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Before—Vale
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Vale was born in a damp room in the caverns of the Underworld. After hours of labor, his mother, Yorna, gave birth to a beautiful demon male—the first and only with a live heartbeat. That steady beat thrummed up and down the dark halls of the Underworld. She could not hold him with her wrists bound to her ankles, but she lay beside him, whispering words in his ear.
After unlocking the cell, Vale’s father charged into the room, scooped up the little infant and tossed him to the ground away from Yorna.
“What have you done?” he yelled at her.
Yorna quaked and shook violently from the sound of her master’s voice. “I did nothing. Please, don’t take him away.” She attempted to crawl to her child, but the chains held her back.
Yorna wouldn’t call herself good. She lived her life destroying and tearing apart souls by any means necessary, obeying her master’s orders. Things became different for her when she discovered she was with child. Her master’s child.
She reveled in each passing moment as her belly grew, until the day was bestowed upon her that she knew she had to leave. The child could not be raised by her master—so she ran.
Yorna attempted to escape out of the realm but failed before being dragged back to her master in thick and heavy chains, binding her wrists to her ankles. The remainder of her pregnancy was spent with clangs of her metal chains echoing through the cell.
Yanking her chin in his large hand, Master narrowed his ebony eyes at her. With the sneer on his face, she knew this would not end well. “Please, Master. Don’t separate Vale from me,” she pleaded. Yorna had known a demon should never beg, yet she had done it anyway.
His sneer turned into a devious smile that warned Yorna what would become of her. She would not see Vale again. Yorna’s dead heart grew frantic as her eyes slid to where her little Vale rested. Master now watched the baby with a curious expression. Curled on his side in a snug ball, Vale did not wail, even after being slung to the ground. His heartbeats were miraculous music, singing to her his lovely song.
Master released Yorna’s chin and thrust her face to the side. As her black hair flung into her eyes, all she could do was watch. Lifting the baby off the freezing floor, he stared into the peaceful, unconscious face. Then his gaze shifted back to Yorna. “You did this, you made him this way with your witchery.”
Yorna loathed her master, wished flames would burn him until he was nothing. She wanted to gut him to pieces, take the baby and run, but it was useless. He always got what he wanted.
Master lifted his hand and placed it over the tiny infant’s chest. A current popped and crackled until Vale’s heartbeat quieted. No other sound could be heard, except for the continuous soft breaths of the child.
He gingerly set Vale back on the ground as though he hadn’t taken away the one beautiful thing here. With no time to react, Master ran at Yorna with speed quicker than a flash of light. “The child is only mine, Yorna.” Then he twisted her neck with a loud snap before vanquishing her soul.
Nine-year-old Vale’s eyelids bolted open. He knew exactly where he was—his cage. Father made him sleep in one at night when he could not keep an eye on him.
Vale brought his frail hand to his chest and felt the beat that had come back to life. Letting out a small sigh of relief, he left his palm over his heart, absorbing the thump, thump. With the organ’s movement, he was able to remember his mother. Despite how short their time together had been, he had loved her. But then he remembered his father, and what he would do once he heard Vale’s heartbeat had restarted.
At that moment, he thought maybe it would have been better if his heartbeat had never come back at all because he knew what his father would do next—to him.
Vale leaned forward, pressing his small chest against the cool floor, trying to conceal the vibrato as long as he could.
There was no escaping the iron bars, so he relished his new thoughts and shoved out the memories of his father—imagining perhaps one day, he would have enough strength to leave his prison.
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard loud, heavy footsteps—the sound of anger, of hate.
Vale didn’t rise, though. He remained on the floor with his eyes hidden behind the darkness of his lids, attempting to summon a power that would make his father disappear. But he didn’t have the strength to bring forth any energy. The gate wrenched open and slammed against the wall. He still did not open his eyes as he tried to hold on to wishes and hopes.
Two hands lifted him by his shirt and shoved him against the wall, his lids flicking open. Vale then met the two darkened irises of his father.
“Vale? Is it already time for a lesson?” His father’s lip curled, his eyes gleaming with a hidden thrill.
“No, Father.” There was no use pleading or begging because as Vale had learned, it only made him more vulnerable and his father more pleased that he was at his mercy.
“Oh, I think it is.” Father dropped him, and Vale’s small arm roughly hit the ground.
As soon as he lifted his head, Vale gazed toward the open door, ready to try and make an escape. His father waved a hand in the air, slamming the gate shut, and locking it, as though he had read every one of Vale’s thoughts of desertion.
His father pulled out a long brown whip hidden behind his back, the edges lined with sharp metal spikes. Father would give Vale his lesson before snuffing out his heart once more.
Vale did not cry, did not scream as the whip cracked down upon him, time and time again. Thick blood poured out from his wounds, and before they would heal, the whip would snap down again, harder than before. With each heavy crack, Vale tried to hold onto his hope of the possibility of one day escaping. As much as Vale wished for his father to stop his heart and the pain, he wanted to keep all his memories more, so he could eventually find a way out. One day he would be happy because he knew it did exist, even if for the time being it was only hidden in his dreams. Always, he would try to find it.
As Vale grew, there were moments when his heartbeat would return on its own, and he would remember every detail from the instant he was born. When the memories would strike through him like lightning, he wanted to run, tried to run, but his father could always hear the heartbeat when he drew close enough. Then, all of himself, including his wishes and hopes, was buried back into the depths of his mind where there would be no remembering.
Vale’s father had taught the dark part of him well. He’d shown him everything there was to the Underworld, including the souls he would one day torture.
That time was now.
“Vale, grab the scalpel.” His father pointed to a tray lined with a variety of sharp objects. A thrill flowed through Vale’s limbs at his father’s trust in him to help perform his duties.
“Yes, Father.” Vale padded to the tray and lifted the cool steel into his palm, rolling it delicately back and forth. He absorbed the moment.
Rows of cages filled the room—in one sat a woman, bright red hair falling past her shoulders. She crouched on all fours and stared at him, smirking. “I want that one.” Vale pointed in her direction and sauntered toward the cage.
A strange tightness formed in Vale’s chest, as if something was knocking at his ribs. Something sparked in his head, an image of an emerald-eyed female he had forgotten existed, who he would have called mother, followed by a rush of wrongness for all these souls in cages. He needed to escape the Underworld as his mother had whispered in his ear when he was first born.
Vale would get out. He would leave this place. Hastily, he turned toward his father, ignoring the surprise crossing his face, and thrust the scalpel into his chest and ran.
He was quicker than his father. Endless times Vale had done this but was always found and dragged back. This time would be different. The burn in his chest felt good, and he did not want it to go away again.
He passed by the darkened stone halls where souls endlessly wandered, others locked in more cages, and none remembering who they were. With certainty, he knew he could not become like them again. Not now and not for all eternity.
Vale reached the dim black hall, where a bitter, salty smell invaded his nose. Everyone there might be dead, but they still bled. Again and again and again.
The barrier was not far away, and he believed he would make it out this time. His father would not be able to get through, but Vale could. Hurling himself at the obsidian stone wall, he was roughly tossed back. Vale lunged toward it four more times before the pounding of his father’s heavy footsteps slapping against the ground drew near.
“You cannot get through with a heartbeat, and when I shut it off again, you won’t remember.” His father’s lips curled into a calculated smile as his dark gaze penetrated Vale’s.
Father cocked his head. “I will tell you something, Vale. I figured a way to shut it off so it does not come back easily this time. You will do as I say, and you will come up with a plan to serve as I do down here, except you will do it up there with the humans.” Vale’s hands trembled as he planted himself against the wall. He tried to back up farther, even though there was nowhere left to go.
“I will not perform what you tell me to, Father. I’ll remember. I always do.” Vale lifted his chin in defiance at his father, even with fear coursing through his veins.
His father savagely arched an eyebrow. “Not this time.” Vale felt a hit to his head and blackness darkened to nothing.
Vale awoke in the same room with the rows of cages from earlier. The tray of torturous devices rested across from him, prepped for his choosing. Swallowing deeply, he blinked several times to rid the blurriness of his surroundings.
It was near impossible to push himself up to a sitting position as he found his wrists were chained at his ankles. He was not surprised. This was the same tactic his father used endlessly. But he finally managed to bring himself up to a sitting position.
Vale turned his head side to side, and there was nothing to see. All he could do was listen to the screams reverberating from the hallways. His father was not there, but he knew he would be back. His father would shut him down again, but it was temporary. It would always be temporary, and he was strong enough to find his way back. He had to.
When Vale looked back at the rows of cages, his gaze stopped on the one with the redheaded female. Without fear and only confidence, she watched him. He slid his eyes away from her—something was not right with the female, more than the other corrupt souls there.
“I ripped them to shreds up there,” she cried out.
Vale chose to neglect the mad creature and peered down at his knees. At that moment, he desperately yearned to be out of the chains and away from her. But she continued to speak, seeming not to care that he was not listening to her.
“You will, too.”
He turned to her then. “Listen. I do not care what you are talking about. I am not going to tear apart anyone—up there or down here.”
Her expression turned smug. “I may be the first for you to torture once you turn back into your better self, but I will get your father on my side. Since you are special and are able to bring souls with you, I will help. I heard what your father had to say about you.”
Vale ignored the mad female, but her words continued to tap at him. She rambled on about how everyone believed Jack to have been a male and that made the situation easier for her.
Why was she the only one down here who remembered their past life? Vale thought.
The redhead’s words were cut off by his father’s entrance. “Vale, it’s time. You are to begin on these souls, now.” Before Vale could protest, his father held up a new device he must have crafted himself. As it pulsated with an electric current, Vale tried to move away, but his chains only caused him to stumble to the ground.
In an instant, his father’s instrument was now pressed at Vale’s chest. As his body vibrated from the instrument, Vale wondered if maybe this time he would not wake again. And in a moment of weakness, he decided he would be fine with that. But no, he shook that awful thought away because that would mean his father would have won.
Vale’s memories gradually faded as his heart slowed, but he fought to keep them from escaping. He held his eyelids tightly together, not looking at his father, the strange female, or the instruments he knew he would be picking up if he let the memories vanish. His heart barely pumped, taking two more sluggish beats before ceasing.
He unclenched his eyelids and studied the male in front of him with black eyes, blond curls, and his jaw grinding. His father, his master.
“What do you remember?” the male asked.
Frowning, Vale tried to touch his head, but his wrists were chained. Remember? An eagerness stormed through him until he grinned with pleasure. “I was about to get started.” Vale’s dark gaze fell on the corrupt souls in their cages.
His father smiled a wicked grin in return. “Good. Now let us begin. You are master to all these souls.” His father, glowing with pride, held his arm up and dragged it across the air in front of the cages.
Father unlocked the chains binding Vale’s wrists and ankles. As they clacked to the ground, Vale rose to full height and walked to where his father motioned at a tray of instruments.
“Now, as we were before. Pick one,” his father demanded.
Vale ran his tongue across his teeth while staring at the shiny instruments with longing. He lifted a scalpel from the middle and focused on the cages. His father was already moving to the one with the redheaded female covered in filth. She crawled out, and a smile tugged the edges of her lips that Vale did not understand.
He did not care, though—he was going to slice her up in ways that would make her never stop screaming.
