The house was silent that night.
Too silent.
Ace lay awake on his thin mattress, every muscle taut, listening to the emptiness. The air felt heavier than usual, thick with something unseen. He knew why.
His parents were preparing.
He could almost hear them in the cellar, chanting to shadows, weaving the cords that would bind him to the Darkness. His blood, his body, his life — all for their bargain.
He was no longer a child in their eyes. He was currency.
⸻
"It is time," Orpheus's voice murmured inside him, grave and steady. "You've lingered in their chains long enough. Tonight, the son dies."
Ace rose, the floorboards creaking beneath his bare feet. He moved carefully, deliberately, as though every step was already written.
His hand lingered on the ring, the dragon's mark glimmering faintly in the dark. His pulse thundered in his ears, but his heart felt steady, anchored by something cold and resolute.
⸻
He started with the window.
The wood frame had been loose for weeks, weakened by rot. Slowly, silently, he pressed against it until the nails creaked loose. A gap opened wide enough for him to slip through.
But leaving wasn't enough.
If he simply vanished, they would hunt him. They would call him a runaway. A failure. A waste.
No — they had to believe he was gone. Completely.
He pulled a scrap of cloth from his drawer — an old shirt torn at the shoulder, blood still staining the fabric from a recent beating. He left it at the base of the window, snagged on the jagged wood, as though he'd fallen.
Below the house, the river waited — black and merciless in the moonlight. If they saw the cloth, if they saw the water, they would think the boy had slipped, fallen, drowned.
He stared at the river until his reflection blurred into nothing.
Then he turned his back on it.
⸻
Inside his mind, Orpheus's presence grew heavier, deeper, like wings unfurling in the dark.
"And so the son dies."
The dragon's voice resonated like a vow.
"From this night forward, you are no longer the boy chained by blood. You are no longer the sacrifice they prepared. You are no longer theirs."
Ace's fists tightened, his nails biting into his palms. He whispered into the night, his voice hoarse but unbreaking:
"I am Ace. Ace Dragon."
The name rang through him like fire through dry wood, searing and unstoppable.
His old self—the beaten child, the chained son—crumbled in its wake, scattering like ash.
⸻
The house loomed behind him, its windows dark, its walls crooked. His prison. His grave.
He didn't look back again.
When his parents woke, they would find the cloth. They would follow the river. They would see only death.
Their son was gone.
And what remained…
was something else entirely.