Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(66)

I felt the blood rushing to my face and looked quickly away.

“Lunchtime’s over. We need to get moving if we’re ever going to get out of this awful desert.”

“If you knew what awaited us in the next circle, you might not be so eager to leave Minauros,” Laish remarked, standing and brushing crumbs from his lap.

“Why? What are we up against next?” I felt a surge of apprehension.

“Stygia, as I told you, is a frozen waste. But before we get there, we must go through the Jealous Heart and that is a place…”

“What?” I asked when he trailed off. “What’s so bad about it?”

Laish sighed. “Let us just say it is a good thing you are not terrified of insects.” He nodded at the moth.

“What?” I felt my stomach do a slow flip. I’m not exactly afraid of bugs—I’m a Florida girl, after all which means I see a lot of them. But I don’t exactly love them either. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see,” he said ominously. “All too soon, I fear. Come—let me help you back up into the saddle.”

“No, thanks, I can manage,” I said coolly. I stepped out of the shade of the oasis, intending to take the huge horse by the bridle and lead him to one of the taller stones so I could mount in style. But I never made it.

“Gwendolyn, no don’t—” I heard Laish say and then my foot slipped through the sand and I felt myself falling. Suddenly all the sand around me was gone and I had a confused notion of darkness filled with spots of white below my feet.

I barely had time to scream before my fall was stopped by a jerk that made my teeth click together. I looked up and saw that Laish had me by the arm. There was a grim look on his face.

“Hold still,” he said tightly. “I must bring you up slowly so as not to crumble the lip of the sand trap.”

“Sand trap?” I gasped. “What…how…?”

“Just be still, Gwendolyn,” he said sternly. “And do not look down.”

Of course then I couldn’t help looking down—it was almost an instinct. I peered into the darkness and saw that the white spots I’d seen before were eyes—not the eyes of demons, though. These were human eyes, all looking up at me. And when I saw the eyes, I couldn’t help seeing the faces they were set in—faces which were all twisted into expressions of silent agony. Some were crying, some of them seemed to be shrieking but I couldn’t hear anything coming out of their distorted mouths.


“Laish!” I exclaimed, still looking, trying to make sense of the dark pit after the glare of the sunlight. “There are people down here.”

“I know,” he growled as he pulled me up very slowly. “Stop looking at them.”

But I couldn’t. Because as my eyes adjusted, I saw more and more. There must have been hundreds of people—mostly men—looking up at me from down in the pit. Some appeared to be howling or screaming and all seemed to be in the most awful pain.

Then I saw the reason why. Each and every one of them was pierced by a sharp stick—impaled on a stake that ran through their bodies and emerged from either their chest or back. Clearly the stakes were piercing vital organs and causing pain and damage that would have killed someone back in the Mortal Realm. But of course, this was Hell—so the souls I was seeing were stuck there, being impaled for all eternity—they literally could not die.

“Laish,” I gasped as he finally pulled me over the lip and away from the pit. “Oh my Goddess, those people…”

“Those rapists, you mean,” he said shortly, pushing me back to the shadow of the tree and the oasis.

“They…but they…”

“Are there because of their own actions,” he finished for me. “Do not spare them a second glance or any of your pity, Gwendolyn—they had none for their victims in life. Now in death they pay for their sins.”

I shook my head, unable to comprehend the horror I’d just seen. As I watched, the shifting sands of the desert rose and settled, blocking my view of the awful pit. Soon it was completely covered and no one that hadn’t seen it would have believed there was a hole filled with silently screaming people just below the sandy surface.

“That was…awful,” I whispered weakly.

“No, that was Minauros,” Laish said, still sounding grim. “You needn’t look so horrified, Gwendolyn—this is Hell, after all. It is a place of eternal torment and damnation.”

“Yes, I know. I mean, I know it cognitively,” I said. “But to actually see it…”

“I warned you not to look,” he said shortly. “Come, let’s get you back on Kurex’s back. This time I will help you.”

“All right,” I said humbly. “I didn’t know that pit was there or I wouldn’t have tried to get on myself. Is…is that the only one?”

“Come here.” He pulled me to him and stood behind me. Then he crouched down so that his cheek was pressed to mine and we were both looking out across the vast, sandy expanse of the desert.

“Laish—” I started to protest but he paid no attention.

“Look, Gwendolyn,” he said, and the growl was back in his voice. “Look as I look and see what I see.”