River

Keep going. Get out. Get out! You can try to fix this when you’re out of here, but you have to be free to do it!

I kept telling myself this, but though I’d gained strength from Kobal, it wasn’t enough. I could barely keep my feet under me, and I couldn’t let Kobal carry me again. We all needed our hands free as much as possible to survive the craziness surrounding us.

“The manticores are out! Angels are not!” Morax yelled over his shoulder at us.

“Did you communicate with Shax?” Kobal inquired.

“Yes. I can’t get in touch with Bettle again, but Shax and the others have been warned about what is coming.”

Please let them survive it, I pleaded as my right leg gave out on me.

Kobal lifted me into his arms before I could hit the ground. “Put me down!” I said.

“No.” I knew there would be no changing his mind.

The walls shook around us, and more rocks fell as three more demons toppled into the nothingness below. The numbers on both sides of the fight were dwindling.

“Head for the throne room!” Kobal shouted to Morax. “I can open a gateway there that will take us out!”

Morax gave a wave of his tail in response. After another hundred feet, he veered to the left and into a tunnel. Many of the demons, paliton and craeton alike, followed him. Some kept going along the roadway toward the gate above.

Knowing he wouldn’t put me down, I draped my arms around Kobal’s neck when he entered the tunnel. His muscles bunched and flexed against me. One of his hands shielded my head as the ground heaved upward again. My eyes darted nervously to the ceiling as more dust and pebbles rained down.

“Can’t you open a gate here?” Hawk asked from behind us.

“We would have to stop here,” Kobal replied. “And it takes time to open one.”

The Earth quaked again and larger chunks of stone clattered around us. The dust became so thick I could barely see Lix in front of me. Phenex yelped when a rock caught her on the shoulder.

“I’d prefer not stopping right now,” Magnus said as he wiped dust from his hair.

“Agreed,” Hawk panted.

Morax took another turn and entered the cavern with the silent waterfall of fire. I gazed into the flames as Kobal ran beneath them. Their heat warmed my skin, but they didn’t burn me.

Kobal leapt effortlessly over the stones winding through the red and orange river and into the enormous room at the end of the stream. With every step he took into the room, more colors blazed to life in the pathway of stones beneath him. The symbols etched into the walls twisted and moved toward him as if they were greeting their king.

The power of those symbols crackled against my skin, strengthening me further as the room came alive in a way I’d never dreamed possible.

This place was as much Kobal as the Fires of Creation were.

***

Kobal

My gaze went to the far dais, my fangs throbbed with the urge to tear something to shreds. My throne was gone, and I knew exactly who had it, but why had Lucifer bothered to come here and take it when the weight of it would only slow him down? I had a feeling I would find out the answer to that soon enough.

Beyond where my throne once sat, I saw that River’s was also gone.

When she squirmed in my arms, I set her down. She walked away from me to rest her fingers against the wall. Her head bowed and her black hair fell forward to shield her features.

Pulling her hand away, she flexed it as she stepped back. Pink color tinged her cheeks and the black circles under her eyes had lessened. Realizing this room gave her strength, I seized her hand and placed it on the wall again. She tried to tug it from me, but I refused to release her.

“You saw what happened below! What I did!” She jerked at her hand again.

“Those were extraordinary events. You are weakened, Lucifer is still alive, and Hell is coming apart. Take what you need from this place, while you can,” I replied, unwilling to relent.

Her fingers unfurled in my hand to rest against the wall. We stared at each other for a moment before I released her. The ground shuddered again. A jagged crack raced out from beneath my feet and toward the dais. Through the crack, the flames beneath us flickered and jumped. The demons stumbled away from it and the hounds backed slowly away.

“Opening that gateway sometime soon would be lovely,” Magnus said to me.

“For once, I must agree with him,” Lopan said from his perch on Calah’s shoulders.

“Step back,” I commanded.

River turned and flattened her back against the wall while the demons crept closer to her. Many of them eyed her warily, and only Corson and Bale were brave enough to stand beside her, but beneath the demons’ apprehension of her, I also saw admiration. What she’d done to the seals made them nervous, but they respected power, and she had displayed a lot of it.

I rubbed my palms together before closing my eyes and focusing on the flow of the symbols marking me. It had been years since I’d opened a gateway, and I’d never done it as often as my ancestors had in the days before Lucifer entered Hell, but the ability to do so came flooding back to me.

The ground heaved again, and gasps filled the air as the temperature in the throne room ratcheted up. Energy crackled over my skin. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know the fissure had grown enough to reveal the oracle below.

Opening my eyes, I turned my hands so the backs of them pressed against each other. My markings shifted and flooded down to my fingertips when I pulled my hands apart. The rending of the air caused my skin to ripple as I opened a hole before me. I may not do it often, but the opening of the gateways was a part of me and it brought forth an overwhelming sensation of rightness with it.

River’s eyes met mine over the black hole in front of me. At three feet wide and five feet high, the hole had been opened through the fabric of time itself. The ground heaved upward, knocking most of the demons into the wall as chunks of the ceiling broke free to smash into the ground. The force of them dented the ground, and one larger piece crushed a demon beneath it. I didn’t have time to open the gateway as wide as I wanted to, or to have it open on the other end where I wanted it to.

This would have to be enough.

“Hurry!” I commanded and held one of my hands out to River. Until I closed it, the gateway would remain open without me now. Taking my hand, she stepped away from the wall. “It won’t take you all the way out of Hell,” I told her. “I didn’t have enough time for that, but it will get you most of the way there.”

“I’m not going without you,” she stated.

“I will follow you, after the others go through.”

She glanced at everyone else. “They’ll go first, but I’m staying with you.”

“No, you’re not.” Looking beyond her, I focused on the demons. “Start evacuating, now!”

“Your majesty, you should go first,” one of them protested, and the others nodded their agreement.

“The Fires will not kill me, but they will kill you. Go.”

I didn’t have to order them through again as they rushed into the gateway. Many had to duck to enter it, and some could only go through one at a time. The tree nymphs were small enough to fit two or three at a time. The darkness swirled up like fog to block most of their bodies before they were more than three feet in. Within five feet, they disappeared.

“You have to go,” I said to River.

“You are their king, and I am their queen,” she said. “I will wait until our followers are safe too.”

“I will survive if this whole place falls, you will not. You’re going.”

“Kobal—”

“No more arguments.” I shifted my attention to Corson. “Get her out of here and don’t stop until she’s on the surface.”

She opened her mouth to protest before closing it. Resting her palm against my cheek, she rose onto her toes to kiss me. Unable to resist, I drew her closer to deepen the kiss.

When the ground heaved again, I pulled away from her. Demons cried out as the fissure in the floor expanded and fire leapt up from below. Sweat stuck River’s hair to her face as she leaned closer to me.

“No matter what happens, know I love you with everything I am,” she whispered.

“And I you, Mah Kush-la. Now go.”

“Come, child, it’s time for you to leave this place,” Caim said and nudged her forward with his wing.

“Corson, go,” I ordered. “Hawk go with them.”

“I would like to go too,” Caim said as he stepped forward. “If something happens, I can get her from Hell the fastest.”

I hesitated before responding. I didn’t want the angel with her, but he had a point. “If he tries anything, kill him,” I said to Corson.

Corson grinned as he rubbed his chin with the tip of one of his deadly talons. “Gladly.”

They all moved forward to follow behind River as she entered the gateway. Sorrow emanated from her as she stared at me over her shoulder until she vanished. Stepping back, I gestured for the others to go through as fire rose to consume the dais.

Bale, Magnus, Lix, Morax, Verin, Calah, and Lopan spread out around me while Phenex and Crux sat next to me. Resting my hands on the heads of Phenex and Crux, I drew them back into me, locking them away as the rest of the hounds prowled nearby. Low growls emanated from them as the fissure in the floor expanded.