Courting Death | Book 3

T W E N T Y - N I N E

T W E N T Y - N I N E
North Garden's Dawn

WE TOOK MUCH longer than I had first anticipated. The first few steps of climbing up these steep steps weren't too challenging. After all, I was not anywhere near severely unfit and I had taken up a good few sports back when my life was normal. However, once we had made it up a good number of steps, things started to change.

Since this wasn't a typical building's fire escape stairway, there weren't any signs at each level to checkpoint how much of a distance we had actually already conquered. The staircases seemed never-ending, only leading upward continuously as if time was not a factor.

"You might feel a little queasy since the time zones of Heaven and Paradise are drastically different," Dimitri had warned a few hours ago. His warning had been tucked away at the back of my mind but it recently surfaced again when I felt a lurch in my stomach and a pounding sensation in my head.

My hand pressed itself onto the stone wall for support, upper body lurching forward as I halted in my steps. All three of my other companions were walking in front of me, their steps haggard and obviously filled with tire but nowhere near stopping just yet.

"Addison?" Minnie asked, her eyebrows furrowed in concern as she ran back down the steps to reach me. Pressing a hand to my shoulder as a sign of support, she leaned slightly down. "Are you alright?"

"How long have we been climbing?" I asked, legs wobbling and chest heaving with my pants. "Not that I want to whine but it feels like forever."

"Heaven is at the top of the stairs, Addison. You can't expect to reach the top of the mountain with just a few measly steps," came Fabian's unmistakable sarcastic reply.

As much as I wanted to look up and glare at him, I could barely even raise my head up properly. I could feel the contents of my stomach - most likely the disgusting potion I drank earlier - churning uncomfortably.

There was a long pause, none of us muttering a single word as silence filled the air that surrounded us. Minnie's hand continuously ran up and down my back, her way of attempting to soothe me and to some extent it did. For one thing, I did not feel as though I wanted to vomit the contents - or lack thereof - of my stomach out for everyone to see anymore. My throat still felt dry and my limbs were aching with weariness and exhaustion but these were all but a few factors that I had to grit my teeth down had and deal with.

There were more pressing matters at hand and I would not be put to a stop by such skin-deep problems.

Dimitri was the first to break the silence, his deep husky voice piercing through the air and echoing down the stairway. "We should be there soon enough." For a second, the light that came from the burning torch disappeared and we were plunged into darkness. As an instinct, I looked up in surprise only to see a soft faint golden glow coming from up above. "I can see the light of day from here. Maybe about a few more flights of steps."

The light of the fire did not return after that. Dimitri placed the burnt piece of wood down onto the ground, careful not to let it topple down the steps and create an echo of the noise. He maneuvered past Fabian with ease, jogging down the steps before reaching me. Almost automatically, Minnie backed away and allowed Dimitri to stand beside me, who placed an arm under my knee and the other around my ribs. In one swift movement, I was carried up in the air in the bridal style, my legs swinging around as I stretched my arms to loop around Dimitri's neck for dear life.

Wordlessly, Dimitri started to make his way back up again, only this time with me in his arms.

"Won't you get tired? There's still quite a bit of distance." I bit down on my bottom lip, examining the stretch of stairs that we still had to conquer before reaching the top. The slick stone tiles that made up the stairway had a varying height, making it very obvious that it was built long before modern civilization. "These steps aren't that easy to conquer, much less with someone in your arms."