The Beautiful Ajatara
Some stories are simple. They begin at the beginning and proceed, one reasonable plot turn after another, straight through to happily ever after.
Some start in the middle, a jumble of confusion, and puzzle themselves out as they go.
Some, of course, are cut short before they have a chance to resolve.
And perhaps there is no greater tragedy than the story left untold.
Some stories, though: They begin before the beginning. Before time and memory, before the invention of story. Some stories, like some wounds, are ancient. Some stories have bled so long they have nearly forgotten what it might mean to heal.
Such was the story of the demon Ajatara; such was her wound.
The crystalline palace of Ajatara lay at the icy heart of her demon realm.
The towering glassy walls were transparent, so she could survey all she ruled from the comfort of home.
She could, if she so pleased, wrap herself in a layer of skin and fur—freshly flayed from one of her willing servants—settle into the bed she’d had built from the blackened bones of her enemies, and watch acidic frozen rain batter blasted ice plains.
She could watch demons of the sky swoop to pluck demons out of the sea in their iron jaws, sprinkling black blood across the glacial snow, watch her servants deposit gifts—sad little creatures snatched from other realms—and tear them limb from limb for her entertainment.
It no longer pleased her. Not as it once had.
Home was the place you could always return to; but home was not home if you were unable to leave. The word for that was prison.
It was bad enough that Belial had broken her heart.
A few centuries and she could have forgiven the suffering he’d inflicted.
He was, after all, a Prince of Hell. Suffering was what she’d signed up for.
But she could not forgive this imprisonment in her own realm, for countless ages.
What had he said to her? “I’m sorry, darling, but for my own welfare I do have to lock you away until you’re a bit less angry at me. I’m sure you understand.”
And he’d blown her a kiss even as she went tumbling through space into this realm of blizzards and ice.
The indignity of it! The impotence of it!
The utter, intolerable dullness of it, this eternity of sameness.
What good was her power, her beauty, her bottomless well of devious rage, if she had nowhere to destroy and no one new to torment?
She was, she thought, too beautiful and too evil to be this alone.
“Mistresssss, you ssssummoned me?”
Not wholly alone, she reminded herself. She was waited upon hand and foot by Krog, her loyal attendant.
Krog had webbed hands; dry, greenish skin spotted with warts; a sacral hump only barely disguised by the thin burlap he wore as a robe; and a long, sticky tongue that was excellent for snaring insects but not so useful for human speech.
To some demons, he would have been very attractive, but Ajatara found him wanting when compared to Belial—who, after all, had been a Prince of Hell.
Now, Ajatara beckoned Krog toward her scrying bowl, and waved a hand over the still water. It shimmered and shifted at her command, gradually cohering into the image she desired.
A slim girl with a determined face. Her hair a light brown mass of curls, her fingers long and ink-stained. Her blue eyes were clear and steady.
The Herondale girl. Blood of Belial’s blood, flesh of his flesh.
Belial himself, her Belial, was gone from this world and all of its infinite realms. She had felt his death like a rupture in the earth—had felt the thinning of the barrier that held her here.
For a brief moment she had allowed herself to imagine that his death would set her free.
Then she understood—none but Belial, her Belial, could set her free.
Once he was gone he was replaced, his demonic energies reconstituted in a being who had no link to the curse that the original Belial had laid upon her.
A being who did not know her, and had no reason to return and free her as Belial—she believed—would eventually have done.
It seemed her imprisonment was complete. Unhappily ever after.
Unless.
If she could acquire an object that belonged to one of Belial’s blood, something imbued with a sufficient sliver of their power, she had a chance.
“This is Lucie Herondale,” she told Krog, who grunted in acknowledgment. “The granddaughter of the late Prince of Hell, Belial. She is in possession of a powerful magical grimoire. That will do nicely for my purposes. Krog, you shall bring it to me.”
He gazed at her for a long moment, his lidless eyes unnerving her. “Yessss, mistressss.”
She sent him out of her sight. It was too painful to remember that, as an Eidolon, this loathsome toad had a power denied to her.
That he could walk the realm of the humans, disguised as one of them, while she cowered here in her icy prison; that a being like her was forced to depend on a being like him.
He had best not disappoint, she thought.
Like all Greater Demons, she had a fair amount of patience.
She had lived a very long time, and expected to live an unfathomable time more.
But her patience had been too sorely tested.
She would bring this plan to fruition. She would escape this place, and soon.
Those who stood in her path would be sorry.
—
The door to 48 Curzon Street flew open before Lucie could knock.
“Well, come in, then!” Effie huffed, as if Lucie had been twiddling her thumbs on the doorstep.
Like all the mundanes who served in Shadowhunter households, Effie had the Sight.
On top of that, she seemed to have a preternatural ability to get to the door seconds before Lucie could announce her arrival.
Lucie had asked her about it once, and Effie had only sniffed.
“The way you knock, miss. Like you’re going to break down the door. It’s better avoided.”
Today, Lucie felt, Effie had made a wise choice in hurrying to the door. The way Lucie was feeling, she would indeed have broken it down if she’d had to wait. She had very important news to share, and could not hold it in a moment longer.
Effie told her that James and Cordelia were in the drawing room.
Lucie rushed down the hall, feeling, as she always did, a pulse of envy at the cozy little home Cordelia and James had made for each other.
To have the freedom to live on one’s own, alongside the love of one’s life!
To live as one pleased, without rules imposed by one’s irritatingly devoted parents, to be treated by the world like the adult you were, allowed to, say, fall asleep in the arms of a very handsome, wonderful man, and wake up beside him!
Cordelia had warned her that sleeping in the arms of your beloved meant that sometimes they snored, but such were the things Lucie dreamed of.
And besides, she thought, just because her brother snored on occasion (which he denied) did not mean her Jesse would do the same.
Soon, she would find out for herself. She had promised herself she would not marry until she published her first book. The waiting had been agony. But now, finally…
She burst into the drawing room, stopping short at the sight of Cordelia and James sitting in paired armchairs, gazing into each other’s eyes.
This was nothing new. They were always gazing, when they got the opportunity.
Or touching, or nuzzling, or stroking—there was surely no way for one person to wordlessly express love to another that Cordelia and James had not discovered.
Lucie was, of course, overwhelmed with joy that her parabatai and her beloved brother had found so much happiness in each other.
Still, she marveled that they never got bored with the gazing.
This time, though, Lucie had the unsettling feeling that she’d walked in on something.
“James,” Cordelia was saying softly, a tiny fret in her forehead. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
She sounded worried, and a little melancholy.
In fact, Lucie thought, she had seemed a little melancholy rather often of late.
Lucie had even asked her about it, and Cordelia simply laughed.
“Think of how things used to be, and how they are now,” Cordelia had said.
“Of course there are people I terribly miss. But I am happy, Lucie; please do not worry about me.” Lucie had not been convinced.
From the look of it, James wasn’t either.
“Anything, my love.”
Lucie tried to back out, silently, before they noticed she was there. But skilled as she was at any number of things, unobtrusiveness was not one of them.
“Lucie!” Cordelia cried, catching sight of her.
A smile broke across her face, like sunshine, and she stood to greet her sister-in-law.
Lucie knew her pleasure was sincere—it was the same way she felt whenever she saw Cordelia, who was in all ways a piece of her soul.
Still, Lucie suspected at least a bit of her was relieved not to have to tell James whatever it was she’d been mustering her nerve to say. “We weren’t expecting you!”
“Is this a very terrible time?” Lucie asked. “Am I interrupting horribly?”
“Not at all,” James said, rising to his feet as well. “We’ve told you before, Lucie, our home is your home. What thrilling news do you bring us?”
“What makes you think I have news?”
Cordelia and James exchanged a look. “I’m your parabatai,” Cordelia said. “I can feel your heart bursting to speak.”
“Also, you’re literally jumping up and down,” James noted.
Lucie silently chided her feet. Part of her thought she should, perhaps, give her brother and his wife a little privacy. But the rest of her, the very insistent, very excited part of her, couldn’t stop herself. “A publisher wants to publish The Beautiful Cordelia!” she cried.
“Er, has he read it?” James asked.