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22
Beyond the Chalk Door was the gold—bright habitat of a creature born from shadow.
The walls were made of intricately carved bone, each design flecked with gold. Nestled in the many grooves were thousands of colorful flowers. They wept a sticky sap that dripped to the floor, their saccharine scent warping the air like a desert mirage. The edges of the flower petals were gilded, as if someone had plucked them, dipped them in liquid gold, then carefully reattached them.
They were beautiful. But beautiful things could be deadly too.
Loren felt detached from her body. Her eyelids were leaden and tingly, her limbs cumbersome and boneless. The place was lit with flames glowing from chandeliers that looked like edible grapevines, fat purple berries ready to burst on branches that sagged with their weight. Pollen coated the air, the sparkling particles tickling her nose.
The sound of the Chalk Door groaning open behind her spurred her into action. A fresh wave of adrenaline coursed through her veins, allowing her to think clearer than she had been able to a moment ago.
She hurried forward, down the gilt hallway that branched out into three separate routes. All three looked identical, but she chose the left.
“Where did she go?” barked a male voice, his tongue not yet weighed down by the hypnotizing effect of this place.
Loren walked faster, cursing her human limbs for being so clumsy, so easily affected by magic.
Maybe coming in here wasn’t a good idea. Maybe hellsehers weren’t affected by the lures of the Pale Man, and her plan would be in vain.
Silencing the negative voice in her head, she kept walking, refusing to believe that this was it, that she would die in a place that promised paradise but only offered hell. She’d heard plenty of stories about this place. Rumors that anyone who wandered in here and was devoured by the Pale Man would spend the afterlife trapped for eternity within these gilded walls. Entirely ignorant of the monster that ruled here, they believed they were trapped in heaven.
Footsteps slapped against the walls.
“Split up!” one of the males instructed. “Find her.” By the sound of where their footfall went afterward, she assumed they had each taken a different tunnel.
A cold chill spread across the back of her neck, the kind of feeling that told her there was a predator tracking her movements.
A true smorgasbord, came a hiss of a voice.
Loren spun around, hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, but she couldn’t find the source of the utterance.
The voice spoke again, this time from the opposite direction. You will make a fine appetizer.
She spun back the other way, looking but not seeing. Her mouth was dry, and her heart was beating out a terrified rhythm in her chest.
“Come out, little human,” said a male hellseher, the words reverberating off the walls. Judging from the volume, he was only several feet away. “The longer you delay, the harder it’ll be for you.”
Loren held her breath. She backed into a shadowed cranny between two marble pillars, wedging her body in tight. Carefully, she reached into her bag and drew the dagger Darien had given her shortly after Kalendae, a vicious thing with a handle of bone, skulls carved into it. She gripped it tight, her hand surprisingly steady as she waited, banking on the magic in this place to conceal her aura from those who hunted her.
As she waited, the spells lulled her into a relaxed state, and her eyelids began to droop. She fought the magic, blinking rapidly, her sweat—slick grip on the dagger tightening. The feet of the approaching man had slowed to dragging, and when he spoke again his words were slurred.
“Where’re you hiding, dumb cunt?” He sounded drunk. A rock clacked against the wall, likely kicked by his clumsy boot. “Come out.”
As soon as his shadow slanted across the floor, Loren sucked in a breath and lunged. She threw her whole weight at him, shoving him into the wall. With a grunt, he reached for her, limbs ungainly.
She sank the knife between two of his ribs, driving it up into his heart, just like Darien had taught her. Clutching his large body to her own, she slowly lowered him to the floor, arms straining under his weight. The last thing she needed was for the thud of him falling to alert the others.
As soon as his body touched ground, her heartrate slowed. It turned faint, as if she were falling into a very deep sleep. The last of her strength left her body, and she could not even find the will to extract the blade from the man’s side.
The Pale Man spoke to her in a croon. He was supposed to be mine, he said. Disappointment clung to every word. You are next.
Loren’s feet started moving. She staggered deeper into the corridor, using the walls to keep from falling down, her limbs useless rubber. It was hot as a sauna in here. Sweat beaded on her face and trickled down her spine, turning her skin hot and itchy.
A bloodcurdling scream shook through the den.
Loren whirled, stumbling over her own feet. She caught herself against a wall just as the crack of bone and the slurp of something wet drifted down the corridor.
“I thought you said I was next,” she slurred. Bile pooled on her tongue. She swallowed it down, eyes burning with the need to shut, tracks of perspiration trickling over her lips. The salt of it coated her parched tongue and made her thirsty.
