Because of you. Her sister’s voice. Ari’s voice.
Monster. Bel e, whispering so low and mean. You’re a monster.
“I’m sorry,” Elena whimpered. “I’m sorry.”
Monster.
“I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t!”
Better that you die here in this tomb, than lead others to their deaths.
Ari would never say that to her. Bel e had never spoken to her in that vicious tone. The wrongness of it snapped the snare of nightmare. Shoving up the mental shields she’d been working on since she woke from the coma, she slammed herself against the wal , only then realizing she’d taken several steps forward. “I’m not playing this game!”
The instant her back met the wal , she became aware of the rush of cold air at her feet. Horror uncurling within her, she reached out with a foot, scooting forward an inch at a time. Her leg was almost ful y extended when she felt a “lip” of stone—as if there was nothing beyond except a deadly crevice.
Shaking, she pul ed back her leg, dropping her knives into the palms of her hands at the same time. Sweat trickled down her temples, stuck her hair to the sides of her face, made the air chil against her skin—she welcomed the rush of sensation, even as she decided to gamble with what might very wel be her life. Wish me luck, Archangel.
There was no response, but she knew he had to be blasting the rock with angelfire by now. He’d get her out. She just had to keep herself alive in the interim.
Right on cue, she heard the slither of something on the stone, something heavy and scaly and reptilian. Shivering, she switched one of her daggers for the short sword Galen had dril ed her in until she could fight in the dark—so long as she avoided that gaping pit in the center—and she opened her mouth.
“Games,” she said, speaking to the alien intel igence behind this trap, “are beneath you.”
The slithering didn’t cease, but she felt the sense of something, some one watching and listening, the heavy weight of that presence pressing down on her as she drew in long, slow breaths and tried to pinpoint the location of whatever it was that had crawled out of the pit to join her.
Musk. Dirt. Moss.
It was the last that gave her the anchor she needed—the stone room had been bare of living plants when she’d retrieved Il ium. The creature was in the left-hand corner, she thought, heading toward her. So she began to inch to her right a fraction at a time, always testing ahead before she moved. She didn’t trust the hole to remain in the center of the room.
“You were a goddess,” she said as she moved. “Intel igent and beautiful, and worshipped by people not out of fear, but out of love. I am nothing but an angel new-Made, no real chal enge to someone of your power.” It was the unvarnished truth, and that, Elena thought, might just save her. Unless Caliane was stil utterly insane. “To torment me serves no purpose but to lessen you.”
A sudden cold that made her heart stutter in shock. The thing in the room with her hissed in rage at the same instant, and she knew she was skirting the edge of what would be tolerated. But she had to keep talking, had to keep Caliane from ordering the creature to attack. “Do you know what Raphael told me?” she said, hope flaming anew as she felt a vibration in the wal . Archangel.
The moment’s distraction almost cost her everything as the serpent or whatever the fuck it was spit something in her direction. She caught the scent of acid a fraction of an instant before it would’ve been too late and slammed herself down and to her right, breaking what felt like a rib in the process. That pain, however, was nothing to the searing agony on the very tip of her left wing. Swal owing the scream that wanted to escape, she blinked back tears and crawled another foot out of range. “He told me,” she said through the agonizing hurt, “that you had a voice like the heavens, so pure and strong and imbued with love that the world itself stood stil to listen.”
The cold retreated with such unexpected swiftness that Elena wondered if she’d surprised Caliane. But it was too late. She was trapped in a corner, with the floor fal ing away in a steep drop to her right, solid stone wal s to her back and left ... and the creature coming straight for her. She could see glowing slivers of swirling yel ow and green that she guessed were its eyes, and from the sound it made as it slithered across the floor, it was massive.