My Ash’kaela
my ash’kaela
—SAGE
Ashán! I scream, phantom muscles straining against the agony radiating from his shredded shoulder. Answer me!
I roar his name into the void, but the echo comes back empty. His love for Eden. The pain of his skelva splitting against the stone. His feral determination.
Gone.
It’s like being locked in a deprivation tank while the house is on fire. I am still here, anchored to our soul, but the windows have been blacked out.
No, no, no. Not now. Not when we’re this close.
I beat against the walls of his consciousness, trying to force my own strength through the fracture between us.
Wake up. Wake up, Ash!
But this damned curse has pulled him under again, swallowing his awareness… swallowing our time.
Ashán! If you don’t answer me—
“You’ll what?”
The voice that comes out of our mouth isn’t his. It’s hollow and cold, devoid of every rough edge that makes Ashán… Ashán.
The lungs we share draw a long, measured breath. His skelva tighten against the ledge, and no pain comes back through the bond like it has this whole time.
Ashán! I scream.
He pauses, his head turning slowly as if to search for my voice.
“You are loud.”
Ice floods through me.
Eden! I shout. Think of Eden!
His body goes still.
“... Eden.” The name rolls slowly off his tongue, as though tasting it for the first time.
“Yes, of course,” he says. “I’m looking for her.”
He sounds like a hunter tracking an injured deer.
Ashán.
He continues to climb the ledges.
Ashán, stop. We need to talk.
“You continue using that name,” he says curiously. “It does not appear to be effective.”
My heart feels like it’s going to fall from my body. You are him! You are Ashán!
“Incorrect.” He pauses. “I am simply a reaper. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
No! I scream. That isn’t true. You love her!
“Do I?”
You would die for her, I say. You cut your own wings off twelve times, Ash. Twelve times. Just to avoid this very thing.
His claws tighten around the next stone.
“Perhaps,” he says without inflection. “The pull remains.”
Oh, thank the gods. He remembers. Some piece of him remembers.
“The reason does not,” he murmurs.
No. I’m not letting you take her from him, I scream at the curse.
If I can’t wake his mind—I will break his vessel.
I gather every thread of my magic and aim for our center of gravity.
I’m sorry, Ash.
Our body tips backward, the world dropping away as we plunge into the chasm. We crash against the lower shelf of rock. The sound is sickening—a sharp, splintering crack that echoes through the ravine as the impact snaps both of Ashán’s legs.
Get up from that, I pant.
His eyes open, staring blankly at the purple twilight sky. The heart in our chest doesn’t skip a single beat. Slowly, the reaper sits up.
“Hm,” is all he says.
I watch in horror as he looks down at his shattered limbs. With a steady hand, he reaches down and grips his left ankle. A grinding screech rings out as he pulls and twists the leg back into a straight line. He doesn’t flinch as he moves to the right leg and repeats the same process.
You’re a monster, I whisper. Stop using his body!
“I am using what is required to fulfill the request,” the reaper replies.
He raises his hand, and black tendrils of shadow spill from his palms, wrapping tightly around his shins and thighs. The darkness hardens, molding over the fractures, locking the broken bones into place.
He stands, and the shadow-braces groan under his weight. From the narrow floor of the pit, the world looks entirely different. Stalagmites surround us like a frozen jail cell. He scans our surroundings.
“The shortest distance between two points… is a straight line.”
He raises his left hand toward the wall.
Deep within our chest, Ashán’s magic surges to life.
A spear of hardened shadow shoots from his palm and sinks deep into the cliff face high above us.
It snaps taut, hauling our broken body straight up the rock like a grappling line. The instant we land, he fires another.
She won’t recognize you, I plead, beating against the inside of our body. You are going to break her heart.
He pauses, eyes dropping to his hands.
“The heart is a fragile mechanism,” the voice whispers back to me. “It breaks regardless.”
Another spear erupts from his palm, and we shoot over the canyon lip. He severs the shadow line, letting it dissolve back into himself, and immediately resumes his march toward her scent.
No. There has to be something left.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR DAUGHTER? I scream.
Several heartbeats pass before he speaks again.
“Daughter?”
He searches for the word, turning it over, trying to find where it belongs.
“Offspring?” he asks.
My heart leaps.
“A continuation of her bloodline? The second name?”
Ash… my voice cracks. Ash please… You already love her. You tell her bedtime stories. You feed her with your shadow every night. Don’t tell me… I sob. Don’t tell me the only danger she was ever meant to survive… was you.
His head rolls to the left until the shadow muscles in his neck pull taut.
Crack.
He tilts his head to the right.
Crack.
“I don’t like this,” the reaper says.
Somewhere beneath the curse… Ash is still listening.
Keep fighting, Ash... I’m coming.
I search the fractured corners of our mind, hunting for the one thing the curse could never taint. I find it buried in the dark—a bedtime story he whispered to Vaelína when he thought the rest of the world was asleep.
Once, there was a creature made entirely of darkness. He lived in a deep, cold hollow, and he believed if he ever touched The Sun, he would only destroy it.
“Stop.”
He was sure he was a monster. But one day, a beautiful, stubborn, copper flower started growing right in the center of his void. And it wasn’t afraid of his shadows. It bloomed because of them.
“I said stop,” he rasps.
The creature realized his darkness wasn’t a curse. It was just a place to keep his flower safe. Sleep now, míní. I will always guard the dark for you.
Flaming blue tears spill down the reaper’s skull. “I remember the words.”
Yes, Ash! Yes! My voice breaks. You remember them because you made this story for our daughter.
“I do not remember why I said them.”
His hand lifts slowly towards his chest, skelva digging into the ribs protecting his heart.
LIAR! I scream at the curse, every ounce of my soul tearing at the walls holding his. He’s crying! LET HIM OUT!
His claws dig deeper into our ribs.
Ash, listen to my voice! The dark isn’t an ending. It’s where things are kept safe! You are the night guarding the nest! WAKE UP AND PROTECT YOUR FAMILY!
His hands yank away from his chest and clamp over his temples instead. He wrenches his head sideways the way an animal thrashes to dislodge something from its head.
A choked gasp hitches in our throat and the clinical stillness of the reaper shatters.
“... Ash—” he wheezes.
Yes! Yes. You are Ash!
He shakes his head. “No.... Ash—” he repeats.
I don’t understand.
He drops to his knees and bangs his skull against the stone. The sound rips through our body.
“Ash—” he says again.
Another blow.
Stop.
Another.
What are you doing?! You’re cracking your skull!
His hands brace against the ground, his whole body shaking.
“N-not As-sh…” The words come out disjointed. Not the reaper’s voice… not entirely.
“My…”
I go still.
Your what?
His damaged skull lifts slowly, blue fire burning in the hollows of his eyes.
“M-my ash’kaela.”
The name falls between us—one I have heard him say a thousand times.
Yes, Ash. Your ash’kaela.
“Vaelína.” His head snaps toward the forest.
My breath hitches. He remembered her. The little soul sleeping in the dark, the daughter that he wraps his shadows around every night to keep the world away.
The curse wanted a reaper—a being that would follow the pull and obey the mission.
A reaper has nothing to lose—but a father does—a father would break his bones and tear down a mountain to get to his child.
Yes. Vaelína, I cry. Our daughter needs you. Keep fighting.
His head lowers, and his claws slide back to his chest, holding the place where the mark burns across his sternum.
“Daughter,” he whispers. The word sounds foreign in his mouth. “Ním?”
The question nearly destroys me.
Yes, I choke out. Neeth.
His skull tilts slightly.
“Then why… why does remembering hurt so much?”
Because you love her.
“Love?” He mulls over the word. “That is the weakness?”
No, Ash… I wrap my gold magic around his shadows. That is why you’re still here.
The blue flames in his sockets flare black.
Fight it! I roar, binding my golden light tighter around his writhing shadows. Don’t you let it take her away from you!
Our chest heaves, a raspy breath rattling through his lungs.
“It is… too loud,” he gasps, his posture contorting. The shadows around his broken legs fracture and reform. “The pain…” His voice cracks. “Sage, the pain—”
Is the only thing keeping you alive! I scream back, refusing to let the curse drag him back into that empty place. I force him to feel every bit of agony, because that agony is the only proof left that he loves her.
Let it hurt, Ashán! Let it burn you alive, but do not forget her name!
With an animalistic snarl, his skull snaps upward. The black fire in his sockets burns away, replaced by a blinding, incandescent blue.
The full weight of what he did crashes through the bond. Every splinter of his shattered legs, the torn muscle of his shoulder, the cracks running through his skelva—it all floods into us at once.
A whimper breaks from his lips as he pushes himself up from the ground. But his body gives out, and he falls back to the stone.
“Eden, I’m coming,” he whispers, planting his palms against the rock and forcing himself up again. His arms tremble, his broken legs dragging uselessly behind us. “I can’t—” he groans. “I can’t feel my legs.”
Ashán… you don’t have to get up right now.
“We’re running out of time.” Blue tears fall and sizzle against the stone.
There he is. Not the reaper. My reaper—my Ashán.
Ash.
His head lifts weakly.
“If only I had my wings…”
You broke the curse, I rasp. You’re back now. But you cannot walk on shattered bones.
“I have to,” he rasps, his fingers clawing fruitlessly at the rubble, trying to drag his torso forward. “I’ll crawl if I have to.”
You don’t have to crawl, I whisper. You have me.
His movements stutter.
We are a bond, Ashán. Your shadows and my light. You fought the curse alone, but you don’t have to carry the weight of this body by yourself anymore.
I weave my gold directly into his shadow tendrils. Where his bones are broken, our combined magic becomes the splint.
On three. We get up.
A deep breath expands his chest.
One.
Two.
Three.
With a unified roar, we push. The shadow braces, reinforced by my magic, snap his legs straight. The agony is indescribable. His body screams, every instinct inside of us begging for him to stop. But he doesn’t. Because for the first time since the curse took him… he isn’t fighting alone.
The bone fragments grind together within our flesh in sickening pops.
Our left foot swings forward, but it doesn’t land.
“Again,” he whispers.
Ashán—
“Again.”
A familiar spark flickers beneath all the pain, and with a shadow-slicked grin, we take our first step.
“Again.”
We take a second step.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The frantic sound of boots smacking against ice grows louder.
Ashán’s body freezes mid-stride.
Eden.
Her silhouette comes into view, her copper hair a mess.
“Ash!” she screams, relief spreading across her face. “Sage!”
The moment her foot hits the stone of our ridge, an unnatural pressure drops over the forest. A metallic shriek rips through the air as darkness pools rapidly into Ashán’s right palm.
The shadow hardens, elongating into a staff topped by a sweeping bone blade.
The weapon settles in his hand, its tip pointing directly at the woman running down the path.
Ashán tries to open his fingers and hurl the scythe away, but his hand is locked around the hilt like a vice.
She’s moving too fast, her hands protectively cradling her swollen belly as she sprints down the slick rock, straight toward his blade.
“Eden—NO!”