Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Nina
Entwined limbs, lustful parties and extravagant feasts stared back at me, their details so vivid it was hard to believe they were paintings.
I hadn’t noticed them when I first arrived.
Now, they were everywhere I looked, crowding each wall of every corridor I turned down.
My gaze was drawn to scandalous displays: flushed faces and bodies locked in ecstasy, their passion almost leaping off the canvas.
My stomach flipped.
It wasn’t the lustful scenes that did it. It was people gorging themselves, their hands grasping at mountains of food stacked high. I’d never seen so much food. And the people were obsessed with stuffing themselves, oblivious to the mess around them.
I couldn’t look away, my thoughts drifting to all the times Tobias and I had gone hungry. There had never been enough food – sometimes not even scraps – yet here was a feast no one could finish. I wondered if the depictions were real or an artist’s imagination.
The corridors blurred together, and I passed a handful of ornate doors similar to the ones to my bedchamber.
Laughter drifted from one set of golden doors and when I strained to listen, the giggles gave way into soft, breathy moans.
I kept moving, ignoring all the distractions in the palace of Temptation.
It was the words of the invitation that I wanted front of mind: the Domain of Fear. What awaited me there?
I didn’t agree to be anyone’s Champion, whatever that meant.
I took several turns and two staircases, as Elise had led me down earlier.
Ignoring the stairs leading to whatever lay forbidden in the depths of this palace, I followed the route carefully, turning left at a tapestry that displayed a bloody battle, then veering right at a pair of stone gargoyles perched high above a doorway. But when I came to a vase, I paused.
A sensation came over me – a strange, intense urge to grab the vase and stow it away in my bedchamber. I stared at the solid gold object, and my fingers twitched. The temptation to steal it surged through me.
How absurd.
I didn’t need a vase when I was in Hell. But still, the strange tingling made my fingers twitch. The pull was undeniable.
I gritted my teeth and forced myself to move on. There were too many things about this place that weren’t right.
I moved faster, my boots striking the tiled floor, the sound ricocheting off the walls like a frantic heartbeat.
Then another sound came, just enough to make me pause. It was a whisper, soft and layered, as if a dozen voices spoke at once.
“Nina.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Who’s there?”
But no one appeared. I was alone, and paranoia was sinking in.
I shook it off and continued forward, heading for the ground level and the nearest escape from the palace.
On the final grand staircase, a pleasant spicy aroma grabbed me in mid-step.
My stomach tightened, and all I could think about was that delicious smell.
My feet started moving in the direction it was coming from.
I snuck past a long, stretched-out fabric that spanned the length of the hallway as I focused on the voices.
I recognised the clipped tone, ringing out from the room. “And what time will dinner be ready?”
I drifted through an archway and into another absurdly large room. It was a cathedral-sized kitchen. Copper pans hung on the walls, and bottles of wine in every colour crowded shelves. The worktops sparkled, and some of the glass jars blinked when I passed.
Elise sat at the kitchen island ahead, with her back to me.
My eyes went wide when I scanned the room, realising the other voice came from a creature somewhere between a badger and a goblin.
Hunched over the sink at the kitchen island, its fur thick and flecked, it scrubbed a plate aggressively, muttering, “Why must I always wash the entrails away?”
“You missed a spot, Kob,” Elise snickered.
The creature revealed a row of unpleasantly brown, crooked teeth. “You want maggots in your tea for the next decade?”
She scoffed and reached for an apple from the overflowing fruit bowl.
“Touch it,” Kob warned, “and I’ll curse you to a night scratching Baba Yaga’s blistered backside.”
She took it anyway and bit down with a loud crunch.
The creature – Kob – gruffed. “I used to advise kings. Now look at me.”
I stepped closer and cleared my throat. “Is it always this friendly around here?”
They both glared at me. “What do you want?” Elise said.
I held up the parchment. “This just arrived. Any idea what it means?”
Elise gestured vaguely with her apple. “Ask him.”
The creature eyed me carefully and then my invitation. “It means you’re in the game.”
“Right, the game with the damned. Leander said the same thing.”
“The—” He tilted his head, blinking. “Where did I leave those damn maggots . . .” He turned away without finishing his thought, muttering as he attacked another plate with theatrical vengeance.
I risked a glance at Elise.
She was staring at me like I was a bug, and she hadn’t decided whether to flick me away or pin me to a board for examination later.
I cleared my throat and stared into Kob’s furry head. “So, you were telling me about this game . . .”
“The game has been played across the six domains since before my time.”
“Six domains,” I said slowly. “And I’m supposed to . . . what? Compete? Play along? Win something?”
“The bookie will have answers. She deals in odds. Might tell you who’s betting on you not making it through the week.”
Everyone was sending me around in circles.
“So where can I find this bookie?”
“The Betting Hall. This one can show you where it is.” The creature pointed a soapy paw towards Elise.
“She can find her own way, Kob. I’ve done enough for one day.”
“Humans,” the creature muttered, flicking soapy water dangerously close to Elise’s boots. “Always so difficult.”
Then, his form wobbled. Fur receded, his limbs stretched, and his nose lengthened until he stood taller and leaner. He now looked more like a baboon. He leapt from his spot near the sink and landed gracefully on the worktop before me.
He gave me a once-over, taking in the state of my clothes and the fact that I still looked like I’d been dragged through a battlefield.
“Demons don’t play fair, remember that,” he said, like it should’ve been obvious.
Right. Hell. Demons. A game I didn’t agree to. Excellent.
“You’re not a demon, are you?”
That earned a bark of laughter. “Are you blind?”
I felt heat rising to my cheeks.
“My kind are called sprites,” he said. “You won’t get far if your brain is full of sawdust. The bookie will see that things are fixed in your mind.”
“Thanks,” I said, nodding.
“ELISE,” the creature barked. “Show this Champion to the Betting Hall.”
“No need to screech,” she snapped at him, then turned to me. “Come on then. I’m not waiting around all day.”
I scooted after her.
The Betting Hall was round and domed, an upside-down cauldron, with walls covered in velvet drapes, their sheen the green-black of beetle shells. Chandeliers emitted a low copper-toned light, reminding me of how dusk would filter through the forest. But I wasn’t in my village anymore.
Pillars ringed the Betting Hall, as did velvet-cushioned booths. As my eyes adjusted to the low light, I became aware of just how many other beings were pacing about in the room.
Apparently, damnation in Temptation came with perks.
Hell-dwellers were spread out across the space. Laughter erupted as some flung cards and round tokens onto tables. They sipped drinks, eyes glinting as they gambled.
My gaze drifted to the odd contraption suspended in the centre of the room. It was a giant metal hexagon that turned slowly. Two of its sides were blank, but the other four displayed faces I didn’t recognise. Then one caused me to pull back.
My lungs forgot how to work.
My likeness hung among the others like a pinned insect, perfect in detail yet wrong in every way that mattered. The girl in the portrait was staring straight ahead, a goofy smile on her lips, her eyes wild, her eyebrows lifted in a slightly bemused expression.
“Oh, good. You’re here,” said a smooth voice. “It saves me a trip. “
Leander leaned against one of the velvet-draped pillars, arms crossed, grin razor-wide. He looked just as he had when he came to me in The Crossing. Black shirt and trousers, hair slicked back.
Others glanced my way, and then their eyes went wide with excitement, as if I were some sort of celebrity.
Yes, that is me up there that you’re all staring at, I wanted to hiss. But I thought better of it when I noticed many Hell-dwellers here were not wholly human.
Some souls had horns protruding from their heads. Others had skin like lizards, and some moved with a creepy saunter, snakes slithering in a pit.
I swallowed and forced my feet forward, my stomach clenching. “What is this place?”
“Where we bet on whether you’ll survive,” Elise snickered.
Leander swept an arm towards the spinning contraption above. “Odds, little Champion, and wagers.” He pointed lazily to my face.
Now I saw it clearly: my name scrawled beneath my image, beside a golden number. It read MINUS TWO. The next portrait was a man named Felix: PLUS ONE. Then Amabel, with numbers that read PLUS THREE. And the final portrait was Ronan: PLUS FIVE.
Ronan had the best odds of all. I had no idea what the numbers meant, only that my score appeared to be the lowest among them.
“You haven’t got great odds that you’ll make it past the first domain, I’m afraid.”
I watched the mechanism as it turned, my heart pounding as the faces kept rotating – blank eyes, crooked grins, all staring back. “You’re betting on whether I die?”
“Technically,” he said, “you’re already dead.”
Dead and corrected. Love this for me.
A voice rose across the room, full of rasping glee. “Three to one, she’ll be obliterated in Fear!”