30. Ash

Chapter Thirty

Ash

I blinked my eyes open and looked up at the clear blue sky around me. Birds circled overhead, and the sunlight was warm on my skin. I closed my eyes again and basked in the light for a moment, drinking in the warmth and relishing the sense of pure and complete peace. It was a sensation I hadn’t had in a long time. I wasn’t sure for how long—when I reached for a memory to pinpoint it, it slipped through my fingers. I fumbled and scrambled mentally until I gave up, the memory gone forever. It didn’t matter how long it had been that I’d felt the lack of peace. What mattered was that I felt it now. I was free of… I reached for another memory, but that slipped away, too. Dolus had come through for me; he’d kept his side of the deal. He’d…

Dolus. I remembered that much. I remembered him and his promises of a new world, a new life. My eyes shot open, and I sat up. I sat on the spongy mulch and trees surrounding me. I frowned and looked around. Dolus had said to me that I wouldn’t know where I was going; I just had to trust him and tell him if leaving the vale behind was what I wanted. I’d been hesitant—all this I could remember. I just didn’t know why I’d been so hesitant. So, that part had been taken away, just as I’d hoped it would. Now, all I had to do was figure out where I was, who I was, and what this new life would entail. I stood. My body felt strange, like I didn’t quite fit into myself. What did that mean? I stretched my arms out in front of me and studied my hands. My skin was the translucent green of the tree sprite that I’d been my whole life. I touched my ears, pointy as they’d always been. How could this be? I’d asked to be taken somewhere else, to do something different than I’d done for centuries. I’d asked Dolus for a change. When I turned around, I took in my surroundings. The trees, the forest that surrounded me, were all familiar. I knew this place. It was the vale. I was still right here, still just where I’d been all along. “Dolus!” I shouted. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. He didn’t appear. That two-timing piece of shit had better show his face or?—

“What?” Dolus asked, appearing before me in a flash so that I stumbled backward and caught myself on a tree. He looked irritated. I felt the tree spirit inside the tree curl in response to my touch, but he or she was still fast asleep, the response a knee-jerk reaction to magic pulsing from my touch. I had no idea who was in there. I felt like I should have known, but I didn’t.

When I looked at Dolus again, his irritation had been replaced by a smug grin. He was amused by my flailing around. Asshole. “What the hell is going on?” I demanded. “With what?” Dolus asked, pushing his hands into the black folds of his clothes, finding pockets I couldn’t see. “With this.” I waved my hands around, gesturing to the vale all around me. “Where the fuck am I?”

Dolus looked around, feigning confusion. “I thought you could figure that much out. I didn’t take all of your memories.”

“I’m still in the vale,” I said. “Ah, so you’re okay,” Dolus said and put his hand on his heart. “I thought I fucked up.” Yeah, he was screwing with me. Everything about him right now was mocking and sarcastic. “Why the hell am I still in the vale? You promised me that I’d be taken away. You promised me a new life, one where I got to start over.”

“But you do get to start over,” Dolus said. “I told you I wouldn’t tell you where you were going, and you made that choice anyway. Where you ended up was at my discretion. You know, the good old concept where it’s for me to know and you to find out.” He offered a broad grin that split his face in two, stretching from ear to ear. “You just found out.”

I shook my head. “How the fuck is it starting over if I’m right back where I started? This isn’t new. You promised you would take away my memories and?—”

“I did,” Dolus said, cutting me off. “I took them away just as I promised, and you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“This place isn’t new!”

“No, but the memories that plagued you are gone, so whatever bugged you here isn’t here anymore, is it? No reason to leave, then.”

I shook my head. His logic was sound, but damn it, that wasn’t what we’d agreed. “This isn’t what should have happened,” I said through gritted teeth. I balled my hands into fists.

“It’s what you asked for.”

“I asked for a new beginning.”

Dolus shrugged. “Look, it’s not like I didn’t come through for you. It’s just not what you expected. You should have read the fine print.”

“Of what?!” I yelled. “We didn’t have any kind of contract.”

“Ah,” Dolus said. “And there’s the truth of the matter, isn’t it? We didn’t have any kind of contract.”

“You betrayed me.”

“It’s in my nature,” Dolus said with a shrug. Anger welled up in my chest, and my skin boiled hot with rage. I couldn’t help myself. I lunged toward Dolus, swinging my fist toward his face, ready to beat the shit out of him for fucking with me. Dolus disappeared, and I lost my balance with nothing to hit, stumbling before I caught myself. Laughter sounded all around me before Dolus appeared again. “You should be grateful I’m not holding your outburst against you,” Dolus said calmly, his eyes still dancing with laughter. “I could destroy you for attacking a god.”

He was right, but my anger made me see red. Everyone had warned me against Dolus. Everyone… I couldn’t exactly remember who, but I’d had warnings about him. I should never have done business with the god of deceit. I’d just thought I’d been straightforward enough about what I’d asked. I’d thought I’d done the right thing. “I’m going to leave you to it,” Dolus said. “You have a forest to protect, a job to do.”

I scowled at him. “Yeah, thanks to you.”

Dolus’s smile disappeared, and darkness stretched across his features, his eyes suddenly spewing fire. “It is thanks to me, and you’ll do good to remember that. I let your outburst slide once, but if you fuck with me again, I’ll kill you.”

It wasn’t a threat; it was a warning. I felt his wrath and shivered under the feeling of the darkness that was suddenly all around me, clinging to the trees in the forest so that the leaves trembled and a cold wind picked up. “You chose this,” Dolus added, his anger fading slowly, although the darkness still remained. “If you’re unhappy with the choice you made, that really isn’t my fault.”

Dolus turned around, giving me his back. He took a few steps into the forest before he disappeared, and I was alone. Even after Dolus left, his darkness still hung between the trees like a thick black fog—a reminder that he could still come back and punish me if I stepped out of line. I took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. This wasn’t what I’d wanted at all. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Was Dolus right, though? Was it what I’d asked for? He’d told me he wouldn’t tell me where I would end up. I just hadn’t thought he wouldn’t let me leave here at all. One thing was true—I’d lost all the memories that had plagued me, everything that I’d thought would haunt me forever. I didn’t know what those memories were anymore; I just knew that there was a gaping hole inside of me where they’d been. I walked through the trees, heading toward the tree where I usually slept. I felt heavy, like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I wished I had someone I could talk to about what had just happened, but I knew no one here. I couldn’t think of one name or one face. The ache of losing someone or something grew stronger and stronger inside of me, but I didn’t know what it was that I’d lost. Somehow, that seemed so much worse. I’d wanted to forget, and that had happened—I knew nothing. The pain still remained, though; I just didn’t know what I was about now. Was it really so much better to have it like this, then? My pain still existed, no matter what. What a fuck-up. Finally, I found my tree. I slipped into it, taking its shape, and looked out over the forest from the tall boughs that reached above the other trees. As far as my eye could see, as far as my magic could reach, was the vale and all the other tree spirits who protected it. Somewhere out there was something I’d lost. Not knowing what it was made me ache even more, so I turned my attention inward and went to sleep. This I’d done for a long, long time, and it looked like my future was nothing but doing exactly this for a long time still.