For once, things were sliding into place. All I had to do was have the fortitude to outlast the bad times and keep going, even when things seemed like the light had completely gone out.
This time, going through the tunnel was easier. I tuned out the voices of the lost who whispered to me from the unseen corners, the soft pleas for help, the rough whispers promising violence I’d only experienced once from Lucifer’s hands.
When I reached the end and found myself back under the crimson sky of Dis, I was only shaking a little.
The tunnel had saved the worst for last. When it realized I was getting better at tuning it out, it discovered I had a weakness.
It wasn’t the sound of Lucifer threatening me, because I knew that Lucifer in his right mind without the soul-bond would never hurt me, or the sound of Vyra’s strangled pleas.
It was the sound of a baby crying in the dark. The sound that a baby would make if it’d been abandoned and knew it was going to die alone.
I let one awful shiver trail down my spine. I would never, ever allow that to happen to Sarai. Not in a million years; not even after my dying breath. I’d claw my way back from the grave for a second time just to prevent it.
I plunged onto the trail, but just before the mouth of the cave was out of sight, I turned around and raised my middle finger, holding it as steady as possible. It wasn’t much of an insult to whatever lived in the cave, feeding on fear and despair, but fuck it. It was the only weapon I had.
“Over my dead body, motherfucker,” I rasped, my throat dry from stress and the endless heat. Sarai moved around in my stomach, corroborating my vow.
Nobody else was going to win this game. Not while I was still alive and had something to say about it.
“Come on, baby,” I said, gently patting the spot where she’d moved. “Let’s blow this place. The company around here isn’t worth our time.”
A cool breath left the tunnel mouth when I turned my back on it and started downhill, carrying another faint sound to my ears. Once again, I ignored it, but it remained stuck in my head all the way down… the soft, mocking laughter, like it knew something I didn’t.
16
Melisande
There was nothing that could take my mind off that last cruel bit of laughter as we rode across the desert. I twined my fingers through Capheira’s mane, scowling out at the dunes of black sand and trying to rinse it from my mind, but every time I managed even that, the other noise crept in.
Alone with my thoughts, I realized I’d finally come to terms with my situation. I was going to be a mother. The thought was terrifying, but I no longer felt like a stranger in my own body.
There was nothing I wouldn’t do to ensure a better world for Sarai. Maybe demons like Druzila were right, and it wasn’t my place to do anything about a world I hadn’t been born to, but I felt I’d earned the right to be here.
I touched the bit of leather armor over where Sarai would be resting inside me, thinking of how strange it all was. Me, a parent. The changes weren’t that noticeable yet, but my leather clothes were just the tiniest bit too tight now.
I shifted in place on the saddle. I still had my balance and coordination, which would have to make up for any other weaknesses.
The towers of Dis were just visible over the dunes when Capheira’s steady hoofbeats lost their rhythm.
She danced sideways and slowed to a stop, pawing at the sand with one hoof. Lightning flickered deep inside her, illuminating the skull beneath her pricked-up ears.
All of my senses were on high alert. Barely breathing, I scanned the horizon as I silently slid a knife from my boot with my left hand and cupped a throwing knife in the right.
There was nothing out of the ordinary to my sight, but I’d been a denizen of Hell for too long to fall for that. Right now, my best bet was my ears and nose.
I raised my head and sniffed the air, catching the ever-familiar scent of ashes and dust, the faintest whiff of spice that could only be from Dis… and just under it, something that was oily and reeked of smoke and rot.
The fine hairs rose on my arms. Capheira danced lightly beneath me, making soft noises of discontent, but she wheeled and spun backwards as a trickle of sand spilled down the dune in front of us.
I let go of her reins, jumping out of the saddle. My boot heels caught the sand and I went down to one knee, but I rose rapidly enough when I saw more of the sand moving.
Things were climbing out the dunes; an arm slid out and dragged a body behind it, and an enormous shape finally stood up to its full height, dripping sand like water.
I’d seen this sort of oily black armor before, and very recently; I wouldn’t have recognized it otherwise. But my Chainlings had hung the bodies of warriors belonging to this sect from hooks in the ceiling of my arena.
The Sin Eaters, Mammon’s loyal knights.
They smelled like spoiled meat, the reek much stronger now that they were uncovered. Bits of scalp with the hair still attached hung from their armor, and one of them wore a necklace of fingerbones.
It was impossible to see what they looked like behind the blank helmets they wore. One of them gripped a heavy sword, the edges notched and still stained with old blood, but two held warhammers with ends like iron thistles, deliberately spiked with hooks that would rip flesh from bone.
“Lady Wrath,” the middleman said. His voice had an almost metallic grate to it.
I’d known as soon as they emerged that there was no talking my way out of this. It was fight or die. “That’s me.”
“You are responsible for the plotting and death of Prince Mammon.” He took a step forward, swinging his warhammer as lightly as a feather. “The only repayment is your death.”
The faintest shine of yellow came from behind the eye sockets of his helmet. I swallowed the dryness in my throat that had nothing to do with the heat of the wastelands, willing my hands not to sweat.
My shoulder still ached, and I wasn’t completely confident in my recently healed wing, but it would have to do. I needed height and leverage over them if I didn’t want to end up a vulture-picked corpse out here.
“You’ll have to work for it.” I shifted my weight to my toes. If I unfurled my wings now, would the bandages come loose, or was my wing too tightly bound?
The one slapping the blade of his sword against his palm sounded like he was smiling when he spoke. “We intend to.”
He would be the fastest of them all, with much less weight to encumber him. Without skipping a beat, I drew my arm back and flung the throwing knife.
It buried itself deep in one of the sockets of his helmet with a wet squelch. Blood burst over the rim of the opening, running downwards in greasy streaks.
He paused mid-step and reached up. I watched with a sick sort of fascination as he pulled the blade out of his skull with a grunt and looked at the blood smeared on it before letting it drop to the ground.
Fuck.
I pulled the ebonite dagger from my thigh sheath, and it was the sight of the matte black blade that finally slowed them a little, but not for long.
As I’d guessed, this was a suicide mission. Even if they had to fight to the last man, they’d go up against anything if it meant avenging their beloved dead Prince.
It was a strange that they held such loyalty for the man who’d ruled Treachery.