Forbidden To Love (The Erosians) (23 page)

Tied to its trunk is a naked man. Well, from the waist up I can see he’s naked, and he looks starved. His skin is stretched taut across his bony chest to the point where it is almost transparent. I can see the slow thud of his heart thumping against his ribs. His face contorts with every breath he grabs as he hungrily eyes the fruit dangling before him. The water laps up to his chin, but when he uses what must be the last of his strength to dip his head to drink, the water rushes away from him. I can’t feel a breeze, but the fruit is blowing towards the man. His fingers graze the skin, but it disappears before he can grab it. His cries of anguish echo around the sparse gorge.                                                                                                   The cruelty is so horrific that I'm scared to look any further, but as I follow the stream through the valley, I see a line of women all carrying pots spilling with water. The pots look so heavy in the petite women’s arms that I can’t believe they haven’t snapped. There’s a trail of water behind each woman. I try to look closer as one of them falls to the floor and her pot tips over. The water pours out of the vase, revealing a hole in the bottom of the jar. That’s where the trail of water is coming from; the pots are all leaking.               None of the women stops to help the one who’s fallen. They all carry on to the stream and tip what’s left in their vessels into the waning river.                                                         Then they turn to walk back the way they came, straining from the weight of their burdens.
I feel Luca’s hand on the small of my back. “Walk faster” he instructs me and pushes me gently. He doesn't give me a choice and stays close behind me, so his pace forces me to speed up. We’re at the end of the bridge when a cackle fills the valley below us, and I feel Luca tense as he curses softly. I spin around and see three female something’s fly out from a hole in the wall of the trench. I stop moving as I watch their graceful flight.                                                                                                   Each one of the soaring creatures has hair down past her ankles. They are all wearing tight bodices attached to tattered skirts. A crack deafens everyone down there and the women carrying the water all drop to the floor, holding their heads in their hands and bringing their knees to their chests. I can hear their sobs mixed in with some of their prayers.               The three flying sirens swoop in a circle, each one snapping her whip, which is coiled around their arm, on anything or anyone it passes.                                                                       Their evil laugh which doesn’t match their angelic faces booms around the cavern. I stand transfixed as I watch each one intently.                                                                       “Unless you personally want to visit the punishing grounds and meet the Furies, I suggest you keep moving.” Luca moves to the front of me and pulls me with more force than before until we are deep in the fields again.                             “The Furies?” I catch up to Luca’s side anxiously. As my step becomes level with his, he drops my arm and we walk side-by-side.
“You know, Devan’s right. You really ask too many questions.” He might try to sound annoyed, but he continues, “they are the punishers. Hades gave them the punishing ground to torture anyone who has been too bad for the Asphodel fields,” he gestures around us, “but not quite bad enough for Tartarus. If you ask me, that place is worse than Tartarus.” Luca lets out a shudder and watches me as my eyes become wide with fear.                                                                       I wonder if that’s where I'm going to be sent. I hope it won’t be the punishing grounds. I don’t know much of Tartarus, but I can’t imagine anything worse than the eternal, constant, unrelenting torture that I’d get for sure if I were sent to the mercy of the Furies. I guess it won’t be long till I find out.                                                                                                   Luca stops dead at the side of me. He puts his arm out, and my waist hits it full on, but it stops me falling down the shadowy cliff face we’ve just arrived at. I watch a few loose stones from the edge of the field trickle down and get swallowed up by the red fiery waves that are lapping at the sides. I slowly drag my eyes away and look out in front of me to a shaded palace. The waves form a protective moat around the building, only accessible by the several thin crossings carved from the same stone as these cliffs.                             “Are we going across there?” I ask, quaking at the thought of having to totter across the thin stone path which looks like it wouldn’t hold the weight of my breath let alone of my body. Luca doesn’t speak he just stares across at the castle, an incensed look crossing his face.                                           The palace is surrounded at its base by a thin layer of mist. It’s mostly hidden, which makes it all the more uninviting. “Time to move,” Luca instructs me and takes off confidently across one of the narrow paths. I hesitate to follow him, looking at the path and the drop below, but as scared as I am to cross it, I'm more scared to stand here at the edge of the field alone.                                                                       I force myself to step onto the stone, crossing my fingers as I do so. Luca is already halfway there when he glances over his shoulders, to see if I'm following and carries on. Each one of his footsteps causes the stone to shake. I feel like a tightrope walker, but there’s no safety net below. As I get closer to the palace, I can see through the mist. The walls are made of black stone. Parts of it are encased in vines which are crawling up towards each turret and across the windows like bars.                                                                       There aren’t many windows but the ones there are, are thin slits that arch at their peak. The glass is stained amethyst, and surrounding each window are smoky quartz stones, but they’re dull - there’s no light here to reflect and make them sparkle. I edge forward, not in any hurry to get inside. The fear this place is instilling in me is momentarily numbing the constant torturous pain I’ve been feeling.                             I gasp at the grandeur of the palace as I make my way through the rest of the mist, and the full scale of this monument hits me. There are four turrets at the front. Each turret then sprouts new turrets, twisting further up into the fog which suffocates the tips of the palace.                                           Luca leads me to the centre of the place which I'm sure is going to be my prison. We walk along a dirt path, but it looks more like ash than any sort of soil. The hem of my dress is stained with black, matching Luca’s jacket. I'm no longer cold. The drug must have worn off, so I shrug out of the jacket and hand it back to him. He throws it on quickly as he looks me over and carries on towards the entrance. I look down at myself and feel suddenly conscious that I'm more exposed than I’d wish to be when I'm facing the King of the Damned.                                                                                                   We come before some wrought iron gates. I can’t see a way to open them, but Luca walks at them like they aren’t even there. He steps straight through them, but I stop. “Come on,” he tells me.                                                                       I shake my head. “How?”                                                         Luca walks back through them and grabs hold of my wrist rougher than before. He drags me through, throwing me out in front of him into a dimly-lit courtyard. I can’t keep my balance, and I fall into a carpet of cinders. My entire dress becomes dusted with ebony powder. Now I'm shaded in grey, I look like I belong here. Luca walks over to me, and I wait for him to apologize and help me up, but he just walks past. I'm not surprised, really.      
                                                   Those acts of kindness earlier were just fake, just ruses to make sure I came with him to this place and didn’t fight too much.                                                                                                   I climb to my feet and do my best to brush off the ash, but it’s no use, my hands are already blackened. I give up and follow where Luca has just gone.                                           It’s eerily quiet in this courtyard. I stop for a second and take a full look around. The small square is flanked on every side by towering walls each with dozens of tiny windows sliced into the stone. Why would people be more interested in looking out onto this courtyard than out across the scarlet river onto the asphodel fields? A chill runs along my spine and around my neck as I imagine what could happen in this courtyard - sentencing, punishments even executions.                                                                                                   I hear a crow cawing in the distance, breaking my over-active imagination, but when I look up there’s none to be seen. I stare mesmerized at the sky above me. It is different from anything I’ve ever seen. At the top of the four towering walls, there is what looks like a stone pathway with a turret at each corner. They frame the sky and I don’t know if it’s night or day, or even if there are such things as night or day here, but the sky is a swirl of crimson and azure.                             It almost looks as if its pulsing, like it could swoop down and invade this courtyard at any moment. The ominous threat of the weighted sky gets me moving, and I hurry quickly to the small doorway where Luca is impatiently waiting, just in case something is about to storm the yard.              Luca pushes open with considerable ease a small jet black door and walks straight through. I follow him quickly as he leaves the door for me to catch.                                                         The door is heavy like iron and cold against my hands. It takes all my strength to push it back as I try to get through. It slams loudly behind me, echoing in the large cavernous hall I’ve just walked into.                                                         I stay rooted to the spot as I take in the high ceiling which looks like it is as tall as the highest turret outside. It has lavish arches that are crafted out of some sort of deep brown wood. They spin into the most elaborate twists and loops, breaking the ceiling up into pitches of art. Each section depicts a different scene. I dreadfully want to tear my eyes away as I take in the sites and see they are all expressions of torturous acts which I'm guessing have been carried out here.                                                                                                   There are five sections, each one with a more horrific creation than the next. They frame a circular canvas, like petals frame their stigma, which I know is going to be worse than all the surrounding five put together.                                           It’s not. Though. It’s entirely different. In the centre circle of the ceiling, there is a painting of a man and a woman. The man is tall with wild black hair and blacker eyes. His skin is youthful, but his square jaw and sharp cheekbones give him a devilish air. He’s dressed in period clothing, knee-high boots and dark leggings, with a long tunic-style top held in at the waist by a belt adorned with skulls, although it’s hard to be sure from this distance.                                                         My eyesight never used to be as bad as this. Have all my senses diminished since entering this world? On each of his shoulders are snakes' heads baring their fangs. Their eyes glow and their one body, which joins behind the man, has scales which shimmer as if it were alive.                                           As threatening as the man’s appearance may be, it is his expression that makes my heart want to stop beating. His black eyes are crazed, and he is smiling manically. I follow to where his hands reach the woman. Each finger is curled around her shoulders but not in a protective way. The image seems more possessive.                                                                       The woman is dressed more elaborately than the man. She has on a tight bodice embellished with crystals along the bust and waist. The bodice has small caps for sleeves which rest delicately on the woman’s ivory skin. The skirt to the dress pours out from the bodice in waves of raven silk. It spills o
ut in front of her, hiding her feet and drowning her in fabric.                                                                                                   The man’s expression chills me to the bone; the woman’s pulls at my heart. She looks empty. Her eyes are dead, no expression at all. Her heart-shaped face is soft and her features small. She looks childlike. Her elfish ears provide a rest for tendrils that fall from her mountain of curls.                             The weight of them looks as if it could crush her at any second. To match her decorated dress she wears a necklace alternating with diamonds and sapphires, ending in a heart-shaped stone. The heart is made of glass, but it looks like there is mist spinning inside of it.                                                         I feel Luca’s eyes on me, but when I look down to where he was, he’s no longer there. I cagily step towards the centre of the room. My dress caresses the floor as I walk, making me appear more elegant than I actually am. I’m almost directly under the ceiling girl’s frozen glare when a door to the left of me swings open.
“In here,” I hear Luca’s voice instruct someone and in strides the man from the painting. Luca slams the door shut behind him and waits there for his instructions. My instincts tell me to escape, but I feel like there are steel clasps on my ankles holding me in place.                                                                                     The man, if he is a man, stands in the door frame tapping the ends of his finger tips together. That crazed look from the portrait is more terrifying in real life than I ever imagined it could be. There’s a hissing from him, and I can see the two-headed snake is very real and is ferociously spitting in my direction.                                                                       The man smiles a slow smile, getting wider and wider as he taps his fingers together faster and faster until he throws his head back and fills the room with his laughter.               I look at Luca for any sort of help, but he has his eyes glued firmly on the ground in front of him. I guess he doesn’t want to witness what’s about to happen.