Chapter 1: Chapter 1
CRACK!
"You good-for-nothing, worthless piece of dirt!"
CRACK! CRACK!
Leon clenched his teeth tightly, his face colored a deep red as he fought the urge to scream. Pain jolted through his entire body as another lash landed on his back.
"How dare you assault the Dimina family's eldest son? Do you know how much trouble you've created for the family?"
Leon crashed into the floor from his kneeling position as the whip struck him right above the waist. He had lost count of how many lashes he had taken, not that he had the chance to when each beginning of a thought was immediately dispersed by a crack of the whip. His white cloth tunic was stained crimson and ripped in the places where the whip had landed, leaving his back bare and dripping with blood.
"We should've gotten rid of him a long time ago," came a different voice, a woman's voice, behind him. "If we had just kicked him out sooner, we wouldn't have to deal with this."
Leon had learned to hate this voice from a very young age. It belonged to Lady Eleas, the lady of the house. Although she's his stepmother, by family rules Leon has to call her "Mother" out of respect simply because she is his father's wife.
"I knew from the first moment I saw him that he would bring nothing but chaos to this family. Now look what he has done!" she complained to the man standing five paces in front of Leon. "I tried to convince Leader Eleas years ago that we can't allow that whore's son to stay in the family, but being the stubborn man that he is, he just wouldn't listen."
Leon curled his hands into fists and bit back the profanities that suddenly appeared in his mind. That "whore" she mentioned was his birth mother, a prostitute that Leader Eleas brought back to the manor 20 years ago.
She was already pregnant when she arrived to the manor-- it was apparent to those on the manor at the time that she was Leader Eleas's mistress. She gave birth to Leon not long after, making Leon the third son to the Eleas family and technically the third in line to succeed his father as the Family Leader behind his two older half-brothers.
But as Leon got a little older, he realized that he would never have the chance to have the Leader title and it had nothing to do with his ability but everything to do with his identity.
In the country of Loxia, prostitutes are seen as the lowest of the low and are treated simply as playthings. To have a child with one or, even worse, marry one is extremely taboo. Getting caught meant the immediate loss of status in society. There have been stories of nobles who lived worse than peasants after news of what they did leaked from their manors.
Leader Eleas was aware of this risk and arranged for her identity to be hidden from everyone but those he trusted: the Deputy Leader and his wife, Lady Eleas. A jealous but protective woman, Lady Eleas was careful to keep Leon's birth mother's identity a secret while she harassed her on a daily basis for seducing her husband.
Despite being a part of a noble family, Leon and his birth mother lived like peasants in a lonely shack constructed for them on a corner of the Eleas family land far away from the main manor.
They had no servants, only the barest of necessities, and the little food they had consisted of leftovers delivered weekly from the manor that would last the two of them four days if portioned carefully. Like this, they lived for 11 years until one day Leon came back from playing by the creek near the shack to find his mother missing.
Word on the manor is that Lady Eleas got her way and forced Leader Eleas to dispose of his mistress.
"Idiot never does anything for the family, all he does is waste away in the streets. He's just like his mother, useless and a waste of food and space." bit Lady Eleas.
The urge to lunge at Lady Eleas gave Leon a boost of adrenaline, but it quickly dissipated as another crack of the whip left its mark in his back.
"He won't be anymore," the man standing 5 paces before Leon said authoritatively.
This five foot seven, round man was Leader Eleas's right hand man, the Deputy Leader.
"From today forward, Leon will no longer be a member of the Eleas family. The Eleas family has no such worthless son," announced the Deputy Leader before turning to Leon. "You are forbidden to step foot into the manor or any part of the family land. Your name will be erased from all family records and this family will no longer have any relationship with you-- "
"You can't do this. You don't have the authority," Leon struggled to point out through the pain.
The Deputy Leader looked astonished.
Leon was right, the Deputy Leader indeed doesn't have the authority to accept or kick people out of the family, only Leader Eleas had that power. Leader Eleas frequently left the manor for business and when he did so he left the Deputy Leader in charge of the manor. However, important matters like this one was still up to the Leader himself.
"Father wouldn't agree to this," Leon added with a mental question mark. Even he wasn't confident in what he just said.
That astonished look on the Deputy Leader's face transformed into a sly smile as he took out an envelope from the top drawer of his desk.
"You're right, I don't have permission. But I wrote to Leader yesterday about this. You want to know what he wrote? Here, have a look for yourself," replied the Deputy Leader, tossing the now opened letter toward Leon.
Leon inched forward on the ground to see the letter that had conveniently landed face-up and open. After seeing what was in the letter, Leon lost all of his will to fight and laid defeatedly on the floor. Above Leader Eleas's personal seal was one singular line neatly written in black ink: "I have no such son."
Leon had guessed as much from the beginning of this whole ordeal. The Deputy Leader isn't stupid, he definitely wouldn't have brought up something he wasn't prepared for. However, seeing such a frank response printed so neatly on paper shocked him a little more than he expected.
The speed at which the letter was sent back to the manor-- the letter left this morning if the Deputy Leader's words are to be trusted-- told Leon that his father didn't hesitate. The neatness of the writing betrayed his calm and coldness. Was his father this cold toward his mother? Did his father also not hesitate when he planned his mother's disappearance?
Leon's thoughts were interrupted by the Deputy Leader's barking.
"Guards! Take this commoner and throw him out."
Two Eleas family guardsmen came rushing in and picked up the ex-Eleas third son. Their lack of hesitation suggested that they were used to treating Leon like this.
"Oh, I almost forgot. Don't try going back to that dirty shack. I heard the guards had fun burning it to the ground earlier today," snorted the Deputy Leader. His laugh echoed in the main gathering room of the manor.
Out of the corner of his eye, Leon caught Lady Eleas chuckling. He desperately wanted to break free from the two guardsmen and pummel both of the laughing freaks but his body was slack from exhaustion and pain. Their shapes slowly shrunk in Leon's eyes as the guardsmen dragged him to the gate and threw him across the threshold.
His right side flared with pain as he landed on the cold, wet street. Meanwhile, rain pounded down on his raw back causing Leon to finally let out all of his frustration and torment in one loud, bloodcurdling scream.
It was night, past curfew judging by the fact that no one was out on the usually busy street. After a flash of lightning, Leon could just make out the outline of what he assumed was a large tree through the downpour and started slowly crawling toward it to shelter himself from the rain.
He winced with every movement as he slid against the rough ground, tearing the fabric of this clothing on the rocks and pebbles scattered all over the street. He made it to the base of the tree, but not without completely rubbing off all of the fabric that covered his knees.
Because of the rain, the lanterns that usually lit up intervals of the street were all extinguished, leaving Leon in near complete darkness. He touched his knee to check for wounds and winced, realizing he had scraped his knee pretty badly during his crawl.
Dizzy from all the blood he had lost, Leon leaned his left side up against the tree and reached into his tunic for the one thing that could give him some peace at the moment: the charm his mother left him before she disappeared.
The charm was made out of a white and pale green stone material that Leon couldn't name. Carved into the center of the it was a large "M" colored dark blue, "M" for Marianne, his mother's name.
Leon's eyelids closed on their own as he slowly slipped into what he could only describe as a warm embrace. He knew that he would be in danger if he went unconscious, but he couldn't help it.
Suddenly, a familiar voice appeared next to him.
"Commander! Let's go home."
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FallenPetal
FallenPetal Hey, you beautiful reader!
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