Chapter 15 Discord #2
Cinder moved quickly, jabbing her knife into his side, piercing his formerly impenetrable armor.
Scales turned to dust as she removed the blade, but he whipped around, his upper half slamming into her, his tail snaking around her, pinning her arms to her sides, squeezing until her eyes bulged in their sockets.
I threw hellfire at his face, blinding him long enough to hide my advance. Taking the knife from Cinder’s hand, I leaped onto Ascaroth’s back and reached around him, shoving the blade into his upper heart.
He wailed and thrashed, slamming me against the hedge while tightening his grip on Cinder. She wheezed, and one of her joints made a sickening pop. The hedge latched onto me, wrenching me from his back and pulling my arms and legs outward, my body forming a letter X.
Ascaroth howled, a gurgling, guttural sound that echoed through the maze like a death toll. For a heartbeat, I almost believed I saw something—remorse, or perhaps pleading—flash in his eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared, devoured by the monstrous hunger that had overtaken him.
The hedge thickened around me, pulling me deeper into the bramble, and Ascaroth focused on Cinder, unlatching his jaw and opening his mouth as if he planned to devour her.
Desperation surged through me as the hedge tightened its grip, thorns pressing into my skin and drawing blood. I gasped, straining against the branches, but they held fast, feeding off my pain. The maze pulsed with malevolent anticipation, its every shadow twisting in time with our agony.
I fought to steady my breath, sending healing energy to Cinder’s dislocated joint while setting my arms ablaze. The thorns screamed, burrowing deeper into my skin. Cinder followed my lead, igniting witch fire in her palms, allowing it to lick up her arms and burn through Ascaroth’s scales.
I added heat, my flames turning from blue to white to green. The hedge surrendered, shoving me out of its clutches. I fell to my knees, but this time, I did not hesitate. I hurled the second knife at my former friend, aiming for the fleshy space between his torso and where his scales began.
The blade hit home, sinking into his second heart. Ascaroth convulsed, his jaw snapping shut with a thunderous crack as the impact drove him backward. Then he froze, his expression one that asked how could you? before he crumbled into ashes and the angry maze absorbed him.
Cinder retrieved the knives, handing one to me and clutching her injured shoulder. For a moment, the maze fell eerily quiet, its tangled limbs recoiling as if wary of the wrath we had unleashed.
“Tell me that was the final boss battle,” she said, wincing as she attempted to move her arm.
“If we can make it to the center of the maze before the labyrinth recovers, then yes.” I tucked a tangled lock of hair behind her ear. “Ascaroth is the most powerful being I have seen succumb to this fate, but we must keep moving. I don’t know whom else Lucifer has tormented since my imprisonment.”
“Well, if we have to fight again, you’ll be on your own.” Her face pinched in pain. “My left arm is useless, unless you can pop it back into place.”
“I tried to heal you with magic.”
“With magic that’s getting weaker every time you use it. I felt it, but you’re going to have to get physical—and not in the Olivia Newton-John way.” She angled toward me, taking my hand and placing it on her dangling arm. “Lift, twist, and push.”
“That sounds like it will cause you more pain.”
“Oh, I’ll wail like a dying raccoon, but it’s the only way to fix it.”
I hesitated, loath to cause her more agony. “Are you certain it will work?”
“I’ve done it to Ember multiple times.” She braced a hand against my shoulder and widened her stance. “On three.”
I lifted, twisted, and shoved her arm back into place before she could utter the first count. A string of profanities spewed from her lips as she crouched and groaned, cradling her elbow in her hand.
“I said on three.” She rose, her face pinching, and she massaged the culpable joint.
“You would have tensed more if I’d waited, thus increasing your pain.”
Her nostrils flared, and her eye twitched. “Thank you. Now, how do we get out of here?”
“We run.” I clutched her hand, and we darted up the path. “Focus on the energy around you. Do you feel the low vibration?”
“Since the moment I got to Hell.”
“Go deeper. Feel the current running beneath it.” I tugged her down the path to our left.
“Whoa. That’s low and slow.” She visibly shuddered.
“That’s the energy of the maze.”
“It’s everywhere,” she said.
“Except for the center. Search for the void, the lack of vibration. That’s where we need to go.”
“It almost feels like a map.”
I nodded, keeping my gaze sharp for any movement in the maze. “If you concentrate, you’ll notice patterns within the vibration, a pulse guiding us.” The air prickled against my skin, the labyrinth preparing to shift. “Stay close and trust your instincts. The energy can help us, if we let it.”
“I’ll take all the help we can get.” Cinder matched my pace. “I really thought Lucifer had let us go for a minute. I thought he’d given us another chance to find Hecate.”
“He has. We’d be imprisoned or obliterated otherwise.”
“Then why in the goddess’s name did he throw us into this death trap?”
We turned right, and the hedges shifted, snaking across the ground and forming a wall in front of us.
“One word,” I said, my body tensing, preparing for whatever damned soul might emerge from the bush.
“Let me guess.” Cider clutched her knife and widened her stance. “Ego.”
“Precisely.” I slowly turned, expecting to find a creature behind us, but the maze had boxed us in. “His pride forces him to always appear in control, even when he’s obviously spiraling. He knows he needs our help, but he insists on reminding us of his power to destroy.”
The thorns hummed, and vines shot over our heads, creating a canopy above us.
Leaves grew in the thickening bramble, blocking the moonlight as the walls closed in around us.
Determined to devour us, to trap our souls and torture us for eternity, the labyrinth shook and grew, the leaves rustling as if in a windstorm.
I called on my fire, gathering the magic in my palm, but a vine jutted out, encircling my wrist and yanking my arm into the thicket before I could ignite a flame. The sensation of a million fire ants feasting on my flesh exploded across my skin.
Another vine snaked across the ground, latching onto Cinder’s ankle and jerking her from her feet. With my free hand, I shot a stream of hellfire at the branch. The thorns squealed, and it unraveled, releasing her.
I focused my flames onto my section of the hedge, burning a ring around my ensnared arm. The bush recoiled, ejecting me from its clutches, and Cinder joined me, shooting fire from her palms.
The maze closed in quickly on three sides, but the wall we burned shuddered and screeched, inching backward as we advanced.
“Which way to the center?” Cinder asked. “Let’s burn our way through.”
I opened my senses, searching for the void in the magic, but the pitch at which the thorns hummed and screamed hindered my ability to find it. “I don’t know. I can’t sense it.”
“Neither can I.” Cinder extinguished one hand and grasped my arm.
The moment her skin touched mine, my senses heightened. I felt a hollow emptiness to my right, so I turned and sent flames in the direction of the sensation. “It’s this way.”
The maze continued to close in, the canopy lowering as the walls pressed against us.
But the bush we burned was no match for our combined heat.
We pressed forward, each step a battle against the writhing, angry bramble blocking our path.
The air thickened with the scent of scorched arbor, and our combined fire carved a narrow passage through the chaos.
Ahead, the heart of the maze pulsed with malevolent energy, its presence growing stronger as we advanced. The hollowness called, beckoning us forward. We pushed through, burning everything around us until we stumbled into the center of the labyrinth.
Silence and frigid air engulfed us. Goosebumps pricked at my skin, and Cinder rubbed her arms. I stiffened, expecting a new wave of monsters to attack, but what entered was a gust so cold it rattled me to my bones.
A stone altar stood in the center of the void, and as we stepped toward it, the walls around us disappeared, inky blackness taking their place. A knife lay atop the table, and next to it stood an ornate, gilded vase depicting scenes of Lucifer’s subjects kneeling before him.
“Is this the center?” Cinder asked, her breath coming out in a cloud of steam. “How do we get out?”
“We make a sacrifice.” I eyed the ground, watching shadows dance across the stone and gather in a darkened corner. “Three drops of blood in honor of the king, pledging fealty.”
“Well, get on with it then.” She gestured to the altar, her gaze darting about on high alert.
The shadows undulated, gathering more darkness as they rose.
“Escape requires a sacrifice from us both,” I said.
She barked an incredulous laugh. “I am not giving the devil my blood, and I am definitely not pledging fealty to an egotistical dictator.”
From the darkened corner, a figure emerged, its outline shifting between solid and smoke. It turned its featureless face toward us and paused, regarding us.
“This is new.” My pulse thundered in my ears, and I held an arm in front of Cinder, ready to block the shadow creature’s advance.
“Friend of yours?” she asked, centering her weight.
“That beast is a friend of no one.”