FOR THE UNKNOWN KINGDOM | BOOK 1

CHAPTER 9

Devastating lifeless as it was compared to my hometown, I couldn't hide the disappointment from showing up on my face. The clouds and the rain and the mist created the exact opposite scene of what I'd been used to seeing in Lantra. And even though we still had rainy days, there was something about the way everything seemed to be so still here.

"The ones who don't make it to Heaven or Hell are sent here. It's like the place for the loyal criminals and the fake saints. For the ones who don't fulfill the requirements to accompany God for eternity and beyond nor to be tortured by the Devil forevermore."

As he was talking, the sadness in his words was clearer than ever. At that heartbeat, he could have been one with the rain and the mist. Staring out the window, the dark green tunic and his short purple hair were the colors of desperation and helplessness. I decided to take my gaze away from him and look at Jersen and Amanda, who had now stopped teasing each other. Sitting on the bed I'd been on just a while ago, they admired the view from within.

"Does that mean I'm dead?" I asked, even though the fact that there was a place between Heaven and Hell didn't feel right. I hadn't totally believed it. Legend claimed that after the death of the mortal body, our souls continued existing in one of the two eternal kingdoms, Heaven and Hell, but everyone in Lantra had long ago proclaimed that theory as dated and magic-related.

"No," he replied.

I couldn't decide if I was relieved or disappointed.

"Are you dead?" I asked again.

He frowned as if the word dead didn't sit well with him. And it was reasonable. I'd talked to him; I'd touched him; I'd felt him. He wasn't a spirit, a ghost, a wicked power sent from Hell. He was real. He had a body and . . . he couldn't just be dead.

While I waited for his answer—which was taking a little longer to come than usual—I scouted the room, and then the view from the windows again. I wasn't in Lantra. I wasn't dead, I kept repeating to myself.

So, I raised my stare to the cloud-filled sky and whispered a prayer to whatever God existed up there to keep me safe, to keep me away from facing a death worse than the one I'd planned, worse than the one I would receive if I ever returned to Lantra.

Finally, Denfer murmured, "Yes."

Silence. They were dead.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

"But you have to understand that death is an illusion, death is your second chance. I am dead in the sense that I can't die from any disease. I am dead in the sense that I live in the Gap World, a place no human knows of its existence but you. And I am also dead in the sense that I can't grow old. My body will remain for eternity the way it was when I died," he said as he turned away from the window, facing me now with playfulness in his eyes. "That handsome."

I heard the muffled laughter of Amanda—if I recalled the name correctly—and I flicked my attention to her and Jersen. The latter quickly stood up from the bed to reach Denfer, putting a steady hand on his back.

Amanda let out a sound of amusement while she got closer to us, her gown crawling behind her.

"I don't think a handsome man has so many scars and scratches," she said, and it was Jersen's turn to laugh with her comment.

As for me, I touched my back against the wall behind me, considering what my next move should be. I didn't know.

Denfer lifted his brows as in contemplation of Amanda's comment and then replied, "Yeah. Whatever."

Another laugh came from Jersen.

I watched Amanda as she placed a hand on Jersen's shoulder, a smile carved on her full lips.