2. Ash
Chapter Two
Ash
A week earlier.
I rose from the ground, shaking off the leaves and mulch that clung to me. My branches reached for the sun, drinking in its light.
I closed my eyes, feeling the magic of the forest as it danced around me. The other dryads and druses were waking up, too.
The dryads, female spirits of the trees, and their male counterparts, the druses, were the keepers of the forest. We lived in the trees—became one with them—although we could take on human form if we wanted to. It was our duty to look after the forest, to preserve its life force, to let the trees live on. We lived as long as the trees lived—eternally unless our trees were destroyed. It was in our best interest, and that of the earth, to keep the trees alive.
“Ash?” a voice called through the forest. His voice was like a melody.
I shifted into human form and stepped from the bark of the large ash tree I slept in.
“Rowan,” I said when my friend stepped around the trunks in my vale, looking for me. He was in his human form, too, with pale skin and white hair, pointed ears, and the sharp features of the druses and dryads.
“There you are,” he said with a grin. “I thought you were going to sit this one out again.”
“I considered it,” I said. I stretched until my back popped, then ruffled my dark hair, scratching my scalp. Stepping into human form after so long was strange, like donning a new outfit that hadn’t quite been worn in. “Another fifty years wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”
“Yeah, but without you, this shit gets boring.”
I grinned. “What’s fifty years on eternity?”
“It’s fifty years’ worth of trick-or-treating you missed. All Hallows’ Eve is coming up—Halloween, they call it now. The humans are getting more and more creative every day. They don’t even know what it’s all about anymore.”
We walked through the trees toward the lake that lay in a clearing just beyond where I slept.
“You can’t keep doing this, you know,” Rowan said. He pushed his fingers into his white hair and combed it to the side.
“Sleep?”
“Avoid the world for the rest of eternity.”
I shrugged. “It’s worked for me so far.”
We reached the water. It was clear, sparkling in the light of the sun. We walked to the edge of the lake and sat down, plunging our feet into the cool blue liquid.
“Three hundred years is a hell of a long time to hold a grudge,” Rowan remarked.
“Would you have forgiven her?” I asked.
I’d fallen in love with a mortal once. I’d cared so much for her, I’d been willing to give up my immortality. Apparently, she’d been willing to run around my back with another. Immortality was a big thing to lose.
Rowan thought about it. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I know I wouldn’t have fallen for a mortal.”
“You can’t say that. You can’t help who you love.”
“That’s not true,” Rowan said. “Look around you, man. There is a myriad of dryads for you to choose from if you want some companionship. They’re all down for a good fuck, let me tell you that.”
I glanced at the water’s edge, where the dryads lay sprawled on the mulch, drinking in the sun. Their pale, curved bodies were appetizing, their breasts firm and beautiful, their skin begging to be touched, kissed, tasted.
I could walk up to any of the female tree spirits, take her to my cabin, and fuck her.
I’d done that countless times, too. Seducing them was easy. I just didn’t get anything out of it. It was fine to take the edge off, but once I was satiated and my mind started spinning again… no release would erase that.
“Yeah, I’m not in the mood,” I said.
Rowan snorted. “Since when aren’t you in the mood to get some? With your gift of seduction, I would think you’re in the mood all the time. I’d give my left testicle to have your gift.”
I chuckled. “You have gifts, too.”
“Sure, the power to grow entire orchards at will is so sexually attractive, the dryads see me popping up lemon trees and they jump my bones.”
I burst out laughing. “You could have complained if you didn’t get laid these past few decades, but I know you were busy while I was asleep.”
Rowan shrugged. “I might not have the gift of seduction, my friend, but I’ve got game.”
“Good for you,” I laughed.
“Seriously, have some fun with it, Ash. Find some girls, find a release. Do it again and again if you want. The world is your oyster. If you won’t love, then fuck.”
I only shrugged, and we sat together in silence for a moment.
“What about you?” I asked, changing topics. “You’re on me about finding someone to love?—”
“Or getting laid.”
“—but have you found someone these last few decades?”
Rowan shrugged, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“You have, haven’t you?”
“It’s Clea,” he said, jerking his head toward where Clea stood.
“Since when are you that close to her?”
“Hey, sleep for three hundred years, and the world passes you by,” Rowan pointed out.
Clea stood with two other dryads. She had long, greenish hair and a body that would make any drus sit up and beg. She was hot. She oozed sex appeal, but she was sweet, too. I’d known her for a long, long time. If there ever was a good dryad woman, it was Clea.
She did nothing for me.
“I’m happy for you,” I said.
“Are you?”
I shrugged. “If this is what you want, then yeah, of course. Just because I don’t believe in love anymore doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”
“You can’t say it doesn’t exist,” Rowan said.
“Not for me. It only takes one bitch to break your heart, and then you’re stuck with this mess for the rest of your life.”
Rowan snorted. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It doesn’t look good on you.”
I burst out laughing. “I don’t feel sorry for myself, man. I’m just over it. It’s been a long couple of centuries… I guess I’m tired.”
“After all the sleeping you do…” Rowan didn’t finish his sentence. He knew that wasn’t the kind of exhaustion I referred to. He only nodded, and we sat in silence while he watched Clea, his eyes glazed over with affection and lust.
I’d meant it when I said I was happy for him. He believed in love, so it would exist for him, and it was safer to fall in love with a dryad than a mortal. They could live together forever if they wanted. Or they could hate each other forever if it didn’t work out. Either way, they had that luxury.
I hadn’t had it when I’d fallen for Ava. She’d been human, and growing old together hadn’t been possible. Not unless I’d given it all up.
A man in love was a fool. I’d been willing to give up too much for too little in return.
“Do you ever wish you could change things?” I asked.
Rowan frowned. “Like what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything.”
“How are you supposed to change it?”
I shrugged again. “I heard stories about spirits and demons who chose to become something else.” I glanced at Rowan, and his eyes grew wide.
“You can’t talk about shit like that, man. That’s sacrilege. Giving up your mortality is one thing—the gods are okay with that because they fall for humans, too, so they get it. But changing who you are? Trading one immortal life for another? Zeus will have your head.”
I snorted. “Why? What would it do? I’m just one being, it’s not like I’d upset the balance of nature.”
“Sure, not when you’re just one person, but if everyone decides to do it?—”
“Since when are you so serious about the sanctity of being a drus?” I cut him off.
“Since it’s our lot in life, Ash,” Rowan said sternly. “We have a hell of a lot of freedom. Why can’t that be enough for you? Why do you have to fuck with the system?”
I shook my head. “I’m not fucking with the system. Gods, I was just asking.”
“Well… don’t,” Rowan said, shaking his head. “Don’t even entertain the thought. You’ve got enough shit in your life as it is.”
I groaned. He was right. I wished he wasn’t, but he was right. I had too much shit in my life.
That was the thing, though. I wanted to change it up. I wanted to do something drastic. I’d tried avoiding life for the past three centuries, and that hadn’t worked out very well for me. The breakup, albeit ancient news by now, still hurt like a bitch, and I was perpetually drained.
A murmur rippled through the group around the water, and magic filled the air. The very atmosphere trembled. A deer stepped from between the trees, lowered her elegant head, and started to graze.
“She’s here,” Rowan said excitedly.
Artemis appeared a moment later, stepping from the trees, too. She wore a short white dress with boots, and in her hand, she held a bow. A quiver of arrows sat on her back, peeking through her long auburn hair.
She had another goddess with her. Philotes, the goddess of friendship, who sometimes accompanied Artemis to see us. Lately, she’d been coming more and more often.
“My friends,” Artemis said to us with a smile.
The druses and dryads stumbled over their feet to go to her. Of all the goddesses, the goddess of the hunt was our favorite. She came to see us often, and we were her friends.
I didn’t go to her like the others.
After my stupid mistake, trusting a human woman when I should have let it be, Artemis had helped me. She’d saved me.
“Aren’t you coming?” Rowan asked when I didn’t follow him.
“Not when Philotes is with her.”
Rowan looked confused.
“She’s weird,” I said. “Don’t you think she’s weird?”
“Why? Because of who she is? Or because of who she hangs out with? Not everyone is against humans, you know.”
I sighed. Rowan was right—it was because of who Philotes spent her time with. She liked befriending the humans, donning the form of a human woman in place of her glamorous goddess shape. She called herself Philippa to fit in more.
Why would anyone want to be that close to the humans?
Maybe it was because the gods couldn’t screw up the way I did. When they fell for mortals, they still retained their divinity. They couldn’t fall the way we could. They couldn’t become mortal.
Would they have if they needed to for love? I wasn’t sure.
All that happened when gods and goddesses mixed with humans was either a good friendship or… halflings were born. The gods and goddesses came away unscathed from a bond with them.
I shook my head again, standing firm. “I think I’ll take a nap.”
“Come on, man,” Rowan said. “You’re such a killjoy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I doubt she’ll have time for me anyway.”
“Artemis has time for all of us,” Rowan said.
I shrugged.
“Suit yourself. Just wake up before Halloween, okay?”
“Okay.”
Trick-or-treat could be fun. I liked scaring the village kids when they walked around. I liked spreading terror among the superstitious humans who still thought vengeful ghosts were out to get them.
Life had become a repetition of itself—more of the same every day—but Halloween could be fun.
I turned my back on Artemis and disappeared into the trees.
Rowan was right when he’d said she’d have time for me. She always had time for us. I just didn’t want to see her. She’d given me another shot at this, giving back the immortality I’d so hastily given up for love. I didn’t need a reminder of what a fool I’d been. I didn’t need to see the disappointment at who I’d become in her eyes.
Rowan and Clea’s match would find favor in Artemis’s eyes because the druses and the dryads belonged together.
I walked to the vale, where my tree stood tall and proud. I leaned against the tree, looking around me through the forest. It was green and lush, the trees healthy, proud sentries that stood tall, reaching for the light.
There was merit in having a job to do and doing it well. It was all there was left for me now. I was a protector of the trees, and that was what I would do.
I turned to my tree and pressed my hand against the bark. I breathed in deeply and unfurled the magic in my core. It connected with the life force of the tree, and I slipped into the trunk, becoming one with the tree.
I took a deep breath, shook out my leaves, and settled down, reaching my roots deep into the ground. I sensed the magic of the earth, alive and grounded beneath me. I breathed in the air, relished the warmth of the sun’s rays. I looked beyond the forest to where the villages lay, and beyond the villages, to the cities that had changed so much.
The world expanded. The humans learned and grew. They invented, they created, they rose above who they’d been every day, reinventing themselves. Once upon a time, that had drawn me.
Now, the world had very little to offer me beyond the vale of the tree spirits. I should have held onto that fact when I’d met Ava. I should have seen the bigger picture, the way we had never belonged together.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, letting my slumber draw me in. I welcomed the sedated feeling that came with sleep and gave myself over to it.
The upside of eternity was that I’d had time to make my mistakes.
The downside of eternity was that I had to live with the consequences of my mistakes forever.