CHAPTER FIVE

  Bargain Stru Blood

  Hope dies here where only fools dare to tread…

  The warning carved above the cave’s entrance remained fresh in Bram’s mind as he staggered forward on rocky ground while covered in plete darkness.

  Apologies, but I ’t help but be hopeful…

  He dared not even light a match for fear that his pursuers might use sorcery to snuff out its feeble fire along with him. Better that they chase after him in the dark. If they even dared to step into this cursed cave.

  Hope is all I have now…

  More than once, Bram’s shoulder crashed against the narrow passage’s jagged walls. He tried to e and carry on, but eventually, his aches and pains grew so great that he had no choice but to pause his march.

  I need something to help me move.

  Unfortunately, he’d lost his bag somewhere on the mountainside, and the medie Ser Anthony packed for him vanished with it.

  Ser Anthony…

  The memory of the old knight lit a spark in Bram’s brain, causing him to search his purple coat’s many hidden pockets. Soon enough, he pulled them out; the long pipe and bag of cloud weed Ser Anthony had given him.

  Do I even dare…?

  Bram gnced over his shoulder, but there was only darkness behind him.

  The White Rose hadn’t followed him in. Not yet at least.

  “Keeps the aches and pains at bay,” were Ser Anthony’s words earlier, and Bram had no choice but to believe him.

  Quick as he could mahe prince pced a pinch of cotton-like herbs into the pipe’s bowl. Then, after pr a box of matches from one of his coat’s other pockets, he lit a matd used its feeble fire to burn the cloud weed he’d put in the pipe. At the same time, he pressed its mouthpiece to his lips, and with a long breath, inhaled as much smoke as he could manage—and then he coughed.

  Fortunately, the coughing didn’t st long. Just long enough to make Bram nervous. Again, he gnced over his shoulder, but only darkness greeted him.

  So, once more, Bram took another puff of the pipe. This time, he mao keep the cloud weed’s smoke in long enough to feel it settling inside him. Whe it out—a n of smoke so white he could glimpse it in the dark—he felt different. The pain had certainly lessened, but there was more to it than simple relief. Bram felt better somehow, more fident even. Most of all, he felt less encumbered by his sense of duty and responsibility. Enough that he mao crack a smile despite his dire circumstances.

  “Bloody hell…Ser Anthony was right.” An invigorated Bram started running again. “…I could get used…to feeling this way.”

  He tio smoke his pipe while he trudged onward. A little slower than before, hitting the walls more too, but at least his fear of pursuers had dwindled. He wasn’t sure how long it took, it certainly seemed like hours had passed before he felt the breeze on his cheeks and the path finally widened ahead of him. Only then did he return the pipe into his coat’s pocket, aantly too.

  GRATULATIONS! You are the first person in seven hundred ay-seven years to ehe dungeon [Innoce Lost]! For seven days, the experiend item drop rate are doubled while expl this dungeon.Delight fshed on Bram’s face as he cleared the tunnel.

  ALERT! Your body is unsuited to receiving the system’s boons. Experiee and item drop rate have returo normal values.It was a delight that was quick to vanish as he felt sudde against his back.

  “Bloody hell!”

  The prince could only curse aloud as a ‘Ray of Fire’ struck his back, causi, fme, and pain to climb up his spine, which, iingly, also served to sober him of most of the cloud weed’s numbing effects. Particurly, the haze in Bram’s mind that had made him calmer. Even worse, the force of the enemy’s sorcery unched him forward so that he fell, tumbled, and came to a crashing halt he ter of the rge chamber he arrived in.

  ALERT! You were dealt a critical blow. Your Health Points [HP] have dropped below 40%.This value meant nothing to Bram who could not see his status.

  ALERT! You have been inflicted with [Burn]. You will tio lose HP for five seds.A groan escaped Bram’s lips as he struggled to his knees. It was an impressive feat of will as other men might not have risen so quickly after being attacked by such potent sorcery…though perhaps the lingering effects of the cloud weed helped him too.

  ‘I’m not falling…not now when I’ve e so close.’

  His purple coat caught fire, so Bram took it off a it hurtling across the cavern like a shooting star momentarily lighting up the chamber with its weak glow.

  “At long st…”

  The light had e and gone, but there had been enough of it for Bram to capture the yout of the chamber.

  “I found you…”

  It was a temple-like structure with a vaulted ceilihered by the passage of time and . There was a round depression at the heart of the wide chamber—the spiral markings engraved on its stone floor—that was so close to where Bram khat he need only stretch his hand, and his fingers would grasp the small round crevice at its ter.

  “…Burned One.”

  The sound of rushing footsteps resounded iunnel Bram exited. They would be here any sed, the knights of the White Rose one of the royals sent to kill him. Somehow, they ma off their fear of the cursed cave and followed him into it so they might finally end the life of their ill-fated prince.

  “There’s no time for even a tune…” With seds left to cim his prize, Bram reached out his hand, fingers grasping onto the grooves of the hole at the heart of this chamber. “I summon you…trickster.”

  Sweat dripped down his brow unnoticed as an unnatural tratio over him. It slid down the bridge of his o hang on its tip before dropping onto the stos sound eg throughout the chamber.

  “Burned One who spurhe gods… The light they couldn’t dim even in this dark prison…” he ted. “e to me. Breathe life to my desire—”

  An ented arrow pierced his shoulder, f Bram to end his t before he could finish it.

  “Ugh!”

  A sed arrow pierced the back of his leg, driving him lower to the ground.

  “Gah!”

  Still, despite this pain and humiliation, he gritted his teeth and crawled closer to that hole that seemed a bottomless pit to his blurring vision.

  “Crawling on the ground like a slimy little worm…how unseemly, Ill-Fated Prince,” mocked the female knight whose voice was filled with venom. “Why ’t you accept death with the dignity of your blood?”

  “Don’t be fooled by him, Lady Belle, the prince has tricked us all!” the burly warrior warned. “He knows sorcery... Don’t let him speak lest he summons his bedeviled ghosts again!”

  “Silence, you fool!” The lead knight chided.

  He drew his sword, aiming its tip at the prince’s back.

  “Enough pying, Lady Belle… Sy him quickly before we disturb the evil sleeping in this cursed cave,” he anded.

  “You’re no fun, Ser Benoit, but very well.” Lady Belle raised her hand and then flicked her finger forward. “Farewell, Ill-Fated Prince.”

  An arrow from the quiver strapped to her waist flew off so that its charred tip pierced Bram’s back, causing the prio fall prone on the ground unmoving, his breath seemingly silenced.

  “He’s dead,” Lady Belle insisted. “The Eminence’s will be done.”

  “The Eminence’s will be done,” Ser Benoit repeated.

  Only the burly warrior seemed uain of their victory because he was wary of Bram and the strange sorcery the prince wielded against him. He was right to be suspicious of Bram too, as his panions would realize too te.

  Atn’s seventh prince was not dead. He g stubbornly to life. And, with his hand now coated in blood spilling from the many wounds they inflicted on him, Bram slid his palm across the floor and smeared the chamber’s heart with his life force.

  “Breathe life…into my desire…” he whispered.

  Even as bck spots began filling his vision, with his sciouseetering over the edge while visions of otherworldly things fshed in his mind’s eye, Bram tio utter his prayer. Not to any god the imperium worshipped, but to the rebel trickster that legends cimed had been trapped here by the gods’ champions who were the same founders of the Atn Imperium.

  “If the blood…is the life…” Bram dared to raise his voice more like the bard he was.

  “No…” The burly warrirowled. “He’s not—”

  Both Ser Benoit’s and Lady Belle’s heads soward Bram’s fallen form. But even as they began to cast their spells, they khey would be too te.

  “The my blood…give you new life!” Bram howled.

  The blood he smeared against the floor dipped into the hole at the heart of the chamber just as the burly warrior’s sword cut into his bao scream left Bram’s lips. For not even the ing of death could make him beg or surrender. In this at least, he was truly the Sn’s son.

  “Iing,” whispered a deep voice that beloo none of the cave’s visitors. “Very iing.”

  The darkened chamber grew dimmer as if a shadow even darker than bck had risen from the ground to dye the entire cavern in its unfathomable depths.

  “W-What”—a shiver ran up Ser Benoit’s spine as the spell he tried to cast fizzled out—“devilry is this?!”

  Beside him—or at least he believed she was still standio him—Lady Belle let out a soft whimper quite uhe fearless assassin known as the ‘White Widow’ of their order.

  “Lady—”

  There was a sound akin to the tearing of flesh, a muffled cry, and thehick st of iron was all around him.

  Then silence.

  Ser Benoit gulped. “Ser Gaston, we need light!”

  “I’m trying, Ser Benoit!” Ser Gaston, the burly warrior, replied. “But the bsted torch refuses to catch fire!”

  Laughter.

  Low, sultry giggling that made one’s skin crawl to hear a evoked a sense of pleasure in one’s ears could be heard all around them.

  “The gods damn you, Bram, you fool!” Ser Benoit cursed. “You’ve doomed us all with your madness!”

  “The only ones…I doomed tonight…is you.” Bram’s voice was bored, weak, but still taunting. “…Go die…with the dignity…you cim I cked.”

  Another round of ughter filled the air. It was followed by the swinging of a heavy sword.

  “Where are you?!” Ser Gaston screamed in the darkness. “Where are you?!”

  The burly warrior didn’t expect a reply, so he couldn’t help but jump out of his boots when a reply came, and so close to his right ear too.

  “I am right here,” whispered a deep, intelligent-sounding feminine voice that oozed pleasurable thoughts into one’s ears.

  This was why Ser Gaston did nothing but stand in pce as the presence behind him tapped long fingers against his shoulder. For him, this may have been akin to a feather’s touch. At least until nails sharper than the sharpest bdes pierced through the barrier entment of the pted steel shell around his shoulder to bite into the flesh underh.

  “Argh—”

  Ser Gaston’s gasp was cut short by the sound of tearing flesh, muscle, and sinew as the arm that held his broadsword tight was ripped off him in a siion. Only then did the burly warrior scream a high-pitched scream that was unfitting for his great physique.

  “Ser Gaston!” Ser Benoit raised his hand, sparks of magic fring from his fiips only to fizzle out again. “Damn it!”

  “S-Ser Benoit”—the plea arent in Ser Gaston’s voice—“help—”

  There came the sound of breaking bone, of blood gushing forth, and of somethiing rapidly, then slowly, slowly…until finally, the familiar beating stilled.

  Once again, no body slumped to the ground signaling the death of another one of Ser Benoit’s rades. Yet despite this ck of proof, the lead knight uood that he was alone now. Alone in the dark where a great evil stalked him.

  “Not like this…” Ser Benoit turned on his heel, his face flushed with fear. “Not like this…”

  The lead knight who had been so proud as he ehis cursed chamber shamelessly ran back the way he came while hoping that he would find his way to the end of the narrow tunnel and to freedom.

  “Not. Like. This,” he huffed.

  By some stroke of luck or intervention of the gods, Ser Benoit’s gaze found crimson moonlight h at the end of the tunnel’s entrance. Seeing the open air beyond it sent hope into his veins, pushing his feet tle more. He thought that freedom would be his. Oh, h he was.

  “Fee-fi-fo-fum,” whispered a voice so close to his right ear that it tickled his earlobe. “I smell the blood of an Atn-man…”

  Ser Benoit swung his saber to the right, but it struck against the wall and bounced back.

  “Be he living”—this time, the whisper came from his left side—“or be he dead…”

  Ser Benoit swung his saber to the left, and once agai only the tunnel’s craggy wall.

  Then, right ahead of him, he heard the same whisper, “I will grind his bones…”

  A face appeared out of the darkness.

  She ale beauty; her long crimson hair falling across her shoulders in perfect waves framed a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones. She might have passed off as human if not for the sparkle of her abaster skin. Her eyebrows were dark and arched over eyes that were the same shade ht crimson as her hair. Her nose was long and wide the tip, and she had a pair of dimples around the edges of her puffy lips. Lips which were at that very moment speaking the final words of her taunt.

  “…and show him dread.”

  Ser Benoit saair of sharp fangs protruding from behind her upper lip. They were the st things he saw before she bent his head ever so gently and then pressed her lips to his neck.

  It wasn’t long after the death of the st member of the White Rose who’d e to hunt Atn’s seventh prince whech-bck darkhat had covered the chamber receded, returning to fill the shadow of the redhead who was now walking leisurely toward Bram as he y in a pool of his blood.

  She wore a loose emerald robe with a hemlihat dragged against the floor. Its slightly transparent fabric barely hid her shapely figure, although Bram’s vision had bee too foggy to notice or admire her beauty. He looked as pale as she did, but he was dying while the rosy tinge of her cheeks showed her full of life.

  “Your blood tastes so sweet and familiar to me… Could you be Atn’s desdant?” the redhead asked as she k by his side.

  It must have taken Bram all his strength just to nod. It was all he could do, for his throat had bee too dry for words.

  The redhead reached down, and with a strength that should have been impossible for her lithe form, she picked Bram up and cradled him in her arms.

  “Tell me, Atn’s desdant,” she whispered to him, her deep voice like hoo his ears, “what is your heart’s desire?”

  She pulled him close in an embrace that would have seemed intimate to a casual observer, but it was the only way for the redhead t Bram’s mouth close enough to her ear.

  “Bargain,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “I’ve…e…tain.”

  Bram saw the smile f on the redhead’s face, and the twin fangs protruding from her upper lip.

  “Very well…” her mouth moved ever closer to his neck so that her breath tickled the skin of his throat. “A bargain stru blood it shall be.”

  As Bram’s eyes slid to a close, the redhead pressed her lips to his skin and then she kissed the ill-fated prinot a lover’s kiss, but one of blood ah.

  GD_Cruz