The Second Installment of the Presea Chronicles
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This story is the second in the "ongoing" Presea chronicles. It is highly recommended that you read Presea's Trilogy before you read this. Ashley wrote this one, and it is...amazing! It's a real tearjerker, so grab that box of tissues and read on.

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Low moans coursed through an empty head, echoing softly against skull. Bringing the sweet despair of pain back into flesh. Or was it flesh still? One hand, then another, planted itself on a clammy stone floor. A tallish figure gathered up, and slowly rose. From afar, the figure looked tattered, drawn, and up close, the ghastly sight grew worse. The man's once handsome face was now pallid, and skeletal. His eyes were dark with circles. Once intelligent, almost certainly keen gray eyes peered from beneath hooded lids. Black hair was mussed and dirty.
The man walked from the shadows, limping somewhat. He barely remembered the past, let alone recognizing the present, for his eyes, both inner and outer, were clouded. The hot gusts of hell overtook him and forced him to his knees before a shallow pool of steaming water. He leaned above it, squinting through the steam and heat, and stared directly at the water's surface. His mouth, lips, and tongue felt like sandpaper. He could barely cough out a word. His delicate hand reached up to his worn, beaten face. A tiny sound was heard, barely a whisper, not even an echo...
"Tristan..."
The man's lips closed quickly, as he forced out his own name. He stared at the swirling pool beneath him, watching the ruined face gaze at him, wide-eyed. What had happened to him? Why was he laying here? He tried to recall anything at all, but couldn't still. He fell back against the stone floor, staring out like a zombie. He stared at the legions of men and women marching slowly around what had to be his nightmare... Or a dream? Tristan slowly kneaded his fingers against his cheeks, and face, hoping that the slight pressure would bring him from this strange feeling... This desolate place. He drew close to himself, only for the first time noticing his robes were ripped in places.
"Why can't I..." he muttered to his hands. "Why can't I... Remember...?" he said again and again. The heat stung his cheeks, and he realized he was sweating. He tore a bit at the robes, and then... Something flashed through his mind's eye. Like a sharp bit of red lightning within his head. He cradled his forehead for a second, wondering what the feeling that rushed him was.
Then, in a flash of reckoning, there it was. He felt the stinging of bones crushed and smashed, flesh torn from body... He was dead. Truly dead. He had been killed... How...?

"Tristan! Grab my hand and I'll pull you up!" He looked up at her through the wind and rain. "Why Presea? I've caused you so much pain. Why would you save me?" Presea was taken aback for a moment. "Because I have to try! It would be cruel if I let you die without at least attempting to save you!" Tristan felt his heart soften. "Presea you are truly noble."

A sharp chuckle issued from the back of his dry throat. He shook his head. No. Presea... Twit... He would have given her the world. Truly the world. But his damned brother had to interfere. As always. Take away all he had built. All he had coveted. Tristan never understood why Presea had loved his brother so. He had been a shy little nobody, with no power. Nothing. After all was said and done though, it seemed Presea was far too "goody goody" for her own good. Slowly, Tristan clenched his fist. If he could smash her now... He would.
Or would he? Maybe the feelings he had once had for her... Once pure, were buried beneath the sick burning, twisted hate. Beneath the sad ambition. Beneath all the lies, false promises... Sad really. But at the same time, relieving. No longer was Tristan under the bonds of human emotion, for after all, all that was, was a bond. Like manacles. It could drive a man, or any person, to such strange depths. Make him forget what was REALLY important. But purpose and strength truly meant nothing here. Tristan looked around, through the veiled shadows, the steam that bled from every aperture around him. Bleeding scars in the ground expelled pus that was lava. He recalled days that he had sat in the chapel in Questria. The priest had told him to fear Hell. Ironic that he would wind up here now. But after all, wasn't it the fortuneteller he had met on the way to some foreign meeting that had foretold that he would rise to power, and everything else would fall to his feet? Why had it fallen apart? Prophesy was a possibility of the future, and now, he supposed, that possibility was never meant to be... Or was it? Staring at his hands, he could feel the soft flame of anger and pain that he had continually felt for months and years since his brother and Presea had banished him to this dark place. It had now been a long time. He could feel the erosion of time, deep within his heart. He figured it was a gift of death. To allow the denizen of the underworld to see the inner-workings of time and space give way. He wished there was a way to go back... And show the world that he could hold them all in the palm of his hand. For, truly, he could have. He was just holding back... For that damn worthless wretch.

So why not go back...? Take it all...

But how? How could he go back... He had no more power in this desolate place, dimensions and light-years from where he has once stood. He clenched his fists, wishing there was some dark call he could summon from beyond the lava to help him. Tristan knew it was only a matter of time before he was condemned to the pits, to work in the fiery sweat holes. From those same pits, he could hear the moans of his fellow sinners, pleading for absolution. This was his element it seemed... He had carved a path to lead him here? But why couldn't he... Before existing for eternity here... Why could he not, in all his power, in all of the knowledge of darkness buried deep within his scarred skull, he couldn't return...
And then, like heaven breaking apart and falling to the sweating stone of Hell, a flash of divine luck crossed the floor before the ruined man. "Prince Tristan..." a voice slithered against the clammy walls, through his ears. "Who speaks...?" he mumbled, his throat still unnaturally dry. "Oh, my liege..." the voice spoke once more, it was calm, cold. A light, not of brilliance, or hue, but of darkness, like the inside of Tristan's own heart. Tristan squinted at the strange light, and out of it, bizarrely enough, a serpent. "Oh, prince of darkness..." the serpent spoke, it's forked tongue slipped from it's diamond head. With black eyes it looked at him. It's skin was a vibrant scarlet. "I heard that you had just awakened... I was sent to help grant your wishes..." the serpent slithered closer to Tristan, who's fingers were trembling slightly. "Oh, master..." the serpent's skin brushed against Tristan's other hand. "I have come to take you from this dark place." "What..." his voice trailed off into a harsh cough, and Tristan's head was forced against the stone wall behind him. "Is my master ill?" the serpent said, his cold voice full of distress. "I... I'm fine." Tristan said, bracing himself against the wall. "Master?" "I said..." another savage cough was choked out. "I'm fine." The serpent backed away slowly, but when it spoke again, it's slither sounded troubled. "I am to grant your wish, master." "Why should I..." he took a gulp of the warm air. "Have my wish granted?" "Because... You are the prince of darkness... Of the bloodline of the evil ones... You have proven yourself to my higher, eternal master." Tristan raised his eyebrows, and tried to force the coughs to cease. "And... How can you take me... Back?" he said, through pinched breaths. "My eternal master gave me power, my liege." "So..." "I will let you go back master... You can crush the fools that hurt you in life. But see, master, they do not know the true power of your darkness... You will crush them... They will pay." the snake crept around Tristan's leg and slowing entwined around it. It glowed lightly, and Tristan's chest felt less heavy, he could breathe with ease, or whatever the dead do to retain semblance of life.
Tristan reached a pale hand down, to caress the snake's slippery skin, a mosaic of dark simmering reds. The snake could blend in well with it's surroundings.
"Thank you, servant." Tristan said, his voice stronger now. He laughed shortly, realizing his throat was no longer dry. He looked at his tattered robes, and looked at the snake. "I cannot return looking like a beggar," he said, looking at the snake haughtily.
The snake looked at him with its glimmering red-tinted eyes and moved it's diamond head slowly. Rich black robes replaced the tattered rags. Tristan grinned, clenching and unclenching his fists. He felt strong now. The shadow of weakness that had incapacitated his body slowly rolled away and he could move with ease.
"Shall I remove my master? Shall I send him... To gain his true place in history, as my eternal master once told me he would?" the snake slithered and quavered with some sort of insane pleasure. "Yes... Yes..." Tristan whispered, staring at the blank lava pits before him, and breathing in the sulfur enriched air like a madman. His eyes glinted, and his chuckle pierced the air. The snake moved a fraction, and then a red tinted light distorted the air around Tristan. Slowly, Tristan felt the hot, sick air drive back, and the snake say simply: "Luck be with you, my liege." Tristan merely laughed again. "I'll make them pay... I'll make them all pay."

Questria lay like an open book, serene, peaceful, quiet. Nobody would ever believe, under the leadership of a man like King Braden, that any harm would ever befall them again. After all that had happened in the previous years, the people were sure that evil was finally at bay, with the dissolution of the evil Prince Tristan, and his allies.
That is... Until Tristan came back. Braden had paced the halls all day, feeling ill at ease. All day long, the same feeling pervaded his day to day tasks. And something deep within his soul pulled and tugged and begged for attention. Why and how... he didn't know. Maybe it had been the oracle's speech that last evening, when the young, mysterious woman had stumbled into the banquet hall, moaning and crying.

"Death is near! Death is approaching!"

The dinner guests had been properly frightened to say the least. Braden had called two guards to help escort the frantic oracle from the room, and sit her down in one of the many parlors of the castle. He had asked her what was wrong, but all she would do was mumble the same words...

"Darkness... Danger... Darkness... Death."

He had written it off, not wanting to even question the possibilities of something horrible happening to him, or Questria... Or God forbid...
Presea.
She had been away for months now, but he missed her horribly. His life was empty without her around, but he fulfilled it, shamefully as it was to admit, with drink, and merrymaking. He threw balls and parties nearly nightly. Even more shameful was the fact that he allowed the young ladies of court to flirt and bat their delicate eyebrows at him. And the sadder part was, he enjoyed it. He needed to see her. It was like oxygen. And the other women just gave him enough to breathe, even if it wasn't for long. But here he was, pacing, worried, knowing... Feeling... Something was so wrong.

Tristan knew where he was before he even opened his eyes.

"The air..." Questria had been his home for many years... And he had once dreamt of owning it all, forever. What power would that dominion bring to him! What honor! That was his only dream (that and Presea). Owning both would be amazing. It had been his adrenaline, the raw power that forced his breath in and out, what allowed him to forge through nights and days of toiling.
But that chance, that child's dream, of owning something, belonging somewhere was ludicrous, and sick. Now he knew what a human should do. What they were made to do.

Destroy.

He would end it all. He knew how too... He had been too afraid to use his weapon in the past, and now looking back, he wondered why. The world was a frail shell, only veiling the human eye from the inner-workings beneath it. The trees, oceans, rivers, and mountains only served as a natural kind of clothing... Clothing was made to protect, and hide... To beautify. Tristan wanted to show the world how ugly the pits of Hell were. To make them suffer. As he had suffered... And his brother? He giggled. Braden would be fed to Satan directly.

Another sharp chuckle, and Tristan nearly fell back into the soft green grass. He entered a madman's fantasy, seeing his brother chewed and ground beneath the incisors of the greatest demon-king. And Presea... She would watch. Then Tristan would through her to the same fate. He hoped she was waiting... Just waiting. Tristan began walking north. Towards the castle.

The reckoning would begin there.

Braden still paced. Back, and forth... The hour was drawing somewhat late. 5 o'clock, he thought, as the nearby citadel's bells rang loudly through an open window.
His mind echoed of only two things, the bitter chill of danger ahead, and his sweet wife. He could barely recall her smile clearly... His mind so muddled, and so sick. By no means was Braden an old man, but his memory failed him. One of his shortcomings... Tristan had always had an excellent memory.
Tristan.
He had not thought of that name less than once every day since that fateful last night. Truth be told, his brother was still family, and despite the rivalry, despite all the anger, everything... Well... He was still family.
But evil, all the same... Evil. Back, forth. The pacing was growing frenzied; as if the name "Tristan" had caused the small voice inside to scream "THIS IS IT!" Presea... He had to see her. Something... Something was coming...
Braden marched from the room, setting his thoughts on the stables. He could get through the Forest of Silence in under two hours, if he pushed his steed.

Tristan saw it. The castle. Just as majestic as he always remembered it. It was indeed an impressive piece of architecture. Too bad he had to destroy it.
Tristan walked on, taking no pains in disguising his countenance. All the people of Questria probably had forgotten what the "Dark Prince" looked like. Besides... It didn't matter... It wouldn't matter at all soon.
Through the door, down the cobblestone hall. This was a secret passage, one of hundreds that spidered through the castle. Tristan stopped midway down this particular corridor and breather in the mildewy air. Everything dies... Everything dies... He whispered to himself. He reached out with his senses. If they were there, he would know... He could feel them.
Presea first... He tangled his thoughts around his last image of her in his brain, and looked, searched... He opened his eyes, puzzled. Not there...? A thought suddenly sprinted through his mind... Master Smith... She was... "Damn." She was probably gone by now. He could sense some kind of energy shocking the air about him. The Magic Knights... probably on their way... And Presea to go... Help them...
Braden! Tristan slammed his eyes shut, and letting rage and pain flood him and power his senses, he searched for his younger brother... The prig. "Bastard!" He was gone too. Nothing, nothing of him remained. Tristan threw himself against the stone wall to his left and screamed. Damn them! Damn them! His heated thoughts hammered through his heads, like his deadened pulse that keep going... Keep beating. "Questria... Feel the wrath of pain and death. The ghosts of pain and suffering brought upon you by your callous King and his bitch of a Queen!" he screamed. His hands glowed in pools of blood red, and power and heat gathered around him. "Plague and death. Destruction and eternal night. Sleep... Eternal everlasting sleep..." he whispered.

Questria fell to it's knees.

The absentee King was galloping as fast as he could towards the Forest of Silence. His heart was aching, yet he couldn't pinpoint the pain. It was deep, yet shallow, like his breath. Something rang in the back of his head, like millions screaming... Chanting those words...

"Darkness... Danger... Darkness... Death."

He could not speak, but sensed his destination ahead. He knew that when he found his beloved's arms, that everything, the voices, the pain, everything would fade away. Her greatest weapon, her purity of heart, would banish the wicked...
Tristan knew now too. He knew where Braden was... As he tread the dead halls, with the corpses tumbling from the doors. With the white flesh, and the rolled back eyes. He had killed a country. Killed them all... Everyone in the castle and surrounding town were gone, and banished to his kingdom... The kingdom of Hell. He had to go find Braden. And Presea. And show them his new world. His new domain.
Braden was nearly there, but the pain in his head was unbearable. It felt as if his body would break into tiny slivers as he finally saw the stucture ahead....
Presea!
But at the same time, Tristan was transporting to that same place, and his blood tingled and froze. He could feel the pain of the people he had killed, and it thrilled him and brought him to his metaphorical knees, almost on the brink of screaming with happiness. He loved the torment that rushed upon him, in waves.

And there, she was...
There she was...

Tristan was there... Braden was there. Both looked like hell...
Presea knew before she saw. She felt it, in her veins, deep in her heart. They... Not he, was there. She knew about Braden first, for the soft energy that crept down into the fingers of her work gloves told her as much, but Tristan... His violent rush of kaleidoscopic energy hit her head on. The minerals she was working with feel from the work table onto the ground...
She was outside, in an instant. She saw them both, standing side-by-side. And there they were, staring at each other. And she knew, in her heart, as she fell to the ground, for some odd, unexplainable reason, that death was here. Death would take them... Take them all.
Braden spoke slowly... "Presea..." he whispered, his face etched with pain.
Tristan cut him short. "Bitch! Wench! You'll have to watch your beloved die at my hands! Do you hear me?!" he screamed, his harsh voice bounced off of every crevice in the walls that surrounded them. Presea gasped out words, staring at the ground. "How... Why?" she muttered. "Because... It was out destiny to be together!" he screamed and moaned. Presea could hear pain in his voice. "When you broke that link, everyone was doomed. And now... Now you will be sacrificed to the demon... The demon you released! You sent all of Questria to death. You, selfish Presea... You!" he hollered and stumbled, his face and hands quivering with over-exertion. "Now watch him die!!" Tristan screamed, and with a fluid motion, lunged, plunging his hand into Braden's chest. Presea found the strength to stand, and stared, stock still, at the scene before her. She opened her mouth, but nothing would come... "Braden..." she whispered, as her husband withered in pain. She saw his eyes flash, and Tristan's concentrated look withered as Braden screamed. Tristan fell back slightly, as Braden reached out and grabbed at his neck. "Is this the way it'll... end...?" he whispered to his brother. "Please... God... no..." Presea could only breathe, as she stumbled backwards. It seemed as if the fight would never end, that the endless torment of eternity would trickle through her head forever... But... Something... Intervened.
Light, more brilliant than a falling star, flooded the courtyard, and the shrill screams of the brothers pierced the air. When the light had misted, and cleared a bit, Presea could see a man... Large, dark...
"Tristan... You did well." he muttered. And then he took a massive hand and crushed Tristan's throat in one mighty grasp. The evil prince slumped, and faded... As if never there... Braden fell to the ground, the psychic burning across his chest had left blackened scars... Presea stumbled and tripped to where he lay, and felt tears, stinging, burning fall down her cheeks... She barely noticed the stoic man above them, and merely sobbed, cradling Braden's head. "Why... Why...?" "It's all part of a plan." the man above said, monotone. "Why does he have..." "Now." the man said, his eyes were black as night, and he reached down, pushing Presea aside. "Don't take him! Please... Please..." she mumbled, her eyes bright. "Questria is no more. And your bonds are all broken." the man grinned, and swooped upon Braden's near-lifeless body.
Another flash of light nearly blinded her, and her wet hands and face were thrown to the ground of the courtyard. And Braden... The man... Everything was gone...

She couldn't cry. Her body wouldn't let her. Her shaky hands were scratched and bloody...
Part of a plan...
All part of a plan...

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