Kahn pressed his meaty palm to my forehead, leaning forward so his sweaty locks brushed my face. I tasted my death as he exhaled, I saw it in his eyes, I smelt it on his skin.
“You're nothing,” he hissed, his breath hot against my cheeks. “And you are never going to look at my Princess again.”
He angled the knife above my face, the tip shining down at me while his free hand gripped my throat and squeezed.
I had seconds left to live. But I wouldn't go out as just a lump of flesh forged into a warrior by the kingdom. A man no one would remember. I was more than that now. So much more. Because of a thief, a genie, and a Princess. They had made me see that I'd always been a man with a name, not just a number. And that name was worth something.
“I'm Cassian Lazar,” I choked out, the words barely making it past my lips.
“What?” Kahn hissed, leaning closer still and pressing his knife into my cheek. Blood spilled, but I felt numb, unable to feel the skin splitting.
“I'm Cassian Lazar.” The words gave me strength and hope bloomed back to life in my chest.
I wouldn't give up. I wasn't done. Not yet.
I reared up, dragging powerfully against his hold on my arms, ready to give anything to save Rapunzel. I got a hand free and caught Kahn's wrist a second before he could drive the knife into my face. My muscles suddenly felt made of solid iron and I forced him back, gritting my teeth and yelling through them in my effort to keep him away.
I yanked at my other arm, but it wouldn't come free. Adrenaline surged as Kahn released my throat and wrapped both hands around the hilt of the knife. It was too much, I couldn't hold him off.
“AH!” Rapunzel leapt on Kahn's shoulders, appearing like an angel of death. She wrapped a length of golden hair around his neck, again and again, around and around, tighter and tighter.
Kahn's face turned red, then purple and my gut soared at the sight.
His grip weakened and I shoved him back at last, throwing a heavy punch into his gut to force him away. I scrambled out from beneath him, snatching hold of the golden hair Rapunzel had drawn up from the edge of the balcony. One end was still tethered there and as I wrapped it in my hands, I had an idea. There was no time to waste.
I hauled Kahn backwards. The blade was still gripped in his hand and he slashed it wildly left and right as he gargled against the thick knot of hair around his throat.
I dragged him to the edge of the balcony, fuelled by determination and rage and so much love for the woman he’d hurt. I heaved him up onto the railing with a shout of effort, my body refusing to fail me again.
“For the true Queen,” I snarled, throwing my weight into his shoulder. He released a choked noise of fear. His arms flailed.
“Cassian!” Rapunzel grabbed my arm as Kahn fell over the edge and I realised why a second too late. The hair was wrapped around my leg and I lurched forward as Kahn's weight dragged me over the railing.
My stomach swooped as I fell and fear racked my bones.
My foot suddenly locked in the railing with a violent jerk. I cried out as my full weight and Kahn's hung from my hip. Something popped and pain scored a line of fire through my leg.
“Shit!”
Kahn hung beneath me by his throat, swinging wildly. He reached up with his knife to cut the hair from his neck which was so tight, he was turning blue. My head hung an inch from his and as I turned to pull myself upright, his hand fisted in my short locks. He slashed blindly at me. I jerked sideways, but I couldn’t move fast enough.
The last thing I saw before his knife raked across my eyes, was Rapunzel leaning over me and slicing my sword through the hair holding Kahn in place.
Blood poured and agony seared through my eyes. Kahn's weight released from me and his screams called all the way across the city as he tumbled toward the ground. Several seconds passed before a dramatic thump sounded him hitting the tiled courtyard below and relief rolled through me as his death was finally delivered to him.
I clutched my face, my eyes burning as blood leaked everywhere from the wound he'd inflicted.
Rapunzel held onto me, her arms wrapped around my waist and never letting go. Forcing the pain away, I reared upwards, catching hold of the balcony and dragging myself over the railing.
My injured leg gave out beneath me and I hit the ground, lost in a sea of red. I was blind. The wound was too deep. And in a twisted way, Kahn had gotten his wish; I'd never see the Princess again. That thought alone pained me far more than my injury ever could.
I felt Rapunzel's hands on me and the trickle of heated tears caressed my cheeks. “It's okay,” she breathed, pressing some soft material over my eyes and gently binding it around my head.
I reach out blindly, searching for her, falling deeper into the pit of darkness. She took my hand and guided it to her face, a sob escaping her.
“You saved me,” she whispered.
“You saved me first.” I traced my thumb across the delicate curve of her cheekbone, finding it easier to relax with my hands on her flesh. “Without you, I'd be a man with no purpose. A number without a face. It's just a shame that face has now been half destroyed,” I said, wheezing as I tried out a laugh.
More of her tears fell over me and I slid my hand into her hair. “Don't cry. Queens shouldn't have to cry.”
She took my hand from her face and I felt the absence of her like I'd been thrown into a black sea.
“I think I can bear this darkness eventually,” I whispered, but a sliver fear crept into my soul. “For you I can bear anything.”
“You don't have to bear it alone,” she promised, her breath on my face as she pushed her fingers into my hair and set my heart on fire. “I love you, Cassian. I wish I'd said it before. I wish so many things had been different, but I'm so glad this path has led me to you.”
My body ignited with emotion as those words settled over me. “I'm tired of wishes.” I found her hair and trailed my fingers through it in the way I'd always wanted to, her silken locks still growing endlessly and pooling against my arms and chest.
“Just grant me one more,” she whispered, then her mouth found mine and love raced under my skin and set my heart pumping to a new and desperate beat.
I gathered her in my arms, blinded and lost to the dark forever more. But the only light I needed was her. And she burned brighter than the sun ever had.
I’d been counting down the seconds since I’d been thrown back into the lamp. But I couldn't concentrate and I’d had to stop.
I was just too worried about Aladdin and the others. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t bear being cut off from them in the dark confines of my lamp and not knowing what was happening to them.
What if Gothel had double checked that I’d killed Aladdin and realised he still lived? What if Kahn had thrown Cassian from the tower I’d created to protect Rapunzel? And maybe now, Kahn had Rapunzel alone up there and was forcing her to be his forever more.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no - “NO!” I screamed and my voice reverberated off of the bronze walls of my prison before echoing back to me in a mocking tone.
No one else could hear me. No one else cared.
Cursed forever to live forever while everyone else dies.
Not if I could help it.
I conjured a ladder and climbed to the lid which locked me inside this hell, pounding my fists against it until my knuckles bled and my throat was raw from screaming.
When my tears ran dry and my panic threatened to choke me, I fell from the ladder into the pool of tears and sank like a stone to the bottom of it where I waited to die. I knew I wouldn’t but I wished I would.
I was only ever gifted the smallest portions of life and so many of them were so cruel. Even the love I’d found with Aladdin and the others was cruel in the end if I had to survive their fates like this. If I had to endure their deaths.
Just as I began to wonder if I’d ever leave this hell again, Gothel summoned me.
I was wrenched skyward, coiling as a wis
p of smoke back out into the real world.
My feet hit the ground and I took a second to locate myself in my new surroundings. I was outside, beneath the tower I’d created for Rapunzel and a strange, howling, keening noise ripped the air in two.
The sky was blood red and the wind whipped at my hair as a sand storm tore through the air. Grains of sand battered me, scratching my skin and pricking at my eyes but with a wave of my hand, I made my skin harder, my eyes stronger and the storm felt no more irritating than the tickle of feathers against my flesh.
“Save him!” Gothel howled and I spun around, finding her on the floor, rocking back and forth over Kahn’s body. “I wish for you to save his life!”
I shifted closer, my magic drifting to the surface of my flesh as I closed in on her.
Kahn was limp in her arms and there was so much blood that it created a pool all around the two of them. The toes of my white, silk shoes dipped into it and I couldn’t help but stare as the red liquid was absorbed by the thin fabric, staining it with the evidence of Kahn’s demise. For a moment I was back in the Emperor’s bed chamber after I’d stabbed him and the world had run red.
I looked all around for Aladdin but he wasn’t here. For half a second that fact panicked me before I realised that the thread of love which bound me to him was still intact. He was alive.
I shook my head slightly, drawing myself back to the present and the wish given to me by my master.
“He has to agree,” I breathed. Magic ran hot through my veins but unless Kahn spoke the words, it would remain trapped within the confines of my flesh.
Kahn was unconscious, there was no way he could agree to anything and the fact was painfully clear.
“He does,” Gothel hissed, glaring up at me. Her eyes had melted through the visage she usually presented and glowed acid green with slits for pupils.
“He doesn’t,” I replied calmly. “He can’t.”
Gothel’s hand snapped out and she grabbed a fistful of the dark blue material of my new dress.
“If you don’t save my child then I will give you an eternity of pain and suffering. I will burn the flesh from your bones every day and use your magic to inflict the darkest of tortures upon thousands of souls. Do not test me on this, Genie. I will make your life a living hell,” she hissed.
My heart beat a little faster at her words but it didn’t matter. I was bound by the laws of my lamp. I couldn’t grant a wish on Kahn’s behalf without him agreeing to it. I was no more capable of changing the rules to do as she asked than I was capable of freeing myself from the confines of the lamp.
“I can’t,” I said, my voice trembling just a little.
Gothel’s upper lip pulled back then kept curling as the skin retreated from her face.
My mouth parted as I stared at her in horror.
The beautiful mask was peeled from her skin and the hard, black bone of her true face was revealed beneath it. I tried to back up but her grip on me was fierce.
With a shake of my head, my dress reformed so that she was no longer clutching the material of it.
I staggered backwards as the Shaitan snarled and the hairs along the back of my neck stood on end.
“Save him!” Gothel shrieked and the sound of it reached such a high pitch that it brought pain to my ears.
I shook my head again, backing out of the puddle of blood as Gothel glared at me with hate burning in her eyes.
“I told you, I-”
Kahn suddenly drew a harsh, rattling breath, his limbs spasming and drawing all of our attention to the movement for an eternal second before the breath released again. He slumped back, every inch of tension leaking from his body as he fell completely and utterly still.
I strained my ears, lending strength to my hearing with my magic as I tried to listen for the sound of his heart beating. It didn’t.
I backed up again.
Kahn was dead. I hadn’t saved him. And Gothel had just realised it too.
“NOOOOOOOOO!” Her screams of denial made the air shudder, the ground tremble, and the sandstorm pause in its tracks for a second that stretched to the ends of time.
I backed up faster. I’d lived this tale before. It wasn’t the first time I’d had a master wish for me to save the life of someone who was too far gone to agree. They always blamed me. Always. And the Shaitan’s wrath was coming my way just as soon as she got over the initial shock of what had happened.
The sandstorm howled as it picked up in intensity and my hair spun around me in the maelstrom. I increased the strength of the magic which protected me from the cutting force of the storm and continued to move back.
Gothel’s eyes snapped from the sky to me. The last of her human form fell away, a cascade of white hair tumbling to the ground before sticking in Kahn’s blood as she rose to look at me.
Her face was a picture of horror. Unholy eyes glaring within a skull made of bone as black as the deepest night. Her teeth grew long and sharp and blackened claws sprung from her fingers as she stalked towards me.
“What good is your magic if it cannot even save my only child?” she hissed.
“I’m bound by the rules of my kind,” I replied, fighting to keep my voice steady.
Run, fly, flee! This is bad, worse than bad! It’s-
Gothel shot towards me so quickly that I could only release a frightened squeal as she caught me by the throat. She slammed me up against the wall of the tower so hard that a jagged crack formed right up its centre.
Pain flared through my body as magic slipped past my defences, lighting us up in a purple glow which blazed in Gothel’s cold eyes.
“I have no need of a creature so tied up in laws that she cannot even perform a simple task. But there is something that you can do for me still,” she snarled, baring her teeth.
“What?” I breathed, my hand shifting towards my pocket, the dagger whispering my name as it called for me to put an end to this monster.
“When I consume a heart, I take on the power and life force of its owner. How much power do you suppose I could claim by devouring yours?”
My heart leapt and pounded in my chest like it understood the threat to it and wanted nothing more than to run free.
I squirmed in her grip, my fingers making it to my pocket.
Gothel caught my arm, her grip tightening until I feared my bones would break beneath the pressure.
A cold, dank magic began to seep from her flesh, its power dark and cloying, brushing over my skin and dampening my own magic to a dull flame in the back of my mind.
She pinned my arm to the wall beside us, her jaw widening and widening to reveal each of those sharpened fangs which hungered for my flesh.
I screamed, terror gripping me as I truly feared for my life for the first time since I’d been cursed. I knew without a doubt that if this monster consumed my heart I’d die, every piece of me becoming hers instead.
Gothel laughed as she lunged at me and I scrambled for a grasp on my magic, willing it to protect me against this evil. But Gothel was my master, I couldn’t use my power unless she said I could.
Her teeth sliced hot and searing into the flesh above my heart and my scream quadrupled in sound. Fear carved me in two, my magic flared and burned, lighting my flesh with a purple glow from within.
She’d won. She had me and she was going to consume my magic. Osaria would fall prey to her terrible reign. Rapunzel and Cassian would pay the price for Kahn’s death. Aladdin would feel the wrath of her anger over my failure. And everything we’d been fighting for would be lost.
Don’t give up! Fight her! You can do this!
I was so surprised to hear encouragement from my other self that for a moment I was lost to the pain of Gothel’s teeth and the shock of what she’d said.
For your friends! For Aladdin! For us!
I bellowed my rage as I drew on my power and shifted the arm Gothel had pinned to the wall out of its corporal form. For half a heartbeat, my arm was smoke before it rematerialised, deep
in the folds of my pocket, my fingers grasping the hilt of the dagger I’d used to slay evil once before.
Gothel bit down harder. Agony flared through me as her teeth burrowed to my heart, its desperate pounding rhythm ringing in my ears.
In the moment before she could bite down again, I swung the blade with every ounce of strength I could muster.
The dagger pierced through flesh, bone and the darkest wells of magic.
I screamed as I was thrown aside, knocked to the ground as Gothel hung suspended in the air above me.
She shrieked in panic, her arms thrown wide. Black and vile green magic bled from the wound on her back in a trickle which quickly turned into a torrent then a flood.
Gothel howled as her darkness burned its way out of her. As it was released, it split apart into dark tendrils which slithered away from her and sought out every evil thing she’d created, destroying it too.
Kahn’s body on the ground was set alight, burning bright blue and filling the air with the scent of sulphur.
Gothel screamed one final curse as her magic turned on her, scraping along her skin and burrowing into her bones. It consumed her from the inside before ripping through the remains of her flesh and tearing every scrap of her from the world. One final blaze of ice blue flame almost blinded me and then she was gone.
The lamp fell to the ground as she disappeared, the heavy metal clattering loudly as it hit the stone path.
Silence fell thick and heavy. I lay panting on the ground as the truth of what I’d done fell around me.
My limbs began to tremble, my heart pounded an unsteady, confused tune. I’d seen what had happened for myself but it was almost impossible for my brain to comprehend.
I’d done it. I’d destroyed her. My friends would be okay. Osaria would be okay.
Relief spilled through me like a flood and I found myself laughing where I lay against the cold flagstones.
Forbidden Fairytales- The Complete Series Page 70