"You disappoint me." 

Ajo was wary of the witch, and more than a little concerned that she might attempt—and succeed—in ensnaring him again. He wanted no part of his old life, not as a king or villain or prisoner. He wanted to be no one, forgotten and forever alone.

"I unleashed a powerful beast into the woods. I told you to kill our enemy. And now—what? You think taking her daughter would make up for it? It was a marvelous piece of wickedness, struck Galeia right in the heart, but you wish to give that up, too? Pathetic."

"I'm leaving the woods," he rasped, wincing as pain shot from the wound in his neck. 

He wasn't sure why he told her, or if he meant it as proclamation to the woods around him.

She spat on the ground. "I don't believe you will."

With little effort, she pulled the blade from him, and Ajo cried out but Lilith spared him no sympathy as she examined the weapon in her hand. Stinging heat ran through Ajo as the wound began to knit together.

"It's been fun, watching the hate between you and Galeia. Back and forth, like moths drawn to fire, neither one can resist provoking and hurting the other. But I grow tired of petty insults and insignificant fights. You'll see through what you've begun, and crush Galeia's spirit by taking her child."

"I don't want anything to do with my old life," Ajo answered when the ache in his neck had mostly left. "I've decided to give up my revenge and move on." 

Lilith raised an eyebrow. "You think it will be easy to forget?"

"I must try."

Lilith tossed the blade into the snow. Ajo picked it up and looked at the tree Galeia had been bound to. It was a cursed thing now, a monument to his shame, so he dug the blade into its trunk.

"What are you doing?" Lilith asked.

"Making sure what happened here will never be forgotten."

"I thought you wanted to forget."

"Not this." When he was finished he turned to the hag. "Why have you come to me?"

"I have an offer."

Ajo scoffed. "I must decline."

"Even if I know a way to take your pain forever?"

Ajo was not moved by her false kindness. The hag only extended courtesy when she was about to inflict torture.

"What would you gain in it?"

She did not answer, but summoned a bottle between her fingers.

"Drink this, and your agony will run from you like tears from a starving infant."

She tossed the bottle to him. Inside was a concoction of black ink with flecks of silver. He opened it and held it to his nose, inhaling the scent of cinnamon and anise.

"You mean to take my memories," he said simultaneously with his realization.

"Do you care?"

"You'll use them against others."

"You won't know who they are."

"What of my promise to Galeia?"

"What of it?"

"I mean to refuse the vow, but if I don't remember...who will answer when her child calls to me?"

Lilith shrugged. "If you have no memory, why should you answer at all?"

"Then...I will forget Galeia, and her daughter will never have to know..." He held the bottle to his lips. "It won't matter, will it?"

"They'll forget you, too, in time. Isn't that what you wish? "

Ajo considered her proposal. It would be a blessing to not remember.

To be reborn.

"I wish to feel no more pain," he mumbled. "To cause no more..."

"And you will wander the woods in blissful ignorance."

"Will it hurt?"

"You won't remember."

He tilted the bottle towards his mouth, but stopped as the first drop began to fall.

"No."

He threw the bottle into the snow.

"This is..."

Wrong, he wanted to finish.

Why should he trust Lilith? She would never grant him a gift just to keep his memories. She wouldn't allow him to be free.

She would do something with them—with him.

Despite all that had transpired, he did care for those she would no doubt seek to destroy.

He would not be her puppet.

And after what he'd done, he didn't deserve the mercy of forgetting completely. His penance was remembering, and carrying the weight for the rest of his life.

"Leave me in peace," he said at last.

Lilith's face twisted into anger. "Want things the hard way, eh? For days and nights I gathered your body, from blood to nail, hair to tears, sweat to spit. I have all of you, your majesty." She pulled a talisman from her pockets, a doll crudely fashioned to resemble him, adorned with pieces from the real King of the Wood. "A little assurance, in case you ever thought to betray me."

She twisted the doll's arm behind its back, and Ajo's own arm followed the motion.

"You will complete what I commanded of you."

She pulled the doll's head back and Ajo's body followed. When she slipped her fingernail into the cloth mouth of the figure, Ajo's lips parted.

"Not even a king can fight his own body."

Before Ajo understood her intention, Lilith was by his side and holding a bottle against his lips. She tipped the contents into his mouth and the taste of cinnamon splashed over his tongue, coating it with thick liquid. When the bottle was empty the witch moved away, still clutching the doll in her hand.

Waiting to watch what would unfold.

Ajo pushed his fingers into his mouth, trying to expel the potion Lilith had poisoned him with.

He was seized by excruciating nausea.

"Any moment now," he heard Lilith say, and from the corner of his eye he saw her hand wave to conjure a row of vials and bowls at her feet.

Agony raced through him. His stomach clenched and released, and his brow broke out in sweat as a great convulsion overtook him. Ajo assumed he was dying, that the hag had somehow found a way to take his life.

His body grew warm as the contents inside rose to a boil.

"What's happen—"

"Don't talk. It's climbing...it will pour out in its own time." She picked a bowl up from the ground. "And we mustn't waste a drop."

Something pushed on Ajo's throat, and from his mouth came a fountain of bile. Globs of black and red, sharp as glass, splashed across the snow, reaching just short of Lilith's feet. Overjoyed, the witch gathered all she could to fill the bowl.

"What came first?" she asked and peered into the bowl's contents with keen interest. Inside was a moving picture, a memory of a young Galeia chasing Isolam across a field.

He could see it, but Ajo could not remember it happening.

A painful rumbling in his stomach tore his attention away. Lilith set the bowl on the ground and grabbed the next container, a box made from bones.

"Give me everything," she said. "Not just your memories, but your dreams and fears. Give me all that you are."

It was a slow and miserable process.

The fullness in Ajo was replaced with a growing void that twisted into starvation. It was not a hunger of his body, but his mind. He vomited hundreds of memories, and Lilith was there to dutifully catch every last drop. Ajo fought to keep from parting with them, and tried to swallow whatever rose—but up and out they came, into Lilith's bowls and jars.

He saw his face in the mess. His mother. Pages of books he loved.

His life, splattered everywhere.

When an image of Galeia smiling at him fell into the snow he reached to gather it with his hands, desperate to consume it again and keep it safe, but it slipped through his fingers like water and poured into the container Lilith held ready.

At this, Ajo wailed. He didn't want to give these precious things up, but his strength was pulled away by another violent contraction in his stomach.

A handful of times Lilith pulled a piece from her growing collection, joining crucial bits of different memories into one special vial.

"It's a precise art," Lilith said as he retched and gagged, "but I've never been keen on patience."

After an agonizing span of time, Ajo lurched forward and fell to the ground. His mind was as blank as the snow that cushioned him, and he remained with his face pressed into the icy, wet ground until something nudged his back.

"Are you alive?" a voice asked.

He raised his head and met the hateful stare of an ugly woman.

"No more dithering," she said. "The next time you see Galeia you will take her life."

He didn't know what the woman meant. He didn't know who she was.

"You are a monster, so I leave you with a monster's rage."

All he knew was a great, aching emptiness.

"Time you look the part, too."

A circle of red burst around him. He tried to touch it, but his hand was bitten by fire.

"Skin be gone and teeth retract,

Grow fangs and claws and fur-lined back..."

The bones of his fingers and toes felt too big for the skin around them. The woman pulled the feathered cloak from her body and held it near the circle.

"What formed a king is here undone,

What rotten tales will now be spun..."

She threw the costume into the circle and it clung to his body instantly, surrounding him in night-like fur and feathers.

The sound of footsteps took their attention to the trees, just in time to see an animal appear from them. It was a powerful stallion with intelligent eyes and a black coat, and when it saw what was in the snow it made a sound of distress.

"Ah, a challenger," the woman cackled. She flicked her hand and the circle of red disappeared. "Kill it."

The prisoner understood she was giving the command to attack.

The stallion charged the woman but was stopped by a terrible force.

Pain and wailing followed.

The stallion went still and silent.

The woman moved her hands and all that remained of the animal was its skull. Guided by the woman's power, the skull drifted through the air and hovered before the prisoner.

It stared with empty eye sockets.

Its killer stared back, unsure if the dead thing should be pitied.

"He'll complete it," the woman said.

In a flash of movement, the skull lodged itself onto the prisoner's head, merging and stitching, inch by inch, until two were bound as one. Bone twisted and groaned as massive horns emerged from the skull, and long, sharp teeth grew into its jaws.

What stood before the woman was hideous, and when it regarded her its bones displayed no emotion.

"Who am I?" it asked, though its mouth did not move. 

The voice that came from it did not sound familiar, and its owner wondered if this was the first time it had ever been used.

The woman approached and held a vial towards it.

"Drink this and know yourself."

A claw enclosed around the object and lifted it to spill the contents across its open maw.

Strong emotions overtook it, and slivers of recollection tickled its mind.

Hate. Betrayal.

The woman's name, it learned, was Lilith.

"Do you have something to eat?" it asked.

"You don't need it. You are my creation, and you were made to serve one purpose."

"What purpose?"

She moved to a tree with a trunk that had been freshly marred.

"You remember what happened here?" she asked.

It concentrated, and a feeling of shame came to it. 

"I did that," it answered. "This tree...why did I hurt it?"

"It's not important."

It did not agree, but would not say that out loud.

"Your purpose is revenge, but you must wait. One day a voice will call you and you will answer it. And only after its mother has known true sorrow, you will kill them both and bring their remains to me. That is why I made you."

"Revenge? Did someone hurt you?"

"Not me. They betrayed you."

"I do not remember that."

"Which is why you must trust me." She pointed to the trees. "Off you go."

"Where am I going?"

"Deep into the woods."

"Will you join me?"

"No, you are a beast. A beast deserves to be alone."

"How long will I wait?"

"Many years."

"What will I do until then?"

"What would you like to do?"

It didn't know. It had no ambition.

"Should I—thank you? For creating me?"

"A beast does not thank anyone. A beast takes what it wants."

It looked towards the endless expanse of trees.

"This is my home," it said numbly.

"Yes, but it's threatened."

"By what?"

"Those who deserve to be punished." She tapped her finger against her lips. "That is what you could do while you wait. Punish them."

"How will I know who deserves it?"

She grinned.

"Everyone and everything deserves punishment."

***

A thing moved through the trees.

Its muscles were sore from stretching. The world was cold, so it pulled the black cowl tighter, and the fur and feathers tickled as they squeezed its shoulders like a rough embrace. It looked at the long claws on its hands. It had a dim, nagging suspicion that there had once been fingers, but claws were there now, so it decided they had always been a natural part of its body.

Its thoughts were mostly blank, though sometimes there were glimmers of vague understanding. If asked, it would not be able to speak its own name, but sometimes a voice mumbled words in the corners of its mind, though it could not place their significance. 

It returned many times to the marred tree and dug fresh lines into the trunk with its claws, appeased in building upon the wounds in the wood. Something pulled it back to this place, where sorrow tainted the air. It often clung to the tree and wept while pulling strips of bark away.

Time would grow over the marks, so it decided to take a more permanent approach in branding the wood.

It left decorations at the base of the trunk, flowers and rocks and sticks.

And all the while it wondered why the tree held influence over it—

Until one day a single word found its way to the creature's recollection.

Galeia.

It provoked a vengeful fury, and the creature knew it was a word to be hated.

It was a name that belonged to an enemy.