Chapter Twenty-Four
RATHIEL
We crested the last rise, and there it sat.
The palace.
It rose from the ground like a dark spire, the towers piercing the hazy sky.
And standing in front of it, stretched across the scorched plains, were countless hellspawn.
They stood in perfect formation, silently watching our approach, clearly waiting for their orders.
But curiously, Lucifer didn’t stand at the front of the army. Gavrel did.
Our ranks slowed, then stopped when Lily gave the silent command. We held our position a few hundred feet from Lucifer’s army, both sides watching, but neither advancing. The soldiers wouldn’t move until someone gave the order—and Lily wouldn’t give hers until Lucifer showed his ugly face.
Which raised the most important question. Where was the bastard? He clearly knew we were coming and had sent whatever he could think of to delay our arrival and attempt to diminish our numbers, giving him time to gather his forces and prepare for battle.
So, why wasn’t he here?
The general in me took in the developing situation, gauging their numbers.
At first count, Lucifer’s forces doubled ours.
A weaker being might have let that deter him.
But I’d fought enough battles to know numbers weren’t the only thing needed to win.
Spirit and dedication mattered as well. And Lily’s people were undyingly loyal to her.
Not to mention we had Mephisar, Dragon, an actual angel, and two fallen.
I’d take that over a faceless, nameless horde any day.
Unbidden, my gaze took in the palace. It looked exactly the same as the last time I’d laid eyes on it, escaping the dungeons. Not a damn thing had changed. Fitting, I supposed. It stood as eternal, unyielding, and foreboding as its master.
Ten years of enduring endless torture hadn’t broken me, but I’d be lying if I said seeing it again didn’t twist something in my gut.
I’d buried the memories as deep as possible and intended to keep them that way.
But the body remembers what the mind tries to forget.
The chains. The fire. The meat hooks. The flayings. The screams.
Truly, I would be happy never to set foot inside those walls again. I would have loved nothing more than to stay on Earth with Lily and make a new home there. But Hell needed her just as much as I did. So, here I was.
I set my jaw and dragged my gaze away. I needed to focus on Lily, who wasn’t looking at the fortress or Lucifer’s army anyway. Her gaze was elsewhere, off to the side, just beyond the massive gates.
I followed her line of sight, and my chest tightened.
The stables.
Once, cages had filled that area. Row after row of enclosures big enough to contain an army of hellwyrms. They’d been Lucifer’s pride.
He hadn’t created them, but he’d caged them, bent them to his will, then discarded them when they’d refused to do as he ordered.
But Lily? She’d loved and cared for them.
And now there was nothing. Just stone and dirt.
“Where are they?” Lily asked, her voice almost too soft.
“Gone,” Calyx answered, his tone devoid of his usual snark. He folded his arms across his chest and sighed. “Lucifer purged them after you fled with Mephisar and Sable. According to him, two rebellious hellwyrms was justification enough to destroy the entire herd.”
Shock widened Lily’s eyes, and her mouth parted. “He killed them all?”
“Every last one,” Calyx confirmed.
Her entire body deflated with a heavy breath.
Sensing her distress, I took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
I refused to tell her it wasn’t her fault, because she wouldn’t believe me.
Her actions had resulted in her father killing hundreds of innocent creatures.
But what I could promise her was, “We’ll change it. All of it. No more cages.”
“It won’t bring them back,” she whispered.
No, it wouldn’t.
Her gaze connected with mine, and for a moment, the warrior in her fell away. Standing before me was just Lily. The celestial who loved all creatures. She would mourn the loss of the hellwyrms, but it would also fuel her fire.
As though sensing her pain, Mephisar slithered over and came to a stop on her other side. She instinctively reached up and placed a hand on his side, stroking his scales.
“Guess you’re the last of your kind,” she murmured.
Mephisar rumbled a response, then dipped his head and snuffed at her hair. A quick flick, and his bifurcated tongue swiped across her cheek. She didn’t laugh or push him away. She just leaned against him and rested her head against his neck.
Eliza was the next to make her way over. “So,” she said as she lifted her hands and started gathering her hair together, tying it back with some sort of elastic. “This is where you grew up?” A wicked grin curved her lips. “Explains so much.”
“Oh, ha, ha,” Lily drawled, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her, twitching upward.
“I feel like we’re in the Lion King,” Eliza said. Then she changed her voice into a ridiculous mimicry, low and dramatic. “We’re gonna fight your uncle for this?”
“Lucifer is her father,” Calyx corrected her. “One would think you’d remember that, little bird.”
Eliza and Lily burst out laughing so hard that Calyx and I shared a confused glance. Clearly, we’d missed something here.
“What?” Calyx asked, brow furrowing.
“It’s—” Lily tried, but she couldn’t get the words out through her laughter.
“It’s from a movie,” Eliza supplied, chuckling. “From Earth. About a lion prince who has to—you know what, never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”
Calyx frowned, though there was a faint curve at his mouth that hinted Eliza’s attention pleased him. “I understand plenty. I just fail to see what’s so funny about confusing uncles with fathers.”
That only made the two of them laugh harder.
Calyx shot me a glance. “Do you know what this is about?”
I simply shook my head. Something Earth related, that much I knew. But I had no interest in learning more at this particular moment.
“Alright,” Lily said, finally catching her breath. “My father is not a cartoon lion. Nor will anyone here be dressing in drag and doing the hula.”
Eliza snorted—actually snorted—then doubled over laughing while the rest of us just stared at each other. “Could you imagine?” she choked out. “Rathiel facing your father while dressed in a grass skirt, shaking those hips?”
Lily slapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide, shoulders shaking. Calyx blinked at Eliza like she’d grown a second head.
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know what that means, but I’m certain I don’t like it.”
That only made both women collapse into fresh laughter.
Calyx sighed, and it was a sound I thoroughly empathized with.
After a few moments, Lily pulled herself together and wiped the corners of her eyes with the back of her hands.
The sight of her—pink cheeked and happy—made me smile.
But then her gaze strayed past us to the enemy forces waiting across the field.
Her laughter faded, her grin vanished, and steel hardened her eyes.
In the span of a breath, the woman making jokes was gone, and in her place stood a general.
The one I had trained. I only hoped she was ready.
She squared her shoulders, lifted her head high, and turned to face her army.
“This is it,” she called out, her voice carrying over the wind. “The last march. The last battle. Everything we’ve done, everything we’ve sacrificed, has led to this moment!”
Her ranks stirred as they, too, straightened under the attention of their leader, their princess.
She marched a straight line in front of her soldiers. Those in the back wouldn’t hear, but there wasn’t anything we could do about that.
“My father believes this is his realm! He thinks your fear makes him strong! He believes cages, chains, and cruelty give him power! To disobey him is to die!” Her expression hardened.
“Well, no more! We will not be caged! We will not be chained! And his cruelty will feed us! We fight today not for fun, not for the bloodshed, but to take back this realm! To return it to its rightful state. To give you—the corrupted souls of Hell—a chance to continue on! You are fighting not only for your freedom, but for your eternal souls! To finally be free of this place, to move on and win a second or third or fourth chance at redemption!”
Her army cheered and thrust their hands into the air.
“Crowns can fall! Cages can be broken! And we? We will win this battle! This is where we make our last stand!”
The answering roar was deafening. Fists pumped, weapons clanged, wings unfurled. Every soldier, every beast, every resurrected soul felt it—the moment locking into place.
I didn’t cheer. I didn’t need to. My chest swelled with pride, with a kind of faith I hadn’t dared feel in centuries. Lily had given them more than orders. She’d given them hope.
The roar of the army still echoed across the plain when Lily turned, her eyes seeking the ones who mattered most. Us.
Her gaze locked on me first. For a heartbeat, she didn’t say anything—just looked at me, steady and unflinching. I knew what she was thinking. We’d spoken of it last night, when the others had drifted off to sleep. Her worst-case plan. My promise.
“Rath,” she said, voice quieter now, but no less firm. “Remember your promise.”
My chest tightened. I gave her the smallest of nods. No one else needed to know what she meant.
She moved on before anyone could question it. “Levi.” Her eyes cut to the angel, sharp as a blade. “Keep your distance at the start. We’ll need your wings in the air when Gavrel unleashes his chaos on us. He’s your target.”
Levi inclined his head, calm as ever.