With my head held high.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The DGE
Rhys
The woman’s thick black cloak covers her from head to toe, but hints of white bone now sneak out with the swishing of her hemline as she leads us into the castle.
What is she?
Latham steps closer to me when she guides us down a shadowy hall. His arm brushes mine as we walk side by side, and somehow, the meager amount of space between us keeps getting smaller, as if he wants to just wrap me up entirely in his arms to shield me from what’s to come.
When we turn down the first hall at the entrance of the metallic castle, the darkness becomes dense and heavy around us. I can hear her footfalls ahead of me and the pairs of solid steps of the men behind me, but I can’t see a single thing.
And then I hear it.
A scream like flesh being torn from the bone little by little claws across the walls and scurries around us, over and over again. Thousands of them sing out in a horrific symphony of agony. My spine tenses hard, my steps falter, but I never stop walking. I keep going while the screams scratch like nails dragging over the brick floors.
A warm arm slips around my waist, and Latham pulls me closer to his side. It’s the simplest gesture shared in the dark.
The pounding of my heart calms. Though I know he’s keeping secrets, I think I trust him.
It’s a terrifying thought in the most terrifying setting, but it’s true.
“What is this place?” I whisper quietly to him. “I thought we were going to be in Hell once we passed the gates.” This certainly doesn’t look like anything I expected.
Not a single flame of hellfire shoots up from the floors here. No men hang on racks of torment. No men with pitchforks.
It all has a rather… haunted house feeling.
Except much, much more sinister.
“‘Tis the Hall of Misery,” the woman answers for him, her voice nothing more than an airy breath.
I swallow hard as I try to imagine what that means.
“After death, some require punishment. For example, a lifetime of unending famine. A pain of the body literally eating itself to try to find nutrients. Just something to remind them of any wrong doings.” Her hollow voice quiets, the screams fade, and light illuminates a large open room up ahead. “Here we are,” she says, and as she turns to nod to us, the light shines across her, showing the features just beneath her thick hood.
A shiver spider walks down my arms at the sight of her. Skin the color of rotting fish clings to the hard bones of her skull just beneath. One eye socket is empty and dark, while the other has the remnants of an eyeball hanging down near the divot of her face where her nose should be.
My throat constricts as she passes me by, leaving us here in the safety of the light.
“Safe travels,” she whispers to each of us with a bow.
I’m still pressed tightly into Latham’s side. Aric steps forward with a glance at how intimately his friend holds me. He looks like he wishes it was him standing next to me, but as is his way, he says nothing. He lowers his head instead.
Someday, after all of this passes—ifall of this passes—I might have a hard choice to make. A choice that could cost friendships.
And I won’t ruin their friendship.
My heart convulses, and I try not to think about losing them. Not right now anyway.
Strange music meets my ears, and I peer up at the room. My brows lower as I take in the weirdest thing I’ve seen yet in this realm.
The intense fluorescent brightness of the room falls across Aric’s inky tattoos, making him look more like the relentless protector I’ve come to know him to be.
“Have you been here before?” the shifter asks Latham and Torben.
