“I won’t let anything happen to you or your team, Miss Hellswan, I promise you,” he said softly, and my limbs tingled at the sound of his raspy voice, his breath warming my face. “It’s why I am here, with you. I’ve been trying to stop you from walking into a disaster from the day you arrived on Neraka, but, since clearly I can’t get you to leave this place, I will do my best to keep you all alive. Although, technically speaking, as of last night it seems that Neraka doesn’t want you to leave, anyway…”
We stayed like that for a while—it seemed like forever. I allowed myself to sink my consciousness into the deep jade green of his eyes. For a moment, the whole world disappeared as we looked at each other, while I tried to figure out what it was that sparked such wildfires between us.
“I can’t come forward with everything I know, not yet, anyway,” he continued. My whole body felt warm, and I feared his proximity might become addictive. “There are still pieces of my plan that I need to put in place, pieces that require more time on my end. But I assure you, as soon as everything is where I need it to be… as soon as I secure the safety of those innocent of any crime, I will tell you the truth. All of it.”
It was the most I would get from Caspian, for the time being. It was better than nothing, and it confirmed what I’d already been suspecting. He was protecting someone with his secrecy—more than one person, in fact. He’d said it before, but it was starting to sink in now.
Hansa
More than half an hour had passed since I’d plopped myself down in the middle of the clearing and cut a six-inch gash across my left thigh to draw out a hunter daemon. It was getting dark, and my boredom was starting to set in. The mild rain hadn’t helped either, as water had soaked into my hair, making my head feel heavy. On top of that, water removed the daemons’ invisibility spell, so, if they were going to attack me, they had to wait it out. Fortunately, it had stopped raining for the last ten minutes. I let out an occasional moan of pain, looking around to catch signs of any movement. But nothing happened.
I stretched my arms out and glanced to my left. Jax was beneath the thick crown of a bent tree, quietly watching me with a rope in his hand. We hadn’t spoken about the kiss, and I felt a little disheartened—not because of him, but mostly because of how the universe had stopped us from talking about it, first by nearly killing Avril and then by blowing up the top level of the mountain and killing dozens of Maras and Imen.
Nevertheless, something had changed between us. I could tell from the way he looked at me. There was a more permanent softness lingering in his jade eyes whenever he did so—a softness that wasn’t there before. I wondered if he would finally get over whatever insecurities were hounding him, and come to me. I’d made it clear that I was waiting, so the ball was basically in his court. The waiting game was a pain, though…
I picked up a handful of pebbles and started tossing them around, moaning louder—but with less conviction. It felt like I was dragging it out, but I figured making some noise might get the attention of one of the horned bastards lurking nearby.
“Somebody help me… Please… I’m in so much pain!” I cried out.
Jax raised an eyebrow at me, and I gave him a shrug in response.
Hey, whatever works, buddy!
One of my pebbles hit something in the air, twenty feet away from me. I stilled, watching the invisible form ripple closer, moving toward me. I cleared my throat, then gave Jax a sideways glance. He nodded briefly and waited for the daemon to get inside the snare trap hidden in the dirt.
I caught a glimpse of the fiend’s glimmering red eyes.
“Oh no,” I said, my tone much too flat. “Please don’t hurt me…”
It stepped inside the snare trap, and I immediately pushed myself back and out of its range. Blaze, Jax, and Harper pulled the strings back, and—snap! We got him, the ropes tightening around his large form as he struggled against their hold.
Caia came out and tossed water from her flask, revealing the daemon in his full, savage splendor. Jax flashed behind him and brought his knife up to his throat, the white blade digging into his tanned skin and drawing a droplet of blood.
“Got you,” Jax breathed. The daemon stilled, cursing under his breath.
Blaze and Harper came out, along with Caspian, and used the lengths of their ropes to further restrict the fiend’s movements. They tied his hands behind his back, wrapping the rope tightly around his wrists.
“Make sure you really tighten those wrist bindings,” Caspian told Harper. “You don’t want him to bend his palms for his claws to reach the rope. It’ll cut off his blood circulation, but you really shouldn’t care about that.”
“You’re all going to die,” the daemon hissed.
“I’d be more worried about yourself, if I were you,” I shot back with a grin.
“Duly noted.” Harper smirked and jerked the rope even tighter, prompting the daemon to grunt from the pain. She measured him from head to toe, and frowned slightly. “He’s not as big as the others.”
“No, he isn’t.” Caspian nodded.
“I can still slit your throats!” the daemon growled, prompting Caspian to give him a hard backhand in response. His head jerked to the right, and he groaned from the pain, his lower lip split. He then opened his mouth, letting out a cricket-like sound, quickly muffled by Caspian, who tied a long piece of torn fabric over his mouth.
“You’re not calling for help,” the Mara said, then glanced at us, while I sized the daemon up for a brief moment.
Harper was right. The daemon was some inches shorter than Tobiah, and his muscle mass was substantially reduced, too. I had a feeling he was a weaker specimen.
“The lower-rank hunters, the weaker ones, that is, hunt on the outskirts of the Valley of Screams. The bigger and stronger they are, the easier their access to the main gorges, where most of their victims travel,” Caspian explained.
Called it.
And then it hit me.
“Damn it, Lord Kifo, you could’ve said something sooner.” I scoffed. “Preferably before we dragged our asses through the main gorge yesterday!”
“I agree, and I do apologize for that.” Caspian nodded, grabbing the daemon’s chin to get a better look at his face. “However, you were following a tracking spell yesterday. I don’t think a side road would’ve made any difference. But I will be more than happy to make it up to you all, and take you to an access point leading to the underground. This fellow here will help us get through.”
That didn’t sound right. I’d thought we were going to compel the daemon to show us the entrance to his city. It turned out that Caspian had known all along where to go. I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at him, just to get my point across. The Mara gave me an apologetic shrug.
“Care to explain, Lord Kifo?” Jax frowned as he took hold of the daemon, who watched our exchange with a flicker of amusement in his red eyes.
“There’s an access point not far from here,” Caspian explained briefly. “It’s cloaked with swamp witch magic, and it requires a live daemon for us to go through and reach the underground city. It’s why I suggested coming through here in the first place.”
Several seconds went by as we all stared at Caspian—Harper was the only one who didn’t seem surprised. She noticed my curious expression and gave me an apologetic shrug of her own, as if mirroring Caspian’s gestures. Those two were sort of made for each other.
“He told me just now,” she murmured, looking like a kid caught with her hand in the honey jar.
Yeah, two peas from different worlds, fitting perfectly in the same pod, and they don’t even know it. To be fair, I’d noticed the stolen glances already. I saw how they looked at each other, even when they weren’t paying attention. There was something brewing between them—it had looked like quite the storm in the beginning, but Caspian had softened considerably since last night.
Oh, wow. I understood then how similar Caspian and Jax were. They’d both adopted these big, gentle eyes
whenever they saw us…
“I just wanted to see how capable you all are,” Caspian said, breaking my train of thought. Blaze finished tying the rest of the rope around the daemon’s torso, holding his arms in place. “You’re all quite adept at killing and ensnaring daemons; hence, I am now comfortable with sharing more information. Don’t take it personally. It’s self-preservation that leads me to make such decisions. But rest assured, GASP continues to surprise me in a very positive way, and I never saw it coming.”
I exhaled sharply and took out a healing pellet from the first-aid satchel mounted on my belt. I popped it into my mouth and chewed, then swallowed the herbal mixture, allowing it to dissolve inside my stomach. It was quickly absorbed into my bloodstream, and I felt my thigh wound tingling as it closed up.
Blessed be that Druid magic!
“Okay then, let’s go,” I replied, hands on my hips, as droplets of water came down from the sky once more. “Chop-chop! It’s raining again!”
Caspian nodded and walked forward down the path. I could hear the rain rapping the surface of the pond just fifty yards away. The sky was dark above us, charcoal clouds keeping the first moon hidden. It worked to our advantage, as we could use the obscurity of trees and stones in this narrow ravine to get to where we needed with minimum exposure to daemon attacks.
Blaze and Jax grabbed the daemon and forced him to follow us, while Caia stayed by their side and Harper moved to the front so she could walk alongside Caspian. Yes, there was definitely something happening between them, and my protective instinct was ringing all sorts of alarm bells.
I decided to keep an eye on them. Not that I disliked Caspian, but given all the secrecy, I had a hard time fully trusting him and an even harder time letting Harper get too close to him. I just didn’t want her to get hurt in any way.
There are few things in this world that are more painful than a heartbreak. One of them is the loss of a child.
And I had experienced both, repeatedly.
No way I’m letting her go through any of it…
Harper
(Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)
Caspian led the way up the ravine, then through a couple of narrow passages that took us to another gorge. I stayed by his side, followed closely by Hansa and Caia, while Jax and Blaze held the daemon at the back.
The rain had stopped, and the ground was mushy beneath us, slathering our boots in mud as we snuck deeper into the Valley of Screams. Two hours passed as we occasionally hid behind large rocks and in tight crevices—I’d become quite adept at noticing the air ripple across larger distances with my True Sight, to the point where I could detect daemon movement before they got close enough to spot us.
“It’s here,” Caspian whispered as we made a sharp turn to the left upon exiting the third passage. The gorge stretching both ways was quite narrow and barren, riddled with sharp stones and yellow-colored shrubs.
There was a cave opening in the limestone wall on our left, not easy to spot with all the boulders partially blocking the entrance. From certain angles, one could pass by and not even notice it. We followed Caspian inside, moving through a dark tunnel that went on for about three hundred yards before it hit a… dead end.
“Are you sure we’re on the right path?” I muttered, frowning at the sight of the stone wall.
“Look beyond.” He gave me a sideways glance, the corner of his mouth twitching. I used my True Sight, and, what do you know, the tunnel kept going at a lower angle, deep underground.
“Okay, what now?” I raised my eyebrows. Caspian nodded at our daemon.
“Bring that sack of meat over here,” he replied bluntly, and I let out a brief chuckle.
“Ooh, didn’t know you had that sass in you!” I quipped, and he responded with a slyly raised eyebrow before taking hold of the daemon, who was still squirming and growling against his restraints.
Caspian took a small knife out of his belt and cut across the daemon’s shoulder, drawing blood. The fiend hissed, and found himself pushed into the wall. The cloaking spell instantly reacted, and the limestone surface rippled.
“After you.” Caspian smirked and bowed curtly.
I grinned as I stepped through the wall, the cool stone tickling my face with liquid motion. The rest of my team followed, dragging the daemon along with them. Caspian then grabbed the fiend and pushed him into a corner, slitting his throat with one swift move.
I gasped. He held the daemon in place, pressing a forearm into his chest as blood gushed from the gash across his throat. The creature gurgled and choked until the light in his eyes went out. Caspian pulled himself back, and the daemon slumped on the floor behind a couple of rocks.
“We couldn’t risk him getting loose, and we don’t need him down there,” Caspian said, noticing my furrowed brow.
“No, it’s fine. It makes sense.” I shrugged. There was no issue with Caspian killing a daemon—even though this one had been restrained and could not harm us in any way. I was just surprised by the speed with which he made that decision, and the swiftness with which he executed it. Caspian had the cold blood of a killer if needed, and I knew it was in the best interest of our group.
“Let’s go,” he breathed, and went ahead.
One by one we descended after him. The tunnel got narrower every hundred yards, until we had to crouch in order to pass through it. Once we reached the exit, we followed him across a small plateau and hid behind the large rocks on the edge. It was secluded enough to keep us concealed as we took in our surroundings.
I held my breath as I looked up—a massive dome ceiling stretched for tens of square miles, with thick pillars pouring down into the city to support its titanic weight. The daemon city below sprawled across the cave floor—riddled with square houses and buildings, made entirely out of black stone with obsidian reflexes. Orange fires burned in massive copper bowls at street junctions and in iron and glass boxes mounted on almost every wall.
The sight before me resembled a painting of a Renaissance inferno I’d seen in a museum back on Earth, with deep and dramatic contrasts of black and amber, of light and dark, and of sharp and soft forms in a terrifying display of what could easily be described as hell. Slim, pointy towers poked out from the sea of buildings, and thin streams of freaking lava poured through the city, crossed by a multitude of bridges.
It was hot all over, like a midsummer’s day, dry enough to make me lick my lips every other minute because I was suddenly feeling all crusty and about to crumble. The center of the city was rich in immense buildings with tall columns and foundations, the latter linked to the black stone pavement through broad stairs. Farther outward, the buildings began to shrink, while the outskirts were occupied by small houses and modest huts.
Thousands of daemons roamed through the streets, and even they varied in size depending on their proximity to the city center. The rich, big, and strong ones lived in the middle of this massive settlement, while the weaklings were cast off to the sides.
Survival of the fittest, I guess…
“Keep your heads down,” Caspian hissed, and pulled me back under the shade of our rocky cover. We all huddled closer together.
My heart stopped, and ice tumbled through my veins at the sound of a gut-wrenching shriek. I looked up and saw giant black bat-like creatures flying overhead. There were three of them, gliding in tandem as they took a tight turn and resumed their survey of the city.
“Those are Death Claws,” Caspian breathed, watching them fly away.
They were scary as hell, with long, skinny legs and large wings that also served as arms. Each wing ended in a large claw, which explained why they were called Death Claws—those things were just a fraction of Blaze’s dragon size, but they looked perfectly capable of tearing any one of us non-dragons to shreds, if given the chance.
I resumed my quiet study of the city beyond the edge of our little hiding place. Some of the daemons were riding pit wolves with charmed iron collars, and others used transportation methods akin
to rickshaws maneuvered by weaker, skinnier daemons. There were elites, there were military grunts, there were portly overlords, and there were poor, subjugated daemons. There was a hierarchy, and it sort of put this dark world into perspective.
They had rules and customs, just like the Maras. They lived underground, and they certainly liked it hot. They ate souls and used swamp witch magic. Our problem on Neraka was far more complex than it had seemed at first, and the closer we got to its center, the more layers we discovered as we kept peeling away at it.
“This place is called Black Tower,” Caspian whispered, “mainly because of that big one in the middle.”
I looked out into the distance and noticed the structure he was talking about. At the very center of the city, a giant tower rose above all the others, thick and round, with a palace serving as a base. The palace was a square construction, each side stretching for half a mile, and was lit up by thousands of little orange flames. It was beautiful and creepy at the same time, and it filled me with dread.
Suddenly, dealing with a handful of invisible hunter daemons seemed like a walk in the park, compared to the fresh hell unraveling in this underground city. My stomach turned into a painful little peanut at the sight of Imen, about a dozen of them, being dragged across one of the lava bridges in cages pulled by pit wolves. They were all females, all young and defenseless. Two daemons snapped their whips at the pit wolves to get them to move faster.
I instinctively moved to help them, but Caspian caught my wrist and pulled me back.
“Don’t! We can’t risk detection at this point,” he murmured.
Glancing to our side, I noticed Hansa, Jax, and even Caia and Blaze nodding, though they weren’t happy with that decision either.
“He’s right, Harper,” Hansa whispered. “There’s much more at stake than those Imen girls…”
“So, what, we just let them carry them off so daemons can literally suck the life out of them?” My blood simmered, but deep down, I knew they were right. It just made me feel absolutely miserable.