Incendium: A Raging Inferno | ONC 2023

★ 15. Ruin ★

The place we were bound to seemed to be some sort of a torture chamber. It was dark and moist and stunk worse than demons. Greek columns lined the circular place while the ceiling was made entirely of glass. Bright red light emanated from it and threw light upon us, as if we were objects anyone could observe from above.

Maybe that was where the voice had come from.

"Let's get started, shall we?"

Once this voice sounded, cold like the floor of the ocean but bearing the imminent fire of hatred, a door opened to the right. A tall figure entered from it, and I recognized him instantly even though it was dark all around.

"Welcome to Corignis, warriors of earth," he spoke with confidence and arrogance.

Kaian had betrayed me completely, and I hadn't even realized it.

"How dare you trick us? How dare you?" Dominic shouted, losing his cool immediately.

Kaian stepped from the dark into the light in the centre of the room. Maybe it was because I hadn't seen him in a long while, he looked even more handsome than I had remembered him. Those broad shoulders were encased in a metal armor and he carried a dagger in hand, which told me that they were all prepared for war just like us.

I had really been a fool for believing every word he told me.

"Trick? You are using extremely harsh words, brother. I had merely expressed a possibility of defeating the demons and you all jumped at it on your own. Such arrant fools," he mocked with a teasing smile on his visage.

My hands formed fists under their shackles, while Dominic rattled his chains in an attempt to become free of them. Kaian saw his gesture and laughed heartily, the sound seeming so evil and sinister, and I realized that I was getting to witness Kaian in his home ground for the first time since I had met him.

"Your target is someone else, lad. You had wished to confess to them, right?" The slow, cold voice spoke up again, and I failed to locate where it was coming from.

Where was this person?

Hearing those words, Kaian's jaw clenched and he closed his eyes for a millisecond. Then he turned toward me and smiled sinisterly. Goosebumps coursed throughout as he looked at me like a demon, like a veritable monster, like he had looked at me at the ballroom. Perchance, even colder than that time.

"Ah, Miss Trouble, isn't she sweet?" He started and my brows furrowed in bemusion.

What was he attempting at? But since he started speaking again, I didn't have a choice but to listen in silence.

"When I entered Goldwyn, I would have never imagined an expert huntress as you would be so naive and unsuspecting. So naive to fall head over heels for a demon and believe every word he said. Had I known that from the get-go, it would have made my task much easier.

"All it took was a few gestures of kindness, and you began to play my game in no time. I had expected you to be a bit more difficult to achieve, but you were too easy and that's so comical.

"But worst of all, you fell in love with a guy you should have killed immediately for ruining your life. And that is what makes you even more desperate and pathetic."

All air got knocked out from my lungs as I heard him spout nonsense from his mouth. What was that about me being a naive target? And what about me being completely blind and in love with him?

My entire three months felt like an entire lie, a parody, a way for the universe to poke fun at me once again. But it was his last words I couldn't comprehend.