Chapter 28
101 YEARS AGO
MALICINE WAS DROWNING in new smells and lavish decor. Slabs of meat filled the trays, cooked to warm brown tones, dripping in golden oils. A large bird had been finely sliced with pink hues glistening on each tender side. Goblets sprouted from the stone and filled themselves with wine, rich in maroon with the sweet smell of cherries. At the center sat a bowl filled with grapes for Talon to peck and chew noisily.
A second ago, the food and wine had been dust particles. The Demon King needed only to hover his hand across the table before conjuring them into shapes on silver plates.
“You say we should talk, but it looks like you just wanted to show off,” Malicine said.
He smiled. “Can’t your father do both?”
Malicine took the first buttery bite of a meat slice and let the flavors burst in their mouth. For the first time, they understood what it meant to savor power. Cherries from the wine goblet swirled in their mouth next, bitter and sweet at the same time. Still, questions remained hanging on their tongue.
“What happened out there?” Malicine’s gaze flickered to the circular window. A bloodred moon hung over the smoke and ashes that permeated outside the tower’s fortress. They remembered first entering the Otherworld, the way ash rained from the sky and smoke clogged their throat. Despite the safety of the tower, they could not ignore the forces outside.
“A wildfire spread while I had been traveling to the human realm. I could not stop it,” he answered. “The fires swept across the land and killed everyone. This fortress is the only place left for me to protect.”
Malicine recalled the smell of burnt flesh, the array of bent horns and broken wings that were left abandoned in charcoal. How utterly alone they felt knowing they were too late.
“A terrible way to die,” they murmured. “I would have wanted to meet the others.”
Their father made an impassive shrug, but Malicine could tell from the way his shoulders tightened that the incident bothered him more than he let on. “One can get used to being alone, as I’m sure you have.”
“Not by choice.”
It was one thing to view humans and Fae with disdain, but another to know, deep down, that ostracization only happened from being repulsive in the first place. Malicine filled the silence by taking another sip of wine. The Demon King sat back in his throne. He didn’t touch any the plates, choosing instead to watch Malicine.
“You and I are similar in ways beyond blood, my child. I was trapped in the prisons of your world’s rules. A world where humans are in power, and Fae are merely their slaves, expected to dedicate our entire lives to their bidding. I wasted so many years tending to his side, harvesting my magic only to fulfill a greedy human’s desires.”
“You mean King Samael.”
Sharp points of his teeth jutted over his lips. “You know of Gyldan history.”
“Enough of it, yes. I know there was an orphaned faerie who swore loyalty to the King of Gyldan after he took him in, only to betray him later by attempting murder. In their fight, they shed blood, and with his magic, created a portal to the underworld.”
Malicine set the goblet down on the table and stared into the black pits of his eyes. Talon stopped eating as well. The question hung in the air, unvoiced until now.
“You are Oleander, aren’t you?”
Malicine could hear the hum in both their pulses, syncing like two creatures of the same blood. They had put the pieces together the moment he revealed he had been a Fae in their world, only to morph into a demon here. It made sense, then, how he came here in the first place, and why his skin had turned green from the wicked envy he held against Samael.
“You found Samael’s book,” Oleander said.
“I assume you hid it from the humans because it didn’t paint you in a good light.”
His nostrils flared in indignation. “No. Samael wrote that I tried to kill him. But the truth is he was a coward who could not bear the thought of letting others know he was growing old and weak.”
Platters of food shook across the table and scattered apart. Stone faded away into darkness, shrouded by black smoke that entered the corners of Malicine’s vision. A red light filtered through the fog and drew a scene. Red curtains, candlelit walls. A man with bones protruding from sickly pale skin, begging on his knees. Standing in front of him was a younger man—no, not younger. He only appeared that way. In those familiar black eyes, Malicine could recognize their father. He looked strangely normal as a faerie: spider-spun wings, pale skin, sharp ears instead of horns.
Malicine watched King Samael beg Oleander to extend his life. He couldn’t handle the pain that came with a deteriorating body of old age. Oleander rejected his pleas, for granting humans immortality was forbidden among faeries. They reached a compromise where he would let the king pass peacefully instead. He began setting candles around the chambers, each flame a delicate piece of the magic circle he would cast.
Then King Samael attacked.
It happened before Oleander turned around, before Malicine could even blink. The knife flashed underneath his robe and pierced through Oleander’s skull. A squelch of flesh, an eruption of blood. The blade went through his head, two holes for him to bleed from.
Malicine tried blinking away the bloodshed. They gripped onto the edge of the table to anchor them to reality, not the flashbacks and anguished sounds of pain. “It was Samael who struck first,” they breathed. “Not you.”
Their vision crystallized from one Oleander to another. Where two holes gaped in his skull, black horns sprouted. The look of betrayal melted into a clenched jaw with resignation.
“Stories are written by the rulers of the world,” he spoke, “which means not every story is true.”
He evaporated back to his old self, a frail creature bleeding across marble floor. King Samael towered over him, but the sight looked pathetic to Malicine. It was not a fair battle. The king breathed heavily, weak and old, a coward who needed to bring another creature to his knees to put them on the same level. Before he struck again, Oleander grabbed one of the candles and set Samael’s cape ablaze. The king stumbled backward to put the fire out. Oleander lunged forward and tackled him to the ground.
In the flames, they fought for their lives. Blood spilled, red mingling with gold. Blinding light traced around the magic circle and lit the entire room. Malicine covered their eyes from the searing brightness. Between their fingers, they saw the floor open. The portal gaped wide as the men fell below.
Wind rushed past Malicine before gravity inverted. Floating boulders nearly knocked them over as they flew across sprawling mountains. They grabbed one of the tendrils of a climbing plant and clung onto it for balance. Strange spores entered their lungs as they breathed heavily, turning to watch the scene below.
“Samael got his wish, after all,” Oleander’s voice echoed. “He found a way to escape mortality and never age.”
Through the fog, something picked up under the light. Malicine strained their eyes to make out the figure sprawled in the sand. His skin had thickened into a garish shade between yellow and orange. Samael’s graying hair had melted into his crown. As he stood, his body looked limber, his bones solid and sturdy. He moved like a new man. But unlike any other man, his stature was drenched in gold. He stared at his hands with a sense of awe. He would never rust or tarnish, let alone depreciate the way that regular humans would.
Malicine remembered one of Talon’s first words upon entering the Otherworld. In here, your sin becomes part of your skin.
If Samael’s greed took over him, then surely, Oleander’s envy had turned his skin green. Malicine caught the flash of vitriol in their father’s eyes as he stared at his gold-drenched king. Horns sprouted from where his wounds once were, then twisted themselves into gnarled hooks. His expression softened once the king returned his gaze, yet resentment radiated from him in waves that Malicine could sense too well in its familiarity.
“Samael wanted to rule this world and start a new life here,” Oleander said. “We called for a truce, so that we could build a new beginning.”
Malicine sneered. “What a foolish thing you did for a human who betrayed you.”
“I dismissed it as an act of desperation, one that would no longer happen now that he could live. I couldn’t imagine abandoning him after he took me in when no one else did. You must understand: I had no family. My parents were dead. He was the one who found and raised me.”
Oleander gripped the chalice tight, regret twisting his lips to a downward curve.
“One day, he ordered me to deliver a book he wrote to Gyldan so that his family would learn about what happened and cross to the Otherworld. I forged my magic and our blood into this amulet so I could travel between worlds easily. It would have been a simple task. Yet suspicion kept gnawing my mind. I knew he must have written about me.”
Across the dining table, his amulet glowed in burning red. Darkness shrouded Malicine’s vision once more, the clouds dissipating once they stood in the middle of a library. The polished oak shelves and stained-glass windows indicated they were inside the Gyldan castle. A door cracked open to a hidden alcove. Malicine peered inside to see their father hunched over Samael’s book. His body trembled as text melded together onto the pages.
Malicine turned away. They didn’t need to see more when they had already read it themselves. They remembered the night Amelia opened the book and they read the last page of his story. Out of all the lies Samael wrote, there had been a grain of truth in the end.
These unusual spirits aren’t innocent faeries, but demons. They are wicked creatures, but they can be tamed. That is what I have done with Oleander. My instincts had been correct when I killed his parents.
There is no such thing as a good monster, after all.
For how many years did Oleander spend his life, thinking Samael had saved him in the wild forests? Perhaps at one point he even considered the king to be his own father, Malicine thought bleakly.
“What did you do?” they asked.
“You already know the answer to that.”
Even though Malicine had kicked down his throne moments ago, he’d already back together, tapping his fingers across the ribbed armrests. The bones were chalky white and jagged, carved so that they could fit Oleander’s arms like a sleeve.
Malicine couldn’t help but smile. “No wonder he was so satisfying to kick.”
“These fairy tales are merely lies humans tell themselves to feel important. I shall write an even better story. A story about how a demon discovered his true worth, left behind a false book, and came back to kill the one who betrayed him. I am the king now, and this world is only the first of many.”
He stood up from his seat, his goblet untouched, and crossed toward the rows of windows. Something pulled Malicine to follow him, the way a child would a father. They moved like someone who started to believe that things could be better.
“Let me join you,” Malicine said, “and we’ll repair this world to be ours again.”
They looked up at the sky. Thick smoke permeated outside the fortress, the smog so dense they could hardly see beyond the barrier. Malicine wondered if it would have been possible to hear the cries of anguish within their bubble, the screams of demons burning within the flames in the forest across the sea. The sky must have lit up in orange. Perhaps one day they could paint it blue again.
Light flickered in his eyes as Oleander looked at them. “You’ll help me create a new world.”
Power hummed through Malicine’s veins. Oleander’s amulet glowed brighter, responding to kindred blood. In the fractures of light, something else caught their eye. Below the tower, amid columned rocks and fog, the glass sheen of Amelia’s skin reflected.
Malicine grabbed the window ledge and gaped at the girl. Wider cracks had formed across her limbs. Her footsteps were uneven on the choppy rocks. She roamed aimlessly around the terrain, scanning the columns and calling for Malicine’s name in a voice so frail the demon could barely hear her.
They didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. How could she be so stupid? They’d left her behind, and here she was, still searching for them as if her body wasn’t falling apart.
“She is like the king she descends from.” Disgust tinged Oleander’s voice. “She wants to use you and keep you as her little pet, as Samael did with me. But do not worry. I have other plans for her.”
His gnarled finger pointed ahead where Amelia walked. Streaks of red light radiated from his amulet. Dead leaves swirled around the princess, trapping her in place. Sticks rose in the air and curved into the shape of a circle as large as her body. The circle’s surface turned opaque, an oily iridescent sheen that contained light. Once she saw whatever was inside, her eyes turned glossy, her mouth parting in awe. She stretched an arm toward the portal and walked like someone under hypnosis.
“Where is she going?” Malicine asked, trying to contain the alarm in their voice.
“Nowhere. She thinks she sees an ideal world, but she will be trapped in nothingness.”
Malicine’s heartbeats slowed as they watched Amelia place her hands at the edge of the portal, peering inside with wonder. Light shimmered through her glass silhouette, as if she would disappear into the stars.
But wasn’t that what Amelia wanted, after all, to no longer exist? If anything invited disaster, she’d already willingly accepted it. Malicine didn’t need to stop her. Yet a heavy anchor brought them forward and made them grip the window. Their movements were slow, as if they were drowning. A bitter aftertaste lingered on their tongue, the familiar scent of wine.
“Wait,” they said, but it came out as a whisper.
The light from the portal dimmed, only for Malicine to realize it was their own vision, dark blotches blooming in the corners of their sight. Amelia became a blur, and when they turned to their father, they could barely see his face. They sought out Talon for help, yet the raven was limp and motionless on the dining table, half-eaten grapes rolled aside their beak.
Something was wrong. Malicine’s eyelids were too heavy, their mouth too dry. The edges of the vaulted ceiling pulled in. The room spun, and they couldn’t stop it. The last thing they felt was the hard crack of their skull against the floor before their body turned limp, their limbs in a fixed position, unable to move. Their eyes caught the glint of Oleander’s fangs as he stared at her, smiling, the both of them knowing that Malicine could do absolutely nothing to escape.