Chapter 23 Lily
LILY
The underworld was exactly as I remembered, but because I was one of the dead, it felt different. The darkness was more potent, the solidarity of the world still a haze, like it was a dream.
A nightmare that was constantly real.
When I came down from the funnel, I was grabbed and tugged by monsters, but Leviathan, the evil god who smiled through the pain of others, took me for himself. Marched me to the castle and seated me in a chair at the head of a warped table.
Up close, he was even more repulsive.
He changed into his human form as he sat in the chair next to me, staring at me with a penetrating gaze as a scream sounded from a different part of the castle. He was in the same uniform and armor that Callum had worn, but it didn’t flatter him in the same way.
“Lily Rothschild, you serve me and me alone.”
If I hadn’t been here once before on a private tour given by a god, I would be a lot more terrified. But the familiarity allowed me to keep a blank expression, to look evil in the face and remain unfazed. “The way Wrath served you?”
He smiled. “No. You’re a succulent meal that will make my mouth salivate. But I like to play with my food before I consume it.”
I didn’t need to ask for clarification on that part. “Do you even have a dick?”
His eyebrows slowly furrowed. “Would you like me to show you?”
A darkness filled me, but my stare remained hard as steel.
“It’s bigger in my demon form.” He smiled. “That should be fun.”
“Well, I’m sure you can figure out how cooperative I’ll be in this endeavor.”
“The less cooperative, the better,” he said. “And once I’ve had my fill of you, I’ll harvest your soul. And we’ll spend the next millennia training you to replace me…if that day ever comes.”
“I reject all of this.”
“As I expected,” he said. “But don’t worry, we’ve got all the time in the world to make it happen.”
Did he really believe they wouldn’t come for me? That my father wouldn’t make Riviana open the portals? That Callum wouldn’t return to the underworld to take me by the hand and get out of here? I believed it—without doubt. Perhaps that was why I could stay so calm in the presence of a threat.
“Shall we get started?”
I stilled in my chair, all my muscles tensing in preparation for whatever this monster might do.
But he just smiled at me for a long time. “You hide your fear. But you don’t hide it well enough, Lily Rothschild.” He rose to his feet, the chair pushing back over the stone floor, and then he reached for me.
I was out of my chair and on the other side of the table instantly. The first thing I noticed was the lack of a heartbeat. My heart should be hammering in my chest right now, but I felt nothing.
He knocked the chair out of the way as he came for me.
I just moved around the other way.
“I will make you despise your existence so deeply that you’ll beg me to harvest your soul from your body.”
I moved to the side of the table where this originally started and then took off, sprinting through the castle in whatever direction took me away from this monster.
“Grab her!” He roared from behind me. His voice boomed through the entire castle like it traveled through the walls, alerting every minion that served him in the underworld.
That was when the creatures started to grab for me in the hallways and the parlors.
Creatures that were men once, their spines and bones crooked in all sorts of ways from torment.
They all reached for me to stop me, but I slid past their grasp.
When I rounded the next corner, it was blocked by a much bigger monster, something that resembled a human…and an orc.
I turned back to find another way, but Leviathan had already caught up to me.
In his demon form.
When he laughed, a glimpse of fire was visible past his teeth, reminding me of the flames inside Zehemoth’s belly.
Zehemoth. I pushed my mind to reach for him like I did under the blue sky, but I felt the direction of my projection suddenly blocked.
When he chuckled again, I knew he was responsible. “I’ve learned from Bahamut’s mistakes.” Then he lunged at me, an eight-foot-tall creature with horns and teeth and malice.
I dodged out of the way, rolled when he swiped his arm for me, backing up and evading his attack.
Then his hand shot out to grab me by the throat.
His fingers made it around my slender neck, but I slammed my elbow down like my father had taught me long ago, and I had the strength to break his hold.
His other hand swiped at me, to punch me in the head and knock me out cold, but I blocked it with my vambrace, forcing all my muscles to work together to stop his momentum. My arm trembled from the exertion, but I managed to keep him back.
He dropped his attack and took a step back, his black eyes regarding me in a heavy silence. “How is something so small so strong?”
I realized I still had it—Callum’s godly gift.
It had somehow remained with me even when I died, even when I traveled to the underworld where a god already lived.
So, Callum still protected me, no matter that we were separated between life and death.
Leviathan started to back me up against the wall, cornering me so I would have nowhere to run. I would just have to fight him with my fists, hand-to-hand combat with my armor against his black exoskeleton.
When an opening appeared, I would run for it.
Run for the forest that Callum had shown me.
Leviathan lunged at me, throwing his full body into the attack.
My sword was still across my back, so I quickly unsheathed it and used it to block his attack before he struck me.
I used it as a shield instead of a weapon to protect my armor and skin from his razor-sharp claws.
I parried his attack then shoved my shoulder hard into his body, making him stumble back slightly.
I rolled between his legs and came out behind him before I slashed my sword across his bare back, hitting hard rock for skin, making a shiny scratch in the material but drawing no actual blood…or whatever lay beneath the tissue.
But he released an angry growl like it hurt.
Good.
Was it possible to defeat him? Was it possible to kill him?
Let’s find out.
He suddenly changed, turning back into the beautiful man with the gorgeous armor.
Then he unsheathed his blade and spun it around his wrist just the way my father did.
We were in some kind of parlor with a dark mantel and couches and tables, obstacles that either of us could trip on, but it turned into a battlefield.
“Lily Rothschild, your fight only makes me want you more.”
“And it makes me want to kill you more.” Everything my father had ever taught me came to the forefront of my mind. I’d thought the battle with the Barbarians outside the walls of the castle was the great battle of my life—but it was this.
He launched for me first, swinging his black blade for my chest to knock the wind out of me, but I blocked his hit and returned with my own strike. There wasn’t much room for us to move around, so it made the battle more intense, every strike deadly because it was difficult to evade.
He came at me hard, spinning his blade so quickly that someone without the ability of a god would miss it.
We were evenly matched even if he didn’t realize it, so I was able to block and step back, able to match his pace.
It took great effort and I was already exhausted battling someone of my caliber, but I still managed to stay in the fight.
A chair was knocked over as we fought, and his blade managed to slice my cheek even though no blood was drawn. We battled in the parlor for what felt like an hour, neither one of us gaining power over the other.
Then he came to a stop, his blade lowered to his side, and stared me down. “No man or woman can match a god. A fuse with a dragon isn’t enough either. You guard a secret—and I will find it.” Then he gave a nod, as if giving orders to someone behind me.
And then I was grabbed by several orc-like creatures, all of them surrounding me so I couldn’t get free. My sword was snatched from my grasp, and my arms were pinned at odd angles so I couldn’t fight back.
I was dragged through the castle, fighting the hold of monsters four times my size all the way, until I was taken to a dank cell and shoved inside.
The door was made of iron bars, and it swung closed before it was locked in place.
The monsters left, and then Leviathan came into view, his arms relaxing through the gaps in the bars as he watched me, a smile on his lips but malice in his eyes.
“I’ll come back for you, Lily Rothschild. ”
I sat in the cell for hours, my back to the wall as I stared through the iron bars at the torch on the opposite wall of the room.
There were other cells in the room, but they all appeared empty.
The torches on the wall flickered endlessly, burning even when they didn’t have wax, the flames eternal because they were bewitched by magic.
I forced myself to keep calm as I stared at the bars that caged me inside.
I had to get out of here.
Leviathan and I were evenly matched in strength and swordsmanship, but that meant I was just as likely to win the battle as I was to lose it. I had to survive until my father and Callum could get to me.
The forest seemed to be the safest place for me, full of worshippers and creatures but free of Leviathan and servants.
I pushed off the wall and walked to the bars as I tried to figure out what to do.
They’d taken my sword, so I didn’t have that to cut through the bars. I grabbed the metal and felt the iron rods before I tugged and shifted, hoping to find a weak spot. One of the bottom rungs shifted loudly whenever I tugged on the bars, the hole for the iron too big for the metal.
I studied all the bars again before I found the sharpest part of my armor.
My vambraces.