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Both, I found, were apt. The term pits felt particularly accurate. I was in a cavernous room, but it was more than a simple cave, like the tunnels I’d walked through before. Stalagmites and stalactites lined the various peaks and protrusions like teeth. A ringed path wound around the chamber. But it quickly became clear this wasn’t a simple place. Every time I tried to orient myself, the space shifted. The initial fall was the worst of it, when gravity reversed, but that was far from all. The under-realm continued to play tricks on me. If I carelessly rose on two feet, I’d suddenly find myself sliding back as if the ground was tilted and frictionless. If I turned clockwise to assess the space, I’d find myself turning into the same scene over and over until I shifted—and then, when I turned back, it was entirely different. The air continued to poison me. I half-wondered if I was hallucinating. A pounding headache had taken up residence, like someone was slamming into my forehead with a silver ice pick.
Any attempts to call my magic failed.
No wolf. No magic.
Fine. I’d dealt with that hand for twenty years. It wouldn’t stop me now.
I kept my gaze moving at a snail’s pace. When I moved quickly, the realm reacted like it was an invasion. But slowly, I was able to better understand my surroundings. Throughout the mind games and revisions of the cavern, the winding path remained. It took ages for me to reach the edge of the room. I put a palm to the wall to steady myself and immediately regretted it.
Scalding hot. Like sticking my hand on molten lava, even thoughthere was no heat in the air to warn me. Blisters erupted over my palm. I didn’t let myself look at them, too worried about the path disappearing. Instead, I forced the pain to anchor me while I began the climb. It dulled after a few minutes.
At least I had my shifter healing.
The path was not as simple as it had at first appeared. At some points, it thinned until it was barely a foots-breadth wide. Once, I fell, barely catching myself by my still-stinging palms before I tumbled to the ground. I didn’t want to know how the realm would react to that.
I tried not to think about the fact this was likely to be the easiest part of my journey.
Finally, I reached the end of the winding path. My stand widened, bracing for what new torments would emerge.
Unlike the rest of the cavern that was hewn from natural grays, the path ended with an entryway of utter darkness. There was an opening, lined in flat obsidian. Beyond the entrance was only blackness, the kind of void that seems to be carved from outer space, where not even a shred of light can touch it.
My gaze snagged on the top of the archway. Carved into the obsidian were words, big, bold, jagged marks of warning. The shape of the letters was unfamiliar. It wasn’t a language I’d ever learned.
Yet somehow I understood the meaning instantly.
QUAKE BEFORE TARTARUS; THERE IS NO HOPE; THERE IS NO ESCAPE.
My vision turned double, the letters blurring into a mess. I choked. Water filled my lungs. It wasn’t like the miasma that had assailed me since walking in without abating. This was new. I crumpled to the ground, clutching my throat. I refused to look away from the archway.I wouldn’t give the under-realm another chance to move, to hide itself from me.
The drowning sensation abated a moment later, the taste of seawater coating my tongue. It was like what I’d experienced with the nixie, only worse. Because I hadn’t felt like I was starting to drown; I felt like I had been drowning for hours. The difference mattered.
“This won’t stop me.” I forced the words out, a promise to the realm. “Iwillget him.”
I forced myself through the obsidian archway.
Taunting a realm meantto torment and break souls was, in the opinion of someone certainly smarter than me, unwise.
The darkness continued while I walked. It shouldn’t have been possible for the sensations to get worse, but when you’re being psychologically tortured, your only asset is your vision. Vision that lets you reassure yourself there aren’t a million tiny bugs crawling over you, slithering, tasting your skin. Vision that proves you are not, in fact, being sliced open as you walk through, not when it feels like blood is rolling down your arms as they burn and burn with open wounds, but you don’t taste any blood when you put a finger to test. Shards of glass were embedded in my feet, even through my shoes. I came to realize it didn’t matter if none of these things were happening. They felt real. It might have been less painful if theyhadbeen real, because then my body could heal. But there was no healing, just more invisible cuts across my skin. Sometimes they slashed the same part several times in a row, a slow, methodical cut that repeated until my very musclesseemed to tear apart.
I cried.
There was no escape from the pain, except for some pathetic tears.
I wouldn’t stop, however. Every step was a battle, but losing was not an option.
My skin began to burn like it was encased in silver as I continued. That sensation, on top of the other cruelties, nearly broke me. I wanted to beg for mercy.
I will not stop.
Those four words were the only ones that tethered me through the pain. Over and over again, I chanted them. Sometimes I opened my lips to mouth the words, but that just let worse sensations in.
I will not stop.
I didn’t need to sleep. That was the only gift the realm gave me, and taking away the blissful escape of sleep was anything but a kindness. Still, gratitude pulsed through me, because if I needed to sleep, if I had a reason to stop, I might very well cave in. The darkness went on and on. There was no way to tell time with any meaning; there was no light, no movement, not so much as a change in elevation. But days passed. I was certain. Days that felt like centuries while every part of my body screamed at me to relent, to give up.
I will not stop.
The darkness ended abruptly.
