And then Saint with a scowl and crude words filling his mouth.
And then Phoenix with nothing more than hate in his eyes and a well of panic that I feel echoing inside my own chest.
And then…
Me.
Six
Izara
The first thing that hits me is the cold. A frigid blast of wind and ice that smacks against my face painfully and has me falling into a heap of soft snow.
What the fuck.
My teeth chatter and my wings tuck in against the bite of surrounding air. White flakes cling to my eyelashes and I blink it away to look at my surroundings. Perpetual darkness fills the sky and white ice and snow span out across the barren land.
It’s hell… but cold.
I get up and rub my hands across my arms to warm my body. If I walk through this barefoot, I’ll surely die of hypothermia.
I start with a step then two, ducking my face against the wind. When I look up again, I startle to find the sudden appearance of a lone figure standing before me.
It’s a demon. A female demon with ice for skin and dripping, black teeth. “Izara Castillo, Princess of Hell, half-breed demon spawn?” Her voice sounds like whistling wind.
Between chatters, I nod. What a fucking introduction. It makes me feel like English royalty.
The demon inclines her head, tossing thick boots to the ground between us. “The mistress of the fifth circle of hell will see you now.”
* * *
The demon takes me through mountains of snow. Frigid wind slaps my face and cold white flakes freeze my eyelashes to the tops of my cheeks.
I'm both numb and in immense pain at the same time. My teeth have long since stopped chattering, but I feel this deadly cold even down to the roots of my gums.
We walk for miles it seems like until her voice whistles from in front of me. "We're here."
Hereturns out to be a stone cave, all along the edge of it sits icicles with sharp tips that make it look like the wide open mouth of a rocky creature.
I almost don't step through, but I catch the warm glow of flicking yellow light within and pick up the pace. The promise of warmth is what gets me to move faster.
The cave is dark, and if emptiness has a smell, well this is it. It isn't until we step deeper into it that I feel the first sear of heat, thawing my cold bones.
The crackling fire smells like sulfur, but I don't care as I drop to my knees beside it and hold out my hands. I kick off the wet boots and the heat of the fire is painful in my numbing toes. Shivers rack through my body and it takes about half an hour for me to warm completely. And in all that time, no one says a thing.
I look up and the demon who brought me here has all but disappeared.
Okay. That’s not weird at all.
I stand up on shaking legs, my wings finally regaining movement, spreading out at my back. I’m on high alert now.
If the fifth circle of hell is as similar as the sixth, I need to be prepared.
Soft footfalls echo through the cavern. I turn towards the sound, preparing my wings, my magic for an attack that never comes.
The first thing I notice about this demon is that her skin is completely blue, like she's made up entirely of ice. And on her bald head, icicles align in a circle in the form of a crown. Around her shoulders, she carries the furry carcass of some...thing.
She comes closer to the fire and unceremoniously drops the bloody body to the ground and it makes a sick, wet, crunching sound.
