As we broke through the dense clouds, there was scarcely time to catch my breath before we were moving again. Faster than a storm gale, we soared over an ocean of black, our journey lit by the light of the moon and stars just out of reach overhead. Tucked away in the Fiend Lord’s arms, I’d never felt smaller.

  I tried to move, to push against him, but my effort amounted to little more than a flower struggling to lift a boulder. In his grasp, I was but a fragile, porcelain doll. My mouth fell open, but no breath remained in my lungs to form into words.

  How could I speak? What could I say?

  Even if the words existed, and I had the means to speak them aloud, would they not fall on deaf ears? Ears…my eyes drifted to his face, crossing the thin river of hair that painted his sharp jawline, following it to its source and his strange, familiar ears. Identical to my own, save their charred fringes as if he’d walked through fire — and though he’d surely done so, I was not so na?ve to believe that to be the reason.

  My eyes fell; my teeth sank into my lip. Within my breast, my heart trembled. Pulse raced. Sweat streaked my face, blown away by the whistling wind.

  Dare I speak? What should I say?

  To avoid that burning question, I tore my eyes from him and cast them downward. A breathless gasp burst from my lips. Beneath us, I watched the ocean of clouds split in the wake of our journey. Below — far, far below — the last of the Mother Willow disappeared, revealing hills and plains not unlike those near Spring Hill. But just as quickly, those too gave way to desolate waste.

  I’d never seen the Dreadlands with my own eyes. Only heard tales spoken in shaken voices, described in fumbled words and haunted moans. Blighted trees with broken branches and peeling bark, oozing black ichor that hissed and sizzled; cracked, burned earth, creating a suffocating landscape of joyless gray. The air reeked of decay, so putrid my hand flew to my face to cover my nose, too late to stop its bitterness from seeping into my throat, twisting my stomach.

  Most haunting of all was the sound. Or rather, the lack of it. No insects chirped, no animals scurried or howled. Not a hushed stillness, like the air before a storm, but one that sat heavy on one’s chest, turning joy into emptiness, anticipation into dread. Were it not for the screaming whistle of the wind racing past us, I might have been deafened by my own thundering thoughts.

  “Where…are we going?” At last, I found my courage to speak. But even I was ashamed of the question I chose to ask. When he paid me no mind, it was a great relief. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me, and my foolishness would go forgotten, me its only audience?

  Not willing to subject my eyes to the bleak landscape below, I instead turned them skyward. Never before had I seen the stars so close. I longed to reach out to touch them. My fingers twitched, but I stilled my hands to spare myself further humiliation.

  The wind, though stale as death, raced through my hair and fluttered my dress, as if inviting me to dance. Below, the fluffy, parted sea shielded me from the enormity of the wasteland. Embraced by both, caressed by moonlight, I let my eyes fall shut and tried to imagine it were better circumstances that brought me into their arms.

  “We draw close to our destination.” The Fiend Lord’s rumbling voice, a half-step above a growl, an octave below a croon, stirred me from my fantasies. We pitched forward, plunging through the cloud covering and into the Dreadlands.

  My eyes opened and grew wide as yet again my breath was stolen.

  Gray waste lay in every direction I looked, lit by the black and copper glow of countless fellflames — dark fire born from ignited fellblood — that dotted the landscape. Above, heavy viscous clouds oozed shut to block out the light. Fellbeasts of countless shapes and sizes — rampaging dreadtusks, buzzing rotflies, and the shifting shadowy forms of foolwyrms — roamed the wastes in numbers that could swarm the whole of Willowhaven.

  But the horrors my trembling eyes beheld could not compare to what lay ahead. Our destination: a pit in the Earth with jagged, asymmetrical cliffs like fangs, colossal enough to swallow Willowhaven’s three largest settlements in a single, gnashing crunch. Fellblood oozed down the walls, pooling into a bobbling lake, the surface burning with more fellflame.

  At the center of the pit lay a towering castle, carved from obsidian that drank the lake’s glow, surrounding itself in a dark, nightmarish haze. Its gnarled towers jutted from the pit like the roots of an inverted, wicked tree. The balconies were dark, and the doorways they housed even darker.

  A drawbridge lowered over the lake, connecting to a massive stone outcropping that pierced through the drooling cliff side to create a single entryway to the courtyard. Our journey ended with a heavy landing, and just as he’d taken me into his arms, the Fiend Lord deposited me onto the ground without a word and marched toward the castle.

  “Stay close and do not stray.”

  My mind fell silent, thoughts strangled by the terror raking my spine. With only a mute nod in response, I hurried after him, my feet tangling in an effort to keep up with his long-legged strides. Once we crossed the drawbridge, it abruptly closed behind us with a thunderous slam. I chanced a single glance back at it, then hurried to catch up to my malevolent host.

  The courtyard was an expansive but eerily empty area. Larger than the Spring Hill square, lit in black-copper light by two rows of torches, attached to statues that resembled the Fellbeasts. A rough stone path led to the inner gates of the castle proper, surrounded on either side by thin, oily weeds that bent toward the Fiend Lord as we walked past.

  As the looming gateway drew closer, dread bloomed within my breast, fed by churning uncertainty in the pit of my stomach. My hand rose to cover my mouth and nose, but before the bile reached my throat, I felt a sharp prickle in my hand, as if a hundred burning fire ants swarmed me all at once. Turning toward the source, my heart leaped into my throat.

  Amidst the oily weeds was a single, wilting witherlily. Its blighted leaves dripped, burned, and grew back again, locked in an eternal struggle between immortality and decay. With no concern for upsetting my host, I stepped from the path and strode through the weeds. They were hard and sharp as teeth, crunching beneath my boots. When I dropped to my knees beside the flower, they sliced my bare skin, spilling rivulets of warm blood that rewound into my self-knitting flesh, just to be spilled again, filling the air with strips of gold and lilac smoke and the welcome scent of burning incense.

  “Oh, look at you, my dear lady. Such senseless cruelty against one so fair.” The poor witherlily leaned into my touch, fingers brushing its cracked petals. “So delicate, yet so strong to have survived such indignities with nary a whimper. Well…rest assured, my dearest, you needn’t suffer any longer.” Reaching with both hands into its being to grasp the rotting blight that strangled it so.

  I breathed in stale air; I exhaled starlight, coating it in a glow that drove back the clinging, biting weeds surrounding it. The blight here was more persistent, but with a second breath, it gave into my demands and released its hold on fair Witherlily. A lush, verdant green returned to its leaves, pale white like fresh snowfall returning to its smoky petals.

  When the light cleared, the witherlily stood strong, proud, and thankful. I smiled in return and bowed my head, leaving her with a tender kiss. “Be strong, Dearest. I shall endeavor to do the same.”

  Free from distraction, I turned, expecting to have been abandoned. Or worse, to have invoked the wrath of my captor. Instead, I found the Fiend Lord waiting, watching me with unblinking eyes that burned brighter than any light in the Dreadlands. There was an unreadable expression on his face, neither a scowl nor a smile, neither disinterest nor intrigue.

  A shiver ran down my spine when he spoke; his low voice booming in the stillness.

  “Have you satisfied your compulsion?” There was neither disdain nor impatience in his voice. It was a question spoken without judgment, as though he were declaring the wasteland gray.

  “I have.” My jaw tensed, my lips trembled. I swallowed my nerves and rose to my feet. “I apologize for not heeding your request, Fiend Lord.”

  His mouth remained a thin line, but the corners of his eyes crinkled ever-so-slightly. With a snort, he turned his head. “Come.” He paused, then glanced back at her from the corner of his eye. “Should another flower demand your attention, a warning will suffice.”

  After wading through the oily weeds, turning back to ensure fair Witherlily would be fine. I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her standing strong amidst the bitter scowls of her neighbors. Then, I chased after the Fiend Lord.

  Our journey through the rest of the courtyard was brief. Ahead of us, the titanic double-doors of the castle crept open, chains rattling, wood creaking. Deep within the shadows of the entrance burned a hot, copper glow. Terrified of getting lost in the smothering quiet again, I steeled my nerves and asked the first question my racing mind could form. “Is this the place where she fell?”

  The Fiend Lord gave no response. My pulse quickened.

  “Eve. After she betrayed the Fairy Queen by stealing from the Tree of Knowledge. The legends say she was cast out of Elysium and the place where she fell became a hole from which darkness entered the world.”

  “No.” His simple, single-worded answer hung thick in the air. We crossed the threshold into the castle and, as the drawbridge before, the doors slammed shut behind us. The force of their closing sent me tumbling forward into him.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  As if I’d hit a wall, I was thrown to the ground. I looked up; he stared back. Those eyes. Venomous stars blazing within pits of black.

  “It is where I came into this world. Ripping apart the land with savage fury, carnage and mayhem made manifest. Once, it was a kingdom of splendor and plenty. Now…” He swept his arm to the side. “It is a wound in the world that shall never heal. Bleeding malice and hatred that consumes all in its path.”

  To my shock, he held his giant hand out to me. Within him, I felt the incinerating anguish that brought me to my knees in Spring Hill. Drawn to it like a moth to a flame, I laid my hand in his, gasping when he pulled me to my feet with a simple tug of his arm. His claws closed around my hand. Their serrated edges bit into my skin; the smoke from my wounds seeping through his fingers.

  “From this day forth,” he said with another flicker at the corners of his eyes, “it is now your home.”

  “Surely you mean my prison?”

  The Fiend Lord released my hand. His lips drew back to reveal a mouthful of fangs, and growled. “If you wish. The choice is yours.” With an abrupt flourish, he turned and bade me follow him once more with a gesture.

  The castle’s halls were as desolate as its kingdom, unreasonably wide, with high ceilings that loomed beyond the malevolent glow that lit the dark. No matter where I looked, the source of the ever-present fellflame glow eluded me. There were no torches, no doors, and no rooms, along the path we took, but various statues of stone and wood lined the walls.

  They depicted humans. Clad in armor that differed wildly from one to the next — some wore leather tunics, others heavy suits of plate mail, and few of them dressed in sleek fabrics or hard materials beyond my understanding — they clutched their weapons, just as numerous and unknowable as their armor, with faces twisted into screams of realization.

  I paused at one such statue. It was a man of middling age, carved from what I recognized as Serpent Oak. Though we’d never met, as he died years before my birth, I knew him at a glance. His face was near identical to one I cherished more than life itself. Tears in my eyes, I reached out to touch his cheek.

  “Giulio?” It was the man I might have called Father had I the chance to know him. His was not a look of horror, but one of steely-eyed determination. His hands gripped a woodcutter’s ax, holding it aloft in one final desperate strike.

  “His was a remarkable end for one who lacked a Spark. Even as Oblivion’s talons sank into his flesh to carry him to the Shadow, his courage remained to his last breath.” The Fiend Lord’s voice reached my ears, but though I heard his words, they mattered not save for one thing. “Few others like him grace this hall.”

  “You knew of him?”

  “He did not die by my hand, but by my blood. But, if you’ve need to direct your hatred and anger, let it be cast at me. Had I been present, I’d have slain him, myself.”

  Body cold and shaking, I turned to look at the other statues. “You immortalize all those you’ve slain? To what end?” Fear burst into fury. I spun to face him, my tiny, weightless fist beating against his unmoving chest. “Does it bring you some sick joy to revel in the eternal terror of the lives you’ve cut short?”

  His eyes flashed dangerously, but mine burned back just as hot. At last, the flicker at his lips that he’d smothered twice now ignited and curled into a grin.

  “Were I to scour the world seven times over, I could not find the material to craft an effigy for every life I’ve cut short. These are the Heroes and humans whose end I deemed worthy of remembrance. The others were but grains of sand in a windswept desert: fleeting and forgotten.”

  I wanted to hate him, to strike him even if my blows were as inconsequential as those same grains of sand, but my rage was tempered by the smoldering agony that pulsed through his very being with each vile word he spoke. There was no joy in his declaration. Only blinding pain. Not fleeting; not forgotten. But buried deep beneath his malice.

  “If it brings you no joy, then why?” Like a hiss of steam through clenched teeth, my voice was soft but heated.

  A throbbing ache; a twitch of his lips. The Fiend Lord caught my wrist in his claws and turned, dragging me down the hallway. My first instinct was to fight, but a simple squeeze of his hand crushed my arm. Pain of my own tore my attention away from his. Pain that faded before I had time to appreciate its arrival. Seeing no way to delay any longer, I surrendered and fell into step beside him.

  The Fiend Lord continued to hold on to me until we arrived at a towering door. Like the others, it was far too big for practical use. With sharp ridges that formed a monstrous face with tusks and horns, it split down the middle and opened at the unspoken beckoning of the castle’s master.

  Inside was a massive chamber, its unseen ceiling held aloft by four pillars. A twisted throne of gnarled roots sat near the back. Behind it, a blazing star of fellflame, large enough to light every corner of the room with its dark glow. Shadows danced in rhythm with its crackling head and flanks; suffocating heat, three orders of magnitude beyond that of an intense Summer day, hit me as I stepped inside.

  "Welcome home, Lord Master!” A lilting voice composed of two competing, dissonant tones greeted us. The light and shadows bent, then peeled apart to form a gateway in front of the throne. Within a lithe, gangling silhouette in an almost-human shape appeared. They bent over in a low, swooping bow, the gate closing with an audible pop.

  Though obscured by copper darkness, the newcomer’s queer appearance was a stark contrast to the rest of the Dreadlands. Its skin had the texture of velvet, half-black, half-amber, split perfectly down the middle. Hands like gloves that reached to its elbows, with unnaturally long, thin fingers; feet like oversized slippers with curled toes adorned with bells, their colors reversed from the rest of their body. Twin horns of the same soft velvet stretched from its head and drooped down past its shoulders, with silver bells at the tips to match those on its feet.

  When it raised its head, its face was a white, porcelain mask with blank eyes and a wide, unchanging smile that stretched from one red-painted cheek to the other.

  “We’ve long awaited your glorious return! Shall I summon the others? Sound the trumpets? Call forth a symphony to celebrate the arrival of the fair Lady Celeste?” The creature cackled, one voice rumbling, the other shrill. It rose to its full height, standing nearly a head taller than myself, but still small next to the Fiend Lord. Standing upright, I could appreciate just how impossibly long its arms were, spindly fingers reaching to the floor. Behind it, the light and shadow began to shimmer and distort once more.

  “Summon the others, Belial.” The Fiend Lord glanced at me, releasing his crushing grasp on my arm. He looked as if to say more. Instead, his eyes simmered, and he stormed away to take his seat on the throne.

  The creature, Belial, stretched its arms out, coalescing the distortion behind it. With a snap of its fingers, a pair of gateways like the one it stepped through appeared. “Come on out, fellows! We’ve a guest to greet! The Fiend Lord demands your presence!” It snapped its fingers once more, and the gateways vomited a spray of debris and stale air.

  “Unhand me, you oafish clown!” Came a rasping, tired voice from one portal. “I don’t need your buffoonery interfering with my work!”

  From the other, an earth-shattering scream.

  My hands flew to my ears. The force of the voice drove me back a step, then to my knees. Blood trickled from my ears, then from my nose. Lightheaded, swooning, I collapsed to the floor, pressing my forehead into the hot, smooth surface.

  “Oh dear, oh my! No, no! That shan’t do at all, no! A moment, Fair Lady!”

  I cracked open my eyes and forced my head from the floor. Two hands greeted me, a hair’s breadth from my face. Long fingers pressed together, as if grasping a string, then pulled apart, and as they did so, the volume of the scream lowered until it was completely silent.

  “There we are! Up, up! On your feet now! We’ll not have our guest groveling, oh no! Not when you’re here at the behest of our Lord Master himself!” The strange Belial took my hands in its own, then tenderly helped me to my feet. They brushed the blood from my ears, wiped it from my nose, and even smoothed my dress before patting me on the head and stepping back. Its head tilted to the side at a perfect horizontal line. “Ah, much better! Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I…” Licking my dry lips, I nodded and managed a half-hearted smile. “I am. Thank you, good…creature?” Heat rushed to my cheeks when they threw its head back and cackled. “M-my apologies, I was…uncertain how to address you properly.”

  Belial lurched forward, its hands dangling to the floor, its porcelain face brushing my nose. Although there was something sinister about the strange creature’s unnatural movements, I heard no malice in its voice. Nothing, in fact, but delight and wonder.

  “Sir or Lady? Lady or Sir? So polite! So considerate!” Belial giggled and disappeared in a distortion. They appeared again on the right arm of the Fiend Lord’s throne, perched as a cat might when admiring a swallow. “I see! I see why you were so interested in her, Lord Master. To think she would be the one.”

  My brow furrowed. What could they mean? My question went unasked, cut off by a wheezing cough and the feel of countless eyes on me.

  The gateways were closed, and the “others” revealed.

  One was an insect the size of a man, with mandibles dripping with rot. His thick, leathery hide was covered in bursting pustules, leaking the same black ichor that filled the lake. Two arms, like mantis scythes, twitched and scraped in front of him; two more, with three grasping claws, were folded over his thorax, tapping impatiently. A stinger, longer and thicker than my leg, protruded from his abdomen, and six buzzing wings kept him afloat.

  I made the mistake of peering into his glassy, red eyes; only bitterness gazed back.

  “She’s the one, is she? Balderdash! A waste of our time, would you not agree, Banshee?”

  The final member of the frightful trio was the most human among them. With pale, ghostly green flesh stretched over a skeletal frame, cloaked in a tattered brown robe that flowed with its own, unseen breeze that resisted the pressure of the roaring fellflame. Her eyes were sunken holes, her jaw, unhinged and hanging down to her chest, mouth brimming with sharp, yellow teeth.

  She took in a long breath, then exhaled a deafening scream. But thanks to Belial’s sorcery, I was spared the brunt of its devastating force.

  A rumbling growl shook the foundation of the castle itself, and the creatures fell silent. I turned to the Fiend Lord. His chin rested on his fist, leaning against the arm not occupied by the giggling Belial. Our eyes met. My gaze hardened; his grin returned.

  “She is the one. After countless years, I’ve found her.”

  “Wh-what…do you want with me? What do you mean? Is it because I’m…” I bit my lip. My fist clenched. “The Promised Healer?”

  Belial toppled backward, hand to head, cackling uncontrollably. I heard a scoff from the giant insect, saw the one called Banshee tilt her head.

  The Fiend Lord’s eyes burned behind his persistent grin. “What I desire…is mine already. A gift hand-delivered when you summoned me from the Dream.”

  A non-answer, but not a lie. For a reason he refused to say, the Fiend Lord wanted me here, in his castle. “Do you intend to kill me? Torture me?”

  “A fine idea! Shall we see, Lord Master, how well her flesh accepts the blight? Surely I could be allowed to poke around and find out what makes this one so intriguing…” The insect offered, drifting closer, scraping his scythes. A growl that caused the fellflame to rage drove him back to his station.

  “A question already answered. You will remain within Castle Dreadskull from this day forth. Never again to set foot beyond its walls. So long as you abide by this one decree, no harm shall come to you.” The Fiend Lord raised his hand and gestured to the insect. “These three shall be your new companions: the Fiend of Rot, Beelzebub.” To the screaming woman. “The Fiend of Madness, Banshee.” Then rested it atop Belial’s head. The giddy creature tilted its head like a clockwork doll and waved its hand. “And the Fiend of Illusion, Belial.”

  The three Fiends who served under the Fiend Lord, whose power was said to be so terrible they alone could bring whole nations to ruin. Their names had gone unrecorded for millennia as none who faced them lived to pass them on. Though I’d feared the worst when I first laid eyes on Belial, its jovial demeanor had led me to doubt my intuition.

  The Fiend Lord rose from his throne, crossed his arm over his scarred chest, and tipped his head, wearing a wicked grin. “And I am your host and new master. Genesis, the Fiend of Violence.”

  Thank you so much for reading!

  Tumblr. It's still a brand new blog, so not much yet, but concept art for the Fiend Lord will be going up later today.

  Feedback of all kinds is appreciated to help make the story better, improve my writing, and keep me motivated!