Page 28 of Hell Sent

Azreth looked away from her, clenching his jaw. After a few moments, he found he was too frustrated to sit still, and he got up.

“I will return,” he said tersely, and he walked away from the fire.

He kept walking until he was at the edge of the camp, then turned to look back down the path through a colorful array of tents. In the twilight, a bonfire at the center of the camp glowed brilliantly, surrounded by carefree people. They were dancing, stumbling from the influence of the intoxicants they drank, while someone banged on drums incessantly.

It was all sohideouslycheerful.

He imagined taking a sword and swinging it in a wide arc around the bonfire, cutting down five of them at once, mid-dance. He could cast a wave of fire that would set all their pretty tents aflame. He could tear into them one by one, in front of each other. They’d all fall to their knees, sobbing and keening as he drank their blood. He might not be able to have their happiness, but he could make their lives as terrible as his was. Mortals could build peaceful societies, but demons could break them.

He could turn all their joy to misery in an instant, and they didn’t even know it. They didn’t care. They danced on, blissfully unaware. He hated them.

“Well met, sair!” came a loud, high voice behind him.

He turned, startled. An elf child was peering up at him with interest, his tiny hand lifted in greeting. There was no one with him; he was wandering alone, without protection, as if he had nothing to fear. He was smiling broadly for no reason that Azreth could see—it was simply an inner joy that mortals were born with.But the smile quickly turned to a look of unease.

All Azreth’s violent energy drained. He felt tired.

He attempted to tame his glower into a kinder expression, but it didn’t quite work. The boy sensed his wrongness, even through the glamour, and Azreth felt a small but potent fear sprouting from him.The child spun and sprinted back toward the warm glow of the bonfire. Azreth watched him go.

A snort in the distance caught his attention, and he realized the Roamers’ herd of behelgi was grazing on the hill behind him. They’d been so quiet that he’d not noticed them. It was a stark contrast to the chaos of the camp.

Slowly, he sat down in the grass near them. A few paused to glance up at him with dark eyes, but then they went back to nibbling on the endless supply of grass.A few of them had lay down to doze. They were perfectly at ease.

He wished he could be more like them.

Thirteen

ten years ago

He 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 hehadskin 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.”

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