Page 44 of Witch Queen

“We’re going to crash!” Cortes yelled.

“No, we’re not,” Vannog huffed haughtily, smoke billowing from his enormous nostrils.

Astarte smirked at them over her shoulder. “Enjoy the ride, kids.”

She rolled off the helldragon and dropped from view.

Mae’s stomach flip-flopped as Vannog dove after her. Alastair squawked. Popo shrieked. Tarang yowled.

Astarte whooped excitedly where she flew beside the helldragon, her hand skimming his flank.

The floor of the valley rose to meet them at a speed that made Mae’s eyes water. Leaves and branches exploded off trees in the powerful downdraft caused by Vannog’s wings as he pulled up sharply and skimmed the top of a forest.

This is fun!Brimstone chuffed, face wobbling with the G-force.

Mae was starting to think the ride had affected her familiar’s brain.

Vannog sailed over a lake where giant, shadowy beasts swam beneath the surface, folded his wings, and darted inside an opening in the base of the mountain.

Astarte reappeared and alighted nimbly on the back of the dragon’s neck as he glided through a huge tunnel that burrowed beneath the land. She cackled when she saw their ashen expressions in the gloom.

“Ah.” The Goddess wiped a tear of mirth from her eye. “I should have brought a cellphone to the Underworld just so I could take a snapshot of your faces right now.” She chuckled. “Artemus is going to crack a rib laughing when I tell him about this.”

A full body snigger shook her frame.

Mae scowled. Nikolai peeled Alastair’s wings from his face and spat out a feather, similarly annoyed. Vlad was cajoling Tarang out from under his jacket.

“I told you guys she was going to be a pain in our ass,” Cortes muttered darkly, carefully unhooking Popo’s claws from where the parrot clung grimly to his chest.

Vannog navigated a maze of burrows that twisted and dipped and rose beneath some twenty miles of mountains, the tips of his wings at times brushing the rock walls. The gloom finally dwindled when he approached an exit. He emerged into a canyon carved by a turbulent river and looped smoothly around the edge of a bluff.

Mae’s breath caught when the helldragon shot out onto a vast plain where golden fields swayed in a gentle breeze. Her wide-eyed gaze danced over the wheat crops covering the immense prairie and around the ring of towering, mist-wreathed mountains enclosing the valley they were crossing.

Evergreen forests draped the flanks of the peaks, along with colorful meadows full of flowers and pastures where hellbeasts grazed. Waterfalls glinted here and there against dark rock faces, liquid silver cascading down vertiginous ridges to meet the river that meandered through the valley.

“How is this possible?!” Nikolai shouted, stunned. “This place is just like somewhere you’d find on Earth!”

Astarte twisted around and leveled a steady look at Mae. “It is a blessing granted to us by your father’s magic.”

Mae’s stomach knotted as she gazed at the demon Goddess. “My father did this?!”

“Yes.” Astarte faced forward again. “This place used to be like the other valleys we passed not long ago. Dark and bleak, with only dead forests and dry, cracked land. It’s come back to life in the past couple of months. We believe it’s because Azazel found out you were still alive.”

Mae’s fingers clenched on Brimstone. The fox keened softly and raised his head to lick her chin.

“There are a handful of places like this in Hell Deep that Azazel helped create,” Astarte said. “The most beautiful of them was the kingdom he built for Ran Soyun.”

Mae stiffened. “Is that still?—?”

“No.” Astarte’s tone hardened. “The war the first Sorcerer King and Barquiel brought to that dominion devastated it beyond repair. I doubt even Azazel would be able to resurrect the realm he once inhabited with his wife and child.”

A lump formed in Mae’s throat as Na Ri’s sorrow fluttered through her heart.

A city appeared up ahead. A pale citadel crowned the low hill within its towering walls.

“Are those—bones?!” Vlad gasped.

The castle gleamed in the low light, the human remains making up its facade radiating a sickening light.

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