The Begotten Fiend

Chapter 11: Damn It All

"Good," Tristan said. "Then let us commence with--"

"Wait!" Nash interrupted, throwing his hands in the air. "Is it going to be held here? Is that even allowed?"

Tristan paused for a moment. "Ah, you mean the fact that court proceedings involving nobility are held in the presence of a Supreme Justice, yes?"

Nash nodded.

Tristan pointed to his right, directed towards a podium. Sitting at its center was a man, covered shoulder-to-toe with a white robe.

Its robe was woven was a bright, silky-smooth fabric. Gold and velvet embroideries danced along its seams. And with it, a light, purple ambiance.

"Yes, I am Galaan of the four Supreme Justices, here to represent this case. That way, we can move things along," he said, leaning forward to the edge of the podium. "Now, if you may, Tristan."

"Yes, Galaan," Tristan said, looking to his left. "And the plaintiff?"

The woman at the end of his gaze was Lysandra. Her face was wrapped with fear, a subtle shaking marking her shoulders. "Y-yes," she said.

Nash didn’t buy it for a second.

Tristan looked down at Nash. He didn’t say anything, only a glare.

"What?" Nash asked.

"Nothing," Tristan said quietly, leaning back to reveal his gavel. "Then let us start with your testimony, Lysandra."

Meekly, Lysandra hummed a "mm-hmm" before standing up. "Around midnight, I received a knock on my door. It was Nash, asking me to help him with something.

At first, I refused, but only after his continued persistence did I follow him to his room. There, he offered me wine."

All it took was a few seconds for Nash to quake with indignation. He didn’t say anything, for he knew that interrupting someone’s testimony would incriminate himself.

"And what wine was this?" Tristan questioned.

"...Miracle Sap."

The entire crowd gasped. Nash looked back, watching as each of their faces burrowed into his with even more fury than before. "What?" he muttered to himself.

"And would you say that Miracle Sap is a kind of aphrodisiac?" Tristan inquired once more.

"Yes," Lysandra said back, crossing her shoulders. "But I didn’t drink any. If you’ll look at the scene of the crime, you’ll find that my cup was empty."

Tristan looked at her once. "You’re right. Our findings say that it was only Nash that drank it."

"Hey, wait!" Nash interjected. "That’s not..."

"Not what?" Tristan’s tone was prying. Like he hadn’t believed his son’s innocence for a second. "Not true? Well, what’s your explanation? Are you going to tell me how my Miracle Sap left the kitchen, or why it was in your room to begin with?"

’What am I supposed to say? Nobody’s going to believe that she was the one who brought it.’

Nash groaned, turning his cheek the other way. "Nothing."

"That’s what I thought," Tristan said, raising his hand to the side towards Lysandra. "Now, continue, if you may."

"After he drank from it, he started getting weird. He started asking really personal questions, and inching towards me.

I told him that it was getting let and that I needed sleep, but he grabbed my wrist, pulling me back down to the bed.

It was only then that he... that he..." She buried her face into her palms, wheezing for air. Conveniently, her eyes were fully covered. freewebnovёl.ƈom

"No more, we heard enough," Tristan said, slamming his gavel into hard wood. "Nash, do you have an explanation--"

Before Tristan could finish, Nash had already spoken out. "Yes! These are all lies! I wasn’t the one to bring the Miracle Sap, she was! I don’t know how she did it, but she somehow found her way to your wine.

Even more, she was the one forcing herself onto me! After I repeatedly told her no, she spiked my drink with a neural agent and then planted the evidence!"

"And how would you know?" Tristan asked, leaning his chin on his fist. "After all, if you were drugged, you wouldn’t know what she did after you fell asleep. How would you know she planted the evidence?

And don’t bother saying she planted the evidence while you were awake, as if you wouldn’t resist."

Nash coughed on his own words. within mere moments, he lost the desire to say all the things he wanted to say. Instead, he turned to his left, then his right.

There, he saw them. Seraphine and Milan. They each returned his gaze, but both looked away.

Nash’s heart dropped. ’Guys...?’

"Do you have a response?" Tristan asked again. Nash blitzed his head back in Tristan’s direction, but as he opened his mouth, words didn’t escape.

"I see," Tristan said coldly. "Then bring it out."

As his hand reached towards somewhere in the crowd, two cloaked figures appeared. They entered from opposite sides of the fencing that trapped Nash, something in the hands of the one on the left.

They made their way to Tristan’s podium. One of them lifted from the ground without moving a muscle, much to Nash’s surprise.

There, the figure handed Tristan something. A clear, glossy orb.

As it rolled into Tristan’s hands, he gestured the two to leave. Then, he threw it in the air.

Nash twisted his head in the opposite direction, covering his face, but no crash sounded through the courtroom, not shards of glass.

Instead, it hovered in the air above Tristan. A big transparent image played just feet in front of the orb.

A projection. Nash knew it well, although the technology was new, and incredibly expensive.

Not something to be used for a simple trial.

"This is a projection of what occurred that night," Tristan said, snapping his fingers. Immediately, images of Nash played before him.

"Huh?" Nash mumbled, watching himself knock on someone’s door. In moments, Lysandra peered through a crack in the door, then in another few moments, the two made their way down the house’s halls. "What is this?"

None of it made sense. He hadn’t even gone anyplace other than his room, and it was Lysandra who appeared at his door, not the other way around.

"How... this can’t be...’

No matter how much he denied it, the video kept playing. As Lysandra had said, Nash made his way to the kitchen, where he jumped up to pick out one of the many drinks in the kitchen.

The projection peered over the drink and he saw it. ’Miracle Sap,’ the packaging said.

"No..." he said to himself, louder.

Then, as if a one-to-one reimagining of Lysandra’s fake testimony, he came back, returned with cups, and offered it to the two of them. Then, he downed an entire cup, then another one, while Lysandra watched with worry.

But what came next was the worst.

Nash jumped on top of Lysandra, lowering his mouth to her neck. Her legs thrashed against him, but he kept leaning in closer and closer.

He whispered something, but it was lost in the mute of the projection. Instead, the moment kept growing longer and longer, the discomfort in his chest growing with it.

Then his hand reached for her--

The projection stopped, leaving the courtroom silent.

"Does the defendant have anything to say?"

"No, but there’s some mistake!" Nash pleaded, banging his hands against the hard fence. "I... this just can’t be."

"That’s impossible," Tristan said. "Projection crystals are impossible to tamper with. Everyone in the room understands this."

He looked over the entire crowd. Murmurs sprouted all throughout.

["He’s truly a devil’s child. To think such a high noble could do this."]

["I guess parents don’t dictate your offspring as much as I thought."]

["I let my children around that man!"]

Nash covered his ears with his palms. He looked left and right, shaking his head as if the voices would stop. "No, I didn’t do it. Wait, you have to believe me... I would never do this..."

A cacophony of voices punched him with all the intensity of a fist. The world spun around--shaking the very foundation of his core.

He fell to his knees, but that didn’t save his inundation.

Crrrkkkk!

He slammed his head into the floor. The pain jutted into him like a blade squelching his brain, but it didn’t remove the voices. It only made it worse.

"Then, if there’s no defense, I have no choice to provide one verdict: guilty." The man who spoke was Galaan, clashing his own gavel against wood. "I leave it up to Duke Tristan to enlist his punishment."

Tristan sat without even a twitch of the finger, watching Nash silently.

As blood gushed down Nash’s brow, discoloring his nightly hair with crimson, he allowed it to touch his lips. Instantly, thoughts of death crossed his mind. "Seraphine... Milan, you promised me!" he urged, looking back at them.

They looked into him, but not with the guilt that marked their faces prior. No, they’d each glared with such intense, furious eyes that he gasped with fear. "Seraphine...?" he asked, struggling for air.

The courtroom was quiet once more. All, except for one person. "That was before I learned you were a rapist," Seraphine said, looking down. "I... you deserve what’s going to happen to you. That is the one truth Millan and I understand."

Though her words were sharp, she was visibly shaking. So much so that Milan had to clasp Seraphine’s hands.

But Nash didn’t notice.

"No... that can’t be... Seraphine, I love you. You can’t do this to me!"

To be frank, the fear in Nash’s voice was unsightly. Snot and tears mixed with blood to create an ugly sight of desperation. He was even on all fours, smiling as if it would make him any more approachable.

"And I loved you." Seraphine got up, bringing Milan with her. As the two exited the courtroom’s halls, Nash felt each step another stab in his heart.

"Wait!" he yelled, punching the fence separating them. "Don’t leave! Please! You promised me, Seraphine! You fucking promised!"

They only grew smaller and smaller as they left. Neither even bothered to look back.

"Seraphine, if I ever see you, I swear, you’ll regret this! Don’t you forget how you left me to die!"

By the time the words left Nash’s mouth, they’d already left and closed the doors behind them.

"Well, then," Tristan said. "I believe it’s time to end this. As short as the trial was, here is the punishment:

Execution, by way of magic."

The words rung through Nash like knives. At first, he didn’t want to hear them. He shook his head, rubbing his ears. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"The execution shall take place today, three hours from now." Tristan looked down at Nash one more time, at the pool of tears, sweat, and blood puddled beneath him, and clicked his tongue. "With that, this room is adjourned. I don’t wish to waste even another second here."

Clattering filled the room as many got up from their seats, picked up what they were carrying, and lined up to exit the courtroom.

"Wait... you can’t do this..." Nash said again, his eyes washing over the crowd. "Daphne, Bertrud, Adam, someone has to help me..."

No matter how much he cried out, nobody returned his cry for help. Instead, they gave their own disapproving stares before turning the other way.

But one person came to mind. The one he’d wished to never call upon. The man he hated the most, and the man he knew would never help him in a million years.

But desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Illias," Nash pleaded. His voice was broken, staggered, but he didn’t stop. "Please, don’t leave your... brother... to die." There was Illias, at the very center of the crowd.

"Nash..." Illias sighed, shaking his head. "I can’t..."

"But don’t you see, I’ll die if you don’t help me! Please!"

Tristan and Illias shared eye contact, followed by footsteps. Illias walked toward Tristan’s podium, trying his best not to look at Nash.

Once he’d gotten to the front of the courtroom, he looked at Nash just once. "Father, I think Nash is right. Isn’t death too quick for a disgusting wretch such as the man I once called brother?"

"Illias...?" Nash stared, wide-eyed.

"When you put it like that, I suppose, but what do you suggest we do instead?" Tristan asked.

"Good thing you asked. We already have the magic circle set up, why not use it?" Illias said back, waving both hands in Nash’s direction. "Look at the pig. We have a magic circle that leads directly to the Wretched Forest, and you mean to tell me that you would prefer to have him die a dignified death?

No way. Instead, I say we use the transportation circle used on low-level criminals and have him torn apart by the beasts.

That way, we will have both the safety of his death and the satisfaction of his suffering."

"Wait, no..." Nash complained, punching the ground. "What are you doing, Illias? We’re brothers--"

"So be it. I suppose such a death would be fitting for a wretch such as him. I’ll take it that this is your first decree as leader of the House?" Tristan asked, directed towards Illias.

Illias, smiling, didn’t say anything back. He only looked at Nash. "You. To have the nerve to ask for forgiveness. You’ll have wished you accepted your death with grace. No, instead, you’ll get shredded limb by limb by the worst beasts of this world."

Tristan laughed, snapping his fingers. "Then let us begin."

Within seconds, four cloaked figures appeared, each occupying a corner of the fence containing Nash.

The air lit up with warmth, encompassed by bright, aetheric power. It writhed, crisping Nash’s skin. He screamed, feeling his body get lifted into the air. "What’s happening?"

"You’re being transported. Don’t worry, it’ll only hurt for a moment. What you should be worrying about is the pain you’ll be feeling once you get there," Illias said, condescending. "Do tell me what hell is like."

As the air grew heavier and heavier with heat, Nash frowned while looking at Lysandra. She was seated in the same podium.

She was smiling.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the air compressed his own voice. He opted to point at her.

’You... though you can’t hear it, know this. I will find you, and I will kill you. You, and this entire kingdom.

None will be safe from me. I swear, I will burn it all down. You. I swear to god, if it is the last thing I do, I will watch as you breathe your final breath.

This world...

Damn it all.’