Of the ten, only one person deserved it.
The rest were innocent, just trying to survive.
I woke up gasping,chills scattering across my skin. That was what I had felt on his wrist in the Hoar House—a Hell Rune scar.
It had destroyed all sense of self. His mind felt like I was drowning in a black hole of nothingness, ready to be filled with Etan’s machinations.
The fear and panic, even the way Ronen looked at me, made sense now. I had worked my way into his head and manipulated him just like Etan did. I’d caused him more pain than I could even imagine.
After hours of lying in bed and thinking of Ronen and Aspen, I dressed in my uniform and hurried to the moonlit roof. Alexei wasn’t there.
Did he mean morning, like at sunrise?
That wasn’t the usual protocol.
He stepped through the door a few minutes later, and I relaxed.
“You’re late.”
Alexei rubbed his chin. “I still don’t know if this is a smart idea. You dug up some of his past demons, and he’s struggling to come to terms with that.”
Hell’s chilly air nipped at my cheeks as I looked in the direction of Portal Lake. “You mean Etan?”
“How do you know that name?”
I turned back to his blatant surprise. “I understand why he reacted the way he did now. That’s all you need to know. But what Idon’t understand is—if you knew about Etan, knew about Ronen’s past—why didn’t you say something? Why would you let me go through with that?”
Alexei pulled at his gloves like they needed adjusting and sighed. “I had to test out a theory.”
“About what?”
“About—” He paused. “It’s not important right now.”
I placed my insulated hands over my ears, protecting them from the wind. “Was it at least worth it?”
Alexei grimaced. “I guess we’ll see.”
He scooped me up and shot us into the air. We flew over a forest of dark evergreens weighed down by snow. The sharp scent of pine stabbed my nostrils, triggering a relentless sniffling. It was annoying, but not as bad as I imagined it’d be without Alexei’s wind shield.
After a few minutes, we rose higher, flying over a shadowed hill, and my jaw dropped at the top.
The harsh, icy grip of Hell’s snow-covered landscape melted into a surreal, glowing forest. The trees stretched taller and broader, their thick trunks more imposing than the brittle ones we’d just flown over. Their bark pulsed with radiant blue light. The soft glow wove through the branches, reaching for miles and casting an otherworldly hue over the land.
As we crossed the invisible threshold marking the end of one forest and the beginning of another, a blast of warm, floral-scented air hit me like a gentle slap. My uniform instantly cooled, adjusting to the change in temperature.
“Welcome to the Eternal Forest, beautiful. The only warm place in the Redemption Circle,” Alexei commented, a smile in his voice.
“It looks like Damatha Forest.”
“They’re connected. That’s why.”
“How—”
“When angels are buried in Damatha Forest, a piece of their essence infuses the earth and transfers to the Eternal Forest, and vice versa. They are spiritually connected. A way to always honor our dead.”
“I didn’t know Hell honored anything but suffering.”
Alexei laughed. “Hell would never exist without death. Of course Hell honors it.”
