“Whatever it is you saw,” Sidraeus had said, “it isn’t real. Understand?”
She’d nodded. But oh, it had felt real, the pull of hell calling her forth.
And now here she was, her mind her own again, yet still willingly heading toward it.
Emory and Sidraeus kept walking down the path in silence, and she was glad he didn’t push her to admit what she’d seen. Still, she had so many questions about this place, about where they were headed. Curiosity finally got the better of her.
“The souls who choose to go down to the abyss,” she said slowly. “Do they ever get to… move on?”
Or was eternal damnation what her own soul had nearly chosen?
Sidraeus seemed to consider his answer. “Most souls remain there forever, too caught up in their own personal hell to earn a chance at new life. They are trapped in stone, weighed down by torment of their own making. But if they break free of it, shed their past… It is said a freed soul transforms into a bird, taking flight from the bowels of the abyss to climb back up this path through the roots of the tree. And make their way up to the godsworld fountain to be reincarnated.”
The image should have been beautiful—calling to mind the gulls Emory, Baz, and Romie had chased on the beach of their youth. But all Emory saw was the gulls from the vision the path had subjected her to. The taste of being left behind, and leaving others behind.
She wanted out of this place.
“We’re almost there,” Sidraeus said quietly, as if sensing her unease.
Emory latched onto the calmness of his voice. For someone who’d yearned so long to escape the sleeping realm, the death and dark he was born to, it must be a strange homecoming to find himself here again. And yet, looking at him, the sureness of his steps, the way he seemed tobelongto the dark, she couldn’t help but wonder if part of him had missed his realm. Or at least, the freedom he’d had to roam within its vast borders before he was imprisoned by the god of balance.
“Have you ever been this far down the path?” She wanted desperately to understand him, if only to escape her own mind.
“Never had a reason to. The stray souls I ferried here chose their own way. I might have walked alongside a few of them for a time, when they needed it, but never far.”
There are no souls on the path now,he added in her mind.Yet I feel them waiting in the abyss, restless and angry. It’s as if, with the fountain in the godsworld all dried up, they had nowhere to go but hell, forced down there even if they might not belong. I fear what they might do once we get there.
An unpleasant shiver ran up Emory’s spine at the thought of encountering an angry mob of ghosts. She had experience with ghosts, had been plagued by them for so long, she shouldn’t fear them so much anymore. But Sidraeus’s concern worried her. The deity she’d come to know was nothing if not sure of himself. Until now.
The path seemed narrower here; their arms brushed as they walked side by side. Emory let the warmth of him anchor her. Soothe her. It cleared her worries enough that a thin, tentative courage clawed its way to the surface. In her mind, she said,Whatever awaits us, we can face it together.
She felt Sidraeus’s eyes on her and tilted her head up to meet his gaze. She wanted him to know she trusted him at her side. There was no one else she’d rather have with her to face the hell they were walking into.
His lips parted, eyes trailing down to her mouth, and she realized how close they stood; realized they’d stopped walking, too. She was about to step away when Sidraeus’s head snapped to attention.
Emory barely had time to register what was happening. Suddenly she was pinned against one of the obsidian columns bordering the path, with Sidraeus’s body pressed against hers. He was enveloping her like a shield, she realized, as a howling, raging wind blew past them, like a tempest of power. The sound of it assaulted her ears. She thought she heard distant screaming voices, all of it an unhinged melody.
Peeking under Sidraeus’s arm, she glimpsed a face in the strangerush of power. Someone was moving past them, heading up the path. Their features seemed distorted within the gust of power, shifting between multiple faces, giving the impression it was not one person but many.
One of them, she thought she recognized. The ghost of a boy she couldn’t place but was certain she’d seen before. He seemed to feel her eyes on him and began to turn his head toward her. Sidraeus pressed closer against her, blocking her view entirely. She could only hear the wind that kept rushing past, raging, unending.
Until at last it stopped.
Sidraeus didn’t move for a time. And when he did pull back, it was slow and tentative, keeping her trapped within the frame of his arms. His face was so close to her own, she could feel his breath on her skin, panting in sync with her own labored breathing, laced with the same fear she felt. As if reluctantly, Sidraeus pulled farther away to glance over his shoulder, making sure the path was clear before letting her go.
Whatever that had been was gone.
“Were those—was that a soul?” Emory asked breathily.
“No.” Sidraeus’s voice cracked. “Those were gods.”
Before the words could register, screams echoed from farther down the path. Sidraeus grabbed her hand and tugged her toward it with renewed urgency. The path became so narrow she had to trail behind him, though his hand never left hers.
The ground suddenly disappeared beneath their feet, and they were falling through a tangle of obsidian roots, Sidraeus pulling her against him, and she holding on to him for dear life, bracing for impact.
It never came. They landed softly on their feet thanks to the thick swath of shadows Sidraeus had conjured around them. For a second Emory could see only darkness, Sidraeus holding her steady like an anchor. Then the shadows dissipated, and details cameinto focus. They stood in the middle of what looked like the fountain in the sea of ash, but a dark twin of it.
They’d made it to hell.
