Chapter 15 Thayla #2
I attempt haphazardly to snatch them off. All that does is crack my middle fingernail right down to the cuticle bed. That surge of pain has a vicious grunt vibrating in the back of my throat.
“Lower or mid-level of Hellveilious. Where all those who come to the Judgment Rings are from.”
The blood rushing from my finger turns to ice.
Hellveilious…Judgment Rings.
No.
Creed.
The thought of him has my soul going ballistic in my chest. Its reaction is so painful, it steals the air from my lungs and water fills my eyes.
I both try to calm it down and snatch it around.
I think of Creed, all my Valtrue, and try to pull them to me. Only it feels different, as though it’s trying to go, but it can’t. It’s stuck.
“V, can you hear me?”
Nothing but silence returns.
“V, please! Seismet.”
Nothing.
Gods. V said there were very few barriers that could keep him from me.
“Is there a barrier around Hellveilious?”
“Multiple. One on the outside keeping us in, and one around these cells. That’s what’s keeping you from accessing your power right now.”
Damn it. That’s not the only thing it’s blocking.
“But if we get out of these cells, our power would return to us?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of the point.”
“Enough with the fucking—”
“Let me do the talking,” Yemi says as she grips my wrist.
I try to get my breathing and soul under control, but it’s nearly impossible as my fear and anger merge into one.
Yemi senses my shift and her fingers coil tighter around my wrist, but she keeps her eyes forward. “What’s your name?”
His attention darts between us as he pulls his shoulders back.
“Sevryn.”
He says it as though that’s supposed to mean something to us. Those bouncy little orbs in his skull continue to watch us, waiting for a reaction more than the scowl on my face and whatever that is Yemi has going on on hers.
Tentatively, almost as if he’s relieved we didn’t react, he relaxes the tense posture he’s had.
That’s pretty premature on his part.
“I’m Yemi and this is Thayla. She’s my—”
“Best friend, asshole, so you and your wandering eyes remember that,” I cut her off.
I’ll be damned if she tells him I’m her Attending God. I don’t know anything about these beings down here other than the horrid little snippet the guys told me. For all I know, they treat Attendants, if there are any here, far worse than they do in the Godsdawn.
Plus, he keeps looking at her like he simply can’t help it.
“I’d say it’s nice to meet you, Yemi, and…Thayla, but these are probably the worst possible circumstances to meet someone.”
“Yeah, we got that much. Can you tell us what Dimitri meant?”
His face grows dark as he glances over at our neighboring cell that’s oddly quiet, then back at her.
“The Judgment Rings are where and how you can earn your freedom back. You can live your sentencing out in the level of Hellveilious you’ve been sent to or come here and fight your way free. Seven wins and you’ll be released.”
I scoff. “What kind of judgment is that? And seven wins? That wouldn’t happen to have any damn thing to do with us having seven Beginning Gods now, would it?”
His lips tighten as he nods. “That’s exactly what it means. Dimitri won his sixth fight last week. Tonight, if he wins, he and two others of the six men fighting with him will be freed.”
“Wait, six others, so there are seven of them and three of us. Where are the other four for our team?” Yemi’s voice trembles and it’s my turn to grip her wrist.
He examines the gesture with a keen sense of fascination, then lifts his gaze at her sniffle.
“It’s just us. I always only get two teammates.”
“Why? Who are you?” The accusation in my voice cuts through the air like a sword.
His fingers flex like he’s trying to draw in the strength to speak.
“Sevryn, son of Seveous, the God of Pain.”
Yemi releases a quivering breath, and I arch a brow. I feel like I’m supposed to be amazed, maybe intimidated, but I’m neither.
I don’t know much about the god he claims is his father, other than the obvious. He can bring forth pain in many ways. Really, the only time I’ve even heard him brought up is actually when Yemi told me that’s who Mellcom and Jeremiah have a domain under.
The lack of information on him, though, has the wheels in my mind turning. Sevryn’s timidness about saying his own name, then admitting that with even more hesitation speaks volumes.
“You’re from the Abandon, and I assume your father has sided with the God of Obliteration?”
He bristles a smidge like he can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth. “You must be a Defender to be able to make an assumption such as that.”
“Something like that.” Yemi clears her throat, and I give her a squeeze to not say anything else about it. “Why is the son of the God of Pain in Hellveilious?”
He sits silently and as if in slow motion, a wall surrounds him, his thoughts, everything. His shutdown is natural.
“We don’t need to know your life story, nor am I asking for it. We’re trying to put enough pieces together to figure out why we’ve been placed in this situation and what to expect.”
“There’s only one thing to expect from here and that’s death.”
Yemi’s shiver passes through her arm and into mine. His words weren’t cruel, condescending, or even dark. They were mournful. He spoke them as though that’s the only truth he knows.
“That can’t be completely true. You’re still sitting here,” I say.
He looks down at his shoes and picks a pebble up, tosses it up and down a few times, then chunks it behind him.
“I won’t ever get the privilege of dying unless I successfully grant it to myself. I’ll spend the rest of my miserable existence giving this same speech and information every week.”
My gaze immediately falls to his neck. His eyes are cold as they pierce me in place when I lift mine back up, but then they cloud with shame at the little hiccup of a sound from Yemi.
She and I gasp when the loud drag of metal sliding across metal ricochets through the cells as though they’re opening. I’m on my feet, crouching and blocking her in the blink of an eye.
I sneer at Sevryn’s hum. “What was that?”
“You’re really protective of her.”
“Not what I asked about, asshole, but yes, I am and will continue to be.”
He stares at me for a tense moment, and I shift my feet, readying myself for whatever he’s about to do.
“It’ll serve us well that you two are close and will have each other’s backs. That noise was the guards opening the drop compartment. Our meals are here.”
With that, he stands and walks into the darkness. I hold my stance until Yemi grabs my elbow and pulls me back.
“You’re giving him a really hard time.”
“What?” I whisper harshly and whip around to face her. “Do you see where we are? We can’t trust anyone here. Why are you being so open toward him?”
She grips her hair and groans. “I’m not being open. I’m trying to evaluate the situation without flipping the fuck out like I really want to. So can you be nice to him for five seconds so we can figure out what’s happening?”
I huff. “I have been very nice given the situation.”
“Your nice and my nice are very different.”
“No, you’re just being different. You weren’t nearly this nice to me when we met and now you’ve got googly eyes over a boy we met in Hell.”
A voice clears behind us and Yemi shrieks. “I’m thirty-five. I believe that constitutes me a man.”
I peer over my shoulder at the eavesdropping little shit. I mean, yeah, he’s definitely all man. I have no doubt that if he weren’t stuck down here in these cells, he’d be as put together as my Valtrue. Not to mention, for someone who is, in fact, stuck in Hell, he’s still in great shape.
Guess you kind of have to be if you’re fighting for your life.
“Here,” he says after we continue to stare at him silently. “The food probably isn’t what you get in the Godsdawn, but it’s not bad. They feed all the fighters pretty well.”
He sets down two trays, then turns around and disappears through the darkness again. I’m actually incredibly shocked at the assortment of food. Yemi and I could split a plate and be full.
There’s a mound of meat that looks to be both taurn and egglayers. Mixed vegetables, fruit, a large purple potato, and a bed of grains.
Sevryn comes back and takes his seat quietly, digging right into his plate without a care in the realm. That eases some of my worries about the possibility of poison, although that was a little illogical anyways.
“So is this some sort of last meal type thing?” I ask and Yemi elbows me. “What?”
“That’s a little morbid.”
“She’s right. You two should eat. Things will get loud and hectic here soon.”
“What does that mean?”
“Have you noticed how you hear nothing but us talking?”
“Well, I hadn’t really paid attention to anything else, but sure.”
He points his fork toward the cell bars Dimitri was standing at.
“If you touch the bars, you can talk to the people in the adjoining cells. Other than that, there’s a silencing mechanism around them that keeps the noise out.
The silence and dark drive beings who are put in one alone crazy. They become the most vicious fighters.
“Many don’t come close to the bars because your opponent could be standing there, waiting to choke you to death. Before the fights start, they drop the silencing mechanism and that’s when the shit talking starts. It gets everyone riled up.
“Eventually, all the lights will come on. You’ll get your first look at the men you’ll be fighting. Dimitri and two of the others have been together since his start. They’re mean as they come and fight like their lives depend on it.”
My throat refuses to swallow the saliva building in my mouth. I’m surprised my palms aren’t bleeding from the nail impressions I’m leaving. I can’t fathom being in this cell with no light. I would’ve already lost my mind. The one torch above my head is barely enough.
The thought of others sitting somewhere, mere feet from us, probably going crazy as they sit and stew in the dark, makes my stomach bottom out.