“You don’t know?”
“I’ve been around alongtime; after a while, all the years blended, and I stopped keeping track of things like age. I was behind the seal for twelve thousand years. I only know that because other demons told us after we regained our freedom. I was in Hell for maybe ten thousand years before that, give or take a few thousand years here or there.”
“Give or take a few thousand years?”
He smiled at me. “What are a few thousand years in the grand scheme of immortality?”
He had a point there. “So, you think you’re over twenty thousand years old.”
“Probably closer to thirty thousand, maybe older. As I said, I don’t know.”
“What about your parents?”
“I didn’t have parents, or at least I don’t think I did. If they existed, I don’t remember them. None of us remember having them. As far as I know, we are the originals of our species. None of us have found our Chosen and bred with another, and none of us remember someone giving birth to us. Perhaps one of us would have found our Chosen if we weren’t locked away, but just as there had to be the first fire demons, leporcháins, visionary demons, tree nymphs, and so on, there also had to be the first horseman. And we are them.”
He was far older and stronger than I’d realized. He was also far more alone. I’d witnessed the hatred that festered between the horsemen; he’d never had anyone to rely on. I should hate this man, but I was finding it increasingly difficult to do so.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wrath
I didn’t knowhow long we walked before a faint glow started to show ahead of us. At first, I wasn’t sure if the light was there or not, but when I doused my flames, I confirmed it was. Bale’s hand reached over her back, but I still had her sword, and I wasn’t giving it up.
If she wouldn’t use it to try killing me as quickly as she would to kill this Mytaz, I would give it back to her, but I didn’t trust her with it. I had enough to worry about in this endless world of golden figures without arming my enemy.
I’d stopped looking at the faces of the demons eternally trapped in this place, but I looked at them now as the distant glow intensified. I swore their eyes were pleading with us not to continue forward, but we had no other choice.
We could return to the hole and see where the other way down the tunnel led, but we had to find out what was at the end of this first. And if there was a light ahead, there might be a way out.
Bale’s hand fell back to her side; I ignored the seething look she shot me. I didn’t care if she was pissed; she was the one who stabbed me and left her sword in my stomach. I had a right to keep it after that.
As we neared the end, I pulled the sword from its sheath and smiled when the blade scraping against the scabbard made Bale scowl. She flexed her hand as if she were about to punch me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. Then I saw it was her broken hand she was moving; she’d regained full use of it.
Our steps slowed as we neared the end of the tunnel, and we stopped before exiting. My mouth parted at the spectacle that greeted us. There were very few things that had ever astonished me. Finding my Chosen was one of them, the seal finally collapsing was another, and when I was much younger, I discovered I enjoyed watching the human realm.
The humans were little more than hunter-gatherers at the time, but they were fascinating to me. Things had changed a lot between the time I last looked at the human realm and the day I stepped onto it.
However, standing at the end of the tunnel, awe, dread, and disbelief coiled inside me as I took in the massive, golden palace a hundred yards away from us. Its highest point nearly touched the tip of the mountain behind it.
Situated in a valley and surrounded by golden mountains, the palace was interwoven with the walls behind it and blended into them. Hundreds of open windows with no glass looked out on us, but there was no movement behind them.
Snow covered some of the distant mountain peaks, but there was none on the golden mountains, statues, or valley floor. Once the sun came up after a snowstorm, its reflection off the golden cliffs and palace would rapidly melt whatever snow had fallen.
Multiple twisting spires rose high into the sky, and overhead, fluffy white clouds floated across the perfectly blue sky. We were so close to freedom, but the smooth, golden walls surrounding us wouldn’t allow us to climb out of here. I doubted we’d make it more than ten feet up them before sliding back down, and ten feet was being generous.
The mountains blocked the sun, but its rays bounced off the gold surrounding us and reflected it in a thousand different directions until it was almost blinding. In the walls of the mountains were openings to what I assumed were caves.
They reminded me of the old human cave dwellings, but I’d never seen anything like this palace in the human or demon world. The towering golden monument loomed over us and the thousands of demon statues lining the golden walkway and clustered within the yard.
“He may not have carved the statues, but he created this,” I said.
Bale looked as shellshocked as I felt as she gawked at the palace. “Yes, he did.”
“What kind of demon was this Mytaz?”
“Was oris?” Bale asked.
“I’m choosing to go with was. So what was he?”
