Lilith Shadowflame's Arc

Chapter 16 of 21

Damien stiffened against her mouth. Lilith felt his pulse jump under her teeth, then slow. She pulled back. A thin line of her own dark power hung between her lip and his throat before it sank into him. The worshippers were already flooding the new hall behind them. She had no words prepared. No rite written. She had a bite, and a follower marked from a bite before, and now a second bite that had done something bigger. She wiped her mouth with her thumb. Damien touched his neck. The puncture was already closing. "Walk," she said. "Head up. If they see you falter, they'll think I failed." "You didn't fail." He said it plainly. His color was coming back faster than it should. She led him up the center aisle. The obsidian altar stood ahead under the falling column of purple fire. The offering bowl sat on it, cup and pomegranates and dark cakes she had carried out herself. The crowd went quiet in rows as she passed. She counted heads without meaning to. Over a hundred now. She stopped at the altar and turned to face them. Damien stopped one step behind her, at her right. She had nothing prepared. So she used what had just happened. "You came for a coronation," she said. Her voice carried up the arches. "You saw the first rite of it on the threshold. I marked my chosen with my own power. I gave him what I have never given. I gave him time without end." A sound moved through the hall. Not a cheer. Something lower. Damien lifted his chin. The mark on his chest showed dark through his shirt. "This is the pattern," she said. "He kneels first. Then you." Damien knelt at the altar without being told. He lifted the cup from the bowl and held it up to her. She took it. She drank. She handed it back. He drank after her. The nearest worshippers watched every motion the way people watch a lock being opened. She set her palm on his head. "Rise." He rose. He turned to face the hall beside her, not behind her. She noted it and did not correct it. "Come forward," she said to the crowd. "One row at a time. Kneel at the altar. He will show you." The first row came. Damien guided their hands to the bowl. Lilith stood over the altar and let them see her. The rite she had invented in a panic was already becoming a thing they would repeat. Her shadow dragon slid down from the rafters and coiled at the altar's base. It bared its teeth at the front row, then settled. She had bought her coronation with a secret she had meant to keep. Damien stood at her side, stronger than before, and closer to level than any follower should be.