VISION ✔️ || The Keepers of Astraela #1

43.2 || Of Darkness and Obnoxious Demons

EVA

EVA WASN'T SURE HOW long they'd been ambling down the stone path, but it felt like an eternity in the blistering heat.

Hell, she thought. I'm in Hell.

So many questions swarmed her mind with each step that she was certain her head would explode before they reached the Demons' destination. If her life didn't make sense before, absolutely nothing did now.

The mausoleum was... a portal to Hell?

And, more importantly, why did they insist she had the blood of a goddess? She was human. Always had been, as far as she knew. She wanted to tell herself they had her confused with someone else, but they had known her name—and Emrys', too.

Her feet slowed along the rocky terrain while she drowned in her thoughts. The silent Demon shoved her hard in the back to keep her moving, and she stumbled over her chains.

Eva tried to focus on what little of the stone path she could see from beneath her sack. Light filtered beneath her covering from the luminescent moths, teasing her with what rested beyond her veil.

It wasn't at all what she expected from Hell, which didn't seem to be the endless fire and brimstone that its reputation promised. It almost felt... alive. Chirping insects, running water, and rustling leaves filled the air, along with the intoxicating scent of Astraelan wildflowers. Half of her wished she could see it.

The other half wanted to click her heels like Dorothy and get the hell out of Hell.

Eva didn't realize she'd slowed again until the silent Demon placed a solid kick to her left calf. She grunted at the impact, stumbling once again as she picked up her pace.

Emrys' chains rattled beside her. "Knock it off, asshole."

"Feeling feisty?" said the deep-voiced Demon. "Don't worry. Your brethren have strict orders to bring you both back in one piece."

"Unfortunately!" Tata's cartoonish howl increased in volume.

Emrys' grunt followed soon after, and Eva could only assume Tata had struck him as well. "I'm not your brother."

"Of course you are," the deep-voiced one replied. "You were the special one."

"I don't know what you're talking—"

"You've already forgotten your true origin, haven't you?"

Emrys fell silent. A sinking feeling dropped into the pit of Eva's stomach when she recalled her recent visions of his past. As she remembered the horror in his eyes at their arrival in Hell, she couldn't help but wonder if he had paused to process the question or if he had recalled a distant memory.

"We were experimented on," continued the Demon. "Damaged souls hoping to be perfected for our Master, but ultimately ruined. Put through torture after torture... every soul in Hell damned to an eternity of pain. And then you came along. Not provided as an offering from the other gods, but chosen by the goddess herself. Given royal treatment. Turned into the creature of legends."

Tata laughed hysterically again, and Eva couldn't help but wonder if that was all he knew how to do. "Creature of legends? More like the Master's personal plaything!"

"Shut it, Tata!"

Searching through the deepest crevasses of her brain, she fought to recall mythology about Astraelan Demons. They were pathological liars, twisting the minds of their prey with anything that would make them squirm or question the truth—often to trick them into allowing an unholy abomination to suck out their soul. Still, Eva had never seen one in her dreams and had only heard of them as folklore.