8. Chapter 8 #3
“That fucking Augustine guy, huh?” I say, pressing my face against the foggy glass.
“I can’t believe that I fell for his charm.
Do you know him, or was that your first time meeting him too?
” I glance over at the guard, who stares back at me with his yellow, unblinking eyes but says nothing.
“Right,” I mutter. “Of course you don’t.
He’s probably some mercenary looking to appease the queen in exchange for bloodmagic. And I was his peace offering.”
Through the windowpane, which is now smeared with tears, the sprawling city of Eighrora spans out underneath the castle’s silhouette.
It’s littered with golden houses and markets brimming in color, along with awnings brighter than the sun.
I imagine that beneath all those awnings, shopkeepers are doling out candy-covered secrets in exchange for bottled-up sadness and stardust-coated sins.
I even go as far as convincing myself that emotions are illegal in a place such as this, per penalty of death—a rule created by the Goddess of Love herself.
Eighrora is the city of the gods, after all.
And the gods detest fickle mortal emotions and pretentious things such as love.
So it wouldn’t be that far of a stretch to imagine as such.
“So, what’s your name?” I ask the guard as the carriage trundles around the city’s perimeter and finally takes to the curvy roads leading up the side of the mountain.
The castle looms larger with every passing minute, nearly blinding me with how bright it is.
The guard stares back at me, but says nothing.
“I was just wondering,” I add, chewing on my bottom lip, “in the event that I manage to procure a weapon and murder you with it in your sleep. Without a name, I suppose we shall have to settle on an unmarked grave. You’re familiar with graves, aren’t you?
” I cock a brow at him. He stares back at me in silence.
The carriage bobs over a dip in the road and then winds around a bend on the cliffside.
I can see the Leviathan Sea from our vantage point, crashing against the shoreline where a bunch of jagged rocks await the tide.
I wonder how many people have tossed themselves over the edge in order to evade the queen’s wrath.
Or worse, how many people she’s tossed over the edge for no reason other than for entertainment purposes.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” I say to the guard as the carriage lulls to a halt before the castle front door. “I can’t imagine dying, only for an evil queen to scoop me up out of the ground and play with me like a puppet. It must be miserable.”
The guard blinks at this. I’ve never seen a guard blink before. But just as I think we’re about to have a moment—and perhaps he’s about to come to the realization that he’s wrong, and he will unlock my handcuffs and release me—he props open the door and yanks me out of the carriage.
My feet hit the dirt, and I let out a staggered breath. I’ve spent so many years trying to avoid this very situation, and yet here I am, about to face the woman who has hunted me needlessly throughout the entirety of my existence without a valid reason.
I’m going to die in this place. I can feel it.
The guard drags me up the stone steps and to the front door of the castle.
Carved from archaic wood and brandished with celestial markings, the front door glows like it’s trying to spark a conversation.
Perhaps it’s trying to warn me to turn back around and spare myself from the carnage lurking within the castle halls.
But it’s far too late for that, considering how I tried turning around just now, only for the guard to yank me back by my hair.
“FUCK, that hurts!”
I throw my balled-up fists into the guard’s chest. He falters backward.
Unfortunately for me, he’s quickly replaced by a second guard who grabs hold of my flailing body and drags me through the front door by my arms. I kick at his shins.
He motions for another guard to assist him, who sweeps up my thrashing legs and growls until I stop wiggling.
Trapped between two creatures who shouldn’t even be breathing, I stare up at the high-vaulted ceiling, which is lined in flickering sconces and sweeping mosaics of the fallen on a battlefield.
The little paintings of their lifeless bodies make me wonder how my own ending will occur.
There will be no honor in it. I will simply become another sack of bones amongst a pile of corpses, my ashes destined to be buried underneath all the rubble, with no one but Solara to bid me farewell as I journey to the burning gates of Hell.
Because let’s face it, that’s exactly where I’m going.
I kick and scream through gritted teeth all the way up three flights of stairs and down endless sweeping corridors, until eventually, the guards drop me like a deadweight before a set of swinging double doors at least thirty feet in height.
I brace myself for their opening, expecting to come face to face with the gods themselves.
I even picture them seated on their diamond-studded thrones, garbed in cloaks of glistening gold, eager to cast judgements upon my inadequacies—which honestly, might take a while.
But as the door swings open, I find myself staring up at something else entirely.