The Twelve Kingdoms

Dead Inside

/// The Villain

Earth Kingdom ///

A bruising of the heart never really goes away if you continue to hit it in the same place. After a while, it becomes this chronic aching that you get used to. It becomes a part of you, and when it starts to heal, you hit it again so it doesn't stop, because by then you can't live without it anymore.

For Mell, that chronic bruise was Ada. The moment his eyes met hers for the first time, and she smiled, it was like sunshine bloomed inside his chest, growing vines of jasmine flowers, wrapping around the muscle of his heart and nearly cutting off the circulation.

She was everything he didn't want to be: bright, energetic, ambitious, head filled with revenge plans against the people who scorned her. Her brother Ash was the mirror opposite of her and Mell found a quiet companion in him.

He was there when Terra tied her up in tree roots, he felt the energy as the foliage sucked the oxygen out of her lungs, the vibration of the earth as it parted and swallowed her up. He just stood and stared as the fiery life got wrenched out of her eyes, how her soul was forcefully twisted out of her body. It was so painful to watch that it paralysed him. He couldn't move a finger, he couldn't even blink or breathe.

That scene haunted him every single time he closed his eyes for the next century. Jasmine roots penetrated through every alveoli, crawled through the trachea into the trenches of his brain until its sharp heady smell was all he could smell.

He bloomed into a young charismatic prince filled with energy and brightness and ambition and on the inside, the pure white jasmine petals scorched themselves ugly black from the burning desire of revenge.

The purest of loves could be turned into the darkest of desires with the right moment.

Prince Malleville was loved by the people of the court, even though he was the son of a concubine. He was smart and would make a much better ruler than his brother Terra. But Prince Terra was loved even more, for his kindness and loud confidence. Only a select few people knew the falseness of that kindness, and Mell was among them. Putting up a front for the whole kingdom to see wasn't an easy feat, but Terra was a natural actor, just as Mell was. The difference was that Terra only thought of immediate results while Mell thought centuries ahead.

His plan took decades to start shaping itself. Not even Ash knew all the intricacies of it.

The first opportunity presented itself in the form of a sudden kidnapping of the Wind Kingdom's princess. Through his underground network, Mell found out that the Wind Kingdom's queen suddenly fell very ill. And everything went into motion from there. In exchange for the young queen's health, Mell took the young princess and raised her in a tower. This also gained Anemone's brother's loyalty, who couldn't stand any threat to his throne, even if it was his two year old sister. Anemone proved to be quite useful, and incredibly easy to manipulate. She was great at managing his new rising assassination organization.

One of his contacts in the Healer Kingdom once informed him that she had a certain customer that might be of use to Mell. She turned out to be right and Prince Peter became one of his best assassins. Many people payed a great amount of money and their loyalty to have their enemies inconspicuously killed.

Their most loyal customer was Queen Elair of the Electric Kingdom. She was crazy, but she was the closest ally he could have, and she paid unimaginable sums of money for every kidnapping.

By that time, Mell was so submerged in his revenge plan, that morality was simply a faint echo of a thought at the back of his mind.

The Teleportation Kingdom was one of Earth Kingdom's biggest allies, and they were only loyal to Terra even after countless of unfruitful tries from Mell to get them on his side (including putting the crown prince into eternal sleep). But out of nowhere, another opportunity presented itself.

It was one of those really lonely dark nights and Mell sat in his lab chambers, examining the energy threads of a few particular people to see if he could find anything useful. He looked at Anemone's threads for the longest time, for a reason he didn't understand himself. There was something about the wind particles in her energy that shimmered with a melodic kind of soothing. In a strange way it reminded him of Ada.

Then he stumbled upon a faded red barely-there thread. His pulse jumped as he realized that she had a soulmate. Not many people got the blessing (or in Mell's case, curse) of a soulmate, but it wasn't too uncommon. With a strange mix of curiosity and bitterness, he followed the almost-invisible thread of energy on the pulsing chart at his desk until he found it connected to none other than the Crown Prince of the Teleportation Kingdom.

He bit his lip hard as it bloomed into a deluded smile and the smell of jasmine was so saturated it turned bitter.

With just one move, Mell had the secret loyalty of Prince Zoran, who was soon to be king, and he had Anemone's soul. It was a twisted kind of satisfaction that stabbed into his heart and really, it wasn't satisfying at all.

Just like that, every ally that Terra had became his. Even though he had to lose Peter to gain the Water Kingdom, he soon found Nikolai, who was just as good.

Prince Terra had a soulmate as well, and Mell kept his eye on her for a long time. Her energy was scary and dark and every time he went through her threads, an involuntary smile spread across his face.

He hated the Frost Kingdom sisters and he wasn't particularly sad when Lacie killed them all, presenting him with the last piece of his plan. He found her wandering the streets of the Telekinesis Kingdom, lost and confused, and he made her promise Terra's soul to him and made her a lost royal with powers. She went from rags to riches, taking everyone by surprise with her deceiving beauty at Terra's birthday ball. The moment he saw her face, it was as if he was filled with the brightest energy in the world and his lips couldn't stop smiling.

It was so painful to watch because it reminded Mell of the first time he saw Ada. At that moment, the revenge was so clear that he could taste it on his tongue, could feel it squeezing his lungs until he couldn't take in one more breath.

Terra desperately clutched at his happiness as everything in politics started slipping from his hands. One by one, Mell took everything away until his brother had nothing left.

The knowledge that Lacie didn't love his brother back just added fuel to the fire of glee in Mell's heart and when she stumbled into his chambers one late night, hands shakily clutching at a parchment, he decided Terra wouldn't die by Nikolai's hands. He would die by the hands of his soulmate that loved another man.

The whole bloody mess began the next day and Mell locked himself in his chambers, laughing so hard until he was collapsed on the floor, tears unstoppably flowing from his eyes as his body shook with grief.

The forest of tiny silky black jasmine flowers wilted and burned and his mind turned to ashes. He should have realized earlier that with destroying his brother he would destroy himself. That he wasn't just destroying the person that hurt him the most; that he was destroying the whole world with him.

There was no use putting the shards back into the things they used to be. It was easier to just stand up from the ashes and become the best and the worst ruler the Earth Kingdom ever had.

From then on, the only thing that could ever stop his ruthlessness was Ash's sad gentle smile. And it was the only thing that could make him kill without remorse.