Page 280 of Sky’s Edge

Therefore, I did as told.

Feeling like an idiot, feeling more crucially that we were wasting time when we were trapped, even though I had no idea what was happening, I did know someone was after us, and I would not, in that moment, allow my mind to go to where Tanyn was and what it meant he was not with me, I turned and stared at the wall.

I barely aimed my eyes at it before the lights in the room illuminated.

I was seeing through red, but I still knew those lights were also red.

Holy Lilith.

And then I jumped when the stones in front of me started shifting.

“What in the realms?” I whispered as I watched them go.

An arch formed.

A door.

And beyond it, a pitch-black void.

“Do you have a light?” I whispered.

“Go,” Monique said.

I twisted my neck to look at her in shock. “Go where?”

“Just go.” She whipped to look behind us, I felt it too, she turned to me and shouted, “Go go go!”

With nowhere else to head, I stepped into the void.

And instantly, tiny pinpricks of red lights illuminated on the walls, dimly showing there was another staircase here, again going down.

Those lights formed ancient symbols. And runes. The characters that made up the long-gone demon language that only the most fastidious scholars now knew how to read.

And they didn’t light the way.

No.

They lit where we were and a few feet in front of us.

After we passed, they faded to black.

I noticed this like I’d been noticing everything else.

Vaguely and on the run.

It felt like we were dashing down those stairs forever. Like they never ended. Like the lore behind Berg Castle being built on the steps that led to the hells was true.

And maybe it was true, because I eventually saw something at the bottom.

Small, and still far away, but I could make it out.

It got bigger with each step we rushed down.

Another doorway beyond which there were red and orange lights that couldn’t be misconstrued.

Fire.

Not a cheery little blaze.