Page 166 of Fallen Nocturne

Mal’s hollow eyes settle on Lilith, and his smile widens. “Oh, how delightful.”

Lilith goes white. The color drains from her stolen face so completely she looks like a corpse. I see pure, undiluted terror in her eyes.

“No,” she whispers. “No, you can’t—”

Lilith tries to run.

It’s pathetic to watch. This creature who’s tormented us for millennia, scrambling backward like a frightened child. She makes it three steps before a small figure materializes in front of her.

Blight.

The child-god with silver hair and lilac eyes, the one who looks like Rhianelle did as a little girl. Blight tilts her head, and her smile is all innocence and cruelty.

“Going somewhere?” Blight asks sweetly.

Lilith veers away, her movements frantic now. She runs blindly across the broken throne room, only to collide with the old witch from Astefar.

Lilith stares at the Un and laughs. The sound is high and incredulous.

“This?” She turns to Rhianelle. “You summoned a grandmother? You called upon the gods of Astefar and they sent you an old crone?”

She gestures at Elli with open contempt.

“A bent old woman who can barely stand on her own? I expected something fearsome, little queen. Something worthy of the power you claim to hold.”

She hurls a bolt of shadow at Elli’s chest.

It dissolves on contact. The darkness simply ceases to exist, as though it has aged a thousand years between Lilith’s hand and Elli’s skin.

Lilith’s smile falters.

She attacks again, harder. A wall of black fire races across the floor. Elli does not move. The flames reach her bare feet, flicker, and die. Ash drifts where fire once burned.

The enchantress lunges for Elli with shadow-clawed hands.

Her attack never lands. The moment Lilith’s fingers come within an inch of Elli’s skin, they begin to wither. The darkness peels from them like dead bark from a rotting tree. Lilith snatches her hand back with a hiss. Her fingers tremble, the skin loose and spotted before it slowly tightens back to normal.

She stares at her hand. Then at Elli. “What are you?”

The old woman smiles.

Every child raised in the old world knows her name. An old story whispered beside mortal hearths. My mother used to tell it. How Thor challenged Elli to an arm wrestle, laughing because she was old and frail. He stopped laughing when she forced his fist to the table. I was seven when I asked my mother why the god of thunder lost.

She said strength has an end, but time does not.

Thor, mighty enough to shake the heavens, learned his lesson. I have a feeling Lilith is about to learn it too.

Elli simply looks at Lilith with those ancient, knowing eyes and reaches out one gnarled finger. She touches Morgaine’s face. Time accelerates and the enchantress begins to age. Smooth skin wrinkles, darkens. Hair turns gray, then white. Decades pass in heartbeats.

Lilith screams as Elli’s touch continues its work, aging the mistress’s body toward dust and death.

“No!” she shrieks. “Not this! Anything but this!”

Lilith has always been obsessed with youth, beauty, and perfection. She rips herself free in a rush of black smoke and shadow, abandoning Morgaine’s body to save herself.

Morgaine collapses the instant Lilith tears free. The Fae King abandons his fight with Rainer and scrambles toward Morgaine as her knees give way. He catches her before she strikes the floor and pulls her against his chest.

Morgaine stares at her aged hands.