Chapter 22

22

L ilith had never been more terrified in her life. But she also knew that she couldn't freeze. No matter all the warning signs that were going off in her head, telling her to just stop moving because she was about to die. She couldn't listen to that voice.

He had told her to be ready. There were plenty of places in this room for her to hide, but none of them were good enough. At least, not now that she was looking.

Breathing ragged, she tried to still her mind to calmly look at her surroundings. The closet was an obvious choice, but that was the first place anything would look. Plus, there was no way for her to escape if something opened the doors. The creature would have her pinned there.

Underneath the bed was obvious as well. Sure, there was enough room for her to slide underneath, but that was the same problem as the closet. If something found her, it could reach underneath for her and drag her out before she could even attempt to flee.

But the bath.

The bath was right there, and still full of water. If she filled it with enough of the scented bath milks that Envy had left for her, then it would not only be hard to smell her but also hard to see her. Not that she could hold her breath for that long, but if she was careful...

That was it. That was the only thing she could do. A chimera had an impressive skill in scenting its prey, it could track her until the very end of the realms.

Not that she really thought the chimera was coming after her. But there was a hint of darkness in the future that she had seen. A warning that she didn't think was entirely for Envy.

Her power had never done that before. She could lie to herself and say it was just the tea that she had drank which made her a little more powerful.

But everything her master had told her about the tea claimed the opposite. It wasn't supposed to make her more powerful. It was supposed to dull her power so that she could think and heal.

Even among those thoughts was the whisper of a memory that suggested she'd been lied to for years. That tea wasn't meant to make the world so foggy. And if it had been made correctly, or perhaps not laced with whatever the circus master had given her, then she would have been this powerful her entire life.

Dumping four bottles of bath milk into the warm pool, she stirred it quickly while looking over her shoulder. Bubbles rose on the surface of the water, enough to hide her from the creature if it did come in here. Good enough for her. The water was opaque at this point, almost impossible to see inside, and the room was filled with such a cloying scent of perfume that she could hardly breathe.

Ripping off her dress, she left it in a pile in the corner of the room as a distraction and then stepped into the water. No fabric would float freely around her or draw up to the surface of the water.

If there was anything Lilith was good at, other than prophecies, then it was surviving. She knew how to keep herself alive.

So she sank into the water up to her nose, ignoring the headache that burst behind her eyes at the scent of all this perfume, and waited.

She planned to wait in the bath until Envy came to get her, but she didn't have to wait long at all. There was a commotion on the other side of the portal. She saw a tail slide through it, and then one of Envy's tattoos came hurtling into the room. She narrowed her eyes and forced the scream in her throat to stay put.

The tattooed creature looked a bit like a boar, although it had horns on top of its head and flames shooting out of its nostrils. It wasn't the type of creature she wanted to anger, but it didn't even cast a glance toward her. It just shook its massive head and then charged back through the portal.

So the chimera was here after all. And that either meant that Envy was dead—entirely a possibility—or that the chimera had immobilized him and that it was here for her.

A cold chill trailed down her back despite the hot water that she sat in. Did her master want to kill her?

Whispers started inside her head, voices from the countless oracles who had come before her, and all the oracles in other kingdoms who still existed. Handlers were known to kill their oracles before. And it was all right if she died. She didn't need to feel guilty for leaving this realm without telling enough of the futures that she could see.

All oracles were connected. If she died, her power would be reborn in the next oracle. Cut off the head of one hydra, and another grew in its place. Magic like hers didn't just leave this realm, no matter how much people tried to get rid of it.

But she didn't want to die. She didn't want to leave this place, where she had found some modicum of peace.

She sank deeper into the water, soaking her hair so it stuck to her head and wouldn't float when she made her way beneath the bubbles. She waited, even though she knew the creature that next stepped through that portal would try to kill her.

If only she could see the futures of magical creatures as well as people. This would be a lot easier.

A taloned foot appeared. Not thrown through, but stepped with intention, and Lilith knew what was coming for her. She didn't have to wait to see the maned head, nor did she care to see it. She could go her entire life without ever seeing a chimera and be perfectly happy.

Sinking beneath the water, she held her breath and stared up through the bubbles. Soap stung her eyes. She didn't want the creature to see her, but she couldn't stop looking. Not when her lungs began to burn and not when a shadow passed over her head. She could feel her body tensing, but she could see a hundred images of the chimera reflected in the bottom of the bubbles.

It looked down at her, as though it knew where she was. Its head tilted to the side and a clawed hand rose and then fell. Had she done it? Had the perfume confused the creature enough that she might survive this? She thought, for a blissful moment, that she would live.

But then the clawed hand lifted again and sank into the water.

What little air she had left in her lungs exited in a scream that was both meager and quiet. The creature hauled her out of the water with a booming cry that echoed through her ears and made every part of her wince in pain. But then it was the heated slash of claws around her thigh as it used her leg like a whip to throw her across the room.

Lilith struck the wall hard. Her ears were ringing. She couldn't inhale because the wall had thrust all the air from her lungs and she couldn't even think.

She needed to run. She needed to hide again. The mist rose from her skin like a shield, and it was the only thing that stood between her and the snake of the chimera's tail that reared back and snapped its jaws at her.

But the mist was a solid barrier between this creature and her. Again the creature struck, this time with its claws, but the mist held. A shield, unlike anything she'd ever been able to summon to protect herself. Her power kept her safe, even though she knew the oracle wasn't afraid to die.

The oracle in her might know that its life wouldn't end, but it also knew that her life would. So here it was. Protecting her until the bitter end.

Curling up in a ball, she tried to hold on to her legs and make herself even smaller, but she slipped in her own blood. Pouring out of her thigh, it covered the floor. The water only made it appear worse. It seemed she had made her own river of blood, trailing out of her body and pooling beneath the creature that would be her death.

But then there was the worst garbling noise. A bubbling ache of horrid insanity that echoed out of the creature's mouth. She had no idea what would make a chimera sound like that, but it couldn't be anything good.

And then she couldn't hear anything at all. It was just silence. Eerie, strange silence that made her heartbeat seem to be so incredibly loud.

She swallowed hard, lifting her head to see the chimera stagger to the side and then fall limp onto the floor beside her. She stared into glassy eyes and watched as the life fled from its gaze. The great beast was rather sad in its death. She'd always thought creatures like this one were rare and difficult to find. They were beautiful, in their own way. A stunning mix of magic and matter that gave it so much power.

And it was sad to watch it die. It was sad to see all that power leave its body and its jaw became lax with death. But she also knew that it was a relief as well. This creature hadn't taken her to death with it.

The static in her body slowly dissipated and all she could feel was the pain in her leg. Looking down, she was shocked to see that the claws of the creature had cut three furrows through her flesh. The skin was parted, a yellow layer of fat poking out of her skin and muscle revealed that flexed as she tried to straighten her limb.

Hissing out a breath, she froze. Lilith wasn't sure what to do. Only that she had to move. She would not bleed out in this room alone but also... she was in so much pain.

Muffled words distracted her and it took her a few moments to understand that someone was trying to speak to her.

"Lilith," the words broke through her daze. "Lilith, let me see. Call back your mist."

What mist? She didn't have the ability to summon the weather or the entire world would be encapsulated in a storm right now. Her pain would be lightning, followed by the groans of thunder.

But then her mind stilled again, and she felt all the power that had been her shield seep back into her skin. She was weak again. Shivering with pain and confusion and still, she didn't stop the person from touching her.

Hands came down on her wounded leg, on either side of the searing ache. "Lilith, I need you to let me heal you. Do you understand? Don't let your magic attack me."

She did. But there was also a part of her that didn't want him to touch her. She didn't want anyone to touch her right now when she had almost just died and she didn't trust him not to kill her, either.

Then those hands moved to her forehead. He smoothed the wet hair away from her face and forced her to look up at him. To look at the magnificent demon king drenched in blood. His face was paler than normal. Those emerald green eyes saw right through her, and the concern in them made her shake with exhaustion.

"You're hurt too," she whispered.

"Yes. But we're going to heal you first. There are so many that I need to heal in this castle." He stared down at the wounds on her legs and she saw the ache inside of him.

Not from his own wounds, not that she could see them or knew what plagued him. But from the sight of her injury.

Her heart swelled with hope that he cared for her, and she knew she would let him do whatever he wanted. Because this man wasn't going to hurt her. Of all the people that might, it wouldn't be him.

Swallowing hard, she nodded and turned her leg toward him. "Do what you have to do, demon king."

The healing wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't awful. He leaned over and green light bathed her leg, turning into a teal as it sank into her flesh. Slowly, everything knitted back together. Bit by bit, sinew and fat weaved together the way it should be.

Over and over he murmured the spell until she could hardly even see the faintest white line of a scar. And still he continued. As though he thought there shouldn't be any mark left on her, but she could see the toll it was taking on him. Already he was paler than before. Dark shadows were smudged underneath his eyes and his breathing was labored.

Healing her wasn't doing this. He was a stronger man than that. She knew for a fact he had killed and stolen the power of countless healers, perhaps in preparation for something like this happening.

Envy was a wealth of healing power, so what else was he doing while he healed her?

She put her hands over his, interrupting the magic that gave her a little zap of electricity before it retreated into his body.

His eyes opened, glaring at her. "Do not interrupt spells. You don't know what will happen if I stop."

"You aren't just healing me," she murmured. "What else are you doing?"

He seemed to crack in front of her. Like a fissure split throughout his entire body, and then he held it back together again. "You weren't the only one the chimera attacked."

"What healing do you need?"

"They all need healing," he replied. "All of them. Every creature that I have spent countless centuries collecting and then I had to kill one of the few creatures I have yet to collect. I could have taken its life or I could have stitched it into my body like all the others."

"Why didn't you?"

He swallowed, his throat bobbing with the sudden emotion. "It is a slow process. It would have killed you before I finished."

She placed her blood smeared hand on his cheek, tugging him closer so she could look him in the eye. "Let me take care of you, Envy. And the others. You're doing too much."

"I can heal them all."

She knew better than to argue with him. So she sat there in a puddle of her own blood as he placed his palms on the floor and sent a pulse of magic throughout his entire castle. Over and over, the waves of energy struck her first and then through the floor they went. The scars on her legs disappeared, as did an old scar on her hand where she had cut the webbing between her thumb and forefinger.

It took hours. And when he was done, Envy collapsed onto his face in a puddle of water and Lilith's blood.