Chapter Ten
RATHIEL
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Calyx and Lily to return.
I spotted them the instant they crested the nearest ridge, their silhouettes sharp against the smoky air.
Calyx dropped first, landing heavier than usual and hissing through his teeth when his bad wing moved wrong.
He shook it out, winced again, then tucked it away.
Lily landed a breath behind him, her shadow-wings dissolving before the dirt settled around her boots. Relief came fast—too fast—and I locked it down. After our earlier conversation, I wasn’t sure where we stood. I just knew she wanted space, and I intended to give it to her.
Apparently, I was the only one.
As always, the others immediately closed in on her.
And as always, the hellwyrm was first. Mephisar slithered his massive body around her, then butted his head against hers, like he’d been waiting all day for her attention.
Perhaps he had. The two certainly had a bond—I couldn’t deny that.
No doubt Sable’s death would reinforce their connection.
Eliza, Gorr, and Vol followed. Gorr limped next to Eliza, while Vol rode her shoulder like a king refusing to dismount his steed.
Usually, the imp ran a constant commentary, never understanding when to shut his mouth.
But that wasn’t the case tonight. Everyone was on edge, thanks to the dragon attack, Sable’s death, and Lily’s reaction to it.
Levi watched from the edge of the camp, near his lack-of-a-bedroll.
He caught my eye and dipped his head, but he didn’t move off his rocky seat.
Probably because of the orange ball of fur curled up in his lap.
I didn’t know much about Earth animals—practically nothing, in fact—but Lily had assured me more than once that you did not disturb the fluffy ones.
And according to her, Purrgy was the fluffiest, goodest boy—and no, I didn’t know what that meant.
I just heeded her advice and made sure not to disturb him.
Calyx peeled away from the group and headed toward his little spot next to the fire.
He didn’t say a word, leaving the debriefing to Lily.
As for me, I stood at parade rest, watching.
Lily hadn’t so much as glanced my way. I told myself not to take it personally.
She had an entire coterie fishing for her attention.
Her fingers scritched the underside of Mephisar’s scaly jaw, then Gorr’s head, right behind his ear. The two beasts practically purred with contentment. After a few minutes, she tore her focus away from them and—finally—looked at me.
“Hi, Rath,” she said, her voice a bit tentative.
Just like that, everything in my world fell back into place. She could be as angry with me as she wanted, so long as she kept calling me Rath. That told me everything I needed to know.
The smallest smile tugged at my lips, but I bit it back, all too aware of the many eyes watching us.
“Well?” Eliza urged. “Was your little trip worth it?”
The siren hadn’t spoken much in Lily’s absence.
In fact, none of us had. Lily’s outburst had shaken us all.
She was usually so calm and collected. A few times, I’d felt Levi and Eliza’s gazes weighing on me, but I hadn’t given them the satisfaction of showing them I’d noticed.
If they wanted to chat about it, they could do so among themselves. I wasn’t interested.
Lily nodded. “The outpost is well-stocked with supplies.”
She paused, and everyone heard the hesitation.
“But?” I asked.
She released a long sigh. “But it’s also well-guarded. Their numbers are substantially larger than ours. And…” She grimaced, her nose crinkling. “They have another dragon.”
Four simple words, but they were enough to gut the mood.
Eliza groaned and took a step back from Lily. “So, we pick another outpost?”
“We could,” Lily agreed. “But this one’s the closest. And we need supplies sooner rather than later.”
“Except you just said they outnumber us,” Eliza reminded her.
Lily scratched the small crinkle in her nose, her gaze flicking toward me. Ah. So, I wasn’t going to like what she planned to say next. Good to know. I braced myself.
“I can handle the dragon,” Lily said confidently. “Now that I know how to fight it.”
As one, we all glanced at the center of camp, where the dragon skull remained.
The rest she’d broken down into raw materials in a stunning display of power I’d never seen from her before.
I had no idea what she planned to do with the head.
I'd intended to ask, but right now, it seemed hardly important.
“What about the hellspawn?” Levi asked from his rock.
Purrgy shifted his weight, slitting open an eye to look around before falling back asleep.
“They won’t be a problem,” she said.
Silence fell over the camp, except for the crackling of our pitiful fire. Each of us looked to the other while waiting for her to explain. When she didn’t, Vol gave a deep sigh from Eliza’s shoulder and shouted, “Out with it already!”
“I’m going to finish resurrecting my army,” she said. “Then we’ll outnumber them. Once my soldiers are back, the outpost won’t stand a chance.”
Tension ramped. Levi’s questioning gaze leapt from Lily to me. “Resurrect your army,” he repeated. “Do you think you can?”
“I almost had it yesterday,” she said, confidence shining in her eyes. Where that confidence came from, I had no idea. Then again, she hadn’t seen herself convulsing on the ground yesterday, unlike the rest of us.
I immediately wanted to shut this down. I understood her plan and her reasoning.
We needed the numbers, there was no denying that.
But seeing her yesterday, all aglow with power, only to collapse screaming a moment later was a sight that kept replaying in my head.
We still didn’t know what’d happened. She’d been fine one moment, then not the next.
Of course she wanted to try again. She’d already said as much.
I guess I’d just hoped… But I should have known better.
Lily didn’t know how to quit. In fact, moments like these were how she improved herself.
I would wager any amount of money that she’d learned some “life lesson” during the last attempt and would use it to perfect the process this time. Because that was what she did.
So, I kept quiet and let her speak.
“What makes you think you can do it this time?” Eliza asked, voicing my concerns.
Lily’s expression shuttered, and if I wasn’t mistaken a shadow crossed her face. But it was gone so quickly that I wondered if I’d imagined it.
“I know what I did wrong,” she said. “And my magic appears to have grown a little since then. It’ll work this time.”
See? Life lesson. I didn’t say a word—I had no argument.
She was right, her magic had grown. The sight of her shadow tendrils shooting out of her palms had impressed me, but even that hadn’t compared to the sight of her flying again, thanks to her new shadow wings.
It’d stolen my breath, seeing her take to the skies again.
I knew how much she missed it, how the loss of her wings had broken her.
When no one objected to her newest plan, Vol, who had been watching us all chat like we were here specifically for his entertainment, clapped his tiny hands together.
“Excellent. You go raise your unstoppable army that your father has, in fact, stopped before. Then we’ll go to the outpost, steal—I mean, procure—their supplies, and then write about it so that history remembers my bravery. ”
“Your bravery?” Lily repeated, scoffing.
“Of course. I’m the bravest of you lot.”
“Says the little beast who hid in a hole while we were fighting the dragon,” Calyx stated.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Vol announced, planting his little hands on his hips. “I was guarding Purrgy to make sure nothing bad happened to him. See? Bravery.”
Lily rolled her eyes.
“And when do you plan to complete the resurrection?” I asked, cutting off Calyx and Vol’s bantering.
Her gaze locked on mine, and without any hesitation, she said, “No time like the present.”
Yeah, that sounded about right.
Calyx groaned as if the world had just come to an end.
“Do you people ever stop? It’s all work, work, work with this group.
I know this is Hell, and torture is like our thing down here, but in case you’ve all forgotten, we fought a dragon today.
A dragon. And then I escorted your royal ass to the outpost and back.
That was hours in the air. I need a naaaaap. I’m tired.”
I blinked, shocked to hear Calyx so…whiny.
Lily gave a sharp laugh. “Then go take a nap. We’ll try our hardest not to wake you.”
Calyx glared at her like she’d just insulted his entire bloodline. Then he stood and grabbed his sword with a dramatic spin that was likely supposed to look intimidating, but nearly clipped Gorr in the head. The hellspawn snapped its teeth next to Calyx’s thigh, missing by a fraction.
“Fine,” Calyx grumbled. “But when I pass out and break my neck, you can explain to my adoring fans why their favourite fallen angel is gone.”
“You’re not even their second favourite, and there’s only the two of us,” I quipped.
Everyone sucked in a collective breath, and Calyx’s eyes widened.
After a moment, he barked a laugh. “Was that a joke? Good one, brother. So funny.”
“If you’re done complaining, we have work to do,” I said.
Calyx ran a hand down his face, then started the long walk out of camp, muttering something incomprehensible under his breath.
The rest of the group moved in his wake. Mephisar took to the skies, looking awfully lonely up there. Gorr limped alongside Eliza, who reached up and removed Vol from her shoulder, placing him on the ground.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know the drill. Stay with the cat, Vol,” he intoned in Lily’s voice. Scoffing, he beat a quick pace toward Purrgy’s carrier.
And speaking of the cat, he seemed unwilling to move off Levi’s lap. The angel tried to stand, but Purrgy dug his claws into Levi’s thighs, clinging for dear life.
Eliza laughed at the sight, then shrugged. “Cats.”
With an annoyed grunt, Levi reached down and pried Purrgy loose.
The cat voiced his displeasure but finally stalked toward Lily, likely seeking more attention.
Everyone else continued toward the battlefield, but I lingered, waiting for Lily to slide Purrgy into his carrier. For once, he went without complaint.
Once she had him secured, I moved to follow the group, but Lily’s hand closed around my forearm.
I stopped, my heart skipping a beat at her touch. I glanced down at her fingers, then up to her face.
For the first time since she’d returned from the outpost, she was looking at me and only me.
“Are we…okay?” she asked. Pain darkened her eyes, and for a moment, her bottom lip trembled. She stiffened it a moment later though, reining all her emotions back in. “I mean, are we? I’m sorry for what I said. I’m just…” she released a tremulous breath before saying, “sad.”
My heart broke. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against my chest.
She came so willingly that it loosened every rigid muscle in my body. Her forehead rested against the base of my throat, and her scent—leather and steel—filled my lungs. I notched my chin over her head, my eyes scanning our surroundings out of habit even as my grip on her tightened.
She didn’t need to explain anything to me.
And what she said this morning—she hadn’t been wrong.
Sable was dead, and the blame rested solely at our feet.
Because she was right. If we’d been here, we might have been able to prevent it.
There were no guarantees in life, less so here in Hell, but even I believed we likely could have stopped her death.
I drew back enough to see her face. She wasn’t crying, but she wasn’t as angry as she’d been this morning either. And she was touching me, actively seeking me out for comfort, rather than shoving me away. All improvements in my book.
Cupping her cheeks, I leaned down and kissed her, savoring the feel of her lips against mine. I could live millennia more and never tire of her kisses. They were addicting in every possible way.
She melted under me, her soft lips melding against mine.
Then she ended the kiss—too soon in my opinion.
“Let’s go,” she whispered. “I don’t want to make them wait.”
I understood what she meant. She worried about leaving her friends alone, especially in a wide-open battlefield with a dragon an hour’s flight away. The last had found us easily enough. This one would too. It was only a matter of when.
“Okay,” I murmured, understanding her need.
I brushed my lips against hers once more, whispered I loved her in her ear, then released her.
Her eyes softened, then she started walking. “Come on. Before Calyx decides to take that nap.”
It didn’t take us long to catch up to the others, and as a team, we strode toward the edge of the battlefield.
Her army stood exactly where she’d left them—row after row of soldiers.
My gaze passed over one face, then another, and another, picking out the familiar ones.
I still couldn’t believe she’d built them all from the bones of Hell itself, forming them from her own memory.
If ever I’d needed proof that she had a deep connection to this realm—a royal connection—this was it.
The only other being who could have done this was Lucifer.
Now, it was time to wake them. I needed to prepare myself.
In the past, whenever Lucifer used our essences to forge more hellspawn, it’d hurt.
Not in a torturous way—no, I’d experienced enough of that to know the difference.
It was more like a draining. Like he was siphoning off our souls to create new life.
Not even Lucifer could create life from nothing.
There was only one being capable of such a thing.
Lily came to a stop next to Eliza, in front of the first row of soldiers.
I stopped a few paces behind Lily, Levi to my left and Calyx to my right.
The latter leaned against his sword like he was conserving energy.
If he thought he needed a nap now, it wouldn’t compare to how he’d feel in a few minutes.
But he knew that. We both knew how taxing it was to infuse souls with our essence.
He and I would need a solid day of rest after to recuperate.
Lily’s shoulders lifted with a long breath, her chest rising against the weight of it. Then she exhaled and glanced over her shoulder at us. “Let’s do this.”
A second later, she lit up with magic, and the ground beneath our boots seemed to hum in answer.
She was in it now—locked in whatever place she went to when she worked this kind of magic. And whether this attempt succeeded or ended the way the last one had…none of us could say.