Courting Death | Book 3

T E N

T E N
Heart of Hell

WE DEPARTED FROM the castle grounds almost immediately and this time, Fabian was the only one that volunteered to stay behind. In his words, Fabian mentioned that he had been 'too tired to continue through another bothersome drag of a journey' and suggested that he be the one to stay behind and guard the castle grounds while we were off searching for the heart of Hell itself.

The decision was fine by me, of course, seeing as to how Fabian and I could never seem to stand each other's guts no matter how much 'bonding time' had been spent between the both of us.

So we left, trudging through the large castle doors once more as Calvin turned to wave goodbye to his brother. Fabian stood at the enormous doorway, arms folded across his chest and his lips shaped into the usual frown and scowl that never quite left his features. In fact, I was so sure that I had only ever seen Fabian smile once or twice throughout my time knowing him.

How a man can stay that stoic and never-changing, I would never know. It truly took something really touching to be able to force a change in Fabian's expression.

"Does he ever smile on a normal day?" I asked Dimitri when we were finally a safe distance away from the elegant residence, the doors slammed shut with a loud resounding thud behind us.

Calvin and Wilhelm walked a good few steps in front of the both of us, their trained eyes scanning the domain for any signs of danger as they led us towards the entrance of the underground labyrinth.

"Yes," said Dimitri with a small frown. "He used to always be smiling when Ida was still alive. Ironically, I was the one that constantly had a scowl on my face back in those days."

I frowned, my eyebrows crumpling as the little bit of skin in between crinkled with my change in expression. "So the both of you are doomed like that? To only have one smiling while the other wallow in some sort of despair?"

"Well, I guess so?" Dimitri's reply came more as a question than a statement, but I did not bother to point out his uncertainty. "At least until he is able to find someone else to be his one true love, I suppose he will never truly be happy. I mean, if you're in Hell, it isn't that easy to find happiness, am I right? That's what the humans explained this domain to be, after all."

I raised a single eyebrow, shaking my head with a roll of my eyes. "Dimitri, you dedicated your entire immortal life to defy what us mortals say. Why are you changing that?"

He did not reply in the joking matter in which I had expected him to. Instead, Dimitri's expression darkened ominously, the corners of his lips tilted down just the slightest. His usually luminous silver eyes were now a dark storm gray, depicting an inner turmoil in which I had hardly even spotted him adorning before. Those irises seemed like shards of metal that were melted down to liquid, swirling with a flurry of emotions that could never be shaped into words to describe.

"And maybe those mortals had never been quite too far from what is really true." Simply, he murmured under his breath before looking on into the distance. Dimitri then turned his head, studying me with what seemed to be great regret. "Addison, how well do you truly know me?"

I pondered over his question, opening and closing my mouth quite a few times before deciding that I could not find an answer to his question. I had known Dimitri for only about two years, perhaps more during my childhood, but I can never know for sure. When he had been in the form of Cassiel, Dimitri had mentioned before that he knew me for far longer than I could imagine. And for each past life that died, Dimitri had always been the one to ferry me to my next life.

In other words, I knew Dimitri like perhaps no other. And yet, I do not really know everything about him. His past, his future, his thoughts and the storm of emotions in which he possessed. He was a novel that was locked shut, unable to be read in the purest form.