Cillian never had a pretty voice- at least not when he was singing. The ragged melody he was trying to sing bounced off the walls, words in a different language he didn’t actually know only making it worse. His steps were light and rhythmic as he walked through the tunnel between his house and the home of his eldest brother.

Voices caught his attention when he was nearing a crossroads. The pretty light coming from the stones in the wall washed the gathered men in pale blue, making them seem eerie as they all looked up at the sound of Cill’s steps. Silvery eyes sharpening as they took him in. Their voices murmured too low for Cill to hear, and then one of them broke away from the group.

The man was tall, much taller than Cill; he would always be short enough to make him furiously jealous of the height of other people, but he was especially so at eight years old. Barely coming up to the man’s hip and forced to tip his head back to look up at him.

“Hello,” Cill chirped. His voice was much prettier when he wasn’t singing. Light and sweet, something that would never change.

“Hello, little thing,” the man purred. He knelt down to be on a level with Cill, meeting his eyes. “Where are you headed.”

Cill had been taught to lie about it, so he did. “Mom wanted me to borrow something from a friend.”

“Oh, is that right? And who is that friend?”

Cill thought about it for a moment before simply shaking his head. He didn’t know what lie to tell without giving away the reason why he was lying; all of the names that came to mind were those of the nobles.

The man clucked his tongue, his silver eyes growing sharper. “Are they coming to meet you, little thing, or are they waiting for you at their home?”

“Waiting!” Cill replied cheerfully, happy to have something he was allowed to tell them.

He couldn’t have known that he was sealing himself into a moment that would haunt him for the rest of his life. His eyes widened slightly as the man stood straight in front of him, making a sharp gesture with his hand. Cill’s mouth opened the second the other men started to move toward him, but it was too late to scream; the first man already had his hand wrapped over the child’s mouth, his arm wrapped around Cill’s waist as he lifted the slim boy off his feet.

Cill’s shrill voice was muffled by the man’s hands, and his kicking feet and flailing hands were quickly restrained by the other men. His body bucked and squirmed against their hold, his eyes wide with fear.

The first man perched himself on Cill’s chest, his weight crushing. “You know,” he purred, “That expression does wonders. Look at that color glow.” He caught Cill’s chin in his hand, holding it tight enough to bruise.

“Leggo,” Cill whined, trying to pull his face away.

The man’s grip only grew tighter as he focused on Cill’s eyes. Very pretty red eyes, their color vibrant as the most valuable of the crystals that lit their underground world. His other hand trailed over Cill’s face, tracing over the delicate lines until his fingers were just under Cill’s right eye. “They are so pretty, little thing. I want them.”

Cill opened his mouth wider to scream, and the man’s hand whipped across his face. A shocked, pained gasp tore through his throat as tears welled in his eyes. Cill had rarely been touched before, much less dealt with so violently. The shock of it kept him still and silent for a moment as the man reached a hand back.

He was quickly snapped out of it when he saw the blue light from the crystal bounce off a wicked silver blade in the man’s hand. Though he’d stopped struggling, he began to fight again, rasping breaths pulling in and out of him too fast for him to manage a scream. Even Cill, sheltered as he was, knew what a knife was.

“Sit still, pretty thing, this will only hurt a lot,” the man cooed. Another of the men held Cill’s head in place while the first kept him from closing his eye. A sickening smile twisted up his lips as he raised the knife a little higher before bringing it down.

Cill was screaming before it touched him, and he choked on it at the first blazing pain as the knife tore into him. The lack of air silenced him only for a moment. Then he was screaming louder than before, shrieking as the man cut into his face with careful precision, barely bothered by Cill’s desperate fighting.

“You want me to shut him up?” the man holding his head asked, his fingers digging into Cill’s skin as he kept him from moving.

“Nah. I like to hear them scream,” the first man said, his voice low and husky.

Cill only screamed louder for that, his sweet voice already ragged from the stress of screaming so loudly. The agony only got worse as the man pushed the knife deeper into Cill’s body, cutting away what he didn’t need until his fingers hooked into the socket of Cill’s eye and pulled out the prize he wanted.

“Yes, very pretty,” he hummed, pleased. He held out his hand, and there was a man waiting with a small glass container. The first man’s smile only grew as he dropped Cill’s stolen eye into the clear liquid. “That will fetch enough money for us to finally settle down, boys. Take the other one, and we’ll be ripped.

“No… no, please… I’ll pay you whatever you want… my family has money!” Cill sobbed the pleas at him, begging the man to spare his other eye.

The man clucked his tongue again, shifting his hand to the other side of Cill’s face. “Now, now. Don’t ruin the fun.”

The man was already grinning as he raised the knife again, and Cill let out the shrillest scream yet. It was followed by a dull thunk- and the man who had cut out his eye paused, twisting just enough to see behind him. Horror filled his face, and he quickly scrambled away from Cill.

It gave the youth a look at what was scaring the man so much. A weak smile turned up his mouth as he watched his eldest brother massacre the group of men. His four-bladed axe wielded with deadly skill and his beautiful face twisted with an animal snarl as he destroyed the people who had dared to hurt his beloved younger brother.

They were all in pieces before he was done, the blood of the man who had cut out Cill’s eye splattered across the boy’s face and clothing. It didn’t seem to bother him; he had gone into shock, unable to understand, losing too much blood. His arms reached up for Vend, his expression blank as a doll’s.

“Cill, you idiot!” Vend said fiercely, as he drew his brother up into his arms. Cill clung to him, pressing his face against Vend’s shoulder. Blood quickly soaked the man’s shirt, and he pulled in a sharp breath. “Damn it, Cill. I told you to come straight to my house. Now look what’s happened!”

“S-sorry,” Cill choked out, his fists clenching tightly in Vend’s shirt as his legs wrapped around his brother’s waist.

Vend pushed out a sigh, reminding himself of his mother’s words; no matter how afraid he was for Cill, he musn’t let that show by yelling at the younger boy. “So am I,” he said softly, his arms wrapping tighter around his brother.

That seemed to be what broke through to Cill; his breath came in hitching sobs as tears joined the blood ruining Vend’s shirt. His voice rose, but most of it was nonsense Vend couldn’t catch. All he heard, over and over, was “It hurts.”

“I know, I know,” he hushed, one hand stroking the back of his brother’s head as he began the trek through the tunnels to his home. “I’ll make it stop hurting. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Cill.” Heat burned his eyes as his little brother clutched him impossibly tighter, shaking and sobbing.

Vend’s expression was grim when he returned home and called for a surgeon, and his mood was dark for days after. Though Cill was healed, there was no replacing the lost eye. Cill had to live with the empty hole in his face, covered by a growing array of priceless gems affixed to leather eye patches. And his cheerful innocence was gone- Cill had learned that the world, even his beautiful world, was much harsher than anybody had let him believe.

And Vend knew he hadn’t killed those men nearly slow enough to make up for what the had done to his precious little brother.