He had left. He couldn’t stand it anymore. That he had been accused. They could call it that if they liked. They didn’t know.

Nobody knew.

And so he’d faded. Stepping into the void and shimmering down into the core of the world, allowing his hate and his aggression to fester, fester, fester. Like the Volcanoes of Tephra, Ashley’s anger consumed him. He’s grown hard, his body made of broken glass and sinew as he drags himself out of the nothingness. Time to get back to life. Time to get back to living, and to the things that come with the world that he loved so well.

Except there was nothing left. His land, his only reason for being, was taken from him.

Betrayer.

Mutineer.

Torcherer.

Never Leader. Lover. Father. King. At the end of one’s life, they knew that it was all going to be over. Ashley wondered in his head if the thought ever pushed against his brain that he would one day be re-defined by the titles he never thought he’d carry. The apologies he’d have to make. The pain he’d gone through. The way he’d sacrificed or them.

And yet they will never speak of him that way. Those who remembered him had all faded. His children had faded, his grand children had faded. And yet, he had remained. And all that drove him forth now, was his anger. The blood on his hands that the see and saltwater could not wash away. He found that he could not will it to be so, no matter how much power he thought he carried in his pocket.

In the underbelly of Beqanna, Ashley seeks out Dovev. His last trainee. The one who would not be tamed. The one who would not care. The one who would drag them all to Hell with him if he had had the chance. And so that is where he goes.

Seeking the Afterlife, to commune among the ghosts, to pay homage to the victims of his protégé. The honor he had sought to teach. The lessons that went on ignored. The red dun stallion was a shadow of his former life as he made his way down the craggy slopes to the place where the door to the dead remained sealed. Closed. No one had ever saught to open it since the Reckoning—the fairies expressly forbade it. The horrors that could be unleashed, they said, would be too much for the new, virgin land to handle. The corruption, the power.

Ashley didn’t much care what the fairies thought anymore.

He seeks Dovev’s victims, his angry eyes fluttering at the rift, looking for traces of their auras, before he arches his back and screams, drawing in an inordinate amount of power, allowing them to view the bodies of two girls, crumpled and screaming in their pain. Shades, ever restless. He tries to enter—and finds he is unable. Even in this state, when he is pushing out more power than he ever has—he is unable.

MAGIC HAS NO RULES!

He snorts, angrily, wanting to get through. He is the Betrayer, is he not? He is the powerful one who protected them all those years. He is immortal. He is eternal! Magic has no rules. He should be able to break the barrier. They believe he had the power to switch the vote—to condemn them all. That’s what they say. He’s heard the very innerworkings of their mind. Even the children… He’d never really known them, and they curse his name. Wallace…

Oh Wallace.

He’d let her down so many times. It had been for his family that he saught an alliance. And they had cast him out. They had no idea.

They never would.

Betrayer.

Betrayer.

Ashley knocks his body against the barrier, flipping his body this time, kicking back at the door. He WOULD open it. He would get to those girls. He would save their souls, and then he would save Dovev. He had to save him from himself. He had to save Wallace. Marlyn. Sabrael.

Marlyn.

The last woman to ever love him. His family. He loved her. He’d always had a thing for red-headed Women. Marlyn and her sassy tongue. She’d never know. She’d never mourn him. It was better this way.

Porter. Kelpi.

His children. So small. So innocent. Also cast out from Ischia, all because of him. Badden remained, and had been accepted. Roslyn. Who even knew what happened to her. Azlyn. Azlyn. He supposed they remained. He hoped they were happy.

He hoped they were all happy.

Betrayer.

But he had to save those girls. He HAD to make them see. He had to make Dovev see.

He kicks again. And then, it kicks back.

And he stops screaming. Ashley turns his head, and sees two shadows, filtering against the darkness. Looking at the light glowing. Two figures, shadowy.

RELEASE ME FROM THIS HELL!
Perhaps you should try asking nicely. It has been too long, hasn’t it?

They edged towards the door.

And it knocked again, from the other side.

Ashley looked, and he crooked up his face angrily, staring at them. “You. YOU THERE! Do you see them, there in the back! Help me get them, and I will free you, as long as they can come with you!”

And he turns. He kicks. He will open it. He is a magician. He is beyond death.

He would save them all.

The power was his. And so, he closes his eyes, and says a quick I love you to Marlyn, and he hopes she knows just how wonder she made his last years.

Betrayer.

Kick.

General.

KICK

Murderer.

KICK!

Mutineer.

KICK!

Lover.

KICK!

Father.

KICK!

Leader.

KICK!

King.

KICKKICK!

On that final Kick, Ashley turned, surging lighting from his hooves as he grounded himself to the floor, pushing against the void as he opened a portal on one side of the door, consuming all his energy as he pushed through, signaling the shades to grab the girls and run for the exit.

So much power. So much pain. He would save them. He would save them all.

Even if it cost him everything.

Betrayer.

He heard them. He heard them all.

Fighting and straining against the portal, pushing to get through. The tentacles of the guard that kept them at bay—he has grabbed the two that were banging at the door, The one with the scales—oh, how they muttered, muttered, muttered. Ashley used his magic, pulling forth the last remnants of his power—he knew this was the end of all things. This would take him, but at least they’d be happy. At least he’d tried to save Dovev from himself. To right the wrongs, in the way he could. In his anger, he’d prove it to them all. That he wasn’t what they said he was.

Betrayer.

But, as the protector of the underbelly reached forward, dragging them all back into the void, one by one, he gripped into the ground as lightning drove from his body like a limitless power. Wrapped around the two…surely they were the girls that he had come here for… surely the one he’d spoken to had kept their promise. He would succeed. He knew he would. He was a magician, dammit.

A MAGICIAN.

And so, the heat from his white light struck the tentacles one by one as it protected the void back to the living, snagging them back to the dark, blocking the way. There was no more time. None.

Ashley screamed, and blew himself apart.

A bright, white light took over the expanse.

And then…Dark.

The tentacle monster was no more… but still, he had succeeded in his quest. Snatching back the dead from their angry hustle towards the entrance, to escape death and return to the living, it had pulled down the very ceiling upon itself, blocking the entrance. A push and shove, the lightning that Ashley had exhuded had had enough power to crack the door, and present a rift with just enough time to draw out the two he sought.

Or so he thought.

And so, A push of white light explodes, and immediately salt water rushes in, carrying them all up. Ashley screams again.

And then it all goes dark.


***

Ashley gasped, his light grey eyes blinking against a sun that was hazy. Washed up on the beach, the salt singed his nose hairs, and his wings were no longer upon his back. Old, and cracked, he tried to generate his wings. Failed. Fuck. So much power used. It would return with time. He was lucky to be alive… He’d accept that as his success. He coughs, took weak to get up, the pull of his muscles and the ache in his joints uncommon to him. Something he is unused to. Just up the coast from him, two figures lay, gasping for air and dragging their sorry bodies up the dunes. Two. Not Four.

Two. Not Four.

Where were the girls?

He looked around. They would have to be here. He was a magician. There were no rules. He had come here to save them. To prove it to them all.

He languishes there, pushing on his body, willing himself to stand. He finds… that he cannot.

He coughs, salt singing his eyes and lining his hair. Something is not right. In the distance, some ways away from him, a small charred body lays in the wreckage. The other two bodies look to be righting themselves. Ashley instantly recognizes one of them as No Crosses Count. The other, he does not know.

He reaches out with his mind, and all he finds is black. Nothing.

Not even a tremble.

Something is not right.

Something is very not right.