NINE
It might take me more than a week to crack this prison.
Other than stone, Lila hadn’t found anything she could use to attack her captor—no materials to create a projectile, or a sneak blade, or a trap.
Nor could she find a single door leading into the castle. That large archway to the terrace was the tower’s only opening.
Taking care to avoid those excruciating fire vines, she crossed to the railing once more. She gazed out from what must be a league in the air and surveyed hell, disbelieving she was here.
The landscape boggled her mind. The night sky was black and choked with ash. In the distance, a gigantic volcano spewed lava. A river of it coursed through the valley below. Was that the legendary Styx?
The air reeked of misery, ruin, and death. Like a horror theme park on steroids.
A dense wave of fire vines did in fact crisscross the tower’s exterior. She’d have no chance of avoiding them if she climbed down.
Even if she could reach the ground, the “legions” below would seize her. There must be thousands of demons gathered. If she somehow outran them, she’d be hemmed in by that lava river. The heat didn’t seem to bother all those shirtless warriors, but she would be burned alive.
Lava rapids? She truly was in hell.
Nïx, you bitch. Why would she have betrayed Lila? Only Saetth had incentive.
Lila was the next in line for the throne, and her parents hadn’t been the only ones grumbling about his inability to protect the royal house from the Møriør. Lila’s cousins might mount a coup, especially now that he’d lost the sword.
But she couldn’t believe he’d send her to hell just to be rid of her. If he’d felt threatened, he would simply keep her exiled or kill her.
The Valkyrie must have duped him as well.
Lila shivered in her damp underwear. Night grew chilly in hell? Her captor hadn’t provided blankets or dry clothes. No food. Only orders.
For all her bluster, Lila was about to have . . . doubts.
What “wrongs” did the demon think she’d committed? If Abyssian came in the night as her reaper, would he behead her the way Saetth had her parents? One clean swipe? Maybe she’d go to sleep and never wake up.
Lila would fight to get free, but right now she needed to focus on her immediate task. She did fear spiders—didn’t most people?—but more than that she feared a challenge stumping her. It’d be a first.
Her life motto was FITFO. Because as far as a problem went, she always figured it the fuck out.
She gazed up at the sky, trying to determine how long till sunrise. The lengths of days and nights varied from world to world, and she’d read that hell’s stretched longer than most. But if dawn arrived sooner than she expected—
A gust of ash-laden wind rushed over her. As she hurried inside, she went into another coughing fit, brushing against a fire vine. Damn it!
Eyes watering, she crossed to the wheel that he’d conjured with a wave of his hand. Having been away from the Lore for so long, she wasn’t used to real displays of magic.
Was spinning a cobweb even possible? It sounded so fairy tale–esque. But then, she was a fairy princess.
She sat and replayed the earlier demonstration. Tamping the floor pedal would make the wheel spin. A measure of thread had already been started. Apparently, she was to attach sections of thick cobweb to the end of that length, pulling it straight as the wheel dragged it in.
She hesitated to touch the pile of cobwebs. But she had to, else meet the web’s spinners.
When she reached for the webbing, it stuck to her fingers. “Ugh!” With clumsy movements, she began to work, coughing all the while.
A couple of false starts slowed her down, but she learned from her mistakes and found a rhythm. The tensile thread was surprisingly strong.
Her monotonous task gave her too much time to think. Sooner or later the demon would discover her real identity, and without warm and fuzzy feelings toward his mate, he’d turn her over to the Møriør archer for assassination—if Abyssian didn’t do it himself.
Rumor held that Rune Darklight, A.K.A. Rune the Baneblood, had once been a slave in the broiling fens of Sylvan, horribly abused by the ruler during his time: Queen Magh, who was both Saetth’s mother and an ancestress of Lila.
Rune had sworn to stamp out Magh’s entire line. Which meant Lila as well. If she didn’t escape this place before she was found out . . .
I now have a deadline, emphasis on dead.
She recalled the grueling tension at court whenever the archer assassinated another royal. With each execution, the noose tightened, the odds of survival growing slimmer. For months after, everyone would appear haunted and hollow-eyed.
She’d been too young to grasp all the ramifications, but she’d known one thing for certain: The bogeyman is real. . . .
In her lifetime, Rune had murdered four of her cousins, all of them caught outside the fortified safety of Sylvan Castle, all of them despicable.
But I’m not.
The tips of her pointed ears began to twitch. Foot paused on the pedal, she rubbed the back of her neck and gazed around the dim area.
She heard the scurrying of . . . things in every dark place, but she never caught sight of them. Probably for the best.
Yet she was certain she was being watched.