Unfathomable darkness embraced me and time lost all meaning. I drifted in thought with only the burning muscles in my body reminding me that I was alive, or—

In the absence of light, my mind was playing tricks on me...

If indeed I had a mind...

Perhaps I was no longer alive...

Perhaps this was the afterlife and this was my dark, lonely journey to greet Hazus, God of Nine Hells, the Collector of Souls.

A voice that sounded like it came from underwater, distorted and stretched out, echoed softly in the inky emptiness. It could have been my brave sister. Or even my brother Gratian calling me to join him. "Varen, Varen... V-Varen..."

Guilt pumped steadily through my heart to poison it black with my treachery, and I fell deeper and deeper into anguish.

I had done a terrible thing.

My brother was gone.

If only I had headed straight home after returning from Colombia and not gone to the Szarvas estate, wishing to set things right with Irma. If only I hadn't followed Gratian's scent and entered that stone gazebo and come upon my brother bent over my girlfriend. If I'd not given into fury and the sting of heartache and betrayal, and just used my fucking head and not stumbled thoughtlessly into the Hemmlok Forest. Nor run deeper and deeper until I'd reached its wild, ancient depth, a place no one, not even a child of the Houses should be—Gratian would be alive today.

"Varen, please... you n-need to keep climbing..."

My heartbeat pulsed in my ears, sharp-edged and fervent, a hypnotizing cadence calling me onward, beckoning me to stalk through the Heart of the Hemmlok Forest. To stride through the thick, moist fog, its wisps of wetness brushing against my skin while my footing was softened by spongy moss, and the warmth of knotted wyrmbone heated my palms, the blades spinning.

Vengeance whet my tongue. I hungered to soak my fingers in blood or to gift my blood to another. And white-hot flames began to burn my blood in a feverish desire to end the creature who had taken my brother, or—

I could bring him back.

I could...

The thought took root like a latticework of rot spreading outward from a septic wound.

I could find Jurgana's sister, Sigrune, a witch who, according to Sirro, dabbled with necromancy. I could beg her, bargain with her to bring my brother back from the dead. A gift was always needed to tempt the witches. Perhaps I could give myself up to Sigrune to right the wrong and trade places with my brother. Give my life so Gratian could return from Nine Hells.

They never come back right—Sirro had warned.

And if I couldn't, if Sigrune wasn't able to bring my brother back, then all there was left for me to do was to find the beast who had taken his life and slaughter it...

Or be slaughtered in turn...

A fitting penance for what I'd done to Gratian, or—

I could simply end everything now, unfurl my fingers, let go of the rope and fall, fall, fall...

It would be so easy to just let go and disappear into the darkness...

Embrace it. Become it.

End myself with utter finality.

"Don't you dare, Varen... Do you hear me? Don't you d-dare..."

Like the frantic tug of a fly stuck in sticky threads of a spider web, a twang rippled through the darkness and along the twisted fibers of the rope. It vibrated a desperate note along my fingers and scraped against my soul.

"You cl-climb... You hear me, Varen? You climb..."

I awoke from my morbid thoughts, breaking through the murky despair like pushing through lung-choking smoke into crisp, clean air, awakening me to the here and now.

I blinked, or at least I thought I blinked. I was swimming in absolute darkness and I couldn't see anything, not even my fingers clenched around the coarse rope. All I could see was a tiny pin-prick of light above, like the first spark of life that appeared in the void when Zrenyth gave birth to our world.

The voice came again. "Varen, I swear to Zrenyth if you don't st-start climbing, I'll k-kick your ass all the way to Hazus and the Hellsgates..."

Another tug on the rope.

Valarie... Valarie...Valarie...

My twin's terror skittered beneath my skin, but there was also a furious strength that thrummed against my bones and an iron will she demanded that I lean upon.

Pure stubbornness drove me onward. It wasn't so much upper body strength hauling me up the rope, it was quad-burning squats. I'd wrapped the rope around one foot, locking it in place with the other in a j-hook to keep my position and not fall.

Squatting, I pushed upward to grab the rope, quickly relock the cord around my feet to repeat the motion—

Squat, push up—

Grab hold of the rope—

Loop a coil around my foot and pincer it—

Only to repeat, again—

And again and—

Again.

Though I'd opened up my armor to let the chilly air wash through the fish-scale cuts to cool my overheated body, sweat dripped down my spine and even the fingers in my gloves felt slippery. My muscles quivered and my mouth was parched dry with thirst.

I was desperate for water and yearned to stop and rest. I'd been climbing for no-fucking-idea-long. It could have been an hour, a day, a week, or a godsdamned year.

Squat after squat, I kept moving up the rope, until the blackness began to lift slowly, like layers of a veil being pulled off one by one. Straight in front of me, I could make out dirt turning to stone, heat warmed the crown of my head and shoulders, and strands of sunlight created shadows in the creases of my adamere armor.

A voice above me croaked, "Varen."

Glancing up, I caught only a smeared impression of Valarie's tear-blotched face peering over the edge of the hole before I shied away from the sun's too-bright-rays stabbing my eyeballs. I slit my eyes against the sting and beams of sunlight streaming downward to squint up at my sister between the fringe of my eyelashes as she reached a hand toward me. Our fingers locked tightly around each other's wrists and she pulled back. The soles of her combat boots rasped against rock as she dug deep and helped haul me up over the ledge and onto the jagged split rock.

I stumbled, breathing hard. My knees barked with pain as they hit bare rock.

Valarie flung her arms around me. "V-Varen..."

"Val," I groaned, hugging my sister back. My muscles were so fucking rubbery that I wasn't sure if I could do anything but kneel here for the next week and cling to her.

"You sc-scared the shit out of me..."

"I'm fine," I puffed out, my lungs burning. Both of us peeled away from the other. My sister had clearly been crying at some point. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and the tip of her nose reddened. Valarie's braid was a mess with wisps of loose hair sticking every which way around her temple as if she'd been continually running her hands through the plaited crown, unintentionally pulling locks free.

Leaning back on my heels, I used my forearm to push away the wet hair plastered to my sweaty forehead and drew in a breath of sweet, cool-edged air. Fuck.

Valarie rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. She looked pensive. I could feel it humming between us, her utter relief to haul me out of the hole in the ground, but there was a wretchedness that lingered there too. "I wasn't sure if I'd e-ever see you ag-again."

"Val, come on," I scoffed. It wasn't like my twin to overreact. I guess I did have a moment down there when my mind floated somewhere dark and morbid and inexplicably enticing.

The gnarled tree line at the edge of the battle zone of burnt, scarred earth was bathed in direct sunshine. Unease coiled in my gut at how quiet and still the forest was, how silent it remained. The hairs on my arms prickled at the curiosity of critters and beasts watching us from all around. Their shapes were concealed within the gloomy shadows but their unblinking eyes were fixed on us.

"What time is it?" I asked, unzipping my jacket and peeling off my sticky gloves to shove them into my pockets.

Valarie's scowled and suddenly slapped me hard across the chest. I winced and soothed away the bite of pain with the tips of my fingers. Holy shit...

"It's nearly noon, you f-fucking asshole," she spat at me, her voice almost rising to a shout.

I stiffened.

What the hells?

My eyes sliced to hers. "Noon?"

Even though it felt like an eternity climbing down that pit of hells and then back up again, surely it had only been a few hours. But, as I cocked my head to briefly glance upward, I realized how light it was and where the fiery ball of sunshine sat in a blue sky scudded with clouds.

I'd climbed down the hole in the ground before midnight and now...

It was afternoon.

Frowning, I scrubbed the back of my curled fingers beneath my chin. The damp, bristly beard scratched at my skin. It couldn't have taken half a day to climb down and then back up. Surely not. Perhaps there was some kind of residual magic from the lingering afterlife in the crevasse that warped time.

Valarie flung a hand wide and recaptured my attention. "I d-didn't know what to do, I didn't know if you were alright or if something had happened... And then a f-few hours ago I heard a faint sound—you. And I could feel you here," she kneaded the heel of her palm above her heart. In the violet depths of her eyes shone a miserable kind of pity, the kind I wished I could have spared her, but how could I when the festering guilt that enshrouded my soul murmured through the twin-link? Like the sunlight, I cringed and shied away from the undeserving sympathy and worry. "I'm fine, Val," I grumbled.

"Varen, pl-please ju—"

"Fine," I barked back, instantly regretting it when hurt flashed through her eyes before they hardened and narrowed.

Annoyed with myself, I heaved a sigh through my nose and massaged the tension behind my temples. "Fuck, I don't know," I gritted out, apologizing silently with a swift glance. "It just took a while, I guess, getting down there, and then back up again."

Slowly, Valarie's clenched square jaw relaxed, and the deep furrow above the bridge of her nose and between her eyebrows softened. She twisted around to rifle through her backpack and fished out a drink canister. Unscrewing the lid, she offered it to me. My fingers wrapped around the smooth metal. There weren't any beads of condensation running down its sides, as the water inside was no longer cold. It had been warmed by the sunny day and by how long it had sat inside the bag waiting for me. Half a day I'd spent in the hole in the ground. I couldn't bend my mind around it.

Gulping half of the canister's contents down, I relished the water sliding down my throat before I poured the remains over my hot, flushed face. I shook my head, letting beads of moisture fly like a dog shaking dry its coat, and then took the second bottle of water my sister handed over, and drank some more while staring at the barren earth surrounding the outcrop of rock. A battleground. What had occurred here? Had the battle taken place before the Kinslayer had gone into the crevasse, or afterward?

I unbound my hair and smoothed the soaking wet locks back to recapture them and retie them more securely, while my sister gripped the ledge of the split rock to stare into the crevasse and the void of darkness. "What did you f-find down there?"

Bones. There were just bones down at the bottom of the pit. And just how deep those layers of tiny little animal bones went, I had no fucking idea. I got to my feet, swaying a little, my muscles groaning in protest. Shit. Fuck. I shook out one leg, and then the other. "Just animal bones," I answered, gingerly rolling a shoulder to ease the pain that seared my joints.

My sister's eyes rounded as she pushed back from the lip of the crevasse. Her gaze shot to mine. "The Kinslayer?"

"There's nothing in there, not even lingering afterlife."

"It's gone... Free?"

I nodded, my mouth pinched thin.

"Shit," she hissed, glancing briefly back toward the hole in the ground.

In-fucking-deed.

I had no idea what the Kinslayer was, or how long it had been gone from the hole in the ground, but I did know a Horned God had been worried over its escape. And that was a massive motherfucking statement in itself.

Sirro...

Hellsgate!

I swore, loud and long, realizing just what time it was. Noon. Sirro had warned me that he'd be in contactable range only until this morning.

I crouched down, frantically digging around in my backpack, searching for the Brick, and finally fished it out. The Brick was an appropriate name for the cell phone as it was clumsily big and pretty much the size of a cumbersome plastic block. It was awkward as fuck and shitty to hold. But it was rad! I could call someone almost anywhere in the world, even my annoying little brother Sander while I was in the middle of fuck-knows-where to bellow at him to keep out of my bedroom and his thieving hands off my stash of porn. You couldn't even carry the thing in your fucking pocket, it had to be toted around in a bullshit briefcase, and it didn't hold much of a battery life either. But no one gave a shit, the Brick was awesome and revolutionary, a miracle of modern technology, so fucking cool it was almost like magic.

I uncomfortably wrapped my fingers around its wide, straight lines and stabbed my finger at its cream buttons, mentally running through the number I had for Sirro.

Beep, beep... beep-be-beep...

Ah, shit... my finger slipped.

I had to start all over again.

Beep, beep...beep...beepidy-beep-beep...beep-beep...

The antenna poked above my head as I pressed it to my ear. I anxiously tapped my thigh with my free hand as I waited for the call to connect.

And waited...

Nothing. Not even a signal. Which I should have fucking known would happen this deep in the ancient forest.

Shit, shit, shit...

Valarie could feel my frustration. She'd swiftly loosened Zrenyth's rope from the rock, coiled it, and was stuffing it into the bag by my feet. Before I'd even parted my lips to speak she looked up, arching an eyebrow. "The Szarvases', I take it?"

I scowled and quickly disconnected the call. Shoving the Brick into the backpack, I fastened it, then hoisted it onto my shoulders. Valarie jumped from the rock first and I followed. I sounded like a whiny baby bellowing out in pain when my feet hit hard-packed earth and white-hot agony jarred up my legs. I was done. I just wanted to lie down on my bed and not move a single muscle for three days straight. "I don't know if I can—"

"You can!" Val shouted as she rounded on me and channeled our asshole father with a fierce glare. She jutted her chin toward the forest but kept her mean eyes on me. "You want to get into cell phone range, then we n-need to move. So get your shit t-together and run!"

The afternoon sun burned high in the autumn sky as I pushed off on legs that felt like I'd been treading water for the past 24 hours, and I followed my sister as she burst into a blur of black speed across the barren earth. Plunging back into the gloom of the forest, the air was moist and cool beneath the dense layers of leaves above, a welcome sensation as I ducked and wove around trees. Val easily darted ahead of me, because I was fucking shattered. This kind of punishing run should have been nothing compared to the training pits back home and the drills our father enforced every single day, but I hurt all over, especially my wrecked thighs.

Small flying insects and tiny biting otherworldly creatures flitted about in small buzzing clouds. Motes drifted in the thin strands of muted sunlight that managed to strike through slender gaps in the canopy. I was losing ground to Val. After what seemed an eternity of brutalizing pain, I gave up trying to keep pace with my sister and gave in to my desperate need for a moment of respite. I slowed right down to stop altogether and leaned a shoulder against a papery tree trunk. My knees threatened to buckle beneath me. My chest heaved as I gasped for breath, my head hanging low. Fuck, everything hurt. Pain stabbed every part of my body as if had been pummeled, used as a human punching bag.

I wiped the sweat off my brow with my forearm, and that's when I noticed I was standing at the edge of a trail. My mouth pursed as I frowned with curiosity, straightening and bracing my hands on my hips. It was a wide path, littered with curled leaves. Interestingly, the hard-packed ground was carved through with long ruts, their edges and depth worn from time and weather, yet still obvious and distinct in the way they clearly hadn't been made naturally by flowing water. The first thing that came to mind was that tires of some kind had rutted the earth. I strode a little further to poke my head around the corner, observing how the trail wound through the trees and disappeared. Maybe it was one of those paths that Sirro had talked about yesterday morning.

My sister's voice suddenly ripped through the forest and made me startle. "VAREN, MOVE YOUR F-FUCKING ASS!"

Valarie appeared a moment later, and as soon as she saw my woeful state, bit her bottom lip, pulling a rueful face while mouthing—Sorry. She tugged at my backpack, pulling it off my shoulders and sliding it onto her back. She tilted her head, "You g-good?"

I pulled a face—Kinda.

I marked my surroundings, deciding to come back sometime later to investigate the path I suspected connected the Szarvases to the Deniauds. Surging forward, I followed the sound of my fucking bolshy sister, still barking at me to hurry the fuck up, and disappeared into mind-numbing pain. It was just one more footstep, one foot in front of the other. I trailed Valarie, who had slowed down considerably so I could keep pace with her. I was running as pathetically fast as a human, shameful for a Crowther.

After a time, the narrow gaps between the misshapen and knotted trees grew wider apart, and the forest itself appeared younger and slightly less creepy looking. We burst from the tree line and onto the plush lawn. The Szarvases' kastély appeared with figures bustling around the bleak stone structure like busy ants.

I glanced upward. The sun had crawled further across the blue sky, awash with gray clouds, and I wasn't exactly sure how long it had taken us to get from the hole in the ground to the Szarvas estate. An hour? Two? Three? Would Sirro still be contactable? Fucked if I knew, and there was only one way to find out.