The Roar of Andora: Book One

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Dark Night of the Soul

Tidying the mess he made in the training hall and putting out the lanterns, Aaron dressed himself and wandered back out into the city.

By then, the hour was late and he was certain that the party at the castle was over. His body was still warm from the workout but the air of the night made the sweat that much colder.

All men of the regal class, especially the men of the Evershields, were taught to fight. Death was not to be feared. As boys, they were taught histories of the legendary heroes who preformed daring feats and heard tales of the brave warriors who sacrificed everything to save Andora time and time again.

But Adonis II had made the grave mistake of also teaching his boys compassion. To kill was wrong, but in times of war it must be done. Aaron was all too aware that if he were freed of status and punishment by law, he would have killed that man he saw through the window.

The awareness of the dark caverns of rage that reside within the hearts of all men tore Aaron's soul in half. By twenty-one, Aaron had interacted with all the multitudinous dimensions of his character. Aaron had met his enraged self many times. And he knew that the same rage that fuels men to slaughter without restraint emerged from the same primordial source within all men that drives a father to beat his son, an ill-minded man heinously rape a woman, or, makes an angry young man crazed enough to want to murder two drunks on the street who just insulted his deceased grandfather.

The burden of awareness drowned Aaron into a nihilistic state. Aaron desired to fight, but desired, too, to never submit to rage. But to live as a warrior, he had too.

For a moment, and a moment only, Aaron thought of killing himself.

But then he stumbled upon the front steps of the brothel.

The thought of sex, the thought of ravishing the voluptuous body of a whore subdued the conflict within his mind. The blood rushed to his groin and his anguishing thoughts narrowed into one thing and one thing only—to fuck.

His lust was abnormally demanding that evening. With the throb in his pants he couldn't care, let alone think of any of the things his soul was splintered by a moment before. Aaron was relieved of his consternation and soon his body would be relieved of the erection.

"Hello?" he said, after knocking on the unanswered door several times. Impatience abounded him and so Aaron reached for the handle. But that, too, was locked. It was late, but not nearly late enough for the brothel to be closed. It was the peak hour for the whorehouses, after all.

Curiosity ensnarled him. Aaron circled around the side of the building, and saw from the alley a flickering light through the second floor window.

Feeling particularly brave that evening, Aaron knew he had to investigate. Sitting next to the building across the alleyway (that was no more than a meter in distance) from the brothel, was a wooden box directly below a ladder. Lunging onto the box, Aaron leapt upward, wrapped his hands around the lowest rung of the ladder, then pulling his body-weight climbed to the very top. High over the alley, far above the roof of the brothel, holding onto the side rails (trying his best not to focus on the ground), and once feeling confident enough to make the jump across to the roof, Aaron pushed off, spun around mid-flight, and grabbed hold of the iron bars barricading a window.

The flaking rust scraped against his hands as his boots slammed into the brick wall. Not sparing a second, using all of his strength, Aaron pulled himself up. Reaching higher on the bars, cautiously walking his feet, Aaron surmounted the window then bending his knees, focusing on making the leap, sprung upward and threw his legs over the roof. Only after having rolled onto the flat surface did he contemplate the risk he just took.