Page 22 of Hidden Sacrifice
Opening my eyes, it was too dark. I reached up; I felt a pair of glasses on my face; I ripped them off. I blinked against the flickering amber glow in the shape of a rectangle. My mind started to catch up on what had happened. There had been so much anger shooting through those narrow walls, hitting me. It had hurt so badly. My boys were not ok.
I looked at the glasses still clutched in my hand; they were sunglasses. I realized I was lying in a beach chair, but it sat on a hard slab of concrete instead of sand. There was another chair next to me, complete with an umbrella to block the nonexistent sun. Justice lounged in the chair. His pair of thick plastic sunglasses covered his eyes.
“Glad to see you’re awake, Fox,” he said, looking over at me lazily.
“What’s that?” I pointed to the flickering orange rectangle, realizing that it was a doorway.
“My dungeon.”
“Is it on fire?” I could feel the heat coming off it from here. A trickle of amusement floated through the air from him.
“Yes, Fox, it is.”
“I thought you said you would show me your dungeon?”
“I will, once it’s purged.” He looked back to the fire, a smile on his face.
“What happened back at the palace?”
He looked back at me again with something like sympathy in his eyes. “You were overwhelmed by all the emotions. Your mind shut down to protect itself. It also ended the argument because Jax didn’t have any problem letting you go with me after that.”
“Why was Jax so angry?” I had never felt anger like that before.
“Jax is angry like that a lot. Anger is what Jax feels the most and has for a long time. You need to learn how to use and, more importantly, how to block the emotions.”
“How is burning down your dungeon going to help with that?”
Justice smiled wide, and I felt my cheeks mirror him as his emotions moved me like a puppet.
“Follow me, my fox.” He got up from the chair and held out a hand for me, which I happily accepted. He kept my hand as we walked, and I felt a hum of excitement run through me.
We arrived at a simple door that Justice walked through. Following him through the doorway led us straight into the beyond. We walked through the foggy trees, I had never seen fog here before, but the lavender was a dead giveaway. The rings of Hell above us shone down as if made of light crystals.
Instead of a ring portal, Justice brought us to a realm portal. We stopped before it as I raised my eyebrow, wondering if he was planning to at least tell me where we were going.
“Human realm, Fox,” he said with a soft smile that felt reassuring.
“What about concealing my face?” I asked, patting my face as if I could will it into a different shape, so I wouldn’t have to take another one of those potions.
“No need to worry about where we’re going, Fox.” He winked at me.
“Let’s go then,” I said, feeling relieved I would still be me.
“You need to learn how to stop worrying so much.”
Hand-in-hand we went through the portal and into the human realm. My bare feet hit the sand as I smelled the warm ocean breeze. A familiar moon hung above me, and only a few clouds hung in the otherwise starry sky. I knew the unique patterns of three moons now and two entirely different night skies.
“How do the different realms work? Like all the stars and planets and life that must be out there, is that all my realm? Or are those other realms just other planets that we can transport through the portals?”
Justice was looking up into my night sky. They didn’t have stars in Hell’s night sky.
“Each realm is what you humans think of as your universe. But the human realm is a little different from all the others, so give me a moment to explain it better as a whole and then explain how it is different.” Justice took a seat in the sand, and I followed suit. “Each realm contains specific magical laws for the mortal souls. When we say realm, it is about power, not physical space. Physically, they could exist on a planet circling a star that you see in your night sky. But power-wise, the beings there are locked there, but not those in the human realm. With a few exceptions, of course.
The human realm contains the only mortal souls that have not yet unlocked the power of their souls. All human souls that die without unlocking their power are reborn back into the human realm. But some human souls can unlock their soul power through interactions with beings from other realms. Once that soul dies, it can be reincarnated in any different domain. Other than celestial realms. Or the god realms, of course.”
I sat there silently, trying desperately to take in without allowing the ever-stacking pile of new questions to tumble from my mouth. “There’s god realms?”
“Yeah, who do you think created the souls?”
