Page 21 of Hell-Bound (Pacts of the Infernal #1)

The contract cannot break. The tome cannot be found.

Ren scoffed.

“That’s ridiculous. Jester is my friend. We’ve been—”

“Listen to me. Azur disguises himself as Jester. He’s been doing it for longer than I’ve been indebted.”

Ren’s mouth moved as if trying to produce the words to reject her claims. It was impossible. Jester was nothing like Azur. She thought of Jester’s quick wit, his playfulness, and how Azur was never—could never be like that.

“That’s impossible,”

she stuttered.

“It’s the truth.”

“It was all a lie?”

she whispered.

“No. You’re wrong.”

She turned around and scanned the hall, desperately hoping that Jester would jump out from behind a curtain, playing and taunting her gullibility. Her mind refused to accept that her friend, her only real friend, wasn’t real at all.

Zelaia stepped in front of a distraught Ren.

“Ren, listen to me,”

she said firmly, but not unkindly.

“Azur is Jester.”

Ren didn’t want to listen. She wanted to cover her ears to stop the bells of realization beginning to ring in them.

“But why?”

Her voice was beginning to break.

“Why would he do this?”

“Azur has many reasons for doing what he does—It isn’t for us to question.”

“That’s…absolute bullshit!”

she shouted, leaning in closer to Zelaia, balling her hands into fists.

The Devil did not flinch.

Ren felt like such a fool. So embarrassed that she hadn’t seen it.

“Does everyone know?”

“No,”

Zelaia said, looking at her sadly and crossing her arms.

“Only the other soulless here in the safe house.”

Ren felt the overwhelming urge to run—as if running from the news would make it less real. But there was nothing to run to. No one to run to. Her body moved, backing away until she hit a wall, allowing her exhausted legs to give way and slump to the floor. She felt like her friend had just died—ripped away from her life violently.

“I don’t know what’s real anymore,”

Ren whispered.

“I’m so tired of feeling so powerless. Of being in the dark.”

Zelaia didn’t speak. She stood in silence for a beat, before walking to a nearby room. She returned with a tunic, pants, and some boots and bent down, leveling herself with Ren.

“If you want to know the truth. I can help. But please realize, sometimes the truth is a lot harder than the fantasy we paint for ourselves.”

She set the clothes next to Ren.

Ren did want to know the truth. But she was so tired. She could just curl up here, on the soft carpet, and sleep.

“What’s going to happen to Azur?”

Her voice cracked on the last word.

Zelaia’s eyes became serious.

“I don’t know. Your mark is still there, though,”

she said, pointing to her neck.

“That means he is still king, has at least some of his power, but for how long, I can’t say. Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Ren let her body work robotically as it pulled off the remnants of her once beautiful gown.

Zelaia helped her stand and steered her limp body to the bathing chamber. She insisted Ren wash her face with cold water and helped her pull the pins from her hair, remove her horned circlet, and redress.

Ren couldn’t look at the shining gift from Azur; it was too painful. A visual that held too many conflicting emotions.

Zelaia also insisted that Ren drink at least a cup of tea and some stale biscuits. Ren complied numbly.

“We won’t go until you’re ready,”

Zelaia said with unexpected tenderness.

“You defend him,”

Ren swallowed.

“but it’s not fair what he does.”

Zelaia exhaled sharply.

“He saved me, Ren.”

She looked up as if grabbing onto a distant thought.

“If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be—I’d rather be a sleeper than what happened to me.”

Her voice suddenly turned harsh. She closed her black eyes, squinting them tightly as though trying to ward away a bad memory.

Ren looked down.

“I didn’t realize—”

“No. You didn’t. But…it’s fine. I understand that it’s easy to forget, seeing all the sleepers, that some of us willingly signed contracts and accepted the consequences. Others are more…naive.”

“Maybe that was me,”

Ren whispered.

The Devil made a noncommittal sound.

“Maybe…but I don’t think so.”

Ren nodded.

“I…I’m ready to go.”

Zelaia’s expression continued to be sympathetic, but she said no more. She glided to the center of the washroom and flicked her wrist. Nothing happened.

“That’s not a good sign.”

She said, examining her palms.

“What?”

Ren jerked her head towards Zelaia, bracing for more bad news.

“My magic is weaker. It still works, but…it’s stifled.”

She paused.

“Luckily for you, I’m very talented. Even without Azur,”

she said before another flick, opening a portal.

They emerged in Ogriazeth, still shadowed by nightfall. But even with the glow of the street lanterns, Ren didn't recognize the neighborhood.

Zelaia signaled for her to follow and the two females walked, pace slow, eventually running into a small stream, muddied with ash, that crisscrossed the middle of the city. Ren did not try to engage with Zelaia, she was too numb, and her brain didn’t have enough energy for small talk. For her part, Zelaia didn’t seem to be a fan of empty words.

The stream began to wind down, feeding into a large grey river that entered a new area of the Forest of Nahmir. Zelaia ducked under several ashen trees and rounded a corner to the river bank. There, mere feet away from the ripples of the water, was a small patch of luscious green grass, almost neon in the night light, next to all the ash and gray. It was the first appearance of live vegetation that Ren had seen since being in the hells. Sitting, legs crossed in the middle of the patch, was an emaciated red Devil with stringy black hair.

It took a second for Ren’s sluggish brain to compute, but when it did, she bolted and threw her arms around the Devil’s neck.

“Jester!”

Fat tears began to soak Jester’s ragged shirt. He was so excruciatingly thin that Ren could wrap her arms around him fully.

Jester didn’t respond or react.

She pulled back and looked at his face.

His eyes were open, but there was no life inside—Jester was a sleeper.

She couldn’t breathe.

She sank down on the small piece of grass and stared at her friend. The feelings were too confusing and too knotted to disentangle. Her grief for her friend was insurmountable, but this wasn’t the Jester she knew.

“What happened to him?”

she asked Zelaia, unable to see through her tears.

Zelaia joined her on the ground.

“I don’t know for sure. It happened before I was with Azur, and he won’t talk about it. I know that Jester was one of Azur’s first souls, and somewhere along the way, he broke his contract and became Azur’s first sleeper. I think Jester’s real name was Ahdan.”

Ren’s ears started to ring.

“Ahdan? Jester—Azur—told me about an Ahdan. He sold his soul to save his mother from a disease.”

Zelaia pinched her brows together in confusion.

“Devils don’t typically share the contents of their contracts—usually we can’t, but I remember my parents telling me that there’d been a blight on the Lesser Devils for several years. The stories of that time were terrible. I even had an uncle who succumbed. Then, one day, it just disappeared.”

“He violated his contract. On purpose,”

Ren whispered.

“Azur told me that something bad had happened to Ahdan. I had assumed he meant that he’d killed himself.”

“So much worse than death,”

Zelaia said, frowning.

“No one could be so naive as to willingly violate their contract.”

Ren only partly listened as her eyes looked at Ahdan. He looked so much like Jester but simultaneously, a completely different male—no sparkle in his eyes or the threat of giggles. Whether Azur was a Jester or not, this creature couldn’t be Ahdan either. Nothing remained of whatever he was before.

“Perhaps,”

Ren began.

“Ahdan didn’t know what it meant to become a sleeper, since he was the first. Didn’t know what he was giving up.”

She thought of herself then, how she couldn’t imagine Renata knowing what she was sacrificing when she surrendered her memories, every speck of her identity.

Yet he knew. Azur knew what it meant, with every arm cut and every contract signed.

Zelaia’s voice was hushed.

“Azur comes here, you know—every week and talks to him. Sometimes, he brings food, coaxes him to eat. But most of the time, he just sits.”

“But it’s his fault!”

Ren blurted.

“It’s Azur’s fault he’s like this, and Azur said he loved Ahdan! He didn’t have to take his soul—he doesn’t have to keep taking people’s souls!”

“We also didn’t have to come to him,”

Zelaia interjected sternly.

“but we did. We asked him for something, and he gave it to us.”

Ren couldn’t accept that. She knew in some ways she was complicit, but she could never understand how Azur could willingly put others in a position to eventually become soulless sleepers, especially someone they claimed to love.

Reaching up, Ren touched Jester’s—Ahdan’s cold, unmoving hand.

“I’m not trying to defend Azur,”

Zelaia continued.

“gods know he’s made many mistakes and hurt countless creatures. But I also can’t bring myself to hate him. I do think he is more complicated than just a monstrous devil god with no feelings. If what you’re telling me is true, it was Azur who stopped the blight thanks to Ahdan’s contracts. The contract must have—”

“But when is it too much Zelaia?”

Ren snapped.

“You said it yourself, he’s hurt countless! When is ridding the planes of a blight merely negligible to his greater sins?”

Zelaia sidestepped the question.

“I’ve often thought Azur retreated into Jester to be free. Even if Jester was a soulless Devil. He is free in many ways that Azur is not. Azur stands with the weight of an entire plane on his shoulders. Right or wrong, that must be heavy.”

Ren scrubbed her face.

“He wouldn’t fight me. He could have killed me and kept his throne. But he surrendered.”

She told Zelaia about Xarek, the possession, the contract, and how Azur had saved her.

When she was finished, Zelaia let out a low whistle.

“Why in hells would he do that for you?”

she asked, with a genuine perplexity showing on her face.

“What will happen to our souls if Azur is locked away?”

“I’m not an expert in these things,”

Zelaia said, stiffening.

“Azur’s power is what keeps us and our souls safe. If he doesn’t have those powers—we might all turn into sleepers.”

“To hell with that!”

Ren said, jumping up.

“I’ve not come this far to lose myself again!”

Zelaia looked up at her, bewildered.

“I didn’t give everything up for it to be for nothing,”

she continued, chest heaving.

“I’m going to find Xarek, I’m going rip his ribs out of his chest, then I am going to find Azur.”

Zelaia chuckled and stood.

“I didn’t believe Azur when he said you had spunk. I thought you were just another privileged Mortal—honestly, I’m still not convinced you’re not—but…you’re something else, too,”

she said, placing one hand on her hip.

“Well, I thought you were just one of Azur’s sex dolls, so I guess we were both wrong,”

Ren said, a smirk threatening.

Zelaia snorted.

“I wish! Do you know how long it’s taken me to break down those walls?”

She rolled her eyes.

“That male is wound so tight!”

They met each other’s eyes and Ren found understanding there—sympathy.

Zelaia’s breath caught, her body going completely rigid. She opened her mouth, but before words could come, she vanished.

Ren’s arms were reaching out to where Zelaia had been standing.

She spun around.

“Zelaia?”

She called into the forest, knowing there would be no response.

Hells hells hells helllsssss.

Reaching up she grabbed the ends of her hair.

This is really bad.

With a start, Ren jumped back, something having grazed her leg. She looked down and saw Ahdan’s hand hovering in the air. His eyes were looking past her, but it still felt like the move was purposeful.

“I’ll bring Azur back, Ahdan. I promise.”

He did not respond—did not move.

His hand hung in the air motionless.

She wanted to stay with Ahdan, to try and comfort him somehow, but urgency was rising within her. She knew she must act fast.

She began to back away tentatively, afraid to take her eyes off the Devil lest he move again. Only when his features were too small to make out movement did she finally turn and make a break for the tavern.

The city was starting to wake up as the purple bolts of lightning appeared. She saw sleepers exit buildings and walk lethargically down the street in unorganized files.

Rounding the corner, she saw the female Half-Orc sitting in her usual spot at the entrance to the tavern.

Ren had no fixed plan, but the tavern always had answers, and maybe she could get them from The Gilded Triangle.

She bounded through the front entrance, startling Fred away with a jolt; he had apparently fallen asleep at his bar.

“Anything for me, Fred?”

she burst out, more aggressively than she’d meant to.

The barkeep blinked several times.

“Jeez, ye scared me, Renata. It’s barely light out.”

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and gestured toward the glass filled with amber liquid.

“Nothing yet. But I hear ye need to be movin’ along soon.”

Damnit to hell. The tome.

Ren laughed nervously.

“It’s all taken care of.”

She tried to casually walk up the stairs.

The door to her room was oddly closed. Fred’s custom had been to leave it open while she was away. She approached cautiously, warning bells ringing in her head.

When she touched the knob, she heard the slightest rustle behind her. Ren whirled around and lurched forward, hands finding purchase on plush white robes.

Leo’s robes.

“What the hell, Leo?”

she said, pushing him away and letting out an anxious breath.

He reeled back.

“I’m…I’m sorry,”

he sputtered, hands held protectively in front of him.

He wasn’t the same Leo she had come to know. Purple shadows lined his pale eyes, and his hair—usually neat and controlled—was now frizzy, unbound, and damp with sweat.

“Have you found it? Please tell me you’ve found it.”

“Leo, are you okay?”

she asked, trying to steady the shaking man.

He approached her fearfully, hands outstretched and shaking.

“I must help him, Renata. You cannot know how much I desire to help my lord! It is all that matters.”

Ren felt her stomach drop.

“I…I haven’t found it yet, Leo.”

A single tear dripped down Leo’s face, and he hung his head, dejected.

It was then that Ren realized that this wasn’t the incorporeal version of Leo. He was standing with her in The Hells.

“What are you doing here? I thought it was too dangerous for you.”

“I…I had to come. I can’t afford to fail this test, Renata. But the temptation.”

His voice cracked.

“Is burdening my soul.”

Her chest clenched. The pain in this adult man’s face was so visceral.

A sharp breeze cut off Ren’s words of comfort, so strong that she heard the bottles rattle from downstairs and a curse from Fred.

“No…I…”

Leo sputtered.

“I must go.”

He spared one more look at Ren before he ambled swiftly down the stairs, robes billowing in the lessening breeze.

“Come in, Renata. We need to speak,”

the kindly voice said from inside her room.

Ren swallowed the discomfort in her throat and walked purposefully to her door, pushing it softly open.

Inside, the Lord of The Heavens was sitting on her bed.

“You’ve been gone,”

he said with a small smile.

“I was hoping you would have brought Vutar’ka Zhartun.”

Ren’s throat bobbed.

“My lord, there seems to be a problem with my contract and I—”

He raised a soft hand and stood.

“Renata. I was hoping that my insistence was enough to impart to you the enormity of what I’ve requested. It seems to me that you still do not grasp its importance and what you stand to lose.”

Ren looked down at her booted feet, trying to look repentant but remembering Azur’s insistence that this god should never find the tome.

“It is for this reason that I have come to you. I know you stray, my child. You have been taken in by my brother’s manipulation. I cannot fully blame you for this. He is a powerful god in his own right, and his tactics, while vile, are brilliant in their mastery.”

His blue eyes darkened.

“I have collected another memory. This one, though, will not remind you of the beauty you have lost but the pain you have wrought and the reason you must find the tome and find redemption.”

Ren shivered.

“Lord, I do not wish to see these memories. I must believe that Renata surrendered them for a reason.”

Nainaur tilted his head pityingly.

“Child, I was not asking for your consent,”

he said before raising his hand and flinging her from the room.

This transportation, unlike the others, was violent and sent her reeling through time and space. When she reached the other side into the memory, she felt like her insides had been jumbled around.

The image before her only compounded her shock. In her wake lay hundreds—thousands of Fae bodies. To her horror, the majority of them were unarmed civilians. She heaved and retched, the meager meals coming up as her body convulsed.

She stood in the middle of a destroyed town. Flames licked the sides of crumbling wooden structures and the agonizing cries of the injured saturated the air. They weren’t just dead—they were butchered. The white sheen of Fae blood staining the roughened stone and coating every inhabitant as they feebly tried to save the dead and dying.

She ran to the closest figure who still looked alive, reaching for them to try to do something—anything to help. But there was nothing to reach for. This was a memory. The past could not be changed.

Why is he showing me this?

She watched as desperate Fae ran from building to building, screaming the names of their loved ones and crying out in agony when they finally located their lifeless, dismembered bodies. Parents wailed, holding their children, while survivors screamed in pain over their broken bodies.

“Stop! Please, no! I can’t watch!”

she choked out, more on her emotional pain than the smell of burning flesh.

“But Renata, it was you. You did this to them,”

came Nainaur’s voice, gentle but admonishing.

The breath from her lungs was sucked out.

It’s impossible—Renata—no, I would never do this. I could never hurt the defenseless I—

She saw her. Renata. Standing in the throng, her back to Ren, gripping her piccolo.

“You don’t know yourself, Renata. You are this person. By destroying this town and the people in it, you cut off the supply lines from the Unseelie court. You should be proud. You are a hero—The Defender of the Planes.

Air wouldn’t enter her lungs. Her throat was closed, and her vision blurred.

It could be—she couldn’t—

“You need me, Renata. Your soul, bound to hell, is where it deserves to be. You are drenched in sin.”

The memory of her own words assaulted her.

“But when is it too much, Zelaia? He’s hurt countless!”

Nainaur continued.

“He helped you forget. Forget your deeds, the screaming faces of children that you murdered for your greater good.”

Ren fell to her knees, choking, hands clawing at her neck, desperate for air.

The god didn’t intervene, did not help her.

“The only way forward is through me. I can absolve you, Renata. One deed greater than all your sins. Find the tome or live your life knowing that you can never make up for the pain you have caused.”

She lurched back to the present, still wheezing.

Nainaur stepped over her writhing body, leaving Ren alone.

Stop fighting.

She told her body.

Just die.

Her mind whispered.

Let go.

She tried, she wanted to, but something in her refused, kept hopelessly gasping for snatches of air. The piccolo at her side vibrated gently.

Ren wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, twisting on the floor, but her lungs eventually caught enough oxygen to keep her conscious. She listened to the rhythms of her wheezing breath and watched her chest rise and fall. Everything hurt, but nothing more than her soul—or the place where her soul resided. She couldn’t get up—couldn’t will herself to move. She just stayed there, barely breathing, barely blinking, staring ahead at the dusty underside of the tavern bed and the discarded garbage underneath.

One piece was delicately folded, unlike the wrappings of other long-forgotten food.

At first, Ren could only look at it, body unwilling to cooperate. But after what seemed like an eternity, she moved a shaky hand, slid it to her, and unfolded it.

A note.

Do not trust Nainaur. He lies. Love, Jester.