting’ Miss Lysandra?" Milan spat back, clicking her tongue. "Word gets out fast, kid. You’d do well to learn that."

Nash tilted his chin down. ’Damn it,’ he sputtered. A cold, sour pang filled him. It stabbed into his flesh, his blood, even his mind. Like a horrible flu, it made his entire body heat up.

"You doing okay, kid?" Milan asked once more.

Nash fell to his knees. "No, I’m not! Can’t you see? I’m being accused of rape, and I’ve been stripped of my nobility. I don’t even understand why you guys are here right now."

The two of them stared at each other, unsure of who should do the talking. But Milan touched Seraphine’s shoulder, allowing her the honor.

"Well, did you do it?" Seraphine asked.

"No! I didn’t!" Nash yelled. It was almost a bellow, though Seraphine’s face didn’t change one bit from his lashing out.

"Good, then it doesn’t matter." Nash looked at her, confused. "Look, just because you’ve been accused doesn’t mean that you’ve actually been convicted. And while we may not be of a particularly high House, we surely have enough sway to influence the Duke’s verdict. So, we’ll have a quick chat with your father, and this whole thing will go away."

"You’d do that for me?" Nash asked, gripping the straw on the floor even harder. "But I... the things that I said to you at--"

"Water under the bridge," Seraphine said. She motioned him to come closer, to which Nash obliged.

As he’d approached the metal bars, she pressed her hand against his face. "You’re warm," she said. freёwebnovel.com

"I am," he said back.

"Look. Nash, you said things that I’m not sure I’m willing to forgive, but that’s our... romantic side of things.

Right now, I’m talking to you as a friend for these allegations, and we believe you when you say that you didn’t do it, but you’ll have to work with us."

Due to his proximity with Seraphine, Nash looked to his side. His chest puffed. Although he’d held hope they could work it out, other matters--and her words--flushed his mind free of it.

Still, he couldn’t help but find himself disappointed.

"How?" he asked, looking into her eyes. They were strong; resolute. He could only feel optimism in the face of her light.

"Just sit tight, and don’t cause a commotion. When it’s your turn to be tried, deny the accusations, and we’ll handle the rest. But for now, get some rest."

She released her hand from his face, nodding at Milan, her sister.

"Hang in there, okay buddy?" Milan said, giving him a thumbs up.

He returned it, nodding.

As the two looked at him for a couple seconds, then made their exit, he wallowed in the silence once more. But this time, he didn’t search for others, or bring himself to the verge of tears.

Instead, to him, the silence was a remedy. A chance to ruminate over what he would say on the stand. "Thank you, Seraphine," he said to himself.

*******************************************************

Nash sat alone, playing with a few pieces of straw. He stared at the ceiling, counting sheep to himself. "God, I’m going to bore myself to death," he muttered.

"You’ve been summoned," someone said. A cloaked figure, standing mere inches away from the metal bars.

Nash struggled to get to his feet, taken aback by the man’s sudden appearance. "Wh-when’d you get there?"

The figure didn’t say a word. No, they only turned around, walking towards the end of the cellar.

Just as they’d begun to move, the door to Nash’s cell hinged, squeaking open.

Nash looked for it--and semblance of purple energy flowing to or from the cell’s door, but nothing. It was surreal.

But he didn’t get hung up on the details. He helped himself out, following the figure closely.

Soon, they found themselves walking through the house’s vast hallways. Embroideries hung along the walls, something that Nash always saw, but never really noticed.

But now that he felt everything was on a timer, it became more obvious to him. He sighed, saddened by the burrowed time he’s running on.

"So, has my father mentioned how long this trial will drag on?" He waited for the figure to say something, but nothing. He coughed to himself, hastening his pace to walk by their side. "I mean, I wouldn’t want to stay in a cell like mine for too long. It’s only been a few hours, and I’m already starting to feel it in my back."

Again, nothing.

Nash resigned to the silence, falling back to trail behind the figure.

"It will only be a day," he said, monotone.

"What?"

"It is as I said. This trial will be a short one?"

Nash stopped walking.

’No, that can’t be. But short trials are only given to those pre-ordained as guilty.’ He hit his hands against his head, hoping that it would rattle some real explanation out of him. One different from what he’d already thought.

’But, wait, if what Lysandra said is true, then... is this all just part of some ploy to get me away from the House? Then, am I...’

Everything grew blurry. The ground itself felt liquid to Nash--the air was so dry that he couldn’t even cough. All he felt was a deep, thick emotion building inside him.

’There’s no getting around it. I was framed, and this trial will be my death.’

"Please," he pleaded to nobody in particular. "Why is this happening to me?" The figure looked back at him, slowing his own gait. But Nash didn’t budge.

"Look," the figure said once, "it is not my job to babysit you. Truthfully, I don’t care what’s going to happen to you, but I was tasked with bringing you to the courtroom, and I will do just that--voluntarily, or not."

The figure released one arm from their cloak. It vibrated with mana, the energy so thick that it ran like a liquid.

Bright, yellow streaks of power hung in its midst, sparkling through the ground and the air.

Even though it’d been meant to invoke fear, Nash only found himself enamored. "You, you’re strong," Nash mused--almost drooling. "You know, I want to be like you. Strong, powerful. But I haven’t the talent, nor the will. Don’t you think it’s cruel that while I’m put to death, you get to parade your power around all you want?"

The figure hung still, mana still running rampant through the halls. But their quietude was not long-lived. "What would you know, brat? Believe it or not, I wasn’t very talented myself. But while you bathe in your own drool and diapers, I took it upon myself to seize power on my own--without such fabrications as being "gifted," and "non-gifted."

So, if you want to be like me, then I advise you to follow me, man up, and take this trial. And if you live to see another day--that being a very big ’IF,’ then you can turn your life around and seek what you want, free of this peerage."

Nash choked on his own disbelief. Never had someone spoken to him in such a manner, especially from what could only be his father’s vassals. But one look at his clothes--how disheveled they’d been, and he calmed down. "You’re... you’re right."

"Good," the man said, making sure to give Nash a couple seconds before continuing down the hallway.

In an almost-whimper, Nash complied, following him closely. His mind kept glancing over the scene at the bedroom, Lysandra’s words, but as despair crept upon him, so too did hope.

Seraphine and Milan, their promises of safety. He couldn’t help but smile.

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There Nash was. The room was crowded, hundreds of noblemen sectioned into rows of seats. There was a single aisle that split the room, crawling its way to the very edge where the main trial would occur.

A large, circular array of symbols and markings were etched into the ground just a couple dozen feet from the opposite wall.

It was contained within a fence of stone and concrete, with a single door caught in the middle of the aisle and the circle. And that was the very thing the vassal motioned Nash to enter.

He looked around. Stammers and murmurs bounced between the noblemen and noblewomen, though the faces were too much for him to catch wind of who they were.

But there were a couple faces he recognized.

At the very back of the room was one seat, raised ten feet from the ground by a wooden podium. Atop it was his father, Tristan. Even worse, there was an additional two podiums on corner at the end, one seating a man he didn’t recognize, another seating Lysandra.

Nash grunted, feeling as the boiling rage within him tightened his fists and clenched his teeth, but he stayed silent. He simply stepped forward, making his way to the magic circle.

Once he made it, a loud banging resounded through the courtroom. Instantly, the scattered voices quieted, leaving Nash to face his father.

"Order, order. We gather here today to try Nash for the alleged sexual assault of Lysandra, daughter to the house of Valor. What does the defendant plead?"

Nash watched as the man he once called father said such words coldly. Thinking of the words Tristan spat at him when he left his room, he only had one thing to say.

"Not guilty."