This arc begins with Mother. This part follows Too Nice.
Chapter contains abuse, Mal's past as an unwilling child prostitute, and other terrible things, but nothing is explict.
Master List
My mother kept me confined. She wouldn’t let me leave her living space. Sometimes she remembered to feed me. Other times, she remembered but withheld it from me because I’d do something wrong. I would watch her finish off everything, my stomach grumbling, but unable to do anything about it.
My stuff – my clothes, my pack, and fighting gear – all left. Seb’s, too. Even when I had time to look around with her gone, I couldn’t find where she’d taken it all. It was gone.
Like Seb. The trap door swallowed Seb up, and that was it. When she let me into that room with supervision, she had the door locked up. My picks were gone with everything else. Nothing was an adequate substitute.
My mother pretended as if nothing was amiss. She’d ignore me like she always had. We slept in the same bed like we had when I was growing up. I’d woken up a couple times to her shoving me off of her, accustomed as I was to Seb holding me in their sleep. I didn’t sleep well without them.
I barely had hope on my side. The more days between between Seb’s fall and maybe seeing them again, the more sure I was that they hadn’t survived. There was no reason for keeping us separate. My mother didn’t need me back to haunt her space. I was difficult. A disappointment. Both points she ensured I understood.
“Come with me,” my mother demanded one day.
I lifted my eyes to check she’d been talking to me. There was no one else. So far, I’d been sequestered from other people. That was bound to change. I was her whore, right? It was time for me to earn my keep again.
“Now,” she stressed.
I followed her to the shop side of the building in silence. I automatically glanced to the trap door. It was unlocked. Wanting.
“Wait for me at the bottom.”
Concern flashed through me. “Is Sebazin okay?”
I should have expected the smack. I did my best to keep from flinching from the sharp sting. I’d been better than this, once.
“He is none of your concern anymore.” She pointed down to the trap door. “I’ll find you a job if that’s what you need so bad.”
No. No, I liked being in control of whom I slept with. I wanted it to only be Seb. We were going to get married. The misery was supposed to be over.
I stumbled to the hatch, nearly falling into the pit when I opened it. I found the top rung of a ladder and followed it down until my bare toes met dirt. And stone. Seb hadn’t had a soft landing.
I hugged myself as I waited for my eyes to adjust and my mother to join me. The air felt damp and significantly cooler under the earth. It was uncomfortable on my feet. It reminded me of the underdark, when Wyst had led us on a shortcut through it long before Gabe died.
My mother led me down the tunnel, partially natural from the appearances of the ceiling. She gripped on to my shirt to ensure I followed and didn’t slip away on her. It made my gait awkward, but I dealt with the poor balance without complaint. My tail made things easier.
She dragged me along for what felt like a few city blocks. Not for too long. The tunnel we followed opened up into a cavern lit with low candlelight for the humans that waited for us in its center. An elder, unassuming man with a well kept beard and carefully styled hair looked up at our approach.
“Jozren, this is your son?” he asked. He had a calm voice.
“Say nothing,” my mother ordered for only me to hear, pushing me forward. I stumbled to a carpeted place before the man, hugging myself and avoiding his eyes. My mother already had a job for me in mind. He could finishing unclothing me himself.
He reached forward, touching my face with chilled fingers to study me. His nose and eyelids were heavy with age. “This is Traust’s son?” he asked my mother.
“Yes.” I had a known father?
His eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”
“Without a doubt,” my mother answered with a fair amount of annoyance.
“I don’t see him here at all.” His fingers dropped my face to wipe at his robes like I had soiled them.
“Malxir takes on my mother’s features,” my mother explained shortly.
The man hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose he has.”
I wasn’t about to be used, then? This man knew my father. My grandmother. I hadn’t known either existed. My entire life had been my mother and endless strangers. It always felt foreign whenever Seb talked about their lineage, like it was normal to understand what all made you up.
“He had no magic?” the man asked.
“Fire,” my mother corrected. “He has hellfire. No connection to anything else. Bertran, he’s of no use to us.”
“Are you sure the magic hasn’t skipped a generation?” He stepped away from me, out of my peripheral. “Traust was nearly as powerful as you. It’s hard to believe the combined potency of your sorcery would end.”
“This has been my disappointment for twenty years,” my mother muttered. “Malxir doesn’t even think he’s a man.”
“Whose fault is that, Jozren?” Bertram asked with veiled disdain. “Why would this other tiefling be better? He’s also not a sorcerer.”
I jerked my head up. Sebazin. They lived through the sedative and the fall.
“Sebazin is the last remaining Krimzik of our old, rival clan. He slaughtered them all, presumably. We could revitalize his clan and claim its rights as our own.”
“This Krimzik clan,” Bertram mused. “Is that the trafficking clan from the west coast?”
“Yes.”
I looked between my mother and Bertram. Seb told me they didn’t remember what their clan did.
“Why would he be a better choice?”
“Rumor was that no one in the Krimzik clan was less than half blood devil,” my mother explained. “Anyone less than was murdered. Sebazin was the heir to the main branch of the family. A tight, controlled bloodline.”
“Inbred,” Bertram deadpanned.
“Does that matter to us? He’s more fiend than human.”
They were talking about Seb like they were some sort of breeding prospect. The chill air prickled my skin, gathering it into fierce goosebumps.
Bertram considered, turning his eyes back to me in an appraising manner. “Take his seed for yourself, Jozren. I prefer the idea of this one for Lowdie. A cumulation of you and Traust can’t be worthless.”
Me? Me as breeding stock. I glanced sharply at my mother, pleading silently. What kind of person talked about people like this? What kind of mother about her child? I was going to fight it. I couldn’t, once my mother realized she could threaten Seb on me.
“I’m too old to carry another child,” my mother said, displeasure dripping from her voice. “I will not subject myself to another parasite. Malxir nearly killed me.”
“Then is Sebazin also too old? He’d be around your age, wouldn’t he?”
“He’s been running with my son,” my mother grated. “He’s a disgusting homosexual, but he’s capable of trying. Believe me.”
I took a step back, dread compounding in my chest. My mother took the opportunity of us showing up with far, far too much intention. She’d used me as revenue for most of my life, renting me out to pedophiles that would pay to touch me and fuck me, but using Seb and me as some sort of breeders felt earth shattering. I’d never had the thought of conceiving a child before. I wasn’t meant to sire one.
“This one is about to bolt, Jozren,” Bertram said.
“Let him. He won’t get far,” my mother said.
They were talking about me. I felt their eyes touching me, dissecting me in a whole new way. I owned getting raised as a whore. I was not going to produce any progeny.
“Give me time to think about it,” Bertram sighed. He turned to the two silent men stationed behind him. “The options are a nice change. Though I do wish you would reconsider taking child with the Krimzik heir to test your theory. You would have full support if the pregnancy was as rough as your last.”
“I’m in my forties, Bertram. Traust and I had a difficult time conceiving. Sebazin bites. No.”
Hope spilled into my chest. Seb was alive and fighting. They did bite, though they’d only bitten me when they were buried inside me. Or so unraveled before we’d even touched. Always when they were lost to their lust. Never out of spite.
I needed to see them. I stared pleadingly at my mother. No words; I knew better.
“You suggest I allow him with my daughter when he’d half feral?” Bertram asked snidely. Daughter? How old was she? Bertram was ancient.
“He can be gagged,” my mother said. Her red eyes passed coldly over me, a knowing smile playing at the corner of her lips. “He wouldn’t dare harm her.”
Bertram sighed, turning his hips to signal the final closing of the conversation. “We will discuss.”
My mother nodded and motioned for me to join her. I complied without hesitation. “He believes you left him,” my mother told me in a low voice. She led me in a new direction. “Come with me and we’ll straighten that out right now.”
“Thank you,” I said with intense desperation. “Oh, please, thank you so much.”
She eyed me sideways, expression carefully neutral. “You’ve learned to beg.”
My shoulders jumped. I did. I shouldn’t have used it on my mother.
She remained quiet, lost in her thoughts, as she led me the rest of the way to Seb. We walked down a short, craggy hall that led to a heavy wooden door. The door opened to a small cavern with two iron bar gates.
Seb was strung up behind one. Their wrists were shackled together, their gambeson bunched up to their elbows. They had enough chain lead from a wrought anchor to rest their forearms onto their head from a half-sitting position. Their tail lay listless beside their manacled ankles, their feet bare with boots nowhere to be found.
I darted past my mother and collapsed into the bars, grasping the chilled metal into my palms. “Sebazin!”
Seb’s chin jerked up and their eyes lazily slid in my direction. “Hey.” Their lips were ashen and chapped, so dry under the cracks of blood.
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. The cell reeked of stale piss with some straw haphazardly tossed in Seb’s direction. A tipped bucket rested beside them. “I can’t do anything. I’m so sorry. I miss you so much.”
“Shh,” Seb inserted between my breaths until I finally bit back my apologies. “Enough of that.” Their tongue swiped uselessly over their lips. “I thought I told you to run.”
My horns clinked against the bars, my fingers grasping tighter. “I couldn’t leave you.”
“Why, little one?” I was taken aback by their use of their old pet name for me, before we’d become lovers. “What good comes from us both suffering?”
My mother grumbled and fixed her fingers through my shirt. “That’s enough. There’s your proof, Sebazin.”
“No,” I moaned. I tried to shake her hold. I’d seen that emptiness in Seb’s eyes before. They were giving up.
“It’s okay, Mal,” Seb lied breathlessly, hanging their head back down.
“Sebazin!” I shouted, only to be cuffed upside the head. I lost my grip on the bars. My mother tugged me away.
“Let me take care of them!” I begged. “Please?” They weren’t well. Something was wrong. “Please, Mother. Let me take care of them.” I dug my feet in, staring at Seb as their chest barely moved the gambeson with each breath.
My mother scoffed. “How do you think you’re going to do that?”
“I took care of myself before I left you,” I snapped. I jerked back when her fingers released my shirt. “I’ve taken care of Seb before.”
“Oh, really?” my mother asked. “Fine. Take care of him. His life is in your hands now. He can’t leave and if you do, he dies.” A grin overtook her. “If you realize it’s too difficult, he dies. I need him, Malxir. I need him more than I need you.”
“What? To rebuild the Krimzik clan? Abandon your sorcerers?” I demanded.
My mother’s sinister smile dropped and the back of her hand hit my mouth hard enough to draw blood. I staggered back, gripping Seb’s cell door to stay upright as the room spun about me. “I’m doing you a favor, insolent brat,” she spat.
I moaned softly while I focused back on her, blinking hard to settle her images into one. “Stop hitting me.” I didn’t manage to show the anger I felt.
Seb groaned behind me, too weak for their usual growl. The chains clattered as they shifted. “Abuse your child in front of me, you’ll give me revenge to look forward to, bitch,” they panted. “You want my baby? My heir? Do you think I just need to get a woman pregnant and you can use my name? What happens if it’s born a girl? Is a girl going to mean anything in your ideal clan? Girls meant nothing in my family.” Seb grimaced, baring their fangs. “High blood ones made more boys. More foot men.” They swallowed.
“Your clan is dead This is -”
“My name,” Seb cut in. “If you want the Krimzik name, a man needs to carry it. It’s not very respectable otherwise, even in your world. Is it?”
My mother pursed her lips and crossed her arms.
“You can’t produce a son out of me and expect people to respect the name. I’m known across the continent, for better or worse. Will that still be the case in another twenty years? Will my clan finally fade into obscurity where it belongs?”
“Your clan is ancient and legend -”
“Shut up,” Seb barked. They coughed, chains rattling as they tried to draw in. Their breaths came heavy when the coughs quieted.
“I need to raise him,” Seb croaked, “as mine. Claim him. Do you know how difficult and expensive it is to keep a prisoner long term? I’ll never be of willing flesh. Not unless you fuck my brain, but then you’ll never know how to run the clan like a Krimzik. I’m the only one that knows everything. Maybe that won’t matter when my son is old enough, but then what’s the point of my name? The clan is dead. Fucking leave it that way.”
They’d told me they didn’t know what their clan had done before they killed them all. Were they lying to me? Or my mother?
I recognized the word of magic from my mother, even if the spell wasn’t directed at me. Seb jerked with a strangled noise before slumping against the chains.
“Seb!” I cried weakly, grabbing back on to the bars.
“You have one hour each day to care for them, from the time I unlock the door to the tunnels. You will be back home before that hour is up.”
I whipped around to face her, my shoulder blades pressing into the bars. “Unlock this?” I asked.
“No.”
I was dumbfounded, rendered speechless for a moment. “Then how do I take care of them?”
My mother shrugged, spinning on her heel. “You’ll figure it out if it matters. He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in days. I don’t think he can go another. You have one hour, Malxir. Don’t waste it with your theatrics.”
She left me alone with Seb with no tools or direction. Seb was shackled opposite the door, too far to reach. I believed her, that they didn’t have time to waste. But unconscious, out of reach, what was I supposed to do?
“Come back to me, Seb,” I whispered. “Don’t die on me again. Please.”