Page 5

That didn’t sound familiar to Ember who had lived almost her entire life in Ankerick and its surrounding pastoral lands. Not that there were ever any demons in Ankerick.

When Ember said nothing, the yellow demon scrunched up her nose. “I believe humans call this place the Achreos Barrens.”

The sound went all out of the room, and Ember’s stomach fell through the bed, the floor, and all the way to the very lowest layer of the hells. At least it would be easy to pick up since she was apparently right there.

The Achreos Barrens was a place of terror and doom, the hells cracked open and the worst of the blazes summoned to earth.

Some called it a myth, others used its name to terrify children, but to most, it was a warning.

Evil things lurked beyond the safety of city walls, creatures that would defile your body, torture your mind, possess your soul.

And the Achreos Barrens was the spoiled well from which those creatures spawned.

Ember thought being carted to Cyrinth to be sold was as bad as things could get, but this? This was?—

“Heck.”

The mounting panic in Ember’s chest took a sharp turn for confusion when she looked to the red demon.

He clicked his tongue against one ominously pointed tooth. “What the humans call it is irrelevant. This is our home, and we call it Heck.”

Ember pressed herself into the fluffy pillow at her back, eyes flicking to those warm lights overhead, the colorful blanket on her lap, and then to the pretty yellow-skinned woman, er— demon standing at her bedside intent on healing her. “Heck,” she repeated.

Both Severath and Balran’s horned heads nodded.

“That’s the dumbest name for a place I’ve ever heard.”

The red demon growled, and Ember bared her own teeth, unable to help what had come out of her mouth but not caring if she could.

“Enough, enough.” Balran fluttered her hands, and Ember noted her fingertips were not clawed, though her nails had an orange shimmer. “We need to get you up and moving to see if my mending took hold. Come on now.”

Without her permission, hands were taking Ember by the forearm and shoulder and guiding her out of the bed.

Though her features were delicate, Balran was larger than the average human woman and stronger too with a grip that didn’t allow for escape.

Still, somehow she was gentle, and that was just baffling enough to get Ember on her feet.

Her soles burned when they touched the floor, and her limbs protested by trembling, but Balran propped her up and walked her across the small chamber.

“You didn’t collapse!” she said gleefully from just over Ember’s head. “I must admit I was a little worried I had accidentally weakened your bones but turns out we’re made of mostly the same stuff.”

Ember thought maybe she should have been worried about that, but her concern fell away when she spied what lay beyond the chamber’s window.

Two stories below, cobblestone streets lined a village square, the shadows of night darkening its corners but kept at bay by colored lanterns hung from every building’s eaves.

Spots of violet illuminated the stone facade across the square and yellow light spilled over the entry directly below, but it was the unearthly haze that glowed from the square’s very center that drew Ember’s eye.

The color couldn’t be pinned down, shifting when she didn’t look directly at it, but it pulsed from a fissure that scarred the earth, thick enough in its middle to climb down and tapering at each end, the length of perhaps two of the chambers in which she stood.

A fence of black iron ran around it, gates on either end, closed and locked as if to warn passersby away.

Yet the land it sat atop wasn’t dusty and dead as one would expect from a place referred to as a barren.

Instead there was dark moss mounded at the edge’s cracks and white blooms of some vining flower tangling itself all over the fence.

She blinked down at the stark contrast to the doom and gloom she was sure a demon’s city had to be.

Yes, the square was ominous, the windows on the opposing building arched and heavily leaded, and there was even a set of draconic gargoyles perched over the entry, but it was also…

ordinary? No one was being flayed in the street and there was no sinister chanting mob.

A flicker of movement then proved those gargoyles weren’t stone at all as they flapped their wings, blue plumage catching the light before taking to the sky.

“…care of that nasty infection.”

“Hmm?” Ember turned to Balran in a daze from her swirling thoughts and then jolted when Severath appeared over her shoulder like a bloody shadow.

“Get back in bed,” he growled.

Balran rolled her eyes at the other demon—a strange but somehow possible action even without whites.

Ember huffed and stalked back for the bed.

Or rather, she attempted to stalk, but pain shot up her legs, her knees buckled, and she tripped over her own clumsy steps.

But before she could collide with the footboard, she was snatched mid fall and pulled against the hardness of a body she immediately knew was not Balran’s.

Heartbeat fluttering, she gulped for air as she moved toward the bed against her will.

The near fall had been frightening, but the feel of someone pressing up against her back and the arm that caged her in across her chest was true terror.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, throwing her elbows wide, and to her surprise, she was released.

The bed was a soft landing for her forearms, and she scrambled back up onto the mattress as if that spot were somehow safe. Balran tutted at Severath, and he held out empty hands like he had no idea what had gone so wrong.

Ember pulled her knees up against her chest, glared at the pits he had for eyes, and fury flooded her anew.