Page 8 of Demanding Discord
3
CINDER
Clutching a dagger in my right hand, I crept into the temple, darkness engulfing me the moment I crossed the threshold, plunging me into an inky blackness unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I held the blade in front of my face, but I might as well have been blindfolded. No light seeped inside, so it didn’t even reflect a faint glint.
I lit a fireball in my hand, expecting to illuminate at least a quarter of the room, but my flames barely penetrated the darkness. I could only see about a foot in every direction, and the first hint of panic flushed my veins like ice water.
“How good is your night vision?” I turned around, being careful not to move out of my spot, expecting my demon’s rumbly voice to break the silence. I heard nothing.
“Discord?” My pulse thrummed, and my throat thickened. I sheathed my dagger and extended my arm, shuffling slowly in the direction from which I’d entered, searching for the exit or a wall…not that I expected to find a light switch. I just needed to ground myself, because standing in an empty void had me nauseated and hyperventilating.
“Discord,” I shouted. “Where are you?”
Had the man not bothered to follow me inside? He’d seemed convinced coming here was a waste of time, so maybe he’d decided to let me find out for myself. Alone.
I swallowed the thickness from my throat and shuffled a few more steps toward…what? A hellmouth? A pool of acid? A pit of despair? My sense of direction had been snuffed out along with my vision. I thought I’d been heading toward the exit, but as I crept forward, sliding one foot in front of the other, testing the viability of the floor before shifting my weight, it seemed I was going deeper into the temple.
“This isn’t funny, Discord. Get your ass in here.” The darkness swallowed my words as if I were shouting into a pillow. My heart beat like a hummingbird had taken flight in my chest, and that pillow I was screaming into…? It just ripped open and filled my mouth with a wad of cotton.
I sucked in a deep, shaky breath…two…three…and tried to get a handle on my anxiety. Discord had felt uneasy about coming here. If he’d thought it was dangerous to come inside, he wouldn’t have sent me in alone. We were a team, whether I liked it or not, and he wouldn’t have risked my life to prove a point.
Sure, he was arrogant and broody, but he wanted to survive this as much as I did. He needed me alive, plain and simple. What wasn’t so simple…?
My feelings for him. Every time he swore we were meant to be together, my stomach did a little dance inside my abdomen. This wasn’t the time, place, or lifetime for me to be falling for a demon, but one thing was certain… He wouldn’t have sent me in here alone any more than I would have sent him, and I did not like the implications of that fact.
Did he get ambushed the second I stepped inside? Did he use magic that drained him enough to make it impossible to walk? I was still alive and kicking, so no one had obliterated him yet. Or…
Was I still alive?
Discord had described the dark prison as a sensory deprivation chamber. Was this pitch-black darkness my new eternity? Was I in prison? Was I dead?
No. No way was I dead. If someone died in Hell, their soul was obliterated. I wouldn’t be able to think, much less panic about my predicament.
This was Hecate’s temple. Of course it would be magical. This was some sort of test I needed to pass before I could find her. It had to be.
“No problem, Cin. You’ve got this.” I crept forward blindly, swinging my arm from side to side so I didn’t bump into anything. I tapped my toes on the ground before each step to make sure it hadn’t fallen away in front of me. The hummingbird in my chest flew upward to beat its wings in my throat, and I did my best to take deep, slow breaths.
A menacing growl sounded to my left, breaking the silence, and instinct took over. I chucked a fireball in the direction of the sound. Yes, I knew witch fire didn’t hurt demons in Hell, but like I said…instinct. As it turned out, not hurting my adversary was the least of my problems.
The fireball hit something, and a flash of light nearly blinded me. It bounced off whatever it hit and hurled toward me. I raised my hand, ready to call the flames back, but a crashing sound to my right distracted me. I spun and stumbled, catching myself on a stone ledge. My fingers plunged into something thick and wet. Yuck.
The fireball hit the wall and erupted. A massive stone bowl stood on an ornate pedestal, and whatever it contained was flammable. Highly flammable. Heat blasted my skin, the wind whipping my hair back as the flames finally illuminated the room.
A small channel descended from the vat of fire, and flames licked their way down it, igniting smaller bowls and torches as they passed. That wet stuff I’d plunged my hand into? It was oil, and thank the goddess I was fireproof.
My fingers burst into flames, and I held up my hand, spinning in a circle and taking in my surroundings as the fire consumed the oil on my skin. The walls soared thirty feet high, purple gems embedded in the stone glittering in the firelight, and a twenty-foot statue of the goddess rose between two dancing flames. She wore a flowing gown and held a fiery staff, and two dogs sat at her side, gazing up at her.
My breath came out in a rush, and I pressed my hand to my chest as I bowed before her image. Goosebumps pricked on my skin, the fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck standing on end. Never had I ever been this close to the actual goddess herself.
Sure, she’d come to me in dreams. She’d answered our prayers and sent us messages when we’d performed rituals and asked for her blessing, but this… This was some next-level, once-in-a-lifetime, no-one-has-been-here-and-made-it-out-alive shit.
Why hadn’t I thought to bring an offering?
“Oh!” I swung my backpack to my front and grabbed a handful of the herbs I’d taken from the seer before laying them at the statue’s feet. “Goddess, please accept this token. I am your humble disciple. Blessed be.”
I repositioned my backpack and buckled it at my waist. “Hecate? Are you here?”
A torch ignited on the far wall, illuminating a doorway to the next chamber. I glanced from it to the main entrance and swallowed the lemon-sized lump in my throat. Darkness blanketed both passages. I couldn’t see what lay beyond either threshold, and I chewed the inside of my cheek as I contemplated my next move.
