Page 13

Thirteen

ten years ago

H e stepped through the veil, and suddenly, he was.

Light burned his eyes, and he flinched.His chest jolted, and air filled his lungs. It was his first time taking a breath, but instantly he knew he could never go without breathing again. He became aware of things inside him churning and moving, a biological automaton starting up. Nerves sparked to life. Tiny lightning pulses passed across his brain. His heart juddered, then began thudding in his chest. Blood filled his limbs, and his muscles tightened with new strength.

Harsh wind blew grains of sand that stung his skin and stuck in his hair—because he had skin and hair. Realizing that, he looked down at his body. His skin was smooth and vibrant blue and perfect. He held out his hands in front of him—except, there was only one. His right arm was bent oddly, and it tapered to an anticlimactic end just past his elbow. This gave him pause, and he looked back and forth, comparing them. But if this was how he’d been made, he supposed this was how he was meant to be.

The fourth plane of hell stretched out before him, a vast wasteland with a clouded, scarlet sky. It seemed to go on forever, for he could not see its end. Lightning flashed far in the distance, and thunder groaned. Cliffs and canyons of striated rock carved vicious lines into the earth. Small bits of brush and skeletal trees clung to life. Most of them were already dried and dead, burned and blackened.

It was an ancient, timeless place. It was beautiful.

Tears dampened his cheeks. He was filled with joy, because he existed. All of this—the wind, the earth, the sky—it existed, and it was impossibly fantastic that the chaotic threads of the universe had, by chance, spiraled into the exact shapes required to produce all of this, and to produce him.

And finally, as his body finished coming into the world, he felt something else: the feeling that would become the center of his being for the rest of his life.

Hunger. He craved bloodshed.

He was on the flat top of a tall, stone pyramid with steep steps leading to the ground. Crumbling columns and arches formed an arcade around him, and when he looked behind him, he saw the veil he’d stepped out of—a smear of black nothingness hanging in the air.

He was not alone. A dozen others watched him, their eyes sharp. The closest to him was a towering woman with emerald skin, yellow eyes like flames, and impressive horns that curved high over her head. She wore a headdress of fanning shards of metal and leather, and wide bracelets and necklaces of gold. Gold armor, dotted with bits of green that matched her skin, covered her from her neck to her thighs, and black and gold paint marked her body.She looked like a queen. Like a goddess. Like an eldress.

He instinctively knew her, and knew that he loved her, because she had brought him through the veil. She was the magnificently powerful being who had chosen to give him life. He was in awe of her.

But unease crept into him as he looked at her. Her lip was curling in distaste.

“What is your name?” she asked, her voice as cold and clear as thunder.

He had to think about it, but then it came to him, as if he’d known it long ago but had forgotten. “Azreth.”

“Kneel, Azreth.”

He hesitated, looking around at the others. They were waiting.

He did as she asked, dropping to his knees.The eldress came to him and took his face in one hand, her grip making his jaw ache. “You are our slave. You exist to serve.” She cast a disgusted glance toward his right arm. “Though even for that, you are inadequate.”

Comprehension slowly dawned on him. He was a disappointment to her. Shame filled him.

“What can I do?” he asked.

The eldress looked even more disgusted. “You can submit. It is what you were made for.” She motioned toward the others. “It is what they were all made for. However, they became useful after they sated my hunger. You will never be useful. You will always be ugly and weak. So you will submit to us, weak one, and then you will die.”

Azreth’s brand new heart raced. Until that moment, it had not occurred to him that he could die. He had been alive for less than a minute, but he already knew he very much wanted to stay that way.

“I don’t want to die,” he said.

Someone hit him in the back of the head, and he pitched forward. For a split second, his vision went black, and then he was on the ground. Someone was grabbing one of his horns, wrenching his head back. When he tried to jerk away, someone else took hold of his wrist.

He fought back, but he had only one hand to strike and grasp with. Even if he’d had only one opponent, he would have lost this fight.

He understood what the eldress meant now. He was flawed. Weak.

The eldress waved a hand, and a long, wicked knife appeared in her palm, its obsidian blade black and shining. Magic curled around it, making the edge glow. Azreth looked up at the eldress, pleading with her silently.

She raised an eyebrow. “Will you not fight?” she asked quietly. There was no mercy in her. She would never be tempted into kindness.

A new emotion crept over him, prickling on his skin. He examined it, letting himself experience this new feeling in full.

It was anger. It was sharp and uncomfortable, but it was better than misery. It gave him strength. It was a sort of power, even while he was powerless. It was all he had left.

The eldress seemed to sense this change in him, and she looked satisfied.

Then she brought the knife down and sliced clean through the shoulder of his malformed arm.

The eldress tortured him first, then she let the others take turns doing as they liked to him. Azreth fought until he grew too tired to do so, and then he fought some more. Once, he managed to strike one of them in the mouth, making them bleed, which gave him grim satisfaction for a few brief moments before they beat him even harder.

A night and a day and another night passed. There were many ways to wring all varieties of misery out of a person, it turned out.

Eventually, having subjected him to every kind of pain and degradation they could think of, their assaults slowed. They began to leave, one by one. The eldress lounged on a stone throne at the center of the top of the pyramid, watching her creation shudder in pain. Azreth’s once smooth, new skin was now lined with cuts and bruises and fresh scars from wounds that had been quickly, haphazardly healed so that more could be layered on top of them.

As the last of the other demons disappeared down the steps of the pyramid, and the darkening skies rumbled with a storm that had been growing closer all day, the eldress gracefully unfolded her body from her throne and walked toward him. She carried the obsidian knife in her hand. Now that they were finished with him, he guessed she would kill him, so that his ugliness would no longer offend their eyes.

He was too drained to stand and fight her. Magic sparked at his fingertips, but he couldn’t form a spell. He had tried to copy the patterns he’d seen them use to conjure weapons or move things with just their minds, but the magic felt wild and slippery, and he didn’t know how to make it obey him.

The eldress looked down at him, impassive. They were alone, and it was quiet.

Somehow, he still loved and revered her, even now, and he wished she didn’t despise him. He hated himself for it. What a foolish, pathetic emotion love was.

He waited for her to raise the knife and end his short life. But then something passed over her eyes. The hard lines in her face almost softened.

“Go,” she said.

A silence followed. Azreth hesitated, trying to make sense of the word. Daring, he asked, “Why?”

She lifted a large, emerald hand and pointed to the stairs. “Leave the city. Never return. If you return, you will die.”

Azreth waited, wondering what kind of cruel trick this was. But she said nothing more.

She watched him as he struggled to stand. Someone had cut through the back of his ankle, and it was impossible to put weight on that leg, but he managed to stagger to his feet and move to the stairs. He paused there, wanting to look back at his creator again before he left her forever. But he resisted the urge, and he climbed down the stairs one slow step at a time.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked out at the desolate landscape before him. Crumbling buildings and abandoned streets circled the pyramid, and the storm had moved in, blackening the sky. Dark, winged creatures soared above him, as if searching for prey. Searching for him , he supposed. He was prey—or he would be, unless he did something about it.

He lifted his hand to gingerly touch the tattered remains of his shoulder. He thought of the weapons he’d seen the other demons conjure—knives and clubs of pure magic energy, and he imagined magic taking the form of a new body part instead of a weapon.