PROMISE

CHAPTER 20

The cold of the portal was a clenched fist around Hain's lungs. His muscles went tight, his teeth squeaking beneath the clench in his jaw.

Then, just as quickly as it began, it was over. The cold was gone, and he was falling.

He met the ground at his sternum with a wheeze of breath and an ungraceful sprawl. His chest cried out with the rough thump, its pain joining the chorus of other aches humming through his body. The smell of ozone hit his nose.

Hain heaved himself to his feet by sheer force of will, his eyes wide with wonder at his new surroundings. This place felt vast, rising and spreading into a something more like a lord's hall than a simple room. A white stone ceiling hung overhead, glowing with gentle radiance all its own. More white stone climbed toward the ceiling, the color so ghostly pure that Hain couldn't discern where the walls ended and the ceiling began. Underfoot, polished black stone spread out on all sides like a frozen black lake. The effect of the unbroken color was dizzying, and Hain had to stand fast for a moment to keep from toppling over.

"You've made it."

Hain turned to face the sound, his body chastising him with a jolt of pain from the too quick movement. A Vrai stood there–his wiry build like that of the guards who'd chucked him through the entrance to this place. Without thinking, Hain found himself checking the Vrai's hands and found them blank as the walls.

Looking over the Vrai's shoulder, his eyes found a second shock. Where there'd been a door he'd come through seconds ago now stood only a fourth white wall, the dark entrance vanished into the white stone like footsteps in a blizzard.

"It's gone," Hain said, barely edging the words to life. "And the guards. Where did they–"

"Are you wounded?" the Vrai said over him, stepping toward Hain.

Hain blinked, as though the question came as a surprise. As though every inch of him didn't feel as though it'd just been cranked through a meat grinder.

"Wounded?" He shook his head. "No. I'm just–" He stopped, looking at where the door ought to have been, then back to the Vrai. "Where am I?"

"If you aren't wounded, then I would ask that you hold your questions for later," the Vrai said, throwing a nervous look over his shoulder. "The portal might be closed, but we shouldn't linger in case the Vrai find a way through."

Before Hain had a chance to do anything but gape, the newcomer moved across the black floor. Hain spared one last look at the wall where the door had been before wrenching his eyes away and following, his still bare feet slapping gently against the stone floor.

He led Hain to the opposite end of the room and stopped just before the wall. Hain watched as the Vrai waved a hand over the wall, and lines formed in the smooth surface. The color within the lines darkened, shifting from white, to grey, then finally to the deepest black. Dark and opaque as painted glass, the same as the dark entryway he'd come through to this place from the street.

"This way," the Vrai said, gesturing toward the darkness. "Please pass quickly through into the next room."

Hain threw the Vrai a disbelieving look, as though he'd just told Hain to walk off a cliff.

The Vrai's annoyance was plain on his face. He jabbed his own arm in the blackness. It disappeared up to the elbow.

"See?" The Vrai withdrew his arm from the darkness. "Cold. But perfectly safe."

Hain raised a cautious hand toward the door the way the Vrai had done, and eased his fingers through the blackness. The familiar chill met his fingers, and Hain was reminded of the moment he'd closed his eyes inside the underhaven with Lilith before finding himself standing on grass beyond the haven walls.