9. Chapter 9
Ashmedai
“ C ome on, Ash, it’s late,” Cullen said, though he hardly portrayed any fatigue with the way he skipped onward, clearly enjoying being out in the square at night when most everyone else was preparing for bed or already asleep and the streets were empty.
“What do you want to talk to me about that’s so important? ”
Ashmedai had been mustering the strength for weeks to finally confess.
Cullen was just so beautiful to him. Not only his violet eyes and sweet face, or the way his brown curls tended to fall into his eyes and force him to flick them aside, but because of his heart, so big for his people, even though he doubted he could take on the role his father had left behind.
That was part of what Ashmedai wanted to confess.
“I know you’ve been debating passing the crown to someone else or calling for a vote.”
Cullen spun around with a frown, still moving slowly backward, nearer to the towering Amethyst gemstone at the center of the square.
His clothing always contained violet, and tonight he wore a violet and dark brown tunic with a deep indigo cloak.
“I don’t want to talk about that. Not now. I know I have to make a decision—”
“But you’re basing that decision off the belief you’re not good enough,” Ashmedai cut in, causing Cullen to finally stop, his eyes even more brilliant violet with the gemstone’s light shimmering behind him.
“I simply want you to understand what you won’t hear from anyone else.
Maybe you won’t believe it from me either, but I’m going to say it anyway. You would make an excellent king.”
The usual indecision blighted Cullen’s face.
“You would .”
Ashmedai had chosen to make himself look like an elf, because that was the form the first of his kind had taken upon returning to this world.
He also thought elves beautiful. He thought dwarves and humans beautiful too.
But the moment he met the half-elf prince, he knew he’d never known anyone quite as radiant.
“It’s your doubt that proves how good a king you could be, because what you want more than anything is to see your people happy. You doubt you can do enough, that you can be enough, but that is how I know you will be. You are a remarkable man, Cullen. I have no doubts about that because….”
This was the second confession and much harder of the two.
“Because I love you,” Ashmedai finished, closing his eyes with the admission.
The streets this late were usually quiet, but normally Ashmedai would at least be able to hear crickets, an owl, a cat prowling. While his eyes remained shut, everything around him was silent.
“Ash….” Cullen said at last, brokenly, and Ashmedai looked at him.
There was no indecision on Cullen’s face now, only grief.
Only pity.
“I’m so sorry, I…. You know I care for you, but….” Cullen pursed his lips, like he hated that he had to say this, but his words were the truth.
“You don’t feel the same,” Ashmedai said, feeling an immediate sting of tears as he tried to look anywhere but at Cullen’s remorse.
How had Ashmedai ever believed one of these beautiful creatures could love him?
Cullen gasped, and Ashmedai looked up again, blinking away his tears so he could focus on his friend—who was staring at him in fear.
Ashmedai gazed down at his hands. He hadn’t been able to feel it amidst his heartache, but the pale color he had chosen for his skin was shifting, fluctuating through the monochrome spectrum from white to black and every shade in between.
“I’m sorry.” Ashmedai lurched backward, trying to will his true form to not surface. He was upset. He didn’t mean to lose the glamour. “Please, don’t be afraid—”
“What are you?” Cullen snapped in accusation.
Ashmedai was failing to contain himself, seeming to lose more and more control the harder he tried to keep it. “Please,” he said again, moving toward Cullen with a crunch of unexpected claws into the cobblestone. “I just wanted—”
“Stay away from me!” Cullen cried, backing toward the gemstone. His violet eyes were saucers of dread, and he reached blindly behind him, finding the Amethyst and pressing a palm to it. “You lied. You tricked us.”
“No, I swear—”
“Stay away! I won’t let you hurt my people.” A pulse of magic surged from Cullen into the gemstone and back again, making it clear he was calling upon his birthright for the strength to fight the beast before him.
Ashmedai’s clothing, his elvish facade, all of it had melted away, revealing him to be a thing of nightmares the people of this world had been happy to be rid of once.
Ashmedai never should have come back.
A spell started to spill beneath Cullen’s breath, too quiet for Ashmedai to make out words other than “barrier” and “monster” and “ forever.” He felt a push from the crystal, as though it was trying to force him out of the square, out of the kingdom.
Ashmedai should have let it banish him, but instead, he drove through the forces pressing against him, unthinking and desperate to at least say goodbye and rest his hand on the shoulder of a friend one last time.
The large Amethyst became a kaleidoscope, pulsing brighter against the shadowy abyss of Ashmedai’s true self as he gave a final, foolish surge forward, one clawed hand landing on Cullen and the other on the gemstone’s surface.
The flash was so blinding, the push so powerful, that Ashmedai flew backward through the air and landed hard on his outstretched wings.
The light faded quickly, however, for the violet-colored crystal was turning black, and Cullen, eyes wide in panic, was being consumed by it as if swallowed by a ravenous fiend until he vanished into the void.
“ No! ”
“Ash…?”
Ashmedai jerked his gaze from where he was sprawled on the ground before the blackened gemstone. Braxton appeared from the other side, stunned and clearly wary, but not seeming as afraid as Cullen had been.
Braxton was a good man, a good friend. He was the first person Ashmedai had met when he arrived in the Amethyst Kingdom.
“ Brax ,” Ashmedai lamented, his voice otherworldly in this form, making Braxton cringe. Like Ashmedai’s physical appearance, his voice was variable, deeper and high-pitched, resonant and like a whisper. “ It’s all my fault….”
“It’s okay.” Braxton raised a hand as if to calm a spooked animal. “I knew you were one of them. I knew it. You were too extraordinary, too beautiful to just be an elf.”
“ It’s all my fault ,” Ashmedai said again, not really listening.
“No, Ash, I saw—”
“ It’s all my fault !” he shrieked and leapt back to his feet .
The gemstone was becoming brighter again, returning to violet, and in a sudden rush of hope, Ashmedai thought Cullen might be returned to him. He wasn’t. Cullen didn’t exist anymore. Whatever had become of him was seeping out of the gemstone at its base and spreading into the earth like a plague.
A scream, almost as shrill as Ashmedai’s own, brought his and Braxton’s attentions to a nearby shop. Daedlys’s shop. In normal speech, Daedlys had a lovely tenor, but oh, how he could scream.
The white-haired elf was staring at Ashmedai like Cullen had.
“Wait!” Braxton cried when Ashmedai turned to flee.
Ashmedai was so distressed by what had happened, he could barely propel himself upward to take flight.
All he could do was run, occasionally hovering in his scramble to escape, or leaping through shadows, headed into the wood to get as far as possible from the Amethyst and the kingdom he had ruined.
Levi
“What are you…?” Levi gasped, stumbling backward, even though Ashmedai couldn’t possibly come closer with the barrier between them. He hated that he was echoing what the highwayman had asked of him, but he didn’t understand. “ You caused the curse?”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Ashmedai said, still and solemn, looking the way Levi was used to, with his white irises returning.
But the memory of his true form, of a monster with shape and color and voice that made Levi’s mind buzz from the dissonance, was impossible to forget.
“A demon is as good an answer as any, I suppose, for what I am.
“My kind are from outside this world, connected but hidden. In ages past, we would cross over to explore. The people of this world called us… fairies. We were wild magic given form, but you—humans, elves, dwarves—you are what taught us to be individuals, to have wants and desires.
“We made ourselves look like you, acted like you.
Over the centuries, we wanted more and more and more—just like you.
We were already immortal, but in our growing greed, we wanted to be gods, to rule over all we had learned of this world.
So we began to consume everything we could to achieve that end, and our ambition corrupted us.
“Some of us it destroyed. Some became such horrible villains that the people rose up to destroy them. And some of us… realized our folly and retreated home.
“More centuries passed, and a few of us wondered what had become of you, curious to venture back, though cautious of allowing ourselves to be corrupted again.
The first who returned decided to stay, vowed to build something beautiful to make amends.
Mavis, the Fairy Queen, they called her.
Her certainty made me believe it was worth crossing over myself.
“I had new eyes after our years of solitude. At least… I thought I did. I believed I could control myself. But then I met Cullen, and I wanted again with all the madness of my kind.”
A tear slipped free down Ashmedai’s cheek, and he sniffled, almost angry in his rush to wipe it away.
“You… you were in love,” Levi said, having stopped backpedaling while he listened, for the even tones of Ashmedai’s voice made him feel less afraid.