Chapter Twenty-Six
LILY
Lucifer stretched his wings, each feather black as obsidian and rimmed with an ember glow.
His power slammed across the field in a single tidal wave—the air buckled, ash shot upward, and stone cracked under my boots.
Sound died for a heartbeat as I struggled to brace against his magic.
Then the pressure came, crushing and absolute, trying to force me to my knees.
I locked my stance, sucked in a deep breath, then sent hellfire hissing down both my blades. Inside, the darkness woke, hungry and eager to prove itself.
Let me out, it whispered, low and tempting. We can end him. Take what is yours.
Not yet, I sent back. I couldn’t lose control just yet. If I did this early in the fight, my father would end me. I had to play this smart. Lure him into a false sense of security before burying Inferno’s Kiss in his charred, black heart.
Lucifer struck, his movements fast enough to blur. Steel flashed. His sword came down and met mine with a blow that rattled my bones and drove me two steps back. Power rode his attack, a shockwave that splintered the rock beneath us.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I was proud of all you’ve accomplished,” he said, voice a low rumble.
I shoved him back and slashed at his ribs. The tip of my blade nicked his tunic. Lucifer barely glanced down, a slow grin spreading across his face.
“Spare me the compliments,” I shot back, and lunged again.
He effortlessly parried my attack, and in the same breath, answered with a palm of black fire that I cut through with Inferno’s Kiss. Sparks of darkness hissed and died along my blade.
Another strike. Another parry. I darted out of reach of his next swing and came up beside him. I stabbed Inferno’s Kiss at his side, but he batted my blade away like it was merely a toy.
“But it’s true,” he said between strikes. “You’ve finally proven yourself useful.”
He came at me again, this time his wings striking at me like twin battering rams. The gusts hurled me sideways. I slammed into a rocky outcrop, stone biting my back. Pain flared, but I sprang away before his blade could pin me there.
His next thrust came low and fast. I blocked it with Inferno’s Kiss and countered with Dragonbane. The tip grazed his throat and drew a thin line of dark blood. He only grinned wider.
I frowned even as I took another step back.
“I see that darkness inside you. It’s inside me too,” he said under his breath, so low only I could hear.
“Rule beside me. Imagine what we could accomplish together, little heir: every gate open, every soul kneeling at our feet.” His mouth curved, his smile sharp as a knife’s edge.
“Who would dare challenge us then?” He let the question linger, and then, because he was Lucifer, he twisted the blade.
“Do something worthy for once. Give your mother a reason to be proud.”
I knew the game he was playing and saw right through him. For the first time in my whole life, he saw me as useful. With my power at his disposal, he could open every gate without him having to spare any of his power. But for that, he needed me alive—something he’d never cared about before.
I opened my mouth, about to shut him down, when the darkness inside me swelled, and a voice echoed through my head. This is what you were born for. Take it. Take it all.
The words slid along my nerves like a warm current, wrapping me in the promise of absolute power.
My grip on my blades loosened before I realized it.
An image flashed inside my head—my father and I standing together next to the throne, an endless army bowed at our feet, the gates thrown wide as our army marched through.
Lucifer leaned closer, his smile almost gentle. “Oh, you want it. Don’t deny it, daughter. Say yes, and every realm, every soul, will belong to us.”
Yes. The power is yours.
My heart hammered, half terror, half aching want.
The darkness writhed at my feet, begging to be set free. It hungered for more than this realm. It ached for complete control. For absolute strength and power.
God help me, I almost said yes, even while knowing my father only wanted to use me.
My mouth parted, though I wasn’t sure what I intended to say. But then the voice in my head silenced me when it whispered, Or… The word stretched out, soft as velvet.
The vision in my head changed. My father flickered out of existence, his black wings dissolving like ash in the wind.
I saw myself standing alone before the throne, draped in shadow, Hell’s crown heavy on my brow.
My own wings—dark as the void and dripping with magic—spread wide behind me.
And below me, my hellspawn army, an endless sea of heads bowed in reverence.
Not to him.
To me.
Why share when you can have it all? the darkness purred. Why be a queen when you can be a god?
Heat bloomed in my chest. The ache for this possible future was almost unbearable. I wanted it so badly, I trembled.
“Just say yes,” Lucifer coaxed, his voice cutting through the vision. “And we can—”
“Yes,” I breathed. Except, I wasn’t speaking to Lucifer. I was speaking to the darkness.
It shivered in delight, like it had been waiting for that single word all along, and whispered, At last.
It didn’t hesitate.
Something cold took me over, and a soundless shockwave punched out of me in a blast so violent it sent the grit beneath my boots flying in every direction.
My arms spread open on their own, and shadows erupted from me in a column of black that rose high—higher—and clawed at the sky.
A scream ripped free of my throat, one I couldn’t control, as the darkness expunged itself from me.
Hellspawn on both sides of the battle froze, their shouts and roars swallowed by the deafening rush of darkness pouring out of me.
Lucifer jerked back to avoid the blast, and for the first time, fear flickered across his face. He stared up at the sky, my shadows engulfing the hellish light until everything turned black.
For a moment, it was like the whole realm stood on a precipice.
“Lily!” Rathiel’s voice cut through the sudden hush, raw and hoarse.
I turned toward him without meaning to. I would always turn toward him.
Through the curtain of black, I glimpsed him, feet pounding across the terrain as he raced toward me.
One wing hung at a crooked angle, the bone clearly broken.
Gavrel had damaged him, but apparently that wouldn’t stop him from reaching me.
The hellspawn parted as he sprinted, but not once did they take their eyes off me.
He cannot stop us. Take what is yours, the darkness crooned. End this.
I turned away from the sight of Rathiel dashing toward me and refocused on my father.
My shadows instantly responded and shot straight toward Lucifer.
He snarled a curse and slashed out with his wings in order to shield himself.
His own darkness responded, pouring out of him in a wave of power that paled in comparison to mine.
My father looked at me—really looked at me, perhaps for the first time ever—and the flicker of fear I’d seen a heartbeat ago hardened into fury.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he rasped.
“Your time is up,” I said. “Goodbye, Father.”
Lucifer roared, the entire realm vibrating from the force of it.
He flung out his hands, and his power surged forth in a wall of black that smashed into mine.
The two forces collided with a crack of thunder.
The ground buckled. The air cooled. Cliffs sheared away from their mountains and tumbled into the molten ocean below.
Lucifer lunged through the collision of shadows, his sword a streak of silver. He struck my darkness like a hammer, ripping through tendrils, carving a path toward me. His blade grazed my arm and heat flared, but the darkness closed the wound before blood could spill.
“Lily!” Rathiel called again, closer now.
I saw him through a gap in the swirling dark, one wing trailing uselessly behind, his face a mask of panic. The distraction cost me, and Lucifer’s power flared in a violent burst that shoved me backward. I skidded across the broken rock, shadows shrieking as they tore free of him.
He followed, eyes burning. “I made you,” he snarled. “I gave you this power. I can take it away!”
“By all means,” I retorted. “Take it.”
The darkness spilled out of me before the words even left my lips. This time, it didn’t bind or strike. Instead, it pierced. A single tendril speared Lucifer’s chest—then another, and another, until four skewered him. More followed, one through each arm and leg.
Then, while Lucifer’s screams rent the night, the darkness hauled him into the air and held him splayed for all to see.
My power began to strip him, pulling at his shadows thread by stubborn thread, as though ripping them from his very soul—if he even had one.
But rather than destroy them, my power funneled his into me.
Lucifer thrashed, wings beating the smoky air, but the darkness held him pinned like a butterfly. He railed with whatever strength he had left, but with every passing second, he grew weaker while I grew stronger, absorbing every bit of his magic.
His shadows encircled me until, without warning, they plunged into me. The first surge hit like a lightning strike, scalding and freezing in the same breath. I gasped, my every nerve lighting up with white fire. I staggered beneath the weight of it, struggling to remain on my feet.
It was a transfer, pure and simple. What had belonged to him was now mine. Strand by every last tainted strand. His darkness poured into me, filling me to the brim, until I thought I might burst from the never-ending torrent.
“Lilith—stop—” Lucifer choked, his voice almost too weak to hear.
Another wave poured into me. It seared down my spine and settled like molten lead in my chest. My heart pounded as the darkness crooned, a hundred voices threading through my skull: More. Take it. You were designed for this.
I gasped, and the ground split nearby, the bubbling lava flaring in answer, while the stench of brimstone thickened in the air. The power suffused me, changed me, warped me to its desires. My emotions dulled and senses sharpened until I wasn’t simply Lily anymore. No, I was Hell’s new ruler.
Lucifer convulsed as another thread of his power tore loose. The sound that ripped from him was no longer rage but a raw, animal wail. His obsidian eyes began to pale, the black receding like ink in water, leaving behind the faintest trace of blue—a hint of the celestial he once was.
But it didn’t stop. Not until every last bit of his darkness drained away from him and filled me. Only then did my shadows release him and funnel back into me. He fell to the ground on his back, his wings lifeless beneath him.
I stepped forward, brimming with cold power, ready to end my father’s life.
But Rathiel reached me first. He stumbled through the final line of surrounding hellspawn, bruised and bloodied from his fight.
“Lily,” he rasped.
I didn’t turn to him.
He caught my chin between two trembling fingers and tilted my face toward his.
“Hey,” he whispered, his thumb brushing my jaw. “Look at me. Come back to me.”
My eyes met his, and he flinched.
“Lily,” he whispered again.
I blinked. Then I turned my head away from Rathiel’s touch as if he weren’t even there and stepped past him.
Lucifer lay on the scorched ground. His chest rose in shallow, rattling pulls of breath. He turned his head toward me, blood streaking the corner of his mouth. For the first time in my life, his voice carried no command—only a rasp that held no sway over me.
“Lilith…” He reached out a hand, but it fell back to the ground. “Don’t…be…like me. Don’t let…the darkness…win.”
His words barely registered. I stared down at the being I’d once called father and gripped Inferno’s Kiss.
End him, the voice in my head whispered.
“Lilith…,” he murmured. “Your mother and I love—”
I barely remembered moving, but a second later, Lucifer’s head rolled across the ground.
The darkness inside me surged, triumphant.
I stared at what remained of him and felt nothing. No joy, no relief. Not even the bitter satisfaction of achieving something I’d wanted for so long—only a hard, ringing emptiness.
Slowly, I turned.
Rathiel stood in front of me now, his eyes filled with something between horror and heartbreak.
Behind him stood Eliza and Calyx. And behind them, my army.
Familiar faces jumped out at me. Varz, Gorr, Korrak, Rathgor.
Mephisar and Dragon soared overhead. And huddled behind a massive rock, I spotted Vol and Purrgy peeking out at me. They’d all survived the battle.
“Lily?” Rathiel asked. “Are you—”
I turned away from him and stepped toward my father’s headless body. Then I flared my wings and without a word, launched upward, the wind screaming beneath me.
Ahead, the palace loomed, its black spires piercing the hazy sky.
And inside, something called to me.
A crown I needed to claim.