Page 71 of Drawn into Oblivion

“Now is the point of no return,” the empress said to her companions. “If you feel you’re not up to the task, speak now.”

Mai took a breath as an objection rose inside, one that screamed for her to join the rest of the court far away from the yawning hole that would soon appear. She squeezed Rosuke’s hand as the image of an oozing sore in the ground popped into her head unbidden. Before she could shudder in revulsion, Rosuke squeezed back, and she glanced at him. His eyebrows and jaw were set at a determined angle.

No, she couldn’t back out now, and neither could he. The empress needed them.

Shumei gave a small sigh of relief and nodded. “All right, then. Is everyone standing outside the circle?” Everyone glanced at their feet. No one was out of place.

Mai hadn’t seen her take it out, but the empress held a small fruit knife in her right hand. Vallen rolled her left sleeve up to her elbow. Then she made a small slice on the side of her forearm. The pain made her wince, but Vallen was the one who grunted with discomfort. Everyone held their breath as the first drop of blood landed in the center of the empty component circle.

A gong-like clang burst out, eliciting startled screams from the court, and it resonated as if slowed by water. The sulfur lines combusted, burning their pattern into the dirt. Mai couldn’t help flinching but managed to stay in place even though she wanted to dive behind Rosuke. The clang faded as quickly as it came, replaced by a low-pitched hum that shook the air and made her gums hurt.

“Dueling gods,” Jun swore with his hand cupped around his jaw.

Another drop of blood hit, and the sound of wind filled Mai’s ears. The circle was sucking in air like an open door in a storm, gusting hard enough to force everyone at the circle’s edge to brace their stances. In seconds, the ring of coal dust was swept inward, and it swirled in a column much like the cherry blossoms had during her festival performance.

Before Shumei bled anymore, Vallen swiftly applied a bandage to her arm, and with her other hand, she flung the knife at the circle. Its bloody blade sank into earth where the first two blood drops had fallen, and then the ground itself fell away as a black hole split the dirt along the incantation spiral. The hole widened with a sickeningly wet sound, stretching a layer of slime the same consistency as mucus, until it met the edges of the sulfur pattern.

Mai would have screamed if fear hadn’t seized her throat, for the black surface of the gate swelled as though infected, as if at any second it would eject blood and pus. In seconds, she would have to jump into that slimy throat and let it swallow her.

With a firm tug, Vallen tied off the bandage on Shumei’s arm. While he pulled her sleeve down to cover the wound, Shumei looked at her four other companions, eyes bright with determination. She had to yell to be heard over the wind.

“We have only a moment. Vallen and I will enter first. We’ll understand if no one follows.” Shumei turned to Vallen, who leaned down and planted a firm kiss on her mouth. They faced the hole in front of them and clasped hands. Mai watched with a pounding heart and disbelieving eyes as the empress and the high general jumped into the hole and disappeared. She had expected the disgusting slime to splash, but it wobbled instead, as though it had a skin.

“Mai,” Rosuke yelled, getting her attention. She looked to Rosuke, and in the corner of her eye, she saw Jun and then Kiyoshi follow their empress through the gate. Kiyoshi gave a primal scream when he leapt. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

It was now or never.

Locking eyes with Rosuke, she nodded firmly and tightened her grip on his hand. He returned her nod and together they leapt into the black maw of Oblivion.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mai kept her eyes and mouth firmly shut as that terrible, viscous muck engulfed her. That it was as warm as a hot spring didn’t help her state of mind. She sank into what felt like a bottomless pit, and even the tight grasp of Rosuke’s hand couldn’t keep a scream from rising in her throat. Each second felt like an hour, and panic filled her as her grip on her lover’s hand grew slippery. She held on as hard as she could, but he was wrenched away as though he’d been taken by an unseen horror.

Her magic struggled inside her, bulging painfully and further unraveling her mind. As her lungs burned for air, she spun into full-fledged terror, and only a single shred of rationality held her mouth shut. She flung her arms and legs in any direction she could, hoping to hasten an end to her journey.

But the need to breathe turned into the only thing she could think about, and a second before she’d have sucked in a lungful of slime, she fell through the bottom of the portal into open air. Gasping in shock as much as the need to breathe, she braced herself for impact, but strong arms caught her. She heard a wet, sickening pop and then a bellow of surprise.

“Quick, Jun!” the man holding her said as he hastily moved back. She recognized Vallen’s voice. She’d made it.

“Got him,” Jun said. Mai heard a muffled grunt and staggered steps.

“Did she come through?” Rosuke gasped, frantic. “Please tell me she’s here.”

“She’s there.” Though Jun was speaking softly, his voice still carried.

Mai didn’t want to open her eyes. She wanted to be back in Rosuke’s bed, curled up with him, and sleeping in far too late. She wanted to live in a world with no conception of demons, the Damned One, or his cursed plane of existence. But that’s why she was here—to create that world—so she steeled herself and took her first look at Oblivion.

A flat, desolate plain stretched before her, its gruesome ornaments cast in a bloody glow by the light of a full, red moon. Thousands of poorly fashioned stakes of different heights and materials jutted out of the ground. Human bodies in various stages of decay had been impaled—blackened skeletons near the base and fresher bodies on top that had been shorn of much of their tissue. Despite so much death, the air was thin, still, and stale.

In the distance, perhaps half a mile away, were the flickering lights of campfires. The whoops and howls of a few dozen demons carried easily across the silent plain, and among them was a human voice screaming in pain and terror. Bile rose in Mai’s throat. She covered her mouth, afraid she was going to scream. At least her magic had calmed down. She imagined it knew exactly where she was, for it was poised and alert.

Looking up at the high general, she returned his somber, silent gaze as he lowered her to her feet. She nodded her thanks and stepped away.

Their party had emerged about ten feet above the ground just inside the tree line of a swath of forest, though she wasn’t sure if she could call the gnarled, rot-covered shapes trees. They looked more like twisted, long-fingered hands groping at the sky. Deeper in, the canopy of tangled, bare branches offered a degree of darkness, but it couldn’t block all of the moonlight. She saw no undergrowth or foliage of any kind. The forest was dead, and the husks of its trees were the only marker it had ever existed.

Oblivion itself had to be lifeless, then. For demons did not breed. They moved and acted solely by the will of the Damned One, who animated each one with a small drop of his power. Perhaps the Damned One had brought the forest they now stood in to some semblance of life but had abandoned it. Mai wondered why.

As she turned to Rosuke, who looked about with the same uneasy alertness as everyone else, she scrubbed her hand across her face to wipe away the filth from the portal that had brought her here, but she found nothing. Her face was dry, yet the sensation of being sullied remained. Worse, she suspected her immediate future would have her subjected to more unpleasant experiences.