I tiredly opened yet another door in my endless search and stared at the empty space. My arms ached from holding the torch and needed a break.
“Look at her skin. The light. It begs.”
And my head needed a break from C’adon’s constant muttering, as well. Wondering if he’d fall for it a second time, I turned toward the hallway and stared out.
His muttering went quiet.
I waited, and sure enough, he strode past me into the hall.
“What does she see?”
Smothering a grin, I slammed the door closed on his last word. C’adon’s chuckle echoed in the hallway.
“Games, games, games. I like this game.”
While tricking him into the hallway was kind of funny, the rest of it wasn’t. My throat was dry, and my stomach had been quietly rumbling for a while.
Using the room’s torch holder, I put my burden aside and sat with my back against the wall. So far, I hated Hell. There was no food, no underwear, no convenient light. And no damn map. What I wouldn’t give for a map with an x that marked my uncle’s location. Or better yet, a map that marked the way back home.
That thought made me pause. What if I found the way back before seeing my uncle? Would I take it? I wasn’t sure.
When I’d heard what had happened to him, I’d asked so many questions. And the one that no one could answer was why. Why had he chosen to kill himself and leave me alone in a world filled with monsters? It made me feel like all the times he’d told me he loved me and that I was important had been lies. If he really loved me, why had he left me?
The door latch rattled. Feeling a little defeated, I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall.
“She rests on stone. No, no. My punishment. Choose wisely. Choose simple.”
One moment, I sat against the wall; the next, I lay on something incredibly soft. I immediately sat up and looked down. The soft fur under my hands surprised me, and I couldn’t help running my fingers over it.
“She likes it,” he whispered.
My stomach growled audibly just then.
“Yes. More. I can provide what you need.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw a simple table appear. A wooden plate with a single slice of bread and a clay cup waited on the surface. The sounds coming from my stomach grew louder, and I wished he would have materialized more than bread. I should have walked into the room with the stew, I thought bitterly as I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
He fell to his knees.
“That skin. Look at it.”
I barely stopped myself from tugging down my skirt, which had ridden up over my calves. Instead, I stood and let it fall back into place. The man needed to stop obsessing over my skin or I would never be able to close my eyes around him again.
Walking to the table, I did my best to ignore his mutterings and helped myself to my meager portion of bread. I tried to be grateful. Bread was better than nothing.
Gods, I almost sounded like C’adon.
But he wasn’t wrong. I needed to be grateful for what I had instead of wishing for something better. This was Hell after all. I was lucky there was any food in the underworld, the land of the dead. The dead didn’t eat.
I frowned and slowed my nibbling. How did he not realize I was alive with my stomach growling like it did? I thought of the glutton and his grotesquely sagging belly by the time C’adon had pulled him away from the table and forced him back into his chains. Maybe food wasn’t seen as nourishment here but a way to torture.
I froze, recalling one of the most famous myths about Hell and its food. A myth about the gods and goddesses that I felt sure had been real at one point in time.
After Demeter had demanded Persephone’s return, Hades had tricked the young goddess into eating pomegranate seeds before leaving the underworld. It was said that eating Hell’s food had chained her for an eternity to a place she deeply loathed.
She’d eaten in Hell and hadn’t been able to escape it.
I stared at my bread in horror.
