Lilith Shadowflame's Arc

Chapter 10 of 21

The six villagers filed out at dusk. Lilith watched them go down the path and knew six was not enough. The altar had glowed under their hands, but the hall around them had felt empty. A goddess crowned before six looked like a woman crowned before six. She needed the mountain crowded. She turned to Damien on the dais step. "The succubus I sent down. She's been in the villages for weeks. Where are the rest?" "Word travels slow." "Word travels as fast as fear." She stood. Her crown was warm but not bright. "Six climbed. Hundreds heard my name. Something is holding them at the bottom." She crossed to the basin and pulled the collared succubus to her through the bond. The air darkened at the doorway. The succubus stepped out of it, horns first, bare shoulders catching candlelight, the silver collar snug at her throat. "You called," the succubus said. "Six came. Why not sixty." The succubus tilted her head. "They're afraid of the climb. They hear the mark is permanent. They want to see one of their own come back down first and speak." Lilith looked at the six chest-marks receding down the path in her mind. None of them would come back tonight. None had been told to. "Then give them one," she said. She turned to Damien. "Go down with her. Take one of the marked with you if you can catch him on the path. Stand in the square. Show them your mark. Say my name. Bring the next wave up before the moon is full." Damien's jaw set. "You want me off the mountain." "I want you useful off it." She stepped close and put two fingers on the shadowflame at his chest. Heat moved under her hand. "I can pull from this wherever you stand. Distance doesn't cut it." He held still under her touch. "And if they won't come." "They'll come for you. You're the one who feeds me. They saw it." He looked at the succubus. She smiled at him with no warmth. He looked back at Lilith. "Alright," he said. He left with the succubus an hour later. Lilith stood at the cave mouth and watched two shapes go down the switchbacks until the dark took them. The dragon settled on its ledge above the empty second throne and made a low sound she chose to read as agreement. She went back inside. The altar's purple veins pulsed once when she passed. She sat on her throne alone and pressed her palm to the armrest where her crown had once rested during the first ceremony. The hall was quiet. Her conduit was gone. Her power source was walking down a mountain in the dark with a bound thing beside him. She had solved the problem of the empty temple by sending away the one person who filled it. She waited to feel him at the edge of the bond, and felt him grow fainter with every step.