Chapter 9
“This isn’t what I expected when you said you were taking me to the Composition Room,” I said as I stared from the wide doorway.
A massive chamber soared three stories with light coming in from a glass ceiling, leaving me feeling intimidated.
There wasn’t any furniture, books, or shelves.
I would have expected instruments of some sort, perhaps places to sit, and scrolls paired with bottles of ink for jotting down notes.
I hadn’t attempted mastering any musical instruments while I was working under Cindy, but I did like to watch YouTube videos of all sorts of random things back when I had a phone, and lots of free time.
My favorite videos had shown a wild-haired composer with half-closed eyes swaying to some haunting tune. Some worked off music sheets, some knew their songs by memory.
This, though, was nothing like anything I’d seen on even the strangest YouTube video. A massive ball of light swirled in the center of the giant room. Within it images flickered in and out and I caught glimpses of various scenes.
A flower blooming.
A baby laughing.
A rain shower on a sunny horizon.
Stepping closer to it, I waited for Sam to explain this to me. Tilting my head at him, I noted how the golden light reflected off of his perfect skin. “Is this how angels create music?”
His violet irises glanced from me to the ball of light.
“It’s called a Song Sphere. Angels can capture memories, and not just of people, but of places and events.
See this?” He waved his hand and a scene tumbled to the forefront of the sphere, displaying a surge of childlike white-winged angels laughing and playing.
“This was when Azra and I were just boys,” he said with a reminiscent smile.
“It’s one of my best memories before…” he trailed off and cleared his throat, waving his hand again to dismiss the scene.
The wind of the magic inside the sphere caught at my dress, licking it around my thighs as I listened to the fading laughter of innocence lost.
There was a story there, but I didn’t press him to tell me about his past. I imagined he hadn’t dreamed of growing up to become one of Purgatory’s Torturers. Something dark must have put him on that particular path.
“Am I supposed to be hearing anything?” I asked, and Sam seemed grateful for the change of topic.
“Only when you step inside while the magic is contained. The song isn’t fully composed yet, so it’s typically finding the right patterns with the other memories until ready to be compressed into a seed.”
“Seed?” I stared at him. “What’s with you guys and your seeds?”
Angels were super weird.
He chuckled. “Seeds are the start of something new. Everything comes from a seed. An idea. A life. Especially a song.” He held out his hand. “Come with me. I’ll show you what I mean.”
The massive sphere was more than a little intimidating, but I trusted Sam.
Placing my fingers over his, he gave me a comforting squeeze before pulling me into the golden aura.
A sense of warmth swept over my skin like a kiss of the sun. Peace and joy filled me up from the inside as an incredible cascade of melodies and voices hit my ears.
Male voices rang out, some were the twins but others came from their memories.
And then there was my own, one that came from our time together in Purgatory.
I took a step toward the sound, curious about that part of my life that I couldn’t remember.
Well, not my life, technically, since I had been between lives at that moment, but it was where I had first met the twins and learned to love them.
It’s also where they’d come to love me and I wanted to know that time that I had lost with them again.
The world around me transformed into the meadow where I’d been lost in Purgatory. The golden light dimmed and Sam’s hand slipped away from mine.
“Sam?” I asked, whirling around only to find that I was alone.
And I wasn’t in the Composition Room anymore, at least, not as far as I could tell.
A dark sky glittered around me and a long meadow spanned out from my naked feet.
I curled my toes into the soft grass, the sensation triggering an old memory.
Except this wasn’t a place where I’d been happy. This was where I’d been trapped… alone… miserable.
The old sensations that had been a part of my soul locked away washed over me and a terrible sadness twisted my heart. I grabbed my chest and crumpled to my knees.
“Alone,” I whispered.
My mates were all gone.
They couldn’t sense me and they thought I was dead.
Nobody was going to save me.
I release a sound of my sorrow, but it came out as a melancholy note. Throwing my head back, I released the sound again.
And it became a song of death, of loss, and of pain.
Dark crags formed all around me as the song grew. I would bring this world down if I had to. Nothing deserved to exist, because nothing had a purpose anymore.
Not if I was alone.
Not if I couldn’t save anyone or spare them from pain.
Instead I’d done the opposite. I’d gone and died after building permanent bonds with mates who had counted on me.
I had been the Champion of Calamity, and now chaos would span across the realms and bring about destruction and death. A thousand-year tradition of putting Calamity back in its place would be broken all because of me.
Two bright lights appeared at the edges of my meadow.
Winged males with dark hair and white wings.
Azrael. Samael.
My heart knew who they were. This was how we’d met, but I had been in such a place of sorrow and loss that they had come to save me.
They had been drawn to my need for punishment and confession, and instead they had helped me find peace and a second chance to make things right.
“Lilith!” Sam shouted, his memory conflicting with present-day as my angel mate rushed through the sphere to pull me from my dark past. “Follow my voice!”
Darkness cracked through the golden light, breaking the peaceful serenity that Sam had created.
I was destroying his beautiful song, corrupting it from within by retrieving my most powerful memories.
I was an immortal with access to parts of my soul no one should ever remember.
Tears streamed down my face as he dragged me out, the sphere cracking as my mournful song mixed with the melody within the magical confines.
“Almost there!” Sam shouted, pulling me through the golden barrier until everything abruptly went deathly silent.
I heaved a massive breath as if I’d been underwater. Coughing and sputtering, I spread my fingers across the ground and gulped in delicious air.
“Breathe, Lilith. Just breathe,” Sam instructed as my tears splashed onto the floor.
He draped his warm wings over me, not seeming to care when my demon’s talon snagged him and broke one of his feathers.
I sobbed when he drew me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me. “I have you,” he said, his steady voice the rock that I needed. “You’re not alone.”
You’re not alone.
It was the same thing he’d said to me the first time we’d met. He’d known even then that we were destined to be together. As a Champion of Calamity, I chose the mates that my soul needed in order to be complete and to survive against the kind of chaos that Calamity could inflict.
It went both ways. I chose mates who needed me, too.
But what about my own chaos and suffering? I needed the twins to absolve the unforgivable sins I had committed.
I’d murdered my own mother, an angel, and then I had died when my mates needed me most.
That’s why I had brought Azrael and Samael into my life. That’s why they had responded to my mournful song when I had locked myself away in Purgatory, determined to find a way to make it all end forever.
“I don’t… want to remember any more of it,” I said between sobs as I clutched onto Sam and cried against him. “Don’t take me back there, Sam, Don’t let me go there again.”
“Shh,” he said as he stroked my hair. “You don’t have to, beloved. I’m sorry. I should have known what the sphere would do to you. I won’t make you go into it again.”
Sniffling, I focused on his woodsy scent with a hint of vanilla.
Calming.
Safe.
Secure.
I knew that this was how he had grounded me before when my spirit had been broken and my soul lost. I couldn’t imagine the burden it must have been to help me rebuild my heart.
And then to let me go.
Blinking up at him, I swiped away the tears. “You really are an angel.” He’d given me up. I couldn’t say that any of my other mates would have had the strength to willingly do that, even if it was the right thing to do.
The corner of his mouth lifted and he was going to reply when I stopped him with a passionate kiss.
His grip on me tightened, but he didn’t pull away. Instead he deepened the kiss and breathed me in as if I was life itself.
“Lilith,” he said, his voice husky and harsh as he kissed me again. “We can’t.”
I was so tired of hearing what I could and couldn’t do. “We can,” I assured him, my fingers turning into Demonspawn claws as I ripped away the barrier of his clothing.
By sheer force of will, I summoned a chair made of iron and shoved him onto it. Golden chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, pinning him in place.
His need was something he was very good at hiding, but I’d heard his song.
“Don’t,” he warned me, but his protest was weak.
Azrael was the tormenter, but Sam was the tormented. They made the perfect team for the work that they performed.
Within the sphere had been more than just my suffering. He hid away his own hopes and dreams behind a curtain, but the sorrow of losing me had been great enough to make him retreat.
The Song Sphere had cracked and its melody still leaked out, now off-tune with the unsavory darkness that had corrupted it.
Sam’s memory washed over me that bridged the gap that I’d been missing. After I had left Purgatory to be reborn, the other angels trapped in Purgatory had escaped through the breach my departure had created.
Dark-winged angels that Azrael and Samael had been trying to save. Their work was delicate and difficult for me to understand. There was a strange sort of power in confession, and even lost angels could be restored with the proper guidance.
Yet they had chosen escape and the lure of Lucifer’s promises. Samael knew the cost of my rebirth would be the loss of so many of his kind. They’d flee from him and go to Cole’s brother. They’d become enemies, and perhaps even need to be killed forever.
The death of an immortal held a different kind of weight to an angel. Perhaps one of the few unforgivable sins that made someone like Lucifer truly lost.
“You were worth it,” Sam assured me as the image fluttered around us with broken melancholy notes. Slipping out of my dress, I revealed my body to him.
He drank in the sight of me. I gave him a moment to take his fill before I straddled him.
He kissed my face, then my neck, then grabbed me by my hips to hoist me into place. “You were worth every sacrifice.” He closed his eyes. “You’re worth the risk.”
He shoved me down and I screamed.