Heart of Darkness

Angelica woke up feeling cold. She looked outside. It was night but the sky was clear and the moon shone brightly. She pulled her blanket up and curled to stop her shaking body, but she felt wetness and greasiness as she moved. She was sweating. The back of her dress, her forehead, and her neck were damp.

Angelica wondered where Lord Rayven was. He had been beside her the whole day, reading for her, nagging her to eat and sleep and because she enjoyed his reaction so much she played hard to convince. It wouldn’t hurt him to know what dealing with stubbornness, sulking, and brooding felt like. Now he must be tired and sleeping after taking care of her the whole day. She didn’t want to disturb him but she suddenly thought of something. He had appeared a few times when she had a nightmare as if he had been standing right outside her door.

Could he hear her from afar?

“Lord Rayven?” She said hesitantly.

There was a rush of air, then he stood there in the room. Angelica’s heart skipped a beat. That was fast.

“Angelica?” He came rushing to bed. “Are you alright?”

Angelica just stared at him in shock. This would definitely take time to get used to.

He reached for her forehead. “You are sweating.”

“I am cold.” She told him.

“I should take you to my room. I have a fireplace there.” He carried her up with the blanket and then she felt that same feeling like the one when he was drunk and took her to his room. And just like that, he was already placing her in his bed.

The room suddenly lit up when a fire burned in the fireplace. How did that happen?

“How did you do that?”

“We can control fire. We can control most things that need energy.” He explained as he covered her with an extra blanket.

“I’ll be back.” He said and disappeared.

Oh, Lord. This was so confusing to her eyes.

He came back with a glass of juice. “You need to drink.” He told her.

He helped her lift her head and drink the juice. It felt good against her dry throat. When she finally lay down again, he wiped the sweat from her face with a damp towel.

“Do you feel better now?” He asked.

She nodded. “Thank you. You should rest as well.”

“I don’t need much sleep. So don’t worry.” He told her.

Was it a demon thing?

“How long can you go without sleep?”

“Three or four days.”

Angelica was astonished. He only needed that little sleep?

“So will you sit here the whole night?”

“It doesn’t bother me.” He said.

“It bothers me. You can at least lay down.” She told him.

He went around the bed to lay beside her and she turned to him. He lay down on his back as usual and stared at the ceiling.

The scars on his face seemed to heal well but since he healed faster, she had wondered why just his face remained this way.

“My Lord, I might ask a sensitive question.” She said.

“Go ahead.”

“You said you could heal but your face…”

He nodded with a smile. “I used to be vain so I was punished to scar my face as soon as it started to heal. Part of the punishment is also that it doesn’t heal as fast as the rest of my body.”

“Who punished you?” ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀ​ꪶ​

“The Punisher. You have met her.”

Met her? Angelica’s mind wandered around but she could only think of one person. It couldn’t be?

“Lucrezia?” She said hesitantly.

“Yes.”

“Why does she punish?”

He turned to her looking like he didn’t want to tell her now.

“Tell me. I won’t be sleeping for a while anyway.” She said.

“There are those called Archdemons. They are powerful demons. The first ones, the ones created, their children and grandchildren if they are pureblood, made them more powerful than the rest. They keep order in the demon world but also in the human world for the demons who live there. Long ago many demons lived among humans. Most of them because they liked the feeling of superiority and used humans as slaves. They didn’t have to hide their identity as much as we have to do now. They could live a long time and humans used to believe the demons were Gods and therefore never aged.”

He sighed. “Demons abused their powers too much. Meanwhile, different groups of demons were rising that wanted to stop this abuse. Only one of these groups succeeded. The ones who consisted of Archdemons and that is how they come to rule to keep order. They all have different roles and the punishers take care of punishments.”

Angelica nodded. “So Lucrezia is an Archdemon?”

“Yes.”

“How long can demons live?” She asked.

“As long as we don’t get killed.”

“How old are you?” She asked feeling her heart beat faster.

“Almost a thousand years old.” He said.

A thousand? Angelica’s mind froze. How? A thousand…how? She kept repeating it in her head and then stopped before she lost her mind.

“I know it sounds too much but the world changes and you are almost like a newborn every time. You have to relearn, learn new rules, learn new information, adapt to new cultures and religions. Now with religions that only believe in one God, demons had to go back to hiding. Of course, living longer you have a long experience of life but it can get confusing and with time, if you don’t always remind yourself you begin to appreciate things less and go to extremes to keep life exciting. I believe living a shorter life, a more vulnerable life makes you appreciate and value things more.”

It made sense and she could understand what he meant.

“But why punished for vanity. There are much more horrible things.” She had a hard time imagining Lord Rayven as vain. More often he looked like a caveman. Just waking up and walking around without caring about how he looked.

“I was not only punished for that. I was punished for my pride, which led to greed, envy, anger, negligence, indifference, selfishness, overindulgence, cruelty and much more. When I said I didn’t have a heart, I meant it. Lucrezia took it so I wouldn’t kill myself to escape my punishment. I just recently got it back, after you stopped me from jumping.”

He turned his body to face her. “I got it back because you brought light and warmth into my cold and darkened heart. You made it beat and bleed. You made me want to live after many years of wanting to die and you made me see beyond my own pain and suffering. I want you to know that I want to do better, even if the person I used to be was someone you would hate to see.”

Angelica nodded. “I know.”

If he had lived for a thousand years, she could understand that he had a lot of time to change and who he might have been hundred years ago wasn’t who he was now. He had already changed so much in such a short time.

“Did you live alone all this time?” She asked.

“I used to live with my parents and my sister. My father was an emperor and he raised me to be such as him. I wasn’t supposed to spend time with my mother and sister. I was supposed to grow as a man, spend time with men. I spend most of my time with him but not as a son. Our relationship was… strange.” He said but Angelica felt that he couldn’t find the right word and therefore used the word strange. And whatever word he wanted to use wasn’t better than this one.

“Did you say, emperor?” She said finally remembering emperor Pavlos and Demos and what Lord Rayven had said and asked about them. She had wondered at that time but now she understood. “Your father was Pavlos?”

“Yes,” Lord Rayven said averting his gaze as if ashamed.

And he was Demos. The son who killed his father and brought an end to his cruel rule just to rule with a harder fist and a crueler heart.

Oh, Lord. She shivered feeling cold again. Her brain stopped and she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. He was also quiet as if knowing that she was processing this. In the quietness, the fire seemed to burn brighter and the crackling sound of burning wood became louder.

Angelica felt like she had to say something, but what?

Thankfully, he spoke first. “Now you probably understand why I was punished. I abused my power and caused suffering to countless of people. I was full of hate and anger that blinded me and… my mother had to sacrifice herself to open my eyes. But it was too late. I had lost everything and myself. That is how far I went.”

His voice was thick and his eyes red. He was fighting back his emotions.

“It is alright to cry.” She said.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Angelica realized that he was shaking slightly. She pulled her hand from under the blanket and reached for him. She stroked his arm like she used to do with her brother to calm him down. Eventually, he calmed down and even fell asleep.

Angelica watched his now relaxed face. All that guilt and hatred must have made him so tense. They say good deeds and bad deeds come back.. He had been paying for his bad deeds but she was glad he wanted to do better now.