FOR THE UNKNOWN KINGDOM | BOOK 1

CHAPTER 9

"But Heaven, Hell or the Gap World," Denfer continued, his face now serious, empty of any warmth and joy, "they don't offer you the kind of death you had imagined. The final stage of death, the one in which you are no one and nowhere, comes rarely. Very rarely. So in conclusion, we're dead in the sense that we can't die from any illness but we can still be murdered or kill ourselves. In both cases, we end up in Hell for the way we weren't grateful enough for the second chance we'd been given."

He made a pause just to wave a hand through his hair. "And you can get off your lenses. There's no one to judge you or kill you here."

Pressing myself against the dark golden-painted wall, I glanced down the window again. A city of poverty and misery, crowded with empty, unpaved roads and smoking chimneys. I wouldn't take off my contact lenses; I would never reveal my true self here. Because their explanations about how they had come here were useless and unbelievable, a place between Heaven and Hell could only exist in the wildest dreams of the most imaginative artist.

Jersen walked out of the room with Amanda next to him, murmuring something about having to go somewhere. The sound of their shoes broke the silence that had ruled over us, echoing through the whole building as well, which seemed to be empty of people. Studying Denfer, his distant stare was lost in the abyss of the city beneath us.

I was alive, away from Lantra. But everything else seemed dead. Maybe a place between Heaven and Hell existed after all.

Denfer's eyes fell on my body, not like he was surveying me, but as a careless, thoughtless movement. He was looking at me but not really. Either way his stare left me conscious of what I was wearing. I hadn't bothered to question how many hours or days I'd spent in that bed. I hadn't also bothered to wonder how I looked like when I'd woken up.

A dress. A tight silver glittery dress that didn't reach my knees. It seemed like they'd been waiting for me to wake up for such a long time that they'd decided to dress me up as a way to fill up their time.

I looked at my bare feet on the floor. I looked ridiculous.

"Next to the bed," Denfer murmured as he pointed a finger at a pair of knee-high boots.

"You know that I'm not attending any party, right?" I asked, heading to the bed, my footsteps almost silent.

He offered me a wry look, but said, "We like to be fancy here."

The velvet texture of the boots was so soft beneath my fingertips that made me wish I could be touching those black high-heeled boots for the rest of my life. Sitting on the bed, I could feel him eyeing me, studying my face and my every expression.

"What you did in the ocean—" A pause. Maybe it was the first time he'd ever stumbled for words. Or maybe, it was his way of giving me enough time to stand up again and test if I could walk with those shoes on.

The screaming wind that came in through the open window filled the silence. He closed it.

After a heartbeat, he said, "Don't ever think or try to do that again. Just . . . don't."

Walking closer to him, it was an effort to keep my shoulders back, my chin high. They had dressed me like a queen. But queens weren't threatened by execution. Queens didn't run away from their court to meet their own death. Yet I had.

Some shadows passed over his face, but he quickly managed to bury them as he pursed his lips into a thin line. I stood next to him and our eyes locked.

Sliding a hand through my hair, I considered my next words. "Right," I said. "You wouldn't be able to use me as a weapon if I was dead."

He cracked up a smile. A dark one.

"It's not like that at all. You're free from the deal by the way."

Wise choice. What good would do to him a girl who had tried to drown herself?

I opened my mouth to let him know that his deal had meant nothing to me from the beginning anyway, but he added, "I couldn't let you go back to Lantra. They would kill you. I couldn't let you die, either."

The confession of a hero, a savior, a warrior and a king. In my mind, he was nothing but a man who spoke of magic and death, a man who only wanted to use people for his own good.

"My life is mine. And so is my death," I announced before he could say anything else.

But he twisted his head toward me and took a step closer, his breath now caressing my face. He said, "Then don't drag me into your death ever again. Just because you're stupid enough to want to die by your own hands that doesn't mean that I deserve to spend the rest of my eternity thinking that I could have saved you, that maybe I was the one responsible not for your death, but for your salvation."

A reasonable plea, I figured, and my heart thundered. Because he was right and I was wrong. Maybe he wasn't the only one manipulating people here. I'd done the same thing to him, as well. I'd used him in order to fulfill my own cruel desire. He couldn't have done anything else but bring me here. Maybe he wasn't the wicked one in that room.

I couldn't wonder what he must be thinking about me without my cheeks burning.

But I collected myself, destroyed every part of me that was ashamed of what I'd almost done and said, "Good."

He was right. And I was wrong. And I didn't deserve a place in this castle that was made of pure gold.

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