That day was surprisingly peaceful. I was about to reconnect with my past one last time, so I could move forward once and for all without chains holding me back, to aim higher and go further.
My constant yawning was proof of my restless night. I hadn't stopped turning over Pedro and Bruno's confessions in my mind.
For the occasion I dressed in a black three-piece suit made by the estate's finest tailors. Later, at the airport, a jet was waiting for me headed to Work Town. When I landed, a sleek black car was waiting near the runway to finish the journey.
The door opened by itself, and behind the wheel sat a woman who looked strangely young, snow-white hair pulled back in a perfectly tied bun, a plain uniform with no markings, and black glasses that barely let me see her eyes, which landed on me briefly in the rearview mirror.
She didn't say a single word the whole way. I settled in the back, closed the door, and the road continued. It must be said that this city had nothing going for it. The pollution from hundreds of factories and power plants was so heavy that it had formed a layer of toxic clouds overhead, greatly cutting short the life expectancy of the population. Life here was too short to have any real value in anyone's eyes.
I pressed my forehead against the window. Every kilometer brought me closer to the past I had been pulled out of, and every resident enslaved by this city reminded me that the world, beneath its glitter, was nothing but a massive machine grinding lives by the thousands.
My driver's stone silence made me deeply uncomfortable, for reasons I couldn't explain. Her slim, steady hands on the wheel, her apparent youth, and every now and then, when her face appeared in the mirror, something about her troubled me deeply: the pallor of her skin, almost cold, the restrained hardness in her features… as if I already knew her somehow…
I pushed the thought out of my mind and focused on what I would say when I stood in front of my mother. She who only saw me as a way to make easy money. She who had never shown me any love or tenderness. She who had given me life without me ever understanding why. And yet, despite everything, one memory still clung to my heart like a lone rope on the verge of snapping, a memory from childhood, when I was still an infant.
My mother carrying me, strapped to her back with great difficulty, grinding through construction sites until she bled, until exhaustion, then a gentle warmth feeding me, and a look full of hope but also sadness resting on me. In my eyes she was many negative things, but ironically, I may have never really tried to understand her.
It certainly doesn't justify anything, but she was alone, even more alone than I was back then. She had a child with a man who made her believe he loved her, otherwise she never would have kept me. But that man lied to her, dangled sweet dreams of making it together, and then at the first chance he disappeared into nothing, condemning her to see, through my face, the man who had stripped away what little humanity she had left. And here we are.
After living through so many trials and changing so much, maybe I could show her that despite life's injustices, despite the face that irritates her so deeply, there was now a glimmer of hope for us to truly be okay. And beyond all of that, she was my mother, and she always would be.
After a long drive, we were almost there. Work Town was divided into several districts. The East district was filled with gothic-style buildings piercing the artificial cloud layer, and a few chimneys spewed their thick smoke nonstop, coating the streets in a fine rain of ash. The neon signs of the shops tried to cut through the haze, their harsh colors warped by the pollution. And in the distance you could clearly hear the deafening sirens of the factories screaming, calling the workers back to their chains.
We were finally arriving at the West district. The district that had seen me born. The place that had buried me alive long before the accident. They had no idea what the world really was. I did…
The car slowed, and we turned into narrower streets.
I saw familiar faces, men and women with hollow cheeks, bodies worn down by repetition and hard labor. They walked in silence like the living dead, hands blackened with grime under every nail, eyes emptied of all light, all hope. Skeletal children ran between puddles of oil on bare feet, escaping a black market dealer they had probably just robbed.
Nothing had changed here.
The car stopped in front of what was once my home.
The driver turned her head toward me and spoke her first words in a low, formal voice that didn't sound natural at all:
— We have arrived, young master.
I nodded to thank her, unable to speak.
I stepped out of the vehicle. The heavy air slipped into my lungs like a familiar poison.
In front of me, a small, lifeless, dirty house, still standing by some miracle.
Every detail threw my troubled childhood back at me: my muffled cries, my mother's endless insults, the nights I went to bed starving.
My body froze for a moment in front of the door.
Then I took a deep breath and pushed it open.
The door creaked as if protesting my return.
The smell hit me immediately, a terrible mix of mold and tobacco. Everything was exactly where it had always been. Even the cockroaches seemed to have been waiting for me all this time.
I put my hand on the dresser.
A memory surfaced. Me as a child, sitting curled up on the floor in a corner, stomach empty. The wobbly table in the middle of the room. My mother with her back to me, declaring I was nothing but dead weight and that she would never manage as long as I was alive. She wished me dead. I was eight years old.
I took a step and the rotting floor made me stumble. Another image burst forward: I was about thirteen, I had come home with a swollen face and my body covered in bruises after a fight, or rather, a beating. Naively hoping for some reaction, some gesture from her, she had simply spat in my face and taken her time listing my flaws, saying I deserved everything that happened to me.
My fist clenched.
I moved forward slowly, toward the living room.
And that's when… I saw it.
The living room. Or what was left of it.
The filthy curtains let in a faint light. The walls still carried marks of blood and impact. But none of that mattered, because in the center, the sight froze me more than anything else.
Cassian Montclair.
Sitting in a worn armchair. Dressed with simple elegance, but every detail of his posture breathed nobility, dominance, the confidence of someone who had never doubted himself. Someone for whom everything had always worked out. Because that was the only logic that made sense.
And there, at his feet, on her knees, her neck held in his gloved hand: My mother.
Still alive.
But held like a dog at his mercy. Her skin was a map of bruises, her face beaten, her arms marked by repeated and cruel blows. She wasn't crying, she was drooling blood. Her eyes were empty, as if even her hatred had dissolved into the pain.
— Took you long enough, he said with all the condescension his rank allows.
— Well, here we finally are, face to face. You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment. I'll say you have a talent for avoiding me at Aurora. Or rather, people close to you who probably didn't want to see you leave too soon…
I took a step forward, my heart hammering with fear.
He tightened his hand slightly around my mother's neck. She choked, a strangled groan escaping her throat.
— What are you doing here and how dare you touch my mother, Cassian!!
My aura broke free beyond my control, cracking the floor and making the walls tremble.
— Easy, easy… he murmured without even looking at me. You haven't figured it out yet, and it's really not that complicated but fine, I'll try to be clear. Here… I decide. Only I will grant you death… After all, in normal terms, I'm comparable to a god for lesser beings like you.
He straightened slightly, his gaze dropping into mine.
An abyss separated us, I could feel it.
— I've never understood what others see in you. Never. And yet I tried, you know…
He tugged my mother back slightly, making her sway like a ragdoll.
— You can fly. That's all. People made a whole story out of it, but the truth is you're just an entertaining show, a clown bringing a little novelty…
He stood up. Slowly. His shadow stretched across the filthy floor until it crushed me, that was how wide the gap between us was, despite us being the same age.
His hand stayed on my mother's neck, as if to remind me she was nothing but a tool, a warning, a rope to hang me with.
— Everyone keeps talking about the young Vongold named Iron. The "miracle of Arcadia," the one who faced a dragon, the one who made Aurora's heirs look like spoiled rich kids. Hah. What a joke…
He walked toward me with conviction, and with every step death made itself felt. I was terrified. Every part of me begged me to run, to give up on this life, to bury myself in a cave and never come out. Misery. If only…
— You are not the hero you think you are. Not a prodigy. You're just a rat who survived because men greater than you stepped in out of charity. Albus. Simon. Even Helena Vongold, whose feats Garlik never stops raving about to me. Do you really believe you earned your place among us? But YES HAHAHAHA… you really think you're that special!!! You honestly thought you were in a movie, isn't that adorable?
He practically spat the words.
— How does it feel now? Things could have gone differently if you'd stayed locked up in your estate. But no, you proudly told yourself you had nothing to risk coming here, and alone on top of that.
None of this made any sense. Why go this far? Why bother? He could have easily waited for the tournament if he wanted to face me that badly.
— Why are you doing all this to me? Why go to so much trouble? You could have easily waited for our fight at the tournament. Could it be that…
— Finish that sentence and I'll make you swallow every atom of her miserable corpse… Who do you think you are? You think I'm afraid of you, Iron? You're giving yourself too much credit, you poor thing. Saying you had an ego like that would almost make me laugh.
— THEN WHY, MONTCLAIR!!
— BECAUSE YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!!
He who until that day had always stayed cold, almost above any human feeling, finally revealed his cracks. From birth, he had known nothing but bowing heads and greatness, speeches destined to herald great things for his future.
But just like for me, everything changed at Aurora, for him too. He had never had to fight to earn the interest of his peers or of anyone else, for that matter. But when I arrived and my abilities stood out from the crowd, I took up too much space in his world, and that he could not tolerate. To think that everything happening to me in this moment was due to the whim of a kid who had been given everything made me furious beyond words.
— Listen to me. If you lay another hand on her I swear I will…
He cut me off with a cold laugh that reminded me of very recent trauma.
— Another hand? Look at her… The most repulsive kind of animal… and she's your mother?? On that point I'm almost willing to pity you, insect.
He brutally turned my mother toward me. Her eyes were glassy, her body trembling. She was moaning weakly.
— She's already barely more than a corpse. But despite her ugly temper, this creature and I managed to have quite a chat, and heh what I learned didn't shock me.
His piercing blue eyes never let go of mine for a second, hiding what was in reality an enormous madness.
— Since the day you were born, Iron, you have brought nothing to this life. And now that you walk in my world, you think you belong here? My inheritance?
I screamed, my voice breaking.
— I've heard more than enough of this, finish it and bring her…
My mother tried to say something, but…
— Iro… I…
He tightened his hand around her neck.
A sharp crack.
My mother's body collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Total silence.
Cassian tilted his head slightly, his smile widening.
— …Pardon? What were you saying? HAHA I didn't quite catch the end, you don't even speak like a human, insect. And oh, she's dead. My strength slipped away a little it seems…
— AAAAAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!!
I will never know what she was about to tell me in that moment. Maybe it would have brought me some peace. But that monster had taken any hope of that from me. A black fire flooded my veins and I felt my Thorn rage like never before. My aura sent the furniture around me flying out of control, my blades roaring, ready to tear my enemy apart.
But him… he stayed calm.
Serene. And that unsettled me.
Just like Aegon's bloody shadow had.
And then, behind him, in the window frame, I saw a detail that froze me even more: the driver.
Her snow-white hair should have been obvious to me from the start.
Isolde Kareth.
The one I had humiliated at Aurora.
She gave me the most sadistic and cruel smile.
— Go rot in hell, Iron! HIHIHI! HAHAHAHA!!!
I was no longer just facing an injustice.
I was facing a cruelty that crushed me with dedication, like a fate written since my birth. I never should have accepted Simon's offer. I never should have left my condition, the place the universe had assigned me… Why… Why wasn't I allowed to be happy, respected, appreciated, loved…
In time, I understood:
The real hell wasn't just Aegon.
Not even Cassian.
It was this world, this condemned planet, and every son of a ***** that makes it up.