The wind that rushed past his fleet-footed mount blew back his ebony hair. Of course, he Bandon was off once more to do the Warlock Lord's bidding. How did he fall so far? He thought he would gain power as an equal yet here he was scrambling to find this wayward princess like some minion.
A deep part of him chocked on the thoughts of what his so-called lord did to Catania. Bandon had asked him to bring Catania back from the dead. He asked him to so he wouldn't be alone. Bandon was sure she would love him again, after all, he was protecting her. Catania pushed him away instead. His heart still wrenched at the memory of her golden hair twirling away from him. The very next moment she sauntered up to the Warlock Lord in some sort of trance. She hung off the Warlock Lord like some tavern wench. She was supposed to be his! In his anger, he lashed out only to be easily stuck down like a child. He had to end her life by his own hands just to set her free from his so-called Lord's grasp. He gripped the reins harder as he rode; somehow he would make that beast pay. To think he himself had brought him back from the dead only for this to happen.
He was lost in his own thoughts till a voice jarred him from his musing. The voice was one he had not heard since his family had bound him in an iron mask and locked him the barn.
"Bandon, Bandon, please can you hear me?" He shook his head as he heard the soft-spoken murmur. The very same voice had belonged to his imaginary friend, a young winged elf with long spirals of platinum hair. He almost recalled her songs she once sang to soothe him asleep. He scoffed at himself. Really was he succumbing to the tricks his mind once played to protect himself? "I told you to go away you're not real." Why was he even talking to himself? He was glad to be alone on the road.
Bandon drew his horse to a halt and got down. When she had come to him in the barn years ago it was like a ghost or some dream. "I know and I respected that but I need your help." She replied. White light solidified into the form of a kneeling angel. She looked different then he remembered gone was a girl and in her place a young woman. Her once pristine white tunic and pants were torn and soiled. Her hair hung in dirty locks and around her neck was an odd collar. She was looking down at a shallow light coming from her hands.
Bandon was confused. Why did his mind make her look like this now? "You're not real, go away." He repeated. "Please I don't have much time, they will hurt me if they catch me doing this." The winged elf mournfully replied. She looked over her shoulder as if saying it would make it happen.
His thoughts reeled none of it made any sense. He reached out with the magic he now possessed and recoiled as if burned! He touched a mind, another mind! She was real! All this time and she had been real! "Why? Why have you come to me now? Now that I am this!" He held his arms out swathed in dark robes anger in his tone. "I am the last person to save anyone Asherah. I couldn't even save." His voice trailed off and the unfinished thought hung in the air.
"They put a collar on me that blocks my magic." She started to explain. The angelic creature held up a tiny seashell, it was the source of the glow. "I enchanted this years ago to connect with you. It's my magic, but not magic I am making right now."
A gruff voice spoke up from the darkness behind her. "Who yah talkin' to lass?"
Asherah stiffened as her voice became barely a whisper. "Rovers." Once she uttered the word the last Bandon saw was her smashing the shell to pieces. Then she was gone.