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Each brushstroke fed into the other. When Emile concentrated on them, it briefly became easier to see each time the painter set their brush down. But the longer he stared at the canvas, the more his eyes felt foggy. Emile blinked, refocusing his vision on the picture before him. It was such an old piece, the color from the paints had faded over generations, but the knight was an iconic fixture in House Bartels.
The massive masterpiece was hung above the central staircase of the house’s foyer, the proud, graceful warrior clad head to toe in his silver armor looked benevolently down at all who entered.
Emile used to admire this knight. He remembered making up stories for him with his sister when they were small. They would giggle together and reenact tales of galant heroism on the staircase until his father came to interrupt them. Then, Emile had believed in the old knight. He used to imagine such a hero coming to save them.
A cracking sound startled him. Emile looked over his shoulder, but could see nothing. His brows pursed together and he cautiously walked down the steps, checking to see if any of the floorboards were squeaking underfoot. As he reached the bottom, one of the maids passed by, her shoulders drooped and head held low. She looked exhausted and should have been dismissed for the night.
“...Abigail,” Emile nodded at her. “What are you doing here so late?”
“Hello Sir,” she gave a stiff, brief curtsy. “His Lordship had a late meeting tonight, he asked for tea.”
“Mm…” Emile glanced down the wide hall that stretched off of the entryway. Double doors were ajar, light shining out between them. “I see. Well… you have my permission to go home. You should get your rest.”
“Thank you, Sir, that’s very kind--” Abigail didn’t look at him, she was too frightened. His father had cast such a thick pall of paranoia in this house that even friendly conversations seemed a risk.
Emile rolled his shoulder, feeling a sudden phantom ache of injuries long scarred over. He shuddered and walked away, letting Abigail scurry off to collect her cloak. He drifted towards his father’s office, but as he reached the door, Emile paused. Inside, his father was talking with his agent and the fireplace crackled from within.
“I can have this notarized for you in the morning,” Mr. Blake said. “You’re quite sure, though? These things can become quite contentious…”
“I’m certain,” Baron Bartels grunted. “I’ve done all I can for my son, but he’s still too soft. He isn’t suitable to be an heir.”
“My Lord,” Mr. Blake cleared his throat, sounding uncertain. “Who will inherit, then? I can’t advise you to leave no next of kin, it’s legally very precarious.”
Emile’s shoulders rose with tension. He listened in absolute silence, wondering if this meant he would be free. If his father thought him a hopeless case, then maybe he’d be able to leave this horrible manor, perhaps even find his mother again. For a brief moment, he felt a glimmer of hope.
“I’ve decided to take another wife,” the Baron said, his voice slightly muffled through the door, but still articulate and casually confident. “I’m virile enough to have another child.”
Emile rolled his eyes. His father was fastly approaching sixty, he doubted there would be many young women who would have him, but then again, it wouldn’t be his problem. Soon enough, it would seem, Emile would be gone from here. As Mr. Blake and his father continued to speak, Emile didn’t pay attention to all of their words, instead contemplating what he could do for a profession. Perhaps a private tutor of some kind, or if he were lucky, he could try to apprentice himself to a baker. He was old for such things, but a noble upbringing had deprived him of any practical education on what he could do with his hands.
“--Mercedes?”
Emile’s attention snapped back to the present like a taut bowstring. The hair on the back of his neck stood on edge.
“Yes,” the Baron said, and even though he couldn’t see it, Emile could feel his father’s predatory smile through the wall. “She’d be of age by now, and she had the crest too. Estelle was too meek, but I’ll try again with the daughter. She’s younger stock, probably developed nicely if she took after her mother. She will do.”
“...My Lord, are you certain? I’m not sure either of them would agree to such an arrangement.”
“Don’t worry over the details, Blake,” the Baron insisted. “I can be very persuasive when I need to be. Once I get some time alone with the girl, I’m sure she’ll come around to my way of thinking.”
Emile’s entire body shook with a shiver. The blood in his veins felt cold and he stumbled away from the door, bringing one hand up to clutch at his temple. His head was spinning, he felt like he might wretch. The very thought of his father putting his hands on Mercedes in such a way made Emile’s blood run cold and a realization sank in.
Baron Bartels knew where his mother and sister were. Emile didn’t know when his father had found this out, but he knew, and he had kept it from him. For so many years, Emile had thought that they were lost in the ether, safe in their anonymity and his childhood sacrifice. But no… his father had found them, he simply had never cared to tell Emile the truth.
It shouldn’t have been surprising, and yet an invisible knife sank into his chest.
Emile braced himself against the wall, his eyes fell shut and he began to feel numb around the edges of his mind. He inhaled hurriedly through his nose, hissing out the breath.
Not far away, the door to the Baron’s study opened and closed. Emile was vaguely aware that Mr. Blake must be leaving for the night. The legal agent must not have seen Emile in the manor’s thick shadows, there were no hesitations in his steps or any awkward attempt to greet him.
Good , Emile thought with a voice not his own. Let him run, there is another who deserves my ire.
There was another cracking sound, but Emile didn’t flinch. He didn’t even feel like Emile anymore, his consciousness slipping away into the shadows. But his body began to move, straightening his tall posture and squaring off his shoulders. He looked at himself in the window’s glass, seeing a distorted, shadowy reflection. The creeping light from the Baron’s study cast around him and for a moment, his eyes looked red.
He smiled.
Emile watched as his body moved of its own accord. His head was throbbing in a dull, distant percussion that reminded him of war drums. His legs began to walk, his stride was sure and purposeful as he opened the door to the Baron’s office and walked inside.
“Forget something, Blake?” Baron Bartels asked. He was looking down at his papers, barely even paying attention to his own surroundings. Emile gave no answer, he simply walked to the fireplace and swiftly pulled the red hot poker out from it.
Embers sparked and scattered, falling onto the massive carpet that covered the room. Emile noticed that they were catching flame, but he didn’t react. He felt outside of himself.
“Blake?” the Baron turned and there was a brief moment of shock and confusion in his cold, grey eyes. “Emile, what are you--”
He drove the poker through his father’s chest without a moment’s hesitation. Emile watched it happen and looked down at the blood pouring all over the desk, the floor, and his hand. Growing fire at his back crackled as it spread, consuming old furniture and antique woodwork as quickly as it could.
Baron Bartels choked and sputtered, coughing up more blood as his skin burned from the heat of the iron spade going through him. “Em...ile!” Even as he died, those grey eyes turned rageful, his hands reaching out in vain to try and strangle his own son.
“Wretch,” Emile felt himself speak, but his voice was deep and guttural, foreign to him in so many ways, yet familiar all the same. “You will not plague this house any longer.”
The Baron clutched the poker as his knees gave out and he sank to the floor. Emile let him fall, releasing his grip and watching as the last moments of life seeped out of his body. There would be no funeral for this devil. Emile would let the fire take him and destroy what was left of his influence.
The flames reached the desk, spreading and dancing in violent glee as they continued to devour. For a long moment, all he could do was stare at the corpse he had created. His father was nothing more than a crumpled heap of viscera and pain now, his eyes lifeless and his body gradually growing stiff with rigor mortis. The blood stained the carpet and spread like a blasphemous halo around the body.
He remembered the night his mother left. She had snuck into his room silently, in her traveling cloak, and pulled Emile from his bed. She tried to hide her fear as she whispered that he was coming with her and Mercedes to Faerghus. But Emile, even as young as he was, had known that he couldn’t leave. His father would hunt her down and slaughter anyone in his path if it meant reclaiming his precious, crested heir.
Emile had felt brave, then, as he told his mother she had to leave without him. He had felt like a hero, helping them escape. When she finally gave in and agreed, she had left Emile with one of her embroidered handkerchiefs, the only notion she could leave behind to comfort him until she could see him again.
The Baron had burned the handkerchief the very next day when he found Emile crying into it.
Emile felt the throbbing in his head grow louder as he stared at the Baron’s body. His eyes fluttered and he swayed on his feet for a moment. He felt dizzy…
No, not yet, he thought. I refuse to die where he lays.
He coughed, the room had filled with smoke during his trance. Emile stumbled towards the door, blood still coating his hands in a layer of oxidizing death. As he left the office he found that the whole manor was covered in embers and flames. They licked over curtains and carved molding. Smoke discolored the decorative plaster ceilings and flooded Emile’s lungs. He knew he needed to escape in order to live, but part of him was entranced by the fire. It burned so beautifully and destroyed everything he had grown to resent.
Emile followed the fire down the hallway and looked up at the staircase, alight and glowing in raging reds and oranges.
The painting was still on the wall. Its ornate frame had caught light, but it had yet to collapse into the fire. Emile watched the aging paint as it burned. The colors began to darken, the shapes and brushstrokes twisted and melted, bubbling as they boiled on the canvas.
The once-proud knight was a ghoul now. His face looked like a skull, with sunken eyes and a howling visage. His silver armor was black. Emile was transfixed by the image, and the drums pounding in his head seemed to still.
Maybe there had always been a knight of death, just hiding beneath his noble veneer.
Emile pushed open the heavy manor doors and breathed in the frigid night air. It felt fresh and new. He looked at his hands, the blood was drying on them now. His clothes were stained as well. Every inch of him looked like a murderer, but he felt no shame for what he had done.
There was a dark creature lurking in his chest, made of righteous fury and spite.
Emile walked away from the house, only turning to look at the mass of fire and rubble when he heard a third loud crack resonate in the air. The sky was full of stars and smoke and the house of Bartels had fractured down the middle as it burned, one side of it crumbling and beginning to fall away from the other.
“There will never be another,” Emile murmured to himself. “Your name will die with me.”