Contents:
Chapter 1: Eredin van Bréacc
Young Eredin Van Bréacc born as the second son of the Royal Family Van Bréacc. His mother a kindhearted and beautiful women with a tragic tale. She did as she was told, giving the king his heir after the wedding night, but the marriage was out of obligation, there never was any love left for her.
His father, a strict noble from a long running line of Landowners and traders, generational wealth was all he cared about. He ruled with an iron first, and he parented just as brutally. Beating where on the daily, a small mistake will have you scrub the castle floors with a toothbrush. Perfection was expected and nothing less was a personal betrayal.
Three years before him came his older brother, Auberon, his best friend, mentor, teacher and role model. As the oldest he would once rule the kingdom and he suffered under his father’s rules the most, as he was meant to be the perfect, capable next king. Though he did sometimes to and sneaked around his duties to spend time with his little brother.
Their favorite thing to do was head down to the royal knights and “borrow” their swords and practice on each other. They wore their own armor and even had several soldier friends that helped them learn to defend themselves. While Auberon preferred a more direct approach Eredin favored the more secretive approach which was more elegant in his young eyes. Fencing for example was something Eredin always loved to watch, the dagger had always been his favorite tool and weapon of choice, but anything fancy caught his eye.
As Eredin was born, something was different from the start. Their parents, both high elves and so was his little brother, looked nothing like him. His pale skin, white eyes and silken black hair stood out like a sore thumb. “Birth defect” the doctor claimed but he knew this wasn’t the case. He could do things nobody else in his family could, by sheer imagination he could change into whatever person he wanted to be. It came almost natural to him. Taken aback by that, his father had him tested more thoroughly by several healers and the results changed their dynamic forever. He was not the king’s son. The wife, stuck in a loveless marriage and slept with one of the courts spies, a changeling. Though he had lots of his mother’s features the changeling trait was strong in him.
After that his father basically threw him away, but not publicly. The public must never know about this scandal. The wife was reprimanded harshly and Eredin got placed upon house arrest. If the public would see him, they would see that the queen had been unfaithful. Even if he lost his fathers love his mother still adored him and his older brother, who was old enough to know what happened, still saw him as an van Bréacc. He promised him a better tomorrow, a seat at the royal table by his side once their father passed, equal treatment and equal opportunities.
He would be treated as a royal consort, the right hand of the future king, his brother. But sadly, it never came to that. One cold stormy night Eredin heard metallic clanking coming from the hallway, down where his parents slept. He must have not been older than 15 at the time. Curious and suspicious of what was happening in the middle of the night he took his trusted favorite dagger and snuck out of his room.
The door to his parent’s room was not locked, and no guards were in sight. He peaked inside and faced what no young boy should ever see. A monstrous beast was devouring his parents’ corpses surrounded by royal guards ripped in half still in their armor. It had slashed them open like pigs and seemed to enjoy this. He had never seen such a gruesome beast before. In shock and disgust, he moved back and dropped his dagger which clattered loudly to the floor.
The creature heard this and immediately saw him and set a new target. Frozen in fear he could not turn his eyes away from the creature as it charged him and gravely wounded him with several slashes. Disfiguring him for life. His vision clouded red, he let out screams of agony before he collapsed onto the cold stone tiles.
The last thing he saw was the beast roaring as a voiced called out to him: “Eri… No!.”
He forced himself to roll to his side and saw his brother grab a sword of a dead guard and stand before him, shaking, tears in his eyes. Seeing his beloved brother stand tall against this beast he grasped at the last of his strength and pulled himself towards his dagger, willing to join the fight. But he couldn’t get up, his wounds, his body, it just gave up. He could only cry out for his brother as the creature charged at Auberon and did what it did to everyone. His entire world was ripped away from him within seconds, his death was fast, and hopefully painless.
His last will to fight left him at that moment and he fainted from blood loss and shock. He awoke hours later, hot searing pain shooting through his body. For a moment he remembered nothing, then he felt the dagger in his hand, and saw the blood around him. He wanted to jump up and run towards his brother, but he was still weak, still bleeding, still injured. He crawled on the floor towards his brother’s corpse. He shook and screamed and cried for him to open his eyes, for him to breathe again for his heart to beat again, but it was in vain.
Seeing the death and destruction around him something just broke inside the young boy. Everything he ever knew was gone, the only two people that loved him were dead. Why did he have to wake up, why did the creature not eat him when he was unconscious. In that moment he just wanted to take the dagger and cut his own heart out, anything to numb this pain. But he didn’t, he would find this creature, and whoever let it inside the fortified castle.
This was no longer an accident for him, the walls were reaching into he sky, the heavy doors always locked and guarded, but there was nobody and nothing. How did this beast get in? Why was it here? Why did it only target the royal family? Something was off with all of this. And Eredin would find out what this was
He slowly got off the floor and closed his brothers’ eyes as a last goodbye. He then ripped off the pendant around Auberon’s neck. A golden necklace with an oval pendant, two pictures were inside, him and his brother. “You are always going to be my brother.”, he said as he showed him for the first time. Keeping a picture of Eredin always close to his heart.
Now it was his turn to carry his brother within his heart and soul. With nothing left to live for, a court that saw him as a bastard and a public that believed him to be nothing but a sicklish child, he chose to leave. Letting everyone believe that he was killed and eaten. It would at best throw the beast of his trial once it realized he was still alive. He had to go into hiding and run far, far away. away from everything and everybody he ever knew.
He traveled for weeks on end under his first name, he dropped his title as prince consort and van Bréacc because he never truly belonged anyway, this was his brother’s name and title, he would maybe reclaim it one day, but that day was far away. Kind healers from another kingdom found him in makeshift bandages, running a high fever from infection and looking at the brink of death. They took him in for a while and made sure he had proper medical care which lived his life. The attack however left him disfigured blind in one eye. Everyone would recognize him in this state, he was forever branded with the marks of the monster.
So he made a choice, after he left the healers care he chose to change his appearance to his brother. Made himself look a little older, or what he thought his brother would look like in a few years. Nobody shall ever see is disfigured face and body again, he also needed to appear older to survive in this strange world out there.
Since he had never truly been outside everything was a challenge to him, survival seemed impossible, he stole what he could get, slept in empty alleys, and relied on the sheer kindness of people. That was until a member of a local underground organization came up to him and offered him a place in exchange for doing some of their dirty work. This was more than he had in months so even if his moral compass said no he chose to follow along, becoming a member of the underground clan of “The wild hunt”.
His time there changed him more than he ever imagined. All this hatred towards the world, the pain in his heart manifested into cold anger, and pure power. Within a few years he became one of their most feared Assassins of the clan. Their reach grew further with his help, whole gangs were eradicated by the same dagger that once caused all of this. He became ruthless in his pursuit of knowledge. He had never given up the search for answers. He would go out of his way to kill whoever might know more about this creature.
During the day, while he worked for the “Wild hunt” he felt nothing, he could kill a family in their sleep and would analyze every slash but in the dead of night, when it was just him and his thoughts, he would stare in the mirror for hours and change his face to what he thought his brother would look like. He was out for blood, no matter what it cost him, this beast had to die, and the people who made this possible had to be brought to justice.
Meanwhile in his Kingdom the death of the King and Queen had been mourned, Eredin was presumed dead with the amounts of blood found on the scene. A council had been created, a form of democratic group, since there were no heirs left. Eredin swore that once he knew the truth, he would return to his home and expose everything, taking back the throne that belonged to his brother and rule in his honor. But this would not be an easy journey, as he fell from grace and became a killer. People will hate him, the council will not believe him and the monster was still out there, he had to play his cards close to his chest and very carefully.