Chapter 25 – Lilith
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LILITH
“Silas!” The scream rips out of me before I can stop it, panic crushing my chest so hard I can’t breathe.
I pull back, and everything inside me shatters.
The dagger—the one Cain gave me—is buried deep in his stomach.
“No…” The word falls from my lips, hollow.
Useless. “No, no, no…” I shake my head over and over, like I can undo it, like if I refuse to believe it hard enough, the blade will disappear.
It doesn’t. His body collapses against mine, all his strength gone in an instant.
I catch him, lowering him to the ground, cradling his head in my lap as if I can keep him here, keep him from slipping away.
Black ichor spills from his mouth, thicker now, darker, choking him with every shallow breath.
His eyes—those endless, onyx eyes—lock onto mine.
Still him. Still Silas. My hands tremble as I cup his face, my vision blurring, tears spilling faster than I can stop them.
I brush his hair back, wiping at the black staining his lips, as if I can make it better. As if I can fix this.
“I know you love him,” he chokes. The words hit like a blade twisting deeper.
I shake my head violently. “No, you’re wrong,” I sob, my voice breaking apart. “I loved him. I gave him my heart—” My breath hitches, the truth clawing its way out of me, raw and unfiltered. “But you…” The words stick. Burning. “You have my soul.”
His breath stutters. A broken, gargled sound tears from his throat.
“No, no, no!” I scream, shaking now, my whole body coming apart. “Lucian! Someone, please, help him!”
But something is wrong. Terribly wrong. The chaos stops. One by one, the vessels freeze, then double over, clutching their stomachs. Black ichor pours from their mouths, their bodies collapsing like puppets with their strings cut. Morbius staggers, his violet eyes wild, locking onto us. Onto Silas.
“No…” he breathes, horror flooding his face. “Brother, no!”
The last word breaks, swallowed by the same black poison spilling from his lips. Cara stands beside me. No Fiadh.
She clutches her stomach, her movements stiff, unnatural. Then, without a word, she reaches down and rips the dagger from Silas. A scream tears from him, raw and animal, his body arching in agony.
“Stop!” I cry, reaching for her. But she doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t see me.
She just… walks away. “Fiadh?” Cain’s voice cracks behind me, a sound so broken it barely sounds human. I turn, stunned, watching as he stares at her like he’s seen a ghost. Like his entire world has just been dragged out of the grave and hollowed out before him.
“My wife…”
The words barely exist.
She doesn’t respond. Her face is empty. Cold.
Gone. She moves through the vessels like they aren’t even there—untouched, unseen—until she reaches Morbius.
He’s slumped against the wall now, clutching his stomach, but his fear isn’t for himself.
It’s for Silas. I feel it then, the bond; the curse tying them together. Silas dies… he dies too.
“Get a healer!” Morbius snaps, desperation bleeding into fury. “Now!” But we all know. There is no healer for this. Fiadh doesn’t hesitate. The blade flashes and slices clean across his throat.
Morbius’s eyes widen in shock, hands flying to his neck as black ichor pours through his fingers like a dark, endless tide.
Silas jerks violently in my arms. My attention snaps back to him. “Silas.” His eyes are wide, terror swallowing what little strength he has left. Tears spill from them; black, thick, carving dark trails down his ashen skin.
“Help…” he gasps, voice barely there. “Gods… help…”
I break. “I don’t know how!” I sob, clutching him tighter, like I can hold him together through sheer will. “I don’t know what to do!”
Lucian drops beside me, Evelynn close behind.
His face, always so controlled, so unshakable, is shattered. Panic. Helplessness. It terrifies me more than anything else. “What do I do?” I beg, grabbing onto him like he’s the last thing tethering me to sanity. “Tell me how to save him!”
His jaw tightens, his amber eyes glassy with something dangerously close to tears. “I…” He falters. Swallows. Breaks. “I don’t know.”
The words crush what’s left of me. Silence follows, heavy and suffocating. The only sound left is Morbius choking on his own blood somewhere behind me. Then, stillness; too sudden, too final.
“Silas…?” I whisper, my voice barely existing. The world trembles. The walls crack, stone groaning as dust and debris rain down around us.
“We have to go, now!” Viktor shouts.
“No!” I cry out in protest.
“Lilith.” Lucian’s voice is softer now. Careful. Like I might shatter if he speaks too loudly. “Let me carry him.” I can’t let go. I can’t. But my hands… they don’t listen. They slip. Black, stained and empty.
Lucian lifts him from my arms, and something inside me goes with him.
“Lilith.”
My name, barely a whisper.
I turn. Morbius. Dying. Alone. I don’t think. I move, ignoring Evelynn’s protests, stepping through falling debris like none of it can touch me anymore. Nothing can hurt more than this moment.
I crouch beside him. His hand shakes as it lifts, brushing against my cheek, leaving streaks of black in its wake. And still, he smiles; small, broken, and tragic. “I…” he chokes, coughing, more ichor spilling from his lips. “I love you.”
The words are fragile. “You were the only one who ever saw me. The real me…”
“I loved you once, I loved the man I thought you were. The man I so foolishly believed.” My voice is rough with anguish and tears. “I was wrong, all this time I was wrong.”
His eyes sting with the pain of my words.
“Forgive me, before I turn to ash. Before I leave my undead life. Forgive me, please,” he begs.
My dead heart aches, still a thin piece of thread tethered to him, longing to believe and see the good in him.
Still, the smallest part of me was desperate for him to live.
I hated him for it. I hated myself for it.
I lean in closer to him. “I could never forgive you,” I say softly.
The castle groans, louder now, like it’s dying around us.
The floor fractures beneath my feet, cracks spidering outward as stone splits and collapses.
Dust chokes the air. Debris rains down in violent bursts.
But I don’t move. I can’t. My world has narrowed to him.
I lean forward and press my lips to his temple; a final kiss, a final goodbye.
His eyes flutter closed, and for a fleeting, impossible moment, a soft, almost peaceful smile touches his lips like he’s finally free of the weight he’s carried for so long.
When I pull back, a single tear slips from the corner of his eye, trailing slowly down his cheek.
“For all the bad…” His voice is thin, fragile, barely clinging to life. “I tried.”
My chest caves in.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes, and this time there’s no mask, no manipulation, just the truth. Raw. Exposed. “Truly I am.” His violet eyes lock onto mine, unguarded and vulnerable.
The same look he gave me that first night, the man I fell for, was buried beneath everything he became.
“Take care of him… for me,” he whispers. “Tell him…” A violent cough cuts him off, black ichor spilling from his lips. “Tell him…” His voice fractures, fading into nothing. “I’m sorry.”
His head tilts. His gaze goes still. Empty. “Morbius?” My hand trembles as I reach for him; just one more touch, one more second. But before I can, he crumbles. His body breaks apart into black ash, dissolving beneath my fingers, slipping through my hands like he was never there at all.
“Lilith!” Evelynn’s voice tears through the chaos from across the hall.
I blink, reality slamming back into me just as a massive slab of stone crashes down where Morbius had been seconds ago.
I fall back with a gasp, heart pounding, breath ragged.
Alive, but barely. Scrambling, I push myself to my feet, ready to run, but then I hear it. Sobbing. Broken. I turn. Cain.
Curled into the shadow of an alcove, Cain cradles Fiadh in his arms as if he lets go, she’ll disappear again.
I don’t think. I move, dodging falling debris, sliding to my knees in front of him.
“Cain, we have to go,” I urge, my voice shaking.
But he doesn’t hear me. Doesn’t see anything but her.
I follow his gaze, and my breath catches.
Fiadh. She looks different; whole. Alive in a way she wasn’t before.
Her features softened, her hair falling like silk around her face.
And her eyes—God, her eyes—they’re filled with so much love it hurts to look at.
“Hundreds of years…” Cain rasps, his voice splintering under the weight of it. “I thought you were dead. I thought I had killed you.”
“For hundreds of years,” she whispers, her voice gentle, almost fragile. “I waited for you to find me.” Her hand lifts, cupping his face like she’s memorising him. “You finally did.”
My throat tightens, their pain pressing in on me, suffocating.
“I’m too late,” Cain chokes, the words tearing out of him. Movement catches my eye; black smoke, everywhere. The vessels, one by one, are dissolving into dark plumes, rising into the air like souls being dragged away.
“Cain,” I warn softly.
Fiadh smiles at him, soft, peaceful and utterly devastating. “You found me,” she breathes. “I’m free now. Finally free.” Something flickers in her eyes. Urgency. She knows. She doesn’t have long. “I love you,” she whispers. “Kiss me, one last time. Please.” Her voice breaks.
So does he. Cain leans in, pressing his lips to hers like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. I look away. It feels too sacred. Too painful to witness.
“Take me with you,” he pleads against her mouth, desperate. My chest tightens, I want to stop him, to drag him away, to force him to live.
But she answers first. “It’s not your time,” she says softly. “Go. Live. Your friends need you.” Her fingers tremble against his skin.
“Fall in love again… don’t mourn me anymore.” A single breath. “Ghrá mo chroí.” Love of my heart. Then, she’s gone. Her body dissolving into black smoke, slipping through his arms like she was never there.
“Ghrá mo chroí…” he repeats, his voice hollow, broken beyond repair.
Stone crashes beside us. I flinch hard, reality crashing back in again.
“Cain, we have to go! Now!” He lifts his head slowly, and the look in his eyes nearly destroys me. Raw grief. Total devastation. “Leave me,” he says, his voice empty.
“No.” Another thunderous boom shakes the hall. I glance back just in time to see the ceiling collapse over the entrance stone, sealing it shut.
“Shit.” I turn back to him, heart racing. “Listen to me,” I snap, grabbing his arm. “I know you’re hurting, I know, but I am not leaving you here to die. Not like this. Not buried alive. So, get up. Now.”
“I can’t,” he grits out, tears spilling freely now. I stare at him. “Fine.” I drop down beside him.
He frowns. “What are you doing?”
“I’m staying,” I say simply.
“What?”
“You want to sit here and die? Then you won’t do it alone.” My voice cracks. “I don’t have anything left out there, anyway.”
The words slice through me the second they leave my mouth. Silas. Gone. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
“You can’t stay,” Cain snaps.
“Why not?” I shrug weakly. “Call it a pact. Not death, just us suffering forever.”
He lets out a frustrated growl and suddenly hauls me to my feet.
“I’m not letting you do this,” he snarls.
“Good,” I shoot back. “Because I’m not letting you either.”
The castle begins to collapse in earnest now, massive chunks crashing down around us.
“Stay close,” he orders, grabbing my hand as he runs. We weave through falling stone, barely avoiding being crushed, until we reach the blocked exit. He starts tearing at the debris, lifting stones that should be impossible to move. A gap forms. “Go,” he says.
I shake my head. “You first.”
“Lilith.”
“I’m not stupid,” I snap. “You go, or I don’t move.”
He exhales sharply. “Fine.”
He crawls through. Relief floods me as I follow. The moment I’m out, arms wrap around me, crushing me into a tight embrace.
“Fuck, I’m glad you’re alive,” Evelynn breathes. I sag into her, clinging for just a second.
“Cain! Where are you going?” Lucian calls out. I pull away, grabbing his arm gently. His amber eyes meet mine.
I shake my head. “Give him time.”
Lucian nods, understanding.
“Would you look at that…” someone murmurs.
I follow their gaze. The castle collapses in on itself as plumes of black smoke shoot into the sky, twisting and vanishing into the night.
Gone. All of them. My chest tightens. Tears spill over again.
I glance toward Cain in the distance just in time to see him look up…
then turn away. Alone. My gaze drifts and stops.
“Silas…” He lies on the ground. Still. Unmoving. Viktor kneels beside him. I don’t remember moving, only that suddenly I’m there, collapsing beside him, my hands clutching at his chest as sobs rip through me. “No, no, please.”
“He’s still here,” Viktor says softly.
“I thought—” My voice breaks. “Morbius, he turned to ash, I thought—” I can’t finish.
I look at Viktor, desperate, broken.
He meets my gaze, something steady in his expression. A small, certain smile touches his lips. “He’s still here,” he repeats.