Zeke shivered so violently that it sent tremors of pain up his spine.

  Looking around, it wasn’t difficult to see why. He stood upon a nearly featureless plain of black ice, a blindingly white sky looming over him. The combination cast everything in monochrome, and when he inspected his hand, he saw rime creeping over his fingers.

  He flung it away, flexing his numb fingers, but the frost returned only a few moments later. Then, he clutched his arms to his chest and, without any other idea what to do, he strode across the plain. As he did so, he pulsed [Hand of Divinity], and for the first time ever, he could see the glow of divine energy enveloping his body. It moved in circles, cycling through his entire form in an endless loop.

  More importantly, he kept him from succumbing to the cold, which was far more potent than any he’d ever felt before. It wasn’t just uncomfortable. It was that, but it was so much more as well. Painful down to his very bones, it made every step a chore. Yet, Zeke pushed on, his bare feet crunching on the ice with every stride.

  Not for the first time, he wished for some clothing. He still the remnants of his nightshirt, stretched and torn by his sudden explosion of musculature in the Circle of Fraud. As such, it offered no real protection against the cold. He was laid bare – literally as well as emotionally – and it was all he could do to simply put one foot in front of the other.

  It was not a great start to what Zeke suspected would be a stringent test.

  All the rest had been, so he had no reason to expect anything different from the frozen abyss laid out before him. Thankfully, he was not accosted by any monsters or false memories. Instead, he found the trek almost peaceful, save for the intense cold to which he had been subjected.

  Then, a subtle breeze disturbed the frost that had settled upon the ice. It wasn’t the first time, and Zeke didn’t think it would be the last. However, unlike every other previous disturbance, this one gave Zeke a clear look at what lay beneath.

  A person’s face stared back at him, frozen in an expression of agony. They were perfectly preserved – a young woman whose hair fanned out all around her like she was under water – without even a hint of decay. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she was encased in ice, Zeke would have half expected her to swim away.

  But she did not move.

  Nor was she alone. Over the next few hours, Zeke saw hundreds more frozen corpses. What’s more, each breeze brought with it subtle whispers. He couldn’t hear what the voices said, but he knew it couldn’t be anything good.

  Then again, was there anything in Hell that could fall under that umbrella? Not that Zeke had seen, so he found himself expecting the absolute worst. The hours stretched into days as he staggered across the tundra. The sky never moved. The ice never changed. It was as if time had been frozen just like the poor souls trapped in the ice.

  Eventually, he saw something different on the horizon.

  At first, Zeke had no idea what it was. In fact, he could barely even see the break in the terrain. Yet, he was drawn to it all the same. When he came closer, he saw that it was a cave leading down into the ice.

  Cold air emanated from that hole in the ground, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was the way he was meant to go. Hell was a lot of things, but subtle definitely wasn’t one of them.

  He hesitated only for a few moments before he took a deep, shivering breath that nearly froze his lungs, then stepped inside. At first, the interior of the cave was featureless black ice, just like the tundra above. However, as Zeke followed the downward slope of the tunnel, he could feel something watching him.

  It only took a few hundred more feet before he realized what it was.

  The revelation came when he noticed that, just like the ice up above, this tunnel was festooned with frozen bodies. He leaned close, looking at a man caught in the middle of a scream, then saw his pupils dilate. Zeke flinched backward, unsure if he’d actually seen what he thought he saw. But when he recovered his calm and leaned close once again, he saw the same thing.

  The people weren’t dead.

  They weren’t just set pieces.

  They were alive and frozen. Zeke’s heart beat harder as he imagined being trapped in the ice for all eternity. It was a hell almost as potent as the one he’d just experienced in the Circle of Fraud.

  After a few more minutes, he continued on. The only way out of Hell was through, and he had no choice but to keep moving. Soon enough, the whispers that had followed him from the surface became clearer. He stopped, listening even closer.

  “Kin-slayers.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Betrayers.”

  On and on the voices hissed until they all mingled together into something Zeke didn’t understand.

  “Treachery,” he muttered to himself, making the connection. The frozen people were those who, in life, had betrayed their families. A detestable thing in any circumstances.

  He pushed on, resolving to ignore the whispers. That grew much more difficult when he saw a head extending from the ice. The woman’s head dipped low, her wet and half-frozen hair forming a curtain around her face. But when Zeke shuffled a little closer, she snapped to attention.

  Zeke recoiled.

  Her features were sunken, her skin stretched tight across her skull. She looked well past malnourished, her teeth yellow and her eyes rimmed in deep red. More, she was clearly panicked, her attention darting around as if she expected to be attacked at any moment.

  Then, her eyes locked onto Zeke.

  “F-free me,” she wailed, her voice barely more than a croak. “I will give you anything. I will do anything. Just free me.”

  “What did you do in life to deserve this?” he demanded. “Tell me, and I may free you from the ice.”

  “Nothing! I did nothing! I am here because of a misunderstanding!”

  “Do not lie to me,” Zeke said, letting divine energy course through him. It had provided a subtle glow to his journey, but now it flared with white light.

  “F-fine. Fine! I didn’t mean to do it. I was drunk and stupid and…”

  She trailed off, and when she didn’t finish, Zeke commanded her to continue.

  “I slept with my sister’s husband. It was not…I only wanted…he manipulated me. I didn’t…”

  “I said to tell me the truth.”

  She hung her head in shame. Being trapped in the Circle of Treachery meant that her betrayal was complete. More, it suggested that she’d never made things right.

  “I…I was jealous. She had everything. She always had everything. And I had nothing. So, I took him from her. And I’m glad I did!” she hissed, jerking her head upright. Her eyes flared with fury. “She finally knew a fraction of the pain she’d caused me. Oh, how I loved seeing her cry. Seeing her marriage break down. And in the end, seeing her in the ground. It was only fair.”

  Zeke’s hand was moving before he’d consciously decided what to do. His fist connected with the trapped woman’s face, and her head exploded a second later, showering him with gore.

  In another life, he might have felt guilty about his actions. Certainly, he’d grown up being taught never to hit a woman. Or anyone who was helpless, really. The betrayer was both. And yet, Zeke felt nothing for her fate. If anything, he regretted that he hadn’t left her there to suffer.

  She certainly deserved it.

  Zeke stood there, breathing hard. Perhaps he was still a little shaken by what had happened in the Circle of Fraud. The woman’s story had hit a little too close to home. Certainly, he knew that what he’d experienced back then wasn’t real. He was well aware that it was all meant to trap him. Or maybe kill him. He wasn’t sure about the end game.

  But that didn’t stop it from feeling real.

  In fact, Zeke suspected he would be dealing with the consequences of that circle for quite some time.

  Regardless, he only hesitated for a few more moments before he resumed his journey. He needed to overcome the challenges of the circle, and to do that, he needed to keep moving.

  With that in mind, he continued to put one foot in front of the other, only briefly stopping when he found more betrayers. Some admitted their treachery openly. Others denied it until he started walking away. But in the end, they all had similar stories of betrayal against their family members.

  Some were like the first, driven by jealousy or simple poor decision-making. Others were even worse, killing parents or siblings for money, rage, or both. As Zeke continued his progression, he heard from the worst of the worst – or so he thought – and by the time he reached the end of the tunnel, his perception of humanity had been forever tainted. As much as he wanted to see the good in people, he simply couldn’t when he was slapped in the face by so many horrible confessions.

  Of course, he killed them all. They didn’t deserve to continue drawing breath. But with each killing, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done the right thing by ending their suffering. The only solace he received was his suspicion that each Circle of Hell would functionally reset once he was gone.

  Maybe then those souls would know true torment, and for all eternity.

  Zeke wasn’t proud of it, but that gave him some degree of comfort.

  The journey through the tunnels wasn’t as long as he had come to expect from his previous experiences in the various circles of Hell. Maybe a few days at most instead of months or years. However, when he finally reached the end of the tunnel, he found himself wishing it had gone on for longer.

  Before him stood an enormous cavern of black ice. Cold mist hung in the air, clinging to everything and casting the entire cavern in glistening moisture. Thousands of men and women, encased up to their waists in the ice, moaned in torture, their bodies emaciated and clearly frostbitten. The population of betrayers wasn’t limited to the walls, either. They pepped the ceiling as well, bringing the cavern alive with twisting limbs.

  Zeke’s attention was on the center of the cavern, though. Dozens of towering figures – humanoid in basic shape – wandered aimlessly. Each one wore a shimmering crown and carried an enormous sword made of ice. Their robes were torn, their hair was matted, and they looked no less malnourished than the men and women who’d been imprisoned in the ice.

  But there was a regalness to them that Zeke could not quantify.

  At least until he felt a shimmer of divine energy within each of them. It was barely a whisper of real power, but it was there all the same.

  He understood the implications.

  They were kings and queens who had betrayed their people. Zeke wasn’t entirely certain how he’d made that connection, but he was absolutely certain that it was correct. And as he looked upon them, he seethed.

  Zeke had some context for what it meant to be a ruler. His stewardship over the kobolds wasn’t exactly that of a king, but it was close enough that he knew what it meant to bear responsibility for an entire people. The idea of betraying them – that was abhorrent. Even more so than with family, in some ways.

  The kings and queens stopped suddenly. Then, they turned as one and looked upon him. Their gazes were sharp, their eyes feverish. Zeke glared at them with at least as much fervor.

  He wanted them dead.

  He needed them to pay.

  And after so long as a weakling, he knew exactly what he wanted. He stepped forward, his fists clenching as he tapped into that everpresent rage within him. A good fight would go a long way toward putting the Circle of Fraud behind him.