Prologue: Asthelyn

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Hi, I’m Ashthelyn.

I don’t really have a last name, but I learned it is customary to take your parents’ name in this realm. My father is Luferine, King of Ethos. So I introduce myself as Ashthelyn Luferine, rather than Ashthelyn of Ethos, 6th daughter of his Majesty King Luferine the Ender.

This world has many biblical senses of Hell.

Where I am from has some commonalities, but it’s not the same. Ethos is one of many dimensions linked to your Earthland. Some have fire and most have demons, but not as angels cast down. They are in many respects what you might consider aliens or extinct creatures on your plane.

Hell Kings have different classifications.

There are Conquerors, Punishers and Enders. These are the closest words I can find in your language to translate. All of them are responsible for roles assimilate to their titles. Conquerors are considered lesser Kings. All of their powers are based on invasion of other realms.

Punishers are the most common. They either took or were given the worst of the worst to torture and make suffer for as long as they wanted. In hell time that could be eons. Our time is different than yours. It moves however the reigning King determines it to fast or slow. Sometimes not at all.

My father, as my formal title suggests, is an Ender. The worst and most feared when it comes to Demon Kings or Hell Lords.

Enders went to dying cultures; erasing them from existence. Sometimes it was a world they ended. Others a single Kingdom. They also had cart-blanche to obliterate a species or save one depending on the circumstance. Enders also perform the tasks of lesser Kings such as invasion and torture. It is just not their main purpose.

Daddy is one of eight Enders in existence.

I will say as far as they went, he wasn’t the worst. The things that he destroyed or took to his realm to punish deserved it for lack of a better term. The things he brought back to Ethos or sent to another world, rather than killed were beings he felt worthy to save.

Luferine only keeps the rarest and most powerful of creatures in his keep.

There was a point and time I wondered about being one of them, the rarest and most powerful. Wishful thinking. Not because I wanted to be a slave, but because I hoped that I would become strong enough to free myself.

The title Princess, I understand in your world, is the name granted to the daughters of Kings. I assure you I was no more your version of a Princess than the rest of my sisters and brothers.

We were all twelve of us collared and chained upon arriving in our father’s realm.

Slaves taken from our dying worlds and assigned to the palace to do his bidding. Just as the Lords choose how time passes; they have the ability to manipulate every physical form within their world as well.

It would be rather difficult to torture beings for ‘all eternity’ properly if they died.

The Hell Kings’ powers are unique to their individual realm and truly insurmountable to any unfortunate soul who entered them. With absolute power of their domain, each King creates their respective worlds from the surroundings, to smells, to the beings that dwelled in them and could change them at whim.

I myself have died so many times I stopped keeping count.

Before I came to your plane I believed it was my father who kept restoring my body every time I was tortured or murdered by my siblings. As it would turn out, my body does that on its own. I can’t carry marks.

Anything and everything that happens to me, I do feel. It’s just that no one can see it. I was a unique being in the fact that my blood has the ability to heal and restore most things.

A few sips, not that anyone really ever stopped at that, could literally put a severed body back together again. Well, as long as the pieces were there and together.

I really don’t understand the science behind it. I just know that, that was my purpose.

My internal longing to be something more was not a matter of survival. It was a matter of choice. My desire to belong because no matter how I tried, I couldn’t die.

Unlike my siblings, I have no real memory of my life before coming to Ethos. The only thing resembling one is a song that plays in my head, like a lullaby in my dreams.

None of us were permitted to ask or speak of our lives before being assigned to the palace, but it was always clear to me that my siblings remembered who they were.

Worse than not knowing who I was, what I was, where I was from, it was even more clear that I didn’t belong.

Daddy had to put me in a binder to disguise my shape and smell, so I wasn’t so offensive to the rest. It stopped my growth when my body started to change, what you call puberty. It also didn’t allow me to eat without severe pain.

If that weren’t enough, my father put more soul chains on me than my siblings. Most likely because I was perhaps the most disobedient of his children.

No matter how hard I tried, I was always lacking.

Made even more obvious by the fact that he sold me rather than battled for my champion as was custom.

Every Hell King had daughters. They fought soldiers, armies and other Kings to find a champion worthy of taking them. In return for permission to descend his armies on Earthworld to test and train his demons, I was promised to a vampire called Vlademyre.

My father surfaced me from the hell pit I’d been exiled to for no longer allowing my sisters to kill me as practice and entertainment. Letting Vlademyre feed on me before the vampire agreed to take me as payment.

The agreement between Daddy and Vlademyre was what allowed me to start training in the ways of your world. It is custom for servants and slaves to study the histories, languages, and practices that will make them most helpful to their new masters.

Learning about humans was the first time I saw a being who looked like me. People without horns, claws, fangs, and other demonic markers that made them favorable.

Upset as I was at first, I was relieved that I could no longer be fed from. Vlademyre insisting that I could not be bitten, which upset Daddy and his Generals because I could no longer serve my purpose in healing them.

It seemed like the only thing Daddy and Vlademyre agreed on was that I was never allowed to me alone with a man. Not even my brothers. This was a rule for all of his daughters though.

Since I was training and promised I could not be damaged in any way, and it even stopped my siblings from attacking me. They taunted and teased, of course, but all in all, my life changed drastically and for the better since Vlademyre purchased me.

I trained and waited several years, learning much about the human world. Sir, would even show me things happening within the realm when I mastered a lesson. All I wanted was out of the literal hell pit. Even without healing, my existence was one of constant pain and taunts.

The day I was summoned to heal the vampire, was the day I hoped for my freedom. Again the considerate bite was what I’d finally understood to be gentle. At my stare to the necklace that matched the seal placed around my neck, Vlademyre explained, “this is my family crest. My blood. It means that you belong to us. That no one without this crest may touch you. Feed from you or pair with you.”

This seemed quite important to Vlademyre, so I nodded because no one had since Daddy made the contract. “It also means that you must always protect any who wear one.” Agreeing to that condition was the least I could do for the protections it afforded me.

The promise of soon echoed through the rest with the touch of my cheek and the first embrace I’d ever felt in my lifetime. The simple ‘hug’ I’d never shared before filled my heart with so much emotion I cried. Holding the vampire unable and unwilling to let go.

The alien feeling wrapping through me was hope. Vlademyre pulled from me looking into my eyes, brushing my tears and kissing my forehead. “Soon I will bring you home and explain everything.” The promise warmed the flame of my soul.

Allowing me to see a light at the end of the tunnel. My training was not complete, but the encounter made me all the more diligent to make sure Vlademyre could take me as soon as possible. Every ounce of my power, focus and will went into mastering Sir’s lessons.

Praying every day that Vlademyre would come back for me.

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