Lilith Shadowflame's Arc

Chapter 8 of 21

Lilith did not lay down. She stepped away from the table and looked past Damien at the far wall of the throne hall. The two thrones stood on the dais, hers tall and carved with claws, his lower beside it, both padded in purple. The dragon shifted on the ledge above them. The floor between the dais and the door was bare stone. Worshippers were coming up the mountain again by week's end. They would climb through a cave to reach her. That was the problem she could still solve tonight. "Get up," she said. "I need an altar." Damien sat up on the table. He did not argue. He rubbed the mark on his chest once and swung his legs down. "Where." "Center of the floor. Between the door and the dais. They should have to pass it to reach me." She walked to the middle of the stone and put her boot down where she wanted it. Damien came and stood on the other side of the spot. He looked at her hands, then at the floor, waiting. "I pulled the temple out of the rock the first night," she said. "I can pull this too. But it took less out of me then." She did not look at his chest when she said it. She did not have to. "Use me," he said. "You gave me some. Take some back for this." She thought about it. She did not want to owe him another thing. But the crown had dimmed a shade and had not brightened. She held out her hand. He put his palm against hers. His skin was warm. The shadowflame under his shirt lit again, slow. She pulled. Not blood. Something under it. He grunted and locked his knees. His mark dimmed. Her crown warmed on her head. She turned to the stone and pushed both hands down at the air above it. The floor cracked in a clean square. Black rock rose out of the break, slab by slab, stacking itself into a pillar as tall as her hip. Purple veins ran through it and lit from inside. A horned mark set itself into the front panel without her drawing it. The altar stopped growing. The room went quiet. She let go of his hand. He sat down hard on the edge of the dais and breathed through his nose. "It's done," he said. She walked around it once. It was the right height to kneel at. It was the right color. Anyone coming through the door would see it before they saw her, and then they would see her behind it, higher, on the throne. "You gave that up easy," she said. "I know what you'll do with it." She did not answer. She had a temple now. She also had a man on her floor who could refill her when she asked, and a bond she had not chosen tightening every time she pulled. Something inside her came alive. In that moment looking at Damien she felt drawn to him and knew their bond was for eternity. So she chose to stay with him for that night.