The Mortal And The Wicked-- ONC 2023

Chapter 20; A shadow's song

From the shadows Azrael watched as Lucy Caramonte waltzed her way through his carefully hidden path, her delicate steps aligning perfectly with the dustings of silver, her movements graceful as she danced.

She did not see him-- could not, rather. For he had exchanged his garish appearance of a carnival master of the dead to one of a simple crow that perched upon the highest branches of the trees overlooking the tents beyond.

For he had called upon what little magic had been granted to him that night, his skin sprouting feathers black as coal, his body shrinking in size while his face grew and tapered off into the point of a beak.

In the importance of watching how the game progressed it was a form most agreeable. Yet now it would not suit him for what he knew he ought to do next. A matter of trickery. A move against the pair of lovers he now saw was beginning to win his game-- with Miss Lucy Caramonte at its forefront.

She had amused him with her quick wit, yet her cleverness had far surpassed Azrael's expectations. And while it had given him a thrill to begin with, it was now that a prickling of unease had settled upon his skin.

For though she had found the first key, it was a feat many could claim to have done before. Nevertheless, in all other instances it had taken the entire night to do so, leaving no hope of escaping the gates before dawn arose. The souls remaining trapped within the carnival much to Azrael's satisfaction.

Yet now Miss Caramonte was on her way to finding the second key.

It was quite impressive indeed, and it worried Azrael greatly. So much so that for the first time within a hundred years, he felt that perhaps it was time he retaliated with a game of his own.

He fluttered to the ground, feeling a warmth blossom within his chest as he summoned the magic once more. Noting the way in which the lanterns around him flickered in warning. The edges of his vision growing hazy in the dark.

Nevertheless, the magic pulled him through, and he felt his body grow once more into something human; tall with dark hair cascading down his shoulders in elegant waves, his feathers melting now into a black gown that slithered along the ground.

His strong hands grew delicate, his features softening to bowed lips and eyes framed by long lashes till at last he stood as a dark sorceress amidst the shadows. Entirely unrecognizable and ensuring that Lucy would never suspect it was truly him.

It would make matters far easier that way, he knew.

Once more he looked at the couple, their waltz now beginning to attract the attention of others, his unease worsening at the sight of it.

'You ought to let them go, you miserable trout.' he thought somewhat resentful. 'Let a soul free. Is that not what this is all for?'

Yet such a notion was not quite as simple as all that. Indeed, he had grown bitter within centuries of waiting, the memories of his own love slowly lost to him till at last he could hardly recall what such joy might feel like.

It was what he had always wanted for himself. What he craved now with an insatiable hunger... And in the end he felt that that was what had truly killed the final part of him that had been human.

For as the years went on and his torment showed no signs of ending, he had grown a twisted sense of pleasure in watching those become as desperate as he had been to bring their loved ones back to the world of the living.

He delighted in their struggle, watching as hope from both the living and dead drained into something cold and lifeless in much the same way his own had. Pushing them beyond some threshold of breaking till each year every riddle grew far more ridiculous than the last-- till at last the words were something on the brink of madness.

The games had grown violent, blood spilled upon magical ground, those that had once been friends turning against one another... And he had watched it all with a growing sense of grim satisfaction.

Now they would know his own pain; his anguish at knowing that he would never be free of the colorful tents, trapped behind the silver gates for all eternity and never once had he allowed a single soul to walk through such gates before dawn.

To be sure, he reminded himself at times, he wasn't entirely heartless. He couldn't be, for they-- whoever they had been-- wouldn't have allowed it. And thus the two sides of his heart remained at war with one another-- all hidden neatly away beneath a façade of sarcasm and being a general nuisance.

"Let them go," he whispered aloud now, as though pleading the crueler part of himself to simply stand by and watch as Lucy Caramonte and the Baron walked beyond the silver gates. "Surely you can allow them this."

It was the same argument each year, and in that time Azrael felt the bitter darkness grow, the longing within him a pulsing ache, his envy circling blackened fingers around his heart.

He thought of them, of afternoons spent in sunlight, of summer evenings spent drunk on fruit wine, of mornings wrapped in one another's arms. Of moments he could never have again. And with that, his sadness and anger pricked their thorns into his heart and he felt a shadow fall over him as he entered the game.

For he would not allow Miss Caramonte to win so easily.

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