Embraced by Hell

Six years thus passed, and it was now time for Kilian to embark on the road of magic. In body and mind, Klaus believed him ready. Alas, destiny chose to cheat them both, and as Klaus prepared to test Kilian’s Dra Roots, the inconceivable occurred.

The testing of Dra Root was a critical moment of any nobility scion’s life. On the scene, several junior and senior members of house von Karsten stood. But as Klaus stretched his hand toward Kilian, in an unexpected twist, the dra surrounding him started circulating in the opposite direction. As he sensed this, for the first time in decades, Klaus’ eyes widened in disbelief.

Formless energy crept into Kilian’s body, spreading through his veins, organs, and soul. That energy had neither scent nor signature, only the strange phenomenon of making dra flow in reverse informed Klaus of what it really was.

“No...no...nooo!”

Klaus clenched his fists, smashed them on an adjacent oak table and snarled in indignation! But the force didn’t listen, it never did. In the middle of Kilian’s forehead, circles of red light emerged, and his body spasmed under violent jolts of foreign energies.

The red light dispersed, leaving behind a five centimeters long slit. Around the slit, bulging veins spread, Kilian’s pupils vanished, and before the terrified von Karsten kinsmen and women, a third, vertical and crimson eye opened on his forehead!

“He’s been tainted...tainted by Fehl.”

The nearby relatives realized. As mentioned before, while the people of this world may not know or fear God, they did dread the devil. Magus or not, the fear of Fehl lay ingrained in the majority of Arcadians’ minds.

And in the instant that the Eye appeared, Kilian’s existence turned into a time ticking bomb threatening to wipe out the ancient house. And as he regained his consciousness, as he swept his “kinsmen” and read in their faces the reality of his situation, Kilian couldn’t restrain a chuckle. Even as Klaus boiled with fury, Kilian chuckled.

“Hahaha,” amused; he was utterly amused. The situation was far too entertaining. It was as if fate spat in all their faces, Klaus’ more than his. For six years, Klaus dedicated himself to teaching Kilian all he knew and making him the perfect successor of his house. But now, he had no other choice but to destroy him. How amusing. How frustrating.

“Ha! Fortunately I was clever and left myself a way out,” Kilian thought, and thinking of how he’d just avoided a fatal disaster, he couldn’t help but sigh. He would die within six hours, maybe less. Again, death readied to embrace him. But this time, he had the miracle ready and under control.

But as Kilian inwardly chortled, Klaus surrendered to destiny, waved for his kin to depart and locked himself in his study. The kinsmen promptly left, knowing that in the following hours, a blaze was inevitable.

For a full hour, Klaus wept tears of rage and bitterness, cursing Fehl for playing him so. He tore through his belongings, battered the ground and bit his lips to blood. But at the start of the second hour, the duke stood up and walked out of the door. His red, moistened eyes faced Kilian with a contrasting, stony gaze.

“Kilian, I’m sorry,” Klaus said, even as his tears trickled down.

“Don’t be; I wouldn’t be,” Kilian replied in a level tone. Hearing this, Klaus curled his lips into a smile and stepped out. Kilian closed his eyes. There was only one way to execute the Fehl-tainted, formulated by the Grand Orders and upheld by the Arcadian Dynasty: The Baptism of Fire.

Klaus returned half-an-hour afterward, personally binding and leading Kilian toward the execution ground. In the middle of Kars, the stake awaited, with rabble gathering and nobles observing from a distance. Klaus could have taken care of this privately. But bolder than the average noble, he planned to use the event to increase his prestige by openly putting justice above family ties—milking Kilian for one last time.

Before the common rabble and nobles, Klaus tied Kilian on the wooden stake, then turned to face the populace, speaking eight words the nobles would firmly engrave in their minds.

“Even my son is not above the law!” Amplified by a minor sound spell, the words thundered throughout the execution grounds, gripping the thousands of gathering commoners.

And with that one declaration, Klaus snapped his fingers, instantly setting the stake ablaze. This was no ordinary flame. The baptism required the tainted to burn for three hours, not one more, not one less. And so Kilian watched the magical flames rise from the bottom of the stake to embroil his legs and make a slow rise toward his head.

He didn’t even wonder why his anti-magic couldn’t stop Klaus’ flames. There was no way that the duke didn’t come up with the means to counter his ability.

He just knew that the flames hurt, hurt like hell.

Hurt so much that his mind snapped, that his howls died in his throat, becoming frenzied laughs that alongside his third, crimson eye, gave him the look of a maniacal devil. Spurred on, the rabble tossed stones at Kilian’s burning frame. But when compared to the flames searing his flesh, how could they matter?

The guards promptly contained the rabble’s rage, returning order to the Baptism of Fire and ensuring nothing would derail the former heir’s roasting. Kilian couldn’t close his eyes. They swept the gathered individuals, going from one face to another until they locked back on Klaus’. There he stopped. At some point, it seemed the pain reached such a threshold that Kilian’s brain forced him into analgesia, allowing him to spend the final minutes of the baptism without agony.

Klaus faced him all along, not missing an instant of the three hours long burning.

“I am not dying,” Kilian whispered as the fire covered his chest. On the scene, only Klaus could hear the words.

“I can not die. Not before I smack you senseless and shove you into a cage of eternal damnation.” It was a statement, a promise, a pledge, Klaus welcomed it with a faint smile.

“I will be waiting,” he accepted the improbable challenge.

Red light flickered within Kilian’s crimson eye. The third hour ended, bringing alongside it a dazzling conflagration that burned what remained of Kilian into ashes. Thus, for the second time, Kilian perished.