Chapter 162

Chapter 162
Isla
I didn't know vampires could get tired.
Scratch that.
I didn't know goddess-vampires could get tired. Not this kind of tired though. The kind that seeps into your bones and make you beg for sleep. Or death. Or both if that's even possible.
I went into the pits. Aeron made me go. Not because he wanted to punish me, but because he felt I needed to experience it. "When you put a vampire in the pits," he said as we flew down. "You need to know what it is they'll go through."
Darkness.
So complete. So thick. So all-consuming that it felt like a living beast. I could feel it breathe against my skin.
The pit keepers were the only creatures that could see anything in the depths of the pits. They laughed at us. I heard them. Their breezy voices mocking us as we flew deeper and deeper.
I looked up at one point, expecting to see the stars overhead, but it the blackness was complete. No stars, no moonlight, not even a breeze from the outside world.
I felt the other vampires. Their presence. Their wailing. Begging for a drop of blood. For a reprieve from the never ending dark. "Here," a pit keeper said. "You can leave her here."
I could see nee nothing. I didn't know if it was a cell, a ledge, a bench, a bed, or the floor, but I heard when Aeron dropped her. The chains surrounding Idun jangled loudly. I felt the pit keeper walk past me. He was cold. Like fresh snow falling from the heavens.
And all the while, people screamed. They cried. They begged for mercy.
And the pit keepers laughed, enjoying their suffering.
I felt them feed on the damned. Their pain.
And I understood what that place was.
It was hell.

"Are you okay?" Aeron asks as we land next to the gaping maw of the pit.
I felt the magic as we passed through it. The mouth of the pit opened for us because we were not supposed to be there.
"No," I say with a soft sob. "I just want to sleep."
"Yeah," my groom sighed. "The first time I went in there, I wasn't the same for a week. But this is... important. I know too many lords and rulers who willy-nilly throw vampires in the pits for the smallest infraction."
A memory - fresh, but it feels old at the same time - pops into my head. "Didn't you threaten Nicolette with the pits? On the night we met when that initiate fed on me."
Aeron chuckles softly. "Yeah. It was just a threat."
"Was it though? Really?"
He shrugs with one shoulder. "I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. I've changed since then."
"Aeron," I say exasperated by him. "It was like... nine months ago."
He laughs. "A lot can happen in nine months. You will learn, my little bride, that we grow, we change, we never stay the same. Not even the eternals."
"What are eternals?"
"They used to be the fae," Aeron says and sits down on the dry, compacted earth. Without giving it any thought, I sit next to him, and to my surprise the earth feels hot - almost scorching. He reaches into his jacket and takes out a blood bag. "I suppose we will need to find new ones now."
He tears the bag open and offers it to me. 'Trust me. You'll feel better."
I take the bag and drink about half of it before giving it back to Aeron. I do feel a little better, but not by much. I still want to lie down where I stand and... die? Is that what I want to do?
Or is it just the way the pits are making me feel?
Aeron takes the rest of the bag and empties it. "What you're feeling now... it will pass."
I look up at the trees far in the distance. Shadows standing guard over the vast nothingness lying ahead of us. Just flying back to the safety of the trees, away from the pits, feels like too much effort.
I lie back on the baked earth and stare up at the stars. They don't twinkle here like they do back home. The moon is a sliver that doesn't appear to move. "Does the sun ever shine here?" I ask.
"I don't know," Aeron answers and lies next to me. "No one comes here during the day."
"It feels like it doesn't. Like this place is captured in forever darkness."
"Maybe it is. More things on heaven and earth..." he gets to his feet and holds his hand out to me. "It's best not to linger. The faster we get away from this place, the faster you'll feel like your old self again."
"Where is Einar?" I ask. "He was here, wasn't he?"
"He left. He did not come into the pits with us."
"Are you sure?"
Aeron nods and picks me up, cradling me close to his chest. "I felt him leave."
He doesn't fly out. And now that I think about it... we walked across the desert. That can only mean that it's impossible to fly here. The earth does feel like it's trying to hold on to us, like it doesn't want us to leave.
Aeron starts to walk across the wasteland, not looking back, holding me like it's the most natural thing on earth and as we put more and more distance between ourselves and the pits, I start to feel better. "Do you think the universe will create new eternals?" I ask the question before I can even think about it.
Aeron sighs heavily. "Perhaps. Maybe you will create them. The world itself feels wrong since the fae has been gone from it."
"It does?" I am surprised to hear him say those words. To me, it still feels the same as it always has. "In what way?"
"I can't quite explain it... I can just feel their absence. It makes me... unhappy."
"I'm sorry," I say in a small voice.
Aeron shrugs and lowers me to the ground. He's tired, out of breath, and we're only halfway across the wastelands. Those trees still feel impossibly far away.
"The world is always changing, Isla," he says. "It's always in flux. We adapt to the changes or we die."