However, standing at the end of the tunnel, awe, dread, and disbelief coiled inside me as I took in the massive, golden palace a hundred yards away from us. Its highest point nearly touched the tip of the mountain behind it.
Situated in a valley and surrounded by golden mountains, the palace was interwoven with the walls behind it and blended into them. Hundreds of open windows with no glass looked out on us, but there was no movement behind them.
Snow covered some of the distant mountain peaks, but there was none on the golden mountains, statues, or valley floor. Once the sun came up after a snowstorm, its reflection off the golden cliffs and palace would rapidly melt whatever snow had fallen.
Multiple twisting spires rose high into the sky, and overhead, fluffy white clouds floated across the perfectly blue sky. We were so close to freedom, but the smooth, golden walls surrounding us wouldn’t allow us to climb out of here. I doubted we’d make it more than ten feet up them before sliding back down, and ten feet was being generous.
The mountains blocked the sun, but its rays bounced off the gold surrounding us and reflected it in a thousand different directions until it was almost blinding. In the walls of the mountains were openings to what I assumed were caves.
They reminded me of the old human cave dwellings, but I’d never seen anything like this palace in the human or demon world. The towering golden monument loomed over us and the thousands of demon statues lining the golden walkway and clustered within the yard.
“He may not have carved the statues, but he created this,” I said.
Bale looked as shellshocked as I felt as she gawked at the palace. “Yes, he did.”
“What kind of demon was this Mytaz?”
“Was or is?” Bale asked.
“I’m choosing to go with was. So what was he?”
“No one knows,” she said. “It was rumored he was part leporcháin, but he didn’t require a caultin to create things. Some believed he was part illusion demon, like Magnus, but Magnus is the last of his kind, and there is no evidence of another line of illusion demons. Others believed he was part ogre, but I think that, like you, he evolved in Hell.”
“Part ogre? So, he’s a big fellow.”
“Very big.”
“That means he’s more of a challenge, which only makes it more fun.”
She gave me a look that clearly stated she believed I was insane, and maybe I was. No one survived being locked away for twelve thousand years with their sanity completely intact, but I would have enjoyed this before my imprisonment too.
“In the end, it doesn’t matter what kind of demon he is. All that matters is, he doesn’t get his hands on us,” she said.
“I’ll kill him before that happens.”
“If you plan to kill him, then you should put the sword away.”
I lifted the blade to inspect it. Though I remained focused on the sword, I saw her perfecting her glare on me. “Why?”
“His power travels through weapons,” she explained. “Don’t let him touch you or anything you’re holding.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
I could tell she was questioning why she gave it to me as I slid the sword back into its sheath. I found the fact she was trying to keep me alive encouraging. She may never admit it, but I was starting to get to her, and I was wearing her down. It was only a matter of time before she caved to me completely.
“If Mytaz is inside the palace, he’ll be almost impossible to kill,” she said. “Raphael would be a great weapon to have against him, but….”
“The golden angel isn’t here.”
Bale
“Exactly.” And then, unable to keep my curiosity at bay, I asked, “What about the other fallen angels? Are any of them still alive?”
“Trying to learn more of my secrets, Bale?”
“Yes,” I admitted because I was.
His eyes twinkled with amusement. “Honesty, I like it.”
I almost told him that I didn’t care what he liked, but I refused to get sidetracked from my question by bickering with him. “Are they still alive?”
“You were at that battle at the wall, what do you think?”
“I’d like to think they’re all dead, but we haven’t been sure.”
He turned to study the golden palace again. I stared at his handsome profile while I waited for his response.
“They’re all dead,” he said.
Relief washed through me; our battle with the angels was over. It was finally over! We still had so many more enemies out there, but the ones who upset the balance of Hell when they entered it were all dead. I almost shouted with joy, but giving away our location and dying wasn’t the best way to celebrate the confirmation our enemies were dead.
That’s if he was telling me the truth, but I didn’t think he was lying about this. It had been months since anyone saw a fallen angel, and they weren’t known to be discrete.
Wrath
“Do we go forward or head back and see what’s at the other end of the tunnel?” I asked.
“I’ve never been one to look back.”
“Neither have I.”
With that, we started down the golden road leading to the palace. As we got closer to the entrance, my head tipped back to examine the double doors. They were at least twenty feet tall with a large, swooping arch at the top. The intricate designs etched onto the door weren’t only demon symbols, but some of them were the faces of demons and hellhounds.
When Bale’s breath sucked in, I followed her gaze to one of the faces to discover a striking likeness of Fiora.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Bale’s hands fisted like she was about to batter down the door. “I hate him.”
I almost rested my hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t look in the mood to be comforted.
“If he’s alive, we’ll destroy him,” I promised.
Two hellhound statues decorated either side of the door. One stood on all fours with its hackles raised while the other had its front paws in the air and stood on its hind feet. It was frozen in midleap.
Bale rested her hand on the head of the one about to leap and rubbed its frozen ear. “I hate this place.”
I agreed with her as I studied the doors before turning to survey the caves and unscalable mountains. “If he’s here, he’s inside the palace.”
Bale shifted beside me and lowered her hand from the hound’s head. “And there’s no avoiding him.”
“There will be killing him.” I didn’t care what this asshole could do, I would keep Bale safe, and I would carve his head from his shoulders.
Bale grasped one of the handles and pulled the door open.
Bale
As we stepped into the palace together, I somehow managed to keep my jaw from falling as I took in all the gold surrounding us. In the light streaming through the windows, the gold sparkled and danced as it blinded and entranced.
It was beautiful and hideous. I loathed it and found myself awed by the stairway rising before us and going to the second floor before splitting off into different halls and different stairways that coiled higher until they curved into the tallest peak above our heads.
I couldn’t tell if there were dozens of stairways or if the sun reflecting off everything created an optical illusion. Either way, it was impressive.
I’d seen pictures of human palaces in their books that I’d looked through over the years. Many of those palaces were majestic with their large chandeliers, colorful tapestries, jewels, paintings, and an array of colors to catch the eye. They were somehow so much more and so much less than this place.
The entryway was so large our footsteps echoed throughout the rooms on either side of the fifteen-foot archways. To my right and a couple of hundred feet away was the entry to another room and more gold. I didn’t see any furniture or anything else within.
“It’s enormous,” Wrath said.
“And we’re going to have to search the entire place.”
“I’d rat
her take on the calamuts again.”
“So would I,” I muttered while he closed the door. A shiver of unease ran down my spine when it clicked shut.
“If Mytaz is here, I think he would have come for us already.”
“Unless he doesn’t know we’re here yet.”
“There’s no way he wouldn’t have seen as walking through his graveyard out there.”
“There’s a whole section of tunnel we didn’t explore, and for all we know, there are more offshoots of tunnels on that end. We have no idea what’s on the other end, and we have no idea where all the caves in this place go. We can’t end up as one of his trophies.”
Fire danced in his black eyes when they met mine. “I will never be anyone’s prisoner again. If he’s here, I’m going to kill him.”
How I wished it were that easy. Mytaz was one of the most formidable opponents I ever encountered, and if all this had survived, then he was here somewhere; it was just a matter of finding him.
Eldorata had risen from Hell, but Mytaz hadn’t completely broken free of this place to roam the earth; we would have known if he was loose on Earth. There was no way a demon who walked around turning everything he touched to gold would have gone unnoticed for this long.
“We might as well start searching,” I said.
I tried to walk as soundlessly as I could across the entry and into the room on the right, but my barefoot steps still caused a slight noise to reverberate off the walls. Once we were in the large, barren room, I glanced surreptitiously at Wrath to see what he thought of this place.
He was inspecting the walls of the empty room with open disdain as we made our way past the open windows and into other rooms. I suspected these vast, empty rooms reminded him of being locked behind the barren seal.
I tried not to imagine what his life was like behind the seal, but I couldn’t stop myself from recalling his words about hibernating. Now that I considered it, going into a state where you had no idea what was happening around you would be the only way to survive such a fate.
“What did you do to get locked behind the seal?” I asked. “What was the final straw for the varcolac who imprisoned you?”
“There was no final straw,” he said as he stopped before a window. “He tried for years to punish us for what we are, and finally, with the help of others, they succeeded in locking us away. That was a brutal battle, and if I’d known the fate awaiting us, I would have died during it.”
I shoved aside the part of me that cried out against his death. “So, it was a series of events over the years that caused the varcolac to punish you?”
“Yes.”
“Such as?” I prompted.
“What does it matter? You already think I’m a monster. And in truth, I am.”
His words caught me off guard. Did I consider him a monster still? Before I could reply, he started speaking.
“I’ve driven countless others mad with fury and propelled them to murder. All the while, I laughed while I watched them destroy themselves and others. One time, I entered a corner of Hell well known for its mjéod and revelry. I’d planned to pass the time drinking and picking out future targets to destroy.”
“Future targets?”
“I would pick out demons who annoyed or intrigued me and play with them over time. I had fun gradually making them go mad with a steadily rising anger. They never understood where their burgeoning rage was coming from, and one day, it caused them to snap. Part of the fun was I didn’t know when that day was coming. It kept me amused, and after so many years of living, nothing amused me anymore.
“That day, instead of finding new victims, I became so bored by the monotony of the place, I decided it would be more fun to slowly infect a dozen of the thirty or so demons present. Without any warning, those infected turned on their companions, tore out their throats, ripped off their heads, and battered their bodies until only mush remained. I sipped my mjéod and smiled while I propped my feet on a hell stone and savored my destruction. Of course, I was a lot more powerful then.”
I had no idea how to respond. He was right, I did see him as a monster, but since coming to Eldorata, I’d also started to see him as a man and ally in this deadly world. But now, I could only see him as a monster again.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“Why not? If you can do it, why not do it?”
“Because then everything would have been complete anarchy in Hell.”
“Who’s to say Hell wasn’t meant to be anarchy? Hell is a mess now, but we’re all surviving.”
“We would have all destroyed each other, and you know it. And then nothing would be surviving now.”
He rubbed his chin. “You’re right; we would have.”
“So why?”
“Because I was bored. Living such a long life is not an easy task.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“I’m not using it as an excuse; it’s who I was. Who I am,” he amended.
It was who he was, and he didn’t shy away from it.
“What’s it like to be free?” I asked after a while.
He tilted his head as he looked at me and smiled. “Are you curious about me, Bale?”
“I’m simply asking you a question.”
However, I was curious about him and trying to figure out what made him tick. Aside from the fact he stood for everything I despised and liked to manipulate others to murder, he could be decent at times. It was difficult to understand him.
Maybe he isn’t meant to be understood.
So many things in this world, Heaven, and Hell were full of mystery, but I’d never expected my Chosen to be such an enigma. I might never understand this man, and I kind of liked that possibility. Life as an immortal could get boring, but while he was in my life, there would always be surprises.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know how long we could be in each other’s lives.
“Freedom is like the high after a brutal battle you’ve won. It’s the excitement pumping through your veins, the rush of survival, and death that catapulted you into a champion. It’s like….” He closed his eyes as he inhaled deeply. “It’s like fresh mountain air and the strength of a powerful wraith flooding your system when you feed. It’s everything right in this world and the next ones. It’s freedom, and I will never give it up again.”
There was a glint of warning in his eyes when they met mine. He would die and take as many others with him as possible before he ever allowed himself to be locked away again. And I would never let that happen to him. If he had to be destroyed to protect everything we’d sacrificed for, then so be it, but he would never be a prisoner again.
“Freedom is amazing,” he said.
I dug my nails into my palms to keep from reaching out to him. I’d never yearned to touch him as badly as I did then, with the sun’s rays cascading over his black hair and shimmering in his onyx eyes. He was gorgeous and savage, yet there was a vulnerability to him that dug into my heart.
He was a brutal killer, but he was also a man who was nearly broken by his imprisonment. Yet somehow he survived it, and I admired him for that. I didn’t know if I could have survived being locked away for millennia. I found it a little annoying that I was starting to like him more and more.
“Freedom is everything,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed as I turned to look at our golden prison. “Or it was.”
“We will get out of here.”
“Yes,” I agreed because I couldn’t consider the other possibility.
We continued, and as we traversed the lower level of the palace, we would occasionally stop to stare out the windows. Without any glass to stop it, an icy breeze drifted through the open panes. Despite no longer having my coat, vest, or shoes, I welcomed the colder climate of the earth as it breathed fresh air into this stifling place.
By the time we made it back to the main entry, the daylight was starting to fade, and we’d discovered nothing but empty, cavernous rooms.
“T
here’s nowhere else to go but up,” Wrath said, and he started to climb the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bale
The second, third, fourth, and fifth floors proved to be as empty as the first floor, and so did all the spiraling towers. We returned to the second floor and entered one of the rooms facing Mytaz’s crypt below. The day had faded away hours ago, and now only the moon illuminated the barren landscape.
Wraiths hung in the sky over the graveyard. I should have known those twisted souls would make an appearance here; they always gathered in places where there was a lot of death. Their malformed shapes slithering from the earth and winding their way into the sky only added to the gloom of the landscape.
I fed on those wraiths, yet the sight of them sickened me. They were the worst of humankind. My feeding from them was a punishment and painful for them, but they deserved worse.
“We should get some rest and search the caves tomorrow,” Wrath said. “We can decide about exploring the other end of the tunnel after that. Are you hungry?”
“No, are you?”
“Yes.”
With that, he leaned out the window and lifted his hand. The power vibrating from him rippled against my flesh as he drew one of the wraiths to him. His muscles swelling with power and the sensation of it crackling over my skin caused my nipples to harden.
It took everything I had not to settle my palms on his back and run my fingers over his quivering muscles. I longed to trace the edge of every well-defined muscle while following my fingers with my mouth. He would taste of fire and sin, of things that should never be but were too enticing to resist.
He drew the wraith closer, and as he fed on it, his power grew, and his muscles swelled from the creature’s nourishment. My gaze fell to his lower back, and the pants hanging low on his waist. If I slid my arms around to grasp his dick, it would swell in my palm. His hips would thrust into my hand before he grew tired of foreplay and took me.
Edge of the Darkness (Hell on Earth Book 4) Page 14
