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 wouldalwaysturn 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—reallylooked 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.
