Burden of Blue

If one of the child's parents is a magician, the child will be a mage too. No exceptions to this rule. The baby also inherits the color of hair and eyes of his ancestral god.

At first Xavier Nocturne was happy about it. It guaranteed that his child would be strong and that the family will flourish.

But on the day his son was born, he was in Metarit, guarding it, so he was among the first to find out about Citadelorous' betrayal.

On his way home he prayed for his child to not be a magician, for him to be an ordinary kid instead of becoming a blue-haired target like himself.

But there were no mistakes this time. His son had sapphire-blue hair and eyes, which meant that his life was not going to be easy.

Xavier even thought about making his son wear wigs all his life, but he quickly abandoned this idea. Everybody knew that children always inherit their ancestral god's features. Nobody would buy that.

For the last five years the Nocturne family was being pressed from all sides. The same happened with the other descendants of the traitor god.

Now everything was harder if your family had a blue-haired mage in it. Some even preferred banishing those and not having magicians at all, which always led to a massive loss in the family's power.

The most aggressive oppressors were the Gauss family, who were the closest followers of the God of Life before his death. The Deity awakened a theurgy in Harper Gauss, the head of the family, which made him a demigod. There were even rumors that he participated in a fight against Citadelorous and his servant.

The Gauss family was much richer and much more influential than the Nocturne family. They could easily make the Nocturne's business partners turn their back on the traitor god's descendants by offering bribes or simply intimidating other families.

Over time, they became more and more audacious: they started attacking the musical instrument manufacturing companies, the ones that belonged to the Nocturne family, depriving them of their income. They stole and broke the equipment, stealing money and simply vandalizing.

And now this...

 ***

The Nocturnes were abducted at night, soon after Zane's birthday. Xavier only remembered that he went to his room to sleep, and then he woke up in a cheap-looking cart. Soon, Zane and Faye came back to their senses too.

The heads of the three were foggy because of the soporific, their muscles ached because of the ropes and sleeping on cold solid wood.

They just woke up, tranquilizers in their blood still active, so they were all calm at first. But after half a minute, realization hit. They were in trouble. Faye and Xavier had been through the war, so they didn't panic. Their brains activated, trying to find a way out.

The cart was old and had many holes in its fabric, so they could see the world around them. The nature looked similar to the one surrounding their mansion, so Xavier assumed that they didn't go far from it. Could they use magic to break out and get to their mansion?

Zane and his father were tied in a way that prevented them from moving their hands and even their fingers, ensuring they couldn't cast spells. Faye was simply tied hand and foot.

Unlike his parents, Zane couldn't stay calm in such a situation for long; soon, he started crying and mumbling something through the gag in his mouth. Both parents wanted to hug him and calm him down, their hearts breaking, but they couldn't do anything, which added to their suffering.

The abductors heard the baby's cry. They wanted to avoid attracting attention, so the cart stopped. Four unremarkable men entered the cart, holding something in their hands. Zane's cry only became louder.

The four men turned out to be holding syringes. Without speaking, they approached the members of the Nocturne family. When one of them grabbed Zane's neck to give him an injection, the boy's scream turned into a screech.

Xavier swore to himself that he would never forget their simple-looking faces.

When the job was done, the four men left the cart, and soon it continued its way. A few minutes later, all the members of the Nocturne family were asleep.

 ***

The next time they woke up, they found themselves near a mansion, easily visible through the holes in the fabric. Over the last few years, Xavier had gathered information about the Gauss family, so he immediately understood that the manor was theirs.

It was much noisier outside the cart now than it had been back in the forest. The cart was surrounded by a large number of guards. When did they appear? Besides that, did the cart make its way through the guarded rift, or did the abductors decide to take the long way?

This time, Zane didn't cry, he simply lay there, shivering. Faye crawled over to him and lay beside him, the boy calmed down a little.

Regardless, when the cart stopped near the mansion, those four men got back into it to check on the prisoners. The members of the Nocturne family pretended to be asleep.

One of the four simply approached Zane and kicked him in the stomach. The boy wheezed, and Faye immediately covered him with herself, so she got the next kick.

"I'll kill them," Xavier thought, "Each of them."

Another injection of the tranquilizer, and darkness fell upon them.

 ***

Xavier felt the heat. The air around him was heavy and stuffy. He was hanging on the wall in a strange position. This time he awoke in a dungeon of some kind.

The room was small, yet it somehow accommodated plenty of wooden and metal devices, the kind he had seen in torture chambers before. Ropes and chains hung from the ceiling.

He tried to cast a spell to find out that he couldn't, as his hands and legs were somehow embedded into the concrete wall behind him. Earth magic?

Three other walls of the room were brick. They were dirty, though there were no blood stains on them.

The room only had one narrow entrance without a door, appearing as if some prisoner had dug it out trying to escape.

"Are Zane and Faye here?" Xavier thought. Yes, there they were, lying in a corner of the room, both still unconscious and... naked? Then he understood that he was nude too. Who did this?

It was only then that he remembered how he recognized the mansion before. The Gausses were the ones who kidnapped them. Those bastards had finally crossed the line. Xavier knew it would happen eventually, so he had spent a considerable amount of money on guards and other security measures, such as anti-magic and protective wards, or the registry of intelligent beings.

This abduction was his fault; he hadn't prepared well enough, a fatal mistake on his part.

No. Set aside this self-flagellation. Protective measures merely decrease the chance of accidents happening, but they can happen anyway. He balanced the expenses to get the best result, as a leader should do. Reaching the perfect outcome where everyone stays alive and happy is usually impossible.

Xavier continued scouring the room with his eyes, and noticed a man sitting behind the torture devices near a furnace. A jailer?

Suddenly, he heard a groan on the right. It was Faye and Zane coming to their senses. The jailer didn't flinch. Did he not hear, or did he just not care?

"Darling! Son!" he called. The gags were pulled out of their mouths while they were sleeping.

Xavier's dearest people regained consciousness quickly. They knew they should better not draw attention, but they answered nonetheless.

"Dear!" Faye shouted, her eyes desperate.

"Father!"

Xavier answered, "Calm down. I'll save us." He didn't believe his own words, and neither did they.

"Where are we?" Faye asked.

"In the dungeon of the Gausses mansion. These bastards finally crossed the line," Xavier replied.

"So it is Harper! That son of a..."

Then Faye noticed the jailer too. "Hey you! Get us out of here, and then when I'll be slaughtering everyone in this masion, I might have mercy on you!" she said, her voice low and deep.

The man sat as he sat.

"But if you help us, guard, I will give you something anyone dreams of! You hear me?" Faye continued.

The jailer didn't even look at her. Was he deaf? Some nobles preferred their servants not to be able to eavesdrop. A deaf guard was something unprecedented, though.

Well, bribery and threats were worth a try.

What could they possibly do in that situation? The three of them remained silent, gradually getting used to the circumstances.

Zane's hands were not embedded in a wall; they were merely tied. What if...

"Son, can you cut or burn the ropes?" Xavier asked.

"No, dad. I'm sorry," Zane replied in a high voice, sobbing. "I can't move a finger."

"There is nothing to be sorry about," Faye said immediately.

"Nothing of this is our fault, remember that," Xavier added, hearing someone's footsteps.

"Your parents are correct, young man; it's all because of me," a mocking voice came from the entrance of the room. "The Nocturne family could do nothing facing such a powerful opponent."

It was Harper Gauss. Behind him, his wife stood. Unlike her husband, she wasn't dressed officially; instead, she simply wore a white shirt and trousers. Harper, conversely, dressed up as if for a holiday.

Just like any other descendant of the Deity of Life, Harper had bright, almost luminous green hair. His wife's hair color was ordinary, they didn't shine with magical colors, so she clearly wasn't a magician.

Nobody answered Harper, and he continued, "Social events are bad for long conversations. There, you have to switch your interlocutors time and time again, not being able to have a good conver..."

"Shut up, Harper. This won't be a good conversation either," Xavier interrupted him.

"And that's another reason to hate such events: I can never say what I really want, unlike now!" Harper laughed. "If you say 'shut up' once more, I'll rip your stomach out of your throat," he added, still smiling.

Xavier flinched. After he found out that the Gausses were his family's main oppressors, he started digging into them. Some time after he found out about the disgusting traditions of this family. They were hereditary sadists. Every month, they abducted a young woman and then tortured her to death. This had been happening for decades, maybe centuries. Their tendencies had been passed down through the generations.

But that wasn't all. They never ordered others to deliver the next woman to them. They always did it all by themselves. They didn't really hide it, but nobody spoke against those powerful psychopaths.

So Xavier knew that words about ripping his stomach out were not an unreasonable threat.

"What do you want from us, Harper?" Faye spoke. "You pressured all the families with blue-haired mages for years, but you have never abducted anyone to torture them. Why us?"

"You are right, I haven't abducted others yet. I could do this anytime, but killing all of you in a snap without giving you hope would be too boring," Harper said. His voice sounded gentle, as if he were explaining something obvious to a child. "Now it is time to move on to more drastic measures. You were chosen to be the first by pure random."

"You are sick! Why do you hate us so much? We never even met the Deity of Mind," Faye said.

"A demon, not a deity!" Harper's voice broke. "I'm sure that I will get much more pleasure torturing the descendants of the traitor than from killing another idiot beauty. You all remind me of the demon and his blue-haired slut!"

Harper's wife, Lady Gauss, watched their dialogue, her face expressionless.

Xavier spoke, "You know, Harper, I explored the protective measures of your mansion." His voice was quiet but clear. "I hoped to get in here and kill you to stop the oppression, then kill your wife in front of your only son to make him suffer, and only then would I kill him, to deprive the Gauss family of their future."

Suddenly, he grinned, "Now I've snuck into the manor, and the only thing left is to murder you all!"

Harper raised an eyebrow. "Good luck with that."

He looked at the jailer and said, "Take care of him until I come back. Don't mutilate him," he grinned, "too much."

The man's only answer was "Yes."

Then Harper left the room. He enjoyed playing with his victims like this. The executioner would make Xavier believe that his life was at its lowest possible point, and then Harper would show up to prove him wrong.

Throughout the dialogue, Lady Gauss remained cold and calm. She seemed to be Harper's shadow, and now that he left, it seemed that she disappeared too.

The jailer, who turned out to be an executioner, got up. Now it was easy to see that he was wearing a dark grey leather blacksmith's apron on his naked body.

The man grabbed tongs from the table and put them in an iron bowl. He walked to the furnace and began to take out glowing coals from it with the tongs and put them in the bowl. When it was full, he approached Xavier, who was frowning at him.

"Let's begin, partner," the executioner said to the prisoner with a calm, ruthless face.