Pure Darkness

by Aja James

  I suppose I noticed Dalair the way an outcast noticed another outcast. Even though I was on the inside now, I had no illusions about my reality. Even though it felt real, and I’d lived the good life for years, I never for a moment expected it or even wished for it to last. I just wanted to enjoy the brief reprieve while I could.

  “Whatcha doing in the palace, whoreson?”

  I observed five sons of noble houses circling Dalair as he walked through the central hallway connecting the palace villas. He was ten this summer. And I knew why he was here.

  Dalair was to be Prince Cambyses’ personal guard and companion. His—my—doppelganger in case of threat. We looked exactly alike except for our eyes—his gray, mine brown. But then, of course we looked alike. After all, I’d shaped my own image after him.

  Dalair didn’t deign to respond, keeping his gaze ahead, continuing his brisk pace down the hallway, his footsteps silent like a cat.

  “I’m talking to you.” This angry statement was accompanied by a brutal shove to Dalair’s back.

  But the boy did not fall as anyone else would have. He deftly turned before the full impact of the push could connect, sending his attacker diving into the marble floor instead, unable to stop the forward momentum.

  “You dare!” Another boy leapt in with fists and feet, trying to beat Dalair into submission.

  Not sure what he referred to by the “dare” comment. I suppose because Dalair dared to not stay still and take the abuse.

  Easily, Dalair handled the much stalkier, taller boy’s attack, using his strength and size against him, anticipating his moves. Another body went crashing with a loud thud into the marble floor.

  “Let’s teach him a lesson!”

  The other three boys jumped in all at once, taking Dalair down in a tangle of limbs.

  I observed the fray for a few seconds from my position behind one of the twenty-foot pillars that held up the ornate ceiling over the walkway. Part of me was curious to see whether Dalair was skilled enough to be my personal guard. He was just a ten year-old boy!

  Another part wanted him to get beat up.

  But not for the same reason as my Mistress would want to witness someone being hurt. She took sadistic glee in others’ pain. I wanted him to be beat up because then he’d be like me. Then, I wouldn’t feel so alone in being the outsider, the abomination, the freak that no one wanted.

  I knew it was twisted. I knew it wasn’t “right.” But that was the way I felt.

  After a copious amount of blood was splattered across the shiny, white floor, I decided to intervene. I didn’t really want Dalair to be hurt, after all. The other boys I could care less. They deserved whatever badness came their way.

  But Dalair…well, he was to be my friend. Never mind that he didn’t have a say-so in this role. Never mind that he was assigned to me. We were going to spend almost all of our time together from now on. I wanted the fantasy of having a friend.

  A brother.

  I walked to the border of this violent little skirmish and cleared my nine-year-old throat.

  No one paid attention. The fists and feet, elbows and knees, kept going. Blood speckled on my satin slippers.

  “Now see here—”

  I was cut off when an errant foot kicked out and connected hard with my shin, knocking me off balance.

  Fuck! Before I knew it, I was pulled into the tangle of bodies and somehow found myself at the bottom of the pile, getting pummeled by raining fists and elbow jabs from above. It didn’t last long, however, as Dalair upped his game and one by one immobilized the five other boys, pulling them off me, hitting them where it hurt most—the eyes, the nose, the throat, the nuts.

  As I got shakily to my feet again, I managed to say haughtily, “You ruffians are dismissed. And a pox on your house if I ever see you in the palace again. My father will have your heads mounted on pikes if he saw the injuries you dared to inflict upon me. Be gone!”

  With muttered apologies and metaphorical tails tucked between their legs, the five ignoble sons scurried out of sight.

  “Why did you interfere?” Dalair huffed as soon as we were alone. “I had it under control.”

  “Right,” I noted, brushing the wrinkles out of my royal robes. “Your black eye and split lip speak volumes.”

  He confronted me with a stubborn look, heavy brows drawn together.

  “They got lucky. I had it under control.”

  I raised my own more elegant brows aloft.

  “Pretty sure you’re not supposed to argue with me, especially after I saved your ass. And, might I point out that I’m the Crown Prince.”

  His scowl got fiercer.

  “I saved you. Are you stupid? Letting them slam you to the ground, then lying there with your arms around your head, just taking their beating? You couldn’t at least stick your foot out and trip one of them? Jab them in the eyes when their face was close?”

  I drew myself up and glared.

  “I am not a violent person, I’ll have you know. Besides, it’s your job to protect me. I just wanted to keep my pretty face from getting marred.”

  He focused on my right eye.

  “I’m not likely to get the role as your protector when the king sees your black eye. I’ll take the punishment. Just leave my mother—”

  I immediately but subtly smoothed out the skin around my eye, using my Gift.

  “What black eye?”

  He stared at me more closely.

  I knew that he couldn’t see the swelling any more, but I certainly felt it all around the right side of my face.

  “What…”

  I turned heel and started to walk away, knowing that he’d catch up. After all, we were going before my parents to formalize the arrangement.

  “You should never interfere again,” he muttered from behind me. “It’s my role to take the hits meant for you. I’m here to make sure you never get hurt.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said flippantly.

  I believed he’d do everything in his power to fulfill his role. I could tell Dalair was that sort of boy. And eventually, that sort of man. Which was why I never anticipated that he’d be the one who hurt me the most.

  *** *** *** ***

  Over the years, Dalair and I grew unbearably close. Unbearably, because I didn’t know how I was ever to survive when this fantasy ended. When I lost my only friend and brother.

  The end would of course come. There was no avoiding it.

  The Mistress could decide to redeploy me to another scheme. She could bring this plot to its no doubt nasty conclusion at any time. And if by some miracle neither of those possibilities occurred, then there was still war, famine, disease and human mortality. It was only a matter of time that Dalair was lost to me.

  I couldn’t bear even the idea of it.

  We laughed together, studied and trained together, went everywhere, did everything together. I taught him the finer aspects of erudition; he taught me enough about self-defense to make me appear competent in front of my forbidding (fake) father, King Cyrus. Turned out, I could defend just fine. Especially when someone I cared about was threatened. Namely Dalair and his mother Vashti. I just could never master offensive maneuvers.

  Vashti was the beautiful, sweet, doting mama I never had but always dreamed about. I spent more time with Dalair and Vashti in their humble abode in the Outer Circle than I did in the palace. I even slept there most nights, on a thin pallet right next to Dalair. It was stupid of me to get attached, I knew. I took the fantasizing bit too far.

  But it was wonderful.

  Every moment I spent with them felt like I was breathing clean air for the first time after millennia of suffocation. I soaked it up, stored it inside, and the insidious hope within my evil soul grew like weeds, sprouting up everywhere, breaking through the shit and dirt that had buried my spirit.

  I loved them.

  I loved them.

  As much as a being like m
e could ever love, in any case.

  Presently, Dalair and I were lying side by side on top of the northern hill that overlooked the metropolis. This was our spot to get away from the palace and simply be.

  “How do you know if you prefer males or females?”

  I often asked Dalair random things that popped into my head. I’d never conversed so openly with anyone else before. It felt like I was talking to my heart. I trusted him implicitly.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, not taken aback by my sudden inquiry. He was used to my non-sequiturs and disjointed ramblings by now.

  “You know…” I hinted obliquely.

  “I don’t know,” came his simple response.

  I propped up on an elbow, lying on my side looking down at him, while he stacked his hands beneath his head and gazed up at the cloudless sky, gnawing on a piece of straw in the corner of his mouth.

  “Haven’t you been overcome with the urge to pinch a pair of titties yet?” I needled. “Or gotten hard at the sight of a fine set of masculine buttocks?”

  I wanted to know what “normal” was. Dalair was so good, so true, so normal. Which wasn’t to say he was “average,” not by a long shot. He was the most amazing person I’d ever known, apart from… Well, I couldn’t recall exactly who. But suffice it to say that since I’d been reborn as the Mistress’s Creature, I’d never met another living being who impressed me more than Dalair.

  “Yeah,” he grunted.

  I rolled my eyes. Dalair and his sparsely applied words.

  “‘Yeah’ what?” I prodded him. “Which is it? Females or males that get you up?”

  He shrugged.

  “Females, I guess.”

  I settled back to lie beside him again, folding my hands over my stomach.

  “I don’t know which one of them I prefer,” I murmured, as much to myself as to him.

  Verily, I hated both. Male or female, all they saw when they looked at me in my guises was a cock and a hole. All they wanted was someone to use and abuse.

  “They’re both beautiful. Men and women. And also ugly,” I said.

  Only Dalair and Vashti were beautiful.

  “But I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ll have to marry and reproduce soon enough. Father has already negotiated for my bride,” I revealed. “The alliance will strengthen the empire significantly.”

  “Will it be a chore for you?” he asked.

  I sighed. Since my Mistress had not elucidated her plans for me, I continued to play my part. My gut feeling told me that this arranged marriage was important for Anunit’s schemes. And I supposed I’d have to perform the duties of a credible husband. Including fucking my bride.

  So, yes, it was going to be a nightmare in the middle of my pleasant dream.

  “It’s my duty as the Crown Prince,” I intoned. “It is an honor, I suppose, for the princess I’m to marry is reputed to be a beautiful girl, much beloved by her own kingdom.”

  “You can always have your harem,” he said, mistakenly assuming that I wasn’t looking forward to the shackles of matrimony.

  “I won’t,” I vowed.

  Mithras’ sakes! I was practically gagging at the thought of bedding one woman, never mind more.

  “When I marry, I will be faithful and respectful to my wife.” And I meant it. “I will not hurt…others…the way father does.” The way King Cyrus hurt Vashti.

  “He doesn’t beat them,” Dalair said in the king’s defense.

  I huffed on an abbreviated laugh.

  “Can you imagine me beating anyone? That should be the least of your worries. One of the reasons I must never have a harem is that those banshees will most certainly beat me! Women are such manipulative, jealous creatures. Much more dangerous than men.”

  Listen well, my darling Dalair. Words of wisdom from someone who knew from millennia of experience.

  “You can have men in your harems too,” he pointed out.

  Fuck, no! Women were evil and manipulative, but men were bloodthirsty brutes. They loved displaying their power over those who were weaker, held them down while they fucked them raw.

  I cleared my throat.

  “I won’t,” I repeated.

  “What if you find out that you like males?” he persisted.

  I shrugged and squeezed my eyes shut, attempting to push back the violent memories that often haunted me. I could taste it still—their bitter, vile seed and other fluids. Coating my esophagus. Lining my nostrils. I could feel the coarse hairs of their groin abrading my face as they shoved their cocks down my throat. Smell their foul sweat and nauseating musk. The stab and burn of their rods as they rutted inside me.

  No, I knew with absolute certainty that I did NOT and would NEVER “like” males.

  “I won’t betray my wife,” I said in a relatively normal voice, not directly answering the question. “I would still love her as best I can, and hope that she loves me back. Love is more than just sexual congress, after all. We can have a deep, platonic love if it comes to that.”

  I was all for platonic love. Like the kind I felt for Dalair.

  “What about you, Dalair?” I tried to shift the focus of this out-of-control conversation. “What are your thoughts about marriage?”

  “None whatsoever,” he replied readily.

  “Come on. You’re a year older than me!” I cried. And he was healthy, good, and normal!

  “Lots of the other princes have been rid of their virginity by throngs of fragrant, curvaceous females. Father and mother are arranging their marriages too. Surely there’s been a girl who caught your eye? And knowing you, you wouldn’t have her unless it’s within marriage vows, so you must have thought about marriage!”

  “Nope,” he said quite decidedly. “When it happens it happens. I haven’t met a girl yet who makes me think about the future beyond what’s for luncheon and supper.”

  “You’re such a simple brute,” I huffed affectionately.

  “Yep.”

  We were silent for a long while after that, content in the shared peace and quiet.

  After a time I said, “The Egyptian king wants me to travel there to personally escort my princess bride back to Persepolis. As a sign of respect and esteem between our two kingdoms.”

  “I’ll go,” he immediately volunteered.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” I admitted. “Father doesn’t believe King Apries is using this betrothal as a front for something sinister, but one never knows. Father hasn’t come this far without taking all necessary precautions.”

  I looked over at him.

  “But in case there’s any cloak and dagger, you know I’m useless in those situations. I’d scream like a girl at the sight of a blade and run as fast as I could in the opposite direction.”

  I paused, then added, “Likely in the wrong direction too.”

  A corner of his mouth quirked.

  “You’re not so bad.”

  “I’m worse,” I returned.

  “Maybe,” he teased. “Girls scream more manly-like than you. You sound like a gutted pig.”

  “Pigs can be quite adorable,” I pointed out.

  “You snort like one too.”

  “This is true. But pigs are extremely intelligent. Bet I can teach piglets math faster than I can teach you.”

  He shrugged, unconcerned at being compared unfavorably to porcine spawn.

  “You’ll have to learn some niceties though,” I warned, eyeing him dubiously. Dalair was not known for niceties.

  “You mean spout flowery phrases about a girl’s eyes and bosom?” he asked with a cocked brow.

  Gah!

  “Never, never, mention a female’s bosom!” I screeched. “Certainly not to her face or even within her hearing! Or within any of her relatives’ hearing for that matter… come to think of it, don’t mention it out loud to anyone ever!”

  He shrugged, uncaring.

  “Just do that thing you always do,”
I said, admiring how rugged and strong he looked. Dalair and I might appear like twins, but in substance, we were polar opposites. He was everything good that was missing from me.

  “What thing?” he asked.

  “That thing,” I waved a hand in his general vicinity. Didn’t he know how magnificent he was?

  “What you’re doing now,” I elaborated. “All stoic and silent. Man of few words and all that. With your battle prowess, my looks, and your silence,” I stressed the last bit, “King Apries should accept you just fine, and the princess should fall madly in love with you.”

  “You mean, fall madly in love with you.”

  “Well, yes,” I acknowledged impatiently. “That’s why I said my looks. You’re just representing me in this journey to bring the princess to our homeland. You’re the stand-in. I’m the real deal.”

  It was such hogwash I almost choked on my own tongue.

  “Thank the gods for that,” he muttered, sounding relieved. “Do you at least know the princess’s name?”

  “Kira,” I answered. “Her name is Kira.”

  Mistress of Light.

  Chapter Fourteen: The Other Me

  *ERE*

  There once was a monster who pretended to be a prince. He used magic to disguise his ugliness. He drank potions to make his voice clear and sweet, his words lyrical and alluring.

  One day, he met a princess whose outer beauty shone brighter than a hundred stars, and whose inner beauty glowed warmer than a thousand suns. The pretend prince basked in her light and warmth. He lived for her smiles, kind words, and affectionate hugs and kisses.

  And then a miracle happened that he never expected—she consented to become his wife. For the first time in the monster’s poor, violence-filled existence, Fortune looked favorably upon him. The princess became his friend, his confidante. His everything.

  The monster was overjoyed. He lived in a palace, surrounded by riches. He had a family of his own choosing—the brother and mother of his heart.

  And he had his beautiful Mistress of Light.

  But this is a fairytale, and as such, these stories never end well for the monsters in them. After years and years of loving her, trusting her, the pretend prince finally discovered that it was all a lie—The princess had never loved him at all. She loved the real prince, the monster’s brother. And the brother, whom the monster trusted above all others, betrayed him by stealing his wife.