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ELI

TIER ONE: TREACHERY

Blackness, thick and dark, surrounded me, causing my other senses to immediately riot.

I felt delirious and unable to decide if the darkness was from the atmosphere of the space or if I had lost my vision upon entering the tiers.

Adrenaline still rampant in my system, I began to question everything.

The soft rustling of moving bodies sounded in front of where I sat.

Was it monsters that waited in this dark place?

Or had I actually heard what I thought I’d heard after I fell?

Surely she wasn’t fool enough to continue the chase to the tiers.

Or was she?

My stomach muscles tightened as my mouth opened. Every instinct within my body told me to hide and not make a sound until I collected more information about what lurked around me. The desperate recklessness I had been feeling continued. “Hello?”

“Eli? I thought for a second I had been knocked out. It’s so dark. Where are you? Is everyone okay?” Walter’s deep voice bounced over to me.

Irritation slithered up my spine. “Why did you follow me?” I said angrily. The last thing I wanted was to be responsible for any of their deaths. Burdens already weighed me down, making every decision I made harder. Habit told me to ask if he was okay and thank him for joining me, but I refused.

“To be completely honest, I wasn’t going to, but Eletha followed Anna, and I followed Eletha,” he replied.

“Idiot,” Eletha’s raspy voice said over Walter’s. “Eletha, where are you? Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “I’m the Shepherd of Tartarus. I’m not a fragile doll. Anna, you are a fragile doll. Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Now why do you get to ask her that, but I get yelled at?” Walter grumbled.

“Anna!” Eletha called again.

A deep male voice answered, “Stop shouting. My head’s going to pop open like a tart.”

Gasps filled the blackness. “Who is that? Bexley, is that you?” Walter asked.

“Bexley? You rotten bag of waste. What are you doing here?” Eletha called from somewhere close to me.

“Bexley?” Anna’s soft voice rang out.

“Are you all right?” I asked her quietly.

She made no answer, but I heard the rustling of clothes and armor.

She was moving. Instantly every nerve in my system felt oversensitive as I focused on the sounds of her movement, fully prepared for her to try and steal the pendant from me. She just fucking had to

follow me.

“Stop talking so loud. I don’t know what happened. I was asleep in my normal spot and you kicked me in here,” the man responded with a heavy slur, running all of his words together. I heard a rustle near where his voice was and then a heavy thud as if he’d fallen. “Fuckamnit.”

“Eletha, please take everyone out of here and back to Eromreven,” I requested.

“I’m not leaving until you hand over that pendant,” Anna snapped. She had moved, but she sounded as if she’d moved to where Eletha’s voice was coming from .

“No, he’s right. This was a mistake. Let’s go back and we will work this out. Neither Eli nor Anna needs to die,” reasoned Walter.

Eletha’s typically low and silky voice suddenly sounded shrill and scratchy. “I can’t get us out of here! Why would you think I can take us back? I send fae here and assign the tier they should go to. Why would you think I can get us out of here? Our powers don’t work in here. I can’t do anything!”

“What do you mean you can’t? You’re the Shepherd. Herd us out of here,” Walter shot back with a hint of worry in his deep voice.

“Shut up, would ya? My fuckin’ head!” mumbled the man named Bexley.

“Why would you follow me, Eletha?” Anna snapped at her sister.

“Why would you follow me?” I threw back at her.

“Because those are my powers and I’m not going to let you, or anyone else in your family for that matter, keep them away from me any longer.

My father has done more for me than anyone and he’s going to retire, gods dammit, and I’m the only one who could be powerful enough to make that happen.

I will not let you take this from us. I don’t care if I have to chase you through every single tier, you are going to give me that pendant and you are going to hand it over just like my father wanted. Do you hear me?” Anna’s voice shook.

“You are out of your mind if you think I’m going to hand this to you. I’m still tied to this magic!” My palm wrapped around the pendant, feeling the familiar inscription.

Bexley let out a low whistle. “Fiddling foxglove, if you all don’t stop fighting, we are never going to make it to the second tier and I’m out of mead.” He began to hum an old tavern tune absently.

“He’s right. We need to figure out how to get out of here. Eletha, Anna, how do we make it through the first tier?” Walter asked.

“How should we know? Neither of us have ever been .

The experiences are built individually for every fae. Tier one is Treachery; that’s all I know,” said Anna.

Treachery.

The adrenaline from the red keys match had begun to wear off and the dark began to settle deeper and deeper into my eyes.

I figured I would start feeling around for…

things, hopefully things that didn’t have teeth and could help us get out of here.

Completely disoriented, I placed my palms on the ground before lifting them in surprise when dusty stone cooled my hands.

They slid over the lightly textured stone of what felt like a wall and I used it to stand, bracing my head in case I hit something.

When I didn’t, I stood to my full height and felt the soft movement of air in the darkness.

It was easy to feel it whisper across my skin with my heightened senses in the dark.

Eletha and Walter continue to squabble, I guessed from no more than twelve feet away.

Bexley continued singing a classic tavern tune about wenches and the moon; Anna was the only one I couldn’t account for, but to be honest I didn’t care right then.

All I cared about was getting out of this fucking place.

Even though I wasn’t feeling quite myself and far from anything I would call heroic, I wouldn’t let this place change me anymore than it already had.

I continued my staggering movements, hands held out, waiting to either stumble upon a monster or fall into some sort of hole, likely filled with fire or lava or some sort of horrendous substance.

Instead, my fingers stubbed into what felt like wood.

Excitement thrummed inside of me as my fingertips greedily felt the dips and grooves of molding. It was a doorframe.

My hands wide, I continued to caress the door and eventually bumped into a solid round knob.

I bit back a shout. I didn’t dare open it—somehow finding a door in the tiers was more frightening than if I’d touched the nose of a nocturneye.

You couldn’t just open a door and walk out of the first tier of Tartarus… could you?

I quickly found the caveat to my easy solution when the tips of my fingers found an exact replica of the three-ridge molding.

In disbelief, I found yet another door directly next to the first, only this particular one had detailing lightly carved into the wood.

Shuffling my feet, I continued along the wall, stupidly surprised repeatedly when I found another door and then another.

My arms stretched wide, I shuffled forward, attempting to form a layout in my head.

“What are you doing? Did you find something?” asked Walter.

“I—” I opened my mouth to tell him what I had found, but a tiny sliver of hesitation stopped me.

If I found the way out, did I really want them to follow me again?

Eletha said she couldn’t get us out, and earlier on the field, Anna had plainly stated that Kaohs could not do anything to me once I entered, but I found it incredibly hard to believe the God of the Underworld would not be able to do anything to get his two favorite daughters out.

“They are doors,” Walter whispered, obviously having done the same thing as I had.

“Yeah,” I said, a pit in my stomach. I hadn’t wanted him to find them. I had wanted him to stay and protect the girls while I continued on alone.

“Don’t tell the girls or Bexley,” he said under his breath. “I don’t want them to follow us into the other levels.”

I wasn’t sure what to say even though I had been thinking the exact same thing.

The truth was, I didn’t want Walter joining me either and it wasn’t because I was worried he would die helping me—no, something icky and selfish had taken over me when I thought I killed Anna.

I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else but myself.

I didn’t want to have to save Walter or risk my neck and lose my opportunities so I could give them to him.

He had been a good friend since I had arrived, but I wanted to do this for me, and I wanted to do it alone.

“It feels like they line the walls. I’m not going near the others to feel, but it seems as though the whole room might possibly be lined with different doors,” he whispered.

“I wonder what’s behind each one. I suppose we just pick one and see what’s in it.

The two of us can kill whatever it is…hopefully.

I see no other way to go about this,” Walter whispered.

“Agreed, don’t tell the girls or Bexley,” I said, trying to hide the irritation in my voice. “But we need to find out what’s on the other side, near the girls.”

“I’ll go feel around,” he said softly.

“Don’t let them know what you’re doing. They are both incredibly smart and cunning. If they figure out what we are doing, there is no shot at getting them to stay here and I don’t want anyone to follow me but you.” I cleared my throat, struggling to talk quietly.

Even without seeing him, I could sense his hesitation at my words. I could practically feel him dissecting the tone of my voice. “You okay? You seem…off.”