If hell had a lobby, it would probably look like this.
The attendant led me up a spiraling stair that seemed determined to outlast eternity, every step creaking with a kind of smug ancientness, the air growing thinner with each turn.
Torchlight bled through narrow slits in the walls, casting long orange veins across the stone like the colosseum itself was trying to remember it had a pulse.
I climbed, one hand on the railing, one on my pen, pretending the tremor in my fingers came from exhaustion and not the lingering image of Japeth's smile branded into the inside of my skull like some saintly sigil gone rancid.
I tried not to think about Lysaria's blood. Or Dagon's laughter. Or the fact that apparently, I now had a father who looked at me like a well-trained dog.
