Malik grew up, the beloved male heir of the Vrai family of the current generation. He knew, from a young age, that eventually the curse would drive him to madness, like it did many of his family. He just never really knew the depth of madness the desire for blood would drive him. Never really expected the perfect composure needed to not find the nearest living thing, and drain them of the life force that the curse seemed to demand. Blood Magic, always came with a price. And the price that his family paid, was the ever slipping grasp on reality that came with the generational curse that clung like smoke to their heirs.

But he could end it. His father and he could end the curse, and be the best candidate for Archon in the future, the right name, the right power set, the right everything -- or was that the madness fueled by the curse still driving them for perfection, or was it something deeper? Some deep desire whispering to him in the dark of night to play at something further? It didn't matter, because on that night, Malik knew he had a job -- to stop the Salvo family from sacrificing their youngest daughter to help fuel the curse for another generation. If he and his father could stop the ritual, then it would be over, the curse would die with him. Finally. And he would make that sacrifice. To take no wife, to father no children, to live with the insatiable hunger for something he could never have. He would go to an early grave if he knew it ended with him.

So on that night, when they struck the Salvo family, he had been prepared to kill them all. And he would have, but the youngest was that, too young. He couldn't kill the child. The conflicting emotions that he had felt, knowing it was the child's name day that the Salvo chose to sacrifice her on. He couldn't. His hand stayed, and with his own father dead, he waited for the authorities, which soon appeared. The future chancellor taking custody of the both of them, making them wards of the Archon, of the state. He was sent to the front lines, under a watchful eye, full of the knowledge that he had failed to end the curse. He had a chance, and because he hadn't been able to kill a young girl, he had failed. And he couldn't trust that she wouldn't bear any children, wouldn't keep to herself for the rest of her natural life. So he would have to live too, to make certain that the curse would end with them, would be taken to the grave with them.

Over time, he became trusted, a competent right hand to the Eyes. An executioner of exquisite grace. And able to command an army of those he killed easily enough. But he tried other schools, other learning, anything to sate the gnawing need the curse left him with -- animals, plants, even blood magic itself. But nothing seemed to quench that need. And he knew that if the curse ate at him as much as it did, what must it be like for the little Seraphine as she spent her day hiding around the Archon's house? No. Like it or not, he would have to do what he could to live, and make sure that no one else ever had to suffer like this.