Descendants 3 (H.S. & C.S.)

Chapter 6

I did not take that boy for evil. I mean, he always wore so much pink.
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Ashton sat on his king-size bed and sketched furiously in a rose-colored journal trimmed with gold scrolling. Dressed in a beaded bodysuit with pink leather pants and an open leather duster, pink ankle boots, pink feather earrings, and a sweet bluebird charm necklace. Ashton screamed goody-goody. As did everything about his dorm room, with its pink curtains, pink bedding, and pink marble fireplace.

A glinting crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Several handsomely framed portraits of Ashton and Cole through the years received prime placement on the fireplace mantel. In one particularly sweet photo, a cherubic five-year-old Ashton was seated on a minute gold throne next to Prince Cole, who wore a teensy-tiny Auradon crown and held out a matching one toward Ashton. It was an adorable depiction of their destined royal future together.

Ashton looked up from his journal and scowled at the old photo, a sharp reminder of what was never to be. He'd followed all the rules and waited patiently, but when the time finally came, Cole chose Harry. A villain! Ashton's heart shattered all over again at the thought of his cruel rejection.

He returned his attention to his journal and attacked the page with angry strokes of the pencil. The sketch he drew was haunted, a majestic portrait of himself as Auradon's king, wearing a resplendent gold-and-sapphire crown atop his head.

Ashton's brown eyes filled with tears. He looked at his sketch and wondered, What happened to my happy ending?

Ashton:

I'm so tired of pretending
Where's my happy ending?

I followed all the rules
I drew inside the lines
I never asked for anything that wasn't mine
I waited patiently for my time
But when it finally came
He called his name
And now I feel this overwhelming pain
I mean it's in my veins
I mean it's in my brain
My thoughts are running in a circle like a toy train
I'm kinda like a perfect picture with a broken frame
I know exactly who to blame

He hurled his journal across the room and strode to his dorm room door, grabbing a fireplace poker on his way out. His face was set with resolution. If he couldn't be Cole's king, then he'd show Auradon. Cole wanted a villain. Well, he'd get one. Harry wasn't the only one who could succeed at breaking and entering.

Ashton:

I never thought of myself as mean
I always thought that I'd be the king
And there's no in between
'Cause if I can't have that
Then I would be the leader of the dark and the bad
Now there's a devil on my shoulder
Where the angels used to be
And it's calling me the king
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A closed sign hung on the wrought iron doors of the Auradon Museum of Cultural History. Behind a single guard slept obliviously at his post. Ashton snuck across the silent museum lobby, which held his mother's spinning. He crept past a glass vase displaying the Genie of Agrabah's lamp and another exhibiting Cinderella's glass slipper, then stood thoughtfully in front of the security console.

Without a sound, he deftly turned knobs and pushed buttons, which shut off alerts and silenced alarms. Then he swiftly climbed the steep foyer stairs, proud of his first successful foray into crime. See? There was nothing to this being evil thing.

On the second floor, Ashton crept down a dimly lit hallway and tiptoed into the museum's Room of Crowns. It was a guilded gallery that showcased the glorious tiaras and crowns of the queens and kings of fairy tales past. When Ashton was a young boy, the regal room had been his happy place. Tonight, he walked by the dazzling tiaras of everyday royals and headed straight to the far end of the room. A sign read Crown of the Queen of Auradon. He pulled back the blue velvet curtain and bounded up the few steps to a lit glass case that held the breathtaking crown.