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Screams reached my ear, ones that sounded far too much like Farryn’s. The one time I hoped that what I’d find on the other side of the door wasn’t real.
I hastened toward it and pushed through the door, straight into Farryn’s bedroom. Caught by her throat, Farryn dangled in the air by a long black tentacle, and I trailed my eye down to where my father had taken his monstrous form.
He snapped his gaze toward me and, as I charged toward him, he released his hold on her.
I tackled him to the floor and scrambled over him. Before he could get one of his tentacles around my throat, I sliced my blade through the one closest to me. He let out roar of anger and, in a frenzy of tentacles and teeth, wriggled and squirmed to get loose.
I wrapped my hands around his throat, but on hearing Farryn scream, I turned to see her fighting Vaszhago, as he dragged her toward the door.
“No! I’m not leaving him! Let me go!”
It was no use. The demon was far more powerful.
At a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a dark-haired boy following after them, and distracted, I didn’t see the tentacle wrap itself around my arm, until a painful wrenching of my muscles snapped my attention back to my father.
Taking hold of his tentacle, I twisted, damn near ripping it from his socket.
He threw me backward against the wall, which cracked behind me on impact. Tentacles lashed out at me, slicing across my skin like the strike of a whip. As he snapped another across my face, I took hold of it and, using what little vitaeilem was left in me, shot a bolt of hot electricity across the surface of it.
On a curse, he retracted, setting himself free, and an edginess settled over me when he didn’t flee after Vaszhago and Farryn. I’d expected it, and the moment he’d have left the room, I’d planned to swipe Letifer’s heart from the sphere.
He licked the spot on his tentacle where I’d burned him. “Forgive my lack of proper welcome. Son. This place really sucks the joy out of life.”
“You must be incredibly disappointed to have lost your ticket out of here.”
His wicked grin only stoked my suspicion. “There is no escape from Infernium. The only way out for your little friend is by destroying the heart of Letifer. That, or stabbing him in the skull.”
“What?”
“This labyrinth? He created it in his mind. He has the power to project images. You destroy his mind, you destroy the labyrinth and release the key to Eradye.”
Puzzling that new bit of information, I stared back at him. “What key?”
“The one which ties Letifer’s heart to this barren world. Without it, he cannot rule.”
So, there was a plan B, after all.
“But good luck with that. I have spent centuries searching for him. This labyrinth was designed to protect him.”
“So, why not destroy his heart?”
“Because he so kindly connected me to it. If his heart is destroyed, then I will perish, as well. It’s futile. Farryn is like a trapped mouse.”
Which meant, at the very least, I’d hold power by possessing that heart. Perhaps enough to barter a way out, if he felt threatened.
I lurched for the sphere.
Something wrapped around my throat, yanking me back. As I raised my hands to loosen it, chains wrapped around my arms. My body flew upward, until I was hanging from the ceiling, chains bound tight at my wrists. Diablisz steel, given the fact that it wouldn’t break with my twisting and yanking. An invisible force tore my armor from my body, which landed on the floor with a thud. The tunic I wore beneath shredded into torn bits of fabric.
An immediate gnawing ache churned in my gut, just as when I was a boy and had my first taste of Eradye’s power. It scraped at my insides like claws, desperate for the miniscule amount of vitaeilem left in my body, no longer protected by the armor.
Returned to his human form, my father circled me, coming to a stop to my rear. He could undoubtedly see the grotesque stumps of bone where my wings had been cut away, and his dark chuckle confirmed it. “I see you’ve made wise choices throughout adulthood.”
“Perhaps the wisest was setting flames to your mistress’s home.”
A streak of pain lashed across my back, and I gritted my teeth.
“Hold your tongue, boy. For that happens to be the very reason you’re here, at all.”
