The Big Bad
Where It Starts
Lucien wasn’t born poor or homely. In fact, he found himself in a wealthy family of great intellect with whom the king gave favor. His childhood had him seated at the royal table rather often. He was brought along on hunts, invited to balls, functions, dinners, and even nights of mischief at the highest quality brothels.
Life was easy for Lucien and yet he wanted more.
For a time, he thought the power or a king would sate him. He thought placing a crown on his head and settling into the throne would appease the ache in his bones for more. It did not.
He thought, perhaps, a child would bring him some kiss of destiny, a promise of greatness. She did not. Rather, he found the cries of a child to be troublesome, her sticky fingers and smudged mouth repulsive, and so he had her killed.
When the guard returned with her bloodied blanket, he felt a sense of ease dig deeply into his bones. The next time, he took the jaunt into the forest with the guard, seated on his horse, and watched the struggle. Listened to the whispered, sobbed pleas, as the blood spilled and his wife met her end. Before she took her last breath, he stopped at her side, staring into the depths of her eyes, watching as the light filtered out of them.
This. This was what he craved. The power of controlling life itself.
Deaths of Magic Wielders
It started out slowly.
People of little consequence; those that wouldn’t be noticed or missed. Prisoners, thieves, whores. Each time he listened to the death rattle, he would hold his own breath, slow his own heartbeat until theirs stopped altogether. The relief would crush him.
He started hunting harder prey.
Maria wasn’t quite nobility, but she was part of the group of women who followed the visiting princess everywhere. He would catch her eyes on him during meals or sense her presence within the church during Mass. It became a game to see how often he could catch her alone. The first three times, he set her free.
The fourth time, he killed her. But the draw had been an invisible string between them, one that severed as the life flowed out of her. Magic.
There was a fizzle to the drop of blood that hit his tongue as he licked his lips. A tingle of power at his fingertips. He tasted her blood again, tentatively, and found her magic spreading from his head to his toes. But the feeling lasted only seconds. Before he realized what he was doing, he held her heart in his hands and consumed it.
For a week or so, he held her power, the ability to weave beautiful tapestries that told the immediate future. It was here that he saw himself kill three more for their powers. But when her magic fell silent, he realized he needed a more permanent way to harness magic for himself.
The King had always been rather uncertain about magic. Lucien used this to his advantage to start a crusade against magic wielders in the kingdom. Anyone caught using magic would be put on trial and eventually killed for their crimes. It wasn’t until nearly fifty people had died that he found what he was looking for. Someone with the powers of transference. With the help of a kidnapped and bribed blacksmith, he crafted the knife for himself, using only the purest of silver.
He offered the blade its first taste of blood and felt power simmer through his body. When the blade met the heart of the blacksmith, he found himself with new magic. And as predicted, the talents of the man newly resided in Lucien and that time, they did not wane.
It was Lucien that the King entrusted so much with the task of determining those who had magic and so he was expected to see through their destruction. Over and over, the blade stole power until he was so full of magical talent that he could practically glow.
He could not, however, create life.
The gods could mold life out of the ether and command it. So far, nothing he had absorbed would give him this power. Ultimate control.
The crusade carried on for over one hundred years. The King fell ill and his son took the throne. A much less merciful man, the new King hated all magic and wanted every man, woman, and child holding magic to be eradicated after a seer predicted the fall of the kingdom at the hands of those hungry for power.
Later, the seer spoke again, in the empty hallway, and turned to make eye contact with Lucien as he rounded the corner. The way she looked at him rattled him to the core, as if her words could possibly undo all of the work he’d done.
“You will never succeed,” she warned him. “Your sins will haunt you until the day you rejoin the earth and then they’ll haunt you again. You may think you have won, but this is just the beginning.”
Claiming that she attacked him, Lucien took her life and her power. When the King’s beloved seer was found dead by his hand, he was stripped of his title.
No longer at the right hand of the King, Lucien served from the shadows and killed from them as well. His victims could not see or hear him until he was upon them.
The spirits of those he’d killed followed him, hissing from the corners of his eyes, howling during the night while he attempted to sleep. It was why, when they died, he corrected their memories. Instead, they dreamed of pleasant things, like the fall of leaves in autumn, the rushing river, or the snore of a beloved pet.
Lucien lingered while the power passed from father to son, son to daughter, on and on. Before he knew it, the kingdom turned accepting of powered people, encouraging them to repopulate the fallen city where he lived. No longer tasked with killing those with magic, he was repurposed to find them and bring them to live in the city.
As Lucien’s powers increased, he grew into favor with another king who, again, took him as his right hand. His powers as a seer proved particularly useful.
Bored of the whims of humans, he suggested magical tournaments. Surrounding kingdoms would send forth their most powerful to duel each other for fame and fortune.
These tournaments were designed to showcase the most impressive competitors. Not to tear each other apart, but to fascinate the crowds. For years, magic reigned in nearly every large kingdom, a source of entertainment, rather than something to be criticized and feared.
And where magic went, the countries it touched saw great promise in the growths of their population, their fields, their animals. It seemed to be a salve to heal what had been hurt. For a while, things were good everywhere.
Slowly, reports began to trickle in about prominent magic wielders disappearing. They never returned, there were no bodies to be found. They simply vanished.
Borders began to close. It was not unusual to lose men as a cost of war. But it was especially difficult to lose incredible and vital warriors to thin air. Without even the smallest idea of where they had gone, countries decided to cease the competitions, lock down the gates, and search privately while protecting their men and women.
It was Lucien’s fault that Alvina almost fell during the battle with Isidore. It was his king’s suggestion that Isidore was holding Alvina’s men within its stronghold. Thousands died as the two warred against each other. But it was the perfect distraction.
The Last Stand
The reports of missing magicfolk rocketed up to 250. To solve the problem, Lucien suggested that each kingdom send some of their best and brightest to form a team to track them down. They met in a location disclosed only to them and formed a plan to find them. He sat back, listened, gave suggestions minimally, and waited for his opportunity to strike.
Unfortunately, of the fifty that had formed the group, twenty never returned home.