Paradise Undeserved is an attempt at flash fiction by author Samantha Kroese. It is Dark Fantasy featuring Diajik, one of the main characters in the best-selling Fading Lights Trilogy (buy them here).
SPOILER WARNING FOR THE TRILOGY.
If you haven't read the trilogy this short story has some spoilers as it is set in the aftermath of the trilogy. If you've read the trilogy and wondered how it turned out you will get a few hints of it from this. If you read this and enjoy it please consider checking out my trilogy (if you haven't) or watch for Stormslinger, my late 2021 standalone novel project, which returns to this world in the aftermath of the trilogy as well.
I will also be offering a short story prequel to the trilogy featuring this character, Diajik, and Taxir from the trilogy (who is also the character referred to in this flash story). It will be the full story of how they met and became friends/lovers. So keep an eye open for that, it will be free to subscribers of my newsletter once I announce it (Early June I'm estimating).
Sorry for any errors, sometimes my characters just bleed onto the page in rapid succession and I'm lost trying to keep up. Thank you for reading!
Trigger warning: Loss, tragic loss, loss of a loved one, mourning.
Diajik strolled down the worn stone path. Here and there he would stop to pick weeds out from between the rocks. How strange it was, to hold living green plants in his hands. Even stranger to be plucking them out to die when only years before even one would have been a treasure. This was sacred ground. He wouldn’t tolerate the rapid overgrowth burying the stone path.
Dawn chased away the darkness, sending shadows retreating behind the thick trees. Leaves rustled in the cool breeze. Goosebumps rose on his exposed skin. Even years later he still was uncomfortable wearing much more than the silken loincloth embroidered with runes of power. His magic concealed the price he had paid for all of this, the twisting of his mortal flesh beneath the glamour.
Birds and small creatures fled before him. He didn’t fool them. They knew instinctively he was a predator in the guise of a forest guardian. A painful reminder that he could never return to what was, even if the world around him recovered.
He walked into the clearing, solemn. He knelt slowly before the beautiful marble stone that sat in the center. His elven fingers traced the name he had so lovingly carved with his monstrous claws. Things had happened too quickly. The world had needed saving. There hadn’t been time to think of the devastating loss, to properly grieve.
Now that the world was safe, balance restored, all he could do was grieve. His heart and soul bled because of his blindness. Things in the past were always clearer.
He settled in the cold grass that covered the empty grave. His beloved wasn’t here. They had never found his body. Diajik hadn’t even seen it for certain, just a blood-stained sheet. Everything had happened so fast. He knew in his soul that his friend, his beloved, was dead.
He leaned his back against the grave, watching the sun rise over the top of trees that hadn’t existed then, and into a sky clear of roiling darkness. No longer did fingers of darkness churn to choke out the sun. No longer did it paint the world red like blood.
He sat safe and alive in a paradise he did not deserve, while the one who deserved it had paid the price for it. “I shouldn’t feel this way, you know. I have Bram and Coldt. You’ll be happy to know you were right. I do love them both deeply.” His words sounded odd breaking the morning’s silence. Was this another facet of his madness? Sitting here speaking to a ghost? “Did you know that I loved you?” Diajik ran his fingers through the grass, marveling at the dew that chilled his skin. “We saved the world, beloved. But at what cost?”
A sudden breeze blew across him, caressing him, almost like a lover’s touch. It comforted him, eased the ache in his chest, the wound in his soul, the tear in the heart that had proved not to be stone. “I don’t have Durriken. He was not meant for us. He is the one the world needs,” Diajik said, blinking at the sting in his eyes. “It was never him I longed for. It was you. You were the one I needed. I feel empty now that you are gone. It makes no sense, my dear. I am happy here. I have lovers. We are safe.” Diajik rubbed his chest, trying to ease the sudden tightness there. “What do I do with this monster that you’ve made me into? I crave what doesn’t exist. Nothing satisfies me. I long for what I’ve lost instead of appreciating what I have. What do I do now? Do you even realize how much I relied on your guidance?”
Diajik tilted his head. He could hear sounds of the nearby village stirring, the utopia he ruled fairly and justly. Where everyone with the world’s magic was welcome and safe. Paradise born from dystopia. Soon his boys would need him. There was always more work to be done. So he rose, reluctant, and placed his hand on the smooth top of the stone. He allowed himself one moment of silence, of communion with the silence around him.
As he walked the path toward the village the sun painted it golden. Something stirred behind him and he whirled. A phantom wind, a wisp of life lost. A ghost or a memory? He stood, frozen, trying to decipher it. When nothing revealed itself he continued on, lost in thoughts of the coming day.
Unaware of the mourning forest spirit he left behind.
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Written by Samantha Kroese, all rights reserved. No part of this post may be reproduced without explicit written permission of the author.