A Tale of Revenge Ch. 01

I'm still working onBattle for Bloodbut a story I read caught my attention and kind of sat in my head for a while so I decided to go with it and explore a different relationship dynamic. With permission from Goldeniangel (one of the best on this site), I've taken her storyWitchand I'm putting my own spin on it. I'm moving into more unfamiliar territory with the non-consent themes here but the dynamic intrigues me and I liked the struggle between seeking revenge or justice that the original story explored. Suggestions and constructive criticism is welcome.

As always, enjoy and comment—no story was ever better without receiving criticism.

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Anna eyed the group of men she had been tracking for days. They had moved faster than she thought they would after their bountiful pillaging added so much weight. They hadn't taken hostages though, something she knew all too well, so that hadn't slowed them down. Still the camp was expansive. There were at least 50 of them judging by the number of fires going. Her father had taught her that trick, though for them it was never more than a game to play with passing groups of merchants or gypsies.

She was perched in a tree near the periphery of their camp letting their sounds and smells cover her imperfect stalking skills. There was a powerful clarity of purpose in her movements. At the edges of this resolve was a terrifying abyss of pain and grief. She could feel it there, lurking in the corners of her consciousness, waiting for her focus to waver for a moment so it could swallow her up again.

She shifted her bow. She had her father's daggers strapped insecurely inside her belt as best she could. She knew her only hope to get anywhere was to pick off a few, something she reasoned she might be able to do. She wasn't the best shot but it was better than her knife skills. After someone raised the alarm, the aim was to throw herself into them and wreak as much havoc as she could before someone ran her through. If she could kill one it would be better than nothing.

Part of her warred with this obvious suicide, but it was overlaid too heavily with her determination to stamp out the pain she carried with her, and this was the only way.

There, her chance was coming her way. There were two of them, drunk and singing, stumbling along. She might get lucky and be able to pick off the two of them without having to leave her perch. She ran her fingers over her bow, feeling the soft familiar grain. She felt a pang in her heart like a stab wound as she remembered her grandfather stringing it for her the first time.

Anna shook off the memory. Now was the time to focus, to seek what little revenge she could. They had left her entire village a pile of desecrated ashes. They could not just walk away unscathed.

She notched an arrow and drew back the bow, feeling a bit uneasy as her legs clenched around the large branch supporting her. She lined up her shot, aiming for the man who had fallen and was laughing maniacally at his companion's drunken jig. She saw with perfect clarity the sick smile on his face, his yellowing teeth and drunken slobbering. She aimed her bow for his heart and drew in her breath.

Suddenly, Anna felt strong arms wrap around her from behind, pulling her against a very hard chest, a man's voice whispered in her ear "Not so fast, pet." Before she had time to understand what had happened or fight back, she felt her body fall backwards, her bow clutched uselessly in her hand. The black air swallowed her up, squeezing her body even as she fell into its infinite grip.

The shock of falling and the fear that gripped her brought her back. She tried to wrench the arms around her body away from her, kicking out with her legs. Whatever had her barely registered her struggles. Then the world flew back up at them. Anna found herself back in her family's home, kneeling in the ashes on the floor as she tried to catch her breath. It felt like all the air had been forced from her lungs. She gasped and looked up, her eyes flying around what had once been a familiar room.

What had just happened? One moment she was in a tree, days from here and the next she was kneeling in her kitchen? Who was that man? Her brain swirled with dizziness and confusion as she knelt on the floor, her legs untrustworthy beneath her.

"It can be a bit startling at first, I know," the man's voice came from behind her. Anna whipped her head around, her body shifting more slowly, still trembling from the strange fall from the tree.

She took in the creature in front of her, for he was no man. His face was too perfect, his voice had a low undertone that made it sound strangely cavernous, and he seemed to almost glow in the dark room. This was a god. Which one, she couldn't be sure, but she was smart enough to know when the divine was before her. She took in his dark waving hair, straight nose and dangerously angled jaw line. He may have been handsome if not for the inhuman quality of his face.

She should have lowered her eyes, bowed, or shown some other signs of deference but something akin to dread had begun to rise in her mind. The focus she had managed to cling to with her intentions for revenge was slipping, leaving the sea of grief free to begin to wash over her. She had never intended to return to this rubble that had once been her home and this god had just forced her back.

"Why did you do that?" she demanded. Her voice came out hoarse and harsher than she had intended. The panic edged into her words even as she tried to keep herself under control.

The god before her surveyed her with piercing blue eyes. Perhaps he was also surprised at her lack of decorum. "I did not wish for you to die today," he said simply. His voice ran in waves through her body.

"Why is that up to you? I am not one of your followers. I have not pledged myself. I am not entailed to any god or any practice. You cannot just interfere with my life when it pleases you." It came out as a rush. She felt a rising tide of emotions and tried to quell them. She needed to get out of here, back on the trail, start again.

The god gave her a half smile and cocked his head, looking much more human for a moment. "That is true," he began. Anna tried to suppress the desire to scream at him to talk faster. "But sometimes it is not up to you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Anna screamed at him, feeling her lungs burning again with unshed tears.

The god looked her over once more, seemingly amused by her temper.

"I own your death."

Silence filled the burnt out room. Something wasn't right. The words all made sense individually, but together their meaning was lost. Anna looked up at his angled face, trying to read something in the implacable expression, some clue as to what was going on here. Panic and anger drained away and fear pressed in. Speak wisely, a small voice muttered.

"I don't..." she trailed off. He didn't move. She cleared her throat and lowered her eyes, folding her hands in her lap. "I don't understand what that means."

"Just what it sounds like."

Her eyes flew back to his face. "Are you mocking me?" She practically shouted.

Shouted at a god. Again. Something had definitely broken inside her head. She reigned in herself in. She was just some inconsequential peasant girl and she was talking to a god. Despite all evidence to the contrary, she could still hold on to some semblance of reality. She lowered her eyes again and struggled to breath evenly. "Please, sir, I don't understand. I'm afraid I cannot bear your taunting me. I beg you to explain." Her voice shook. She had been so close to ending her grief, emptying her body of the tormented emotions that wracked her soul with unyielding pain. She had accepted the relief of death and now here she was, back in the house that had served as her family's tomb.

"I mean," he began, his tone betraying no emotion, "that long ago one of your ancestors made a deal with me. She traded me nearly everything she had to offer in exchange for great power. Despite the fact that she was quite clever she missed a rather ambiguous part of the deal, which gave me influence over all parts of her body, including the life growing within her. Since that day I have owned a part of each female descendant from this woman, though with each generation my influence is less. As you are the last of the line the only thing still owed to me is control of your death. As it does not please me to allow you to throw yourself into a suicide, I have interfered to claim what is mine. I shall choose when you die, not you, nor anyone else. Have I explained myself properly?"

Anna kept her eyes down. Her brain struggled to work through this new information. She beat back the panic that rose in her chest. It had been the last thing she had, the last thing she had to offer her murdered family. She would give her life for some small bit of revenge, whatever she could manage. Instead she was back here, back where she had been helpless to save them the first time they needed her. What else did she have? She could not carry on living without seeking to avenge her family. Nothing had taken away the bottomless pit that had opened inside her when they had perished until she had left to track down their murderers. How could she simply give up the fight? She couldn't. And it would mean her life, which he wouldn't allow her to give. Helpless once again. Her kneeling body shook as hopelessness set in.

"I'll take my leave if that is all." His voice rang through her thoughts. That undertone rumbled through her again. She dared to look up again, her panic roaring through her once more. He couldn't leave yet!

"No!" she shouted. "You can't leave me like this!" The desperation in her voice stung her ears. The pain and fear clawed at her throat, seeking to suffocate her words. He just looked at her, as if her turmoil was no more interesting than a spider climbing a wall. How could she convince him when she couldn't even form a coherent thought? "Why won't you let me die?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Because it doesn't please me to allow it now."

"But I have to do...something. I cannot simply continue on."

"And why not? You have your life to offer your family as vengeance against those who would blot them out. Continue to live in defiance of what they did." His tone had not changed. She couldn't tell if he was mocking her or genuinely trying to convince her to go on living.

"I cannot!" Anna shouted back. "I am already dead inside. I have no heartbeats left to count except to see those who did this punished. I have no thoughts but to the savagery I have witnessed against those I loved. I have no life left in me. Do not force me to keep breathing simply for your amusement. I cannot breath without pain and to deny me the only way to stop this torment would leave me in a state much worse than death."

Still the figure before her did not move. He let the silence ring out again. Anna prayed he would agree. What could a god possibly care about the life of some broken peasant?

"No." The word thundered through the room.

Anna leapt to her feet; tears she thought had long stopped flowing streaked through the soot on her cheeks. "You cannot do this! You cannot leave me with nothing. You cannot keep me alive when my soul is putrefying inside my body."

"I assure you, your soul is still very much intact." Anna still couldn't tell if he was teasing her again or not. She halted suddenly. Through all the grief and anger some reason managed to burrow through to her, something better than begging, something that hadn't occurred to her before this moment.

"What deal did my ancestor make?" She looked straight into his face, hoping to see some betrayal of emotion as he stood, prefect in his stature amongst the rubble that had been her home. Did his eyes widen slightly at her words? Had she surprised him?

"She offered me her body and soul in return for a certain aid in influencing her surroundings."

Anna looked at him more closely. His expression was still unreadable. "What type of aid?"

She knew she didn't imagine the slight curl in the corner of his mouth when he looked back at her. "That is a function of the deal. She requested and I gave." He didn't move to continue.

Anna felt two equally strong and opposite things at the same time. One part of her screamed to accept her fate as he had stated it and run in the other the direction. Do not, her mind shouted, trade him your soul for your revenge. The other part of her was not so logical. It reached up to her through the tattered remains of her reason and shoved the knowledge that no amount of running would ever heal the wounds inside her. She could not escape this.

"I have my body and soul to offer," she said, in barely more than a whisper. She saw the smile disappear from his lips.

"You do not want to do this." His words sounded harsher, more of a command.

"I have no choice," she said, her voice a little clearer as she locked onto her course of action. "I cannot live without doing something and I cannot accomplish anything without dying, which you won't allow me to do. Which leaves me with this, I will give you my soul, which means little to me in its tattered state, and my body, which torments me as it continues to function. You already own my death. I only ask that you allow me to seek my revenge before you collect on the latter."

Anna straightened, allowing herself to feel her old self seep back into her body. Here was the strength she had lost over the last horrible week, here was the girl she had been. This was her fate, with this trade she could actually seek her family's murderers. It wouldn't have to be suicide. Suddenly something new appeared in her chest, the slightest blossoming of hope. She might actually succeed.

"You would not be so fast to condemn your offspring as your ancestor did. Do not offer your body if you do not know what it holds inside it." His eyes fell to her abdomen, reinforcing his meaning.

Anna's hand, unbidden, flew to her stomach as if protecting something. "I am not with child," she said quietly.

"Your great grandmother wasn't aware of her state either. You should be more careful than she was."

"I cannot be with child, sir." She felt a hint of a blush crawling along her pale flesh. Her eyes slid from his to the floor in front of him. "I have not lain with a man."

"Hm," he began again, looking at her with a look she didn't quite understand. "Then it seems you also have your innocence to trade." Anna looked back to him. Was he considering this?

"Will you accept my offer then? Will you accept my body, soul, and innocence in return for the powers I require to seek out my revenge?" She tried to keep her desperate hope from her voice but she knew she hadn't quite succeeded.

He let his gaze shift from her face to the surroundings as he considered her words. She held her breath.

"I am faced with two concerns," he said. "One, I don't believe you fully understand the gravity of what you offer. Your torment at the loss of your family and village are painful, but it will fade with time in this life. What you are offering is the extension of this punishment into the next life as you can never be free of me. Secondly, and more importantly, you offer me things of high value but you intend on stripping them of that value with the powers you receive in exchange. I would be remiss to accept goods guaranteed to depreciate."

Anna was confused and said so.

"You offer me your innocence but that is destroyed as soon as it is collected and thus cannot be worth much. You offer me your body but as you live and breathe it begins to break down, as young as you are, you are still in the process of dying. For an immortal such as myself, your body does not mean so much."

"And my soul?" Anna choked out. Fear was beginning to replace that brief flash of hope.

"Well you have expressed, in no uncertain terms, that you will be seeking revenge. As you rampage through the many, many men who were involved in the rape, torture, and destruction of this village, your soul will be marked with their deaths. Thus, if I allow you to finish your little killing spree, the soul I receive on the other end will not be worth what I had traded for it."

Coolness trickled into her brain. He would deny her! The last bits of her that hadn't broken under the strain were threatening to burst, leaving her with nothing, driven mad by her helplessness.

"Is there nothing I can do? Is there no way for you to make this exchange?" Her voice, body and eyes pleaded with him. Every piece of her being seemed to leap out to him, begging him to accept what even she put little stock in.

He sighed, suddenly sounding more human. "You will not like the terms."

"Please," she begged.

"It means three things: the first is agreeing that I can begin collection when I see fit, it means access to all those parts of you which will now be my property. If you seem intent on destroying what is mine I will be forced to collect early."

Anna froze. "But I make this deal with the intention of carrying out my revenge. If you won't allow it then I will not receive what I am trading you for."

"This brings me to the second point. If you wish to seek out your family's murderers, then you must manage to keep your soul intact. This means that you will have to seek justice over vengeance, something you will find very difficult when you confront these men. You must not murder, though you will be able to defend yourself if necessary. You must find another way."

"But how...?" she gaped at him. How could she let them live with the power to make them die?

"And before you work through that, the third stipulation is: I want something beyond your body and soul: I want access to your mind." His voice became harder as he spoke these last words, bringing Anna's careening mind to a halt once again.

"My mind?" she whispered.

"Indeed."

"You would control my thoughts? My memories? You could turn me away from my task, make me do anything without me knowing it." Desperation made her voice rise. She had to make this deal.

"Nothing so dramatic," his voice held the smile that had crept across his lips again. It was not a kind smile and it made Anna's skin prickle unpleasantly. "No power can actually erase the other person's self. I am asking for access, which means I would know your thoughts, emotions, etcetera, there would be nothing you could hide from me."

She tried to comprehend his meaning. How could he want something beyond her body and soul? Would he not own her without also knowing her thoughts? The truth sent shivers down her spine. She would be owned, possessed, completely and totally by this being. She would have no choice but to be laid bare before him; every part of her would be his and she would never have anywhere to hide from him. Could she handle this loss of self? Would she be able to handle this for eternity? Her mind spun with things she could not comprehend.

"What happened to my grand-dame? What did you do with her soul?" She watched his eyes narrow almost imperceptibly in the low light of the evening. But he seemed to emit his own glow in these dank surroundings.

"She was in my service. We gods, as you know, have our own business with the state of men, in this life and in the other realms. She was tied to me and when I saw fit, I released her soul." He paused, "I'm not a terribly demanding master."

Anna thought this over. She would be his, owned and kept forever but was this not a small price to pay? She would have peace in this world, knowing she had punished those who deserved it. She could endure what he had in store for her in the next. And if she didn't accept his terms she was left with nothing. There was never another choice for her. She nodded at him, crushing the screaming part of herself that told her this was a mistake.