An Eldritch Legacy: Sin & Sacrilege

The Count, more excited than usual, found something to wear—his face a mask of anticipation and joy yet to be fulfilled. What he had chosen, however, was hardly suited for the fields or for any of the demanding work a day among crops would require. Still, it was a simple sacrifice he could make for the moment—until he could get his hands on something more worthwhile. Likely, he would acquire far more and ensure it served him for a long time.

One day, he knew, he might find himself strung with heaps of backbreaking work, and he might never leave the fields again.

He was dressed in a short, dark green, and gold tunic made from the 'roughest' silk he could find, laced with silver thread. It didn't match the quality or grandeur of his usual garments, but it was certainly more than noble enough for a day out in the fields, and it still stood for what he wanted to represent. A pair of brown-gold trousers completed the outfit. This was already the simplest he could manage... anything less and he would be forced to wear the rags that cleaned the floors if he could even find them with the Butler's care for detail.

Today, he wanted to get his hands dirty—to feel the sweat run down his body as it screamed in agony and exhaustion, his arms burning from overexertion, his body trembling with sheer fatigue. He wanted his hair to be caked with soil and his eyes blinded by the glaring light and heat of the great pillar.

Or perhaps, depending on the state of the fields he ventured to, he would find himself coated in mud and grime, trudging forward with every step, struggling just to stay upright on the slippery slopes of the terrain.

The fields he talked about were ones he had never personally laid his eyes upon; all the impression he had was from the dreams and memories of a time before he was born.

In his anticipation, the Count made his way to the fields that had once belonged to his mother—back when she was still alive—having remembered faintly where he could find them from the snippets of the memories he held.

Slowly and curiously he headed to the backside of the gentle slope upon which the manor stood. There, carved into the incline by mortal hands, was what appeared to be a cave—deep and entrenched. It looked as though it would swallow anyone foolish enough to approach, and a cold wind would howl from within, leaving a lot to the imagination of those who dared to venture.

The Count stepped into the cave with slow, measured steps, careful of every step he made, strangely curious of what he would find. But certainly, he did not expect to find the state of it like this.

The air inside was thick with something he couldn't quite name—an emotion he had long refused to experience. The field—or garden, as he found himself preferring to call it for its apparent size; it did not look all that expansive, as the little he could see was not as large as what one would expect from a field, but maybe he would be wrong, for much of it was hidden in the darkness that teetered on the edges, he could not see, even with his eyes—was steeped in ruin and sorrow so profound that it seemed to radiate from the very soil, saturating the air. The silence here was different. Heavy. Longing. Lost. Expectant and patient. Each breath he took was thick with waiting and grief. The field was waiting—for the caretaker who would never return. Perhaps it knew she had long died. Still, it waited, mourning, hoping.

And within him, something stirred.

He felt a deep melancholy in his heart—yes, all three of them—those he had long forgotten even existed within him. Among all the oddities of his being—born without blood, without veins, his skin an abnormal shade—having three hearts had always felt the least strange. At least to him.. in a world where the division between races was so blurry, it was always more dependent on the blood one carried than it had to do with the differences between races.

Not that they didn't exist.

Usually, the hearts beat independently, often quietly, almost unfelt. But today, they sighed in unison, palpitating with cadence.

They, too, sought to ache—just as the field ached for the hands that once tended it. But that was where the similarities ended. His hearts did not ache for her. They ached because they could not. She was their mother, and yet all he felt was indifference at worst and slight pity at best.

What had once been a sanctuary—a blooming haven of life and color, a divine cradle of Mother Nature's love—was now a graveyard. A place of death, of the gloom of rot and decay, of misery and ruin. The sorrow had only grown heavier with the passing years.

All life had wilted. Every bloom had withered. All vitality had drained away in the name of hope—hope that could no longer sustain even itself.

The ceiling of the cavern yawned high above, cracked and overgrown with veins of black moss and pale ivory roots that snaked along the stone, coiling through every inch of the cavern. Had he not known what they belonged to, Krael might have thought something sinister had taken root. But those were the roots of Eiser, the weeping willow. The one he felt he would take as his oathkeeper, for who better than the one that had grown together with him to bear his oath?

From the broken crown of the cave, a single shaft of light poured through—like the last breath of a dying moon. Pale. Weak. Flickering. Dust danced within it like spirits—ghosts of memory, drifting through the rivers of sorrow. Even they seemed to mourn.

The soil beneath his feet was no longer rich but bloated and soggy—sick with rot. Each step he took released a fermented stench. Mold clung to every surface, green and grey like decaying flesh. Gone was the rich ruby soil his mother loved. Gone was the warm, golden bloom of life.

In its place came a coldness that sank into his skin, clinging like beggars seeking alms from heaven.

Twisted stalks, once tall and proud, now leaned like old men—brittle and bowed from years of neglect. Their leaves had turned the color of bile, curled and puckered as if recoiling from his very presence. Vines strangled the bases of trees long dead, their bark peeling like flesh from bone. It felt like a dream warped into a nightmare, twisted by rot and time, and now his mother's garden had paid the price of his negligence.

He should have maintained it. He should have stood where his mother once did—to keep her legacy alive. But he had ignored it. He had ignored her. And now, this was the harvest of that failure. Years of abandonment had turned beauty into a husk and wonder into horror.

The land had been warped beyond reason. Madness without mind.

His hearts lurched as the gloom sank into him. It blamed him—and he had no defense.

"You should never have returned," it seemed to say.

"You taint her memory," it spat within him.

He collapsed to his knees in the soggy soil. His breath quickened. His eyes watered. His blood, strange and unyielding, grew heavy and still. It protested against his weakness, yet offered no aid. Instead, it reminded him of the weight he carried within his veins—of the legacy he had yet to inherit. It seemed to tell him that without the spine of a monarch, he would never be able to bear the weight it accorded.

His eyes brimmed, but no tears fell. His ears rang. The question inside his skull rebounded through memory like a war drum:

"What should I have done?" he screamed inwardly.

"What did you want from me?" He sobbed—though no tears came, not even now.

Even in this moment of desperation, of grief, his hearts remained detached—like mirrors that only reflected what others expected to see.

He wanted to feel remorse, but the concept was foreign. He yearned to feel hatred for himself, to loathe his heart, but he was cursed to always be above all these feelings. His existence was inviolable, and it would not allow weakness within him.

In the far corners of the cave, the earth pulsed with a sickly yellow hue—like disease given form. Tiny bioluminescent fungi clung to life, glowing softly like dying stars. Beautiful and wrong. Somewhere in the damp, something hissed—perhaps water. Perhaps something that remembered being.

And at the center of it all stood the remnants of his mother's greatest creation—a tree once red with life, now blackened and cracked, weeping sap the color of old blood, brown and putrid. Its roots curled upward like skeletal fingers clawing at the ceiling. Its broken branches reached toward Eiser's roots, desperate—but unanswered. Aloof, the weeping willow remained embedded in the cavern's stone, unmoved. It did not care.

Even in death, the tree reached out, still hoping...

Its roots had spread across the field, shielding what little life remained. Like an umbrella, it protected even as it withered—refusing to let go. It endured, even in death, for her.

The Count's breath caught—caught between awe and grief. This garden had once been sacred. A miracle hidden in the earth.

Now it was rot. Ruin. A festering wound in the belly of his family's legacy.

His head throbbed, his blood stagnant. His eyes stung with the weight of despair. But deep within him, something else stirred.

This can be healed. No... it must be healed.

He crawled forward, deeper into the decay, the weight of the past settling over his shoulders like a heavy cloak.

"I swear to you, Mother," he murmured, his voice raw and low. "Your garden will breathe again."

"I may not hold the love of a son towards his mother, but I know and respect the sacrifice you made for me," Krael spoke silently as he crawled within the years of hard work wasted.

"I will cherish it for the rest of my life, and when the day comes when I can truly feel sorrow for you and Father, I will build your graves at the heart of this garden so that you may see just how much your son has grown."