Page 106 of Ember and Ash

I draw in a breath, and I don’t look at Micah. I’m scared, and I remind myself yet again that fear isn’t a healthy place to operate from. Confidence needs to center me, and I’m good in combat, at least with people who don’t want to kill me. It’s time to translate that into real battle. If I can’t face whatever is behind this gate, I can’t face Jeremy, and eventually, I will stand toe to toe with him. I want that to happen. And I will be strong enough to end him.

I will never join him.

The doors halt only a few inches wide, and when I glance at Micah, he motions me forward. He wants me to go first. Damn it, he wants me to go first. All right, then. I straighten my spine. I can do this. I walk toward the gate, and the blade resting at my thigh hums with magic, as if it feels the danger ahead as I do.

I cross the threshold and find myself staring into a foggy swampland of black vines, rock formations, and trees adorned with black leaves. What is this place? I turn to find Micah on the other side of the gate. “If you’re not out in an hour, I’ll come for you, but I won’t come before, so don’t call for me.” The gate slams shut.

Adrenaline surges, and my legs burn with the speed of my dart toward the exit, but when I grab the steel, a shockwave of magic rips through my palms, and I jerk back with the searing pain. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” I call out to Micah, bitterness etched in my tone and ripped right from my soul.

“I’m trying to wake you up, Ember. There are worlds depending on it.”

“Fuck you,” I bite out, my hand on my blade, and for the first time ever, the magic that radiates off of it seems to vibrate deep in my bones.

A clicking sound, like a tongue hitting the roof of a mouth, has my heart racing and me whirling around. A creature stands several feet away, a blob of black slime with yellow eyes. A Slime Demon, when Micah told me there were none in Elysium. He apparently left out the part where the Underbelly is the exception—a demon prison, I now understand. I mentally process what I know of Slime demons, including how fast they move, and I’ve no sooner had the thought than it rushes at me, zipping from one place to the spot in front of me in the blink of an eye. Adrenaline is ripe in my veins, rolling through them with the force of a raging river, fear radiating in its depths, driving me to survive or die. The blade burns my palm with its surge of magic, and I plant it in the demon’s head, right through the top of the skull. It collapses and melts into a puddle of sludge.

I breathe out, relieved for all of a moment before instinct has me looking to my right and rotating to find a man standing there—tall, dark, and quite handsome if not for the yellow of his eyes. Werewolf, I think, but he’s been here so long, he doesn’t even remember how to disguise his eyes. Silver in the heart, I remind myself from my studies, and I spellcast a silver casing over my blade.

“Pretty lady,” he says, inching closer to me, and this is where things get dangerous. I have to be close to him to kill him.

I bury my nerves and rift to stand behind him, but he’s already gone. I whip around to find him perched on a boulder, half-man, half-wolf now. He all but flies off the boulder toward me, and I rift away from him, but he’s fast, so fast, and seems to anticipate my moves. I hit the ground, and he hits me, blasting me backward, my back to the ground as he snarls in my face.

I drive my blade into his heart, or I try and miss. He roars, and his teeth reach for my face—the damn thing wants to eat me. I yank out my blade and rift, climbing onto his hairy back, magically sending my blade to my sheath and replacing it with a sword I drive into his heart. He dissolves into ash.

I use my magic to wash away the ash and stand, ridding myself of the sword and drawing my dagger again, the confidence I’d hungered for starting to form inside me. I move on to the next demon, and the next, my skill and magic flourishing. And then, it happens. A giant serpent slithers toward me, eyes yellow and round as egg yolks but shiny, and I feel a wave of sickness overtake me.

I don’t know how to kill it.

I rift and reappear with a sword in my hand, and it’s already in front of me. I swipe at it, and it dodges and weaves, its long black tongue flickering about disgustingly. I slash it with my blade, and oh my God—it multiplies. It’s two serpents now. I rift to the top of a high rock formation—really high, twenty feet off the ground—and the serpents don’t just slither toward me at rocket speed, they start multiplying in mass.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I call out to Micah. Please! Help me!

He doesn’t answer, and I try again to call him, and finally I say, If I live, I will never forgive you for this.

The snakes are halfway to me now, and anything I can think of to battle them, I fear, might make them multiply even more than they already have. There are hundreds of them now, and my heart is pounding against my rib cage. They are close, so very close, and I wait until they are all but on top of me, and I rift away, only to find more of them all around me. Fear overwhelms me, desperation and the desire to live drive me. The magic from the blade radiates through me, fire breathes its hot breath along my nerve endings, and my hands fly up, flames shooting out of them as I rotate and hit all the snakes, over and over and over again, until they are all ash. No more snakes.

When it’s over, I pant, trying to catch my breath, and once I do, anger and hurt ripple through me. Micah sent me in here to face this. He knew what would come for me. I charge toward the exit, somehow knowing the way back when I’m not even sure where I’ve traveled, and not one more demon dares approach me. When I reach the barrier, the gate opens for me, and I step out to stand in front of Micah. “I’m not sure how you thought making me your enemy was in any of our best interests.”

“I’m not your enemy. I’m the man who just gave you the power to walk out of here and not only survive but save worlds in the process.”

“There were other ways to do it.”

“We could have stayed here for months, and you wouldn’t have overcome your fear until it was forced on you.”

“We will never be the same,” I say, and rift to the bay, where the diamonds glistening in crystal blue water offer me an escape from the darkness.

I spellcast away my clothes and wade into the water, letting it wash away the demon blood, letting it make me whole again, but it cannot make me and Micah whole again.

The Sacred Book of Nephilim

Everything is connected, even good and evil.

Chapter forty-six

His betrayal is a monster with fangs and poison blood.

I feel betrayed by Micah, deceived by the one person I’d come to trust, despite a world that has woven a tale for me rich with lies. I know I needed to test my skills and learn to use my fire, but the way Micah tricked me into entering the Underbelly, leaving me there alone, is what has me tied in knots. I have no desire to see or speak to him, and thankfully, he keeps his distance. I’m not even certain of what I feel for him right now, aside from anger.