12
The next day, fully geared for battle in a white jumpsuit and sandals, I await Lizander’s arrival, but he doesn’t come. I curse to myself. Of course, just when I decide to go to practice, no one comes for me.
I cross my arms, drumming my fingers on my elbow. The bars around the bed held me captive all night. I can’t help but see the parallel between them and the drugs. They did the same to me – they became the bars between me and the monsters.
They held me prisoner.
Darya is right. If I want to escape from this cage, I need to be strong.
Blushing at the thought of Darya, I remember how I pressed my head into the ground, stifling a moan when he kissed my stomach. No. Enough of Darya.
I open the book I found a few days ago. I also promised myself last night that I would absorb all the information I could.
I revel in the small joy of reading, as I’m beginning to understand the text.
Apparently, the drugs blocked this ability of mine.
I try to think of the pills with hatred, but the longing is still strong.
I know the language, but it seems as if it was written thousands of years ago.
The letters are distorted – non-European – and yet I can connect them.
Above the drawing of a woman, punctuation marks form a small word: Pandora .
I run my index finger over the engraved writing, then stare at the woman’s portrait.
She’s so attractive that it’s almost overwhelming.
She seems fragile, someone to protect, but in her hands she holds a small piece of the world – a little black jewelry box.
On the next page, creatures’ massive wings protrude from the rough paper. They resemble Darya’s servants, but their heads are more elongated – bony – and their faces are indistinguishable.
“I see you like reading,” a familiar deep voice says from the doorway. My heartbeat accelerates suddenly, my muscles tense. As yesterday taught me, I have to be alert all the time.”
However, upon seeing the orange-haired man, I drop my shoulders.
The demon rests against the mud wall, arms crossed.
I heard no noise when he entered. His tight, dark clothes cling to him, revealing well-defined muscles.
A wheat-colored, oval pattern breaks the black below the neckline and is repeated on his thighs – narcissus petals.
There’s no movement in the room; his fern-green cape doesn’t flutter. Lizander.
“I don’t understand everything,” I reply.
He looks at me thoughtfully with his hazel-brown eyes, then gently pushes himself off the wall and approaches me. His movement is so calm that I’m not afraid to let him sit next to me on the bed. Pulling my knees under my thighs, I point to the woman’s picture. “Pandora.” Lizander nods.
“I can read that,” I say, “but what about the rest?”
Lizander sighs slowly. I’ve never seen a man so sad.
“You don’t know her story?”
I do, but I want him to tell it.
“Pandora was a beautiful woman. No one could harm her because killing such beauty is the greatest sin. But, like every human, she had her own faults. She was too curious. They say Théos gave her a box almost as beautiful as she was, but forbade her from opening it.” Lizander’s pale eyes scan the lines; only the wrinkles on his forehead betray that he sometimes struggles to interpret the language.
“Of course, she opened it,” he continues, “and like every woman, brought doom upon men.”
He looks at me lazily, expecting a reaction, but I just stare at him, waiting.
“That was a joke,” he says.
“Oh,” I hum. “Warn me next time. I don’t understand underworld humor.”
Lizander smiles softly, but only for a moment.
He’s so different from Nárs. His face is beautiful, like a finely sculpted statue.
I would like to touch the delicate dimples.
“Pandora opened the box and Hell was unleashed on humanity – famine ravaged, sickness swept across the earth. And then we were born – demons.”
“But you said… Well, Nárs said,” I say, smoothing a lock of hair behind my ear in embarrassment, “that, um… demons come from humans.”
“This is true,” Lizander replies. “However, our ancestors originate from here. It became clear that we couldn’t reproduce. We had to find humans.”
“Sounds like-”
“No,” Lizander asserts. “I wasn’t there either. I also come from the Third World.”
“Third World?” I ask, surprised.
“Where we are now is the Second World. Yours is the Third – the humans’. What you call Heaven and Hell is the First. The real one. Théos or Diávolo awaits you there somewhere. At least you still have a choice.”
I bite my lip.
“I don’t think I have many options,” I comment quietly.
Lizander looks up from the book, surprised.
“Why do you think that?”
“ You owe me, I heard my brother say yesterday.” Lizander leans closer, and I can already feel his narcissus-scented breath.
I see the subtle layer of powder covering his face, the brownish contour emphasizing the arch of his eyelids.
His lips stand out with natural matte lipstick against his bronzed complexion.
His eyebrows are neatly shaped and lightly painted, like a model before a photoshoot.
His pale-brown eyes scrutinize sadly, and I look at him in a way I hope shows I am someone he can confide in.
But this is only the second time I’ve talked to him.
Although for him to sit beside me, I know that if his lips were a bit longer, if his drawn eyes were just a shade darker, and if the circles under his eyes were fainter, he wouldn’t be here with me anymore.
Only someone skilled can create such natural makeup, and I doubt Lizander is that.
He notices something, and his gaze hardens. He nods almost imperceptibly.
“Yes,” he whispers, leaning closer to me. My face warms and my breath becomes heavier. “Anytime he can…”
Suddenly, he holds his head in his hands and sighs softly. He rubs his eyelids.
“Lizander?” I ask, moving cautiously closer.
The man opens his eyes, pulls me into his arms, and kisses me.
Stunned, I don’t kiss back, but my lips soften as his tongue breaks between them.
His eyes are black, and the circles have disappeared.
I cry out, pushing him away with all my strength.
I jump up, vigorously wipe my mouth, and crawl back.
“You asshole!”
“Oh, Little Flower, no need to behave so aggressively again!” Nárs licks his lips with pleasure, like an art collector running his finger along a frame. “Nice to know you accept Lizander’s tongue.”
I shake with anger.
“Did you think,” Nárs begins, “that my promise not to touch you would apply to other days?”
“You said you wouldn’t do it without my permission!”
Nárs thinks about this for a while.
“Well,” he starts, “even if I said that, I didn’t mean it. Now, can we go?”
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” I state, crossing my arms. “Bring Lizander back!”
Nárs shrugs.
“No. Either you come with me, or another demon takes you. And he may not be as kind as—”
“Then I choose the other demon!”
Nárs jumps up, raising his palms in surrender.
“Okay, okay! Calm down, Lily Girl!” he says, jumping towards me. From a pockets on his thigh, he pulls out a black eyeliner. One that’s mine.
“What do you say we make a deal?” He winks at me. “You come with us every day, and I occasionally return your masking tools.”
He offers me the eyeliner reverentially. I sigh loudly. It’s likely that the man wouldn’t give me to hungry demons, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility that every day he knocks me out and takes me to Kripot.
“It’s called makeup,” I say, taking the pencil from him and placing it in the small pocket of my jumpsuit.
Nárs claps his hands in joy.
“New word, new word!” he rejoices, putting his arm around my shoulder.
“Your endurance is terrible. Your concentration is worse than a fish swimming in a river…”
“Keep going!” I beg Kripot, while doing crunches with a stone in my hand because my ‘coach’ says my own weight is not enough for anything. “You motivate me too well!”
“Your activation is careless, like someone who has never fought for anything in their life.”
I groan weakly as the stone lands on my stomach. I’m not strong enough to hold it. Obviously.
“I was being ironic,” I snarl after pushing the stone away, but I can’t fully extend my arm anymore.
The sun is high, and Kripot hasn’t given me a single compliment all day.
“You know,” I begin again after my twelfth and seemingly meaningless crunch, which, according to Kripot, only counts as seven, “you and… Nárs would make a great couple.”
The blue giant’s eyes twitch under the wrinkles for the first time today – that’s the most expression I’ve seen from him.
“Seriously,” I groan as the stone lifts slightly, “you two would complete each other.”
The weight falls on my stomach, squeezing the air out of me, but my comment to Kripot perks me up.
“Or am I wrong?” I ask with a wicked smile.
Kripot withstands my gaze for a while. He might be the only one in this damn hell who can’t fake himself.
His face is motionless, but his eyes reveal everything.
He’s uncomfortable. To his credit, he quickly recovers.
With one hand, he rolls the stone off my stomach and tosses it away as if throwing a rubber ball.
“Run,” he announces, pointing to a painted track that wasn’t there yesterday. Oh, me and that damn mouth of mine!
Kripot makes me run for the rest of the day, only leaving me alone when I collapse.
Finally, I can have some water. When I asked for the flask during training, he had shaken his head, saying there isn’t always an opportunity to drink on the battlefield.
I have to get used to thirst. Nor can I rest when tired, because there’s ‘no break on the battlefield’.
Despite liking the mace, he forbids me from trying it.
“It makes no sense for you to touch such weapons with such a pathetic, weak body.”
“Shouldn’t I learn to defend myself before a demon reaches me?”
“It doesn’t matter what we try. Before you would manage to pick up the mace, the creature would already be playing with your head.
It’s better to use what little time is left for you.
Four moonturns from now, you will die. You have no chance against the monster,” he states, presenting it as a fact without hate or pity in his voice.
Blood drains from my face, and I have to grasp the table loaded with weapons.
It seemed so unbelievable when Darya said I have to fight a monster.
I completely forgot about it. I couldn’t believe it, but now a picture flashes before me – a huge dragon roasting someone with its fiery breath.
I don’t understand Darya. I’m just a human.
Yesterday, I couldn’t even defend myself from a single demon!
Everyone except him would agree with Kripot that I have no chance of winning. What sick game is the Demon King playing with me? Why is it worth it for him to occupy the time of his subjects just to prepare me for an impossible fight? A fight that is already lost, according to my trainer?
I feel like I’m about to collapse.
“Does Darya want to sacrifice me?” I whisper.
“I don’t exactly know what the Kraldem wants with this fight,” Kripot confesses. “But even if that’s the case, don’t you want to prove him wrong?”
I ponder on this, stroking the knives on the stone table. No one has ever believed in me. They never believed that I could see monsters.
No.
There are two possibilities: Either Darya is just toying with me, or he really does believe in me. But then, why shouldn’t I believe in myself?
I pick up one of the knives from the table. I won’t let them execute me; let an insane demon play with me at his pleasure. It may be impossible, but if I don’t give myself a chance, that’s the greatest sin I can commit.
With the dagger in hand, I decisively turn to Kripot.
“How do we continue?” I ask.
He points to one of the targets.