Fate_Breaker

"Burned young, marked forever."
"Ash does not fade—it stains."
"They bloom in brothels and die in whispers."
"Where names fade, marks remain."
"Their stories are etched in bruises and silk."

In a city where nobles feast upon the ruins of broken souls, the slums bleed in silence.
Vaën, the only boy in a brothel ruled with an iron grip by Madam Elena, grows up among whispers, sighs, and invisible chains. Slave to others' desires, he endures, he watches… and he learns.
But beneath the torn skin, a dark spark stirs. A stolen awakening—taken from the Church before its time—grants him a class as defiled as his life: that of a broken toy, shaped by vice and submission.
In this world where class defines destiny, his rise will follow no rule.
Through blood, contracts, the bonds of slaves, and poisoned embraces, Vaën carves his path.
Not toward the light.
But to a throne built from chains, lust, and silence.

In an empire where status is paid in flesh and willpower, some are born to be owned.
Vaën was born to break the owners.

The Mark of the Ashen Girls

Chapter 15 — The Voices We Don't Seek

The sun beat against the dirty windows of the brothel, filtering a warm, deceptively soft light into the hallways. The kind of light that gave some the illusion of possible peace. Vaën, however, knew.

It passed through, sometimes. It watched. And then it fled, like the others.

He descended the stairs slowly when a girl gave him a nod.

Another whispered a barely audible "thank you" as he moved a bucket from the path.

Even a client, his face already cloudy from cheap wine, greeted him with an awkward familiarity.

But because he didn't know how it was done.

Or rather, because he had never learned to care.

For some time now, eyes had been sticking to him.

As if a veil had been lifted and people could finally see him.

In the brothel, he had learned to disappear without actually disappearing. To be there without existing. To serve without being noticed.

Words were thrown at him. Glances held back. Smiles tried on.

He knew where this change came from.

Not from his face. Nor from his posture.

But from something beneath his skin, something others sensed without being able to name.

He entered the small room where Nira kept the accounts.

She looked up from her papers, squinting.

She stared at him, half-amused, half-tired. Vaën liked Nira for a simple reason: she spoke little. And above all, she didn't ask useless questions.

— Want something? she asked, offering him a half-eaten loaf of bread.

He took it without answering. Sat in a corner, against the wall.

Not because they were warm. But because they were authentic.

Just two bodies in a room. Two battered souls.

And the sound of bread being chewed slowly.

When he left, Lucia was waiting for him in the hallway.

— You're sleeping poorly, she said without preamble.

She, like him, had adapted to this strange closeness.

But something in their silences had started to breathe in the same rhythm.

Lucia was beginning to understand how to speak to him. Not with words.

And Vaën accepted it, slowly. Like a blade left beneath the skin because it had become part of him.

They walked together to the kitchen.

Crossing two young girls, one of whom nervously laughed when her gaze met Vaën's.

Vaën didn't need anyone to tell him about their pain.

It was written in the way they walked, in the silences, in the smiles at the wrong moments.

But because understanding had become his only act of survival.

He knew, by looking at the others, that no one here was whole.

Chapter 15 — The Voices We Don’t Seek