Immortal Fire - Book One
Chapter 51

Gathering all the water we could and some food just in case, we packed our backpacks. I had gone to change into the training gear that had been given to me in Lunzos and took the daggers that Hayden had given me. Hopefully, I would be seeing him very soon. Damien had put his sword and other weapons in places where you could not even see them.

After about ten minutes we were on our way. Cassie could not move as fast as Damien and me as he led the way. We had taken the pamphlet depicting the hiking trail and the chilled air bit at our faces. The rough terrain would have usually been brutal, but after weeks of training, I took it like a pro.

I had to stop to help Cassie every few minutes but as time went on her strength came back to her slowly. Reaching a rather daunting piece of trail, I heard Cassie mumbling under her breath about ‘damn angels and elves…’

Damien must have heard because he started laughing and came back to carry Cassie over the rocks. We were making good progress, but the sun had started turning the obscure black sky to purple and progressively orange as it threatened to break past the horizon.

“How much longer is this going to take?” asked Cassie breathlessly.

“Only a little further,” he said, looking back at the map.

Looking around, I could see the lake below the hill. Light danced across its surface as if it were a mirror and birds had begun to sing their early morning songs. The sun would fully rise soon enough and the rest of the park and its inhabitants too. We carried on our way and eventually came around a rocky bend to replace the devil’s doorway.

The ancient rock formation had an ominous aura about it that I guessed the supernatural could only pick up on as well as the ancient natives. They had named the lake after the devil that they said dwelled within. Their explanation could not be more accurate. I had no idea how to go through it as the other side of the ‘door’ was a sheer drop to the rocky hillside below.

“How do we go through?” I asked turning to Damien and Cassie.

They had not heard me as they were arguing with each other about how the door worked and if it even did work… Shaking my head at the two of them I walked over to the door and shuffled some of the foliage out of the way near the base of the rocks.

The doorway was imposing this close, and a shiver ran down my spine. Somehow, I could sense the evil radiating from it and the early morning chill before the rising sun bit at my exposed skin. I could still hear Damien and Cassie arguing a few feet away and tried to block them out of my mind.

The sun would break the horizon soon and we did not have much time left before Hunter’s tracking spell would work and the visitors of the park started their hiking for the day. A faint crimson glow caught my attention at the bottom corner of a rock on the right…

Getting on to my knees and pushing plants as well as smaller rocks out of the way, I sat up straight at the sight before me. Embedded in the rock where the crimson glow radiated was Hade’s mark. It was the same jagged symbol that was tattooed on Hunter’s chest.

A sigh escaped me as I recounted the horrific deeds Hunter had done under the control of Hades. Hayden would have a difficult time believing and moving forward from the mess Hunter had made, even if technically it wasn’t his doing… I wouldn’t blame Hayden; I was still having a hard time letting go of my feelings of hatred toward Hunter.

“You guys, come look here. I think I found something…” I called back over my shoulder. Damien and Cassie stopped arguing and turned their attention toward me.

“What is it?” asked Damien moving toward me. Cassie stayed where she was standing and watched us. Damien knelt beside me, and I pointed. Damien, scrunching up his face as he looked closer, seemed to have trouble seeing what I saw on the rock.

“Am I supposed to be seeing anything in particular?” he asked.

“It’s right there! Its Hades mark…” I exclaimed. Shaking his head whilst standing up, Damien looked at me.

“I don’t see anything,” he said.

“What?” I asked incredulously. The mark was there, and it was glowing crimson, the color of blood.

“I don’t see anything Aria…” he said with a strange look on his face. Now I was the one confused. Standing up and brushing dirt from my clothes, I turned and almost knocked Cassie.

“She can see it because she has Dark Elf blood in her. It makes her able to see the dark that we are blinded to because her blood recognizes it,” she said looking rather pleased with herself for knowing something that Damien didn’t.

“Okay, well it is there which means this is the door. Does anyone know how to use it? I’m not too excited about being wrong and falling to my death at the bottom of the cliff on the other side of that door.” I said in a rush.

Lord please help me, I missed my old life where my biggest fucking concern was doing homework and moving to the latest town… The sun broke the horizon just then and a glimmer in the doorway caught my attention. It reminded me of the Prism that surrounded Lunzos, except this was not beautiful like sunlight reflecting through crystals. This glimmer reminded me of polluted water.

“Come on,” I said and walked the few steps back to the doorway.

“What do you see?” Damien asked. He had been noticeably quiet since Cassie had mentioned the ‘darkness’ within my veins.

“I think it might be open but I’m not sure. There is this glimmer that wasn’t there before the sun broke the horizon…” I said still watching the glimmer ripple like water being disturbed by pebbles thrown into it.

That was it! Picking up a stone by my feet and feeling its weight as I threw it up and caught it a few times, I hurled it into the glimmer. The stone disappeared and did not fall to the earth on the other side.

“I take it, it is open then?” asked Cassie from behind me.

“Yeah” I replied.

Looking back at the mark of Hades, I noticed it was starting to fade slightly.

“I think we better hurry. That symbol is fading, and I have a feeling that the door closes once it has burned out.” Damien looked away from me and toward the horizon with the rising sun. The soft, warm rays of the sun reflected from his tanned skin.

“We better hurry then. We need to go through right now.” Grabbing his duffel bag from the floor and placing it on his back, he smiled at Cassie and me.

“Let’s do some hunting…” he smiled like a naughty boy, and I could not help but smile back.

Cassie did not seem too eager as she eyed out the ‘door’. I did not blame her. If it didn’t work, we would most likely fall to our deaths. She had been unusually quiet for the whole hike now that I thought about it. The fear was clear on her face.

“We will be fine Cassie…” I said as I squeezed her hand reassuringly and smiled at her. Pushing her glasses back on her nose, she let out a long heavy breath.

“Okay,” she said and grabbed my hand.

Looking up at Damien on my right, I finally put out my hand for him to take. He took it with his. Warmth engulfed my hand. He was always so warm.

“On the count of three, we all go through together, okay?” I asked squeezing both of their hands. “Okay,” they said in unison. Saying a mental prayer in my head, I took a deep breath.

“Don’t ever let go…” I said before counting to three and we stepped through the door. Just before we stepped through the glimmer, I was sure that Damien had quietly said ‘never’.

Darkness engulfed us and hot winds embraced us. I could feel the sense of falling and being jerked in all directions. I used all my willpower to hold on to my friends’ hands as we were battered by the winds and the darkness never seemed to cease.

The familiar smell of decay filled my lungs seconds before the ground came up to meet us. The three of us were thrown to the hot, dust-covered ground. Sitting up coughing from the winds and smell, I slouched with relief when I saw we were all there and okay.

Cassie was still coughing and rearranging her glasses while she lay on the dirt-covered ground. Damien was sitting cross-legged on the ground beside me and had red dirt smeared all over his face as he looked around.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Hade’s domain…” I answered.