Fantasmical 2023

Won't You Release Me from this Darkness?

Darkness. Always darkness. And the once-soothing shapes of basalt columns.

I'm here again walking through these darkened caverns. Walking ever closer to the thing that calls to me so desperately in my true name. That pleads in the Language of Spark and Flame.

Finally, I reach the chamber and my mane comes alive in all its volcanic glory. And I see it resting there on a basalt plinth, a stone of fire agate.

Ashul, have you finally come to release me from this darkness?

I reach for the stone as it shimmers with a life of its own.

Yes, I have come—

I wake in a tangle of loose-woven blankets soaked through in sweat.

"Are you okay?" Night asks from somewhere on the other end of our enchanted apartment. Enchanted because the door leads to six different locations.

I sit up, shoving my obsidian mane out of my face. "I'm fine. Why?" I snap, grumpily.

"Because you're breathing literal steam and it's like a bazillion degrees out, Ash."

He's right. I'm not. Not when I'm breathing this heavily.

"I said I was fine."

"Well then hurry up and eat your breakfast because we've got to go."

I look over at him. "Go where?"

* * *

"Alright you lot, you're not to touch anything but what we came for. I don't care how tempting it may seem," Penelope "the Adventurer" informs us questers.

Night swears he told me about this expedition a fortnight ago. I'm pretty sure he didn't and he's once again mistaken me for someone he's actually sleeping with and not just sleeping in the same bed with.

I elbow Night. "I believe she's eyeing you, specifically."

"I believe she's eying me for an entirely different reason," Night counters with a smirk.

I roll my eyes and he laughs.

"Is something funny you two?" Penelope demands. "You know, I didn't want to take on any extras, but the Aventurine Consortium was...insistent. And when they want something—"

"It's best not to deny them," Night finishes.

"Good. Then we're on the same page."

* * *

We and the rest of the questers have made it a considerable distance into the basalt caverns when we come to a forking path and begin to turn left.

Ashul a voice whispers down the dark path to my right and something inside my chest stirs like it's waking from a long slumber.

I've been waiting in this darkness for so very long. Won't you come and release me?

I start to move toward the voice down the cavern tunnel—it's just like the one in my dreams.

Ashul, please. Won't you take me back into the light?

I continue onward.

Yes, I will.

The tunnel opens into a small chamber filled with a shifting warm light and at its center is a basalt plinth just like I knew there would be. And the moment I cross the threshold my mane begins to dance and glow, flowing out like ribbons in a soft breeze.

And it's there resting on the center of the plinth as large as my fist, and it's calling to me.

Ashul, set me free. Release me from this darkness.

I'm so close now I can almost touch it.

Ashul...

"Ash, what are you doing?!"

My hand grasps the fire agate as something wraps itself around my waist.

It's so beauti—

So painful!

The stone turns to molten liquid and stabs into the base of my wrist. Snaking its way through my veins as the ground beneath me gives way.

Fire! This must be what it is to burn.

I think I'm screaming. I know I'm falling. Someone or something is clutching me so tightly that I can hardly breathe.

I'm burning. I'm burning to ashes!

I hit the ground and tumble to a stop. And the pain—it's just getting worse. Spreading farther up my arm. And I don't know how much more I can—

"Ash!" Night's here, his hand is on my left shoulder easing me to my knees.

I swing my head to look at him and... The look in his eyes. It's just like my sister's right before she betrayed me to our father.

Night bites his lip. "Ash, if it gets to your shoulder do you want me to cut it off?"

"Ugh!" I collapse in pain again.

"Ash, I need to know!"

I can fight with only the left. I'll lose my Blood Blade but I won't be utterly defenseless.

I look up at him with pleading eyes. "Night, don't let it..."

I don't want to die, is my last thought before I succumb to the searing pain.

* * *

I wake in a panic, my gaze darting to the right. My entire sleeve has been burned away and in its place is an intricate swirl of inkwork like a stylized volcanic plume all the way to my collarbone.

But it's not just inked, it's inset into the skin slightly. Almost like it's been carved into the flesh. Almost like a brand. And the recessed design seems to glimmer like hot coals waiting to be stoked back to life.

"You said you'd cut it before it reached the shoulder," I say softly just now realizing that Night has me cradled between his knees, my back resting up against his front.

I let my body sag into him as I look up into his face.

He brushes my mane from my eyes. "I really was going to do it. I had the blade in my hand."

"But you hesitated."

"Yeah..."

He looks almost as exhausted as I feel.

Ever so slowly Night lifts my hand, hesitantly stroking his thumb over the back of it.

And when I see the Blood Mark etched anew in my skin I go as still as stone.

"Ash, I need to ask you something very important. How long have you had the Mark of Ayazan?"