Chapter Four
LILY
I closed my eyes and drew a slow breath, silencing my thoughts.
The surrounding hellscape was too active—the wind stirring the loose rubble at my feet, the faint crackles of fire from the nearby geysers, the nervous shuffle of boots behind me, the anxious huffs from Gorr. I had to shut it all out. Even Rathiel.
Or rather, especially Rathiel.
He’d figured out my secret. I didn’t need to be a genius to know that. I’d seen it on his face. The confusion, the anger, the hurt. It looked like I needed to schedule a little downtime for some grovelling—provided I survived this, of course.
After everything he and I had been through, he would never willingly let me go.
Nor would I him. But some things were inevitable.
And as the leader of the group, I had to prepare for all outcomes, including letting Eliza kill me if I started to lose control.
The soldier in him would understand, but he wasn’t thinking like a soldier right now.
He was thinking like the fallen—the vampire—who loved me.
I couldn’t focus on any of that right now, though.
I had a task to complete. So many souls were relying on me, and not merely the dead ones surrounding me on this field right now.
Rolling out my shoulders, I concentrated on my magic.
Warmth unfurled in my chest and spread down my arms. A second later, fire crackled and heat spread over my left palm while coldness spread over my right one. I opened my eyes only to be greeted by the usual sight.
Fire and shadow. My oldest tricks. Light and dark.
Because that was who I was.
My shoulders sagged with disappointment, and I released the breath I’d been holding. That was it? Nothing but the same old shadow and flames? After all that worry? After everything Levi had said? He—and the others—believed in me. They believed I was a leader, a queen, a powerful celestial.
A sigh slipped free before I could stop it.
Behind me, the crunch of footsteps gave way to Levi’s quiet voice. “You’re more than this, Lily.”
I didn’t turn around. The last thing I needed to see was everyone’s disappointed faces. “This is all there is.”
“No, it isn’t,” he said. “I believe there’s more to you. Imagine your magic is like an endless well. It stretches on forever. And the waters inside have lain untouched your entire life. You’ve never seen how deep you can go. You’ve merely skimmed the surface.”
I frowned and stared at my hands—one blazing, the other obscured with blackness.
“You must go deeper,” he encouraged.
“There is no deeper,” I told him.
“I don’t believe that. And I don’t think you do either. I think you’re simply scared to see what you can do. You are an angel, Lily. You aren’t a fallen, you aren’t a demon, you aren’t a hellspawn. You can do so much more than fire and shadow. But you need to believe you can.”
Easier said than done.
I closed my fists, snuffing out the fire and shadow, smoke curling between my fingers.
Deeper. Okay. Time to see what was hiding beneath the surface. Or rather, if there was anything else hiding beneath the surface.
I shook out my limbs, stretched out my neck, and closed my eyes, refocusing.
Then I reached inward. I immediately found my magic, exactly where it always was.
It lay there, awaiting my command. But that wasn’t the magic I needed.
I needed to push past that boundary. Past the fire, past the dark, past the easy stuff I’d always relied on.
“Don’t stop,” Levi coaxed.
It wasn’t easy, but I forced myself to keep going and began digging.
It wasn’t a well like Levi suggested, but rather a gigantic and wild forest. Its roots curled through every inch of me, embedding themselves in my heart, my lungs, my essence.
The two joined at the center of my very being and merged into a blinding light I wanted to shy away from.
But before I could pull back, another voice joined Levi’s. I recognized it instantly. I couldn’t understand Rathiel’s words, but his tone soothed me, kept me calm when a part of me wanted to run screaming.
My entire being was enormous—frighteningly so. It went on forever, with hundreds and hundreds of roots all spanning in every direction. They made up every one of my cells and infused me with more power than I’d ever imagined.
I drifted deeper, cautiously at first. I didn’t want to unintentionally disturb anything.
I slowed my breath, and my pulse steadied. The familiar heat of my surface magic faded, replaced by something so massive it overwhelmed me. I had no idea where I was, where my subconscious had drifted to, but it felt like this forest had been waiting for me for a long time.
My whole life, most likely.
It wasn’t frightening, exactly. Just…vast. Vast like the sky. The galaxy. The universe. Every inch I ventured, the ground stirred around me, as if the roots themselves responded to my presence. They stretched toward me, coiling over themselves, but didn’t touch me.
I didn’t know what to do.
I’d always thought magic was about ability. I could summon fire and shadow. The logic seemed simple enough. But this…was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. My magic had a lifeforce of its own. It yearned for me as much as I did it.
“Do you feel all the power inside you?” Levi asked, his voice distant but there. His words grounded me just enough to keep from floating away in this strange inner wilderness.
I nodded slowly, almost as though I was lost in a trance.
“Good. Now, use it. Draw upon the magic and will it to do your bidding. Shape it into what you need.”
My brow furrowed. He thought I could control all this? I could barely grasp this concept, let alone begin to believe I would control it.
“You’ve got this,” Rathiel murmured somewhere nearby. Like Levi, his voice was distant.
Our hands touched without me even thinking about it, but I squeezed his hand, using his presence to center me.
“Picture them,” Levi continued. “See your soldiers in your mind. Use your magic and Hell’s resources to give them shape and purpose.”
Shape and purpose. I could do that.
I think.
In my mind, I looked down at the loam and the roots and the pulsing veins of light that webbed through me. I gave a small mental push and began coaxing them outward.
Above me—outside of me—the air stilled. Almost as though Hell had gone quiet with anticipation.
I pictured Korrak first. A towering, broad-shouldered brimlord.
The kind of demon who could cleave a boulder in half just by glaring at it.
I pictured his flesh made of dark volcanic rock and the molten heat that coursed beneath the surface, giving him fire and life.
I pictured his rough, battle-worn horns, curled back in massive arcs.
Calder was next—the smarmy vampire who had always made me laugh. His smile was the first thing to come to mind, his fangs the second. His figure began as a silhouette—slender, ethereal—until the details became clearer. Ash-pale skin. Black armour like melted pitch. Claws.
Varz—my prickly friend who’d thought me nothing more than a princess when we’d first met. I pictured his slitted golden eyes, his honed muscle, but most importantly, his daggers.
“By the… She’s doing it,” came Calyx’s voice, awed.
I saw all the faces of those I’d commanded, who my father had slaughtered with a single snap of his fingers.
“Don’t stop,” Levi breathed.
I didn’t. But I did open my eyes, returning to reality.
The ground beneath my feet had cracked, and a series of fractures webbed outward from where I stood.
Chunks of obsidian and brimstone tore free from the crust and rushed toward me like I was a magnet pulling them forward.
Magma surged upward from the rift in a thick, writhing wave.
Fire ignited from the surrounding geysers and arced toward me.
And it all came together in a storm of raw materials, right in front of me, in endless rows of soldiers.
Brimlords, sanguinari, netherons, ravagers, vexori, venerath. Even plaguebearers.
“Oh my god,” Eliza whispered, stepping closer to me.
“You’re doing it,” Levi said. “You’re building their bodies.”
Yes, but that was the easiest part.
The rocks collided together, merging into demonic forms. Knees. Ribs. Spines. The battlefield echoed with the sounds of shifting stone and crackling fire as I formed chests, shoulders, arms, legs, hands and feet, heads.
One-by-one, in a glorious display of power, each figure took form. They stood tall, their bodies fused with magma and fire. They were still husks without a soul, but I’d done it. I’d used Hell’s resources to build their bodies.
I stood in awe, stunned by the scene unfolding before us.
I truly hadn’t thought I could do it.
Before me, I saw Sareth, Korrak, Rathgor, Drek’thar. They were all here. Every last soldier. Somehow I had conjured them all from my mind. I knew their names. Their personalities. Their strengths. They were more than weapons. They were my people.
And speaking of weapons—they needed those, plus armour, if I intended them to fight for me, which I very much did.
I couldn’t have naked hellspawn running around the realm, as amusing as that would be to watch.
I focused my magic and drew on the resources once more.
Almost instantly, magma cooled over their bodies in thick, rigid layers, hardening into something between armour and skin.
Blades and axes formed from the same molten flow, forged right into their hands.
I couldn’t help it—I closed my eyes, returned to the forest, and laughed. Just once, raw and breathless, and somewhere between triumph and disbelief. The kind of sound one makes when something impossible begins to feel real.
I had done it.
Me.
But I wasn’t finished yet.