Throne of Blood

by Amber Cook

  Adira's eyes widened as she struggled to laugh. "Don't tell me you were stupid enough to strike a deal with the devil."

  The only thing that could be heard in the eerily quiet room was Adira's laugh. She couldn't stop the horrible sound that came from her throat. She couldn't believe it. These humans had signed their lives away. "What did you ask for?"

  "We didn't ask for anything," Brynx started, shaking his head. "We knew of the Orbs, but we didn't know what they could do. But that all changed when someone visited us."

  Adira didn't even need to ask for a name. She knew it was Drystan.

  "He didn't mention his name to us. All he said was that he wanted to make a deal."

  "That bastard..." Adira muttered beneath her breath. He wouldn't be the first demon to make a deal with a human, but he would be the first to make such a catastrophic one.

  "In exchange for the Fifth Pillar's Orb and his knowledge, we would have to figure out a way to kill the Demon King. If we failed, then the whole human race would have the same fate."

  "Either die by war or by his hand...How fitting for your kind." Adira whispered, "And what about me? Was it all a plan from the beginning to get me?"

  "He told us about you and about what you could do. He also mentioned all of the horrible things you have done. He said that, without you, everything would be pointless. You were the key to this thing."

  "Is that so? He must know something that I don't know."

  "It was his idea for Zen to carry the Fifth Pillar's Orb. He wouldn't tell us how he knew you would arrive at that particular tavern on that night at that time. He just promised us that you would be there."

  Adira's fingers limply curled by her side. She knew precisely how. The Fifth Pillar's Orb was not the only one to betray her trust. They all were working together towards one common goal, but Adira couldn't figure out what it was. Why did they want her father removed so badly? Her father was a cruel and wicked man, but he had never done anything to the Orbs. She didn't understand their distaste.

  "And you trusted him? You trusted a demon?"

  This time, Zen stepped forward and began to speak. "He was upfront the whole time. He said he knew what was going to happen and when. This is the first time we have been granted the possibility of defeating the Demon King and putting an end to this war. Wouldn't you want to believe the same?"

  Her eyes narrowed on him, and Adira grimaced. "No. Believing is the worst hope you can have."

  Brynx and Zen exchanged a sharp glance, and Brynx stepped forward. Adira could tell right away by his stiff posture and scrunched face that he was agitated. There would be no more chitchat.

  "How do you control the Pillars Orbs?"

  "Control?" Adira inquired before she let out another raspy laugh. "I cannot control them. If I could, do you think I would allow them to eat my body and life away?"

  Adira flinched as Brynx slashed the blade he had down and across her cheek. Blood slowly began to rise from the incision, and Adira smirked. All she needed was a few droplets of blood to cause mayhem, and they had just given them to her. Her eyes angled down to the rolling droplets of blood but no matter how long she waited, they never returned to her breast. They slowly rolled down her cheeks, down to the slopes of her neck, and onto the floor. Her eyes widened in disbelief.

  The Fifth Pillar's Orb was still beside her, lazily draping itself over her body. Adira could feel something wet and chilling draw over her cheek, licking away the stray droplets. When her eyes locked with the Fifth Pillar's Orb, all she was met with was a sinister smile. She would be getting no help from them.

  "Ah...You all have really made a deal with the Fifth Pillar's Orb."

  Before, when Adira had bled, the Orbs would be on top of her. They would want to form that blood into a weapon to create mass chaos. They had always been like wild creatures, living only to see the thrill of a hunt. Now, she had two prime candidates, two people who had even hurt her, and they would not raise their hands. They would willingly allow more pain and harm to come to her. Adira had never been put in that position before.

  If they genuinely already had the orbs this wrapped around their fingers, then Adira could only imagine what other things had been disclosed. Aided by Drystan and the Orbs knowledge, these two people standing before her could be her most significant threat. They could even know things that had not been disclosed to her.

  She was done talking. If the Orbs would not help her, then there would be no way for her to escape. She wouldn't be able to fight her way out like she had done so many times before.

  "I'll ask you again. How do you control the Pillar's Orbs?"

  Adira's eyes lifted to Brynx, but she didn't speak. She only set her eyes and jaw. She would not utter another word.

  Brynx's fingers curled on the blade harder as he saw her defiant nature. He wasted no time in slashing the blade down on her face again, this time cutting deeper than before. Adira did not flinch. She had spent many nights, more than she could count, being skinned alive by her own father to be sewn back together in the end. She had experienced the pain of one's muscles being flayed apart, and then being forced to mend. Nothing they could do to her, no matter how much lambs blood they pumped into her body, could amount to the pain she had experienced so many times. They would get nothing from her.

  ✽✽✽

  The next thing Adira could remember, she was no longer in The Halls. Her eyelids felt heavy, still fighting off the effects of the lamb's blood. She could feel the cold, grimy surface of the cellar floor beneath her cheeks. When she curled her fingertips into the slick floor, a sharp pain settled itself in her muscles.

  Adira shakily reached her hands up to her face and neck. The once smooth surface was nothing more than a battlefield of cuts and gashes. She could barely remember anything after a certain point. She assumed it was caused by the lamb's blood. Adira knew that, with her previous injuries still mending and being stuck in the Human Realm, these gashes would take days to heal over. But, more importantly, they would become infected. There was no preventing that. She could only hope that her body could fight against it. No, it had to. She couldn't afford to be weak, not with what was coming.

  Chapter 13

  Being in these cells, left with only herself and Fionna, who would sometimes reply, made the days disappear. She could no longer count time. She could not see the moon outside or the sun greeting her overhead. She hadn't realized how much she relied on them until they were taken away from her.

  Minutes seemed to pass by like hours, and yet sometimes hours passed by seconds. The only thing she could focus on was the grumbling of prisoners locked in cells around her. At first, she made herself believe that she was different from them. She wanted to be different from the demons and Changelings that wallowed beside her, but she wasn't. At the end of the day, she was just like them, locked in a cell waiting for it all to end.

  Long ago, she had given up on trying to escape. The bars had characters carved into their smooth surface. Every time she reached for them, she was met with a searing pain that made her feel as if her insides were being shredded. Adira knew that there was only one way in and only one way out. There were no windows, no extra doors that led out of The Halls. Only a singular, looming iron door separated her from these cells and the outside world.

  To say that a single door could separate her from freedom was humorous. Adira had been thrown in impossible situations her whole life, and she had overcome them all. She had experienced worse hardships than a door blocking her path, but she was weak. Maybe if things were different, she would be able to fight her way through.

  The wounds on her body had slowly begun to heal. Scabs began to form on the gashes, their surfaces discolored. Beneath the festering skin, puss and blackened blood raised their head. All of her wounds had become infected, something that she rarely experienced. Even when her father had skinned her, her injuries never got this bad. She assumed it had to be the difference of Realms.

  In the Demon Realm, she
could be impaled or have her lower body ripped off, and her wound would heal in a few hours. Here, a small cut would take her hours, days for the more severe ones. It was almost as if she were human. The infection that sunk its teeth deep in her bones and muscles caused each movement she made to be agonizing. It had already reached her bones, settling itself in her bloodstream. She knew if she were human, she would already have come to the path of no return. But, alas, she was a demon. No matter how much she may wish for the pain to stop and the infection to pull her under, that would not happen. Her body would not allow her to die in such a way. Why die such a miserable death when she could pass by the hands of the Pillar's Orbs?

  Speaking of which, Adira could not quench the fire that burned in the pit of her stomach. She could not believe that the Fifth Pillar's Orb would do that to her. She could not believe it had refused her outright over some humans. Although she did not know what Drystan had said to them, she could only assume it was detrimental. Like the entire Pillar's Heads and herself, Drystan was allowed to read through all private records. Most of the Pillar's Heads would read through the volumes at least once, mindlessly picking up small points, but others lived by it. The one thing that consumed their thoughts and gave them a reason to live was those volumes. Drystan happened to be one of those demons.

  Even over her life span, Adira had yet to get through every volume. Some were fast-paced, captivating with each line of ink, versus others were dull. There was everything from weapons to creation, and of course, the volume that all of the Head's read. It was the volume that had been created about her. Adira had read the pages so many times that she was certain she remembered every single word. She could see the texts before her, almost as if she had written it. After all, that volume of information was her life, but more importantly, it laid out what she would do and what she would accomplish. Not what they believed she could achieve, but what she would.

  Although there were a lot of things left open-ended, anyone could piece it together. They could figure out the reason for Adira's creation. She was not procreated out of love. She was created to satisfy the demands of a weapon that could cause mass destruction. She was the answer to the question of getting rid of the pesky people that threatened the cozy lives of demons. Never once was Adira asked if she wanted to be that. They had not asked her if she wanted to be trained on how to slaughter as a child. Her wishes did not stop them from force-feeding her hundreds upon hundreds of souls, pushing her soul and mind to the breaking point. The word had been written, read to her every night beneath the setting crimson moon. She did not have a choice; all she could do was obey. Thinking back on it was pointless. It was already in the past.

  If these humans truly wanted to end the war before it began, shouldn't she have been happy? After all, the only way to prevent the war was by taking out her father. Once he was removed from the equation, the ranks of the demons would fall apart. His selected officials would be doubted, turning on one another. It would become a power struggle within their kind. The last thing they would be worried about was some humans.

  Adira's path would be clear. With Kace removed from the equation, she would ascend to the First Pillar's throne with her claim. Even with Drima, demon-kind would turn to Adira for leadership, not to her. Although a few hundred years separated the two of them in age, their wisdom was not different. Sometimes even Drima acted more rashly than her. With the Demonic Pillar's beneath her fingertips and, if she so wished, a union with the Second Pillar, Adira would be the destined ruler.

  Hell, she should have been helping those humans. If they succeeded, she would be removing the one person in her life that had caused her living hell. She might be able to sleep in peace, knowing that he would not push the door to her room open, that leering grin on his face. She dreaded those eyes, eyes that stared at her out of lust, and a need to satisfy his power-complex. But Adira could not believe it would just be that easy. It could never be that easy. Those humans could not just create another version of her.

  Whatever deal they struck with the Fifth Pillar's Orb would not hold true to this. If they tried to implant a fragment of the orbs within a human, even a Changeling, they would die immediately. Before the surface of the orbs touched them, they would be reduced to a pile of ashes. Adira had seen many demons end up in that same fate. Even if, by some chance, they were able to accomplish it, their souls would be insufficient. Her father had spent hundreds of years consuming souls, absorbing their strength into his soul force. And, if by the small chance they could reach his strength, how would they consume his soul? How would their bodies be able to handle the intensity, the magnitude, of it? It was not possible. Either way, she looked at it, these humans would not be able to accomplish their goal, and she would not be able to escape him.

  Her fingertips had been nervously tapping on the floor, but Adira had not noticed it. Within these silent rooms, the constant tap was a welcomed sound. It seemed to hang heavy in the air, lulling herself just a little bit. Even the Changelings seemed to be quiet this morning; their groans and wails of agony were not reaching her ears. Adira thought nothing of it. She thought she had been just quieting the world around herself.

  "Mmh... Do you hear that, child?"

  Those words snapped Adira from her thoughts. She couldn't remember the last time someone had spoken to her. She couldn't remember the last time she had heard Fionna's voice. Even when Adira had called to her, Fionna had not so much as grumbled in reply. Adira had begun to believe that something wrong had happened to the old demon. Her fingers stopped their nervous trilling, and Adira pushed herself close to the wall that separated the two of them. Even though a few feet of stone separated them, Adira felt like she could be closer to her like this.

  "You're alive..."

  "Alive? Did you really think I had died?"

  "Well, you've been so quiet."

  "It's called sleeping," Fionna whispered, her words full of drowsiness. "You spend enough time in the Human Realm, and you begin to turn into them."

  Maybe that's why she had felt more tired as of recently. She was becoming like them, at least as much as a demon could.

  "You've been thinking. I can hear you constantly tapping and tapping. It almost makes me think there is a clock in here."

  "Do you know what day it is?"

  "What day? What's the difference? Time is not on our side, at least not here."

  That was true—even time passed by differently in this realm.

  "Do you hear that?" Fionna asked, and Adira tried to focus. She even held her breath.

  "I don't hear anything. Is there something I'm missing?"

  "That's the point. You don't hear the Changeling's screaming out to their loved ones. I can't even hear their heartbeats."

  Adira hadn't even thought about that. She had been focused on their moaning, not on their hearts. She couldn't even hear one heartbeat in the looming hallways in front of her. That couldn't be possible. There had been over a hundred only a few hours ago.

  A loud creak broke through the silence, nearly causing her to jump out of her skin. It seemed to radiate throughout The Halls as if it were nothing more than a ghost town. Adira had expected to see someone like Zen or Brynx bust through the doors, but there was no one. It was just Fionna and her. She could have sworn she heard the softest snicker against the air, but it died away. Even then, no one laughed in here, not unless they were truly mad.

  "Fionna, did you just laugh?"

  For a few moments, the older demon did not respond. Her eyes narrowed, the yellow irises focusing down the hallways. There was something there that Adira could not see. "We are not alone."

  The dim light in The Halls vanished as those words slipped from her lips. Within the blink of an eye, the musky air became bone chilling. Adira's fingers raced to her forearms, trying to create some friction to rub warmth back into them. Her breath fogged in front of her, a hint of blue touching the rim of her lips.

  The world before her was now a blanket of darkness with
no end or beginning. It was a world that lacked sounds, completely mute of the familiar noises that made her feel at ease. She could not hear their heartbeats; hear the blood that pumped sluggishly through their veins. It was as if she had been thrown into a box, encompassed on all sides with no escape out.

  Pitter...Patter...

  Adira's eyes widened as she heard footsteps. She threw herself away from the edge of the bars, trying to shrink herself down as she pressed her body into a back corner. The only thing she could hear was the echoing of one person's steps. They were not rushed. You would almost believe that this person was meant to be here. Her fingers dug into her thighs as the footsteps continued to approach, getting closer with each leisurely step. She could feel them vibrating through her skull.

  Through the darkness, she could see the figure stop before her cell. She tried to make herself appear smaller, flattening her body into the corner. From her position, she could feel the pulsating demonic energy that came in tidal waves off its body. Familiar, and yet the ravaging hunger to it made her hesitate. She watched as the demon lifted its head, face cloaked in shadows, and sniffed the air. Adira had already tightened her grip on her Demonic Energy, hoping that she masked it enough.

  Every breath she took felt stuck in her lungs. It felt as if a thousand blades were being pushed down her throat and into the pit of her stomach. If the demon would just walk past her, then she would feel better, but it had yet to move.

  Just walk past me, please...

  The moment that thought came to her head, its eyes snapped to her, pinning her down. In the darkness, its crimson eyes were like a sign of death, only looking at her.

  "After all this time, I finally found you. It wasn't easy."

  Adira's ears twitched at those words. She had heard this voice before, many times. Those piercing eyes had sought her out many days, desiring for something that she could not give. She peeled herself from the wall, pulling herself up to the iron bars. "R-Ravana?"