15. The First Game
THE FIRST GAME
Seraphina
The air itself is hunger.
We stand in an obsidian hall; walls carved straight out of a mountain’s belly.
The humid air pulses, slow and rhythmic, like a sleeping dragon’s heartbeat.
Tables stretch farther than sight, perched on the smooth water-worn floor and heavy with food that shimmers under the glow of candelabra’s that are set every few feet apart.
It’s a wonder they can find any room among the feast. Even more of a wonder is how my skin hasn’t turned inside out like Diana had been so sure it would the moment we stepped through Silver’s hellgate.
I lick my lips and regret not taking the Overlord’s advice at breakfast.
How in the nine circles of Hell had I been so concerned about a stupid gate just moments ago?
How have I failed to notice how hungry I am?
Not hungry—starving!
An aching, ravenous beast is pounding on the walls of my stomach, and I somehow failed to notice.
My eyes are everywhere, trying to take it all in.
Golden fruits sweating honey.
Fine meats, still steaming, pink and perfect.
Chalices overflowing with wine that smells like home and sin all at once.
It coats my throat, every breath tasting like sugar and smoke.
A voice, Silver’s, echoes through the hall.
He stands at the top end of the table most of Ferrum are hovering around, his face painted in the gold and orange glow of candlelight, looking good enough to eat—
“Welcome to the first game. The feast of endless need.”
The feast is endless alright.
And I need to eat it all.
Down to the last crumb.
I’m an empty ravenous pit. Such food I have never seen, not even in the Mess Hall or the citadel’s gardens when the High Seraph was hosting. I never got to try it, but I watched from my turret and imagined it.
Silver doesn’t appear to notice the roasted vegetables closest to him, a tapestry of textures and tones brushing up against his leathers, tender and caramelized.
Or the decadent red velvet cake on the plate next to them. Will it be fluffy, or dense and moist? Rich or creamy?
I lick my lips again.
That’s when the Overlord clears his throat, and I bite down on my bottom lip, hard.
Sharp gray-gold eyes are looking right at me as course after course after course fills my senses.
Resist temptation, Seraphina.
But I don’t want to.
Is he going to eat that cake or just stand there?
More importantly, will he save any for the rest of us?
“You will remain here until dawn,” he explains as the seduction of sausages on a plate beside him look about ready to explode if someone doesn’t bite into them, and soon.
Overlords Yuvi and Zaheer break away from the huddles they formed with Aes and Stannum to join Silver.
Aes’s Overlord didn’t bring his pet hellhound. Shame, Ravi would love it here.
And eat all the food before you are even close to full!
All of us are here, all three Companies.
Even Diana with her very sore head and incessant apologies.
Too many mouths to share with.
Yuvi and Zaheer wish their units luck and disappear through the hellgate at Silver’s back.
Ferrum’s Overlord doesn’t wish us luck, no. He picks up the red velvet deliciousness, not a slice, the entire damn cake and plate, before stepping into the swirling white and blue flames with it.
The gate seals with a hiss, trapping all sixty-three of us inside like sardines.
Mmm… sardines. They have to have some around here somewhere.
I spy them on a plate at the end of the table that Lilliana is in line with.
Great. No sardines for me, or any of us. Selfish demoness won’t leave a single fin for the rest of us.
But wait… is that it? No instructions. No warnings. No rules or orders beyond that one.
Did Silver really need to take the entire cake?
Around me, the cadets split into smaller groups and exchange wary glances. The handful of nephilim recruits all gather closely together, praying under their breath.
Others grip their stomachs as if feeling the same ache inside them that I do in mine.
I try not to breathe too deeply. I try not to look at the roasted bird set nearest to me, its skin glistening with fat.
That’s when I hear another voice.
“Seraphina,” it whispers.
I freeze.
My mother’s voice.
No, it can’t be…
“Mom?”
The sound had come from over at the table, soft and coaxing. I search the empty seats, but my eyes are soon drawn to a bowl of fruit instead.
An apple the color of blood is looking at me.
I lean closer, and the voice whispers again.
“You must be starving,” my mother says. “Just a taste. You’ve suffered enough.”
My throat constricts. I haven’t heard her voice since…
No. It can’t be real. The voice is not real.
My stomach groans. I’ve been hungry before. Starving even. I spent my childhood not knowing what it feels like to be full.
This is different. Worse. Much worse.
Diana grazes a fingertip over a slice of bread buttered so thickly you’ll see teeth marks in it when someone takes a bite.
My mouth waters at the thought.
As though the crust is made of the finest bone china, Diana picks it up, lifts it to her nose, and breathes in deeply.
Several cadets suck in a breath too, Khali, Az and Reiva among them.
I glance between them, wondering if anyone is going to say something, or just let Diana be the guinea pig.
Why Diana? Why can’t it be Lilliana instead. It wouldn’t hurt a bit if something awful happened to her.
Then again, I may never end up finding the journal…
By the angels, I gasp, when did I get so close to the table?
To my left, the cambion male I recognize from the Triad as one of Aes Company's reaches out a trembling hand for a piece of fruit.
It’s so beautiful. So ripe. So exotic looking it’s a cursed shame I don’t know its name. I have no issue imagining its insides, though.
Juicy.
Sweet.
A sensation to the tastebuds.
I swallow, then force my feet to take a measured step back.
The boy's tongue runs over the skin first.
Nothing happens.
Relief flickers across his face and someone hisses at him to stop.
Az, maybe?
But it’s too late.
He bites down, and the moment his teeth pierce the fruit, he devours it like a starving beast, tearing and swallowing in frantic gulps.
The sounds are wet and desperate, echoing off the walls. Not eating. Feeding. The way I imagine a hellhound like Ravi to gorge on her first kill after being caged too long.
His breath is coming in snarls, as though the feast itself has claimed him, and he is the vessel it uses to gorge.
Then a light blooms in his throat.
It starts as a glow beneath his skin, like Silver’s does, candlelight under parchment.
Then it flares.
Silvers and golds.
White and blues, the color of hellfire, then back to the metallic shine of molten iron.
His veins light up in branching patterns that remind me even more of our Overlord’s countless markings, crawling across his body like poison.
He doesn’t scream until his eyes turn to fire.
His body goes still, then folds inward, burning without smoke or heat, as if the flame isn’t consuming him, but erasing him completely.
When it’s over, there’s nothing left but a faint scorch mark on the floor, and the fruit beside it, untouched and perfect once more.
Welcome to Hell.
My stomach twists, not from hunger this time, but from the sight of it.
Gluttony. That’s what they called it. The most selfish hunger. The kind that drags the soul down to corruption.
My father speaks of it often.
‘Those who gorge feed the fires of Hell itself.’
Now I’ve seen it.
Proof.
The fire is real.
And I have no way to tell him. Not while the demoness I loathe more than any has my journal.
I press my palms together and whisper the first prayer that comes to me.
I’m so far from home.
The cambion cadets around the table watch each other and the feast with wide, feral eyes, like the spawn of sinners they are.
Demon blood runs through their veins. They are not like me. I will not give in to temptation.
They feed on sin, temptation is their nature, mercy toward them is weakness. Watching the male burn, I believe it more than ever. His hunger is proof of what he is, a creature ruled by his wants, unworthy of redemption.
Unrepentable.
And yet…
My mouth still waters.
The bread falls from Diana’s fingers. No teeth marks in the creamy butter. Not even a crumb missing.
She fought it.
No one moves after that unless it’s to bend over under the assault of hunger pains.
I try to count the hours, starting with seconds, then minutes, but time dissolves until all that is left are the tables and my mother’s voice tempting me to them.
My stomach twists. My tongue feels thick. It’s a hunger like no other.
Every inhale smells of my favorite meal, and every exhale leaves me feeling more and more empty.
The food whispers endlessly, not just in my mother’s voice now, but others.
My father’s voice. My siblings.
The farmer’s son, Elias.
Silver and the stupid cake.
Those voices are easier to ignore, though. A fact the tables seem to observe too, because they are slowly fading away, leaving just one to echo in my mind.
I press my palms to my ears, but the sound isn’t outside. It’s in my ribs, in the hollow where hunger has carved its pit, taking this cavern as its inspiration.
“Eat with me, Phi Phi.”
I recoil at my mother’s nickname for me.
No one calls me that anymore.
No one has called me that since I was thirteen years old. Back when I thought I was a human child, a street rat with small prospects and big dreams.
Ironically, I used to dream about the citadel most.
Day and night.
Especially after the Queen of Industria’s tragic death.
I’d pray to the angels that we’d be saved somehow, my mother and I, picked out from the crowd by the grieving High Seraph during one of his rare yet gracious visits to our village. Diligently delivering sacks of barley and oats and wheat and rye, lest his loyal subjects starve in the slums.
Don’t think about food, Seraphina. Anything but the food.
In my dreams, his majesty would see through my mother’s threadbare clothes and brittle nails, and find beauty in her too gaunt features.