Chapter fifteen
Fallyn
Iwas wrong. Holding to the ledge in the dark wasn’t the steepest horror.
Falling through the darkness knowing I couldn’t make a sound, knowing I would hit the ground but couldn’t account for when, was far worse.
Two whole seconds I didn’t breathe. Two whole seconds before my legs crumbled to the ground, my torso collapsing over them like a discarded accordion in the same moment pain sparked in my ankles and fired it up to my hips.
Fuck.
I squirmed in pain, knowing I might actually be in shock. Had I broken something? That would be my luck.
But even as the thought finished, the bites of the pain receded enough to think.
To breathe. I wiggled my toes, taking stock of my movements.
Then my ankles, relishing to feel them moving.
I slowly stood, and while my ankles protested like battered door hinges, they bore my weight.
With a promise to ice my ankles when I was safe, I looked around.
I saw one single sconce. One. A lone beacon in the darkness.
I limped towards it, my stung joints working themselves loose again with each step as I upped my pace.
Light. I needed to see where my escape route was.
It had to be on the wall I’d fallen from.
I could only get glimpses during the day of what lay below without making it obvious what I was doing to anyone watching, and I had no doubt he’d have someone watching me if he weren’t watching me himself. So I was largely blind.
Grasping the torch, I ran back to where I’d fallen, looking for a way out. A tunnel, a door, anything.
When I found it, my heart sank. It plummeted through my body, destined for the depths of Tartarus.
An iron portcullis was along the same wall I’d fallen down, giving me a glimpse of the forest outside, but no access.
No.
I ran.
I ran until I ran into a wall. Four times over.
I found a door on each wall, each one locked, the rusted mechanism laughing at me even as I attempted to overpower it, and it of course did not budge even slightly.
Even calling forth my magic did nothing to offer any respite or promises of escape.
I swallowed my fear which would no longer be ignored as I continued my desperate search.
Ivy vining along one wall beckoned to me.
It didn’t look very strong, but perhaps t could climb it to get over the portcullis gate.
I grasped the vine in one hand, watching it crumble beneath my weight. Pouring my essence into it, my soul, the vines began to thicken, able to hold me aloft. Hope bloomed within me, strengthening alongside the vines. I could climb up, extend the vines over and down, and my escape.
No sooner than my hope rekindled, a hissing sound rent the empty night air.
My grasp on the vines hadn’t changed, nor had my control over my magic, but in the muted light I saw the ivy wither, turning ashen under my touch.
I wasn’t far up from the ground, so my fall wasn’t ankle shattering like the last one.
My hope shattered instead, so fragile like spun glass, it now lay in fragments around me.
I willed myself not to cry when I heard a slow clapping, each one rubbing salt in the wound.
I glared up to see Ash strolling towards me with an air of nonchalance that ignited violence under my skin. I bared my teeth in a snarl.
“I wasn’t sure you had it in you to try, let alone nearly succeed. Well done.” Ash’s voice grated on every frayed nerve in my sore body.
“I warned you I won’t be kept,” I replied, venom dripping from my voice.
Rage overrode my fear, thank the gods above and below, though if any of them had any mercy at all, they would strike this male down now.
I waited, hoping as he came closer that he would fall over of a lightning strike from Zeus.
I guess that was too much to ask for.
I searched for anything I could use for a weapon, but there was nothing. Not even a forgotten pair of gardening shears. And my magic has never aided me against an assailant. Tooth and nail it was. I doubted it would do much, especially with his size dwarfing me, but maybe I could make him hurt.
He clapped once more before his hands expanded outwards, flashing to life more torches, showcasing my doom.
I was indeed in a courtyard of stone, with overgrown greenery around me, save for the vines that now lay rotten and blackened, not unlike my curse-touched hand.
Now I could hate him in the light, rather than the monster that lurked in the shadows.
“You did warn me. I also warned you that I don’t care. Now you’re right where you need to be.”
“What is it you want from me?” I sank back away from him again.
“Do you have nightmares, little shadow?” His eyes narrowed through their amusement, as if analyzing me. I didn’t respond, knowing he knew the answer to that question. “How about this? A question for a question, answered honestly of course. Starting with my last one.”
“Yes,” I ground out through gritted teeth, nearly choking on my answer. “How did we get here? And where is here?” We were previously in a cave in the side of the mountain and with me unconscious, I doubt he carried me to our current location.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he cooed, his finger wagging.
My jaw ground until my teeth hurt. “Only one answer.” He showed me two things in one moment.
His hand adorned with rings was the mundane part.
“This ring,” he explained, pointing to an inscribed black band on his middle finger, “allows me to teleport wherever I feel the most at home. The safest. And it can transport up to two. So naturally, I brought us to my abandoned estate in the mountain foothills. Why were you running from that demon? Have a habit of getting yourself into trouble, do you?”
“That’s two questions,” I snipped. He only cocked an eyebrow in response, refusing my bait and waited.
“A chasm opened up, spilling demons into the land. I was on my way somewhere with my father and convoy when we were attacked. My city barred its gates to us, leaving us to die.” I shoved my sorrow below my anger so my voice didn’t crack and crumble.
“My father did die, and I was forced to flee. That demon followed me. You know the rest.”
A spark of surprise glimmered in his eyes, making the gold flecks glow.
“Why were you sealed in the cave?” Not to mention how.
By whom. The memory of the demon’s demise was fuzzy, but I remember Ash’s confidence.
His complete lack of fear. Someone who could seal someone like Ash away must have been powerful indeed.
A flicker of unease at the ghostly features I must have dreamt.
I traced his face, seeing no evidence of that horror left for me to find.
“I have no memory of the time before the cave,” Ash admitted.
“I have no recollection of who, of why, or even of how long. I remember… something here. A friend perhaps. Then it’s blank until I saw you.
And only the moment I touched you did the curse touch happen.
You and I need each other. We need to break the curse,” his voice dropped an octave, “and soon.”
I glanced down at my inked fingers. Ash’s had spread to his wrist. What would happen when the magic of the curse spread and reached our hearts? What events would the curse trigger?
“What year is it?” he finally asked me, eyes searching. It was the first moment I’d seen him look anything less than entirely confident.
“It’s Hades' year 2389,” I said, watching as my words landed like a blow. Startled confusion morphed into wrath unlike any I’d ever seen. “Ash?”
“Sixty-two years…” He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring through me, the way I must look when my nightmares eclipsed my own reality. A pang of empathy struck me and I felt myself wanting to reach towards him. “I’ve been spellbound for sixty-two years.”
“What will you do to the person who sealed you?” I asked him.
The malice that dawned on his face ricocheted through me violently.
His lips curled upward into a cruel smile, eyes staring forward at me through his brow, giving me a glimpse into the unhinged chaos resounding behind his facade. I inched back a bit.
“I’ll find them,” His voice was firm as he stood. “When I do, they’re going to wish for death. They are not the only one with access to unsavory things.”
The air chilled. He hadn’t said anything so terrible; it was the intention behind it.
This wasn’t an empty promise, nor a hollow threat spoken in the heat of anger.
His anger wasn’t hot. It was like the coldest pit of Tartarus, so chilled I looked around half expecting to see frost coating the ground or my breath on the air.
He meant every word. Whoever had done this to him would suffer.
So that begged the question, who was the victim? He’d said he’d been in pursuit of this person.
Was he the hero ensnared in a trap of circumstance? Or was he the villain that I had just freed to walk about the realm?
“What’s the matter, little shadow?” he purred in that smooth voice of his. “Are you afraid of me?”
What’s the point of lying? My answer dripped from me in a snarl, ”Yes.”
He chuckled, a dark sound that echoed off the walls. “Good. Because make no mistake, Fallyn, if you are indeed what I need to break this curse, I will use you mercilessly.”
Zeus above, Hades below. What in the Underworld had I unleashed?