Loki took the rag, tied it around his head, and surveyed the land around them. So far, the going had been far too easy. Nisse was the ninth circle of Hell. It was reputed to be filled with soldiers from Asmodeus’s army, with flying monsters that would give you nightmares even in your death, and with pitfalls and traps that hobbled anyone’s attempt to make it through the treacherous terrain. But Loki and Grolsch had come across none of these things. Aside from the stifling heat and the thick air, the going had been straight-forward.
And Castle Nisse stood ahead of them, a towering monument of ruby and obsidian, starkly beautiful. Wholly horrible.
“We’ve had help,” Grolsch said, his voice muffled from behind his own drenched cloth. Loki nodded in agreement. There was no doubt about it. He’d come prepared to die within five feet of the portal. He’d never expected to make it this far.
He wondered why. Why were they being helped? And by who? Magus? Haledon? Someone else?
A hard breeze brushed past Loki, sending ash into his eyes. He shut them and turned away, focusing on breathing. Sweat glued his clothes to his body, chafing his skin, but he had to admit that it could have been a hell of a lot worse. In fact, it wasn’t as hot as he’d thought it would be. They were walking through Hell on a charmed ticket, for sure.
“How do you expect us to get inside?” Grolsch asked, looking from the castle to Loki. Loki blinked, rubbed his eyes, and peered back at the citadel. The building rose at least a thousand feet into the air, spire upon spire of precious gemstone and rock carved to intricate, shining, nightmarish perfection. At its base, in the far distance, Loki could make out guards – dozens of Nisse’s most lawful, most loyal, and most evil soldiers entrusted with the safeguarding of what was probably the most difficult fortress to break into in the realms.
“I have no idea,” Loki admitted. “The truth is, I was hoping Asmodeus would let us in. Or Tanith.”
“You were counting on your sister to get you a free pass inside, eh?” Grolsch said with a sidelong glance at Loki.
Loki made a derisive sound. “Nothing in this land is free, ork.” He shook his head, ran his hand through it, and adjusted the rag tied over his face. “I imagine it would cost us our souls, at the very least.”
“I’m not keen on giving up my soul just yet, priest. So you got another idea?”
Loki looked over at him. “Do you?”
The ork shook his head.
Loki took a deep breath, which was rather difficult, but it managed to clear his head a little nonetheless. “We go under,” he finally said.
Grolsch turned to face him. “Under?” he repeated. “Under that?” He gestured to the castle.
Loki nodded. “It’s the only way. Devils can fly, so anything above ground level will be well guarded and probably protected by magic as well. However, no one in Nisse would consider digging under a building in order to enter it. They’ve no need. There’s no point.”
“Unless you’re not from Nisse,” Grolsch concluded, nodding as he turned to look back up at the massive building. “You bring a shovel?”
“No,” Loki said. “I was thinking of trying a spell I learned while studying at Haledon’s temple outside of Trimontium.” It had been a long time since he’d attempted it, and he had to admit to himself that his training had been truly interrupted when he’d been forced to take on Haledon’s avatar and face the Death Mage. But it was worth a try. At the very worst, it would fail and they would be back at square one.
“You know that Abaddon can have a strange effect on magic, don’t ya, priest?” Grolsch asked gravely, his tone low, his brown eyes serious. “If you don’t have Abaddonian blood flowin’ through your veins, the land can twist it around and screw it up. You’d best know what you’re doin’.”
Great, thought Loki. So the worst that could happen to them was a hell of a lot worse than he’d thought. Still… they had nothing else to go on and no other real options. None that he knew of, anyway. “I’ve never known what I was doing, Grolsch,” he said as he walked a few paces away, where a few large boulders provided an amount of shelter from the sky and view. “So be prepared for the worst.”
Grolsch laughed, the deep, grating sound a pleasant contrast to the misery around them. “Always, priest. Always.”
*****
She didn’t have her magic, they were right about that. But magic was not all that Raven was composed of. There was a strength of will in her that had been built upon the countless generations her soul had lived. She’d never been one to settle for the easy way out – or to settle, period.
She was a small thing compared to the entirety of Nisse and the other circles of Abaddon. Without her powers, she was a tiny creature against an veritable army. She knew this was how the denizens of Nisse would view her. They won’t expect me to try anything not having to do with magic, she thought as she eyed the window and the leather-backed chair nearby. I bet they haven’t protected the window from something as mundane as someone trying to break it.
Why would they? The window was hundreds of stories high, the air was choked with smoke and heat, and guards stood or hovered in countless numbers around the mighty citadel. Someone breaking a window to flee the castle would never even occur to them. Would it?
Raven glanced at the door and then back at the window. She closed her eyes, wished for courage and strength, and then allowed herself to change back into her Abaddonian form. It was a little draining, as she’d known it would be, but when her body wasn’t competing with the rage and adrenaline that either Lord Darken or Lord Asmodeus flooded her with, it wasn’t impossible.
Once she had completed her transformation, Raven looked at her reflection in the window she was about to try to shatter. She looked better than she felt; she felt tired. More than tired, really. Even without the use of what magic she had left, she could tell that she desperately needed to feed.
But she was hoping that once she managed to get beyond the boundaries of the castle, her magic would return to her, and then all she needed was three spells. Just three. One of them, she’d cast before and knew didn’t take much of her energy to maintain. The air outside would be uninhabitable for her. She would need a shield to protect her from the worst of it. But shields were easy; they were a bit like creating an extension of yourself and took as much concentration as it would take to control a horse you were riding. Not too bad. That one, she could do.
But she also needed to make a clean getaway, and for that she needed invisibility. She’d never attempted the spell before, but Adonides had assured her it was within her grasp and all she’d needed was practice.
There was no time for practice now. She was being thrown to the sharks and it was sink or swim. She needed to find Drake and keep him from the castle. And that was the third spell she’d have to try. She’d also never attempted to locate someone using magic before. Her brother had done it; he’d performed scries to find her in fact. Now it was his sister’s turn.
Raven ran a shaking hand through her hair and wished that she’d taken the opportunity to eat some of Drake’s meat when she’d had the chance. Never mind, she told herself firmly. It was too late for regrets, and the negative emotion would just drain her further.
With a squaring of her shoulders and a narrowing of her gaze, Raven used her Abaddonian strength to pick up the heavy leather-backed chair and hurl it against the window of Asmodeus’s private bed chamber.
Luck was with her, because as she’d hoped, it shattered. The noise was incredible as thousands of shards of glass blossomed from the contact point, raining both in and out of the room. Raven knew the sound would alert the guards, so she didn’t hesitate. At once, she ran toward the opening, even as glass was still air-borne, and leapt through the broken window.
Behind her, she heard men shouting and the sound of magic being cast. It had a sucking-expanding kind of sound and it scared her to her core, spurring her to beat her wings faster against the sweltering air.
The shield! she reminded herself
. She hadn’t been able to cast it within the room, but she could do it now. However, from the sound of it, invisibility seemed more important at that moment. She could take the heat a little longer….
Raven dove sharply, dodging whatever magic the men behind her were throwing her way, and concentrated on making herself disappear. The words were there, inside of her, and she whispered for them, called to them, and invited them to infiltrate her blood and soul and take over.
As hot wind buffeted her, she spoke three arcane phrases and sent her magic out and around her like waves of water. Sparks of magic tingled along her flesh, and she knew it was working. Thank the gods! It was working!
Raven looked to the right and extended her right wing. But she couldn’t see it. A combination of shock and satisfaction rolled through her. It was disconcerting to not be able to see a part of yourself that you still felt was there – but in this case, it was a good thing. One down, two to go, she thought as she angled herself to fly further from the castle.
Where exactly do you think you’re going, Raven?
Raven’s heart slammed into her lungs, causing her to lurch in the air. It was Asmodeus’s voice, brushing through her like heated fingertips and lighting her nerve endings like candle flames. Her wings jerked and a few blue-black feathers went cascading off of her body. The moment they left contact, they became visible, giving up her location.
Raven swallowed a curse, forced herself to remain calm, and straightened out in the air. She chanced a glance over her shoulder, and just as she’d feared, half a dozen of Nisse’s guards were headed quickly her way. Their massive black wings reminded her of Drake’s, their red and black armor and glowing eyes possibly the most foreboding thing Raven had ever seen.
Laughter rolled through her, the delicious sound nearly light-hearted. You’re a keeper, Raven, Asmodeus’s voice caressed. I mean that in every possible way.
The choked air of Nisse was getting to her just as surely as was the voice of its king. Raven shook her head as sweat trickled near her eye. The motion sent her head throbbing, and a wave of dizziness washed over her. Raven sucked in a hot breath, wiped her arm across her forehead, and gritted her teeth.
The shield…. She concentrated, drawing up a bit more of her magic. It responded, though at this point, she wasn’t sure why. Asmodeus had more than proven himself the most powerful being she’d ever encountered. If he’d wanted to stop her from using her magic, even here in the air outside of his castle, he probably could have.
Don’t think about it! she commanded herself. Just get the shield up!
And just like that, it was up. At once, relief flooded her, cool waves of normalcy skating over her raw nerve endings. She inhaled, drawing in blessed, cool air, and felt her body cleanse itself of the ash and smoke of Nisse’s polluted skies.
Is that better? Asmodeus’s voice purred.
Raven felt sick suddenly. She’d severely underestimated the Dark Lord. He was in her head – all around her. Was her sudden safety from the temperatures of Nisse her doing or his? What did she seriously hope to accomplish with this little act of defiance?
There was movement to her right and Raven whirled. One of the guards was nearly upon her, having followed the trail of the feathers she’d dropped. He had yet to draw his weapon, and it was exceedingly clear to Raven that he would try to capture her instead.
Fool, Raven thought furiously. It was as if all of Nisse were mocking her, and she was fed up with the treatment. With blinding anger, Raven called up the power she had in reserve and thrust it out at the guard. Her invisibility dissolved at once, revealing her to the men around her. She could not keep it up along with the shield she wore while casting this kind of magic.
But she barely cared. She was too mad to care. The air before her blasted outward, filling itself with the sound of thunder and a thousand shards of ice. That ice sailed at an impossible speed toward the guard before her. He had no time to do anything but react by pulling back.
The rime coated his retreating figure with a merciless shell two inches thick, freezing him in place and sending him toppling backwards through the air. Raven watched his heavy body fall and sensed the other guards come to a stop as they watched as well.
The falling statue of ice hit the ground far below and shattered into countless pieces upon the parched dirt. Raven wasted no time congratulating herself. Instead, she spun to face the next closest guard and narrowed her glowing, tri-colored gaze on him. His red eyes widened, but his teeth were bared, and he had his orders. Raven almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Anger continued to ride through her and that anger brought her strength. She once more reached out for her magic, and like a loyal companion, it was there. A second blast of frigid air shot out between her and the guards. Again, they backpedalled through the smoke, but again they failed to evade the attack.
Another guard went tumbling through the darkened skies and hit the ground to break into various grisly chunks that skittered across the dust.
Beautiful, came Asmodeus’s voice. A millisecond later, Raven felt his presence, this time very real and solid, and she turned in the air, expecting to come face to face with the lord of Nisse. But the only one there was another guard. Without thinking, she released a bolt of her power. This time, the air hardened, narrowed into a spear-like shape, and slammed into her opponent with unforgiving force.
The ice spear shot through his chest and exited the other side, spraying ice and blood in a trail behind him. He faltered, his wings flapped one last time, and he too went dropping toward the ground.
Sickness swelled inside of Raven, stirring itself in with the fury that was fueling her magic. She closed her eyes, unwilling or unable to watch this third display of death. Laughter rumbled through her, nauseating her further, and still, she could do nothing to assuage her anger.
A guard came up behind her, and because of her distraction, took her by surprise. Raven felt an arm go around her waist as his other arm slid around her neck. He yanked her backward, crushing her wings against his chest, and blinding rage exploded behind Raven’s eyes along with the pain. She cried out with the agony and rage, and raked her claws along both of his forearms. The guard bellowed in his own pain and loosed his grip just enough that she could slid one of her hands between them.
As she did, she sent another pulse of her magic through her palm and into his body. The cold rushed down her arm, swelled in her hand, and infused his stomach before a second bellow of pain erupted from his throat. He released her and retreated, but blue veins of ice were already spreading across his midsection and into his chest – his arms – his legs. He quieted, his red eyes widening and then going blue, as the magic made its way up his neck and into his head.
Raven covered her mouth with her hand and squeezed her eyes shut just as she knew he would fall. She felt well and truly sick then. Bile rose in her throat and misery danced around her soul.
She felt him again, in that moment, so real and solid this time that she at once understood the deception of the feeling she’d had before. Raven swallowed hard, forced the sickness back into the pit of her stomach, and slowly turned.
“What will you do now, princess?” he asked her.
Raven looked from Asmodeus to the ground they were suddenly standing on. She had no idea how it had happened; it was just him and his immense power. But now, instead of floating in the air a thousand feet up, they were alone, standing on a plane of red desert sand, the two of them and nothing else for as far as the eye could see.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Raven felt exhausted. Her anger was gone. Her fury had evaporated. She looked down and saw that she’d reverted to her human form. She had nothing left; the wrath that had ridden her moments before had taken the last of her strength with it. With plummeting hope, Raven sent her mental feelers out for any remaining scraps of magic, but came back empty handed. Nothing.
Asmodeus cocked his handsome head to one side and asked, “Tha
t’s unfortunate,” he said, clearly either reading her mind or not needing to. “How will you find my son now, Raven? How will you warn him away from me? What exactly do you plan to do?”
Raven would have felt like crying if she hadn’t been completely dry in that moment. She could sense that even her shield was down, but by some grace of luck or the mocking magic of the man before her, she was not being assailed by the heat. She shook her head and eyed him with nothing short of abhorrent contempt. “If we weren’t here already, I would tell you to go to Hell.”
Asmodeus threw back his head and laughed, genuinely amused by something, though Raven had no idea what. At this point, she was positively miserable. She could only watch him as his boots parted the dust and he closed the distance between them.
“Your will is bracing, Raven. Revitalizing. When Drake becomes king, I may just keep you for myself.”
“Over my dead body!” came a third voice, this one blessedly familiar and absolutely welcome.
Raven spun as Drake appeared out of nowhere and rushed past her like a shadowy blur. He and his father embraced in swirling, tumbling duo of hand to hand combat, and despite the odds, Raven allowed herself to feel hope for the briefest of moments.
Asmodeus immediately had the upper hand, however.
He turned, some indescribable magic happened, and he was straddling Drake, his hand around Tanith’s neck, squeezing the life from his veins. “No, Drake,” Asmodeus hissed, his face two inches from his son’s. “Over mine.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Loki looked down at his body with something akin to disgust. “I can barely keep my eyes open in this.”
Grolsch glanced over at him, turned his lip up a bit, and looked away once more. “Indeed,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re a walking bloody bonfire is what you are.”
The spell had worked, in a manner of sorts. He’d wanted to be able to carve a tunnel underground, and that, he’d accomplished. However, as a result of the magic-twisting properties of Nisse and his utter lack of Abaddonian blood, he was now lit up like the full moon.