Cinderella's Inferno

by F. M. Boughan

  I clenched my fists. “Where is she?”

  Celia, who crept toward me on all fours across the rocky islet like a stalking beast, paused. “Where is who, child?”

  Hot, dark fury coiled in my belly. “My mother.”

  She laughed again and began to shrink into herself, smaller and tighter as her daughters also had, until she stood on the islet on two legs in her false human form. “I’m right here, you ungrateful wretch.”

  A low growl rose from nearby. I inclined my head to search for Cerberus, who was not by my side but William’s. I was the one who’d made the noise. I tightened and released my fingers. I pushed the heat into my veins, spreading the dark coil from tips to toes, and reveled in the dizzying sensation of strength that rushed over me like the embrace of strong drink.

  “You,” I said, and even I did not recognize my own voice. “You are not my mother.”

  “You always were a headstrong little bitch,” Celia spat. With a snarl, her human form burst apart as if torn to shreds by a million snapping beetles—but just as swiftly, the pieces were sucked back together by some invisible force, converging and congealing to reform her into her true, hell-born self. The hundreds of eyes that lined her scaly flesh narrowed with scorn as greasy, yellow venom dripped from the rows and rows of teeth inside her monstrous jaw. She roared and slashed at the ground with her scythe-like claws, and her wicked pincers snapped at the air as she approached.

  She was not the only one who could play at this game. She no longer scared me.

  Nothing did.

  The essence I had absorbed from my stepsisters coursed through my extremities and everywhere in between. I felt stronger than ever before, more capable, faster, better, simply more. I allowed my will to surge forth, opening the floodgates and drawing the inky tendrils of power through my skin to wrap around my wrists, my arms, my fingers. My feet left the ice as I called on my spirits, as I ordered the dead to come and do my bidding.

  The lake cracked, but I did not sink. With a deafening snap, the dead arose from their frozen prison.

  Demons and spirits poured through the pit, past the giants, to enter the cavern of Cocytus and swirl about the ceiling. I ordered the weak and lesser spirits to inhabit the tortured shades, and they dropped with shrieks into the thawing bodies to give them new life.

  I saw the world in shades of black. My army of hell’s minions plunged toward Celia from all angles, and I felt like I could rule the Abyss with just the power I wielded in a single finger. Imagine what I could do on earth with my entire palm. With every limb.

  I would never again be dismissed by the king or shunned by the people, for all would look on me and marvel, and fear.

  On her rocky platform, Celia waited.

  She waited.

  I would give her something worth waiting for.

  I wanted my mother back, and I would not leave without her.

  I spoke one word, and I knew they would all obey.

  “Kill.”

  35

  William’s Interlude

  I know you would prefer to hear what happened from Ellison herself. She’s the storyteller, not I, but the truth of the matter is that in that moment, when the darkness overtook her and she gathered an army to her side by sheer force of will, she was Ellison no longer.

  She was something different. Fearsome, powerful, and devoid of those things that had drawn me to her that first day in the graveyard. She was overcome with raging fury, and that is exactly what Celia wanted, for I saw it all from where I lay dying.

  The despair that painted my beloved’s features when her mother’s shade ignited and evaporated like smoke was enough that I thought she might fall in defeat in that very moment. But then Celia appeared and the room hummed with energy. It felt as though I’d been tipped over and drained down to the dregs, the well of my life’s force nearly dry, and though I tried to cry out to warn Ellison of Celia’s intent, I was trapped within a shell of myself, neither able to speak nor move, but only to see in the direction my head had fallen. My arms and legs refused to budge and only twitched at my commands.

  I had so little left to give, and Celia would ensure Ellison took all of it. And worse, so much worse, was what Ellison’s power would do to her.

  She would be consumed.

  She would become like Celia herself—as she was becoming already, bit by bit, exerting her will on the world around her.

  As the ice cracked beneath me, Cerberus grabbed the sleeve of my coat between his teeth and dragged me back to the mouth of the tunnel. The dead surged to the surface and demons swooped down overhead, and in a moment of terror—I’m not ashamed to admit it—Cerberus acted nobly to protect me from their slashing fangs. He lay on me, jaws snapping, until the flock had passed by. When he stood, I saw blood on his snout, but he seemed no worse for wear.

  And then I saw Ellison. Oh, my beloved.

  Her powers had raised her up, obsidian tendrils weaving and crackling about her person, hair floating as though caught in a breeze—when truthfully it came from the swirling winds of the spirit vortex.

  She turned to take in her army, her gathered masses, and her eyes were coal-black pools. No white remained—they were as dark and bottomless as the Abyss itself.

  I found that I could no longer take a breath. I tried, how I tried, but the air would not come. I felt the last strands of my life’s essence leech away to fuel Ellison’s rage, her powers, her quest for revenge—and although I’d wanted her mother back and for her family to be reunited nearly as much as she, Celia’s appearance turned it into something more. Something deadly.

  Something that would devour Ellison from the inside out and allow Celia to finally have the revenge she’d undoubtedly craved these past two years, since the day we’d defeated her plans for power and dominance on the earth. With this, Celia would utterly destroy my beloved, and she wouldn’t even need to lift a finger to do it.

  And I couldn’t cry out, couldn’t warn her, couldn’t beg Ellison to see through the deception.

  So I prayed, and watched, and waited to die.

  36

  The Desolation

  “Very good,” Celia cackled. She danced and dodged as my army swooped and dove, tearing off chunks of flesh and gouging holes in her limbs. She swatted many out of the air and bit others in two, but she would eventually tire, and I would not.

  I had an endless supply of dead to command for as long as I wished.

  “Where is my mother?” I said, my voice booming throughout the cavern. “Where have you taken her?”

  Celia’s laughter grated my ears and made me wish I could reach down her throat and tear it out. Perhaps I would, once I had the answers I sought.

  “Still you ask after her? Haven’t you figured it out yet? You are a stupid child.” Celia ripped the arms off one of the shambling dead and threw them at another as it reached her.

  “Tell me where she is, give her to me, and I’ll leave you unharmed,” I lied.

  “We both know it’s too late for that,” she said, voice filled with mock pity. “But if you have truly not yet figured out that she was never here at all, you are a far, far greater idiot than even your father ever was. Did you honestly believe the minions of hell could tear a divinely favored being from heaven’s grace and hold her here?” She paused. I tried to make sense of her words, but I could not.

  Never here? But that meant …

  “It was an illusion. A deception.” The words tumbled out of my mouth like bitter stones. “I didn’t come here for her. I came here for—”

  “Me. Indeed.”

  “But Edward saw her tortured and burning. I saw her.” If I thought my heart could beat no faster, I’d been wrong. It pounded with such ferocity, like the hammering wings of a wasp in flight, that I felt light-headed, as if the organ might give out at any moment if it did not shatter every rib first. “He sees ghosts, and he saw her shade next to her grave. On hallowed ground! I touched her and
sent her to this place.”

  But even as the words left my lips, I realized—the ground on which the graveyard sat was not hallowed at all, not any longer. Not since I’d rent it open and allowed the darkness to pour through its center. The way may have been closed afterward, but who would have thought to re-consecrate such a place, especially with the cathedral in ruins?

  I couldn’t believe my gullibility. My hubris.

  Celia tutted and regarded me as if I were an ignorant child. “Yes, he was so simple to fool, wasn’t he? How convenient that your brother’s gift was of my domain and not of the worlds above. After all, he fell here, did he not? It took some time to find a way to influence the shades he saw—again, I am well and truly banished here below—but you’re not a conservative or judicious conjurer, are you? No, you liberally allow the veil to tear whenever and however you please. It didn’t take much after that.”

  I could not reply. I could only stare in horrified silence, desperately hoping that she lied.

  I felt the truth of her words all the same.

  “You’ve done a commendable job of clearing the king’s lands of my brethren,” she said, slamming a massive claw down onto the head of an animate corpse trying to creep up unnoticed. When she raised her foot and shook it, a sticky mass slid from its surface and puddled on the floor.

  I knew I should be vomiting, crying, or pleading for mercy. I knew I should care about her wanton violence, but I couldn’t muster even a shred of emotion. Only then did I begin to realize in earnest that this entire quest, this entire effort, had been a terrible, devastating mistake.

  “I was glad to do it,” I said, but the sound came from all around me, echoing like a chorus. My voice was no longer just my own, but charged with the voices of every being touched by my power inside the chamber. “I fought for the Almighty and for the crown to purify our lands and keep the people safe from your ilk.”

  “Ah, but that’s just it, you vapid, self-righteous twit. While you believed you were clearing the land of evils with your Holy Prince, what powers did you use? From whence does your gift emanate?”

  I ordered my army to pause. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, cinder wench, that every time you tore the veil and conjured spirits to do your bidding, pitting darkness against darkness, you leaked the influence of this domain, bit by bit, back into the world above. Your actions served only to perpetuate the cycle, ignorant girl, and have provided an endless source of amusement. I knew it was only a matter of time before I found the right bait to draw you down.”

  She was a liar. A lying liar who could not be trusted.

  “Oh, Ellison. I see you have difficulty believing me. But no matter, whether you believe or not, I have you here still. And I hear the journey took two of those self-righteous Protectors of Light from your party? A fair price for what you did to my daughters.”

  “Your daughters are well and truly dead.”

  “They were never well and truly alive, unlike your friends.”

  “I destroyed them. I consumed their very beings, their essences, and they howled while I did it.”

  Celia lowered her head and her eyes flashed as she spoke with a wicked smile. “Imagine how your mother felt as your father consumed her life for a worthless cause, now that you know it was all for nothing.”

  She had twisted the knife and I refused to bear it.

  I opened my mouth and screamed.

  All of hell’s gathered forces converged and dove on my stepmother in a single mass, burying her beneath their writhing bodies, tearing at her with every hook and tooth and claw. I commanded them to peel back her skin, to drive poison into her veins, to gouge out her eyes. I wanted her to feel pain as I felt it, the agony of loss, the inevitability of the end as it neared, the darkness of existence as her threads were snipped by the fates.

  I wanted it, and I wanted to be the one to cause it, because this power I held was like no other. And yet, no matter how I ordered my amassed servants to press, no matter what punishment I demanded, I received only one response in return.

  Celia still laughed.

  I pressed harder. She cackled and I pushed, drawing on my will to my deepest core. My vision blurred, and black lightning crackled around my arms and wrists, striking the earth, the ceiling, and the mass of beings before me.

  It was beautiful. I was consumed with the lust for this power, and still I wanted more.

  I wanted her.

  And yet nothing I did, nothing I bombarded her with, caused a single wince or hesitation. The demons and spirits under my control were tossed aside as quickly as I could send them, and it became clear that no matter how strong I grew, or how many of hell’s forces I sent at its own creation, she would not be moved.

  Perhaps, I thought, if I could just touch her the way I had touched and laid waste to her daughters—

  Somewhere far away, I thought I heard a dog’s bark. The sound, so foreign amidst the shrieks and screams of hellion, drew my eyes to my fingers. I had touched a dog, once. It had been soft and lovely, and I had not consumed it.

  I wiggled my fingers and was reminded of the room of necromancers above this cavern. Of how they tried and failed to weave conjurings, for they had no power and no one to give them strength.

  And in thinking of a necromancer’s strength, I finally, truly heard, the words of Celia’s taunt.

  Imagine how your mother felt as your father consumed her life.

  And I remembered William.

  37

  The Accord

  I dropped to the rocky ground like a stone added to the pile, knees and hands scraping across their sharp points. I could no longer see William on the ice—my God, had I left him there, helpless, while the dead surged up from the lake?—and in despair I thought he must be lost, drowned beneath the surface.

  I had left him, and he had been unable to move or speak or—

  Another bark, and I remembered Cerberus. Guardian and helper, undeservedly loyal, and in remembering them both I blinked away the hazy darkness at the edge of my vision.

  Cracked slabs of ice floated on the lake’s surface, while half-submerged shades crawled back to Celia as if on my command. I swung my gaze toward the sound of Cerberus’s cries and saw him, distant but whole, at the mouth of the cavern.

  A body lay beside the hound, unmoving.

  Oh, Lord Almighty. What had I done?

  I released my horde. All of them. All my will, all my anger, all my desperation for vengeance. I released it too, and Celia roared behind me, the sounds ringing in my ears of the dead being flung against the cavern walls, smashed against the frozen lake, and torn limb from limb. I didn’t care.

  I ran.

  I slid and fell, over and over, and more than once I nearly plunged into the icy waters. More than twice, I felt the siren call of power, of the evil that flowed through my veins and infused my blood, to succumb to its temptation. It beckoned and it roiled and it crept up the back of my throat with a rapturous sweetness. When I shoved it aside and denied its embrace, it grew bitter and caused me to gag.

  I had almost reached William when Celia pounded her feet against the earth, shaking the room with a sudden tremor that caused me to stumble.

  I pitched forward, falling face-first toward the frozen water that would surely drag me down into its depths, when strong jaws clamped around my dress and dragged me to the mouth of the cavern. Safe. Dry.

  “Thank you,” I cried, and buried my face in the cheek of the guardian, my arms wrapping around his muscled neck. A canine tongue licked my ear and I withdrew, for although I could never repay this creature enough for his service, there was another to whom I owed restitution even more.

  I feared to look. I feared that I had done what should never be done, that it might turn me into worse than my father, for instead of consuming the life of a loved one, I might have consumed both that and the essence of one of the Lord’s warriors.

  And that woul
d make me no better than a demon. That would turn me into Celia’s equal, or worse … for I had not been born this way. I had done this by choice.

  I knelt beside William and gathered him into my arms. His eyes were blank, unseeing, and his skin was like the frozen ice of the lake. I pressed my hand against his chest and felt nothing, and though I watched for signs of movement, I did not see him take a breath.

  I bent my ear and listened. I thought I heard a faint noise there, a possible remnant sign of life, but it was difficult to hear above the clamor and din of the cavern.

  I had to face a horrifying truth.

  I’d killed him. I’d become an even greater evil than my stepsisters and stepmother. I had allowed this place to infect my mortal body and twist my immortal soul, all because I’d refused to listen to William’s concerns about my use of power.

  “You were right,” I whispered. I cradled his head against my chest and wept—or I would have, if I had any tears left. I wished I could cry and yearned for tears to form, for at least that would have provided some measure of release. “I’m so sorry, William. I didn’t listen. I am a wicked girl who doesn’t deserve you, or any good thing. All I do is destroy the things I love.”

  Cerberus nosed my arm and lay under it, whining as he gazed up at me.

  “I know, I know. I didn’t destroy you. But given enough time, I might. You’d be better off without me too.” He whined again and lay his head between his paws.

  In the cavern, Celia roared again. Calling me. Taunting the infernal power that filled my every pore, infected every drop of my blood, and it tried to surge outward from my belly in response. I placed my burning lips on the forehead of the prince. I felt no life in him, and too much in me.

  “If only there were a way to return what I’ve taken,” I said. I touched his medallion, its metal as cold and lifeless as he. “I took it when it wasn’t freely given. I would repay it tenfold if it would bring you back to me.”