Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Nina
When I entered the Heart of Hell, I saw Dominik stumbling from Chaos. His brown hair was dishevelled, and I noticed he was more bruised and bloodied than the last time I’d seen him.
“Are you doing okay?” I called.
He looked up and gave me a small smile. “We’re in Hell, so what do you think?”
I cracked a grin, despite everything.
“Ready to face the last one?” I asked.
“Together?”
I thought back to the truth Dominik gave in Chaos. He would betray me. I should say no. Tell Dominik to go on without me. But we had come to Hell together. It was only fitting that this should end together.
I nodded.
We let the pull of the final domain in The Cycle tug us down the walkway and through the veil.
One moment, I stood on cracked obsidian ground.
Next, my boots sank into soft, mossy earth.
The valley stretched wide beneath a blood-smeared sky.
On the horizon, a storm churned, and black tornadoes tore at the land.
The wind carried a low moan, and I wondered if it was the demon, welcoming us into her domain.
Dominik sighed. “This place definitely wants us obliterated.”
His words struck a chord. Misery wasn’t new to me. I’d lived it, fought it, and survived it. Today would be no different.
As we pressed on, the whispers began. They brushed against my ears softly. I ignored them, eyes fixed on the treacherous terrain.
“We have to keep moving.” My voice cracked.
Despite the perilous weather, the heat grew thick and feverish, seeping into my bones. Sweat gathered at the back of my neck and trickled down my spine. The deeper into the valley we went, the worse it became.
The first screech made my heart pound. The sky convulsed above, and lightning shot into the valley. A second screech erupted from the clouds as a creature came barrelling towards us.
“Run!” Dominik roared. The ground heaved and split, and a fiery, glowing liquid burst through the moss.
More monsters emerged from the clouds, and their screeches ripped through me. They were above us now, swooping low with open talons. They were half-starved things with long, stretched faces and skeletal figures.
“They’re ghouls,” Dominik said. “We need to get out of the valley or they’ll destroy us.”
“Do we even know where we’re going,” I said, “or are we just running until something else tries to eat us?”
“The tornadoes,” Dominik yelled, pointing to the horizon. “I can see a castle just below them.”
Sleet began slicing through the air, blurring my vision. I squinted, but couldn’t see anything through the storm.
When did the bloody snowstorm start?
We were sprinting through the valley when talons caught my shoulder. I spun, striking out with my blades. The creature shrieked, dissolving into mist. But another took its place, and another. There were too many swooping down with sharp talons. I couldn’t fight them all.
“Keep going,” Dominik yelled. “This way.”
We ran through the chaos. And soon, a shape emerged through the blizzard. A fortress with spires, no windows, and doors made of iron.
I fought off the ghouls, sprinting behind Dominik across the valley. He reached the iron door first and heaved it open. He tumbled inside, and I made it just in time, dashing in after him. The door groaned shut, sealing with a shuddering clang.
We slumped to the ground, panting, our breath rising in pale clouds.
The sleet and snowstorm brought the chill, and my hands hurt from the cold.
We sat in silence, the storm blowing outside. My thoughts drifted to our village, the pyre, and the smell of smoke clinging to our clothes. “Do you ever think about the village?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
"I miss Firstfire.”
"I'm glad to be rid of it,” he said. "The Cunning Folk never held the rituals for our benefit. They wanted us to be afraid, so we'd be more inclined to align with a sin of Hell.”
"So you know about the village? The truth of what it was?”
He laughed softly. "Yeah. We were in purgatory all along.”
I nodded. "Doesn't seem real, does it?”
“I wasn’t all that surprised,” he said. “Purgatory only preserved a world for souls destined for Hell. That means every neighbour we ever had was damned. Makes sense to me. There were a lot of bastards back home.”
I frowned and sank into the quiet.
Tobias was always destined for Hell.
That truth was harder to face than I realised.
Dominik pulled a flask from his belt and twisted the cap. “You should drink something,” he said, offering it to me.
The thought of cold water made my throat ache. I reached for it, but the moment I held the flask up to my nose, I froze. A faint, bitter almond scent wafted up.
I frowned. “It smells like almonds.”
Dominik smiled faintly. “Yeah, it’s a concoction from Chaos. One of the souls there taught me how to brew it. Helps with nerves.”
Something uneasy coiled low in my gut. My fingers tightened around the flask before I forced myself to let go. “I’ve never liked almonds,” I said quietly.
He watched me before slipping the flask back to his belt. “Suit yourself.”
I exhaled slowly.
It smelled exactly like poison hemlock, the same scent I’d found in Temptation. Maybe I should have realised sooner. The convenient weapons he’d taken to Torment. The shortcut in Chaos that nearly got me killed. The constant whispers to distrust the others.
Dominik had been sabotaging me since day one.
“Did you ever go back to Temptation?”
He blinked, wary. “After the trial?”
“Yeah.”
A beat passed. “Why?” he asked.
I met his eyes. “Just curious.”
"I just visited the one time.” He couldn't look me in the eye.
I knew, then, I’d been right not to trust him. Whatever game Dominik was playing, the boy I’d once known was long gone.
The man who sat beside me now had been twisted by the Demon of Chaos.
"We should get moving,” I said, straightening.
We ran through the passages, our footsteps echoing off the stone. The castle stretched like a maze, each turn collapsing into another corridor draped in dust and shadow. Somewhere ahead, a melody drifted through the air. Distant words, mournful sounds.
I could’ve sprinted down the corridor toward the sound and away from Dominik, my enemy. That’s all he was now. He’d sabotage me if it meant his victory. But I had just as much to lose. And I’d burn through every domain in Hell if it meant returning to Tobias.
“Do you hear that?” Dominik whispered.
I nodded, slowing as the song grew clearer. The melody guided us down a spiralling stairwell. The further we descended, the colder it became.
We arrived in a ballroom that might once have been grand. Cracked marble stretched beneath our boots, and a shattered chandelier lay tangled across the floor. A piano sat near the far wall, its ivory keys yellowed and broken, the faint tune still trembling from the instrument, though no one played.
A figure emerged from a gloomy passage, tall and thin, wrapped in flowing, tattered robes.
Her hair hung in wet clumps like she had just crawled from the depths of a drowned world.
Her skin shifted in and out of existence, patches flickering between solid flesh, and translucent, ghost-like.
But her eyes remained constant, glassy and intense.
This was the Demon of Misery.
I had seen terrifying creatures before: Madalena, with her twisted beauty and razor-edged grace, and Alexei, not pinned in reality.
But Yvette?
She was pure sorrow, distilled into something that breathed.
Dominik stiffened beside me. His hand moved towards his belt. The demon laughed, and the sound crawled beneath my skin.
“You struggle,” she whispered, her voice dripping with something syrupy, intoxicating. “But Hell already owns you. You fight hard for freedom, yet you do not understand. There is no escape. You are bound and marked, and in the end, your soul will be swallowed whole.”
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms. “I’ve heard this before.”
“But you do not believe it. Would you like to see?”
Before I could react, her form dissolved like the ghouls from the valley. A moment later, she solidified beside me. Cold, clammy fingers brushed my forehead, and the world snapped.
Tobias stands in the fire-lit woods behind our childhood home, his hands covered in blood.
His eyes meet mine, dark and menacing. He hands me a dead animal.
It is not the kind of kill I’ve seen father make.
This is something else. Tobias looks so delighted with himself, and he grins, eager to show me more of his collection . . .
I gasped as my mind was released from whatever vision Yvette had given me.
But it wasn’t right. Tobias had been good, kind, pure.
Hadn’t he?
Yvette’s voice slithered through my mind. “He was meant for Hell. Just like you. Just like every single Champion before you.”
I stumbled back and suddenly doubted my strength. My breath was uneven. I forced myself to look up and gaze deep into the demon’s eyes. “Why did you show me that?”
She grimaced. “Because I was once like you. And, you are no fool, Nina Varek. So, stop acting like one.”