Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 27

He picked up as Khumdar opened his mouth. "I was angry," he growled. "My family had been good and decent folks, and our 'betters' had ground us down. Well, if that was how things were done, I was going to outdo them at it. Any who threaten me and my family, I ground into the dirt the way we had suffered." He smiled. "Some minor nobles even found themselves under my boot when they thought to prove themselves better than me. I took what I wanted, what we needed. I took the books I wanted to read, the powers I needed to keep my family safe, the respect I deserved."

He drained his tankard. "Until I was arrested for possession of academy material and sent to a cell. The fine was exorbitantly high, the price for desecrating those oh so precious tomes. They demanded gold my family could never hope to even see anymore. The long stay in my cell did not improve my attitude." He stated. "Then came my chance to be a 'worthwhile' member of society again, when the guild bought me and those in the cell and sent us here. As if," he spat, "I'd been nothing more than..." he trailed off, looking away.

"Me," Tibs stated.

"A thief," Don corrected. "It isn't an excuse, but I was destined to be a scholar. And because of some noble's machination, I was nothing more than a thief to any who saw me. Well, it wasn't because I was in some strange place I was going to let anyone here treat me the way I had been back...home. I would be respected, no matter how many heads I needed to ground under my boot. And woe to anyone who thought they might be better than I, for I would prove them wrong no matter the cost." He lowered his gaze. "I'm sorry Tibs."

"Did you father commit those crimes?" Jackal asked casually.

"Jackal!" Mez snapped.

"No, Mez," Don cut him off. "It's a valid question. The truth is that I don't know. If you'd asked me back then, I would have told you without hesitation that my father would never do such a vile thing. But I've seen too much of the world now. Felt justified in doing so many vile things myself. I don't know anymore. I want to believe my father is innocent. I... asked him, the last time they allowed us to leave, but he was too lost in the drinks to even answer me."

He sighed. "And it doesn't matter anymore. I let what happened then turn me into a man no one could stand, not even those who claimed to be my friends. Of everyone who I surrounded myself with, I can count on one hand those who didn't look at me with hate when they thought I couldn't see. I don't want to be that man anymore."

"You think telling us that makes what you did go away?" Jackal asked.

"No. I can't ask you to forgive or forget how I treated you. I'm only providing context leading up to our encounters. Mez, I needed to belittle, because I made you the representation of anyone who caused me pain. I couldn't see past your need to hold yourself and others to a better code that what's considered normal. All I saw was pretense demanding we look up to you. You, Jackal, terrified me. It wasn't that you'd beaten the men I had. I didn't care about them. It was that with less than a day of knowing Mez, you stepped between me and who I wanted back; someone I claimed as mine. No one had dared doing that since I'd gotten my element."

Jackal smirked. "You might remember I was kind of full of myself back then."

"It didn't matter. You had decided someone I thought dirt deserved to be protected from me. So I hurt you as much as I could. Taught you your place."

"Never was good at learning that lesson," Jackal replied.

"That made you scarier, because I believed you'd get back at me. That it was the only thing you could do after what I did to you. I made you and Tibs monsters looking to destroy my life, and then... we had to work together against your father."

"Would that not have let you see they were not such monsters?" Khumdar asked.

Don snorted. "That required I bother looking. The scholar never assumes, always studies. Turns out I make a lousy scholar."