As though the sight of them together offended Mephisar, the massive wyrm slithered over, nearly knocking Eliza off her feet. He coiled around Lily’s legs, placing himself squarely between her and Gorr, who hopped aside to avoid being squished. A low, guttural growl slipped past the wyrm’s quivering lips, onethat Sable echoed. They grumbled at each other, speaking in the guttural, wordless language they shared.
Lily, unfazed, patted Mephisar’s side and soothed him with a quiet shush.
She’d always had an affinity with Hell’s creatures. I’d once chalked it up to instinct, but lately, I’d begun to wonder if something deeper wasn’t at play here. She’d opened Hell’s gate without so much as breaking a sweat—something neither Lucifer nor I could accomplish. The last time I’d opened the gate, it’d taken me two days and a massive blood donation to recuperate my strength. But Lily had simply willed it open.
That was the moment I’d begun to believe that she truly was the prophesied one. I hadn’t wanted to believe it before. But there was no ignoring it now.
“You guys remember this place, huh?” Lily murmured to Mephisar and Gorr.
Gorr’s fur bristled, and he lifted his lips in a displeased sneer. I completely understood his reaction. We’d all fought here. We all carried the unpleasant memories. Returning to the scene wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time.
“I know, I feel it too,” she said.
She pulled her hands back from both beasts and wrapped her arms around herself. I stepped forward, wanting to comfort her, but Mephisar deliberately slid his tail between us.
I stopped just short of his coils. The wyrm didn’t frighten me—very little did. But I also knew better than to force my way between a hellwyrm five times my size and the person they believed was their master.
“What do you feel?” I asked.
Lily didn’t look at me when she answered. “I don’t know how to describe it,” she said, her voice quiet. “It’s like the air is whispering to me, speaking my name. I can’t hear the words, not specifically, but I feel them. I think… I think it’s their voices.”
I didn’t need her to clarify who she meant. We all knew. It was why we were here, after all.
“They’re all here,” she said. “I feel them all.”
I couldn’t imagine how that felt. To feel the souls of your most loyal soldiers whispering to you all at once. From the pained expression on Lily’s face, it must have hurt.
Levi approached Lily from the other side of Mephisar. “They’re waiting for you.”
Levi believed Lucifer had trapped the souls here as punishment for betraying him. It wouldn’t surprise me. I knew from personal experience what Lucifer did to those he deemed traitors. He didn’t kill us—he bled us. Tormented us. Broke us. Our screams were music to his ears.
And now, Lily stood in the center of it all, listening as they whispered to her. Begging her for help, most likely. I couldn’t hear anything, but that didn’t surprise me. I wasn’t Lily.
Levi braved a couple more steps toward Lily, but Mephisar rose between them, his body a wall of scale and muscle. He lifted his massive head and levelled a glowing glare at the angel, then let out a deep growl that clearly saidback off.
Levi—who could shift into snake form himself—chuckled and gave the wyrm’s thick neck a casual pat.
I couldn’t fault Mephisar’s protective instincts. Mine were no better. After ten years apart, I wanted nothing more than to shield Lily from all of this. How I wished I could whisk her away and take her somewhere—anywhere—safe. I wanted her to remain on Earth but Lily had refused. Lucifer had breached the gate once, and Lily knew he would do so again in search of her. Remaining on Earth would simply drag the humans into this war. And she refused to let that happen. In her eyes, it was her job to protect Earth from her father, to keep him from harming a single human.
“Alright,” Lily said, nudging Mephisar’s side. “Move, you brute.”
Mephisar refused. Instead, the massive wyrm curled tighter around her in open protest. If he were any other hellwyrm, I might have worried about him suffocating her, but Mephisar and Lily had been through a great deal together. He would rather die than harm her. And when he laid his massive head against hers, I almost laughed. It was the closest thing to a draconic snuggle I’d ever seen.
“Okay, Mr. Clingy,” Lily murmured before giving his scaled side what she called ascritch. “Give me some space, please. I have work to do.”
With some coaxing and a bit of nudging, she finally managed to scoot him aside—though not without a disgruntled grumble. Gorr trotted away too, seating himself next to Calyx—who blinked, clearly surprised by the ravager’s choice.
Lily separated from the group and ventured deeper into the field.
I followed at a distance, close enough to intervene if needed but far enough to give her space. She didn’t need me hovering over her every step.
She stopped at the edge of the chasm where Lucifer had fractured the ground so deeply it had split from the rest of the landmass. The rift was narrower than I remembered, though it still yawned wide enough to expose the gurgling magma below.
The memory of Lucifer forcing her to her knees on the other side of the chasm as he made her watch him kill her soldiers one-by-one surfaced. I almost hadn’t reached her in time to save her, and that knowledge would haunt me the rest of my eternal life.
Lily crouched and brushed her fingers across the blackened ground.
“Have you ever seen Lucifer create hellspawn?” I asked Levi.
