Stella ignored the hand I was holding out to her, though, and leapt onto the rock. She caught hold of a branch sticking out over the water and climbed onto it.
“Or you could do it your way,” I said, watching her as she pulled herself up into the tree.
She jumped down onto the shore. “Is it going to take you much longer?”
I smiled. Now she was teasing me. We’d made progress. I dove into the water to swim to her but suddenly let myself sink beneath the surface. I flailed my arms as if struggling to stay afloat.
“Drake!”
Intermittently I saw Stella on the shore, anxiously keeping her bow and arrow trained in my direction, prepared to shoot the creature the second it emerged. I shot up to the surface with a big grin on my face.
“So you do care about me a little.”
Stella glowered, not enjoying my prank. “You’re a real idiot.”
I got out of the water, dripping wet. “And you’re really sexy when you worry about me.”
“If you want a punch in the face you’re heading in the right direction.”
“You already hurt me, and bad, when you didn’t dive in to save me.”
“You need to learn to save yourself.” Stella started walking again, her pace brisk.
“Come on, I thought you wanted to kid around. You started it.” I tried to stop her but she pulled away.
“Don’t touch me. You’re wet.”
“What, you afraid of a little water?” The smile died on my lips when I saw the burns on her arm. “Hold on, how did you get these?” I grabbed her wrist to get a closer look at her new injuries.
“The water’s full of poison. The Damned can’t go into it without getting burned. You, on the other hand, don’t have a scratch on you. Another privilege you Subterraneans have on top of being immortal.” There was resentment in her voice. If I could have given her my immortality I would have done it on the spot.
It had been stupid of me. The water had stung my skin, but the pure venom of the Witches’ serpents had been injected into me so many times through their bites that a relatively low concentration like the one in the river was no problem for me. “You’re wrong. Subterraneans’ skin isn’t immune to poison. Mine’s just gotten used to it.”
Her eyes shot to mine when she seemed to understand. She wasn’t the only one who had been through hell.
“Here we are.” Stella pushed aside some branches, pulled back a log, and the rock in front of us moved, revealing the entrance to a cave.
“What is this place?” I asked, surprised.
Stella smiled at me. “Welcome to my home.”
7
Sweet Poison
“You can relax. We’re safe here,” Stella said as I tried to make out my surroundings through the darkness. She lit a strange light and the cave glowed faintly, showing me her smile. She seemed comfortable, as though she were used to bringing people here.
Tongues of fire spread along a groove carved into the ground, lighting up the whole room. It wasn’t very spacious but it lacked nothing. In one corner was a small table and two chairs carved into the rock. There was even a small fireplace and a well into which water was trickling.
Thick fur pelts covered a large sleeping pallet. I threw myself onto it. “Oof! Less comfortable than it looks.” From there something caught my eye: an axe hung on the wall in a niche of the cave I hadn’t seen at first. I moved closer and was left openmouthed. It was packed with weapons. Stella had an arsenal. I stepped into the space, studying the walls: there were knives in all shapes and sizes, spears carved from wood, war hammers, arrows, and even devices I didn’t recognize. Some were crude, others unfinished.
I heard her footsteps approaching. “Did you make all these weapons?” I asked.
“Learning to defend yourself takes patience.”
“And I figured you were a damsel in distress.”
Stella took an arrow from the wall, examined its head, and began to sharpen it. “You were wrong.”
“I can see that. I’m happy you’ve gotten to be so strong,” I admitted. Our eyes met. “Otherwise, given what I’ve seen of Hell, you wouldn’t have survived all this time.”
“You haven’t seen anything of Hell yet,” she said grimly.
She took off her weapons belt and rested it on the stone counter along with her bow and arrows and a series of daggers that had been hidden here and there on her toned body. I stared at her the whole time, one eyebrow raised. She was armed to the teeth. When I thought she was done, she pulled out long, sharp pins from her hair. Finally, she placed what looked like small white stones on the counter.
“What are those?”
“My secret weapon.” She winked, grinning at me for the first time.
Stella turned and took something else down from the wall. I recognized them at once: they were two long black beaks like the ones on the raptors we had encountered, only they were bound together. Stella spread them open to show me how they worked. She had devised a pair of scissors.
“Brilliant,” I said, looking them over.
“You can use them to get all that hair off your face, if you like.”
I distractedly touched my beard. I hadn’t shaved since I’d gotten to Hell. My hair had grown pretty long too.
Stella disappeared for a moment and came back with two small rudimentary bowls, one with water and the other full of a reddish gel, which she set down next to me.
“Where are you going?” I asked as she walked toward a narrow opening in the wall.
“I need to get this mud off my clothes,” she said. She disappeared, leaving me alone to grapple with the razor-sharp gadget.
“Can’t be that hard,” I muttered to myself. I had never tried shaving without a mirror before, but I’d handled worse weapons when drunk, so— I took a dab of the gel from the bowl and spread it over my jaw. It puffed up on my skin, forming a thick red foam, so thick I could barely see. “Stella, you sure this gel isn’t going to eat my face?”
To my surprise, I heard her laugh. She was nearby, her voice loud and clear. “It’s shevad, a disinfectant foam I make from flower extract. It won’t eat you, you have my word.”
“If you say so.” With a shrug, I wiped a bit of it off and rested the blade on my face.
“Drake?” A knot formed in my stomach when I heard her say my name. “Earlier, when you were battling the raptors, you said you’d fought in the Opalion. Did you really?”
“Yeah.”
Stella was silent for a moment. “I watched the Games once. They’re brutal.” I nodded, as though she could see me. “Were you subjugated to one of them?”
The blade came to a halt against my skin. She was talking about the Witches.
My hesitation made her change the subject. “How did you manage to escape from the Castle? And what makes you think they won’t come looking for you?”
I smiled. She had never said so much all at once before. “I don’t think they care about me, really. There are thousands of Subterraneans at the Castle. My bet is they don’t even notice I’m gone.” I put down the scissors and went over to the opening in the wall through which Stella had disappeared. “I’m coming in,” I warned her. I didn’t want to risk finding her naked and ending up with another arrow in my chest.
Her silence encouraged me to go in. I crossed through the narrow passageway and couldn’t believe my eyes. The opening expanded into a grotto inside of which was a small lake lit by small, smooth objects that looked like luminescent stones floating here and there on its surface. Stella was kneeling at the water’s edge, washing her clothes.
When she saw me she stopped and looked up at me steadily. I hadn’t only shaved off my beard. I’d also gotten rid of my long hair, giving myself a crew cut like the one I’d had when we first met. I wanted to remind her that it was still me, the soldier she had fallen in love with. At the very least I was hoping to inspire a specific emotion in her: a sweet memory. Judging from her expression, it had worked.
Stella stood up, looking shaken. She hung her clothes up to dry and walked over to me. I tried not to think about the fact that she was naked beneath the cloth wrapped around her. She still had mud on her arms and her face was still covered with ink.
I stroked her arm, examining her skin. It was smooth again. There were no new burn marks, even though she had just washed her clothes. “Why doesn’t this water burn you like it did at the river?”
Instead of pulling back, she interlaced her fingers with mine. “Come, I’ll show you.” Squeezing her hand, I felt the energy she instilled in me spread through my body.
She led me down a path that made its way to the back of the lake. The passageway gradually grew narrower as the water got deeper and finally came to a dead end.
“If you wanted to drown me, you could have done it when we were in the boat,” I joked.
Her soft laughter echoed off the grotto walls. “Relax, I don’t want to kill you.”
I studied the rock in front of us, fascinated. It glimmered with silvery reflections, almost like it was a piece of the moon that had fallen off. “What are we doing here, then?”
“You’ll see.” Stella pulled a lever and I heard the sound of a trapdoor opening, followed by a soft gurgle that came closer and closer. Finally, a stream of water flowed into the lake, quickly raising the surface level. Stella took something from the wall and held it to her face. It was a rudimentary mask made of thick leather. Several of them hung from the wall. She handed me one and gestured for me to put it on. “It’s a little small, but it should be enough.”
It was hard to see her with that contraption on my face. What was she going to do?
The answer came soon enough. She picked up a stick and scraped its tip against the ceiling until the silvery dust coating the rock collected on it. With a flick of her wrist she scratched it against the wall and the improvised torch flamed up.
“Whoa!” I instinctively pulled back at the sudden burst of heat that touched my face. Stella ignored me and lowered the torch to the lake. The flames caressed the water, running across its surface like a mantle of silk.
I lowered my mask to get a better look at the dazzling display of lights before my eyes. The grotto had become a kaleidoscope of colors as red, blue, and purple danced over the lake, peeking between the flames. Stella took my mask and put it back over my face, shooting me a look of disapproval.
The fire died out and a thick cloud drifted into the air. There was something strange about the mist. It seemed to be glowing. It rose all the way to the ceiling and the rocky surface shimmered, filling the grotto with a silvery light. What was going on?
“Move, quick!” Stella darted around me toward a crank hidden in the corner. She began to turn it over and over, unfurling a cloth wrapped around a tree trunk over our heads. It was a patchwork—fur, for the most part—and it slid along thin tracks dug into the walls so it wouldn’t fall as it spread open.
“You could give me a hand instead of loafing around.” Hearing the urgency in Stella’s voice, I rushed to act, but when I began to help her she laughed. “Just kidding. I can manage on my own.” Even so, she let me turn the crank with her. “Okay, that’s enough.” She stopped and took off her mask. The cloth now covered the entire grotto, inches from the ceiling.
“What the heck is that thing?”
“It’s my water purification system,” she said proudly. “These rocks are porous and they filter the water that comes in. A small amount of poison still manages to get through, so I created channels to control the flow of the water. When I ignite its surface all the poison evaporates and settles on the walls and ceiling.” With her stick she scraped off another bit of the silvery dust and showed it to me. “It’d be a shame to waste so much poison, don’t you think?” It looked like a silver scepter in the hands of a true queen of the Underworld.
“Your arrow . . .” I touched the wound on my chest. That was why Stella’s arrow had put me out of action: it had been poisoned. I had just had confirmation of that. “It’s brilliant,” I said, fascinated.
“Survival instinct,” she replied. Then she smiled, proud of her work. “I collect poison to defend myself, but also to find food. It didn’t take me long to realize that poison could be a resource. What can kill me can also kill my enemies. Arrows, daggers, traps. Everything is much more dangerous when it’s poisoned.”
“It’s not a good idea to pick a fight with you, then.”
“By the time my enemies realize that, it’s usually too late.” Stella laughed. I wished she would keep laughing for hours. “In powder form the poison is less dangerous and harder to use. You need to scrape it off, heat it up, and melt it down. With time I learned to concoct a lethal solution, but you need lots of powder to make even a few drops of it. That’s why this is a job that needs to be done every day.”
Stella dropped the cloth covering her and dove into the water, leaving me stunned. “Are you just going to stand there or are you going to come in and get cleaned up?” she teased me when she emerged from the water.
“You sure? I can wait until you’re finished, if you want.”
What the hell was wrong with me?
“I’m not going to ask you a second time.”
“I won’t wait to be asked twice,” I murmured to myself. I pulled off my pants and dove in, emerging beside her. “All this poison kind of goes to your head, don’t you think?”
“Are you trying to take advantage of me?” she replied, her expression teasing.
God, was she beautiful. “I’m afraid you’ll be the one to take advantage of me.”
For a moment everything seemed to stop as the silvery grotto whirled around us. Stella’s eyes were locked on mine. The luminous stones glimmered on the water. I was adrift in an ocean of stars and she was my comet.
She cautiously reached out her hand and stroked my shaved head, her gaze lost in distant thoughts. What I would have given to be able to read her mind just then. The water was scalding hot and steam rose up all around us. It didn’t glitter like the steam permeated with poison, but I felt intoxicated simply because she was there, so close to me.
“Do you still remember your past?” I asked her, afraid of her answer.
“Not always,” she replied. She sounded sincere.
“What about when you found me? Did you know who I was?” She shook her head regretfully. “Why did you save me, then?”
“Because you knew who I was. Sometimes I’m not even sure I know who I used to be. I’m forgetting. It had been so long since anyone had said my name. Then you showed up. The memories connected to my life on Earth come and go, and I feel like I’m losing them.”
“You said you’d dreamed about me,” I suddenly remembered. Maybe deep down she still cared for me.
“Everything has been so confused lately. But not the dreams. Those have always been clear.”
“Do you dream about us on Earth?”
She shook her head. “I dream about you here in Hell.” The revelation disturbed me, but I kept it to myself. “When I found you I knew you’d been a part of my life, but the memories of that Stella are fading and soon I’ll lose them forever. That’s what happens before you cross over to the other side.”
“What other side?” I asked hesitantly.
“The more my memories fade, the more I risk becoming one of the Insane. And if there’s one thing I fear more than death, it’s that.”
“It’ll never happen. I won’t let it.”
Stella looked into my eyes. “I get closer to the edge every day.”
I couldn’t stand seeing her so frightened. I moved closer and brushed the hair away from her face. “Not any more, now that I’m here. Of course you’re a bit bolder than you were the last time I saw you, my little savage, but I never said I didn’t like it,” I admitted, getting a smile out of her.
Hell drove Souls to self-annihilation, turning them into creatures who were increasingly worthy of being there. I had seen some transform before my eyes. Their stares
went blank when their very last trace of humanity vanished and they became zombies. Their eyes went pitch black. I drove off the memories before Stella could read them on my face. I would never let that happen to her. At the Castle, even I had risked losing myself. Finding each other again had saved us both.
Stella smiled and her face lit up. “That’s what I liked about you the most: the way you always made everything seem so simple.”
“You’re wrong. What you liked the most was when I would flex my muscles at you. It made you forget your problems.” I flexed my bicep to get her to laugh again. I didn’t want her to stop. It worked, and the grotto filled with the melody.
“All of a sudden I’m remembering how arrogant you were, too.” She swam away.
I swam after her. “Nothing else?”
“You were presumptuous, insolent, and more than a bit cocky.”
“You’re forgetting funny, passionate, and, most important, gorgeous.”
“Yes, a gorgeous bag of hot air.”
I laughed with her, hoping the moment would never end, but Stella grew serious again. She came closer and rested her hand on my left arm, studying the symbols branded on my skin, the marks that had condemned me. “How did you become a Soldier of Death?”
“During World War II, you know, I was a pilot in the U.S. armed forces. I’d been granted a furlough. I wanted to come home to you. Two days before I was scheduled to go, we were flying in hostile territory when an enemy squad attacked us. I managed to shake them and bring the plane down safely, but they’d hit me. When I landed, I remember thinking I would never see you again.” I brushed my fingers against the dog tag around my neck and gripped it in my fist, reliving those terrible moments. Not terrible because I had lost my life—I hadn’t been afraid of dying—but because at that very instant I lost Stella. “A Witch was there waiting for me,” I added. “Kreeshna. She wanted to take me with her to Hell, but another Subterranean chased her off. Since then, Evan has been like a brother to me.”
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