It is nights like this one that my past haunts me. A full moon, a chill in the air. My parents named me Talent. That is the only gift they were able to give me before they were murdered. I grew up in a town that was not my home raised by a grandfather who was forever disappointed that I was not his daughter instead. Even so, I had a young wife, she was beautiful. I loved her. We also had a beautiful baby daughter. But death takes everything that I love.
That’s not the story you want to hear though is it? You want to hear the one everyone else wants to hear. You want to know how a mortal boy fell in love with a deadly monster.
It was an unnaturally cold evening in the summer that it happened. The race of men calls them demons. Monsters. They are. They crawl up from the bowels of the world to feast on mortal men. Horrible creatures with horns and wings and razor-sharp claws. Everyone in this god's forsaken world knows about them. They don’t talk about them though. They seduce our women, entrancing them into sleep as their monstrous spawn grows within their bodies.
Men go missing, never to return. I was one of them. The only one I know to have survived being captured by the Sisters to be used for the breeding of spawn. They couldn’t breed with one another so they bred with mortals.
I only survived because of him. He found me there locked in their cages. The men have names for him. For centuries he helped his evil goddess harvest the race of men. The Beast. White death. Evil. Darkness. They dare not utter his true name for fear that it will somehow summon him. It won’t. I’ve tried. So many times I’ve called for him, pleaded for him to come to me.
People tell me he was a horrendously ugly monster. How could I let it touch me? How could I love it? It. He had a name.
Glaice.
White as snow. Cut like a statue from flawless marble. I thought he was beautiful. Not just his outward appearance though. Men have always despised me for my love. This monster who knew nothing about it valued me because of it. Do you know what it’s like to have someone who loves something about you that everyone else hates?
He was my lover. I love him still. Truly, deeply. My heart bleeds because he is gone. I am listless. Restless. I crave him. Nothing else compares. No one else. My skin burns for his touch. My body aches for his.
He didn’t understand mortals. He didn’t understand morals. He was evil. I won’t deny that. I won’t pretend he wasn’t. That would be dishonest. I knew he was evil. I think in my young naivety I thought I could change him. I could save him. I had powerful Light magic after all. And all he needed was to be loved, right? Love changes everything. If I could only make him understand love we could have it all. Paradise, peace, love, harmony.
I don’t like to remember that time. Death does that to you. I died that day. My lover saved my physical body but everything else in me died. When the Sisters attacked and my mortal body lay dying Glaice gave me immortality. He changed me into a Brother. Maybe that is why I can no longer bear the company of simple mortals. Shobek brought me back to my mortal self but I had to give up the last great gift I had been given by my lover.
I couldn’t bear to stay with the children of Shobek either. Though they were Brothers they are different than Glaice. Shobek is a benevolent god and he spoils his children. He’s lead them from darkness into paradise. They even live above the surface in the city called Wonders. They have made peace with men.
The only other being in this world that understands me is Fyire. In my pain, I drove him away. I haven’t seen him for many years. He could not stay with Shobek either. To love Glaice is to always have a part of you hate Shobek and the change that he brought.
Alas, the sun sets and with it, I must continue. Will Glaice be down this path? Will I turn a corner and see him in all his dark glory shining like a diamond in the moonlight? Will I see his brilliant ice-blue eyes mocking me from the shadows? Will I see the shine of his razor fangs in his terrifying grin?
There is one thing I know that no one else does.
I will find a way to bring him back. Even if bringing him back means the end of this world and all within it.
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