Page 45 of Fire Kissed

“I can’t.” He turns distractedly on his heels, but I pull him back to me.

“I said take me the fuck back!”

“Rhys...” Latham says with too much uncertainty.

But I won’t listen.

I saved Kyvain from that cage Hela put him in. I saved him. And he’ll be my downfall.

“Take me back to him!” I scream it so loudly that my own agony carries in the dry wind along with so many other pleas of sorrow.

And it’s only then that I actually hear them.

All of them.

Countless screams run wild in the air. Roars rumble around along with the misery. My mouth opens without words. I turn slowly, and dust and fire swirl in the wind.

The sounds of torment and the fire ripping up from dry earth are what I envisioned Hell would have looked like.

Except the world around me isn’t the realm we left. Not at all. Batlike creatures circle us high in the sky. Dozens of people run screaming into the vast wasteland, trying and failing to get away. A monstrous, two-headed beast with the teeth of a shark and the wings of a dragon roars down on us.

“Muspelheim,” Latham whispers.

That single word brings flashes of a book to life. The nightmarish illustrations are fresh in my mind.

We’re not in Hell anymore.

We’re in the realm of monsters.

The End.