Chapter Eight
LILY
We buried Sable.
And since we had no shovels or supplies to assist us with this task, I did the only thing I could. I used my magic to reshape the terrain and dug a hole big enough to hold a creature of her size. Then slowly—painfully—we laid her to rest.
I covered her myself, filling in the hole with the disturbed dirt. Afterward, I crafted a simple stone marker, on which I carved her name and wrote a small epitaph. It wasn’t anything special, but it felt as though I owed her this, to let her know we loved and cherished her.
I stepped back once finished and stared at the mound, tears once again burning my eyes.
I’d seen death more times than I could count.
One didn’t live in Hell without experiencing death.
I hadn’t even been free of it back on Earth, when I’d killed Deidre.
Cut her head clean off—a deserved ending for that traitor.
But this…
Sable’s death broke something in me.
She’d given me everything. Her loyalty, her friendship, her protection. There were few in my life I considered family—in fact, they were all here with me now—so losing one of them hurt.
Eventually, the others said their goodbyes and drifted back to camp, hoping to salvage whatever supplies they could from the wreckage.
Eliza lingered the longest, pulling me into a one-armed hug, her injured arm still cradled close.
Levi gave an awkward shoulder pat in passing.
Calyx didn’t say a word, just walked away.
Mephisar, Gorr, and Rathiel were the only ones who remained, flanking me and the grave like silent sentinels.
Rathiel kept a respectful distance and hadn’t said a word since we’d buried her. He also hadn’t tried touching me again since I’d pulled away earlier. But he was here, offering his support the only way I’d take it.
There was so much I needed to take care of.
The dragon had battered my people and burned most of our supplies.
Plus, I needed to check on Vol and Purrgy.
Thankfully, they’d both survived the battle thanks to Vol’s quick thinking.
According to Eliza, Levi had been the one to spot the incoming dragon, and Vol had instantly jumped on Purrgy’s back and herded him somewhere safe.
But neither of them had braved leaving their hidey-hole even after the battle ended.
But regardless of all that, I wasn’t ready to leave Sable’s grave yet. And from the way Mephisar hovered over her grave, it seemed he wasn’t either.
Sighing, I stepped forward and touched his flank.
His massive head turned to look at me, then he let out a low, guttural growl—a sound of pain and mourning.
My shoulders tightened, and my heart grew so heavy.
I would never forget the day I escaped my father’s palace on Mephisar’s back with Sable at our side.
They’d protected me against all odds and delivered me safely to Levi, who had then brought me to his rebellion camp.
They’d fought with me in all the battles we’d faced since then.
It felt wrong to go on without her. But we didn’t have the luxury of choice. I couldn’t lose myself to grief.
Mephisar slowly lowered his head onto my shoulder. The weight nearly broke me, but I held strong and cupped his cheek.
“I know, buddy,” I said. “I hurt too.”
Gorr found my other side and pressed against my thigh.
I let them have this moment of comfort, then stepped back and gestured toward the camp. “Come on.”
Mephisar rumbled his incoherent response, and it made me want to cry again when Sable’s reply didn’t come. But together, we turned away from her final resting place and made our way back to the camp.
At first glance, the sight wasn’t encouraging.
What had once passed for a functional—if not makeshift—base was now a scorched graveyard of smouldering debris. And in the middle of it all was the dead dragon.
We’d chosen to bury Sable first, because she mattered, but there was no avoiding this unpleasant task now.
I changed course and strode toward the beast, stopping beside its hulking corpse.
Blood had pooled beneath its fractured skull, soaking into the dirt in a blackish mass.
Its wings splayed wide, the thin membranes tattered.
Its jaw hung open in a slack snarl, its forked tongue lolling sideways out of its mouth.
The scales were even more impressive up close. They were obsidian and rippled with a faint, unnatural shimmer. In Hell, we kept what we killed and fashioned whatever supplies we needed from hides and bone, including tents, clothing, shelters, and weapons. Anything and everything we could think of.
I’d forged armour and weapons when I’d created my army; I had no doubts I could do it again.
We could definitely make use of the scales.
Armoured and fireproof, two very handy stats when facing Lucifer.
Then there were the tail spikes. I could easily see them being turned into clubs.
One sharp smash to a skull would theoretically end anyone’s life—perhaps even the Devil’s.
I turned away from the dragon to find Eliza, Calyx, and Levi combing through their gear, taking inventory. Their expressions were grim.
“How’s it looking?” I asked.
Eliza shook her head. “Not good. Everything’s torched. Our food resources are completely gone. Bedrolls are practically ash. Clothes too.”
“Weapons?” I asked.
Eliza held up one of her daggers, its hilt blistered and peeling. I couldn’t tell from this far back, but the steel looked warped and slightly off-angle.
“Not great,” was all she said.
Even more reason to start crafting new gear from the dragon’s remains.
“Lily.”
Rathiel’s voice drew my attention, and I turned to find him crouched near our bedroll. Or rather, what remained of it. He didn’t say a word. He just held my gaze, then slowly lifted something from the ash.
Shadow’s Embrace.
Or rather, the two jagged halves of it.
The blade had snapped clean through. If I had to guess, the dragon’s fire—or hell, maybe even mine—had superheated it. It wouldn’t take much after that to break it, just one stomp from a massive dragon.
Strangely, I felt nothing. Perhaps I was numb inside thanks to Sable’s death. That sword had been with me through everything. Seeing it like that…
I lifted my gaze back to Rathiel, jaw tight, then gave a single nod. Guess I was a single-sword fighter now.
I turned away from the wreckage and forced myself to think this through logically.
Step one: I needed answers.
“I’ve never seen a dragon here before,” I said, nodding toward the corpse. “Are we looking at one of Lucifer’s newest monstrosities?” My father truly did love to create, after all.
“A dragon,” Levi said, rolling the word around in his mouth. “Is that an earthly creature?”
“More like fictional,” Eliza muttered.
“Fictional?” he asked.
“Not real,” I said. “At least, not that I’ve ever seen. But they exist in books.”
“Which begs the question: How would your father know about them? He must have created this. So he must have drawn inspiration from somewhere,” Rathiel said.
“Who knows with him,” I said. “Maybe Deidre told him about dragons when she was on Earth searching for me.”
Calyx straightened from his bedroll, his wing still crooked. “Lucifer created it a few years back.”
I raised a brow.
“Back in your rebellious days, I was stuck listening to him bitch about the damn hellwyrms—his words, not mine—and how they were especially loyal to you. They wouldn’t obey him, and he didn’t like that.”
No, he wouldn’t. My father saw no need for anything that didn’t obey him.
“They’d rather eat their own tails than take orders from him,” Calyx continued. “Every time he released one from its cage, it would turn on him. It was truly great entertainment.”
I scowled.
“At the time,” Calyx amended. “Different perspectives and all that.” He cleared his throat.
“Anyway. He and Tavira theorized that because the hellwyrms are native to Hell and possess free will, they can choose not to obey him. But what if he created something else? Something larger. He wanted something obedient to him that could rip your little wyrms in half.”
Considering this unholy creature had done exactly that, I wasn’t in the mood for Calyx’s quips. But before I could say anything, Rathiel cuffed him upside the head. “Show some damn empathy.”
“Not that kind of angel, brother,” Calyx retorted. He shrugged. “I’m not sure where he got the idea for a dragon, but he created it, then used Ezrion’s essence to give it fire.”
“Perhaps he didn’t learn about them,” Levi chimed in. “Perhaps he thought of them himself. Built them himself as his own creation. He has his clever moments, after all.”
“Wait, he used Ezrion’s essence?” I asked. “As in, these dragons are a hellspawn variant? He put a condemned human soul in this creature?”
Calyx just shrugged, clearly nonplussed over this.
I stared down at the dead beast, disgust twisting my stomach. He’d forged this creature, and then he’d sent it out to hunt us down. Now it was dead. He had absolutely no respect for anything other than himself. Why didn’t that surprise me?
Heat uncurled in my chest. Not from grief this time, but anger. My father wanted to play games? Fine. I was his daughter, after all. If he’d made it, then I could unmake it, and that was exactly what I intended to do.
I stared down at the dragon’s corpse and reached inward for the same magic I’d used to build my army.
I stayed out of my internal forest as a precaution and focused on the task in front of me.
Magic curled through me easier than last time.
Almost like it’d been waiting for me to make use of it again.
With a deep breath, I extended a hand toward the dragon and willed it to come apart.