“This is Adron,” she said as she picked up her egg and put it in her shoulder sling. “And this is Kasimiro.” The group already knew their names, but this felt like a proper introduction. A ‘hey we’re about to leave on a journey, let’s exchange names’ sort of situation.
The Damall, all standing beside each other in the tunnel, shared some quiet grunts and growls as they looked Kas and Adron up and down. It was a wonder they didn’t snuff their butts.
“Hi,” Adron said, and he waved at the group.
Kas snorted.
“They were my bodyguards when I was Zel’s prisoner. They left the spire when Diogo took over; he doesn’t like them very much. They’ll be joining us!”
That got some more grumbles from the Damall, and some nasty glares, too. Livian stepped forward and looked down at the two men, all four arms folded across her chest.
“I like… him,” she said, and she licked her lips as she grinned at Adron.
“Understandable,” he said. “I’m very attractive.”
She laughed. Romakus didn’t. Surprising. It was the sort of silly, chaotic, fun, dumb comment he thrived on.
The winged tetrad stood ahead of the group at the tunnel exit, Yosepha still in his arms but out of sight since the big guy’s wings were in the way. Yosepha. She was the reason Romakus had agreed so quickly to let Kas and Adron come. Everything was different now, and her life was on the line just as much as everyone else’s.
It was so damn romantic the way he held the angel, it made Mia squirm. Why couldn’t the boys who liked her be like that? Adron was a playboy. Kas was a grumpy old man. Vin was a… a… bit of a question mark, but there was no denying how much the demon loved violence and mayhem.
“There’s another group of Damall on the Black Valley border,” Romakus said, looking over his shoulder. “It’ll take a week to reach them, and probably longer since we’re avoiding Tacitus, and angels. So strap in and get ready to walk.” All the demons groaned. No demon liked walking long distances. “Mia, you created the firestorm outside. You can’t stop it?”
“N-No, I… I don’t think I can.”
“Can you get us around it?”
“I mean, maybe?”
She sucked in a breath, joined Romakus at the head of the group, and clutched her necklace. Vin followed behind her, and so did Adron and Kas, and Julisa and Livian. A bit chaotic, everyone finding a place to walk, but the demons all slipped into a groove once they were outside.
The storm raged on. The burning sky swirled, circling the hellfire vortex, fire tornadoes above merging with the geyser of lava and flame. The wind burned. She hadn’t noticed it during the fight, but now she had to lift a hand and block it from hitting her eyes. The demons didn’t, the heat not bothering them at all.
They were supposed to get moving, but everyone stared out over the side of the mountain, down to the valley Mia had created. It used to be a giant slope, but the geyser had leveled it, leaving broken ground and molten rock in its wake, canyons that glowed, hinting at the running lava deep within.
She, and the song, had permanently changed the landscape, and as far as she could tell, the song had no intention of stopping. It no longer changed, not guided by Mia’s fingers anymore, but it continued nonetheless.
“I… can tell the storm isn’t going anywhere,” she said. “Maybe it will, with time, but for now, it’s not going anywhere. And the hellfire… geyser… won’t move. We can just go around it.”
Easier said than done. The tornado was wide, the storm much wider, and getting around the mountain would be easiest along the slope that no longer existed.
“A mini vortex,” Vinicius said, gesturing to the hellfire.
“You’ve seen the False Gate vortex?” Adron asked.
The titan nodded. “A hundred times bigger than this.”
A hundred times? Jesus christ.
“Come on,” Romakus said. “If you trust the hellfire to not suddenly whip across the ground and incinerate us all, then we’re going through the storm.”
“Through?” Julisa asked. “I–”
Whatever argument she had, it disappeared in the howling wind as the group followed Romakus into the inferno. Whatever his reason, Romakus wasted no time, forged ahead with something a little faster than a fast walk, and it wasn’t long before Mia had to jog to keep up.
“Romakus! Slow down! I’m–” She squeaked as a hand picked her up.
Vinicius. The titan growled at her, and Mia blinked up at him. He wanted to say something, but ground his teeth instead, rumbled in his giant chest, and set her on his back with a little more speed than expected. She squeaked again as she grabbed some of his back spikes, but she found a groove to rest on, not squash her egg, and hide her face from the burning wind.
Kas and Adron both glanced back at her, and Adron fell in beside Vinicius so he could look up at her. She smiled at him, silently telling him this was okay, and he frowned but nodded.
It was okay, but it wasn’t exactly normal. Vin had grabbed her and put her on his back without any word from her, and that just wasn’t Vin. Being possessive? Maybe. In any other circumstance, that might have been kinda endearing, maybe even hot, but it hit a little differently when the person — or demon — being possessive was both a deadly killer, and enjoyed killing.
It was something she could worry about later. For now, she put her cheek to the back of his shoulder, face turned out to face the inferno.
Bones. There were bones everywhere, with pieces charred black, and others still covered in sizzling bits of flesh. Chunks of black metal covered some of them, and combined with the horns on skulls, it was clear most of the skeletons were demon. But not all of them. The human skeletons were naked, and the skeletal remains of their wings gave them away. And not every corpse was completely bone. More than a few of them were only partly charred, with other parts sizzling and popping, naked flesh. Demon, and angel.
It was a horror show.
“I did this,” she said. No one heard.