Page 18 of The Fearless Witch

Chapter 8

Celeste

My mother used to tell my sister and me stories about Hell when we were little. Cautionary tales about how the Angel of Death became corrupted and cast out of Heaven, so he took over Hell and turned his gaze on the land of the living. About how I should keep away from demons, speak no words to demons, and most importantly, don’t make deals with demons.

Obviously, I should have heeded her warnings.

But now that I was in this predicament… I couldn’t help but think of that time, of all those hazy memories and the precious words they contained. Of all the questions I should have asked, but didn’t because my mother was there. Despite all her magic, her true power had always been her deep understanding of death and the afterlife, so I doubted there was a book or witch today that held more knowledge than she did all those centuries ago. Yet even she didn’t know the answer to the one question I had asked her back then.

How do you kill a demon?

I pushed away from the cupboard I had been examining for the last few minutes. Apart from the now-empty water bowl and several books older than anything I had in my collection in Roman’s house, there was nothing to indicate that a person lived in this room.

Nym’s eyes kept following me, but I did my best to ignore him. I had been trying to focus on anything else but him, avoiding his gaze, his questions, and his anguish that made the air heavy and bitter.

After the initial shock had passed, a blissful numbness had spread through my body. At first, I had embraced it, wanting to feel none of the hard, gut-wrenching emotions that accompanied his betrayal. I had decided to focus all my mental energy and efforts on getting out of there, away from Beleth and… him. Surely, if I never saw him or thought about him again, this sting would disappear and the pain would lessen.

But while I calmed down and sank deeper into that numbness, his misery only seemed to grow. He didn’t go anywhere, he barely moved, watching me like a man dying from thirst while I dangled a glass of water in front of his face. And then it hit me.

He was hurting, just like I was. Probably even more because now I had others who could fill the void that was left in my chest and he… had no one. Beleth didn’t seem to care all that much, so there was only… me. He had spent most of his immortal life with me.

My vision blurred, and I took a deep breath, trying to restore the fragile balance inside myself. There was something else, something I hadn’t allowed myself to consider because it would mean embracing those feelings instead of avoiding them.

What if what he said was true? What if Beleth forbade him from telling me the truth, even though he wanted to? That meant he was as much a victim as I was. And all this pain he was feeling right now… it was my fault.

I slowly released the breath I had been holding, opening my eyes and blinking the tears away. A few months ago, making this choice would have been easy. Lies and betrayals were unforgivable, no matter the circumstances—that’s what I had always thought. But a lot had changed since then and I… I wasn’t the same person anymore.

This new version of me wasn’t that afraid of the pain and heartbreak, wasn’t so quick to cut people out of my life to avoid dealing with complicated emotions; wasn’t as willing to lose another friend just because they chose another—if Nym had any choice at all.

My mind gradually quieted, heartbeat slowing down until I was calm again.

I didn’t know what to say or do to make things right again. I wasn’t sure if there was anything that could undo the crack that now separated us, but I knew one thing for certain… I didn’t want to make it any wider than it already was and lose all hope of ever standing on the same side.

“You’re not going to find anything,” Nym said. He still lay in the corner of the bed in his cat form, head resting on his paws. The tightness in my chest grew as I finally met his somber eyes, his whiskers drooping even lower when I said nothing.

‘Listen to his side of the story.’ I was sure Malakai would have said if he were here. ‘Don’t lock your emotions away and leave them to fester. Tell the people you care about everything. Mend what can be mended. Be fearless, my lovely rose.’

“Oh?” I said awkwardly, running my fingers over the spines of the five old books on the highest shelf. My voice sounded off, too high and unnatural, but if he noticed, he said nothing about it.

“Beleth doesn’t live here, so there will be no traces of him,” he elaborated. My finger stopped on the last book and I took a deep breath. ‘Talking,’ I told myself, ‘the first step was talking, even if it wasn’t about the elephant in the room.’ Not to mention, learning more about Beleth would definitely help me come up with a better plan to escape this place, and Nym… probably knew more about him than anything in this room could tell me.

I turned around this time, crossing my arms and giving him my full attention.

“He prefers the land of the living. He only comes down here when he… has work to do.”

“And what work exactly does he do?” I asked, clearing my throat in the hope of getting the lump stuck in there to go away. “Torture the damned?”

“No, he’s a lower demon,” Nym replied, his tail swishing excitedly, as if just getting my attention was enough to make him happy again. “His role in Hell is to secure new souls by making deals with living creatures.” I kept silent, waiting impatiently for him to continue because I knew that voice well, and I knew when he was holding back. Nym’s ears twitched, and he sighed. “He’s here to fight. Every time you wake and your power returns, he grows stronger. And when that happens, he comes down as often as he can to challenge the Princes of Hell.”

An incredulous laughter bubbled in my throat at the nonchalant way he said that, but his grave look stopped it before it left my lips. I knew from old religious scriptures that it was believed a few other angels fell along with Lucifer and later became Princes of Hell, but considering how much nonsense humans wrote about witches and the supernatural world, I had stopped assuming they knew what they were talking about at all. It wasn’t like people could waltz into Hell to gather such valuable information…

“There are Princes of Hell?” I repeated, and Nym gave me a slow nod.

I bit the inside of my lip to stop the flood of questions from pouring out. All my life, aside from Nym, my one constant companion had been knowledge. I had collected it diligently, anything and everything I could get my hands on. The one thing that always eluded me—and perhaps any other scholar in history—was the secrets of the afterlife. Even after all these centuries, Heaven and Hell remained a complete mystery.

“So they are real?” I whispered, sinking into one of the chairs since my legs suddenly felt like jelly. Nym nodded again, keeping quiet while I tried to come to terms with the idea. It was one thing speculating about the workings of Hell, and another to… know. “And Beleth comes to Hell… to fight them?” I asked hesitantly, not sure if I should laugh or be horrified. That demon might be even crazier than I thought. Nym nodded once again. “Why?”

“Because if Beleth becomes a Prince, his power would be tied to Hell itself. When you die again, he won’t be affected,” Nym replied, his tone carefully neutral. I ran a hand through my hair, ignoring the way my fingers tangled with the knots that had formed in it.

---