Chapter 37
T he ground warms with lush greens as we spend days reading, talking, and playing under the newly hot sun.
As the knockers grow more accustomed to me, rather than hide, they often pitch in their thoughts and theories on why magic is dying. I don’t let myself ask about curses, or demon princes, or how to save Ellyllon, but that doesn’t stop me from searching every book, high and low, for anything that could help me get out of this alive without an entire world suffering for it.
During the search, I learn more about the Fae and the world they live in.
I read about creatures and monsters that lurk in the local woods and how to avoid death by their hands. Apparently, to avoid a cemetery mule, I should never walk around a grave at night. Or, if I ever run into a bucca, I should just cut off my least valuable finger and throw it at him as a snack. And if I capture the attention of a Night Spriggan, I just have to stay awake. Forever. I’d needed extra cuddles the night I found that out.
I learnt that Dae’s dad had banned the use of compulsion magic on humans over three centuries ago, as he’d considered it an extremely cruel practice, and that Dae was the one to bring it back. Ironically, by the time he brought the practice back, most of the other fae had forgotten how to do it. Huddled up in our room that evening, we’d fought tooth and nail, the argument only ending when our verbal battle turned physical.
I found out that while practiced fae could coerce humans into any action by speaking the words, Jinn didn’t need to say anything at all, they could merely wish an action into existence and the unsuspecting human would mysteriously find themselves doing something they’d never wanted nor been asked to do. However, the Jinn did not use their powers when they wanted to strike a deal. Deals required free will, always. I’d tucked away that piece of information, hoping I never found myself in need of a deal with a Jinn.
When I stumbled on a newly bound book on Azaloth, the forgotten Prince of Feast, I snuck away from Dae and found a quiet reading nook to conceal my new treasure. It said this:
“Azaloth has been unnaturally afraid of death since the day he was born—premature, small, and frail.
In his younger years, Azaloth blackened his heart in an attempt to gain immortality. Through unnatural rites and strange passings, Azaloth could not be killed by Human, Faerie or God.
However, this was not enough to assuage Azaloth’s fear. In all his long, long life, Azaloth killed almost every child he ever had in an attempt to prevent an heir who could steal his rule. He allowed only the most useless of his children to live, and has quickly murdered any who showed a talent Hunger might like to get its hands on.
His grandmother, God of Death and Darkness, was, naturally, extremely disappointed, so he quickly killed her too before she got any funny ideas about offing him, leaving the position of God of Death and Darkness open.
There can never be more than one god of any one thing, but there also can’t be an empty vacuum. Something will always fill it.
Azaloth decided whoever took her mantle would bend to his will, politically making him God of both Feast and of the Darkness. When one of the few children he’d thought was too incompetent to ever be considered a real rival suddenly inherited Death’s powers, he rejoiced—clearly, this was going to be an easy job.
Yet, the child proved more difficult than Azaloth had expected. Death and darkness answered to her easily, but disappeared altogether as soon as Azaloth entered the room, making it impossible for him to control them.
Azaloth was sure the child was hiding death from him on purpose, so he would beat and torment her, torturing her favourite pets, hurting her best friends, and telling her what a worthless bit of nothing she was, all in the hopes she would lose her temper and Death and Darkness would come out to play.
They never did.
Because of this, Azaloth became afraid of the child. If he could put her through all this and she could still withhold what he wanted most, how much longer until she could learn to fight back?
He decided it was time to take drastic measures.
According to servant accounts, Azaloth dragged the child by her hair into the highest room in the tallest tower in the land. Despite its tremendous height, her piercing screams could still be heard as the hours dragged into days. Finally, the child stopped screaming, and father and daughter went home.
But when they arrived, something was missing. Death and Darkness were nowhere to be found. No longer were they hidden only from Azaloth, they were hidden from everyone. The child could not summon them.
From that day on, she herself appeared cold and dead, as though the thing she could no longer summon had crept inside her skin, hiding fearfully within her bones. Scholars have provided several theories on what happened.
Number one, the child truly was incompetent and the beating she received caused severe brain damage which prevented her from further accessing Death and Darkness.
Number two, having witnessed the extent Azaloth was willing to go to get access to powers he should never be able to hold, she decided hiding them from him alone was no longer enough and began hiding them from everyone, just in case.
Number three, her subconscious made the above deduction and decided to hide them for her, so she wouldn’t have to.
Either way, a few days after the child lost all powers, Azaloth decided she was no longer worth bothering with and that he was better off getting rid of her and trying again with whichever incompetent child it fell to next. While he had wanted an idiot, he hadn’t wanted someone so stupid they lost all their powers altogether.
So, later that day, when the sun shone its brightest, he crept into the child’s room to kill her, but when he arrived, she was already gone.”
The rest of the pages are blank, as though the story is so fresh, the knockers haven’t had time yet to mark it down. I hide A Story of Hunger and Dark, Volume Seven deep inside the nook, wipe the tears off my cheeks, and hope that girl had made it out alive.
“Here’s something,” I say to Dae the following morning as we lounge in one of the upper library rooms eating sweets. My pile of sweet wrappers is strewn about in a chaotic mess, his stands in a neat, impossibly perfect stack. “This book talks about three rulers. One of Life, who keeps the ground and its creatures in balance.
“One of the Between, who cares for the Nori, the sea, and the nymphs. And one of death, that keeps darkness at bay. It says each ruler keeps their own realm in check, but if all three rulers are unseated, all realms are at risk. Maybe that’s the problem? Dad is where he’s supposed to be, right? But, where are the other two?”
Except, the more I think about it, Dad’s not where he’s supposed to be at all. The book from yesterday said you can’t have two gods at once. And the little zaps we both share, the talking to the trees, all of it… what if I’m the replacement? What if something’s trying to get rid of him as a god and he’s killing off anything in its way?
There’s no way my father is as cruel as Azaloth, but he’s certainly not who I thought he was.
What if… what if all of this shit about prophesies and sacrifices and the heart of Ellyllon is all bullshit and it’s just that Dad’s reached his expiry date and me, or one of the other kids who’s born every twenty years, is supposed to replace him, and he’s killing us off so that he won’t have to die?
Maybe the reason the sacrifice has to happen in a few days is because a little after twenty is when gods come into their full powers. Maybe that’s how old the God of Death was in the story, and they only called her a child because to them, to the ancient creatures who roam this land, twenty is a child. Maybe the sacrifice is to save Dad, not Ellyllon.
I almost want to laugh, to think I could be a god is the most narcissistic thing I’ve ever considered. And yet, it feels true.
But it can’t be.
“Huh?” I ask when I realise Dae’s been speaking and I haven’t been listening.
“I don’t know who rules Death or the Nori.”
“Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe we need to find the three rulers and sit them on their thrones and then magic will stop dying,” I say on autopilot, my brain churning as I try to rearrange everything I ever thought I knew about my father. There’s no fucking way my mad theory is right.
Dae’s cold face doesn’t move. “I think it’s time we go,” he mutters absentmindedly. My face must fall because he says, “It won’t be that bad, love.”
But the courtyard isn’t what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about my choices.
Mum comes first. Mum has to live. Which means, I can make a bargain with Dorian and spend eternity in Hell, or I can let Dae make a deal with the demons and storm Ellyllon, killing millions.
But then there’s option three. What if I really could kill my father and become a god, and then I’d have the power to force the hand of a demon prince? But there’s not enough time for that. And I don’t even know if I’d become a god, or if gods even have any power over demons. And Dae said no, not that his opinion counts, but he was certainly right about my inability to fight with a dagger pointed at my chest. But what if there was another way to kill Dad before the demons gain access to Ellyllon?
I don’t even know if my half-baked hatchet job of a thought is fair or true—maybe Dad’s got no idea about any of this. Maybe he’s just a thousand years old and completely na?ve. I struggle not to roll my own eyes at myself.
“Elysia,” Dae grasps my hands, suddenly urgent. His eyes are darting and serpentine. “Marry me.”
I get the feeling he meant to ask, but, like everything Dae does, he just ends up demanding. “What?” I sound like an idiot, but I can’t help it.
“I want you to marry me,” he says, grasping my hand with more strength. “Say yes.”
“I didn’t even know Faeries get married.”
“Well, we do.”
I pull my hands from his and say, “I just… Dae, you’re about to storm my father’s home, I’m still liable to die?—.”
“No,” he says, “you won’t. I promise you won’t. Neither will your mother.”
“Agree to disagree?—.”
“Fine, assuming you live, which you will, I want you to marry me. And even if you don’t live. I love you, Elysia. I have loved you from the day I saw you charging like a bull at those bullies. I’ll love you even if your father rips out your heart and shreds it into a thousand pieces. We’re the same, you and I.” His eyes are hungry. “If you die, I want to be forever altered. I don’t want to be a kid who lost his best friend, I want to be a widow, I want to be a tragedy, I want to be a lost soul who can never love again, who wanders the mist of the Nori looking for the soul of his dead wife. Marry me, soon, so that no matter what happens, I’ll always, always be yours.”
A choking sound escapes my throat as with a smile I can’t contain, I say, “Yes.”
“Good. Then it’s time to go home. Say goodbye to the knockers.”