Eva crouched among the rocks, studying the basin below. The land was barren and broken. Great swaths burned, smoke rising toward the cavern ceiling far overhead. It was the first place she had seen that truly looked like Hell.
Two great armies stood arrayed against one another. Gunshots rang across the basin, and men fell. Cannons thundered, flashes of fire rippling across the battlefield. Then the lines dissolved into a frenzy of steel and blood, followed by a great cry of victory.
She had watched for hours, and the cycle never changed. After a brief reprieve, the dead rose to their feet and returned to the fight.
Her descent into Hell was becoming painfully clear. First Greed. Then Lust.
“I swear to the Prince,” she muttered, brows knit. “If someone says, ‘Welcome to Wrath,’ I will stab them.” Eva sighed.
She pressed the waterskin to her lips and drank deeply from the Water of Life. Her ribs still ached, but strength flowed through her body. The burns from the fire and acid had scarcely left a mark where Alecto had applied the healing leaves.
But her heart ached. For the well-dressed man. She had never even learned his name. The image of him groaning beneath the weight of the temple of Mammon remained vivid in her mind.
But Anna was worse. Eva had said everything she could think to say, done everything she could to persuade her. It had made no difference. She shuddered. Even the image of the well-dressed man paled beside the corpse Anna had held so lovingly.
Anna’s words still shook her. Was she truly so different? If Perry had been lying on that bed, would she have stayed there too?
No. She didn’t want that. And Perry wouldn’t want it either. Their love was true. Yet the question lingered. How was what she was doing so different?
What would Perry have done if it had been her who was taken? Would he have continued on without her? No. She didn’t believe that. Not for a minute. But what would he have done differently?
The fighting never stopped below. She could see no safe way across. The damned seemed unable to die. But she could. Her fight with Cerberus had proved that. And she did not know what would happen if she died in Hell.
But she could not bear the thought of retracing her steps. Of seeing it all again. The city of Mammon. Anna. Besides, she did not even know whether Charon would ferry her back to the harbor. Alecto had said there would be no return.
There was no turning back. But there was no way forward either. She looked down at the battlefield again. Absolutely not. It was time to stop playing by Hell’s rules. She would find another way around.
