Chapter 1

Inzo

The rain falls fast and heavy. Thunder cracks and lightning splits the night sky, great forks of light so bright they assault my closed eyes through the undressed window. I shift on my bed, the ache in my arm dull and heavy and I know it will be another sleepless night for me despite the tiredness that eats at my bones.

It is nights like these—and there are many of them on this part of the planet—that I am in danger of losing myself. Of returning to the young boy that I once was. The memories creeping into my awareness and picking at my sanity until all that’s left are the charred remains of an orc that was never likely to become the chieftain, and now shuns his clan before it shuns him.

Why this still lives inside even though I am not that small child is as frustrating as it is painful. A warrior and an elder, I am reduced to this. A quivering orcling in the body of an adult. It is the greatest and most shameful of the secrets that I keep locked away.

No one will get to witness it. It would do nothing but add to the humiliation that I already carry in such large quantities. A load so heavy I would finally break under the weight of it.

Alone in my home on the outskirts of the settlement I am less burdened by the questions and concerns of those that would likely see this part of me if I were to live amongst them. Orcs are a proud species, and there is no honor to be found in this type of weakness.

Others cannot be trusted; I should know this more than any in the clan. Not just because I was so cruelly treated by my father, but because neither can I. Chief Loki is my older cousin, and yet I have opposed him at every given opportunity during my time on the Council.

It is to be expected, this was how I was raised—to challenge him. To be the chieftain and not just the next in line. Though he is family he is still an enemy and the reason why I now suffer in this way.

This is why those in my clan believe me to act only in the interests of myself. Because I am the one that knows and is willing to recognize that oneself is the only person that can be relied upon.

But what happens when that self is so damaged it can no longer work for you? There are times such as this when the wounded child within me seems to want to break me. To push me over the edge so that it can save itself and be free of this torment. Maybe one day I will let it.

I feel the crack of thunder in my chest as though it is meant just for me. The beating of the rain on the already soaked ground is like torture, because no matter how heavy it falls it can never wash away the darkness that lives inside me, even if I were to expose every inch of my scarred skin to it.

My eyes are closed, and the memories come back to haunt me like ghosts. Occupying the caverns inside my mind, floating through and ripping out the worst of the recollections to show me time and again.

He is always at the center of them.

The one whose job it was to guide and protect me, yet who chose to tread a very different path. One that has almost become the ruin of me. His face enters my mind, the words that he bellows into my own, as his spit lands on my skin before the blows.

Thwack!

You should be the next chieftain!

Thwack!

You should be the one to take charge of the Burning Sun Clan.

Thwack!

There is no room for weakness, like your brother!

The words swim around my head, pressing at places that are raw and still bloody. Where there are wounds that will never heal but have festered and grown with each passing year. Wounds inflicted for never quite being good enough, despite almost killing myself trying.

Loki was always a worthy opponent, and every time I failed to overshadow him, I was punished. I still feel the deep ache in my belly and the stabbing pains that made it hard to even walk, the results of being deprived of food for days and nights on end for my failures.

The scarred and marked skin on my body is nothing compared to the wounds inside me. The screams I hear inside my own head—my screams. When he burned my back. When he locked me in the basement, void of light but abundant in roaches and rodents. Each kick, punch and slap. None of it has ever left me and I am beginning to realize that it never will.

Never mind being treated like a son, I was not even treated like an orc. There are humans that have fared better in the most savage of clans and brutal of settlements. There are animals bred for slaughter that have known a more dignified life than I did as a child.

The orc that wraps himself up in this fetal position is far from the one I have presented to the world. If Loki could see me now he would surely be as disgusted with me as my own father was. As repulsed as I am with myself.

My spirit is broken as is my body and therefore my life holds no purpose. All of the beatings, the torture, the words that took a small child and poisoned him—it was all for nothing.

My chest heaves for air. I try to move, to get up from my bed, but my body will not respond to the commands that I give it. I am not sleeping, and I am not awake, but in the in-between place, where I am many things. Conscious and unconscious. A boy and a man. Where everything that I have endured is as fresh and alive as if it is happening now.

The scarred tissue on the back of my head burns as if it is on fire and I thrash against the furs, falling onto the floor but unable to get up. Reaching up for the pitcher of water on my table I knock it and it falls, soaking me in its contents.

My arm throbs so violently it makes me sick to my stomach and the little movement that I have in it causes a pain so searing I think I may pass out. It won’t be the first time. This is the way that I live, wishing that some days I did not and that it was I that was taken to the Great War God, and not my young brother.

But that was not to be. Instead, I must endure this torture, until I too am called. The memories that have rotted my insides, the thoughts that will always endure as I navigate my way through this world alone.

The rain falls, the thunder claps, the lightning strikes and his voice echoes through my mind. I feel every strike, every kick, every gnaw of every rodent feasting at my bleeding flesh.

You will never be good enough to defeat Loki!

You are nothing!

You too should have died just like your weak-bodied brother!

The cries that leave me seem to come from a place unknown. A place so dark and deep and corrupted I am terrified to even know that it exists. But no one will hear my screams. I am alone and lost. Just as I always was and as I always will be.