Lilith Shadowflame's Arc

Chapter 6 of 21

The first worshippers reached the top of the stairs and stopped in the doorway. Six of them. A woman with dirt on her sleeves. A boy who could not stop looking at the dragon on the ledge. Four others behind. They had climbed on the strength of a name a succubus had whispered into their doorways, and now they stood in a hall of purple stone and did not know where to put their hands. Damien lifted the crown from the arm of the throne. He held it at chest height so they could see it. He looked once at Lilith and then at the villagers. "Lilith Shadowflame," he said. Loud enough this time. He set the crown on her head. The spikes settled into the same warm places they had left. The purple in the throne's crystals brightened. Damien stepped down off the dais and knelt on the stone in front of the six of them, back to Lilith, so they saw the shape of it. They knelt. All six. The boy last, still watching the dragon. Lilith felt the name move through the room. She had a crown, a follower on his knees, and six mouths that had said her name on the climb up. It was not enough. They could leave this hall and forget by supper. She needed a mark that stayed on them. She stood. "Follow." She led them off the dais and down the short stair behind the thrones into the lower chamber. Purple water ran from a basin in the wall and pooled in a stone bowl in the floor. Crystals in the walls pulsed slow. The dragon padded after them and settled on the arch above the doorway. "Drink," she said. "One mouthful. Then you belong to me." The woman with the dirty sleeves went first. She knelt at the bowl, cupped her hands, and drank. She gasped once and pressed a hand to her chest. Lilith stepped closer. Through the thin cloth of the woman's shirt, a black shape was forming on the skin above her heart. A curl of shadowflame, the same shape as the spikes on Lilith's crown. It settled into the skin like an old scar. The woman looked up. Her eyes were wet and steady. "Goddess." The others drank. Each one gasped. Each one wore the mark under their shirt when they stood. The boy showed his openly, chin high. Lilith turned to Damien. He had followed and stood at the doorway, hand at his own chest. He had not drunk. His hand was flat over the place where the mark would go. "You already swore," she said. "You don't need the water." "I want it." She watched his face. Six marked worshippers behind her. A mountain of villages below with a succubus still walking through them. And in front of her, the follower who had given her name away, asking for a brand. "Then drink," she said. "And bring the next ones to the pool."