Chapter Text
"It will be completely alright, Angela," Balthazar said, offering the hyperventilating mother a winning smile. "I can call you Angela, right?"
Caemorn felt a headache coming on as the mental scream continued to rising in pitch and panic his mind: 'This is a complete disaster! There cannot be a child running around the Ever dark—not before, and certainly not now,' Balthazar's screeched.
Balbazar outwards actions showed none of his inward panic as he tried to reassure the women that all will be well. Balthazar reached a hand out hand in an attempt to comfort her. She flinched away like a wild animal. "I don’t care if you call me a fucking pig—I need to find my son!"
'For a mother who had brought her child into the Ever dark and left him unsupervised, she was certainly playing the part of the worried parent well,' Caemorn observed.
In Caemorn's experience, children in the Ever dark meant only death.
He had not been the only child taken into Artemis’s care—thousands had died. What kind of sick mother would sacrifice her child to such a life?
Caemorn had witnessed countless parents hand over their children to Artemis in exchange for power or wealth. Artemis did not need the consent of the parents to rip their children into a life of misery, but it hurt the child far more when they realized it was their own parents who had delivered them into the hands of the devil.
Watching the new arrival beg, scream and cry had been enough to make Caemorn grateful his own mother had already met her gruesome end. At the very least he would not be crushed by the knowledge that she had trade him in for mere trinkets.
Caemorn remembered watching from the bared windows of his room -no- prison as a smiling couple gave Artemis a grateful hug. This would never been allowed except on arrival days when parents always seemed to forget to hug their child goodbye and always walked away as if they were leaving a great burden behind them.
The child in question this time was a small girl. she kept in place by another vampire. The parents never looked past Artemis to look into her tear-filled eyes. She looked like she started screaming. Artemis held up a hand to the parents as if to say just one moment. He then stalked over to his new charge and back handed the girl hard enough to have her crumble to the floor. She looked to her parents for mercy, but they only looked with approval at Artemis. Caemorn had seen her weeks after the incident and she still had the fading marks of the bruises covering the entire left side of her face.
It hurts most to see the child lose their faith in their parents as they realised that no one was coming to save them. There was always a look of horror on the child face as they watched their parents walk away smiling in to their new life without them in it.
Caemorn tried to believe that an Eyros was behind the parents’ actions but merely trying was not a strong enough action to make his believe that there wes any good people in the world.
Caemorn had spent to much time comforting the new arrivals in his younger years to believe that things would ever turn out differently. Caemorn had tried to prepare them as best he could for there new life, "Don't cry - he will hurt you more if you do","Don't beg - he will give you a real reason to beg"... Caemorn always tried to teach them the hard lessons he had learnt over and over and over again during their first year. But no matter how much he warned them or tried to teach them how to survive in this hell it never worker. Artemis killed the others after a year if he found them lacking. Artemis always did find them lacking. Caemorn could still hear the screaming that had been present for hours and hours on end. It was not a comfort when the screams went quit it only meant they could no longer scream. Caemorn could hear Artemis's slow steps through the halls as he came to get him. Artemis wanted him to know that he was on his way to get Caemorn. Artemis use to joke that he only saw Caemorn during there little celebratory dinners. Once again Caemorn was seated by the stone altar as if it were a dining table.
"It really is such a shame to let anything go to waste" Artemis use to say as he cut around bone. Caemorn always wishes that he weren't watching a live dissection.
Artemis happily roasted he cut of meat over a nearby fire.
Tears streaked down both Caemorns face and the other childs as they watched one another.
Artemis turned to Caemorn and placed a hand on his shoulder "But you really do need to stop telling them the rules of this little game. We all need to learn for ourselves." Artemis squeezed his shoulder hard enough to bones to grind together. CAemorn grit his teeth and did not make a sound: Don't cry - he will only hurt you more.
Artemis seemed satisfied with Caemorns response, "You see, I can really never tell if it's you are behind their actions or them".
Caemorn froze at Artemis's next words, "It really is quit cruel of you to keep forcing my hand like this. If only you played fair then maybe some of them might have still been alive,"
.....
I killed them?
I killed them all.
Caemorn did not even realise he was crying until Artemis's hand wiped away a tear roughly.
" Crying truly dose make you just as hideouts as your are on the inside. Stop it immediately"
Caemorn looked up with dead eyes at Artemis.
I killed them. I killed them. I killed them.
"Oh Caemorn you knew exactly what you were doing, and that is why you" Artemis taped his nose with one finger " are my favourite." He smiled to show blood stained teeth "You are a monster."
A pained sound came from the child on the altar
Blood started to pool around the porcelain plate that was placed in front of Caemorn.
Artemis looked irritated with the dying child, " Caemorn, cut me another slice of meat while I make sure the other does not durn,". Artimis handed Caemorn the knife and walked towards the fire.
Caemorn looked at the person he had spent every waking moment with in shared pain for the past year.
"Please," was the last thing they said.
He Hoped they had begged for death.
Caemorn could hope that there soul would move on to a better place out of Artemis's reach.
Caemorn handed the bloody heart to Artemis. Artemis looked pleased
"There will be a new arrival latter today," Artemis informed him.
Blood started to drip from the table and pool in Caemorns lap.
"But for now we celebrate this new year." Artemis placed the steaming heart in front of Caemorn "Eat".
Caemorn stopped talking to the new arrival after that.
He killed them. He had killed them. He would kill them.
Caemorn violently threw himself out of the memory.
He looked to see if Balbazar had seen into the memory but Balbazar during his panicking did not seem to have noticed Caemorn’s dark thoughts.
'Oh God, Camorn. It is all falling apart. What are we going to tell Daemon?'
Both Balbazar and the woman’s anxiety filled the room. Tarron and Farone wrinkled their noses in distaste at the smell.
The reporter—who had earlier been the picture of composure as she undauntedly grilled the Mirror-bloodline vampires on rumors that multiple very famous historical figures were among their ranks—was now storming through the room as though she might find her child hidden among the comfortable pillows and lush furs draped over the couches.
'Child corpses, Caemorn!'
'This is really not the kind of publicity I wanted for the Academy.'
Balthazar said none of this to the frantic mother.
To all the world Balthazar looked completely at ease as he leaned against a wall.
“Have you tried looking in the last place you left him?” he asked, gesturing around the room as though her son might be found behind a curtain or under a rug.
Angela gave him a soul-withering glare.
“He was supposed to stay here!” Her voice cracked with panic. “I told him I’d be in the next room over—why would he—” She cut herself off, sobbing. “I’m a terrible mother.”
Yes, you are, Camorn thought coldly.
She collapsed in on herself. She had spent the last three hours running around, looking for her son on her own before finally seeking out someone who actually knew the Everdark well enough to be of use.
'I’ll have Tarron and Farone try to find the child’s scent, he thought, but she’s practically drowned out everything with her misery.'
Balbazar gave him a discreet nod.
With a gesture, Tarron and Farron began circling the room. Both took deep inhales of the air. Tarron shook his head, trying to dispel the foul stench of anxiety clinging to the room.
Balbazar gently helped Angela off the floor and onto one of the couches. His expression was reassuring.
“Angela, I need you to be calm—”
“I have been calm! I’ve been calm for over three hours and it has gotten me nowhere! It’s easy for you to say—you're all the same, just a bunch of—”
Balbazar interrupted. “I need you to choose your words very wisely, because theoretically, if I were you, I would not want to insult the monsters who will decide whether or not you ever see your son again.”
Anger flashed across her face. She opened her mouth, but he raised a hand.
“This—all of this—was created by you. There is a reason we do not allow children into the everdark and yet” Balthazar gestures as if to say ’look where we are now’
“You are not entitled to take your anger out on anyone else, no matter how upset you are. Especially not the people trying to bring your son back to you.”
Caemorn's attention drifted away from the conversation as Tarron and Farron both gathered in one corner of the room. He stepped over pillows and blankets—casualties of the mother’s frantic search as she tried to locate her son.
Wrapped in one of the blankets was a backpack, brightly colored in a way that only a child’s could be.
He held it up for all to see. “Is this his?”
Angela shot up from the couch. “I looked there! I swear I looked—”
The light was suddenly sucked from the room. If not for his vampiric sight, it would have been pitch black. He watched her flail in the darkness, grabbing a nearby sofa.
“I didn’t ask where you looked,” Caemorn said. “I asked if this belonged to your son.”
The shadows retreated enough to reveal his stormy expression.
Negligent. Inattentive.
How long had her child been missing before she even started searching?
Balbazar was clearly listening to his thoughts.
'Easy, boy. She may be a terribly stupid woman, but do not do anything rash,' Caemorn. Balbazar sent.
It took conscious effort to disperse the shadows that longed to drag this inattentive creature to her grave.
“Yes, it is my son’s” she whispered.
The son you brought to the Ever dark, knowing full well the dangers? You have delivered him to the executioner and hoped it would be merciful. Caemorn's mind remembered a darker time.
I killed themIKilledThemIKilledThem.
She approached, arms outstretched, reaching for the backpack. Caemorn lifted it just out of her reach. Tarron and Farron growled on either side of him, halting her advance.
She stared at the bag with soulful, broken eyes.
'Balthazar,' he sent unnecessarily—he knew the man was already listening.
'Yes?'
'Keep her out of my way. Tarron, Farone and I will find the child.'
'And bring him back to his mother?'
'...'
Caemorn gave no confirmation as he swept from the room, closing the metal door as he slammed the door behind him, possibly harder than necessary.
Shadows followed him into the hallway, darkening it further.
He stopped and breathe. Slowly, the dark receded.
From inside, he could still hear the mother's wailing.
His attempts at composure shattered. This woman irked him.
She crawled under his skin, whispering in the little places that asked: How often you tried to run from me? To hide?
His master’s voice—Artemis’s voice—jeered inside his mind. I.Killed.Them Memories washed over him of his first year :hiding, running, begging. His childhood, raised in the so-called home Artemis had made for him and so many others. He had searched for safety for years. But safety did not exist.
You could only be the most dangerous person in the room. Caemorn had turn himself into sharpest of blades which had a handle which would make anyone who tried to wiled him bleed. Caemorn would tear out the souls of those who would harm him.
This realization was what made him different from the new arrivals. They hid and ran from Artimese's ‘lessons’. Caemorn chose to learn from them. Even as it so often left him bleeding and curling into himself out of pain.
‘You were so much better at playing our little games than any of the others', His mind whispered
‘And that is why you made the mistake of letting me live.’, Caemorn remembered.
Artemis had killed every single child brought to his door except Caemorn – who he had hand-picked off the steps of a church.
Tarron's whining pulled Caemorn out of his memories. The room had turned pitch black—too dark even for him to see anything.
Caemorn breathed deeply.
The shadows retreated just enough to dimly reveal the outline of the space.
“Find him.”
The werewolves sniffed the bag once, then immediately began tracking.
They sped through the hallways as they leaded Caemorn through the winding building of the Mirryr Mansion where the interview had taken place.
He passed several Mirryr vampires. One turned into his double as he pasted, and for a moment, Camorn caught a glimpse of his own murderous eyes and clenched fists in the reflection. His mood soured; the corridor dimmed further.
The mimic fled with a squeak as the light was drained completely from the hall.
'Caemorn, you are scaring the locals,' Balthazar’s voice sang over their bond.
He ignored it.
Tarron and Farone led him down winding stairs and stopped at ground level in front of an open window. They scratched at the window frame like dogs frustrated that a rabbit had escaped through a too-small hole.
Caemorn glided to a halt.
Though the open window he could see the gardens of the Mirryr mansion. His vision of the hundreds of flowering trees was interrupted by the sight of Bone Bear shaking one of them at the base.
Jacaranda flowers fell from it like rain onto the ground to blanket the grass in purple.
“You two, meet me in the garden. Go,” he instructed the werewolves. They slipped away to find another route outside.
Caemorn looked around and seeing no one, did something entirely unbefitting one of the headmasters of the Ever Dark Academy. He left the neon yellow backpack inside as he climbed out the window without grace or elegance.
‘This was so much easier when I was smaller.’
‘Oh yes,’ a voice from his past responded. ‘That is why I had all those bars put over the windows. We did have fun together, didn’t we?’
'Balthazar ', he called mentally.
'It is such a thankless job you know, being everyone’s walkie-talkie.' Balthazar complained.
'Call your pet. It is making a nuisance of itself.'
He could practically feel the mental blink.
'Meffie? She could never be anything but a blessing.' Balthazar said offended.
'No. Bone Bear.'
'If anything, it is more yours than mine,' Balbazar replied, but the bear skeleton obeyed and left the tree, plodding over to Caemorn.
'We both know I am not the one making it follow Christian around like a protective hound.' Caemorn pointed out.
'Point made. Point made,' Balbazar relented.
'But you do have a murder of undead birds watching Christian’s every move.'
Bone Bear pawed at Caemorn’s robes, begging to be petted.
'Have you found him?'
Camorn looked up into the tree and made eye contact with a pair of frightened green eyes.
He ended the connection. 'Yes.'