City of Thorns by C.N. Crawford
Chapter 7
Iusually couldn’t sleep when I was anxious about something. And lying in a demon prison the night before I was supposed to be executed should have made me anxious.
But strangely enough, I closed my eyes with a sense of peace.
Maybe it was the certainty that I could fix this. Or maybe it was the freedom I felt after finally unleashing my secrets on the demon next door. Whatever the case, I woke up with my head resting on my arms. I stank of sweat and mildew, and I desperately had to pee. But I’d slept.
A few flecks of light streamed in through cracks near the ceiling.
I sat up straight, hugging myself. “Are you still there?” I asked.
Silence greeted me.
Apart from the little sunlight, it was still dark as night in there. I hugged my knees close to my chest, teeth chattering. As I surveyed the dark cell around me, my eye fell on a point on one of the walls, just between the vines. A thin stream of light illuminated a carving in the stone, tucked behind the leaves.
I scooted over and started tugging at the ropes of plants, but it was still hard to read with the darkness. Instead, I traced the letters with my fingers, feeling their contours.
L…U…C…I…F…E…R…
Shuddering, I kept going. It took me a minute because the carvings seemed old and faded, but eventually, I had a phrase mapped out in my head.
Lucifer urbem spinarum libarab…
The rest of it had faded. But if my high school Latin translation was correct, it said something like Lucifer will set the City of Thorns free.
Interesting. But not helpful for my release, was it?
I shifted away from the wall and hugged my knees again.
In the silence, I could concentrate on my game plan for getting out of this situation. It hinged on being able to convince the Lord of Chaos that I was not who he thought I was. All I had to do was sow doubt in his mind. Once I bought myself some time, if I could stall this execution, I’d work on making him realize I wasn’t Mortana. Whatever his deal was, I was sure that he didn’t want to start a war by killing a mortal. Our two species had managed to keep the peace for hundreds of years.
When I heard the footfalls echoing through the prison cells, my body became alert, and my pulse raced. I shot to my feet, ready to convince him. As the visitor moved closer, the torches sprang to life again, and warm light danced over the stone wall across from me.
The Lord of Chaos crossed slowly before my cell, eyes ice blue. He was wearing a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing a disturbing tattoo of a snake formed into a noose.
The warm power radiating off him made my breath quicken. I’d never before been this close to a demon, and everything about him was unnerving. He looked similar to a human, but too tall, too perfect, and too eerily still.
And now it was time for me to present my case.
“I don’t suppose I get a trial?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly.
“You mentioned she hadn’t aged in two hundred years,” I began. “How long has it been since you’ve actually seen Mortana?”
Curiosity sparked in his eyes, “Is this your defense?”
Lead him to the conclusion. The problem was that this was hard to do when he was hardly saying anything. I needed to use his own words. “You’re certain that you want revenge by killing Mortana? And that your memory couldn’t be wrong after all that time?”
He just stared at me for a moment with that unnerving stillness. I wasn’t sure this was going well.
Then he replied, “When I say you look like her, I mean you look exactly like her. My memory isn’t faulty. I haven’t forgotten a single contour of her face. I do not forget things,” he said in a clipped tone.
My heart started pounding, but with hope. He was now referring to her as a separate person. “You haven’t forgotten a contour of her face. Did you notice how you spoke about her in the third person?”
Without another word, he pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked my cell. Looming over me, with magic that brushed over my skin, he stepped inside.
I found myself moving away, cold dread skittering up my spine. In the days before mortals had weapons to fight back, we were simply the demons’ prey. When they weren’t seducing mortals, they’d drink our blood. Tens of thousands of years of evolution were telling me to get the fuck away from him.
A million terrible thoughts flitted through my mind, and I stood with my back pressed against the wall. “The Osborne police are very good,” I lied. “If you killed me, they’d find out.”
He cocked his head and spoke in a velvety murmur. “Oh, I doubt that very much.”