Lilith's Arc

Chapter 5 of 40

Lilith stared at the glowing page. Her son's first swim was gone. She could finish the second rite, but her chest still ached with the empty space. The dragon settled its coils in the flooded hall. Silver moons on its wings caught the dim light. She turned each page and read the deeper words aloud. Then she reached the last line, and the script simply stopped. "There is more," she said. "A third rite, and a fourth. How many memories will you take before this is done?" The dragon lifted its horned head. "For each rite that remains, one beloved memory. That is the price." "Which ones?" Lilith pressed her hand to the shelf. Water curled through the broken wood. "Tell me which memories, so I can choose what to give." "I do not name them," the dragon said. "You reach in blind. What surfaces, you lose." That was the trap. She could not plan. She could not guard the moments she needed most. Any lesson might steal her daughter's first word or her husband's face on their wedding day. She would finish the spell and forget the people it was meant to save. Lilith swam back toward the broken shelves. Selene watched from the dark, her edges blurred against the water, the pixie still glowing on her chest. "There is no way to choose," Lilith said. "It takes what it wants." "There is one way," Selene said. "You need not reach into your own memories at all. Bring the dragon a memory that is not yours to lose." She pointed past the shelves, where a pale shape moved through the flooded hall. A unicorn stood in the deep water, its horn shining, its mane drifting like weed. "Its memories hold moonlight. The dragon craves them. One from the creature buys a rite, and you keep your own." Lilith looked at the unicorn. It was calm and unafraid. It had guided lost swimmers through these halls for centuries. To take a memory from it would be another theft, another creature harmed for her spell. She had already given her pixie away. Her hands shook. She swam to the unicorn and pressed her palm to its cheek. "Forgive me," she said. She sang, low and steady, her goddess side holding the thread while her siren voice pulled. A silver light rose from the unicorn's eyes. The creature stumbled, then went still, blinking as if it had misplaced something. Lilith carried the light to the dragon. It breathed the memory in. Its chest glowed, then dimmed. "The third rite opens," it said. The next page brightened under her hands. Her own memories were safe. But the unicorn drifted away confused, lighter by one loss she had caused. Selene watched without softness. "Now you understand," she said. "The price never stops. It only changes whose heart pays it." Lilith read on. She had bought the next rite. She had not bought back her conscience.