The Heart's Ashes

by A. M. Hudson

  “Ara?” he whispered in a gruff, strained voice, tilting his head. I knew the pleading in his eyes, I could feel him reaching out to me, desperate to hold me and, with one touch, make all the pain go away. “What have they done to you?”

  I blinked, wishing I could make my eyes blue again. “I’m okay.”

  “Enough!” someone yelled from behind, and suddenly, the room spread out around me; it was no small room at all, but the same room I came to stand before the council and be judged, just days ago. Except, this time, we stood between the windows and the council table—the men facing us, like passengers on a station platform. “Time is wasting.” Drake moved away from where he stood behind Jason, and seated himself on the chair among his councillors.

  “If you think you’ve won,” I said, looking at Drake, “you’re wrong. I won’t kill him, and—”

  “You—” Jason grabbed my chin again and squeezed, “—will do what I say.”

  “Ara,” David called to me, his voice fused with desperation. “Ara—don’t try to fight him. Just do what he says.”

  “No.” I shook my head slowly, tears filling my eyes. “I can’t kill you. I can’t live without you, David.”

  “How touching,” Jason spat and grabbed my arm. “Then I will hurt you until you do.”

  “I don’t care. You can do what you want to me, but I won’t kill him.”

  “So now you find your fight. Pity you didn’t have this much fire down in the dungeon,” he taunted.

  “Ara. My love,” David called to me, shaking his bound wrists. “Just do it, please? I’ll see you again. I promise. I’ll wait for you in the afterlife—it’s what you always wanted. Eternity, with me—”

  My mind vaguely noticed Jason drop my arm and stomp over to David.

  “We’ll be together there, forever, I pro—” The vowel cut short with a heaving breath as he folded over Jason’s fist.

  “No. Stop it!” I cried, reaching.

  Jason stood, clutched David’s shoulders, then jammed his knee upward, backing away as David fell to bound hands.

  “She will do it because I tell her to, and then I will erase you from her mind. She’ll never even know you existed.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” David pushed up and turned his head to look at Jason, wiping the blood from his lip with his knuckle. “She is bound to me—she will never forget.”

  “That’s where you are wrong, brother.” Jason lifted me to my feet by the arm. “She is bound to me; I tainted her spirit before you even tasted her blood. She will forget you.”

  “What did you do to her,” David roared. “Ara?” He softened. “Ara, did he touch you—please, what did he do to you?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head. “He never—”

  “You may remember a dream?” Jason hinted. “A long time ago—of Mike—making love to him?”

  “What’s that got to do with—?”

  David dropped his head.

  “In your mind,” Jason said, “when you made love to Mike, you became bound to me. Your mind is confused—tangled up in the spell.”

  “I don’t understand.” I looked at David, who kept his gaze to the ground.

  “I cast that dream, Ara. It was I you were with, under disguise of your best friend.”

  I gaped. “So, it wasn’t a dream? It was like…” like the meetings we had?

  “Precisely.” Jason grinned.

  “That’s why I can’t get over Mike?” Shock forced tears into my eyes. “You—you touched me! I remember. I remember the dream.” I gagged, my body forcing down the vomit. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  He wore his wicked smile like a trophy.

  That’s why I trusted you in the first place, wasn’t it? Not because you’re good—because you bound me.

  “Yes,” Jason said, his smile dissolving.

  “David?” I looked over at him; his eyes closed tightly, his shoulders hunched. “David, I’m so sorry—I didn’t know. I thought it was just a dre—”

  “Stop talking!” Jason covered my mouth; I tugged at his fingers, hard.

  “Get off her. Don’t you touch her,” David yelled through his teeth, remaining on his knees.

  Why won’t he get up? Why won’t he just use his power to stop Jason?

  “He can’t,” Jason mused, holding me closer to his face, his cool, honey-scented breath brushing across my lips. “Not even if I do this.” I shook my head, my cry muffled as Jason thrust his lips to mine. David did nothing. He just watched, his eyes filling with hatred as Jason sucked the bleeding gash on my lip—delighting in my agony. “You see?” Jason pulled away abruptly as I cried out, pressing my hand to my lip. “He’s weak—always has been.”

  I fell to my knees and stared at the man by the fire. “David? Why?”

  “I’m sorry, Ara.” He looked down, defeated. “I should’ve protected you, I—”

  “You don’t care for me now,” I concluded. “Now you know what I’ve done—now I’m bound to him.”

  “No, Ara, no. It wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong, mon amour. It was a dream—just a dream. You we’re still a vi—”

  “Enough!” Jason yelled and grabbed David by the hair, forcing me by the elbow to the ground in front of him. My hands fell against David’s bound arms as I steadied myself—feeling nothing of the crack my knee wore; all pain masked under the joy to be within inches of David’s breath once more. I drew in his sweet, orange-chocolate scent, wanting to fall against him, let him hold me—let him make everything all right again—take away the pain. Just to go back to that night, and in my dream, tell Mike no. Say what my heart wanted me to say. All of this. All of this is my fault. I trusted Jason. I let him into my world and he betrayed me. He made me feel things that weren’t real. Why didn’t I tell David about him—about the dreams I was having?

  I ruined my life; I ruined David’s.

  “Yes,” Jason said. “You did, and now, you will kill him.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I won’t.”

  “Enough!” Drake interjected. “Jason, get this over with.”

  “Not to worry, your majesty.” Jason smiled, keeping his eyes on me. “She will do it, if not because I tell her to, then from the hunger, the thirst for his vampire blood.”

  Thirst? Is that what that is? The burn, the edgy aching in my teeth, the rapid beat in my heart that had me picturing things I shouldn’t picture in this place.

  “See that?” Jason gripped the base of my neck and moved my lips close to David’s bleeding nose. “It’s blood. Smell it.” He forced David’s head against my lip as we both struggled to break apart. My tongue moved over my lip. “Go on—taste it. You want it so bad, don’t you? You can feel how smooth it is in the back of your throat—how one lick would stop the burning there.”

  I shook my head. My mouth watered, the smell of his sweet blood saturating my nostrils, pulsing the hunger through my fingertips and teeth. But the desire to kiss him was so much stronger than the hunger.

  “I love you, Ara. I know you can do this.” David’s voice stayed calm.

  “No.” I looked down.

  “Just do it. For me—because you love me.”

  “That’s not a reason to kill?”

  “Then do it to save your life—for me, because what he will do to you if you don’t will be far worse than my death, sweetheart.” His voice broke, his eyes filling with tears. “Don’t let me die with that thought. Please?”

  “He’s going to hurt me anyway, David.”

  “Ara, you don’t know this...” he moistened his lips. “But the punishment for disobedience is—”

  “Enough!” Jason said. “Bite him.”

  I ignored Jason and looked into David’s black, reflective gaze—seeing the hollow-eyed girl glaring back. My knees shook under me. “I love you too much to kill you.”

  “Then fulfil my last wish; let me die by your hand—not his.” David’s bound hands reached up, his fingers touching my chin. “It will be the last time
your lips meet my skin, the last time I feel your breath, the last time you taste my blood. Please, Ara.”

  My lip quivered, air leaving them in the word “Okay.”

  David nodded, accepting his fate.

  Trying to steady my hands, I touched his neck, running my finger over the teeth marks there. Who did this to you?

  He didn’t answer.

  The trembling in my knees spread as my lips touched his skin and I drew a breath. “I can’t do it.”

  “Do it!” Jason forced my head down, my cheek meshing against David’s jaw.

  “Shh, it’s okay, Ara—it’s okay.” David turned his head slightly, kissed the top of my ear. “I’ll be waiting for you—okay? I’ll be waiting.”

  The venom-filled hunger and lust took over; my lips parted, my tongue moved forward, searching his flesh, tasting him until a tight, bone-deep desire to bite tingled in my teeth. My jaw gaped and flesh fell under my tongue, wet with warm, sweet, sugary milk, filling my mouth.

  It’s not enough.

  His blood was thin and weak—he was ill, I could taste it. I tilted my head and rolled my shoulder against him, biting harder, deeper, as a cool rush of fluid shot out into his flesh from my fangs; my heart stopped, my lips froze; the blood spilled past and ran down my chin.

  What have I done?

  All sound in the world drained to silence as Jason ripped my hands away from the last grasp they would ever hold of this beautiful man. My spine cracked the window behind me with the motion of a slow replay, and I looked back to see David; his black eyes met mine for a moment before they closed tightly, the corners creasing as he stiffened all over.

  “David?” I covered my mouth.

  But he held back the terror of my venom for only a breath more before screaming out through his teeth, falling to his side. My fingers edged, desperate to hold him, to be with him, but Jason blocked my path—standing with his arms folded, smiling as he looked on.

  Oh God. God, please don’t let this be happening.

  I couldn’t move—couldn’t get to him.

  Motionless, my lips parted as I watched him struggle—writhing in agony. There was no sound, no breath. I could not feel, nor hear. The emptiness of the fact that I just erased him from this life—that in only a moment from now he would cease to exist, destroyed me.

  The world swayed in a dizzying silence. Nausea rose in my stomach, and the fuzzy sensation surrounding my eyes consumed my vision in a hazy swirl of white, clouded fog.

  A rhythmic tune attached itself to my soul then; piano, a song—one I heard so long ago in a dream I couldn’t remember. It haunted my heart now as the words travelled onto my lips; “The world, she saw us loved and young—but tore us, worn and hung. We never will part, we never grow old—but spend eternity in our dreams, for the life we had is gone.

  “You will never touch the light, I will never touch your skin, but I will keep you in my dreams, until we meet again.”

  Jason stood stiff and stared through glazed, squared eyes, as I recalled the words softly. My lip quivered, and I watched the last of David’s life slip away from his unmoving body, then, as his pain receded to the bliss of the other side, he came back to this world for one, single moment. “I’ll see you soon.” He smiled, black eyes washing away with the green that could only belong to his soul.

  He dropped his head and turned away—sparing me the terrible grief of seeing life leave his emerald gaze.

  The tightness in my stomach forced me to fold over; I dropped a hand to the ground, holding the other tightly across my body.

  My heart knows. It knows what I’ve done. I can’t take it back. I need to go back—just two minutes. Just two minutes and everything will be okay.

  But I can’t—no matter how much I pray. I can’t.

  David.

  Jason towered over the lifeless corpse, smiling as he lifted David’s eyelids with his thumb. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

  Pools of tears filled my eyes, refusing to spill—the ache in my heart wouldn’t allow me the relief. I wanted to scream, to run, to throw myself from a tall tower. My heart was gone—it stopped beating when David’s did, but my breath wouldn’t give me a chance to die, coming in gasps, forcing me to live.

  “Jason.” Drake stood. “You know what to do.”

  “What are you doing?” I reached out when Jason lifted David.

  “Finishing what I started.”

  “No!”

  Jason turned and threw David’s lifeless body on the blazing heat behind him.

  “Oh, God. No!” I gripped my hair, ripping at it. I need control, what can I do, what can I do?

  The raging flames licked David’s skin, his clothes, melting his face, dissolving his hair as I watched.

  Tears streamed then, and my chest felt so tight I could no longer feel my breath. “No,” the words trailed off. “No!”

  He burned. He lay still—not breaking free, not running, not moving or thrashing about—just burning. Burning.

  As audible gasps grated the back of my throat, Jason squatted beside me and turned my face away from the light—away from the image of devastation. “I will erase this from your mind, Ara. You won’t know him anymore. Then you will—” Jason looked up, over at the door, his eyes wide, when a deep, raging scream echoed from somewhere in the hall.

  “Guards.” Drake pointed. “Secure the castle.”

  Jason stood, and bodies moved everywhere, scuffling apart in all directions, fleeing the room.

  “Wait here,” Jason said, then disappeared too, leaving me alone with the melting remains of my husband.

  My chest shook; stillness swallowed the room—a ticking clock, crackling coals, and my breath, the only mentions of existence aside from the distant screams, resonating somewhere deep within this fortress.

  Sobbing, I crawled to the fire. “David?”

  His hand lay on the tiles by the gleaming embers, two fingers undamaged by flames—the last remaining sign that he was once alive, that he once held me, loved me. A reminder that I would never feel his touch, ever again.

  My shaking hand moved slowly across the space between us, but the door swung open and banged loudly on the wall, Jason ripping me away before I had the chance to touch David. “We need to move. Now.”

  No. I reached out, watching the distance grow greater between our eternal separations. No, I need to say goodbye.

  But Jason dragged me from the room, leaving me with a broken farewell and a deep, burning desire to trade places with my dead husband.

  The blood rushed to my head, pulsing as I hung upside down over Jason’s shoulder; I lay motionless—all fight in me burned away with the life of David. My lip began to heal with the blood now coursing through my veins, and the warm rush, the life force David left behind in me, made me want to vomit. I slowly reached up and slid my fingers between my teeth.

  “Don’t!” Jason flipped me back into his arms and held me like a child, his vehement glare a warning. “If you throw that blood up, you’ll lose the last bit of David you’ll ever have.”

  My chin quivered. I ran my tongue over my lip, forcing it against my teeth to break open the gash that healed because of his death.

  Jason shook his head, breathing out as he ran, so fast I barely even saw the bodies now lining the halls. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “That was silly.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked wearily, hearing a loud crack and the writhing terror of distant voices.

  “They’ve come for you.” He steered down the dark stairs, leading to the dungeon he first locked me in.

  “Who?” I don’t think I can take any more pain.

  “They won’t hurt you.” His voice split the darkness, the only evidence, aside from his arms, that he was still there. But the light over the bed I first slept on here soon greeted us. He placed me gently down and knelt before me. “Ara?”

  I looked back from my distraction of the stairs, shadows and flames dancing along the walls, coming up fas
t behind us.

  “Ara, I need to tell you something, but we don’t have much time, so—” He pulled a syringe from the pocket of his shirt. “I need you to listen, even if this doesn’t make sense. Okay?”

  I nodded, staring at the needle.

  He swallowed hard and unbuttoned his shirt, holding the syringe between his fingertips. “I hate what you are, but I love the girl in you—I always have, and I need you to know—”

  “Jason. Please? Tell me what’s up there?” I looked at the staircase as a shadow covered the wall at the bottom—getting closer.

  “It’s them—the Lilithian Knights.” He rolled his collar over his shoulder and uncapped the lid from the syringe, using his teeth.

  “The Lilithian what?”

  “They want their princess back.” He stopped, and looked behind him, smiling.

  “Get away from her!” a raging, husky voice warned.

  “Mike!” I screamed and launched off the bed, straight into his arms.

  “Ara!” He kissed my forehead, squeezing me with familiar compassion. Love. Warmth. Kindness. “What have they done to you?” He took one look at my face, and tears welled in his eyes, forcing out over an enraged scowl.

  We both looked at Jason, who stood as if waiting for something.

  “I’ll kill you,” Mike growled, pushing me onto the bed as he stomped toward Jason.

  “Mike, no!” I jumped up and grabbed his arm. “He’ll kill you.”

  “I wish him luck.” He shoved me back and a soft, thin pair of arms wrapped around me, cradling me to a bony shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Amara—you’re safe now.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” She tugged me along, too strong for me to fight, taking me further and further away from Mike—away from Jason. “For now, we need to get you out of here.”

  “No. I can’t leave Mike. Jason will—”

  “It’s okay. Really.”

  “No, it’s not okay. Why should I listen to you? Let me go.”