The fight had been cathartic, burning off the last of my terror in a burst of adrenaline. I cupped my jaw, using the tiniest possible bit of my healing magic to take down the swelling and heal my cut tongue. It’d be sore for a while, but I couldn’t afford to waste any more magic. Not when I didn’t know what else was coming.
I stood up, determined to get my bearings. The forest god was gone, but old autumn leaves were crushed on the floor in drifts. The Sin Eater’s remains would stay here alongside them.
There was a trapdoor set in the ground, half-buried under a drift of leaves. I brushed them aside, and they crumbled into dust under my hands. The ring on the trapdoor was red with rust and the hinges squealed loudly when I yanked it open.
“That ladder does not look safe.” I gave the wooden thing masquerading as a ladder a stern look. “But we’re doing this anyways.”
There was something about the Between that made me want to talk to myself. Like the silence was too loud, and if I didn’t say something in a human voice, I might disappear into the memories, too.
I lowered myself into the narrow hole, gripping the splintery wood ladder with one hand. The Spear’s golden light lit the walls around me as I climbed down several yards and found myself in a tunnel, up to my knees in icy water.
It splashed with every step I took, bouncing off the walls and coming back even louder. I took the passages on faith alone, choosing left instead of right, following a small waterfall downwards because the air smelled better in that direction.
The entire time, I kept thoughts of Lucifer and Vyra, and that rocky ledge in Irkalla, in my mind. Take to Irkalla. Take me there.
At one point the coils of a snake’s body rose out of the water near me, each scale the size of a dinner plate and gleaming deep blue. I froze as the memory moved, coiling sinuously through the tunnel, and when it was gone, I kept going until I found stairs heading back up.
They went on for ages. I groaned to Sarai at one point, my legs trembling after what felt like thousands of steps. “At least the trip is easy for you.”
An enormous wolf bounded past only inches in front of my face when I found the top, but I kept going. The only place I wanted to be was out of here.
Irkalla. Irkalla. Irkalla.
It was starting to feel hopeless. I had no idea how many hours I’d been alone, only that the constant trudge was beginning to wear on me. Maybe that was how the Between got its sacrifices: it just sent people in circles until they laid down from pure weariness and died.
I thought of Lailah and Nakir, far overhead now, and their desperate love before their deaths.
There was no way in Hell I was going to die in here and let my love become nothing but a memory trapped in amber. When the next people passed through here, would they see a vision of me walking until I gave up and died?
“Fuck you, Between,” I snarled under my breath. “Fuck your memories, fuck the bullshit.”
I finally reached the end of the endless hallway.
Two doorways were in front of me. One shimmered like it was covered with a layer of black glass that dripped upwards, superimposed over the image of a bleak landscape.
I renewed my grip on the Spear. Even though it wouldn’t help me against memories, its golden light was as comforting as a human voice, and the place beyond the doorway looked like it was going to have some pretty Hellish memories.
But the other door… it was lighter, promising something less horrendous. There was a field beyond it, bursting with flowers in soft shades of rose and lavender, the sunlight warm and welcoming.
Or was it a trick?
Something pale and bright moved near me, and I jumped away, my heart slamming back into overtime.
It was Lailah again, her lover’s hand in hers. She was as bright as the sunrise in a place like this, looking lovingly up at Nakir’s face with violet eyes. Her star-like brightness lit the waves of night spilling from his shoulders.
“This way, love,” she said playfully, pulling him through the darker door. Her white dress trailed behind them and vanished as they stepped through the glass.
It felt like a sign.
“I’m coming, Vyra,” I murmured, and followed them through the dark glass without allowing myself to second guess my decision.
My ears popped and the prickle of magic ran over me. The Spear threw off an arc of light in protest.
Cool air brushed across my face, tasted bitter on my tongue.
A flake of ash landed on my cheek. I brushed it away with a shaking hand, but it was followed by another, and another.
My lungs contracted tightly as I stepped into a pile of gray ash, then bent down and frantically brushed it away. The ground beneath the ash was pitch black.
I spun around, but the doorway was gone. There was no ceiling overhead, no walls. Only an endless expanse of jagged mountains.
I exhaled, so close to tears my throat hurt. “Thank you, Lailah.”
The Between had finally spit me out, right into Irkalla.
And I was now in actual danger.
I ducked behind an enormous boulder and crouched down, lowering the head of the Spear. Its light was obvious, warm and brilliant, and I’d already screwed up in those first few seconds of believing I was still in the Between.
But where was everyone else?
I chewed my lower lip, studying the landscape around me. I’d stepped out of the Between right onto a broad shelf of rock, and the ash was disturbed, my footprints clearly imprinted into it.
There was no way of knowing if they’d come out in the same area, or miles away. Those footprints looked like someone had dropped right out of the sky, and that someone could’ve been Lucifer.
I yanked out my boot knife and began scratching at the boulder, pausing every few seconds to stop and listen. The only sound was the lonely wind and my own breath, and when I was done, I tucked away my blunted blade.
I’d carved four distinct symbols. A swirling sigil, a star, an upside-down cross, and an eclipse of light. If they came across it, they’d know I’d been here.
There was no time to sit around and wait. If I wanted Lucifer and Vyra, I needed to go hunting by myself.
I rubbed ash on the head of the Spear and in my hair, hoping to dim a little of the weapon’s light and the violet tones that stood out like a beacon in this place, and crept out from behind the boulder after making sure the sky was empty. My spine prickled in warning, but there was no sign of Lucifer in the gray clouds overhead.
That didn’t mean much; he could be above them, and he was fast as Hell when he attacked, but I couldn’t sit here while I had time.
The shelf I stood on ended on a chasm, but it was empty. There was no rotting Dragon corpse at the bottom, and I turned back the other way, climbing over several ridges and occasionally daring to fly over impassable rocks. After each short flight, I’d crouch and wait, anticipating a comet smashing into me, but it never came.
The sun overhead never moved. I felt like I was trapped in the same few seconds of time, constantly ducking down when I came upon sudden ridges, ever careful to keep the Spear’s light from blazing out into the dreary sky.
Then I heard a voice from over the next ridge. A voice so familiar it was like music to my ears, even though it was hard and cold.
My mate’s voice.
26
Melisande
“You heard his orders.”