Chapter Sixteen #2
Thankfully, Levi didn’t gloat, but the look he gave Calyx was enough.
A quiet, knowing satisfaction. Then he turned, slow and deliberate, and lifted Eliza into his arms. She wrapped hers around his neck without hesitation.
In one smooth motion, he unfurled his pure white wings, the sharp snap stirring the ash at his feet.
Calyx’s mouth flattened, but he didn’t utter a word.
“Do try to keep up,” Levi mocked.
“Don’t worry about me,” Calyx retorted, already stretching out his own black wings.
“Play nice,” I told them. “And if you two are going to stab each other, do it after you return with everything.”
Levi shot me a glance, his eyes sparking with something more devious than mirth. “Understood.”
He was enjoying this way too much.
“I’ll return with your damn cat and imp, Lily,” Calyx said. “But don’t be surprised if the angel doesn’t make it back.”
Levi only sneered.
I just sighed. Clearly, this problem wasn’t going to resolve itself anytime soon. I had a feeling we’d just have to let it play out, and hopefully not find ourselves caught in the middle.
Levi launched into the air, Eliza tucked tightly against his chest. Calyx followed a heartbeat later but was mindful to stay tight behind them, like the backup he was.
“Alright,” I stated. “We have work to do here.”
The entire place was in ruins. Nothing but slag and stone.
The watchtowers lay in two smoking heaps, and the ground was a patchwork of blood and bodies.
Mephisar stalked the stone wall, his tail swinging as he patrolled the perimeter, his attention on the wasteland.
With him keeping guard, I felt secure enough to focus wholly on the outpost itself.
“Korrak! Rathgor!” I called.
From across the courtyard, two heads popped up. A second later, they tromped over, splattered in blood and gore up to their knees, but grinning like thieves after a successful heist.
“I’m leaving the barracks assignment in your care,” I said. “It’ll be up to you two to decide who gets one. We don’t have room for everyone, so make it fair.”
They barked a simultaneous laugh and stared at each other. I swear, their horns twitched with eagerness.
“Fair,” Korrak rumbled.
“Sure, Princess,” Rathgor added, grinning. “We’ll keep it fair.”
I rolled my eyes—hellspawn. “Well, keep it non-lethal then. We can’t afford to lose anyone to stupid fights.” Though, I suppose I could simply resurrect anyone who died.
Rathgor tipped his head back and laughed, his fangs flashing. “Whatever you say.”
“I’m serious,” I said, my voice cold as ice.
“Here are my rules that all must follow. And by follow, I mean obey, if they don’t want me burning them from the inside out.
No killing, no gang-swarming. And if anyone, and I mean anyone, lays a hand on my cat or my imp, I will obliterate them and use their many pieces to fashion myself another blade, then consume their very soul. Understood?”
They instantly sobered, their laughter fading on the wind.
“Understood?” I repeated.
“Understood, Princess,” they both said, like the good little soldiers they were.
“Go.” I jerked my chin toward the barracks and watched as they marched away, already shouting for volunteers.
Then I turned to find Calder, Varz, Gorr, and Rathiel hovering behind me.
“Varz. Take two squads and sweep the entire outpost for anything that might be dangerous. They had a dragon here. I want to know what else they had up their sleeves. Traps, hidden weapon caches, bombs. Flag whatever you find, but don’t touch anything.”
He gave me a single nod, then clicked his fingers for Gorr to follow. Calder grinned at me, saluted, then followed suit.
Only then did I turn to Rathiel. “Walk with me?”
He fell in beside me and matched my stride.
I wanted to reach for his hand but decided against it at the last moment.
Showing affection felt indulgent right now.
Duty needed to come first. I needed to inspect the outpost, keep my soldiers in line, and keep proving to them I was worth following.
Lovey-dovey moments with Rathiel wouldn’t help my position.
We cut toward the western side we hadn’t cleared yet. From the looks of it, it’d survived better than the eastern and northern sides, protected by the natural rocky outcrops. I spotted a door but didn’t open it. Not yet.
Instead, my eyes gravitated toward the dozen bodies scattered nearby. At the sight of them, magic immediately swelled in my chest—a hot, promising pressure that begged to be released. It took effort to pull it back.
“Lily?” Rathiel asked.
I shook off the temptation—or pretended to—and crouched beside a burly netheron with a crescent scar over his scalp. “I want to resurrect them,” I said flatly.
He blinked. “What? Why?”
“They died protecting this outpost. But I want to bring them back. They’ll know I returned their lives to them, that I’m the stronger option, and they’ll fight for me.”
Rathiel didn’t say a word.
The netheron’s soul called to me, and my power itched to answer. I reached out and rested my palm on his breastplate. And just like before, my magic responded, pooling under my hand and sliding inside the hellspawn.
Much like the dead brimlord, the netheron twitched in response to my power. I smiled.
“It won’t take much. One nudge, and they’ll wake. One command, and they’ll fall in line.”
“Lily,” Rathiel said.
“I can do it,” I whispered.
“Lily, look at me.” His voice was quieter now, raw around the edges.
I finally looked at him.
“Do you not remember what happened last night? Raising your army exhausted you to the point of—” his voice broke.
My nightmare sprang to mind, like an unwelcome shadow darkening my thoughts.
The memory of the darkness piercing my throat and sinking into me should have stopped me.
But it didn’t. What did a nightmare matter compared to this?
This was my chance to build an unstoppable army. I’d pay any price for that.
“There’s less of them,” I pressed. “And I won’t need to build new bodies.” Just…fill in the holes. “So I’d expend less magic than last time.”
Rathiel didn’t answer. Just looked at me, worry in his eyes. Then he turned back toward the heart of the outpost and started walking.
I released my hold on the netheron and rose, my fingers tingling with the unspent magic. It still hummed under my skin, reluctant to quiet. I flexed my hand once, then followed after Rathiel.
When he didn’t immediately say anything, I sighed and took in all our people.
Mephisar had switched perches and now lay draped along the highest intact wall, one eye open, and smoke curling out of his nostrils.
He looked almost bored. Varz, Calder, and Gorr stood amongst a smallish group of hellspawn, and Varz was issuing orders, while Korrak and Rathgor handled the barracks.
“Alright, out with it,” I finally said. “Tell me you hate the idea.”
“I don’t hate it,” he said after a pause. “I hate what it asks of you.”
Fair enough. Were I in Rathiel’s shoes, I’d hate it too. Except, I wasn’t in Rathiel’s shoes. I was in mine. And they were rather big ones to fill.
“This is war, Rath.” My voice came out harder than I intended, clipped and precise.
“You know that. You’ve fought beside me since the beginning.
We need as many soldiers as we can get. I can get us those numbers.
Whatever this costs me—energy, sleep, sanity—it’s worth it if it helps us put an end to all this. ”
I stepped in front of him to force him to stop walking.
“I’m past pretending we can win this easily.
We both know what Gavrel can do. We saw him step onto the battlefield and turn my people against each other.
He’ll do it again unless we strike first. And my father…
” I clenched my jaw. “He destroyed me last time. I didn’t even get a chance to touch him.
He had me on the ground in seconds. You hurt him, yes, but that was luck. I won’t rely on luck again.”
Rathiel winced.
“I will do whatever it takes to protect what’s mine. And that includes resurrecting any and all hellspawn.”
“I get it,” he murmured before reaching out and brushing his knuckles along my cheekbone. His touch lit a fire under my skin. “I just worry about you. I love you.”
“And I love you,” I said.
Screw appearances. I stretched up on my tiptoes, wound my arms around his neck, and kissed him. Anything to reassure him that everything would be fine. That no matter what my magic required of me, I would always find my way back to him.
Rathiel’s arms instantly closed around me, his embrace almost tight enough to hurt, but I didn’t mind. He needed reassurance, and I could give him that.
“Lily!” Varz’s voice interrupted our kiss.
We broke apart, and I sighed before dropping back onto my heels and turning.
Varz strode toward me, his face grim. “There’s something you need to see.”
Rathiel and I were already moving. Varz led us back to the western side of the outpost, to the same door I’d chosen to ignore earlier. It was open now, and a faint sickly green haze bled out from within.
“Inside,” Varz said. “I don’t know what it is, but it looks bad.”
Of course it did. Things in Hell were rarely good.
I spared Rathiel a glance. His jaw was tight, and his hand already sat on the hilt of his blade.
Together, we eased through the door one inch at a time.
A thick and oppressive blackness engulfed us, except for the center of the room where the source of the sickly green haze sat.
The moment my eyes adjusted, I gasped. Because there, sitting at the room’s center, was a grotesque orb half the size of me.
It throbbed with magic and stank of rot and sickness.
I knew exactly what that was. I’d seen it before.
A pestilence bomb, compliments of Miriel.
“Well,” I muttered. “That’s inconvenient.”
The sound of my voice seemed to stir it. Its pulse quickened, throbbing brighter, red veins flaring across its surface. Then the bomb began to pulse red, like a clock ticking down the seconds.
Oh, goody. I’d just activated the bomb.