Page 2
Not shivering outside, hungover and sleep-deprived trying to get a hellhound to notice him.
He'd never travelled by hellhound before, though the idea had intrigued him for longer than he cared to admit. It was a privilege very few in Hell were awarded, and he was determined to be one of those few.
He had tried many times over the years to get one to approach him, yet each attempt had ended in failure. Yesterday, however, his brother had suggested an offering of pickled eggs to entice one to him. So, pickled egg in hand, he decided that today felt promising.
Statistically, he couldn't fail forever.
Probably.
Snowflakes melted on his deep sapphire skin, the kohl he’d lined his eyes with the night prior was now slightly smudged. He’d awoken in a hurry, dashing to find Wilder to help her collect… dragon eggs? Claw clippings? Well, something dragon related, at any rate.
He had, however, taken the time to pull his ice-blue hair into an elegant knot between his two curved horns, hoping to exude an aloof sort of grandeur.
Fresh air danced along his skin as he leaned against a spindly tree on the outskirts of a nearby clearing. The pungent aroma of pickled egg held out in his hand wafted into the air, a beacon for any hellhound nearby. This place was an infamous hellhound hunting ground and since the beasts were the fastest way to cross Hell, patience here usually paid off. Sooner or later, one would appear.
Early morning rays of sun poked through the trees as a hellhound finally loped towards him. In one smooth swipe, her rough grey tongue darted out, scooping the pungent egg into her mouth. She glared at him then, expectantly.
Oleander rolled his shoulders back, allowing the barest hint of a smirk to pull at his lips.
“Alright, demon,” the hellhound growled. “Thirty white horses on a—”
“Teeth,” he interrupted.
“Let me finish the riddle!”
“Yes, but I already know the answer. It’s teeth.”
“How can you, an idiotic demon, possibly know the answer to a riddle I haven’t even finished yet?” The hellhound slammed a massive paw into the earth. The ground shuddered, and with it, a significant chunk of his confidence fled him.
“It’s a difficult riddle, to be sure.” He bowed low. “It’s only that I’ve heard it before.”
“Where?” she snarled. “From another hellhound? They dare use my riddle?”
“I read it in a book.” He brushed nonexistent dust from his jacket. “It’s also the most common riddle that hellhounds use. Might be best to choose a new one, I’d think.”
She narrowed her metallic-grey eyes. “What book?”
“Oh, some silly mortal novel that found its way to Hell.”
She growled, a low rumble of displeasure rippling through the air around him. “I hope you had a light breakfast.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said with bravado he didn’t quite feel. Still, he hauled himself onto the gigantic back of the hellhound just before she leapt into the shadows.
True to her word, it was a horrific ride.
A cross between smoke and tangible shadow, hellhounds were only just corporeal enough to hold onto. Riding one, however, required a significant amount of faith in the physical aspect of the creature that both looked and felt more like smoke than actual being.
And in no time he was being whisked away up through the Circles of Hell.
Calling the five domains of Hell “Circles” was a slight misnomer. They were more like wide rings stacked atop of each other, connected by a vacuous tunnel aptly named the Void.
The Void transported one all the way from the Rune Circle—where Oleander lived—up through all the other Circles. He clung to the shifting shadows he was riding as they darted up two Circles through the frigid umbra of the Void; any joy he’d felt at finally riding a hellhound had since frozen into regret.
The moment they’d arrived at the edge of the forest of the Fauna Circle, the hellhound had simply tossed him into a snowbank, powdered frost billowing in her wake as she bounded away.
He fixed the retreating figure with a glare that promised all manner of unpleasant consequences… though it lost some of its menace from where he lay sprawled in the snow.
A moment later, he surrendered to the inevitable and flopped back into the snow, watching fat flakes drift from the sky as he wondered, not for the first time, how his life had taken such a spectacularly unfortunate turn.
