“You killed us all,” he growled, rounding on me again. I backed through the nearest doorway, praying that something horrendous enough to stall him was on the other side. “I might be the last one, but I will fucking gut you before I die, woman. I swear it.”
Pure light washed over us as the Sin Eater charged again, sweeping out with his sword. The edge skated off my gilded armor, opened a thin line on my arm, and I whipped the Spear around.
The angle was wrong, and the blades just bounced off his side. The Sin Eater laughed as he circled me.
All I needed was one good opening, and he’d be cinders before he knew what hit him.
The Between finally did me a favor.
He flinched as a god with a wide rack of antlers and cloven feet passed between us. We barely reached the god’s ankles. The scent of pine trees and cold, wintry air followed in the memory’s wake, but I’d been prepared for a memory to disrupt us.
The Sin Eater was unprepared when I dove right through the god’s intangible hooves and drove the Spear into his chest, right through the leather bag and his armor.
Only the bare tips of the pronged spear points plunged into his skin, but it was enough. Even the tiniest contact with the Spear’s essence was catastrophic for anyone besides me.
White fire gushed out from under the Sin Eater’s helmet. He screamed and ripped it off his head, but there was no way out for him now. The fire tore from his eyes, nose, and mouth, burning him alive from the inside.
Within seconds, his empty armor dropped to the floor. Only a charred pile of demon remained inside.
I braced my foot on the chest plate and ripped the Spear free, crouching down as I carefully untied the bag and revealed the golden points. I’d been so panicked and terrified over losing everyone that I hadn’t even felt the pain when I’d gripped the Spear, although my palms were dark red with fresh burns.
I exhaled a deep breath. He’d said he was the last of them. The remaining Sin Eaters had all died trying, and failing, to kill me.
Now, at the very least, I knew I’d no longer be tailed by assassins. It was a cold comfort next to the thought that I was completely alone in the Between, and in my hurry to get away from the Sin Eater, I had no idea which direction I’d gone.
Not that it mattered much in this place.
The fight had been cathartic, burning off the last of my terror in a burst of adrenaline. I cupped my jaw, using the tiniest possible bit of my healing magic to take down the swelling and heal my cut tongue. It’d be sore for a while, but I couldn’t afford to waste any more magic. Not when I didn’t know what else was coming.
I stood up, determined to get my bearings. The forest god was gone, but old autumn leaves were crushed on the floor in drifts. The Sin Eater’s remains would stay here alongside them.
There was a trapdoor set in the ground, half-buried under a drift of leaves. I brushed them aside, and they crumbled into dust under my hands. The ring on the trapdoor was red with rust and the hinges squealed loudly when I yanked it open.
“That ladder does not look safe.” I gave the wooden thing masquerading as a ladder a stern look. “But we’re doing this anyways.”
There was something about the Between that made me want to talk to myself. Like the silence was too loud, and if I didn’t say something in a human voice, I might disappear into the memories, too.
I lowered myself into the narrow hole, gripping the splintery wood ladder with one hand. The Spear’s golden light lit the walls around me as I climbed down several yards and found myself in a tunnel, up to my knees in icy water.
It splashed with every step I took, bouncing off the walls and coming back even louder. I took the passages on faith alone, choosing left instead of right, following a small waterfall downwards because the air smelled better in that direction.
The entire time, I kept thoughts of Lucifer and Vyra, and that rocky ledge in Irkalla, in my mind. Take to Irkalla. Take me there.
At one point the coils of a snake’s body rose out of the water near me, each scale the size of a