Her father.
Her fuckingfather.
A descendant of the Messenger of Chaos...
Fuck me.
Two
Izara
Pain.
That’s all I feel; the agony of smoke choking my lungs and licks of fire flickering around me like demanding fingers that reach for my soul.
My body is weighed down. And the first thing I try to do when I awake is move my arms, my legs... mywings... but I can't feel my extremities.
I can only feel pain.
When I slowly blink my eyes open, the sensation of it is like my lashes are crusted over, and I realize my face is coated in ash. It rains down from the black and red sky, from the roiling storm clouds that trip over each other and thunder their rage.
There’s a kink in my neck that screams as I turn my head side to side.
My body drifts through a barren wasteland of ash and fire and though I feel the suffocating pressure of heat, it doesn’t burn me. Voices flitter through my mind in hissing rasps, gargles, grunts, and hums.
It takes me a moment to realize I actually fucking understand them in choppy bits and pieces.
“The Master… intact… hurt… No…”
I try not to groan from the pain that suddenly slices up and down my spine like a thousand tiny knives piercing my skin, from my arms to my legs. I’m hovering scant inches from the ground, beingcarriedover ash and sand by tiny claws that rip through my golden dress and scrape my sensitive flesh.
Please don’t be ass demons, I pray as I feel claws at my backside. Because that’s just what I fucking need, right? Ass demons to rip through me? I try to struggle against their sharp hold when a panicked thought races through my mind:Why the fuck can’t I move?
What did that shadow demon do to me? It had been a face of nightmares, sallow darkness that peered at me with gaping holes where evil dwelled.
Then it dragged me through the portal and straight here. To hell. I recognize it from when I traveled with Phoenix. The fire, the sense of hopelessness… it’s all here in the center ring of hell.
But I’m not hopeless. I killed a demon, I controlled my Prod, Iflew. If I can do that, surely I can make it out of here, right?
The gliding sense begins to slow just as the guttural voices increase in volume, in bodies, until a thousand tiny, thunderous voices roll over each other into a cacophony of deafening sound.
And all at once… the voices stop in a shuddering wave of silence.
I can hear my heart beating fast and hard against my chest and feel the stillness of it all. The clouds have stopped rolling, the sky has stopped breathing.
And then… I hear it.
Footsteps.
Thwomp.
Thwomp.
Thwomp.
Thwomp.
Massive, steady, and threatening. Feet that plant themselves firmly on either side of my head.
