Page 44 of The Sacrifice

I arrive at the base of the staircase and press my back against the wall. “Or what about the one porter who fucked me at the back of the moving train?” I point out, raising a hand to cover my lips and stifle the giggles.

“Yes, I’m unfortunately all too aware of your many follies—most of which involved a quick and hard rutting. Too many times I considered strangling the life out of you just to put you out of your misery,” she admits, her amber eyes pinching, her shadows branching out toward me.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, they say.”

“The proverbial poem also dictates “once or twice though you should fail”. How many times did you fail, Quintessa?” she whispers the question, her shade figure curling against the side of my body, chilling my skin beyond my gown skirts.

I snort and stick my nose up in the air. “And time still brought my reward.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, what a reward you have reaped. Just desserts that you would finally feel at the hands of monsters.”

“Not just their hands,” I joke and don’t wait for Qora to retort since the boots fade to soft echoes.

Where are they going with the god-eater? My chest squeezes at the thought of how Emperor Kronos formed the Veil of Souls over ten thousand years ago, how he devoured the gods who had enslaved the races, but the god-spawn rose against him. Our history books dictate the many battles the god-eater waged against those spawn until four rulers remained. If he trapped them here, is he simply here to ensure his Veil is holding strong? Surely there are representatives who could do that for him. Why would the Emperor of the Five Realms bother doing more than locking them up and throwing away the key?

Blood thunders in my ears the deeper we go. Darkness closes in like black raven wings, but I don’t take comfort in the shadows. Not with the cold, stone walls hemming me in on each side, closing around me. Tremors attack my limbs first, congregating in my hands. I close my eyes and breathe through the dizziness assailing me. My lungs burn, and cold sweat beads upon my brow and the back of my neck. Mouth turning dry as toast, I stumble and catch myself against the wall, gasping for breath.

“Quintessa,” Qora’s amber eyes penetrate mine, but they don’t stop nausea from swirling in my stomach. Or my heartbeat from stuttering. Or my limbs from quaking. “Oh, no, not again, Quinn.”

Tears form in my eyes, wetting my cheeks, and I muster a nod.

On the verge of sliding down to curl up in a ball, I knock the back of my head against the wall, hoping the pain will jerk me out of this attack. The strongest I’ve ever felt because the Kings are so near, and because Drago fucked me not an hour ago.

“Deep breaths, Quinn,” Qora directs me and folds her shadow-vym around me like cool shawl. “Remember where you are. They are just stone walls. You walked down the stairs of your own accord. You were not thrown in here. You are not trapped. Yes, breathe...” she instructs me, and I recall what our town’s mind-binder told me. Breathe in through my nose, breathe out through my mouth. “Focus on your senses, Quinn.”

It’s truly the first time I can. The scent of dust and mold, a hint of smoke from ashy torches. The grit and unevenness of the stones and even the crusty feeling of Drago’s dry cum on my thighs. The leftover taste of oranges and spiced wine. My deepening breaths slowing their battering of my eardrums. Qora’s eyes. With every inhale and exhale, the burning in my lungs subsides. The dizziness doesn’t leave, but it’s more manageable. Like dust bunnies instead of an ocean whirlpool.

“Th-thank you,” I tell Qora, shivering from her presence but finding heat in her steady amber eyes.

By now, the bootprint sounds of the Kings have disappeared. No voices carried upon the air or squeezed through the threadbare chinks in the walls.

“Do you wish to go back?”

I shake my head after Qora’s question.

“Good girl.”

I knit my brows in confusion and snap my eyes to hers. “I thought you said this was a foolish idea.”

“It is,” she huffs, her figure slowly seeping away from mine. “But for once, you haven’t scampered away like a frightened, little rabbit as you normally do. And that will come in handy if the god-eater or the Kings decide to lock you up for being such a nosy ninny.”

I smirk to one side and pick up my pace, relieved when it’s not too long before the narrow stone tunnel expands into a series of larger passages. I’m at the converging point.

Qora shrugs, turning away. “Well, you gave it a fair try. Perhaps you may try again sometime and never learn from your failures.”

“They went this way.” I thrust a finger to the left tunnel just next to the center one.

Qora pauses, skirting my body with her shadows. “How do you know?”

My chest warms as I respond, “I can smell Drago.”

With a reluctant sigh, Qora follows me into the left tunnel. At least it’s more open than the last, so I don’t feel closed in. Drago’s masculine musk grows the further down we travel. I notice some dirt shuffled from fresh boots and take that as a good sign, but it’s not long before I learn why the tunnel has expanded. Hollowed into the sides of stone walls, crude alcoves harbor skeletons of varying shapes and sizes. Some with animalistic skulls and others with more human ones. These must be burial grounds for past servants who died in service to the Kings.

Upon a dim light piercing the darkness ahead of me and the sound of familiar voices, I slow my pace, grateful when Qora folds her shadows around me. The tunnel ends, and I part my lips, caging a gasp from the path expanding into what reminds me of an underground courtyard with a row of cracked steps leading to a rotund pavilion. Large stone crypts line the grounds on each side—some carved into the stone itself to fuse their scrollwork with the walls. Moss and ivy lurk all along the walls and crypts while knee-length grass curtains the center of the courtyard between the rows of steps. The dim light comes from moonlight streaming down upon the pavilion.

Unease tightens my neck at the sight of the Kings sprawled upon crude couches in the center of the pavilion. Before them is a small stone table. Smoke curls into the air, and I wrinkle my nose at the bittersweet scent stirring within the air. A chill stings my insides, and the fear prickles the hairs on my body, forming gooseflesh. There is the god-eater pacing amidst the pavilion, circling the Kings, and tapping some instrument against his palm.

I need to get closer.

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