dinner plate and gleaming deep blue. I froze as the memory moved, coiling sinuously through the tunnel, and when it was gone, I kept going until I found stairs heading back up.
They went on for ages. I groaned to Sarai at one point, my legs trembling after what felt like thousands of steps. “At least the trip is easy for you.”
An enormous wolf bounded past only inches in front of my face when I found the top, but I kept going. The only place I wanted to be was out of here.
Irkalla. Irkalla. Irkalla.
It was starting to feel hopeless. I had no idea how many hours I’d been alone, only that the constant trudge was beginning to wear on me. Maybe that was how the Between got its sacrifices: it just sent people in circles until they laid down from pure weariness and died.
I thought of Lailah and Nakir, far overhead now, and their desperate love before their deaths.
There was no way in Hell I was going to die in here and let my love become nothing but a memory trapped in amber. When the next people passed through here, would they see a vision of me walking until I gave up and died?
“Fuck you, Between,” I snarled under my breath. “Fuck your memories, fuck the bullshit.”
I finally reached the end of the endless hallway.
Two doorways were in front of me. One shimmered like it was covered with a layer of black glass that dripped upwards, superimposed over the image of a bleak landscape.
I renewed my grip on the Spear. Even though it wouldn’t help me against memories, its golden light was as comforting as a human voice, and the place beyond the doorway looked like it was going to have some pretty Hellish memories.
But the other door… it was lighter, promising something less horrendous. There was a field beyond it, bursting with flowers in soft shades of rose and lavender, the sunlight warm and welcoming.
Or was it a trick?
Something pale and bright moved near me, and I jumped away, my heart slamming back into overtime.
It was Lailah again, her lover’s hand in hers. She was as bright as the sunrise in a place like this, looking lovingly up at Nakir’s face with violet eyes. Her star-like brightness lit the waves of night spilling from his shoulders.
“This way, love,” she said playfully, pulling him through the darker door. Her white dress trailed behind them and vanished as they stepped through the glass.
It felt like a sign.
“I’m coming, Vyra,” I murmured, and followed them through the dark glass without allowing myself to second guess my decision.
My ears popped and the prickle of magic ran over me. The Spear threw off an arc of light in protest.
Cool air brushed across my face, tasted bitter on my tongue.
A flake of ash landed on my cheek. I brushed it away with a shaking hand, but it was followed by another, and another.
My lungs contracted tightly as I stepped into a pile of gray ash, then bent down and frantically brushed it away. The ground beneath the ash was pitch black.
I spun around, but the doorway was gone. There was no ceiling overhead, no walls. Only an endless expanse of jagged mountains.
I exhaled, so close to tears my throat hurt. “Thank you, Lailah.”
The Between had finally spit me out, right into Irkalla.
And I was now in actual danger.
I ducked behind an enormous boulder and crouched down, lowering the head of the Spear. Its light was obvious, warm and brilliant, and I’d already screwed up in those first few seconds of believing I was still in the Between.
But where was everyone else?
I chewed my lower lip, studying the landscape around me. I’d stepped out of the Between right onto a broad shelf of rock, and the ash was disturbed, my footprints clearly imprinted into it.
There was no way of knowing if they’d come out in the same area, or miles away. Those footprints looked like someone had dropped right out of the sky, and that someone could’ve been Lucifer.
I yanked out my boot knife and began scratching at the boulder, pausing every few seconds to stop and listen. The only sound was the lonely wind and my own breath, and when I was done, I tucked away my blunted blade.
I’d carved four distinct symbols. A swirling sigil, a star, an upside-down cross, and an eclipse of light. If they came across it, they’d know I’d been here.
There was no time to sit around and wait. If