These scenes are set during “King of Flames,” after Lydia is rejected from the Pool of the Ancients.
Aon flicked his fingernail against the glass tube of his machine. The troublesome air bubble that was clinging to the side of the cylinder obediently rose to the surface of the viscous liquid within.
It was not that it truly mattered. The blood was being filtered, and the results of his machine would be unaffected by such things. But, it gave him great pleasure to watch his mastery at work. It gave him great joy to hear it whirr as it purified the ink from the liquid within it.
Almost as much joy as it brought him to procure the substance itself.
Sobbing broke into a muffled scream behind him. His “patient” was once more demanding his attention. Turning on his heel, he regarded the man strapped to his metal table. The bronze-skinned warrior had been in his laboratory for several days now. He was on the verge of breaking—on the verge of begging Aon for mercy. For release. He could have had such a confession by now if he wished, but, these things should be savored after all.
And besides, he did not need the man’s submission. He needed his blood.
The rest was merely for his own entertainment.
His own revenge.
“Really, the more you scream, the more you will simply tear the stitches loose,” Aon tutted and walked up to the man. Pulling his other black glove off, he tossed it onto the tray next to the table. Lifting a black thread and the thick needle meant for canvas sails from the surface, he looked down at the weak, nearly-broken man beneath him.
The man beneath him only watched him, wild-eyed and panicked, his body shuddering in pain and terror both. Blood was leaking from around his mouth, around the string he had used to stitch the man’s mouth shut. The holes through which the thread wove were elongated now, tearing through the man’s flesh as he screamed in agony.
Aon smiled beneath his mask.
How beautiful.
“See? You’ve torn them. Now I must replace them.” Lifting a pair of scissors, he snipped the thread, uncaring for the flesh beneath. The man beneath him was no longer healing as fast as he should, but it would still only be a matter of hours before any nicks he gave the warrior would be gone. “Do be more careful with my handiwork, would you? I would hate to think you do not appreciate the care to which I am taking with you.”
The man beneath him sobbed. Squeezed his eyes shut tight and tears streamed from the corners and into his thick, sweat-matted black hair. Yes. He was close to the edge. Close to breaking. It wouldn’t take long before the man’s sanity was far more gone than even his own.
But there was still much to enjoy before then.
Yanking the old thread loose from the man’s flesh, Aon watched as the formerly grandiose warrior cried and whimpered in pain like a small child. Oh, how it lifted his heart to hear it. He leaned in, and with both hands, wiped some of the man’s blood away from his lips with his bare fingertips. It would have been a gesture of compassion, if it were not him delivering it. The warrior wept once more.
Turning his needle about in his left hand, he began the work of stitching the man’s mouth shut once more. New wounds, just to the left of the ones that were struggling to close. He began to hum to himself as he worked. A small, pleasant tune, one jarringly different in tone from the man’s renewed wails of pain.
“Oh shush, Qta, or you will drown yourself in your own blood again.”
Aon became aware of himself once more. Slipping from his memories and back into this dream state. This strange, barely-there awareness of himself in his own crypt where he slumbered. He was laying on his back where he should be, in his normal state of repose. But something was deeply amiss.
He wasn’t alone.
It took him longer to realize that he was not lying in his sarcophagus by himself than it should have. He should have become instantly aware of a presence beside him. But perhaps it was that the presence felt like a warm blanket over him, that he did not wish to rouse enough to understand what was happening to him.
A small frame—lithe and soft—was lying against him. Their head was tucked up underneath his chin. A hand tangled in the fabric of his vest, clinging weakly to him. They were shivering, as if they had crawled in close to him for warmth. For protection. For safety.
No one came to him for any of those things.
No one ever came to him at all.
Lifting his head, he caught sight of long blonde hair that fell in waves along the black fabric of his clothing. His little dream thief had returned, it seemed. And this time, she had the audacity to crawl in beside him, to curl up resting atop him as though they were lovers.
For the single tick of a clock, he let himself enjoy it. Pushed away the alarm that was growing at the back of his mind. He held it back and was as successful as if he had been attempting to hold back the tide with a teacup. The joy shattered as he came to one very inevitable conclusion.
Something was very wrong.
He carefully sat up, shifting her so she was lying down on her back, and he on his side, over her. She was not looking at him. Her eyes were open, but they were glassy and unfocused. Seeing neither here, nor nowhere at all. She was shivering in fits, and her skin was clammy and she felt feverish.
Her heartbeat—what he could sense of it—was thin and far away. But the most alarming thing of all, was that he could no longer sense the mark she carried that made her one of the chosen humans to join their world of monsters and demons. But she bore no ink on her face, either.
She was human. Mortal! She had clearly been chosen by the Ancients, but now was struck clean by their tarnish. Whatever manner of black magic that could have removed the mark from her flesh, he could not fathom. And such things were his domain, after all.
“You insist on continuing to become more interesting, don’t you, my darling?”
He had murmured it down at her, not expecting her to wake from her fever state. Her dreaming mind was struggling to hold on to life, let alone be aware of his words. But his voice seemed to draw her out of her reverie, and she blinked. She tried to desperately focus on him, but she was gravely ill.
She was dying.
The thought hurt him. His heart cinched in his chest, and he was taken aback for a moment at how suddenly he wished her to live. His little dream-thief. His little mystery. His chosen and now abandoned mortal.
“Wh…” she began to try and speak but could not form the words.
He shushed her, leaning his head down close to hers. “You are unwell. You are dreaming again. Do not be afraid.”
Lydia pulled in a hiss of breath through her nose as she clearly recognized him. Her eyes went wide in fear, even hazed by illness as they were. He placed his gloved finger against her lower lip, silently begging her to be calm. To save her strength. She would need it all.
For she would have to fight to survive. She would have to find her own strength to live. He had none to give her. For perhaps the others could lend themselves to bolster her in this middle-place between waking and dreams. But he? No. He could do no such thing. His power was meant to destroy, to kill, to poison. Not to sustain life.
Her expression was hazy, as if she could not keep focus on him for long.
Ancients, I do not know what game you play. But do not let this one die.
Why? Why did he wish this? Why did he care? Curiosity or desire, perhaps? For even as she was now on the edge of death, the press of her body against his gave him pause. Made him deeply wish for the chance to do this once more when she was not struggling to stay alive.
For such a state was only enjoyable if he was the one who had put her in such a state. If he were the one holding the tether between her life and death. If it was his skill that kept her on the knife’s edge.
This was very much out of his control. And there was little else that made him uncomfortable than loss of control. And so, he did the only thing he could think of to do; he pled. “You must fight to survive. I can feel your heartbeat struggling, even from here.”
“Please,” Lydia said through a delirious whimper. She was begging him. She was asking him for mercy—something he could not grant her. For neither could he end her suffering, nor would he ever desire to do such a thing even if he could. She pulled in a shuddering breath. “I can’t…”
“Oh, but you must.” Aon leaned his head down and rested his masked metal forehead against hers. He all but clung to her, wishing to impart anything he could to help her fight to keep her heart beating. He did not understand what had happened to her or what had placed her in such a state. But he knew it was far too unique to be a simple mishap. “Do not end this so soon. You are stronger than this, I can feel it. Fight back.”
And like that, she was gone. Slipping into the oblivion as she slipped back out of his dreams.
May she live. Please, may she live. Let her wake from what put her here.
May she be not the only one who may wake.
Aon reached out his power and grasped onto the thread that kept him only surface-deep into this fuge state of sleep. Oh, yes, it was a charming nothing that he slept until “fate” allowed him to wake. It was a lie, as was all the rest of the pretense in this dying world.
Aon never surrendered control. Never. Not to Edu, and certainly not to the Ancients. He slept his hundred years only for that he enjoyed the peace of it.
But now, he very much had the need to wake.
Why? Why do I care?
A mystery worth solving. A body worth having. A soul he may find pleasure in knowing, at least briefly, before he dashed his little dream-thief’s brains out upon the stone as he usually did his playthings when he was done.
But he would never turn down the opportunity for diversion. And his newest potential toy was now hovering on the edge of death.
He yanked on the threads of power and felt the surge as he began to rise towards the surface of the waking world. But it would take time before he could arise. He could only hope beyond hope that he would not be too late.
***
Running, screaming, escaping a monster. Fear for life. Terror. True, honest terror. “Help! Somebody, help!” a voice cried to him in the darkness.
Somebody rammed into him at full tilt. He smirked behind his mask. “You rang?”
He cursed his slow rise from his dreams like a submariner shouting at a depth gage. It would not help him any to swear at something over which he had no command. He would rise. It would happen, and within the week. But a week may be far too long.
The girl was still alive. He felt her, hovering at the edges of his mind. Why was she bound to him so? Was it her doing, or his?
Or perhaps both?
As though thoughts of her had instigated the moment, he felt her. She was crying out in fear—in pain—but it was a phantom thing. The imagined agony of a nightmare. Oh, there was nothing in this world he enjoyed more than inflicting or witnessing nightmares. For how creative and fiendish they could be, how perfectly visceral for the victim, and yet would leave them unscathed upon the waking world?
Lydia’s cries pulled him to her side like a wolf to the whimpers of a dying rabbit. He could not stay away.
She dreamt of drowning. She was lying beneath the surface of red liquid. Helpless to escape. Helpless to breathe. Ah, yes. The Pool of the Ancients. But how ever did she manage to nearly drown within it? The Pool never downed those who were chosen to enter it and emerge as one of them.
What are you, my little darling? What do you portend?
Her fear was surrounding him. Normally, it would be an intoxicating bouquet, but this night, he found it troubled him. “I heard your cries, calling to me through the darkness.” She could hear him, he knew. But she could not answer as she was, trapped in her mental terror. “Why do you fear the water? Why have you dreamt this suffering for yourself?” He let out a small sigh. He felt no pleasure in this. He found her far more enjoyable when she could look at him—talk to him—try to hide her fascination with him. “As delightful as this may be to watch, it does make conversation rather dull.”
He crouched down and reached his black-gloved hand out to her. He would not drag her from this terror. If she wished him to free her of this nightmare, she would have to willingly choose to follow him into another one of his making.
Take my hand, little one. Follow me into the darkness.
He felt her hand slip into his. Desperate and weak. Without a second thought, he took hers and pulled. Yanked her free of her nightmare and into somewhere they could speak. It was simple—uninteresting—free of any distractions. A sea of nothingness made of black glass and shadows.
She stood now, some ten feet away, desperately trying to understand her surroundings. How disorienting this must be to her, he realized. Mortal as she was, free of any understanding of his world or how it worked. Few would understand the nightmare realm in which she found herself, let alone a human girl who had just nearly died.
Why? Why have they rejected you? What has transpired?
Aon was quite accustomed to holding all the cards and knowing all the answers. To be denied both in this moment was reason enough to have pulled her from her terror. While it was doubtful she had any meaningful insights into her condition, she may have clues enough to lead him to his own conclusions.
She was watching him now, the only thing around at which to gaze, and seemed struck by his visage. Yes, he did tend to dress to impress and impose. But there was a gleam in those eyes of hers that made his heart quicken in his chest. It was not just fear there—but delight. Could it be? Strike me dead now, Ancients of old. Do not toy with me like this. Do not let anyone look at me with such hungry fear and then take them away from me.
He clasped his hands behind his back, a sign of passivity, and merely stood there so that she could inspect him. Become accustomed to his fearsome mask and persona, even just a little, so that he may find a new barrier to press—a new line to cross.
“I’m still dreaming?” she finally asked.
“Yes.” Aon sighed, disappointed. How he much would rather this be the waking world, where he could touch her skin and feel her warmth beneath his bare hand. “Regretfully. But now I am strong enough to take control of our little…rendezvous.” Aon took another step. He pushed her boundary. He wanted to see how close he could come, before her curiosity gave way to fear.
Lydia took a step back, and he chuckled at the action. Good girl. Do not make this too simple for me.
With that, he vanished and reappeared behind her and took her around the waist with his arm and pulled him back against his chest. She squeaked in fear, and he had to ensure she did not lean back against a part of him that was now quite eagerly at attention. That might truly terrify her.
He leaned his head in close to her ear and couldn’t help but enjoy the scent of her. A summer field—of sunlight long deceased from Under—and an odd heady mix of chemicals he could not identify. “Where do you think you may run, here in this world I control?” he teased her playfully.
How far can I push you, little one? How much do you wish to run from a monster in the shadows? He pressed the tips of his claws against her throat and under her jaw. He pressed against her, even just barely, and she was forced to rest her head back against his shoulder, lest he puncture her skin.
Desire burned in him like a lit match into a vat of oil. The way she trembled—the way she pressed against his chest to escape his grasp. It threatened his restraint. There was little more he wished to do than to throw her to the glass surface of this nightmare world and take her. Make her scream.
His thoughts were shattered as her hands flew to his wrist, trying to pull his claw away from her. Futile, naïve attempts of a creature who truly had no idea who he was. Anyone who had gone to the Pool of the Ancients and returned as one of them would have understood they were forfeit in this situation—that there was no escaping the wrath of the King of Shadows. But this little child thought she could simply wrestle away from him?
It only made him want her more.
Nuzzling his head in towards her neck and shoulder, he let himself relish the situation. “You are quite the lovely one, aren’t you? Such fire I can sense within you. Tell me, my dear,” he murmured, pleasure ringing thickly in his voice. He could not have silenced it if he tried, “how many times has that great dunderhead had his way with you already?”
“What?”
“Hmm?” He loosened his grip on her slightly and pulled his head back. “Edu has not taken your body yet? Surely, you jest. The oaf cannot keep his paws off anyone.”
He was goading her now. Taunting her and teasing out information. What was her current condition? Where was she located? What had happened to her? The answer to his insinuation that Edu had ravished her would answer a great many things; most notably, if he would have to find another reason to despise that monstrous oaf for laying his hands on a creature Aon already—and rather inexplicably—coveted.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Lydia yanked on his hand again. “Let me go.”
Such anger! Such indignancy. Such fight! His heart soared. Both for how wonderful the news that Edu had not yet had his way with her, as he sought to do with anyone and everything the man laid eyes on, but also for that she had such spirit within her. Even as she had just nearly died, she still wished to pit her will against his.
“At least you have finally found your voice again.” He released the grasp on her neck and let her whirl about in his arms to face him. He wished to see her beautiful features for more than one reason. One, the expression she wore nearly took his breath away. Second, she wore her emotions on her sleeve. Any lie, any dodge, any half-truth, he could see clearly in those blue eyes of hers, he was certain. She was merely mortal, after all. He was over five thousand years old. He had seen many more lies unravel in his day than she could even comprehend.
Lydia placed her palms against his chest and tried to push away but only managed to lean herself back a few inches. He caught her chin in his clawed hand and turned her head carefully left and right. She obeyed him, rightfully afraid he might puncture her skin with his talons. But he wished only to inspect her—to confirm that she did not, indeed, have a soulmark.
He filled the silence with his own voice, as he did so much love to do. “Perhaps whatever nearly took your life saved you from such an insufferable event as being coerced into sleeping with that overgrown man-child. What happened to you? I felt you on the edge of death. I was there when you fought to live. I have seen your terrified visions of water and drowning. Why?”
Pondering aloud, he did not care that she could not respond. He did not expect her to have much insight here. “You have been to the pool. I can sense it on you,” he muttered. “Yet you bear no mark, and you are alive. How is this possible?”
Aon released the grasp on her just barely, running the tip of his pointer finger along her temple, stroking her hair back behind her ear, as if to get a closer look. As he watched the skin of her shoulder break out in goosebumps, his breath hitched.
Patience, old fool. Patience.
“I don’t—I don’t know. Nobody does.” The beautiful creature was left stammering for an answer. He had her off balance, off kilter, and he loved it. He was certain she loved it very much less.
“What a wonderful little mystery! Thrown away by the Ancients who chose you to join us. You are a threat to the natural order of things. How utterly charming.” As he traced his claws around behind her ear, he watched her shiver. Aon let out another low chuckle in his throat at her reaction and leaned in closer. “How I will delight in unraveling you,” he purred.
Her face turned red as she blushed. Blushed! From his threats and his presence. She couldn’t hide what that did to her, and he nearly rejoiced for it. But he had pushed her too far, and she yanked her head away from his claws, danger of cuts be damned.
“Stop!” she said in a small squeak.
“Why?”
That was an utterly unexpected question. He watched her blink, astonished, and he was glad she could not see the grin that split his expression ear-to-ear. This was merely too much fun.
“Because this isn’t…” She trailed off, shocked, clearly struggling for words.
“Yes? Isn’t what?” Aon prodded at her. There would be no shelter in silence for her, not while he was around.
“I don’t know,” she stammered. “It isn’t…” She grasped wildly at words until she found the first thing she could. “It isn’t polite,” she exclaimed, clearly frustrated with him.
“Well! Do forgive me.” Aon laughed and turned his head away, so as to not laugh so loudly in her face. Letting her have her way, he released her and retreated, holding his hands out at his sides. Mustering his best gentlemanly bow, he bent low at the waist as if she were some lofty queen. “My dearest lady, allow me to introduce myself. I am Aon, King of the House of Shadows. High Lord of Warlocks, and—if you are to ask any others—the paramount madman and sadist in Under,” he kept his sarcastic propriety on thick. “How honored I am to finally formally make your acquaintance. Does this better suit your sense of etiquette?”
There was her anger. He had finally found it. And it was as beautiful as the rest of her. Fire flashed in her eyes as she glared at him as if she wished him to burst into flames.
Her jaw twitched as she snarled at him. “Okay, look, you asshole—”
He vanished, instantly calling her bluff. Lydia stammered to a stop and turned, terrified.
“Careful, my dear…” he purred from the darkness. “I am not one to be trifled with. I would not so casually insult a king.”
“I thought Edu was king.”
He snarled in rage before he could check himself. She was ignorant of their ways—it was not her fault, he reminded himself. He took the opportunity to teach, instead. “Edu is a king. Hardly the only one to rule this world. I am equal in rank to him, and far greater in all other matters, I assure you.”
“Uh-huh,” Lydia turned about slowly, hopelessly looking for him. “You weren’t at the Ceremony of the Fall, or whatever you weirdos call it.”
“I lie in my crypt. Asleep, but not for long. I think perhaps, my dear, you have woken me early from my century of slumber.” No, he had woken himself from his slumber. But she needn’t know that, lest she tell the others. “Therefore, I would be far more prudent with your words before you decide to levy invectives in my direction.” Respect was respect, and he was in fact a king, after all.
“I’m having a really rough couple of days, all right? I’m sorry. But I don’t need to be insulted on top of everything. It’s bad enough that I get chased, hunted, and nearly drown. You’re haunting my dreams, and now I’m locked in a goddamn cell, and—”
Locked in a goddamn cell. “What?” That was a statement of great importance. He manifested behind her as he spoke. Lydia screamed and whirled around to face him, deeply startled. The poor thing panicked like a spooked giraffe, and with all limbs and no grace she nearly toppled to the ground in fear. He caught her before she fell, and it was either press him against her chest—which he certainly did not mind—or let her collapse to the glass surface. He chose to put her where he would prefer she never left, up against him. She struggled, but he did not care. The squirming was quite nice, truth be told.
But she had spoken of a cell, and he needed answers. His clawed hand went to her throat, and she obediently froze. Smart girl. “You are a prisoner? Whose?”
“Edu’s,” Lydia peeped out.
Aon snarled deep in his throat, and his grasp on her tightened. He had to check himself from sinking his claws into her skin out of anger alone. “And what, precisely, does that mountainous waste of flesh intend to do with you?”
He felt her throat underneath his hand shift as she swallowed, and she wished to cut off her air now for a very different reason. “I don’t know,” she said, snapping him back to the actual conversation.
“Does he know we are already acquainted?” Aon asked. Lydia shook her head. “You listened to me? Good. Then heed my words again, my dear. Edu will seek your death. One way or another. Be sure of it.”
“But I have nothing to do with any of this.”
“It matters not. Trust me.”
“Lyon said some people are going to have a meeting to decide what to do with me. He said it wasn’t decided yet.”
Aon held back a derisive snort. That over-emotional donkey would say anything to anyone to keep them from fretting for a moment. “Lyon is a compassionate fool who wished to foster in you some semblance of false hope. Edu will seek to take your life within the week, I am certain. No one has ever returned from the Pool of the Ancients unchanged. You are a threat to the natural order of our world. And if he believes I have anything to do with your misfortune, he will murder you in a heartbeat to spare this world whatever plot he thinks I have concocted. I needn’t remind you of the continued importance of not speaking of our conversations.”
“Do you have anything to do with this?”
“I am flattered.” Aon chuckled. It seems she understood more of his nature than he had given her credit for. “But, sadly, no. I fear you will pay the price, regardless. Tell me, do you wish to die?”
“No.” Lydia didn’t hesitate.
“It will spare you much torment and suffering. Death at his hands will be quick. You are a mortal in a world of monsters who hunger to see things like you twisted, broken, and consumed.”
“Does that include you?”
Perfect. Utterly perfect. He chuckled again, unable to keep his glee from escaping. “Oh, yes,” he purred and pulled her closer to him. “You cannot begin to fathom what I wish to see done to you.” How I would love to tell you, but you would likely faint. As she tried to shrink away from him, he tightened his claws around her throat. Perhaps someday very soon—very soon—I might show you. “You may count me first and foremost on that list, my darling. So, tell me…” He let the tips of his claws pierce her skin, and he watched as crimson liquid flowed from the wounds. This was just a dream, and it was impermanent and false. But the look of fear on her face was more than worth it. “Knowing that creatures such as I wait for you, do you change your mind? Do you now wish your life to end?”
“No,” Lydia insisted through the fear.
“Even knowing I will come for you?”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Good girl.”
He tore her throat open and watched her vanish from the vision as he forced her back into the waking world. He must follow her as fast as he could. He must rise to save her from Edu. Her life was deeply in threat, and he decided, right then and there; that no one would harm her but him.
