City Of The Damned (Darkly Devoted Series, Book 5)

Chapter 14

Grismal stood before me in the foyer.

I didn't bother to change a thing about my unkempt appearance. My act of passive defiance went unnoticed.

Grismal waved his large, boulder-like hand toward a hallway behind the stairwell. This was new. I had never been down to the subterranean levels of the palace before. I wondered where it led, someplace with furnishing, perhaps? An outdoor courtyard? The throne room?

"Are you wasting my time?" Grismal remarked impatiently as I lagged behind. It was out of necessity as I braced myself against the wall and slowly stepped from each slippery stone to the next. The floor was covered in decaying moss. Slime oozed between my naked toes with every step. I vaguely recalled leaving my heels by the foot of my bed. If I knew I would only have one pair of shoes for the rest of eternity, I probably wouldn't have chosen three-inch heels.

Grismal snorted at my lack of a response and kept walking. There was a hidden stairwell at the end of the hallway. Finally, we were headed upward again, out of damp depths of the bowels of the palace, back into the dark eternal night sky.

"I know that you and my mortal half-brother are determined to kill me," Grismal mused as we walked up the dusty steps. "You were misled to believe that is the only solution to the blight that has afflicted your people."

Grismal raised an eyebrow at me as though my sudden lack of snarky comments. Yes, the weeks of solitude had quieted my tongue. Yes, he finally had my attention, though it was all that I could do to stop myself from falling into laughter. He thought I was the treasured but willful wife of his hated brother, but I was actually no machiavellian genius as he believed my husband to be.

I was merely a mad woman. And I was starting to find all this talk of saving the world incredibly funny.

"Kill me. Kill a god. Even if you managed it, what would you do then? Have you thought about what will happen once I am gone? If Mearnox is without a ruler, it will fade into nothingness. Then, the bridge between death and the afterlife will be gone. With it will go all the souls who had been afflicted with the very poison you are trying to cure. Is that really your idea of salvation? Of redemption?"

"Then what other answer is there?" I demanded. Yes, I was mad, but I disliked the smug look on his face. The rage filled my body again and seemed to push the fear aside. "Do you have a solution, God of Death?"

"No," Grismal seemed to merge with the shadows again, and his voice faded into an echo. Once again, I was reminded of how alone I was here, as though he were only a creation of my mind. Was it really I who struggled to see him with my flawed mortal eyes? Or did he lack substance because he wanted to be one with the darkness? Perhaps, he was as tired of his eternal existence as we humans were of him. "Do you believe I wanted to poison the mortal plane? How would that serve me? Only more souls to arrive at my doorstep and to cause havoc in my realm."

It was my turn to scoff at him.

What do you want Grismal?

Do you even know?

To meet your brother here instead of me?

Would your pride ever allow that?

Have you ever felt a single emotion besides jealousy?

"You let it happen. You failed at your duty."

Grismal scoffed and turned around. I saw that I had hit a nerve. It was true. I didn't need my fire to hurt him. I was here for one singular reason: because he despised my mortal husband beyond all reason. If I pushed him too far, he would kill me.