He was the first to sin. The first to be condemned and the last man standing. CAINE has worn many names across centuries but in this brand new installment of Cadeverse, Caine is The Dark Father, Cassian Cade.
He carried with him an eternal curse and a mark as the divine teachings suggest. God marked him as an outcast of humanity so Caine decided that if he couldn't belong to humanity, he would create a better version of it and so came the establishment of the House of Cade, an ancient vampiric order composed of those who he had shared the gift of immortality to.
One day, he sets foot in a small town of Loudun, France and meets one force of a woman that would rewrite his empire's tale and perhaps, his. Forever.
₊˚ This novelette has 6 chapters:
Chapter 1: The Maiden in Loudun
Chapter 2: The Persecution
Chapter 3: The House of Cade
Chapter 5: The Birth of Nyx Cade
When Cassian Cade (CAINE) descended upon Loudun in 1639, he came not as the Dark Father, but as a businessman. It was like a masquerade for him and he had learned over millennia that mortals fear the divine but seemingly worship the wealthy. Power among the living was bought, and Cassian had been collecting interest since the dawn of time.
Loudun as a town was sick. The people were suffering through a vicious bout of illness that had turned the streets anxious and the church pews full.
He found a long queue wound around the block from a small, unremarkable clinic near the market square. Dozens of people were waiting for Doctor Boné. To the Dark Father, who had watched the very first human breath leave the body, the scene was a tragic comedy. Here were pious people queuing up to beg another doomed mortal soul for a reprieve from their illnesses.
He personally paid the clinic a visit one day. The renowned Dr. Boné was not, it turned out, particularly remarkable but was rather dull and egotistical. Cassian was about to leave when a young boy was brought in. He was perhaps eight years old, and he was convulsing. His parents half-carried him through the door, the room seemed to hold its breath waiting for the great doctor to act.
Dr. Boné froze. He stood there a half-second too long and in that half-second someone else moved. She came from behind a curtain at the back of the clinic, the doctor’s assistant, Cassian had assumed. She was already moving before she’d fully arrived, already talking to the parents in a low, steady voice that cut right through the noise of the room. She cleared the space around the boy. Dr. Boné remembered himself and stepped forward to hover uselessly beside her, giving her instructions.
Cassian eyed the light haired maiden and for a second, her gaze flicked his way and that very moment, it was as if he felt something.
Cassian came back the next week. And the week after that. It would be easy to assume that a gentleman like him would repeatedly visit the clinic for the beautiful maiden that was Dr. Boné’s assistant. Though to Cassian, she truly was but there was something almost different about her. Something he had not seen in a long time.
“Noxienne de Saint Claire.” she said when he asked her of her name. What actually kept drawing him back was harder to name.
The witch hunts arrived in Loudun the way fashions do. A town to the east had begun trying suspected practitioners of dark magic, and the stories traveled, and fear, as it always does, found new places to take root.
In Loudun, it took root quickly. Women were accused first and most often. This was, Cassian reflected, not a coincidence but a pattern as old as any he’d witnessed. It was not that long that these accusations came for Noxienne Months of whispers, of patients she’d healed swearing later they’d only felt better by chance, of jealous wives and a town that needed someone to blame for its suffering. Through all of it, Dr. Boné, who had employed her for five years, said nothing in her defense. She was arrested one night and her trial was held on a grey Tuesday. Cassian sat at the back of the hall.
The patients she’d healed were called to testify. One by one, they looked at the floor and said what the crowd wanted to hear: that Noixienne did in fact use dark magic on them.
Noxienne argued and defended herself seeing no one was willing to do so. She told them she had learned from Dr. Boné’s own notes and texts. She told them there was nothing dark about what she did, only natural remedies and careful study. She told them the truth, which was the one thing the room had already decided not to hear. Dr. Boné did not confirm her statements and this made her case hopeless. Noixienne was sentenced to death by fire on the thirteenth of the month.
She spent her last days praying fervently in her damp cell. Just when she was convinced her god had left her to her persecution, the door to her cell opened and from the shadows, a familiar face emerged.
Cassian took her away from that damp cell that same night, leaving the pyres of Loudun far behind. He then brought her to his sprawling estate in Paris. It was there that she met his family. He did not specify if he meant biologically or not but she can take a guess as they looked nothing like him. One sister possessed the elegant beauty of an Oriental; another bore the regal, dark features of a Moorish prince. Yet, it wasn't just their faces that unsettled her, it was the way they looked at her.
It didn't take her long to figure out that something was wrong with this family. Noxienne saw through the noble masks and realized that this 'family' she had been brought into was an order. A group of the powerful and rich with Cassian being the head. She swore at some point she overheard some of them address him, “Dark Father”.
Doubt and suspicion began to take over her. Sensing this, Cassian visited her in her chambers one night, revealing the truth behind his so-called family and himself.
“Do you really think I am not right in the head, Monsieur?” she snapped. “You are telling me you are Caine, the first son?” it took a lot for her to say that without bursting into laughter or sounding like she was mocking him.
Convinced she was the captive of a madman, she fled the estate that night and threw herself into the unfamiliar streets of Paris with nothing with her. In a dark alley near the Seine, a group of men cornered her and demanded she dance for them.
Noxienne fought like a cornered cat, throwing stones and curses, but a heavy blow to her head sent the world spinning into darkness. The last things she heard were a chorus of horrific screams and the sensation of being lifted by a pair of strong arms.
Noxienne woke to the smell of beeswax and expensive linen. When she opened her eyes she realized she was back in Cassian’s estate. Cassian sat near the foot of her bed, his silhouette cutting a dark, still shape against the window. He spoke to her softly about the world’s cruelty, about how it looked at a woman with no coin and no protector as nothing more than prey.
“However, I can change that for you, Noixienne," he said.
Noxienne’s hand twitched beneath the sheets. If she hadn’t been so battered, and if he hadn’t just pulled her out of the gutter for the second time in a week, she might have slapped the condescension right off his face.
"If this is your way of getting under my skirt," she rasped, her throat still raw from the screaming in the alley, "then just say it and be done."
Cassian gave out a low dry chuckle, "It is not."
"Then what?" Noxienne snapped, her patience running low. "What could you possibly want from me? I have nothing.”
Cassian was quiet for a moment and then he spoke, “And that is why I chose you.” He stood from where he sat and was prepared to leave. "I am in no rush for an answer, Mademoiselle. Think about it."
Over the next few days, she moved through the estate like a ghost among strangers. The rest of the Cades wouldn't speak to her and were rather wary of her. It was Jean who spoke to her. He was one of the members whom Cassian treated like a brother, but Noxienne couldn't look at Jean without thinking that if Cassian was truly who he claimed to be (Cain, the First Sinner) then he knew he was not really the type to be trusted as a brother.
In one of their conversations, Jean shared with her how Cassian found him. He told her that Cassian pulled him from the wreckage of a violent home, taking him in when he had no one left. He’d been offered a place in his estate and a chance to be "one of them," just like she had.
However, he spoke nothing about the gift and so Noxienne found herself asking him about it.
"He offered you The Gift?" His eyes widened, a flash of genuine shock breaking through his normally calm facade but then he just as quickly forced his features back into a polite, empty expression. "Then you must consider it. The Dark Fa—"
"It’s alright," Noxienne assured him, sensing his hesitation. "I’ve heard them call him that. You don't have to hide it. Although I find it odd if I am being honest."
Jean went still, his gaze dropping to the floor. "He never offered that to the rest of us. Not in that way. He must have seen something in you that he’s so willing to share a piece of himself with you."
Noxienne felt his sincerity but she also caught something in his voice.
This absurd. She thought. She had spent her life with nothing, and now she was offered with something she didn't even understand.
What did she have left to lose though? She had nothing after all.
Later on, Noxienne accepted the offer and knew that her life would never be the same but maybe that is the very reason why she agreed in the first place. She wanted change.
It all began when Cassian bled himself with a blade and allowed her to drink from him. His blood tasted of copper and fire in liquid form seeping inside her. He cradled her face, gently guiding her head back to expose the soft curve of her throat. A shiver ran through her as she felt his breath linger against her skin.
Then, a sharp piercing sensation shattered her stillness. Strength drained from her limbs as a wave of pain and ecstasy crashed over her. Locked in his grip, Noxienne stopped fighting the inevitable and slumped against his chest and let the world blur into a rhythmic, pulsing heat.
Cassian remained behind locked doors for days after that night. She heard that their "sharing" had drained him. In his absence, Noxienne’s body felt different. She was too fast and her senses sharpened to an overwhelming edge. She could hear the spiders spinning webs in the corners and the frantic thrum of every person's heart whenever they rode out to the city.
Her skin had turned to a seemingly translucent marble. When her temper flared, black veins branched across her cheekbones and her eyes became voids of obsidian as her fangs bared. With it was an unrelenting thirst she could never quench with any drink. Whenever she thought of how she drank Cassian’s blood, her thirst would just throb.
“Your body is changing. You are becoming one of us.” Jean told her when she asked him what was happening to her.
“Well, relieve me from this and let me drink from you then if that is so.”
Jean looked at her, astonished. “I- I believe he has not told you yet.”
“Told me what exactly?” Noixienne thought there were many things she was not told of.
"You are his fledgling and he is your creator," Jean said, "That means you are woven into his very being. You cannot drink from any of us as your bite would kill us and none of us can drink from you. The result would all be the same." He paused. "You are, in every sense, untouchable. Only the Dark Father can have you."
"I am no man's possession-"
"You are not." he quickly assured her. "He simply wanted you to be his companion. If I may add, our mortal self is like a skin we learn to outgrow, Noxienne. Just like us, you will need to leave it behind."
Later on, she learned that they called it 'The Renaissance' and that joining the House of Cade meant she had to shed her past, starting with the name she was given at birth.
The ceremony was held in the estate’s grand hall and Cassian stood before the gathered order. He looked down at her, his eyes full of a dark, proprietary pride.
"With all of you bearing witness," Cassian’s voice boomed, "I hereby declare you..."
He paused and looked at her. In that very moment, Noxienne held his gaze with the same intensity as he held hers.
"Nyx. Nyx Cade." she told him.
A slow, dangerous smile painted across Cassian’s lips. "Then I hereby declare you, Nyx Cade, of the House of Cade."
