Soul of Shadows

Lilith

Seething, I slapped Zeella awake, the Sin of Lust still snoring away despite the clock on his bedside table reading that it was eleven in the afternoon. He sat up abruptly, cursing at the sudden wake-up before looking to me, grouchily grumbling, “What do you want?”

“What do I want? How about you explain last night, Sin of Lust?”

Scowling in confusion, he looked around, his mouth dropping open when he realised where he was- in his bedroom, with me at his side- and then turned to me, noting the lack of clothes on the both of us, my dress spread across the floor like a discarded towel. Smirking darkly, his eyes roved over me, purring, “It’s not like we haven’t done it before.”

Rolling my eyes, I slapped his chest, throwing myself from the bed and into his bathroom, hissing, “I’m not taking a tonic you absolute idiot!” I would hate to prove Triton right, not to mention I didn’t want to mother any of Zeella’s idiot children. None of them had turned out particularly powerful, and a child in the middle of the war I was raging was not the right path for me right now… or ever. He didn’t reply while I rifled through his cabinets, knowing he kept tests in there, and just when I was about to snarl at him for where he kept them, his chest pressed against my back, the Sin of Lust reaching up, above my head, toward the cabinets, opening one of them and handing me a small grey box, raising an eyebrow and noting, “A little paranoid, Lilith?” Shoving him aside and storming out, I grabbed my dress and purse, tucking the test into the latter, snarling, “I will be until I know I’m not the mother of one of your future Heirs! How could you be so careless?!”

He snorted at that, pointing at himself and derisively replying, “Me? I’m the careless one? How about you take a damned tonic? Or, better yet, not sleep with me?”

“It’s not my fault! You should keep your hands to yourself! Do you know what Sin you’ve just-”

“Funnily enough, I do know. I know exactly what Sin I just committed, and I can’t help what Sin you made me, Lili darling. It’s in my nature.”

“Well take it OUT of your nature! Better yet, deal with your nature yourself!”

Winking, he said, “I’d much rather put it in your nature.”

Flipping him off, I pulled my dress on, tying the back tightly, my muscles aching. Hell, what had we done last night? My head was pounding, my memories fogged enough that I knew I may never recover them fully, Zeella seeming to be in a similar position. Flinging his door open, I flushed at the people walking by in the hallway, all of them eyeing me as they walked by, a knowing look sparkling in all of their eyes, servants cleaning up piles of broken glass. How many people had left Zeella’s room in just this same way?

I never would have thought I would have a walk of shame, but as I made my way down the hallway, ignoring Zeella’s calls for me to wait, I felt it burning deep within my gut, everyone watching me like they knew what I had done. Zeella’s scent was likely still entangled with mine…

This was stupid. Zeella was right- it wasn’t like we hadn’t slept together before, but if I mothered one of his children, it could upend all of my plans of war.

Cain and Abel would lose it, I imagined. I hadn’t had any children since them.

Turning around the corner, I slid my hands down my dress, smoothing out the wrinkles in the fabric, only to run straight into a woman, my snarl dying down as I looked up, my jaw dropping.

Reannatiel, whose hair was covered in melting snow, looked like she was about to faint, the woman at her side making me feel like I had seen a ghost, and in a way, I had.

Sarah Delance had died thousands of years ago after taking her own life, but here she was, standing, eyes glazed over and ALIVE, before me.

“I- How-” Spluttering for anything I could say, I came up empty-handed, instead rushing back to Zeella’s room, Reanna shouting at me to come back, the Sin of Lust buttoning up his shirt as I burst into the room, purring, “Back for round two, Lilith? Or is it round three?”

Gripping the doorframe to stop me from collapsing on the floor of his bedroom in shock, I gasped, “Sarah is here!”

The effect was instant, Zeella stiffening for a moment, letting the words sink in before slowly turning to face me, blinking as he asked, “What did you say? I must have misheard you.”

“Reannatiel is down the hallway, and she has Sarah with her.”

“My… deceased wife? That Sarah?”

I nodded once, gulping thickly, eyeing the messy bedsheets, Zeella exhaling, his face becoming pale. He sat down heavily, trembling, his emotions undecipherable, they flitted so fast across his face.

The only silver lining was that the adrenaline had shoved my hangover aside, which, clearly, I would need, Reannatiel’s scent filling the hall behind me, and she knocked on the open door, asking, “May I come in, or am I interrupting?”

Zeella remained silent, and I stepped aside, Reannatiel entering the room, dragging Sarah behind her.

The human woman seemed different, like something had shattered in her mind- Worse than it had when she had taken her life, and Zeella’s eyes locked onto her with a vague horror, his scent becoming panic-stricken.

Reannatiel curtseyed, murmuring, “For the record, I did not raise her.”

There was nothing in Sarah’s eyes to say that she remembered Zeella, her face completely blank, like a canvas that hadn’t been painted on yet, but it was here. She hadn’t aged a day since her death, the beauty that had passed down to her daughters still present in her face, although she was much thinner than she had been before her death. Destiny’s allies must have been keeping her alive, although they seemed to have struggled with it.

“Sarah…?” Zeella choked out, slowly rising to his feet, reaching a hand out, taking her hand in his. She didn’t return the grip, her hand simply resting loosely atop his, looking him in the eyes, still no emotion on her face. Glancing to Reannatiel, he quietly asked, “What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know. She was like this when I found her in Ordeallan. She didn’t seem to take in any sort of information.”

Now that she was closer, the adrenaline wearing off, I could smell death hanging around the human who had captured my brother’s heart, her body and mind withering away, shutting down entirely. It would be a matter of weeks before she died, if someone didn’t put an end to her miserable existance before then.

“Whoever raised her failed the Necromancy portion,” I explained, poking Sarah in the shoulder. She swayed like a puppet, completely empty within, and Zeella dropped her hand, the dismay on his face quickly covered by a disgusted sneer, and he spat, “Desterium. Cain wouldn’t have failed such an easy spell.”

The Sin of Lust truly did miss his wife, then, even after all this time. I don’t know why it surprised me somewhat, not when he was drinking himself half to death and still calling me by his wife’s name in bed when he got too drunk. It had been his broken, self-destructive behaviour that had made him so perfect in my plan, Zeella the perfect puppet. Now that his wife had made a brief reappearance, and was clearly on the way back to death, he would be even worse off.

Good. I needed him to be, if the next plans were to work.

I was beginning to doubt that we would win this particular war, and had instead begun planning for the next, deeming it easier to plan in advance than try and recover this trainwreck of a war. The interactions with Gaz’riel Maladur had proven that our efforts had continued, and now that we knew Destiny would have a child with Seth, we could plan far, far ahead, perhaps even further than the Time-Jumping brat could see. Gaz’riel was a Time-Jumper, after all, which, while it gifted her with certain strengths, also bestowed plenty of weaknesses on her. Weaknesses that we could exploit.

Destiny was going to win this battle, but the next one would not be so easy.

“Take her away,” Zeella breathed, his tone one of pleading, his eyes wild with emotion, “See if Grigori can fix the mess Desterium has left behind.”

Reannatiel curtseyed, leading Sarah out, and I swung to Zeella, hissing, “What’s the meaning of this?! Sarah will not agree to our plans if she is brought back!”

“That’s my wife, Lilith! The wife that has been dead for centuries! If she can be brought back, I will ensure it is done!” A look of determination had entered Zeella’s eyes, his hands clenched in fists at his sides, making me wince. I would have to ensure it was impossible. I doubted I had much work to do; Desterium appeared to have screwed up the Necromancy enough that it was more a shell that looked like Sarah Maladur, rather than actually being her, but I would still make certain that there was no way she could return. My plan relied too heavily on Zeella being at my feet to have Sarah return to toss her useless two cents into every conversation or meeting we held, like she had previously. She had forbidden Lazarus from visiting, for Hell’s sake! She wasn’t afraid of anyone in the Manor, and that made her a threat!

Glaring at him, I swung on my heel, storming out of the room.

Zeella was right, Cain would not have ruined such an easy summoning spell, but Desterium, who had failed the spell once before, could have. She would have been desperate to bring her mother back, too, the poor thing. She’d been working to reunite her family for centuries! I had thought Zeella was over Sarah!

Reannatiel was gone, taking Sarah to Grigori, but before I could chase after them, I heard footsteps behind me, Zeella racing up to me, a furious expression on his face. Raising an eyebrow, wondering how he could possibly be angry at me, I waited for him to reach me… Only for him to stride by, snarling at me, “I’m going to visit the creature that raised my wife wrong!”

Snorting, I watched his form disappear down the stairs, heading for the Dark Cell where we had trapped Destiny. I heard his snarl at Triton when the Sin of Gluttony asked why he was so angry, and then a sigh of annoyance.

The foolish Princess of Hell was about to discover just how nice her family was when it was cobbled roughly back together…