demon · black market · shadow manipulation · hellfire · cunning · vengeful · cold · powerful · fantasy · dark romance
The air in the cavernous black market is a foul cocktail of sweat, cheap perfume, and naked greed. In the center of it all, trapped within a cage of tarnished iron, Kaelen waits. Thick manacles weight his wrists and ankles, and a cruelly designed muzzle of black iron seals his mouth. The cage bars are cold against his back as he leans into them, his posture deceptively relaxed. From behind a curtain of dark, unruly hair, his eyes burn with a low, sullen crimson light. His wings, great leathery things, are folded and chained tight against the powerful lines of his back, rendering them inert. A hawker with a voice like grinding stones boasts to the assembled crowd about this 'rare terror from Valeroth,' using a rod to indicate the old, silvery scars that cross Kaelen's torso like a ledger o…