

### The Last Savior · Book One

### R. Moses

### A Shadow of Lilies

### By R. Moses

### Smashwords Edition

### All rights reserved. Copyright © 2012 by R. Moses

### This is a work of fiction, and all names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Prologue

The ancient demon watched her through the glass. He had forgotten how exquisite she was.

And how urgent his _need_ of her was.

He pressed his long fingers against the glass. He would collect her soon.

_Very_ soon.
One

Abira held her tears back because of stubborn pride. He was late again. She did not even know if he would come home tonight.

She finally sat up, wiping off mascara that had been ruined when the tears made their escape. Tonight, she had thought, they could work things out from their fight. Her anger lashed out and around the empty room. Finding nowhere to settle, it slid back into her heart.

Abira heard a click, and their bedroom door eased open. He slipped into the room, stinking of too much cologne and far too much wine.

She kept her back stiff to him and stared out of the floor-length windows. Rain had been lashing against the glass for hours now. The dark glory of the city was lost between the blur of her tears and the fury of nature.

Matt undressed as if everything was fine, as if he did not notice her rigid backbone, her silence, and her carefully cultivated brooding air. She turned and locked her dark eyes on his lighter ones.

She asked, "Where were you?"

Matt shrugged and said, "The gallery opening ran later than the owner thought. She really had to drag this one out. Some billionaire collector was perusing, and she needed to make a sale."

He slid under the silken sheets of their bed, the fumes from his breath assaulting her nostrils. She had heard a dozen variations of his excuses for being out so late. Either he claimed he was at his art studio downtown, a new show opening, or chasing his muse.

All were veiled lies that he used to cover his meetings with his real muse.

She wondered why he even stayed with her, and why she stayed with him. Her heart cramped and pounded at the thought of his leaving her alone in this steel jungle.

She had nowhere else to go.

She turned back to admire the drumming rain, already defeated. With Matt, you could never quite get your hands on the slippery semblance of truth but she would perform the fruitless labor to ease her own heart. She had to at least try to defend herself against his constant assault of lies.

Abira said casually, "So this gallery opening was so fascinating that six hours flew by? Six hours in which you did not bother to contact me?"

Matt feigned a look of pain when she glanced back to gauge his reaction. "I'm sorry. But if you expect me to keep you in this luxury, I have to be seen at all these functions. The art world would leave me behind if I didn't give my all." He hiccuped low under his smugness and slid closer to her.

Abira whipped her head around to glare at him. No man _kept_ her.

She arched a thin eyebrow and tried to stay calm. "I see. Yet you insist I not attend any of these important gallery openings. I am forever told that they are too dull."

"They are very dull. The wine is mediocre and the company pretentious."

Abira ground her toes into the lush carpet and willed her tone to be neutral. She said, "You went to Anthony's show, right?"

"Yes. His new art is riveting. Really ahead of the curve."

"You were there for six whole hours?"

"Yes. Call Anthony if you don't believe me." The slightest petulance crept into his tone.

"I actually stopped by to see his new paintings. I was there for over an hour. Can't say that I saw you."

Silence greeted her. Matt had gone very still, his eyes wide. He shivered, and made a bleary attempt to turn the tables on her. He snapped, "You don't trust me. You were spying on me!"

"I was going to surprise you. I wanted to say I was sorry." Her voice finally caught in her thickening throat. "Where _were_ you?"

He lowered his eyes and said nothing. He rolled away after a moment, clinging to the edge of their bed with limp fingers.

Abira waited with as much patience as she could muster for him to say something, her heart pounding a dull tattoo to his unspoken betrayal. She let her watering eyes admire the lean beauty of him.

She wondered if she dared to tell him that idle gossip had brought his lover's name to her waiting ears. Or if she dared to tell him that the distance between them was becoming a gulf that she could not cross.

When had he become such a vain shadow of a man?

She saw a glimmer of moisture on his pillow. Pity rose up in her, and she turned back towards the windows and slipped down to the floor, resigning herself to spending another night in the guest room.

Her heart stopped when she saw who was looking at her.

Or, _what_ was looking at her.

A man stood on the narrow ledge of their window, rain plastering his jet black hair to his pale face. His eyes sought hers, and she was unable to resist when their gazes locked.

He grinned with wicked mirth and winked at her.

She continued to stare into his obsidian eyes, unable to comprehend how somebody could be out there when they lived on the fifty second floor. No fire escape or balcony marred their breathtaking view of the city. There was no way to just stand out there without rope or scaffolding.

Yet there he stood, without the slightest aid.

The man stared at her for an eternity as she stood, petrified. He began to push against the glass with his giant hands, fingers splayed like dead spiders against the window.

Abira snapped out of her numb horror long enough to scramble back in a panic. She turned to grab Matt, her anger with him forgotten in sheer animal fear. She found her voice as she pulled on his arm. She hissed, "Get out, get out, we have got to get out before he breaks the glass!"

She shoved hard against Matt where he lay in his drunken stupor. He glanced at the window behind her, confusion etched on his face. He asked, "What are you talking about? Who is breaking what?"

His bleary eyes roved over the window and made no sign of recognition. Abira turned back as fear unfurled delicate petals throughout her shaking body. She stopped and gaped at what she saw, too incredulous to scream.

The dark haired man was now standing in their room, dripping rain on the carpet. He wore a tailored black suit. His eyes and hair were the same midnight ebony, and his teeth flashed a brilliant white as he smiled at Abira and bowed to her.

Behind him, the glass remained intact, as if he had pushed his way through solid matter.

He was the most graceful and frightening thing she had ever seen in her life. As she continued to study him, she thought she might be having a breakdown. He was just too big—at least seven feet tall—and just too _there_ , where he should not be.

Was this hallucination the result of too much wine and heartbreak?

Matt's high scream told her that he now saw the same thing. She turned to him as he scrambled out of bed, clutching the sheets to his bare chest. His eyes were round, his mouth making a primal sound of base terror. His bloodshot gaze swerved to meet her somewhat calmer one.

He mouthed, "What. Is. That."

Abira shook her head and turned back to the intruder, who looked confused. Abira heard a gasping fumble at the door behind her, and then a slam.

Matt had left her all alone to deal with this.

"What a coward." The man grinned at her again, his eyes lighting up as he fully took her in. "I would have taken you and fled. You are much too delectable to leave behind." His voice was cultured refinement, vaguely antiquarian, the sort of voice that only generations of money and power leave behind.

He took a towering step toward her, still dripping rainwater. Heat spread off of him in waves, caressing her cold skin. Tendrils of his heat wriggled tender fingers up her thighs. Serenity began to ease into her with a shivery-ticklish sensation. It was a serenity that was not her own, but his. She started to feel a pleasant sense of detachment from this insane moment.

What of it if a man stepped through glass to loom over her?

Abira shook her head, confounded. She regarded him for a long moment as her knees stopped shaking, and the semblance of calm settled her racing heart. They stared at each other as Abira tried to find a logical explanation for all of this.

She pushed back against the unwelcome serenity. It whispered that she need not think for herself, that all would be well. He had not hurt her yet, but that meant nothing. He could still be wanting to harm her. It felt as if he was using some strange influence to lure her with kindness.

And only the most clever of predators lured.

She pulled her thoughts back to the questions she wanted to ask. They would not come back to her at first, but even as his warmth continued to caress her, she gathered her iron will and shoved his heat away. She asked, "How did you get in here? Who are you?"

The giant man stopped, still and hard as a marble statue. Surprise seemed to flit across his face. "You do not know me, Empress? I am your First Prince. Is this some new game you would play?"

Her jaw dropped. Of all the unbelievable things that could come from between those sculpted lips, that answer was beyond her reasoning. She tried to ask again, but instead closed her mouth and feebly attempted to regain a bit of composure. Then she shook her head, speechless.

She was beginning to think that she was really was having a breakdown. No nightmare could be so vivid.

The man continued his silent appraisal, his dark eyes moving over her flushed face, her nightie, her long hair. There was something feral and wanton in his gaze, under the polished manners.

Abira stood her ground and stared back, determined not to flee this mystery nor bow before his prying eyes. Then the huge man began to speak in a guttural language, sweeping his hands around the room, his tone pleading for understanding.

Abira shook her head and shrugged. "I don't understand what you are saying. I don't speak that language."

The giant man took a quick step over to her and lifted his left hand. An almost invisible iridescence trailed from his fingers and drifted over to her. She jumped back from his unwelcome approach too late. The strange shivering, tickling sensation that she had experienced just a moment ago enveloped her again, working through her with sensuous ease as the iridescence penetrated her skin.

The man spoke again, sans the dramatic hand flailing. "Can you understand me now?"

Abira nodded, surprised. She heard the deep guttural language underneath the words, but nonetheless she could comprehend them. She responded, "I can. How is that possible?"

Abira clamped her mouth shut when she heard her own voice. That odd language, so reminiscent of crumbling churches gone long to dust, was escaping her own throat. She trembled, feeling violated. This man had used his strange influence to penetrate her twice now, with effects she did not understand.

Rage began to tickle at the corners of her spirit.

The man's disappointment at her ignorance registered with a slow frown. "I cannot take the risk," he murmured to himself. He reached out and slid a long finger down her face, tilting her chin up, his eyes probing hers. "I must bring you with me."

Abira jerked away from his blazing skin. She was always cold, and his warmth shot through her with too much force. She said, "You aren't taking me anywhere."

The man chuckled deep in his throat. "And how do you propose to stop me?"

Before she could respond, his arms shot out and he threw her over his massive shoulder. Her abductor turned with lightning speed, and ran straight through the window as if it was not there. When they passed through the glass, she felt no resistance.

They began to fall.

She screamed with no sound as the wind snatched her voice away. They fell fifty two stories, her hair whipping behind, her heart stopping—

Her abductor's feet slammed into the slick pavement, and he ran so fast that they were out of the rain in a blink, the dreary streets blurring past her terrified gaze. Abira squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think, trying to understand as he ran on. She had never believed the old legends her Nana had told her, but—

Either she was having a bizarre nightmare, a breakdown, or this man was not human.

Abira's curiosity got the better of her as they flew through the night, on and on through shadows and cold. She willed herself to face her fate, and opened her eyes. She had to know where they were going so she could find her way back to safety.

Hard as she tried, she could not suppress her mounting terror so that she could focus. Grey nothings flowed past, some almost resembling people or streets. The grey lightened to white as Abira blinked hard against the creeping mists that surrounded everything they flew past.

He was taking her against her will through a ghost of a place, a hint of a dimension. She risked a look behind her and saw nothing but roiling mists.

There was no trail back to follow.

The abductor slowed down and set her on her feet with gentle care. She clutched his arm in spite of herself. Disorientation made her head swim, made her mind thick with woolen thoughts.

As her head cleared, Abira felt a scream building up in the back of her throat. She glanced up and saw a purplish sky, bruised as if with old wounds. A dim sun was just rising from the horizon to cast a shadow on the strange mist.

The mist slowly parted to reveal a looming darkness just ahead, the outlines suggesting a gate. The mist teased her with this mysterious glimpse, then began to fold back in on itself. It chuckled at her befuddlement while whispering to her of cloaked mysteries, mocking her ignorance in the face of dark miracles.

Abira kept her eyes on the gate, trying to ignore the invading mist. She made a brave attempt to ask a simple question, and her throat seized up. She worked some saliva around and tried again. She whispered, "Where are we?"

She clamped her mouth shut before a scream could escape on her query's tail.

She felt the smooth sliding of his muscles as her abductor cocked his head. "Do you truly not know?"

Abira shook her head, wondering how she was going to convince this giant that she was not an empress. She stood there, waiting for him to explain.

She let go of him as soon as her disorientation cleared, her hands limp by her nightie. The mist swirled back to reveal a gargantuan gate before closing in on itself again.

He did not respond, but instead continued to stare at her. She barely noticed, however, as all of her attention was fixed on the architecture ahead. The gate was obscene in scale, crowded with iron-wrought figures of serpents and apples. Exquisite detail was hinted at before the mist settled in once again. The silence of the mist was once more penetrated by voices. They built back up again, sending subtle jabs at her psyche, gibbering, mumbling, laughing at her confusion—

She looked down at her bare feet to spy a rough rock path. So medieval, like the gate to a fairy land...

The man startled her from her observations with a slow sigh. He said, "If you are as ignorant as you claim, I may have made an error. We are at my home, which is now your home. The empire of Hades. Most likely referred to as Hell in your realm. My name is Baphomet."

His voice began to fade away as she crumbled to the stone ground. The last thing she felt was his flaming touch as he caught her. Soft, beautiful darkness wrapped around her inert frame.

She drifted with the cruel mists, laughing right along with them.

Two

Abira had a soft pillow pressed against her cheek. Silken sheets rustled as she shifted her position. She felt a gentle swaying. Warm light pressed against her eyelids, willing her to open them. She lay there for a moment, pleasantly confounded. She realized dreamily that she was not in her own bed.

Her bed at home did not swing.

She blinked her eyes open to behold a gorgeous ceiling. The dome was painted with birds entwined with lush fruits. Her eyes traveled downward.

Horror jolted her upright.

A feeling of violent swaying increased her fear as she stared at the golden bars that marched around her in perfect unison. Each bar glinted in smooth triumph at her imprisonment.

She was locked in a gilded cage. She sat there, frozen in disbelief, too rigid from shock to understand the absolute madness of this predicament.

When the cage stopped moving, Abira took a deep, steadying breath and gathered herself. First she had to look around. Crawling on her belly to minimize the swaying, she reached the edge and peeked over to see a patterned carpet twenty feet below. She wriggled back, turning around with a careful repositioning of her lower body, searching below for any clue that could make sense of this.

She saw that the entire high, round room was as ornate and plush as the cage. Every surface was carved, painted in minute detail, or gilded with luscious gold. This tower of hedonistic delights had a staircase that wound up and up. There was a small landing across from her, but it was too far away to reach.

She took in this imprisonment one breath at a time, one minute at a time. She promised herself that she would stay calm so that she could look for a way out. She forced herself to search her tilting prison with fierce attention, looking for any weak points in the construction that could help her escape.

The entire floor of the cage was a round bed. A tumble of billowy pillows took up a quarter of her prison, each with a hand-stitched cover of white peacocks. Every single feather was perfectly designed with detail of the most painstaking handcraft she had ever seen. The sheets that she clutched to her bosom boasted the same immaculate imagery of strutting peacockery.

She looked under the sheets and her eyes widened. She was stark naked, and her skin was just as marble white as the prince's. She trailed her smooth fingers over her arms, discovering no blemishes, no hair, and no veins showing through her skin.

Abira scratched hard at her arm, and noticed that she raised no welts. She tried again, and found that she also did not receive the dubious reward of pain for her efforts. She tried a third time, digging in with her sharpest nail, and managed only a thin scratch.

Her body felt as alien as this place. This was unsettling in a way that was far more profound even than being kidnapped and locked in some kind of bed-birdcage contraption.

She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. Abira sought to still her mind, to think, to reason. Above all, she wanted to wake up from this wild and weird vision she had conjured up _. I am having a nightmare,_ she told herself over and over _. I am just remembering Nana's stories. She was such a vivid storyteller, and I am going back to my childhood for comfort. I will wake up any moment now, beside Matt or alone in the guest room. I just need to relax._

Abira kept her eyes closed, conjuring up an image of her Nana. Nana's warm voice and soft hands were always a comfort when Abira's mother was on one of her tirades. She concentrated on one of her Nana's stories to calm herself, and drifted back to the safety and love. Abira kept forcing her mind into the past to search for clues. Some element of her current dilemma felt familiar. She pushed her mind further and further back, remembering a day long ago...

She was sitting on her Nana's lap, spindly arms wrapped tight around Nana's solid middle. She was squeezing her eyes shut to fight off the threatening tears. Her mother's aloof cruelty had struck again, and now all she wanted was her Nana.

Nana stroked her hair and rocked her with tender affection. "Sweet girl, let me tell you a story of angels."

Abira nodded, her face against Nana's bosom, always eager to hear another fanciful tale.

Nana said, "Angels are the first children of God. He made them to watch over the worlds and the stars. He wanted them to bear witness to His glorious creation."

Abira felt the threat of tears receding as her Nana continued on. "But there were three angels who did not want to just watch. They wanted to help in God's immaculate plan. They had waited untold millions of years for the rise of the crafty ape."

" _What is a crafty ape, Nana?"_

" _Humans, of course. The three angels watched in utter fascination as the grunting ape began to take on aspects of God. They swept down from their lofty heights to help the apes learn more of the God they resembled."_

" _Did the apes learn?"_

" _Oh, yes, sweet girl. They learned many things. Too much. God was furious with the three angels, for they had introduced a major disruption to His plan. They had gifted man with knowledge that was forbidden to them until God willed it. The three angels were the shame of the Heavens."_

" _What did God do?"_

" _He punished them in the way He saw fit. He told them that their only chance for redemption was to fix the damage they had caused. To stop the corruption they started."_

" _Did they fix it?"_

" _No, sweet girl. Only one of the angels might know how to fix the corruption, and the solution would take many thousands of years. Humanity has become a tangled mess because of three impatient angels."_

Abira considered this problem with grave attention, her mind now taken in part off of her feared-loved-hated mother. "What do angels look like?"

" _They are very tall, with hard, white skin and black eyes. The fallen angel's children, called demons, look the same."_

" _Do the angels have wings, just like in the scriptures?"_

" _No, sweet girl."_

" _Do demons have horns and split hooves?"_

" _No, sweet girl."_

The rest of the memory faded into the background. Her Nana had told her many stories like this. Angels and gods and demons all threaded her tales, pulling Abira along with their divine exploits...

A realization snapped her out of this trek into the past. The prince looked just like how Nana had described angels. A deep shiver ran down her spine.

She had to be in a dream. He could not be an angel or demon, could he?

A warm voice interrupted her fantastic thoughts. "Good morning. Would my Lady care to use the bath?"

Abira opened one eye the barest slit. Before her, a slim man in immaculate livery stood on the landing. His long, silvery hair was swept behind pointed ears into a ponytail, and his face was seamed with age.

His wizened face crinkled into a smile, and he bowed slow and deep. Just as the prince had done.

She crouched back as far as she could from him, looking at his pointed ears with amazement. The cage rocked with a renewed vigor as her weight pressed against its opposite end.

Surely he could not be an _elf._ Why would she dream up an elf?

The man seemed perplexed by her reaction. He frowned and glanced down at his livery. He found nothing wanting, so his eyes went back to hers.

She gasped aloud when she took in his eyes.

His irises were electric blue, the supernatural beauty of his gaze contrasting strangely with his wrinkled face. She made no sound as the rocking of her prison stilled. She was mesmerized by the luminescence haunting his gaze.

All she could see was the cold glory of his eyes, twin stars on a moonless night. A shimmer began to whisper around his narrow frame, turquoise energy beckoning her to trust him. The energy, the beckoning, felt like what the prince had used to calm her earlier.

The man bowed again as her silence lengthened. "I see that my Lady does not wish to use the bath. Please ring the bell above if you need anything."

Abira heard kindness under his formal manners, and as the shimmer faded and disappeared, she forced her voice out. She implored him with wide eyes, her back pressed against the hard bars, her fingers clutching the sheet against her modest charms. She whispered, "Could you tell me where I am?"

The man pressed his lips around a smile. "Why, you are in the suite of the First Prince, my Lady. You are his honored guest."

She did not feel very honored right now.

She started to babble out a string of pleas, despite her earlier resolve to stay calm and collected. "I know this is just some nightmare I'm having, but the prince kidnapped me and then told me we were outside the gates of Hades. Now I wake up from that nightmare to find out that I still am in the exact same nightmare, so if you could please, please tell me what is going on, I would really appreciate it."

She took a huge gulp of air and leaned forward with the expectation of reassurance that yes, this was all a mad dream down a demonic rabbit hole.

"My Lady, you must realize—"

"Please, call me Abira."

He continued on with just a smidgen of pity. "Lady Abira, things here are not the same as things there. You are in Hades, but it is not what you were told it was. It is just another place with different rules."

Abira gestured for him to continue, the slight motion causing her prison to sway. "Why am I imprisoned?"

"These bars are to keep you safe, Lady Abira. If you are connected in any way with the missing empress, then you are in peril, as she has many enemies lurking. The prince thought it wise to keep your presence as discreet as possible. He is doing this out of kindness."

She thought back to the prince's confusion about who she was. "So I look like the missing empress, correct?"

"You could be twins, my Lady. And if an enemy of the empress thinks that you are her, your life could be in peril."

She shook her head at the insane level of detail her dreaming mind was conjuring up in this twisted fantasy. Why would she portray herself as a twin to an empress?

She looked around the cage with faint disdain and asked, "What does he usually keep in this cage?"

"Entertainment, my Lady."

Abira blinked, curious. How much time did she have before she became entertainment? Was she already? Aloud, she asked, "Where are the prince's suites located?"

"In the emperor's palace, in the great and ancient city of Eddene."

She dreaded hearing the answer to her next question. "What is the emperor's name?"

"He has many names. I believe he is referred to as Lucifer in your empire."

"I don't live in an empire."

"You do, Lady Abira. It is just a very poorly managed empire."

She started laughing, fear radiating out from her in spirals of hysterical guffaws. She laughed so hard that she began to cry. She choked out, "I am in the Devil's palace."

"Yes, Lady Abira."

She reined in her mounting hysteria to regard him with shrewd calculation. Could she lure him to her cause? She slid across the bed and whispered, "Can you help me? I need to get out of here. I don't belong here."

The liveried man shook his head, showing those odd pointy ears again. He said, "I am at Lady Abira's beck and call for your luxury and comfort. But I cannot help you escape, as it would mean the headman's ax for me."

He looked at her crestfallen face with pity. He said, "I am sorry. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to summon me."

Abira swallowed, her nerves tingling at his electric gaze. Did she dare to leave the dubious safety of her prison to scout the palace? She said, "I would like to use the bath as you offered earlier, please." She had to see as much of the place as possible if she was going to attempt escape. "I would like clothes as well."

The liveried man turned to a cubby set in the wall behind him, giving her another good view of those odd, tapering ears again. He pulled a lever so that the cage began to glide towards the staircase. Abira heard gears grinding above, and she stiffened. The cage began to rock back and forth with increasing urgency. It came to a stop over the landing, and she offered a silent prayer of gratitude at the quickness of the mechanism.

The man—or was he an elf?—swept a lush robe from the cubby as the door to her prison swung open in well-oiled silence.

Abira crawled to the opened door and eased her foot down onto the stone. She stood there, nude and indifferent to that fact. She would normally have been mortified to be naked in front of a stranger, but this was not real.

It could not be.

The man handed her the cream-colored robe, and she wrapped it around her strange new body. Silently, he began to descend the stairs. Abira hurried behind, her eyes probing every corner of the vast room.

They wound down and around, following the stairs to another ornately wrought door. The elf opened it and stepped aside with a slight bow.

_But he is a man,_ she reminded herself. _Elves are not real. He is a man._

Abira nodded back, uncertain of how to respond to so many bows, and entered the bathroom. She gasped at the woodland beauty that shimmered before her sight.

It was a room that pulled at the corners of reality, giving her the illusion of being outdoors. There were pipes pumping water into the steaming bath, but the pipes ran under a sylvan forest that crept back for miles into the hazy distance. The rippling water was bordered by a mossy incline. Tiny flowers nodded their delicate heads to the steam's dance.

She shrugged out of the borrowed robe as the door closed behind her. She stepped on the springy moss, smelling the loamy scent of the forest as she wiggled her toes.

She dropped to her knees to peer over the edge of the bath. The clear water held flickering, golden fish. They swam with the rhythm of the trilling birdsong from the forest.

The tranquility of the scene was shattered when she saw her face reflected in the water. Huge, black eyes in a stark, white face were regarding her, gleaming with wicked curiosity. Her hair had the woven-in iridescence of a raven's wing, and her lips were pale and smooth.

Abira narrowed her eyes, disbelief coloring her vision. Her reflection's eyes narrowed back.

She was an ideal of herself, a perfect carving, a work of art. A breathtaking sculpture.

Something truly _divine_ was reflected in the water.

A crack and rush of air startled her out of her observation and she froze, wondering at this invasion of her private bath.

The cultured voice of Prince Baphomet asked, "Admiring yourself, Lady Abira?"

She snapped up her leaning head with perfect grace. She felt a flush of embarrassment creeping up her cheeks, but she stayed where she was. He had already seen her nude, as had his servant, so what would be the point in false modesty? And how had he gotten in? Had he walked through the wall, just as he had pushed through the glass of the apartment?

The prince bowed with his usual deep majesty. "I was wondering if you are comfortable."

Abira tried to act aloof and arrogant. She said coldly, "Other than the discomfort of being kidnapped and imprisoned in a giant cage?"

The prince regarded her, his handsome face impassive, his stance casual, his height overbearing. "Yes, other than that."

"I am quite fine, thank you. I am not accustomed to being gawked at nude, so if you do not mind..."

The prince bowed the barest degree he could. "I will await your pleasure outside."

He disappeared, and the air shifted, suddenly and with a loud cracking noise, to fill the space he had just vacated. Her jaw dropped when she realized that he had just vanished in front of her.

Abira wrapped her thick robe back around her strange—and not quite comfortable—body. She was going to confront her kidnapper, and needed every layer of protection she could muster.
Three

Abira seated herself with quiet dignity in the chair furthest from the prince. She was swallowed by the sweeping cushions, which were made for proportions far larger than her slight figure. He was studying rows of scrolls and leather bound books, his wide back turned to her. The low smell of dry paper and citrus surrounded her with pleasant remembrances.

This room was a treasure trove of knowledge. Her fingers wanted to curl around a tome so she could lose herself in some hero's fantastic adventures.

She thought wryly that she did not seem to be handling her own adventures very well.

The prince spoke after a considered moment. "I know you have many questions, but I do not have the time to explain all the particulars. That would take hours that we do not have."

Abira held still, staring at her primly folded hands.

The prince continued. "I have been searching for decades for my mother, the Empress of Hades and of Earth. Her name is Lilith. I suspect she is also your mother, as you bear an incredible resemblance to her. If she is your mother, then it follows that the emperor may be your father."

She blinked at this outrageous claim and said, "My mother is not the wife of the Devil."

The prince turned to her and smiled. "You must be the descendant of an angel. It may be that the emperor took a passing fancy to a woman on Earth who resembled Lilith, and that you are the offspring. I cannot know for sure. Perhaps the emperor can solve the mystery."

"How do you know I am the descendant of an angel?"

"When you passed the Gates of Hades, your skin turned alabaster and your body hair fell out. Surely you noticed your divine transformation."

She nodded.

"A full human would not have had any changes at all. Therefore, you must be at least one quarter divine."

She furrowed her brow and glanced up at him. She found him regarding her with grave interest. His midnight eyes made her feel dizzy, as well as hot and cold simultaneously. As the silence stretched out between them, she tried to form a logical argument against her being the daughter of the Devil, but failed.

There were so many questions, but she could not think of even one while in his discomforting, yet alluring presence.

"I am going to present you to the emperor now. We must be discreet, or you will be in danger. Wear this hooded cloak, keep your face down, and do not talk to anyone."

Abira took the proffered cloak and put it on with measured reluctance, hanging her face so that she could only see the carpet. The prince stepped closer to inspect her, tucking her hair back behind her ear and pulling the hood down even more. At his touch, she felt herself shiver down to her toes.

Guilt fluttered in her heart as she thought of Matt. His predicament had been lost in the haze of her current trials. _I hope he is okay_ , she fretted as the prince continued to tuck and pull her into clothed obscurity. _He must be scared witless at my disappearance._

Thinking back to her swift departure from Earth, a disturbing detail swam into focus. When Baphomet had found her, there had been a distinct sexual undercurrent to his presence. Then he had appeared in the bath to ogle her nude.

But if he and his servant were not lying to her, then she looked exactly like his mother. She felt her skin crawl with revulsion at what this implied.

"Do not speak or look at the emperor unless he gives you permission."

He pushed at the small of her back, guiding her out into the main room adjoining his library. They crossed the giant space and glided out of his suite. Abira hurried to keep up with his long stride, admiring the weave of the carpet, which displayed the hunt for the unicorn. The unicorn's trapped eyes glared at her in wild panic. It was frozen in an endless contest with the huntsman, the poor beast's flank always dripping with blood.

Innocence overcome by violent conquest. That was the story the unicorn told.

The sense of unreality swept over her again. Everything felt so real, and yet it did not. The carpet under her bare feet, the rustle of her hooded robe, the prince's measured footsteps, the faint scent of sandalwood.

She began to harbor doubts about her nightmare theory. Could she really be in another world? Was Nana right all along when she told her of other places, strange and dark, beautiful and terrible?

And how was she supposed to deal with this emperor? She wanted to refuse answering any question he might ask of her, but she remembered from stories what happened to those who refused royalty. A sudden vision of torture chambers drifted up from her memories of tyrannical emperors who wanted truth to fall from unwilling lips. She thought, _I may not have a choice. Even the strongest heroine can only take so much pain. And I am no heroine by anyone's standards. But I will try to thwart him._

She felt strengthened by her resolve to resist the emperor's inquires as best she could, and put a renewed purpose in her step. The prince slowed before passing through two doors, which swung inwards without the merest whisper. She peeked under her lids and saw two liveried men with pointed ears and impassive faces. Their green eyes seemed dulled from performing repetitive duties with mechanical perfection.

As they swept past the servants, Abira wondered at the quiet of the place. Would not Hades be resplendent with the screams of the damned?

They continued onward. The prince stopped, and she stood behind him, head bowed, as he began to talk to someone unseen in a language that she did not understand. The responding voice had a hint of cruelty slithering throughout its syllables.

The prince turned and pulled her hood off. Abira dared not move an inch. Her eyes stayed riveted to the suffering unicorn beneath her bare feet.

A feeling of powerful scrutiny crawled over her skin, and her nape prickled as her eyes watered. She stood firm and silent, willing her outer calm to penetrate to her inner fear.

"You may look upon me, child." The voice slithered and strangled, ancient cunning and writhing tongues fighting against her tender ear.

She raised her head at the invitation.

Smooth. Cool _._

And most importantly of all, _show no fear._

She knew with a primal instinct that to be weak before this entity would mark her as unworthy of his dark gaze.

And dark that gaze was. Abira's sight traveled up and up, over pale feet and a loose tunic of royal violet cinched with a golden sash, over a long feminine-masculine figure, up and up. The emperor was giant, at least eight feet tall, with an odd trembling of energy over his relaxed figure.

He was reclining on a gargantuan divan atop a dais, lounging with a hint of hedonism, a faint threat of forced seduction. Abira struggled against a powerful instinct to stop her inspection. Something deep, something primal and raw, begged her not to gaze into the slitted eye of the ancient serpent, lest she be turned to true stone.

She finally found the courage to look upon the terrible beauty of the fallen angel Lucifer, Emperor of Hades and of Earth.

His cheekbones were sharp and finely formed, his full lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. He had the same thick, pitch-black hair as did she and Baphomet, the same iridescence glinting in every strand that swept behind his shoulders. She let her inspection travel around his eyes, admiring the dramatic curve of his arched eyebrows, the high and smooth forehead, the strong chin, the long neck.

She finally had nowhere else to look, and nowhere to hide. So she fought against every instinct, every warning that sang in the blood pounding through her veins, and forced her eyes to meet his.

As she did so, his eyes grew huge in her vision, and he pulled at something deep within her, yanking with cruel fingers on delicate threads.

Then his mind, his question—he himself—was in her head.

She was slammed with a whirlwind of crying voices—her past was ripped from her mind—despair and longing wheedled from her—the swelling of the endless dark—she was falling, dissolving into the void—the Devil would have his due—he owned her—he was her dark prince—he would take what was rightfully his—

She opened her heart and sang a song of joy. She caught the horror and caged it, sweeping the light of creation from her soul and extinguishing his unrelenting assault. Her essence burned his hold on her to ashes that scattered in the wind. She cast him away to fall in the mimicry of his shame before the glory of Heaven.

She stood in confused triumph, free of his violation. How she was free was beyond her. What inhuman force had swelled within her breast to beat the Devil himself?

He looked upon her with an impassive face, the only spark of life hiding within the smoldering embers of his eyes. "You dare to shield yourself from my inquiry?"

_Show no fear_. "I do."

"I am the emperor. All do as I wish in this realm. I will know your past so I can determine your future. I must know who your mother is."

Abira was petrified, but she threw her shoulders back and forced herself to look him in the eye again. She said, "You could have simply asked, instead of ripping it from my head."

"You most certainly have the crude tongue of the lesser realm. Tell me of your mother." There was a hint of persuasion under the slithering, an invitation to bow to his authority. She felt that slight, shivering tickle again, but resisted.

She stood silent as seconds ticked into endless minutes.

"Come closer, then. Let me study your features." The influence he had been trying to push on her receded.

She stood still and shook her head. His hand shot out viper-quick and grasped her wrist, yanking her hard into his lap.

Abira's breath caught as their skin touched, as the emperor stroked her hair with sensual ease. Her hair stayed tangled in his long fingers as he bent and slid his nose up her neck.

She felt herself melting as his hard body pressed against her. The emperor was overwhelming, so hard to resist, so demanding. And strong. She struggled against his hard arms and, sensing defeat in that venture, gave up almost immediately.

Abira had never felt so violated, yet a shameful heat slid down her spine and blossomed within her at his not-quite-taboo touch. She blushed hard, hoping the emperor did not notice her reaction.

He pushed his hands under her robe with deliberate slowness, rubbing her as he continued to inhale her scent. She squirmed with pleasurable discomfort as he continued to examine her. She tried to wriggle free again, despite the futility of attempting to overpower him.

But his strength, his utter sense of being completely here, was intoxicating.

She had to stop this, it was not right. There was something obscene about this, something unholy, something she could not resist...

Then, without any warning, he set her back down on her feet. He let out something that sounded like a chuckle and said, "You are fierce, I will grant you that. No one has dared to defy me in a very long time." Some subtle element seemed to have shifted in his mood, and he did not seem quite so terrifying.

Abira took a deep breath as the broken contact sent a wave of longing through her. He continued to speak while she wrestled with her conflicting desires. "Of course, the foulness of the lesser empire has weakened you and tainted your flesh. You stink of machines."

She ignored this insult and dared to ask the emperor an unbidden question. "Am I your daughter?"

"I do not know. You will not let me see into your mind, and the filth of the machines has invaded your blood. You are too corrupt for me to discover your origins."

"But I am divine?"

The emperor scowled at her. "Do not waste my time with your ignorance."

Abira scowled right back but remained silent. He looked down at her with obvious impatience, the slight lifting of his mood gone. "You do resemble the empress. I often seek pleasure from women who favor Lilith. You may be my get on a human who took my passing fancy. Tell me of your mother, so we can pursue the mystery of my wife's disappearance."

"I won't. You had me kidnapped." Despite her instincts screaming at her to stop, fury crept out in her tone.

Baphomet took a step forward, his voice smooth. "Father, excuse her. She is not familiar with our ways."

The emperor did not respond but began to stand, veined purple energy coursing over his body.

Baphomet turned to Abira and said, "He is about to perform a traveling cant upon you. You will be taken over vast distances with him in the space of two breaths. Do not be afraid. It should not harm you."

Before she could respond, the emperor grabbed her arm, and she looked up. He was swelling with alarming displacement, his body elongating and hardening. He crushed her to his chest, and they rose in a swell of accompanying air.

Abira shut her eyes against the whipping winds and prayed that he would not kill her.

They traveled with the roaring wind for what seemed like hours. Nonetheless, she had not even taken two breaths before he set her down onto a stone floor. Wind continued to shiver around her, and birds cawed in the air above. She opened her eyes, dreading what she was going to see.

They stood on the top of a castle tower under the violet sky of this new world. Everything had an eerie, bruised cast to it, except for the emperor, who cast no shadow. He floated apart and above this place, this reality, in a dimension that was all his own.

He looked down his nose at her, his lips pressed tight, his fathomless gaze shrinking her to less than nothing. He said, "Look upon the world before you. Tell me what you see."

Her sight drank in a multitude of wonders. Giant birds with rainbow plumage wheeled over a vast forest. The trees were gargantuan, and stretched to the purple horizon. She saw neither ground nor twinkle of water.

Just an endless canopy of limb and leaf, marching its way to the end of the world.

She made a stab at appearing stoic. "I see a forest."

"And what do you not see?"

She did not see many things, but she spoke true to her heart. "I do not see the mark of man."

The emperor slid to her side and ran long fingers down her back. Abira gasped at the icy fire that trailed behind his touch, aching with longing as his hand settled on the curve of her waist.

She blossomed at the reward of his touch, even as she loathed herself for having such desire.

"You are right. This castle is called Lilith's Bower. She often came here to escape the turmoil of courtly politics. She felt herself surrounded by enemies and sycophants, which are some of the many curses of civilization. So she created this wild domain, free from the touch of man or demon. Before you spreads a tiny fraction of her Aviary."

Abira struggled with the meaning of aviary. Fluttering wings beating against a cage. Bright, beady eyes begging her for the freedom to fly. Caged beauty and tender melodies. She said, "I see no way to hold birds here."

The emperor threw his head back and roared with laughter. A murder of crows burst from their nests in screeching mockery of his laugh.

She stood there, wondering what was so funny.

He stopped laughing. This was much to her relief, as the sound had made something tickle and itch in her mind. He said, "The empress always loved grandiose names for the mundane."

Abira worked this obtuse statement through her mind. She was aware of his heavy hand on her hip to the point of muddled distraction. "I do not understand."

The emperor pressed his length against her with neat economy. He swept down and whispered his dripping thunder in her ear. "This is a prison for all of her enemies. Enemies from the nobility, from the lesser realm which you call home, from her bed, from her family. She held no court. She and she alone passed judgment on who would suffer here and for how long. The best most could hope for was a swift death."

She tried without success to pull herself away from his aching nearness. It was so hard to think, to focus on the information she needed. Her bones groaned with longing, and she suppressed it with a clenching deep in her gut. She bit her tongue as hard as she could, and the desires abated by the tiniest bit.

"What does this have to do with me?" she asked with quiet dread.

"Those tender leaves hide horrors that you cannot comprehend. The empress's rage and perversity sprang from a fount of deep loss. She littered the Aviary with the nightmares that the legends of Hell sprang from."

"So she created all the legends of Hell, and you got all the credit?"

"Oh, yes. Most of my empire is quite pleasurable." He drew out this last word with slithering slowness against her eager ear. "But the Aviary is the worst of both my realms. And you will find yourself perched there if you do not do as I wish."

She had suspected that this was where the conversation was going. "Why? I have done nothing wrong."

"You have defied the emperor, child. You thwarted me. I need information from you if I am to find my wayward wife. She is precious to me, and I suspect you are the answer to the riddle of her long disappearance."

Abira stared out at the soaring birds with a touch of envy. If only she could sprout wings and fly away from all this madness. Should she tell him about her mother?

Could she trust him to simply let her go if she gave him what he wanted?

She slid from his grasp and forced herself to look into his bottomless eyes. "If there is a possibility I am your daughter, surely you would not throw me to a certain death?"

He bore down on her presumptions of his nature with a furious glare. "The only reason I am being this merciful is because you may be my daughter."

Abira felt there was more to the story hidden under his words. She thought, _I am more valuable than he is letting on. He needs me for more than information. But for what?_

She said, "Then give me two days to think about this."

He continued to glare at her, and his body began to crackle with that nervous energy. She braced herself for the upheaval of his traveling. The emperor wrapped his long arms around her, sweeping them through space with that nauseating flux of distortion. She pressed close to his hard chest, feeling the exquisite silk of his tunic.

And the muscles underneath.

Abira was abandoned with a rude drop into her cage, and he disappeared with a cracking noise. She sat there, dazed, trying to come to terms with what had just passed.

How could she protect her mother and herself from the Devil?
Four

Abira sat in the very center of her hanging prison, alone and frightened. She was trying to plan a way to get out of this, but her thoughts kept straying to Matt. She loved him and hated him in equal measure. She loved him for being a passionate, creative soul.

And hated him for being such a coward. She knew he must be scared out of his wits right now, which caused pity and resentment to fester in her heart.

He had left her to save himself when the prince came calling, and that fact was causing her endless torment. She had always known he was weak, and had forgiven him multiple times for his flaws. But this, she mused as her eyes roamed over the bars, was the last straw. The very last.

He had always chained her to him with pity and loving words, but the last link had snapped when he had abandoned her to her kidnapper. Abira still loved him, but knew she had to walk away if she ever got out of this nightmare.

She wondered if he would have risked himself to save one of his lovers. Perhaps he would have bestirred himself for the one who always left a faint residue of lipstick under his jawline. Or the lover whom others whispered that he always went to the hidden cafe with.

So many betrayals to choose from. So many layers of lies peeling and flaking away, just like one of his paintings.

Abira stilled as a new thought touched her. Had Matt called her mother? Did she know about any of this? She perked up at this hope, then deflated as she remembered how her mother despised her _._

She really was all alone.

A smooth voice interrupted her musings. "I did not expect you back so soon, Lady Abira. Is there anything I can get you?"

She looked over slowly, so as not to rock the cage. She spied the servant again, his bright eyes trained on her _. Exquisite eyes_ , she thought dreamily _. In such an odd face._

She tilted her head, feeling curious, and asked, "What is your name?"

"My name is Maag."

She felt comfortable enough with Maag to ask about her earlier conclusion regarding his race. "Are you an elf?"

"I am. Are there still legends of my people in the lesser realm?"

"Lots. You are usually tall and beautiful, and live forever, or at least for thousands of years. Elves have very powerful magickal abilities too."

Maag let a small chuckle slip at that flattering description. "We have small magicks, and we do live longer than humans. But not so long as demons. I was quite handsome before my third century, but alas, age has taken that gift away."

To take her mind off of Matt, she decided to mine him for more information. She asked, "Why does everyone call Earth the lesser realm?"

"Meaning no disrespect, my Lady, but your realm is dying. It was a failed idea. The emperor only ventures there to seek pleasure or to search for his wife. His true realm is here in Hades. Earth is just a minor distraction."

"I see. Is Prince Baphomet the same as the demon Baphomet, the one known for his love of hedonism? And who has the head of a goat?"

Maag struggled to keep a straight face. "That would be the one, yes."

"So he is a demon?"

"Yes."

"Can I speak to the prince now?"

Maag licked his lips, a flicker of his dazzling eyes betraying his unease. "I am afraid the prince is occupied right now. Is there anything else you need? Can I fetch wine, or dinner, or perhaps a different set of clothes?"

"No, thank you, I am not hungry or thirsty." A revelation burst into her mind. She said, "I have not had to eat, drink, or use the bathroom since I got here." A huge grin spread across her face as the truth of what she had just said sunk in. "I must be having a dream! Everyone needs to eat!"

Relief trickled through Abira's veins. She started laughing with wild abandon. Mirth consumed her, and she flopped back onto her fluff of pillows, indifferent to the rocking of the cage. "I have to get my energy from somewhere!"

She finally hiccuped and looked at Maag. He said with quiet formality, "My Lady, I am sorry to tell you this, but those of divine blood do not need to eat or drink in this realm. They only do so for pleasure. This is not a dream. You are very much in Hades."

Abira snorted and stretched. "Can you take me on a tour of the prince's suite, at least? I'm bored, and now I'm curious as to what my wild imagination conjured up."

"I cannot let you leave this cage unless you wish to bathe."

She sulked for a moment and then shrugged her shoulders, resigned to her fate. "Thank you, Maag. Please tell the prince I would like to see him when he has the chance."

"I will, my Lady." Maag bowed and retreated down the stairs. Abira stared after him, at his steady grace. She remembered elves being more attractive in the stories her Nana told her. Maag's face was so wrinkled it was hard to see his features underneath. Had age truly ravaged him so? Or was it the electric eyes that people found so beautiful?

She looked up as she heard a loud cracking, and felt a warm push of air. Prince Baphomet was materializing on the landing. The air shimmered with purple bursts that outlined his body, and then he solidified in less than a blink.

Abira blurted out, "Speak of the Devil!"

He smiled with faint amusement. "I try not to speak of my father. Would you care to accompany me to the gardens?"

She blinked at the sudden freedom this offered _._ Despite every reason not to, she trusted the prince. She nodded, wanting with mounting desperation to be out of this prison.

He pulled the lever that moved her cage, and she swung to him with the smooth clicking of hidden gears. The prince unlocked her cage door with a delicate flourish, and held his giant hand out to assist her descent. She clasped the tips of his fingers, amazed at how his hand swallowed hers, and at how odd and smooth his skin felt.

She was also still amazed at how hard and smooth her own skin felt, sliding against his with frictionless ease.

He asked, "Would you mind terribly if I hastened our trip with a traveling cant?"

She shook her head. She was starting to react less to the sensation of moving so quickly through space.

Baphomet squeezed her fingers with gentle pressure and took her in his arms. Then they were moving again, the air swirling around them thick and fast. Space crushed and expanded at the same time around their moving forms, pushing Abira against his linen tunic, the woven cloth caressing her pressed cheek.

They appeared in front of an ivy-covered bench in the gardens. It was surrounded by another ring of benches that hung, long and low, around a wall. A slight dizziness enveloped her, and she sat down on the pleasant warmth of the stone bench. The green scent of growing life wafted around her. Ivy crept over everything, creating a cozy nook, a natural abode of leaf and stone.

A bee buzzed past and alighted on a fleshy fruit half-hidden behind the ivy. The sun beat down on her head. A breeze wafted by.

This dozing little alcove was a nice contrast to the hectic pace of the last few hours, and she relaxed the tiniest bit.

The prince sat beside her, very close, laying a heavy hand on her thigh. The tension of his nearness, combined with his touch, made her feel as if she could just float away. She felt throbbing heat and clenching muscles deep within her, just barely anchoring her down. An almost irresistible urge to climb into his lap coursed through her, and she fought to restrain herself with the most disgusting thought she could muster.

She decided to abate her unwelcome feelings with the thought that they could be siblings. She asked casually, "So we could be brother and sister?"

She felt much relieved from her arousal after uttering this out loud.

"Perhaps. You may also be another angel's child. We may not be related at all. Not that it matters overmuch." His hand slid up her leg, but she tensed and his hand stopped. All the tranquility that nature had provided had disappeared with his lingering touch.

He switched the subject to a much more pertinent problem. "Are you going to tell the emperor what he wants to know?"

Abira shook her head in a firm no. "I don't know what he will do to my mother if he finds her. I don't trust him."

The prince sat there, staring at the vines snaking up the garden walls. He turned to look at her with no expression. "Then we have to leave now. Should I take you back to that sniveling boy you were with?"

Indecision cramped her. All this mystery and wonder, the glory and the magick... "I don't want to leave this place," she whispered. "I feel so alive and strong, beautiful...I always felt wrong on Earth. Like I didn't fit in, like I was floating above everyone, waiting for something to happen. And now that something has happened."

She was surprised at her own words. _I did not know how I felt until I said it out loud._

Baphomet's face was stolid. "You are in great danger for many reasons I dare not elaborate on. You must go back to your home."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"There are uncounted eyes and ears on the palace grounds. They are always open to news, and your coming here is stirring up unrest much more quickly than I thought."

"I have nothing to go home to. Matt was not right for me. If I could just tell my mother and Nana that I am safe, then..."

"Abira, the best thing you can do for your safety right now is to go back to the lesser realm, find your mother, and start asking her for the truth. She has hidden much if you are as ignorant as you claim."

She struggled to express her desires to this ancient demon out of legend. "Can't you help me? You could hide me, couldn't you? Besides, you are the one that dropped me into all this."

"My Lady, there is nowhere in this realm that I can hide you unless you use your own powers. Either the emperor will find you or Eve will, and she is the true danger. You represent a threat to a grand scheme that she has plotted for almost fifty years. A threat that she would have no qualms about removing."

"Who is Eve?"

"Lucifer's second wife. She is a fallen angel as well."

"Eve as in Adam and Eve? I thought she was human."

He said softly, "Thousands of years have warped the true story of Eve's place in the world. There was no Adam. It is a long story, and I tell you again, we have no time for it. She wants you dead because you are a threat to her, and that is all you need to know for now."

Abira frowned. How could she be a threat? She had never even hit anyone, much less threatened them by her very presence. She followed the sound of the buzzing bee, trying to focus her concentration and still her raging mind, but she failed. Her frustration boiled out of her too quickly for her to contain it, her fury at his obtuse hints finally crushing her attempt at diplomacy.

"I don't have enough information to make any kind of decision. You never explain anything, you just hint or act like I should know what is going on. I am not leaving until I get some answers!"

Abira set her mouth in a hard line and waited for his rebuttal.

The prince sighed and took her hand. He gently trailed his finger over hers, the fire of his touch thrilling her nerve endings from head to toe. "I feel terrible for putting you in this predicament. I will take you home and face the emperor's wrath. You will be safer there. Not safe, mind you, but at least harder to find."

Suspicion crept up in her mind as she heard his words. Was this another ruse, meant to lead him to her mother? Would he follow her once they arrived back on Earth? She would not risk her mother's life, or her Nana's, to this strange world of cloaks and daggers.

She snatched her hand away from his sensual touch and said, "I won't go. And that is final."

"I am afraid that one again you have no choice. We are traveling now." He stood up and pulled her to him. She pushed back hard, angry at being manhandled. He slid his arms around her struggling body and locked her against him.

They rose, and space began to shift and swirl, the contracting and expanding rippling over her, the fall—ascending and pulling apart—she was falling, screaming, her arms and legs flailing wildly, alone in the terrible void. The wind was pulling her hair out of her head—Something was wrong, terribly wrong, some greater power was pulling her and Baphomet to the winds-

She landed hard, with a painful thump. Fear cramped her spine and shot straight to her gut. She spied the strange, violet sky above.

Her insides turned to water as the awful voice of the emperor swept over her.

"You would take away the Lady Abira, my First Prince, my favored son? I am nowhere close to being finished with her interrogation."

The prince remained silent. She turned her head to see that he had already risen, and was facing the emperor with a look of resignation. She felt the rage building between them, and she shrank into herself at the sight of Lucifer.

He loomed terrible above her, his stark, white skin made even starker when seen against the fading sky. He seemed twice the height of normal men as a discordant crackling, a seething energy slid over him.

The emperor hissed, "Did you think, after the discussion we had, that I would not track your movements?"

The prince responded, with a shard of ice seemingly embedded in his words. "I thought you would not risk it."

The emperor's lightning discordance glowed hotter as his eyes burned into his son. "You think Lilith will save you? She has thousands of sons, Baphomet. Only a handful have her passing interest, and you are not counted among those lucky few."

Uncertainty passed over the prince's stone features.

Abira was so intent on avoiding the hypnotic gaze of the Emperor that she could not even breathe. She did not know if she had the strength to repel him again, and so she kept her eyes fixed on the prince, willing what strength she had to flow to him.

A crow cawed as the wind whipped around the trio. The setting sun beat down on the silent battle pounding back and forth between the two ancients.

The emperor broke the stalemate by looking down at her, his energy sparking with every word. "Do not trust my son, Lady Abira."

His almost kind tone shook her out of her fear the tiniest bit. He continued on when he saw he had her attention. "They call me the father of lies, but he is the very soul of deceit."

Her question shot out before she could think to block it. "Then who should I trust?"

"Only yourself." His honesty took her aback. "My wayward prince is short a bride, and I think he has found her replacement."

Abira looked at the prince for conformation. _Surely not_ , she reasoned. _We barely know each other, and we could be siblings._

The prince had the good grace to lower his eyes under her inquiring stare. She blanched, her mind buzzing with confusion at his true intentions. Was the emperor sowing discord between them? Or did Baphomet really want to marry her? But why, especially when she looked like his mother?

Her musings were interrupted by the emperor, who began to swell yet again, his body elongating and stretching into the void of chaos that accompanied him. He thundered, "You both are more trouble than you are worth. I cast both of you into the Aviary."

He turned his fathomless eyes to his son. "I remove all the powers of divinity from you. You will suffer as a mortal."

And the prince disappeared with a break of rushing air. The wind snatched the sound over the endless trees.

The emperor took a measured step towards her. She felt the panic of a trapped animal as she was hypnotized by his serpent eyes. He said, "If you are Lilith's daughter, she will rescue you from the Aviary. Sons are common. Daughters are precious."

Abira was opening her mouth to ask why when his blast of rage slammed into her. She heard a deep creaking somewhere inside her skull, and then she heard nothing. Blackness draped her mind and suffocated her.

A small part of her welcomed the oblivion.
Five

She heard the gentle rustle of leaves, and felt the papery crunch of them underneath her. Abira opened her eyes as a dull throb pounded in her head. She examined her surroundings, one squinting blink at a time.

She finally mustered the strength to sit up, and looked around with bleary eyes, taking in the bizarre beauty of the Aviary. Gargantuan trees settled deep into the earth, and soared majestically to the violet heavens. Their thick roots wrapped the earth with savage intent, fighting to plunge as deep as they could. The trunks of the trees were dark sepia, and the leaves were a darker green. The foliage contested with the light of the sun, leaving only the dappled gloom for her to see in.

Abira put her agony-laced head in her hands and tried to think. She could feel eyes crawling over her skin as the hush swelled around her.

The trees groaned with old hate at her invasive presence. She began to rock back and forth, despair wrenching her guts.

She had forgotten how to survive in a forest, especially one as malicious as this. She had a deep sense of being a trespasser here, a feeling furthered by the way the trees were beginning to groan and sway even more. Their shiny leaves scraped against each other, whispering gossip. Their whispers pressed down upon her, coating her with guilt at having dared to set foot in the trees' domain.

Abira stilled her mind, and fought back with the insistence that she belonged here. As the sense of trespass from the forest lessened, she upbraided herself _. Don't be an idiot. This is just an old forest, though its rules are different. If you can survive the mysteries of the forested mountains back home, you can survive here. You don't even need food or water._

She thought about her most logical goals and decided on two. She needed to find the prince, and then get out of here.

But how? The view the emperor had shown her from atop that tower had been of endless forest.

Abira rose, her legs still unsteady, and her hand brushed a rough root. Its texture was offensive, and the feel of the gritty bark got under her skin, making her shiver with disgust. She looked around again, willing with all her might for a glimmer of hope to materialize, and found herself wanting.

She began to walk, each step shooting up through her and grinding against the pain lodged in her skull. The silence breathed with angry pressure in her ears. The eyes of the forest spied on her every step. She could feel their scrutiny, but try as she might, she could not find its source.

After she had walked for some time, Abira noticed a lack of pain in her bare feet. She lifted up her heel and found no scrapes, bruises, or blisters.

Despite her situation, she smiled at her new-found strength as she walked on. She felt vital and alive as she never had before. No thirst, no hunger, she was not easily hurt, her headache was fading fast, and according to the prince, she had latent powers—

Abira halted in mid-stride as an old memory drifted up from the back of her mind. When she was a child, she had obsessed over stories of elves, dragons, unicorns, anything that took her from the mundane to the fantastic. Her Nana had been happy to oblige, telling her a new story about these mysterious creatures every time Abira had asked.

Elves, in the old stories, had a certain kind of power. Once they offered you something, be it gold or food or wicked things, they had to deliver it if you accepted, no matter what. They would whisk whatever you desired to you as fast as their magicks could take them.

And Maag had offered her several things.

If she called for Maag, could he appear in front of her? Could he help her? He had offered her food, cosmetics, books, and clothes. Clothes it would be, she decided, looking down at her flimsy robe and bare feet. That would be the most practical offer of his to accept.

She cleared her throat, feeling foolish. She asked the tree in front of her, "Maag, can I have the clothes you offered earlier? Back at the palace?"

She stood there with baited breath. Were the old stories true? The silence crept in around her, mocking her ignorance with voiceless mirth.

The silence grew more unnerving the longer she stood there. She heard neither birdsong, nor the chattering of squirrels. Why was this forest so unnaturally quiet?

She waited until she felt like a complete idiot _. Oh well_ , she reflected _, it was worth a try._

What do I do next?

There was a crack and waft of air, and Maag was there. He held out riding leathers and supple boots, along with another bundle of clothes and two packs. He bowed, still in his formal livery, and asked, "Are these acceptable for your ordeal, my Lady?"

The folded skin crinkled around his eyes at her expression of relief. He said, "I had hoped you knew of the small magicks of the elves and would summon me."

Abira nodded and grabbed the clothes. "Thank you so much. Can the prince summon you?"

He shook his head and said, "I felt it the exact second the emperor placed a cant on him. Our connection was broken. He cannot call me or any other. The prince is alone and isolated."

Abira considered the plight of Baphomet. She was curious about these cants everyone kept mentioning. She asked, "What is a cant?"

"I think you would call it magick. It is how the divine, like the emperor, manipulate energy to do their will. You too have the ability to do cants, but you must be taught how to use them or disaster can result."

Abira nestled this information away _._ She now had a name for all the little magicks her Nana had taught her. She asked, "Is there anything preventing you from helping me find the prince?"

Maag looked happy with her question. "You have a quick mind. If I offer to bring him to you and you accept, then I must do this thing."

"Can you find him soon?"

"I imagine so."

She felt bad for asking, but she needed to understand the ways of this place. "Why haven't you tried to find him already?"

Maag lowered his eyes. "The emperor is quite wroth with him, so he has placed all servants of the prince under lock and key. I could not leave unless summoned by someone I was beholden to. The Emperor did not place a cant on your head, he just dropped you in the Aviary. You can summon me since you did not have a cant blocking your powers."

"Why didn't he place a cant on me?"

"I think he assumed it was not worth the effort. I also suspect he is challenging you, trying to see if you are strong enough to withstand the trial of escaping this prison."

Maag smiled then, as if proud of her. "He underestimated your divine powers. Would you like for me to find the prince and bring him to you now?" She smiled at him and nodded consent.

The elf shot off, running so fast he was a dark blur and out of sight in a blink. She stepped back, feeling very alone in this dark wood. _I thought we would search for him together._ A chill ran down her spine, but she comforted herself with the hope that Maag would return with the prince soon.

Abira considered this information about her own powers as she took off her robe and replaced it with the leathers. She noticed that the workmanship of the new garments was immaculate. The long-sleeved shirt and leggings fit like a dream, and the shoes cupped her foot with perfect curves.

Standing there alone in her borrowed leathers, she felt much more prepared for the trials ahead.

Abira rooted through the packs and discovered flint, oil, a torch, two spare leather outfits, and a mysterious fortune in emeralds, rubies, gold, and diamonds. She spread the gems in her hand as the greedy forest drank up their sparkling facets. Even priceless jewels looked dull and worn under the cloak of the trees.

Why had Maag brought such treasure with him?

She found a rocky depression between two trees, and sat down to wait under the overhang. She tucked herself as far back in the space as she could, thinking about the jewels, her flimsy relationship with Baphomet, her imprisonment—

A caw pierced the air, and she looked up to spy a crow. It blinked at her, bright eyes staring.

She felt an odd twitch of fear jerk through her. Why did she feel afraid of this bird? It was an ill-omened bird, but a bird nonetheless.

A second crow, much larger, flapped down next to the first. They assessed her as the silent seconds ticked on.

Abira dropped her gaze to the lower branches as she felt more shiny eyes watching her. Her survival instincts flared up in warning against this unwanted scrutiny.

She found herself surrounded by a half circle of feathered watchers. While she had been distracted by the noisemakers in the tree, these birds had crept out from the cover of the forest without even rustling their feathers.

Her scalp prickled, and she shivered. Birds should not be so clever.

There were blue birds and red birds, large and small. Bizarre birds, beautiful birds, carrion birds, and song birds. All regarded her, heads tilted, beaks sharp and narrow. She felt like getting up and shooing them to see what would happen, but she saw something that shocked her out of that urge quickly enough.

Feathers rustled and scaly feet shuffled aside as a tiny, cherubic creature strutted forth. His plumb belly overhung a feathered bottom. His precious wings were tucked back to ease his passage through the birds. He regarded Abira with eyes that drowned in this perpetual twilight. A gleam was all she saw to indicate that his gaze had fallen on her.

He stopped a mere foot before her and bobbed his baby head back and forth, causing the tiny ebony curls of his hair to bounce with lazy disdain.

Abira pressed back against the rock, fear shrinking her despite the thing's miniscule size.

It just stood there, looking and blinking.

Then it launched itself into the air without a hint of warning, its tiny wings beating a hasty retreat. The other birds followed suit, the horrendous noise of their excitement briefly overpowering the sullen silence of the trees.

The silence settled thick upon her again as the birds disappeared. She held still, looking up and around, confused as to the point of that display _. Birds are messengers_ , she remembered. _They may be reporting your arrival to someone, or something._

_If you can stop Lucifer himself, the Emperor of Hades, from invading your mind, then I am sure you can stop a few birds_. This thought came unbidden and fierce, and she could not help but feel a moment of pride.

Who would have thought meek little Abira could do such a thing?

A waft of stagnant air and rustling leaves heralded Maag's arrival with the prince, who loomed beside him with unnatural stillness. They had clearly been running for a long time, as both were out of breath.

Abira jumped up and hugged Maag, relief radiating off of her in waves. He stood stock still for a moment, then patted her back three times in a stiff manner.

She stepped back and smiled, hoping she had not made him too uncomfortable. "Maag, can you take us away from here?"

Maag shook his head. "My small magicks are not strong enough to whisk you and I out of here, much less break the cant on the prince's head. I would die from the effort. I must return to my cell now or I may be missed."

Abira thanked him with all of her grateful heart, bid him farewell, and turned to the prince as Maag disappeared. She leaned back against the rock as he studied her, his gaze unreadable as always.

He said, "I am impressed. You figured out how to summon Maag. Incredible. I thought we would never find each other in the wilderness."

Abira shrugged. "I guess I know more about this realm than I thought." She almost mentioned the way her Nana's stories had guided her, but she kept her mouth shut. She did not trust him to leave her family alone, nor did she trust the emperor.

He could be spying on them right now for all she knew.

An awkward silence fell as the prince's gaze traveled around their new prison. His eyes widened as he took in all the bird feathers that had fallen during the flight. He grabbed the remaining leathers on the ground and changed into them with no modesty. Abira averted her eyes from the feast of divine flesh before her. He grabbed the packs, tied them together, slung them over his shoulder, and turned to her with no pause.

"We must leave. Now."

So saying, he grabbed her arm. She followed him, trying to trust his knowledge of this malignant forest. They weaved in and out of the brooding trees, their direction unknown to her.

He finally allowed them to stop once they had splashed down a small creek and found a tree that boasted a tiny opening under its roots. The water had washed all of the dirt away so that they could crawl in, their leathers catching on the rough surface of the tree. They pressed back as far as space would allow.

They were crammed side to side, the top of the roots snagging their thick hair, and more roots digging into their backs and legs. She felt almost itchy at the constant discomfort. The weight of the hovering tree pressed down, threatening to collapse on them because they dared to use its hollow without permission.

He said, "We can stop and rest here for a moment."

His burning nearness as they were thrust right against each other took her breath away. Leg to leg they sat, and she thought she smelled a faint whiff of cinnamon from him. She was exhausted and dirty, but felt the unwelcome stirrings start up again, his almost-touch making her ache with longing.

Abira decided to sate her curiosity instead. "Why were you frightened? What are we running from?"

He slid his hand into hers. "The birds were the watchers and offspring of Ocypete."

"Who is Ocypete?"

"She is more of a what. She is one of three fabled harpies. The legends do her no justice. She is a filthy, fetid thing. And she is very upset with me."

"Why?"

He tightened his fingers around hers. "I used to hunt in these woods with the empress. We made a special point of bringing down Ocypete's birds because they spied on us. The empress found it most offensive that she was being spied on in her own Aviary."

Abira felt weariness settle on her already-exhausted shoulders. There was always more danger in this place, more bitter rivalry, more vicious intents. "Why was Ocypete spying on the empress?"

"Lilith created this place to get away from all the intrigues of the court. She discovered that Ocypete and her sisters were working for Eve. The three harpies had been using the birds to spy on the empress' every move throughout the realms. The empress was furious, and since she cannot punish Eve, she imprisoned the harpies in the Aviary."

Abira waited with morbid fascination for the story to continue.

"Even imprisoned, the harpies continued to do Eve's bidding. They sent their birds after the empress time and again. We hunted down and killed two of the harpies. This happened over a long period of time. With a great deal of pain."

Abira swallowed nervously at this implication. Baphomet had helped torture two harpies to death?

What other terrible acts was he capable of?

She asked, "Why did the empress let Ocypete live?"

"She was the strongest and the fastest, so she eluded us. It was quite a thorn in the empress' side. It became a constant humiliation; that she, with all her divine powers given by God Himself, could be outsmarted by a bird-brained beast. The empress will come back one day and finish her off, make no mistake about that."

Abira wondered at this constant threat of pain and violence that seemed to overlap every interaction. He continued, "If Ocypete catches me in this mortal state, I cannot protect you. We need to keep moving and stay ahead of her birds."

A deep stench began to creep under the roots. The scent was reminiscent of rotting corpses under a noonday sun, mingling with a few decades' worth of clogged sewers. Abira reflexively gagged as her hands flew to cover her face. A screechy voice wafted in with the fumes, a note of satisfaction hidden under its words.

"You are in a mortal state, my Prince? How interesting."
Six

Her gorge kept rising, and she kept swallowing it back down as they crawled from under the tree to confront the owner of the voice. The mist of the stench enveloped everything, even out in the open. Abira stood on the dry bank of the stream and looked upward through the trees _. Don't vomit_. Looked at the flowing water. _Don't look at the monster_. Looked at the fine stitching on her new shoes. _Please, please, don't let me vomit_.

The prince bowed beside her, all fine, courtly manners and easy grace. "My Lady Ocypete."

Abira did a half-bow. She was going to puke in that twinkling water if she bent down much farther.

A raucous caw was the only response. Abira willed herself to look at the harpy's feet, which were shifting on the edge of the stream. Open sores dripped into the damp soil from its mottled limbs. She felt her stomach heave again and swallowed hard, praying that she could overcome the challenge of looking at the rest of this thing.

She wondered what exactly, if she did vomit, would come up. She had not eaten in days.

The prince seemed unruffled by the noxious fumes consuming the air. He spoke in a tone of light banter, as if in a chance meeting of good friends on the road. "I hope you are well, my Lady. Can I be of any service to you?"

A voice that screeched with carrion delight responded. "You can, my Prince. You very much can. But first I must ask a question of the child beside you. She bears a strong resemblance to your mother, our most gracious, if absent, Empress." Abira started with surprise at the well-spoken nature of the monster. Ocypete's voice was hard on the ears, and her formality of speech was unexpected.

Abira heard a soft _plop, plop, plop,_ which began in the middle of Ocypete's sentence, and then stopped. Abira had taken to staring with fixed determination at the stream, but her curiosity got the better of her, and she looked up at Ocypete to discover the source of the noise.

Disgust roiled over her in one grand wave when she saw what had caused the plopping noises.

There was a small mound of mucus on the ground behind the harpy. Flecks of filth trembled in the wobbling pile, and Abira glimpsed orbs within the gelatinous liquid. Then a dull, grey egg slid out of the harpy and settled with yet another soft plop, nestled among its family.

Now that Abira was looking, she could not look away. Her gaze crawled upward as birds dropped down from the trees and began to harvest the fruit of Ocypete's labor. On the harpy's body, more sores seeped fluid from bulging veins that were partly hidden under mangy feathers. The harpy's head bobbed in the shadows, hidden, which was a small blessing to Abira's exploring gaze.

In that moment, that perfectly precise moment, when all her senses were riveted on the harpy, Abira knew this was no hallucination. No fever dream warped her sleeping mind.

She could have _never_ conjured up something so exquisitely foul as the harpy.

She was really in Hades, with the demon Baphomet beside her. She really did resemble a missing empress. And she really was imprisoned in the Aviary by the Devil himself.

Abira stood there, numb with revelation. As if listening from under a woolen blanket, she distantly heard the prince's smooth explanation of her questionable parentage. The truth made fear clutch her hard in the midsection. She snapped herself out of her fugue with a will _._ She thought, _I have got to know what is going on so I can escape. Ignore the harpy, ignore the harpy, please, just let me not see her or smell her until I figure this out._

She made herself tune in to the conversation just as the harpy was talking again. "—have to see to his education. Sirin grows too wild."

"You wanted him so. He is your concern."

_What are they talking about_? Abira dared to glance at the prince. He glanced back, a blush coloring his cheeks. She sneaked a quick look at Ocypete, and regretted her curiosity before she even comprehended what she saw. Ocypete's head, like that of wrinkled hag, had exited the shadows. It boasted gnarled teeth, obsidian eyes, and thick, black hair tangled with bird excrement.

The miasma that was her putrid breath puffed out in anger at the prince's response.

"You brought this upon yourself, Prince. If you and your mother had not tortured my sisters to death, I would never have sought you out."

Ocypete's bright eyes quivered with rage as more eggs eased out of her. Abira tried taking shallow breaths through her mouth to avoid tasting the beast. It did not work. The soft, wet sounds brought bile right up to her throat, but she held it there and swallowed it back with a strength she had not known she had.

The prince responded, his tone cool, his stance stiff. "What will you do if I refuse?"

"Have my family pluck out your eyes and gouge your flesh down to the bone. Or I could simply let you go and have Sirin seek out his grandfather, our illustrious Emperor."

"You would tell my family of my shame."

"In vivid detail. If I can arrange it, every loving stroke of yours will be recounted by your son to the entire court."

Dawning horror settled on Abira's shoulders as she began to understand what they were talking about. No, please no, Baphomet did not father a son upon this thing, this abomination, no—

But it was becoming clear that the prince had done just that. He snapped, "I will take him with us and teach him lessons of my choosing. Does he pass?"

_Pass?_ Abira wondered. _Pass for what_?

"He would pass with proper clothing and training."

The prince's hands were balled into fists. "Bring me my bastard beast son."

Ocypete responded by throwing her head back and cawing. The echoes swirled around the trees and into the violet firmament.

An answering call thundered in Abira's ears. She blinked as a wind of snowy feathers drifted down.

Her jaw dropped in shock when Ocypete's and Baphomet's son landed.

He was superb, dazzling. He was an earthly angel. Creamy white feathers dusted his body from his hips down to his feet, and his eyes glowed golden. The arc of his wings was snowy perfection.

Abira gulped. She had expected something monstrous like the mother, not divine like the father. Her line of sight traveled with eager greed down his muscled torso and back over his chiseled arms.

Ocypete's pride was palpable. She preened and fluffed her feathers. "Our son, Sirin. He has just finished his first molting."

Abira noticed that the prince was watching her with narrowed eyes. She shot him a dirty look. _He doesn't own me, so why is he looking at me like that?_ She clamped her still-open mouth shut as the emperor's parting words came to mind. He had said that Baphomet wanted her to replace his missing bride. What other explanation could there be for such obvious...jealousy?

As soon as the prince caught Abira's attention, he turned away to assess his son. With much pleasure, she did the same. Sirin preened a bit, looking like an arrogant angel from the oil paintings by the great masters.

The prince said, "What lessons do you need?"

Sirin blinked at him. Molten gold wrestled with iridescent black. "I need to learn of this realm. I wish to see the great courts of the empire. I wish to at least see my family, even if I am not their acknowledged descendent."

"You wish for much. Are you aware of the dangers the courts present to a beast like you? Your kind is not loved by the nobility or the commons."

"There is much danger here, but I have survived. Yet I have not lived. I need to learn more cants in order to grow stronger here. I must ascend the hierarchy."

The prince glared at his unwanted son. "I cannot take you beyond the Aviary as of yet, since my father has bound me here. Only Lady Abira can go with you, and she knows nothing of this realm."

"Why does she not?"

"Lady Abira is from the lesser realm."

"Can she leave the Aviary?"

"Yes."

She blinked as the golden blaze of his huge irises shifted to her. "You are from the lesser realm?"

She nodded, tongue tied. He cocked his head at her, bird-curious. "I could take you to the edge of the forest and fly you over to the lesser realm."

Abira took a deep breath and contemplated the temptation _. I could just run. Go home. Seek answers. Get out of this cursed land_. She looked at the prince, and a deluge of feelings overwhelmed her. He had kidnapped her, terrified her lover, and locked her in a cage. Unspoken bonds and fire warred with hate and ice. The conflict raged in a flare but died down to smoldering coals when she remembered that he had tried to bundle her off before the emperor got to her.

She said, "I can't leave the prince. He is only here because he tried to save me from the emperor."

Sirin twitched his feathers in impatience and turned back to his reluctant father. "Then where are you going?"

The prince's voice swelled with escalating rage. "We are going to guide the Lady Abira to the edge of the forest, and there you will escort her to the lesser realm, of course. She is in danger here, and I will see her out of it. That is part of the price you will pay for my lessons."

Abira made a loud noise of protest. "I won't leave without you!" Even as she said it aloud, she wondered at her motivation. Did she desire him? Hate him? Need him? She fought to quell her seething, and incredibly conflicted, emotions. "We all will get out of here." She tried to make it sound like a statement rather than a question.

Sirin responded with derisive laughter. To his father he said, "How touching. I never knew you inspired such devotion."

Ocypete had stood by, almost forgotten, as this little drama of family reunions and difficult alliances was forged. She seemed satisfied that the prince would honor his word, so she cawed once at her beautiful son and took labored flight, leaving a quivering mound of eggs for her attendants to gather.

Abira glanced up as the harpy lumbered out of sight, breathing a sigh of relief when the trees swallowed the hoary old creature. She felt a moment of strange tenderness for the monster, since Ocypete was really just a mother looking out for her favored son.

There was something of love and tenderness under that hideous hide.

Sirin cackled. "Hard to believe something as handsome as me came out of that monster, is it not?" He winked at her, his eyes glittering like gold coins, and she blushed. Hard.

He looked at his father next. "Of course, it is just as hard to believe that you rutted with a harpy."

The prince ignored the comment and addressed Abira. "I am sorry for this unforeseen complication. Perhaps we can proceed with more haste now that we have a guide."

He chanced a cold glance at his son. "What is the safest way out of here?"

Sirin twitched with mirth. "Do you not know? I thought you came hunting here for beasts like me often. Word on the wind is that you have dozens of rooms full of your stuffed conquests in the emperor's palace."

The prince's frozen courtesy ended Sirin's mirth. "I have not been here since your shameful conception," he said. "But yes, once, I did hunt for beasts like you often. Perhaps I shall do so again."

The threat hung over Sirin's flattened feathers. He picked at them idly, feigning indifference to his father's murderous hints. "You know, mother never did tell me about your courting. Would you care to enlighten me?"

"No."

"Then I do not care to lead the way to the lesser realm."

Abira did not know how to diffuse the situation, so she stood by as the two argued back and forth. Sirin was arrogant and laughed often, while the prince kept growing more stiff and icy. He finally exploded when Sirin kept pecking for more information about why Baphomet had never acknowledged his existence.

"The reason I have never been a father to you is something that your mother should have explained!"

"She did not! All she said is you left her and never bothered to come looking for me!"

"That is because I have more important matters to attend to than a half-breed beast!"

Sirin stepped back as his fluffed feathers rippled. Pain dulled the golden glow in his eyes. He turned and flew off, his graceful flight a wonder to Abira. She followed his form as long as she could, from his quick launch to his soaring above the trees.

She had never seen anything move with such natural elegance, with such refined poise.

Since she was an unwanted child too, she felt sympathy for Sirin pull at her heart. Her own father had never even been mentioned to her, and her mother had shoved her off onto her Nana and various other helpers rather than fulfilling her maternal duties. Abira hated to see such a similar tragedy played out before her under the indifferent leaves. Sirin deserved to be treated better than that, regardless of the tense relationship between his parents. She knew how that pain grew cold and hard in your breast.

She knew how it made you hate, and rant, all by yourself, in the dead of night.

She turned to the prince with narrowed eyes, and his look of relief at his son's departure made something fragile snap inside her. He felt the oppressive weight of her glare and looked over.

"What is wrong, my Lady?"

"How could you? He is your _son_."

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Neither you nor Sirin understand at all. It is a long story, and I am the victim as much as he."

Abira interrupted him as cold disdain seeped through her veins. "I understand that you are a deadbeat dad. Your son is trying to learn about his family, just like me, and all I saw was you insulting him. Like it is his fault that he dares to exist!"

A tremble caught her throat, and she choked back her rising emotions. "I was an unwanted child too. My mother hated me. And you are no better than she was."

"My Lady, it is not so simple. You have got to understand that a beast like him is an utter humiliation to me. Scorn would be heaped upon me for coupling with such a base creature as Ocypete."

She did not know if it was the old hurt of being the unloved child or disgust at his cruelty, but she lost control of her temper then. Her pent-up frustrations were released in a frothing torrent.

"Perhaps if you spent more time being with your children instead of _making them,_ I wouldn't be so revolted by the sight of you!"

She felt something cold pulling away from her, a thread of powerful energy that batted at the prince and then dived into the shallow stream beside them.

The water rose in a splendid fountain from the stream. It swirled, tornado-quick, higher and higher. The water crashed down on the confounded prince's head and crystallized to ice in the space of a blink. The prince was immobilized under a layer of sparkling beauty.

Just like he imprisoned me.

She stood there, unsure of what had just happened, as exhaustion coursed through her. Had she caused that? She had felt a flowing of her angst into the water, and then the fountain had formed. Abira felt empty and cleansed of some of her rage, but her seething discontent toward the prince was still lingering.

Panic set in as his mortal state occurred to her. She splashed around in the stream, searching for heavy rocks to smash the ice with. She hammered and threw rocks at the frozen prison until the prince was released, shivering and blue-tinged, but alive.

Even at the height of her frenzy, Abira could not help but notice how much stronger she had grown. She had picked up large rocks with startling ease to chip the ice, and was not winded after such exertion. That momentary exhaustion she had felt right after the prince was encased in ice was already disappearing. She wanted to ask the prince about this fascinating new development, but she could not find the words.

They huddled by a weak fire for the rest of the night, neither saying a word to the other.
Seven

Abira sat guilt-ridden in front of their puny fire through the long hours of the night. She had not meant to encase the prince in ice. She pondered her position as she stared into the flames, ignoring the shivering beside her. It was none of her business how he dealt with his son, and she really had no place chastising him. Still, she could not help how she felt. Baphomet's callous treatment of his son had caused something with sharp claws to emerge from her raging breast.

When they broke camp in the early hours, she proffered a small smile and put on a false heartiness. "Where to?"

The prince looked around as if he had not heard her. Then he said, "I think we should go to the Tree of Knowledge."

She nodded her consent, and they started to walk towards the rising sun. The gloomy night became gloomy morning. The silence between them seemed to stretch much further than any distance they had traveled. She ventured a tentative question.

"What is the Tree of Knowledge?"

"It is quite a sight, all writhing snakes and hidden wisdom."

Abira mulled over this cryptic statement. She switched subjects. "I am sorry that I imprisoned you in ice. At least, I think it was me. I didn't mean to do it, I was just so angry, and then it happened."

He stopped and reached over, tilting her chin up so she could look into his face. His abrupt manner startled her, and his touch made her shiver. "No apology needed. I just needed to understand. I am the one who should be sorry for being so distracted."

She blinked up at him, still amazed at how far he loomed above her.

He sighed and took his hand back, sweeping it through his hair. "I need to think about all of this. Your powers are incredible, and I am at a loss as to why. You are the most fascinating mystery I have had to unravel in centuries."

She managed a weak laugh and said, "I find every last part of this world a mystery. I do not even understand what is going on most of the time."

He took her face again and pressed his forehead against hers. The warmth worked its way down to her toes in a bare second. He murmured, "You enthrall me. I will help you unearth every last secret in this realm and yours if you would have me by your side."

His lips touched hers with the barest whisper, and he lingered just a shade too long. Her heart started to pound as she responded, her body taking over with natural authority.

Abira jerked herself away from him as her subconscious reminded her of their possible blood bond—and of his hateful treatment of his son.

_He could be my brother_. She pulled back and smiled at him with concealed longing. _What just happened? Was that just a show of affection, or..._

He returned the smile, and they resumed walking. They continued to make bland small talk, staying away from any mention of Sirin with careful detachment. Silence lay heavily around their small voices. Her mind barely kept up with the conversation as she pondered his unexpected emotional outburst. Well, emotional for him, at least.

Was he freer with himself in this primal forest, with lurking dangers all around?

She could not deny that the prospect of danger had a certain thrill, but she preferred armchair danger. Snuggling in an old chair with a hot drink and reading about some hero's struggles in a distant world had always been appealing.

Living from moment to moment, with threats lurking behind every tree, was a lot less glamorous than the stories let on.

Something was tickling her senses, warning her to be on alert, and she turned her attention back to her surroundings. She was growing uneasy as something in the whispers of the leaves underfoot rubbed her the wrong way. She tried to shake off the growing feeling time and again, but it lingered like a half-healed wound. Anticipation stretched her nerves taut. When she stepped on a branch, and it snapped, she barely restrained herself from jumping and screaming.

But nothing had happened yet, and she was beginning to feel foolish.

As her next footfall touched the moldy leaves, a warm rain began, falling onto her forehead with a thick splatter. She looked up to see if they would need shelter, and stared at the obscenity peeking from the branches.

What she saw was glistening entrails, hanging down and around like ropes from the tree overhead. They were sagged and folded, dripping blood and dark mucous onto their heads.

The prince threw his arm out to stop her from walking, then let out a low keen of agony. Abira glimpsed a young woman staked to a tree, her once-beautiful head lolling, limbs sagging against the iron stakes that pinned her corpse.

Abira fixated on the entrails, and remembered how death always made her feel. All the old terror came flooding back through her veils of protection, unleashing a torrent of pain. She wanted to forget, needed to forget, but the sights and smells slammed her back to her first taste of death...

The day her mother died.

It had been just another hot summer's day. Tempers were short and explosive under the sun's oppressive rays. The driver swerved to avoid a car barreling down the highway.

The subsequent crash was a dim blur. She did not recall any sounds or any pain. Abira was thrown from her mother's new convertible onto the grassy bank. She struggled to her elbows and looked around for her Nana first. Nana was a stone's throw away, her limp form causing a surge of panic within Abira.

She looked for her mother and the driver next. The driver's arm was barely visible under the overturned car.

But her mother, oh, her mother.

Her mother's brains creamed the sticky asphalt. Her ribcage was crushed in the middle, and a darkening pool was spreading beneath her.

She looked like fashionably dressed road kill.

And Abira was glad.

Her heart lightened at the end of the tyranny. The wicked old witch was dead. She let out a small giggle and scrambled crab-like over to her Nana, who opened a blackened eye and whispered, "Abira. You have got to save your mother. She is too important to lose."

Abira looked askance at her Nana. She knew that Nana could do secret, beautiful things with her mind. Nana had been teaching Abira how to do the same secret, beautiful things. But bringing back mutilated dead people was not one of those things.

Or so she thought.

Her Nana coughed up a bit of blood. "I'd rather save you," Abira whispered in her Nana's ear. "Please, Nana, let me help you."

" _I will be fine in a while. Do not worry about me. Just go to your mother and hold your hands over her body. Think of her whole and pretty and shining with life. Think of nothing else until you bring her back."_

Abira sat back on her heels, wondering if the head trauma had made Nana crazy. I'll love her just the same, she decided. Crazy or not.

Nana glared at her, blood trickling out of her lips. "Do it now, before it is too late!" Nana's sharp words goaded her into action, and Abira tore herself away with much regret. If she lost Nana while trying to save her despised mother, she would never forgive herself. I'll save them both, she decided. Mother first, since Nana insists. And the driver, if I can.

Abira crawled over to her mother. Her mother's remaining eye reflected the punishing sun. Her snarled hair boasted a designer hat and sodden chunks of brain.

She placed her hands on what was left of her mother's chest and did just what Nana had asked. She did it as quickly as possible, so that her revulsion at touching a cooling corpse would not overwhelm her purpose. The power flowed as she roasted under the baking sun, and in a little while her mother's scorn-filled voice began to screech at her. Nana came over a little bit after, having recovered from her injuries with amazing speed.

The taste of death had sat heavy in Abira's mouth long after that day.

As the memory faded, Abira wondered if she could do it again. Could she raise the dead?

_Of course you can_ , her mind whispered _. She is not too far gone. Her soul still clings to her body with barbed hooks. Save her._

Abira took in the scene before her, searching for clues as to why this tender youth had been massacred. She looked over the carnage and doubted if there was anything she could do.

She had been young, perhaps Abira's age, with the fair skin and black hair of the divine. Her body was staked to the tree, her eyes plucked out; her mouth hung open to reveal that her tongue had been ripped from its base. Her entrails had been hung in festive delight over three different trees, and her nude torso had been riddled with smaller wounds.

Abira stepped back from the unspeakable obscenity, the destruction of something so perfect. Something was wrong here, some clue was not adding up...

Baphomet dropped to his knees, still fixated on her corpse. Abira noticed that a dank scent hung in the air, a putrid smell like that of the harpy. She remembered that carnivorous birds considered tongues and eyes to be a delicacy. This would account for the missing bits.

But something was wrong here. This was not Ocypete's work. She stepped back, pulling on the prince. She had no idea who or what this young victim was to him, but they needed to leave, now.

She felt that to her marrow.

Her heel squelched in something juicy. She glanced down to discover the girl's narrow tongue. A bird would have choked that tender morsel down, not cast it aside in the dirt.

"Baphomet? We need to leave now. Something is wrong."

He shook his head.

She said, "This is a trap."

He turned to her in anguish as the girl's blood dripped from the trees. "She is my youngest. My precious little Blossom."

His fists bunched into drifting feathers, then he sprang up and started pulling at the embedded stakes, his fingers yanking with mindless abandon at the metal.

While Baphomet was freeing his daughter's corpse from the tree, Abira looked around in the visceral filth for clues. So much evidence pointed to the harpy _. But who else? Who would do this? Ocypete seems too clever to provoke him over such a trifle as driving away their son._

It would take a herculean effort to fix the damage to her body, Abira knew that much. She could try to heal her the same way she had healed her mother, but the jaws of the trap would snap hard around them while she went about that slow task.

And Baphomet's powers were gone.

Abira stood there, his tortured sobs ripping her heart to shreds. What should she do? Heal her or run?

Baphomet had succeeded in freeing the body and laying it on the ground. He was pulling together the snaking entrails, one filthy loop at a time. He began to shove all her gathered bits back together, his hands almost a blur. After his desperate labor, he laid his hands over the bloody heap, closed his eyes, and swallowed back his tears.

He was still. Time stopped, and the forest held its breath. Abira shifted from foot to foot, avoiding the tongue that still lay on the ground, hoping against all reason that he could accomplish this miracle.

Seconds drifted into minutes.

He finally slumped and spoke in an eerie calm. "I cannot bring her back. I called for my powers until the heavens should have heard my plea. There is no divinity for me to save her with."

Abira said softly, "I will try to save her."

He looked at her with dead eyes, but he nodded. His lack of confidence was not encouraging.

Abira, knowing she was dancing into a carefully staged trap, knelt beside the prince and placed her hands on an unmutilated patch of skin. She fumed at her own stupidity even as she began the long process of bringing this loved daughter back to her grieving father _._

Abira searched with all her strange instincts for a spark of life. And it was there, the beauty of her energy, digging into the very center. Abira caressed the soul with her own, willing the flesh to knit, the wounds to close.

As she coaxed life back, time ceased to be, and even the prince's grieving presence faded to nothing. She found the life she needed all around and slid it back in with gentle urgings.

Abira sat back and looked at the now-hopeful prince, her voice limp with exhaustion. "I think she will be fine."

Right on cue, the black eyes fluttered open. Pouty lips formed one word only.

"Eve."

The prince scooped up his daughter and the satchels then turned to run. Abira, relieved that they were finally leaving this vile ground, began to follow despite her exhaustion.

"Father. I need clothes."

Baphomet stilled and undid a satchel. Abira helped her get dressed, her fumbling fingers growing thick and awkward with panic.

As soon as the last lace was tied, Baphomet picked her back up.

"Prince," said a high, cold voice, stopping them dead. "I was hoping you could save our precious Blossom. That harpy plagues us to no end."

They turned around in reluctant unison to see a very tall woman step out from behind the closest tree. She had finely spun golden hair and the alabaster beauty of the divine. But even as her painted lips parted with a sly smile, her eyes reflected madness. She purred, "I was just coming here to save her."

Blossom spoke again, snarling at the blonde, "The harpy had nothing to do with this."

She looked up at her father, angst threading through her words. "She used me as bait to lure you, do not trust her! She plots against you and the empress with every waking moment!"

Eve shook her head with a false sigh. "Poor, sweet Blossom. The trauma of almost dying has befuddled your memory."

Blossom opened her mouth to argue further, but a long, silvery snake slid from under Eve's arm and tasted the air, distracting them all. It climbed to the ground and weaved towards Abira, questing, then slid back over to Eve.

Eve's venomous gaze shifted to Abira, who took an involuntary step back despite the weakness it showed. Eve said, "I was not informed of your arrival into my empire. It would appear certain information has been withheld from me." She shot a filthy look at the prince.

He replied, shifting the burden of his daughter. "The emperor requested my discretion."

"I am sure he did. Tell me, did you ever find out if she is Lilith's daughter?" Her voice dripped with poisoned honey. The words melted and stuck in your head, and Abira shivered in spite of her continuing attempt to show no fear.

"No."

Eve's arm shot out viper-quick, reaching for Abira's hair. With a vicious jerk, Abira found herself face-to-snout with the silver snake. The animal let out a hiss as fangs dropped from its puffy gums with poisonous intent. Crystal clear fluid seeped from their tips.

Her heart stopped, then resumed beating, triple-quick.

Eve asked with syrupy sweetness, "Why should I not just kill her? Or imprison her for further questioning? My dungeon's wardens are experts at making a reluctant tongue sing with truth."

"Because we outnumber you three to one." Blossom pushed away from her father's embrace, and tested her feet with ginger steps. She leveled Eve with an unflinching stare. "I have conquered you before. I will not hesitate to do so again."

Eve let out a hiss and thrust Abira forward. The prince caught her mid-stumble.

There was a _crack_ and a slow breeze, and Eve was gone.

Abira looked to the prince for some kind of explanation. Blossom piped up instead, her high sweet voice a pleasant distraction from the disaster they had averted. "Eve will never play fair. If she is at the slightest disadvantage, she will rearrange her playing pieces until she wins. This little trap of hers went wrong due to her usual arrogance."

Abira cocked her head. "How?"

"I think she underestimated you. She thought she could ambush you two and blame it on the harpy, bagging herself quite a neat victory while keeping her hands clean."

Blossom sounded admiring of her almost-murderer's plan, a grudging respect lurking under her tone. Abira mentally shook her head, wondering at this crazy family. This crazy family that might be _her_ crazy family.

She asked, "Why didn't she just take me while she had me?"

"The emperor would have found out. The dungeon was just an empty threat. She wants you dead, not questioned. But she needs her hands to be clean."

Abira felt a weight crush her. Why would anyone want her dead? She was not a threat.

Was she?

Blossom turned to her father. "I risked the Aviary because there is much to tell. Let us talk."

So saying, the trio made their way to the Tree of Knowledge.
Eight

Abira trailed behind them, her mind wandering. Father and daughter had much to speak of, and Abira did not understand who or what they were talking about. Names soaked in ancient evil fluttered back to her on occasion, but everything else they uttered was beyond her comprehension. Something almost like love purred in the prince's voice as he regarded his daughter over the long trek.

She stared at his long back with contempt _._ He seemed to care about only one of his children. She thought, _This might be the worst case of playing favorites I have ever seen._

They walked for hours. She saw an occasional bird or twitching mammal's tail flick through the treetops, and the sight comforted her somehow _._ The ground swelled with gentle fluctuation, the dappled light of the sun a pleasant warmth on her back. She even heard the occasional _peep_ from nests hidden in the looming branches. The Aviary never felt like a normal place, but it did have moments where it dropped its guard and let the serenity of nature prevail.

Baphomet stopped them at the bottom of a hill. He kissed his daughter on her pale cheek, and she responded in kind.

Abira hovered at the edge of their little group, feeling awkward, not wanting to disturb their parting.

Blossom turned and strode to Abira, planting a firm peck on her. She said, "You are my savior. Please take care of my father in this lonesome wild. When the emperor is less wroth with him, perhaps he will lift the cant and father can return to the courts."

"I will try to take care of him. Do you really have to go?" Even though they did not know each other, Abira felt a kind of bond with this petite beauty, a kinship of cheating death and conquering enemies.

"I must, my Lady. The emperor will hear of Eve's sabotage from mine own lips. Not that it will do much good for our cause, but one has to try." She stepped back and smiled with sorrowful kindness at Abira's disappointment. "There is something good about you, Abira. Something tender."

With that odd statement, she rolled her eyes upward, muttered something under her breath, and disappeared. The forest swallowed the loud noise of her departure with an ever-hungry appetite.

Baphomet shook his head. "It was foolish of her to seek me out in this dangerous forest. Her devotion is without question. Thank you again for saving my darling daughter."

They looked at one another for a long moment until curiosity got the better of Abira. She blurted out, "Why is one child so dear to you and one not? Sirin is as worthy of you as she is."

His face tightened, and then relaxed. He sighed with slow defeat and said, "I can deny you nothing after what you did to save Blossom. Let us continue our quest, and I will tell you of my beast son's conception."

Abira agreed, and they began to climb the hill. She was still amazed at her building endurance, feeling strong and light as she conquered the hill without so much as a faint sheen of perspiration. She waited for Baphomet to gather his thoughts.

He started without preamble. "The empress and I tortured the two sisters of Ocypete to death. It was a combination of physical agony and public humiliation. I will not disgust you with details."

Abira felt another faint stirring of curiosity and quashed it with a will _. Don't be sick,_ she admonished herself.

He continued on, "After the torture and death of the two harpies, I decided to go hunting by myself in the Aviary. You must understand that this prison is one of the few places I can expect a challenge, a true thrill of disaster averted, of spitting in death's empty socket."

Abira interrupted despite her resolution to stay silent. "Why would you go looking for danger?"

"My Lady, you are so young that you cannot possibly fathom the kind of inertia that sets in after thousands of years. That is part of the reason court politics are so intricately woven. It is the apathy of the immortal. Many of us strive to find new thrills, new sensations, new brushes with death."

"If you are immortal, why were you worried about your daughter dying?"

"When I say immortal, I mean that we offspring of angels do not die of sickness or old age. But we can die. If we had come upon Blossom's remains even two hours later, her soul would have departed and nothing could have saved her. Poison, beheading, drowning, and so on and so forth can all kill us."

Abira felt a slow amazement as this sunk in _. Would it be rude to ask how old he is?_ The meaning of this news for her own fate bloomed before her, and her voice hitched around her next question. "I could live to be thousands of years old?"

"Barring accidental death, yes."

Abira's pace slowed as this possibility began to take root, but she shunted the contemplation aside to hear the rest of his sorry tale.

He reached over to clasp her hand with gentle pressure and released her quickly. "I know that our lifespan can be overwhelming. Shall I continue the story of how Ocypete and I made a son?" Abira nodded consent as they continued to walk through the forest. Her mind hummed with the unbelievable message.

_Thousands of years_.

"My Lady, unless one is accompanied by the emperor, empress, or Eve, one should never enter this accursed place. Even in my profound arrogance I knew that. But I strode in without pause.

"I was observed by Ocypete's unnumbered children, as I cannot hide from the beady eyes of birds. She found me just as I was delivering the killing blow to a wild wyvern."

He stopped, and though his expression remained calm, almost detached, she felt his internal struggle. "My blood lust was roused, and I did not hear the fluttering of wings, nor did I notice her stench. She placed a cant upon me so that I fell to the ground, immobile."

His voice dropped lower than the whisper of the rustling leaves. Abira strained to hear him. "You have no idea of the shame of that. To have a cant place upon me by such a lowly monster. The First Prince, Baphomet himself, defeated by a fetid harpy. I lay there, inert under her cant, praying that she would strike a killing blow with swift mercy and that I would not suffer as I had caused her sisters to suffer.

"I knew if I survived and the word spread of my humiliation, the scorn would cast me out of the courts. The emperor and empress would thrust me into your lesser realm to hide from the shame that their son could be so weak. That was the most likely punishment, assuming they did not take my life.

"Ocypete stood over me as the wyvern's body cooled and stiffened, my fall shining in her eyes. She preened for a bit, then she started bargaining. Her gifts of negotiation are part of what have kept her alive for so long. She gave me a choice."

Abira glanced at him. She saw a blush creep over his sharp cheekbones and travel down to his neck. He forced his next words out in a rush.

"My choices were these: I could either be tortured to death, or give her pleasure until she conceived one child. Her plan was brilliant, and so simple. For a monstrous creature such as her, birthing a grandchild of Lilith's would be the ultimate revenge. The empress would be appalled. The child would have a touch of the divine, elevating Ocypete's status within the hierarchy of the Aviary. In her own way, she could be a queen here with the right subjects. And the right prince."

Baphomet's shoulders slumped. "I should have borne the pain of a long, slow death. But I chose life."

Abira shuttered at the implications, wondering what she would have done. Agree to be tortured to death or couple with a monster? She began to feel a touch of sympathy for Baphomet.

"The seeds of the divine and the monstrous join with ease, so we conceived Sirin in a short amount of time, thank the Gods. Ocypete released me, and then later the empress disappeared. So I have been consumed with hunting Lilith for years while my son grew up under his mother's baleful gaze."

His gaze was trailing on the ground. Abira sought for some word of comfort and found none, so she settled on saying, "Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn't easy. But all of this was not Sirin's fault."

Baphomet halted and spun her to face him. "You are not disgusted with me? Not repulsed at how I shamed myself?"

"No, I'm not. But could you please at least _try_ with your son? It would mean a lot to me. I would think much better of you."

His hands gripped her shoulders with brief affection. "For you I will. I owe you a boon for my child's life. I will do my best to treat Sirin as he deserves if we chance across him."

Abira felt a faint current of doublespeak in his carefully chosen words, but decided to ignore it. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

They went on in silence until they were standing at the bottom of a sloping hill. Baphomet stopped there and said, "The Tree of Knowledge is over this hill. We will petition the snakes for advice. They will speak in obtuse riddles with the intention to mislead, but a glimmer of truth always hides under their words."

Abira knitted her brow. "Can I ask them about anything?"

"No. They do not answer specific questions. They just tell you what they will."

"Has the emperor tried to find his wife with the snake's knowledge?"

"Many times, with no result. What they told him he did not want to hear."

Abira sighed under her breath. Why could nothing be straightforward? Riddles and deadly allegiances and games that she did not want to play.

They climbed the hill to behold a withered apple tree. It stood alone, in sharp contrast to the giant trees that circled it. There were no snakes in sight.

"What do I do?"

"You take a bite of an apple and—"

But then she took an involuntary step towards the tree, as if a sharp fishhook caught under her rib. The thought of knowing her own future was an irresistible temptation. She had repressed all her horror, her confusion, and her nagging doubts for too long. She lurched forward again, feeling a deep compulsion.

She began to run toward the legendary tree that symbolized the downfalls of Adam and Eve. The beginning of man's separation from the divine.

She had never wanted anything so badly as to taste the forbidden fruit—

She heard a rustle of feathers behind her, in the dark circle of the watching trees, but ignored it. She was _so_ close, she could _taste_ the honey of forbidden knowledge on her tongue. She felt a hand grab her arm and try to pull her back, but she shrugged it off, not caring.

The arms tried to trap her again, and Abira growled low in her throat. She kicked back with all her strength against feathers. She burst from the restraining arms and ran to the tree, the glorious tree.

_Give me a way out of this nightmare,_ she beseeched the withered tree. She spotted a huge red apple peeking from behind yellowing leaves. She saw no snakes, heard no hissing. Abira reached out and grabbed the loose flesh of the fruit.

Somewhere, a thousand miles behind her, something was screaming at her, a beat of wings, a flash of furious gold. She did not care, she just wanted the precious knowledge. Abira bit down hard into the wormy fruit, and a trickle of juice ran over her chin. The apple tasted of truth.

And the truth is always bitter.

Abira spit the offending fruit out as rot coated her throat, her tongue, even her teeth. A taste of dirt and worms and unspeakable filth made her choke and gag, but it was too late.

The caul dropped from her eyes, and she saw the snakes.

Writhing scales slid against each other in prolific excess. Flickering tongues tasted her, ringed by deadly teeth. The tree was dripping with snakes, hanging in loops, twining and gleaming. Their writhing was reaching an unbearable frenzy, and their cruelties to each other became apparent. She glimpsed muscles contracting under ragged wounds. She spied chewed off tails. Half-healed fang punctures. Oozing pus and decaying flesh. Blind eyes milky with poison.

Abira stood paralyzed, a baby bird locked in a serpent's gaze. The whispering of the snakes became clearer to her. She could almost catch words under the seething hissing, and she strained. She had to hear—

Thheee void of Chaos willll claim youuuu ssoooonnnn—

And a two-headed snake lunged and bit her on the arm.

Abira fell, screaming and convulsing, as the poison seeped through her veins. She was melting, fire racking every mote of her being, she was lost in a blaze of agony that coursed through her.

Too late, she realized no truth was this valuable, no knowledge this dear.

She writhed on the ground, scrabbling for purchase to get away from the terrible cost of truth. She pushed back against soft cloth. The cloth lacerated her burning skin with acid, the weave pressed against her salted wounds, and she needed it to end. She prayed for the torture to end now—stop, stop, stop—death, give me death—sweet release—

And just as it consumed her to the brink of oblivion, the radiating pain stopped. Abira lay panting against hard legs wrapped in cloth. Her mind was soft and fuzzy with dizzying relief. Her head cleared with remarkable speed, and she felt no pain, only a dull ache where the snake had bitten her. A familiar voice slid down to her as she recovered.

"You took that better than I thought."

Abira looked up over a swell of breasts. A scowl thundered down at her, wrapped in a golden halo of shining hair.

Abira felt her stomach sink. Eve was here, and surely this time she would be better prepared to overcome Abira. The element of surprise had been lost in the clearing, and now Abira had no defense.

Eve would not underestimate her again.

A low rumbling began all around them, and she tore her eyes away from Eve to observe this new threat. She lifted her head the barest inch to see what the escalating growling was, and wished she had not looked.

Baphomet and Sirin stood nearby as gargantuan shadows began to separate themselves from the ring of trees. Glimmering red eyes glared at Abira with baleful intent while moving forward from the darkness, one menacing step at a time.

The growling became louder as the first of the legendary dogs stepped into view. Foamy saliva dripped from bared fangs that were as long as her forearm. Bulging muscles shifted under sleek black fur.

The dogs keep coming. A dozen. Two dozen. Three.

Abira felt another weight drop into her already-heavy stomach.

The Hounds of Hell.
Nine

Abira looked at Baphomet for guidance, but he stood there with impassive detachment. Sirin hovered, ignoring the baleful hounds that were a mere few steps away. Baphomet frowned at Eve like she was a bothersome fly that had come to pester him at a family picnic.

He said coldly, "The emperor will hear of this."

"Then perhaps I should kill you before you go tattling to your father. My darling pets are always looking for fresh meat." The sticky sweetness of her voice made the threat sound almost like a reward.

The hound closest to Sirin snapped at his wings. Sirin exploded into the air as several events happened at once. With Sirin's sudden flight, thousands of birds swooped into the clearing, a shining rainbow of screeching and cawing. They began to peck at the hounds' eyes, coating the midnight fur with their hopping forms. Abira watched in a daydream lull as a scarlet canary dropped down and plunged its thick beak into one hound's tender orb. The dog let out a low whimper and swiped at the offending bird.

It was too late for the hound. The canary plucked his gelatinous prize and flew off for a happy snack. Similar scenes were happening in slow motion all around Abira. She turned with languid curiosity and watched the snakes in their writhing frenzy. Enraged birds gifted them with death, peck by vicious peck.

A tickle of doubt swept through Abira. _Are the birds on our side?_ The daydream pace dissolved, and she focused on searching for Sirin. Her gaze shifted with increasing frenzy. The sheer number of birds and beasts and snakes made it impossible to focus on finding one individual.

But there he was, just when her hopes were sinking, floating down to her like an angel. Tiny orange and blue hummingbirds attended him with vibrating beauty. He shot down in a blur and scooped Abira up. Her heart lifted higher than the sun and stars as she realized what he had done.

He barely knew her, yet he had saved her from death or capture by Eve.

She was in the arms of an angel, rising to the burning sun, and without question of her judgment, Abira fell in love just the tiniest bit with her soaring savior. Her heart trembled again at the thought of his bravery in swooping right in front of Eve to fly her somewhere safe.

His golden eyes smoldered her, and he tightened his hold. She felt dizzy as they soared into the clouds, the ground receding at a frightening pace. She slid her arms around his neck. She glanced down to see that Baphomet had disappeared, and most of the hounds had slunk into the tree cover for protection. Abira willed herself to trust Sirin not to drop her, and kept looking to see what was happening. She ignored the fluttering in her tight stomach every time she saw how far below the ground was.

A few hounds were bounding around the clearing, snarling and snapping at the offending birds, but they were too slow. Their whimpering clashed discordantly with their short barks and low growls.

Eve was draped with black crows, screaming and flailing her divine arms as they ripped the flesh off of them. Blood-streaked bones were already showing in her violated body. Abira watched as two crows alighted on her golden halo of hair, snarling themselves a little nest in her glory.

The two birds cocked their heads at one another in mutual understanding. They daintily stretched their necks, dug their claws into Eve's scalp, and plunged to rip Eve's eyes clear out of her head.

Abira got one last glimpse of Eve falling to her knees, and then she was drifting through a cloud. Fine mist blanketed her face, and she felt a cool shiver wriggle down her spine. The dogs' snarling cacophony and Eve's madwoman screeching faded.

A calm spread throughout Abira as she clung to Sirin. _Floating with an angel_. His lovely face was alive with the joy of flying. She could stroke each feather on his glorious wings...

The beat of Sirin's wings became strained because of her weight, breaking the tender illusion of flying to the heavens. All too soon they were dropping back down to skim the treetops, looking for the alabaster flash of Baphomet through the leaves. Sirin was gasping, his muscles pumping as he collapsed below the canopy of leaves.

He set her down a trifle too hard on a branch that could have seated a rhino. He collapsed beside her, panting, and crumbled.

Abira admired his fine form through lowered lashes, coveting every second she had to gaze at him. She noticed sweat pooled in the divide between his sculpted lips. Nothing would have made her happier than to lick that salty excess away...

She forced herself to look around for Baphomet as an obvious distraction. But she could not deny the building heat that sang to be released every time she thought of Sirin. Everything just seemed so primal here, and she wondered if that was affecting her attraction to this strange, beautiful, winged man.

She ignored her desires with an iron flex of will, and searched again for Baphomet so that she could wave him up here. But there was no need. He appeared silently under her and climbed up the tree, swinging over the branch to sit across from her.

He crossed his legs with nimble ease and smiled at Abira, ignoring his exhausted son as he looped their satchels over the branch.

She smiled back and almost reached over to hug him, but something stopped her from touching him _. I don't trust him_ _after seeing how he treats Sirin. That is a side of himself he hid from me until I confronted him with a secret._

She looked over him to see if he had any major injuries that needed healing. Baphomet's hair was in disarray, and his smile faded to brooding in a blink, but he seemed unhurt.

Abira's voice warbled as she said, "They—her eyes—the crows ripped them out and ate them." Despite her strengthening hate for Eve, that had seemed harsh.

Baphomet shrugged as if this was of no consequence. "Birds love eating eyes. She will regrow them."

Sirin said softly, "Not for a while."

They turned in unison to Sirin, whose breathing had returned to normal. His voice sounded to Abira like songbirds singing in morning light. "Moth—I mean, Ocypete—is quite upset with Eve for abandoning her to Lilith's charms. Ocypete served Eve for centuries, and considered it very poor payment when Eve let the empress slaughter her sisters without taking vengeance. Ocypete placed an incredibly strong cant on the murder of crows that brought Eve low. She will not recover from those wounds for a long time. They will fester."

Baphomet looked impressed. "That makes our lives far easier. We have gained some time." A note of satisfaction crept into his voice. "Does the cant involve much suffering on Eve's part?"

"Oh, yes. Ocypete knows Eve will be able to break it eventually, but every second Eve is blind and vulnerable is a second Ocypete can use to plot against her."

A small silence settled on the trio as they mused on Eve's temporary blindness. Abira glanced at Sirin, feeling shy and awkward. She mumbled, "Thank you so much for saving us. I don't know how to repay you."

Baphomet cut her off before she could finish, his tone cold. "He only saved us to serve his own interests. You owe him no thanks."

Abira felt her hopes at their tentative union dashed. Sirin's wing unfolded, and a feather tip caressed her cheek with gentle pressure. "I should be thanking you, Lady Abira. Soaring to the heavens with such beauty in my arms was exquisite." He removed his touch from her blushing cheek.

She glanced down, feeling shy all over again. _He is a little too smooth. Probably already has a girlfriend or three._ Looking for something to do, she checked for puncture wounds or bruises and found nothing blemishing her smooth skin.

She muttered, "I did not think I would heal so quickly." She felt awe at how powerful her body had become. That snake had bit her less than an hour ago, and there was not even a bruise to show for it. She ran her fingers over the spot with wonder.

Baphomet did not respond. Rising to tower over her, his face unreadable, he thundered, "What did the snakes say?"

She hesitated. They had mentioned something about Chaos claiming her, but that made no sense. She said, "Nothing. They bit me, and then Eve showed up."

Baphomet sighed, bent down, and picked her up in his hot arms. Abira luxuriated in the warmth even as she was affronted by his manhandling. "I am sorry you went through all of that for nothing. I wish you had not ignored me. Considerable complications could have been avoided."

Abira's gaze pierced his. "Ignore you? When did I ignore you?"

"When we both screamed at you that the tree was a trap. Sirin flew down and warned us, but you were too enraptured by the tree."

Abira tucked her head down onto his hard chest as tears threatened to well up. "I'm sorry. I heard you, but something was calling me, or pulling me. All I could think about was reaching the tree."

"It is the serpents' seduction, enhanced by Eve's cants. I should have told you about the particulars earlier, but I was distracted. I apologize again."

She whispered, "It is fine. I should have been stronger." She groaned as she thought back to kicking Sirin. She glanced at him and said, "I am really sorry about kicking you."

He smiled so brilliantly that it was impossible not to smile back. "No harm done, my Lady."

Baphomet was standing very still during this exchange, his chest like burning coals against her. She suddenly realized how tired she was. Tired of running, tired of being attacked for no reason she could see.

Why would Eve have anything against her?

And why would Baphomet not tell her the particulars?

He interrupted her self-pity by setting her back down on the rough branch. He dropped beside her and said, "I think it is time you told me about your mother."

Abira's exhaustion evaporated, replaced with confusion. "Why now, after all this time?"

"There are far too many eyes and ears in the palace to have a private conversation. When we were thrust into the Aviary so unexpectedly, my thoughts were on survival because I am so much weaker now. But I need to know how you learned the cants to save Blossom before I can plan where we will go next. Did your mother teach you how?"

Abira glanced at Sirin. He was sitting there, gazing at the violet sky that filtered through the heavy leaves. He turned to her, ignoring his father. "I need to eat and scout Eve's position. I will return." He flew off, burdened by the weight of his father's oppressive stare.

Baphomet's dark gaze followed his bastard son until he was well out of sight. Abira watched him watching his son. No trace of love or pride was evident.

Only cool calculation behind those flinty eyes.

She wondered if he was calculating how best to get rid of Sirin—permanently. She lowered her head, ashamed. Why would she accuse the prince like that? Her mind whispered terrible truths, truths she could not deny.

Because you sense it. You can feel the cruelty under the polished manners now that you see how he treats his unwanted son, now that he has removed his mask. His morals are incomprehensible to someone like you. Do not doubt that he will kill Sirin as soon as he is of no more use. Do not forget he is the first son of Lucifer and Lilith. He is the Devil's First Prince. Do not forget what Baphomet is.

He is a demon.

Abira shrank into herself. _So am I. I am the descendent of a fallen angel. Which angel is still up for debate. So I must be a demon too._

She felt filthy as this sunk in.

I am a demon.

Visions of malformed creatures with cloven hooves and spiraling horns engaging in obscene orgies swam across her mind _._ She had not seen anything like that so far. No brimstone, no pitchforks.

Maybe being a demon was not so bad.

Baphomet startled her from further inward loathing with a pointed question. "Do you know how to lift cants?"

"No."

He pinched his nose and creased his brow. "That was a foolish question. Lifting a cant the emperor placed on me would be tricky for Lilith herself."

"Didn't you mention something about a boundary at the edge of the Aviary that we could cross to escape back to my home?"

"Yes, the River Styx would wash the cant from me if I immersed myself and swam across. But, the risk of madness is high if I choose that path. I could very well drown if the madness told me to swim to the bottom."

"How does a river make you go mad? And how does it get rid of cants?"

"The waters are rejuvenating, but they wash away too much. Cleansing can be taken too far, as can all things. Our legends declare that the river Styx is watered with the tears of God. He was so distraught when he saw how mankind had failed that he cried for a thousand days and nights without relief, thus forming the river from his sorrow."

His added softly, "To bathe in the sorrow of God is no small feat."

"There is no other way to lift the cant keeping you imprisoned in the Aviary?"

"There are many ways to lift a cant. None which are feasible in this savage forest."

"I don't have to bath in the tears of God to cross the veil?"

"There is no cant barring you. If Sirin is strong enough to fly you over, you should be safe."

"What would happen if he tried to fly you over?"

"He simply cannot. Any attempt at releasing me from the Aviary's boundaries would result in catastrophic failure. Trust me on this. I have defied my father many times and paid the price. Truly it is a wonder that I still draw breath."

She mulled this over. Something just felt wrong about Baphomet risking his sanity for her. "Where is the river?"

"Eastward. We will have to cross a barren waste."

Abira inhaled with sharp dismay. _Well, a barren waste sounds very comforting. Just like everything else in this fantastic horror show_. Aloud, she pondered, "What would happen to Sirin when he landed on Earth, or as you charmingly call my home, the lesser realm? A man with wings would raise quite a few eyebrows."

"Most people would not even see them."

"How couldn't they see them? His wings are six feet long _." And beautiful, and glorious..._

"The caul has blurred the true sight of man more and more as the era of reason takes hold."

"So people will look at him and just see a man?"

"Most will, yes. Your caul has been removed, so you will see things as they really are in God's eyes." Sadness lingered in his voice now. "Man had such promise before Eve and Lucifer corrupted them beyond redemption."

Abira did not know what to say to such a profound statement, so she said nothing.

After a period of contemplation, he mused, "I suppose I must risk it. I could see you safely home, and find out more of your lineage, if I am not driven mad."

Abira struggled with internal conflict. She did not want him to risk insanity, but she needed information. She also needed a guardian against Eve. She had a feeling that Eve would find her soon enough, in this world or that. She felt selfish and little wanting him to risk so much, but she needed him. And if he had not kidnapped her, she would not be here in the first place _. Of course, if he had not kidnapped me, I wouldn't have met Sirin..._

"Do not cross the river. If Sirin can fly me over safely, I will wait for you until the cant is lifted. Maybe I can find my mother and she could help you."

Baphomet considered this point and then shook his head. "That would be the coward's way out. I need to see you home, sane or not. Eve has marked you."

He reached over and clasped her small hand in his large one. His thumb caressed her knuckles, causing pleasure to heat within her despite her distrust of his motives. "Please tell me of your mother. I really need to know."
Ten

"What do you want to know about my mother?"

"Everything. Where does she live?"

Suspicion swept in. She looked at Baphomet and raised an eyebrow. "Looking to kidnap her too?"

His face tightened. "I made a terrible mistake. I thought you were about some game or other."

Here he stopped, uncertain at the meaning of her stony face. She pursed her lips and nodded for him to continue. He said, "I would not kidnap your mother. I suspect she is either a descendant of Lilith or Lilith herself. Lilith has many sons, and you may be her granddaughter or great-granddaughter."

"What exactly were you thinking when you threw me into this? You really thought I was playing a _game_?" Abira's voice went cold as she recalled his first betrayal. "You shouldn't have taken me. All of this would have been revealed to me sooner or later. I think my mother was leading up to that. But you just snatched me and dumped me here!"

The prince hung his head. With a small start, Abira realized one of the reasons he made her feel so conflicted. He was porcelain beauty, his jet-black hair cascading in gentle waves while his flawless skin nearly glowed with the light of the Creator. He had an aura of power and wisdom that was finished off with lovely bones. He boasted perfectly sculpted muscles. His speech and manners spoke of good breeding and a deep intellect.

He even wore his simple riding leathers like a prince. They sat on his frame with ease, cupping the bulge of his arms and the width of his shoulders.

All this was beautiful—except for one thing.

His eyes. Like Eve, like the emperor. His burning orbs screamed of one who was ancient, cruel, and calculating. Despite his flowery words and declarations, he looked through her as if she was not even present. His vast life-span had either dulled his pleasure in all things or lessened his morals, she was not sure which. The soul within reflected thousands of years passing with no end in sight.

Under his gentle words and kind tone, yet another viper hissed at her with obsidian eyes, tongue flicking at the air to taste of her weakness. Or so she feared.

I am just a tool against Eve. I am just another piece on the game board, if even that. I may just be a small distraction he is using to further his own ends.

_And he wants to find my mother. Which could lead to my Nana_. Her heart skipped a long beat. How could she make him think she still trusted him while avoiding any leads to her mother?

But she had just saved his beloved daughter. If Baphomet was interested in having a long-term relationship of the marital sort with Abira, then presumably he would want to keep her happy—at least until the vows were uttered.

She made a decision and forced a smile onto her lips _._ She had to play this dangerous game and trust that her mother knew how to deal with renegade princes. "My mother lives on the outskirts of a small mountain town named Sylvan Glade."

"Thank you, my Lady. I am really, truly sorry about bringing you into this tangled web."

Before Abira could respond, a blast of sun-soaked air whipped her hair around. Hundreds of fluttering violet-ochre butterflies swept by her. Sirin landed a split second later, as his entourage danced merrily under the dark leaves. A dainty butterfly landed on her nose, tickling her. She heard the faint stirring of air and smelled the sweet nectar of the pollen-dusted wings. The butterfly flew off to settle on Sirin, who now had several others perched on his ruffled wings.

He swept a long, low bow to Abira and sat down with balanced grace. Every move he made seemed so light in contrast to his father's heavy presence.

He gave his report without preamble. "I spoke to the crows at length. Eve disappeared, probably traveling back to the palace bower. The crows did much damage, so I do not believe we will be hearing from her for a little while."

Abira felt a slight lessening of tension. The sky was darkening to night, and she did not feel like running again. _Well, maybe I could stand being flown_...

An obvious danger slapped her in the face. "Why doesn't she just appear in front of us with that traveling cant and stick us in her dungeons?"

Baphomet said, "Traveling cants work by transporting the user to a specific place. She is not aware of our place, so we are invisible to her. If one of her slithering spies reported our location back to her quickly enough, she could travel to us. After this rest, we must stay on the move."

"So if you have never been to a place, could you just appear there?" Abira leaned in, her breath held. These new powers were enthralling.

"No. You have to know exactly how the place looks and hold that in your mind. Or be with someone who knows the place and can hold it in their mind while you create the cant."

"So how did she find us at the Tree of Knowledge?"

"One of her slithering spies probably overheard us and reported back to her. She traveled there and waited."

"Can you teach me how to perform a traveling cant?"

"I could if we had a year or two to idle. It is not a commonly used cant, as it is very difficult to master. Only the strongest demons and elves can perform such a feat."

She could see endless possibilities for this kind of travel. "Does it work on Earth?"

"Not very well. Divinity is dying out more every day in the lesser realm. Cants are becoming more difficult to maintain. You might find yourself dropped halfway to your goal."

She wondered at this as Baphomet began to stretch out on the branch. He barked, "We need to sleep before Eve recovers. Sirin, take first watch."

Abira gifted him with a covert scowl. Baphomet sighed, and said reluctantly, "Please. If you do not mind."

Abira scooted over to the vast tree trunk and sat against it as the prince closed his eyes. Sirin smiled and winked at her. Glinting gold flashed with every drop of his eyelid. He swung up through the branches, and then dropped back down beside her in a flash. He sat very close, his natural perfume caressing her senses. One butterfly still perched on his shoulder.

He leaned in, a small smile playing on his lips. "Looks safe out there to me. So, how did you like being flown?"

Abira giggled, feeling nervous butterflies bounce around her stomach in tandem with Sirin's graceful ones. She breathed, "It was breathtaking. I felt like I had been saved by an angel."

Sirin draped a too-casual arm around her shoulders. She had to stifle another bout of giggles. Was this a classic come-on in this world too?

When he touched her, she noticed the odd, shivering tickle that preceded the casting of a cant. Was he using some kind of cant on her?

Before she could ask, Sirin leaned in with a conspiratorial air. "The pleasure was all mine, I assure you. I do not think my sire was thrilled. I suspect he wanted to be the hero, saving the damsel in distress from the wicked witch."

Abira shook her head and raised a finger to her lips, wanting to silence Sirin before he voiced any more of his astute perspective. A building pressure was tingling in every inch of her that was in direct contact with him. The tips of his fingers hung just above her bosom, and his face was so close. She could count every eyelash if she chose.

Sirin cocked his head at her and grinned. "Tell me of the lesser empire. Is it truly as bad as they say? Crawling with half-mad humans fighting over scraps of a ruined world? It must be lies, since such a terrible place could never have produced a Lady like you."

Abira blushed from her neck to her roots and squirmed under his arm. "Oh, it isn't all bad. Our legends say that this world is all burning fire and eternal torment for damned souls, and I have not seen either yet. But yes, our world has many troubles. We are running out of resources, and the wars are making it much worse. I grew up in an isolated mountain area where the tragedy of the war did not often reach. When I went to boarding school in my late teens, I heard from the other girls how bad it really was."

As she was finishing her statement, she turned another degree toward him, and his rapt gaze caught hers. She lost the ability to breathe as she stared into his golden eyes. His exotic beauty and confidence was hypnotizing her. She felt herself letting go, growing weak to his charms.

Was this what love felt like? Was it this quick, this intense, this feeling of a hard cramp in your stomach and heart?

Sirin leaned in, his smoldering gaze locked on hers, his perfect lips parting.

Baphomet interrupted with ill-concealed fury. "I believe taking watch does not involve pathetic attempts at seducing Lady Abira. Do not forget your place, beast."

Sirin and Abira jerked apart to face Baphomet's cold expression. Abira felt a deep surge of fury. _Who is he to tell us what to do?_ She opened her mouth to ask Baphomet that exact question, but Sirin reacted first.

Sirin rose, his back stiff, his wings half folded. "My apologies." He jumped up, and took off into the foliage with haste.

Baphomet waited to speak until Sirin was flying high overhead. "Lady Abira, do not trust a beast such as him. He has cants all over him, although what kind I cannot tell. I suspect he may have a seduction cant cast to lure your innocence to him."

Abira suppressed her budding fury in order to extract more information. "How can you tell he has cants on him?"

"Once you have learned the art, you will see it. Did you feel an odd energy when he touched you, a tickling or perhaps a shivering?"

Abira nodded, now feeling uncertain. Was Sirin manipulating her with his divine powers? She hoped not. What she was feeling seemed real.

Baphomet shrugged his massive shoulders and rolled back over. "I felt honor bound to warn you. This world is rife with illusions and falsehoods. You will become practiced at sorting truth from lies soon enough."

She was really tired now, and had much to think on. The adrenaline highs and lows of today were harsh even on her new body. She was growing stronger and more in tune with the divine energy that flowed around her, but she still felt achy—like something was missing.

As her eyelids drooped to sweet oblivion, she realized what it was. Her link with humanity was fading in this twilight realm. Her desire to explore her latent powers was far more tempting than a return to the dubious safety of home. And now she was not sure if she was even partly human.

Sleep overtook her before she could ponder this sad revelation.

It felt like her eyelids had barely pressed together before she began to dream of the fairy ring back home _. She was with Nana, learning how to call the small folk...they danced so prettily around the mushrooms_... _Nana was teaching her secret, beautiful things that mother did not allow..._

The shining haze of the dream faded as Sirin thumped down beside her, causing the branch to shake.

She shot up, looking at his panicked face in bleary confusion. She could just see the gleaming gold of his wide gaze in the dark night. Midnight stillness hung low and heavy in the air, the moon's weak light unwilling to penetrate the canopy above. He was panicked, and spoke rapidly to Baphomet, who had reacted much more quickly than she had.

"I think Eve has alerted the elementals of your mortal state. They no longer fear the hunter now that he has become the hunted."

Baphomet stood in one fluid motion. Sirin babbled on, terror making his feathers puff up. "One of the really nasty earth elementals chased me here. I managed to fly away, but it shape-shifted too quickly for me to escape unseen. I think I lost it for a short while, but it will track me down soon enough." His huge, round eyes beseeched Baphomet. "What should we do?"

"We shall run. You fly. It will target only one group."

"I cannot leave Abira! Let me carry her!"

"You cannot hold her weight for long. The elemental will finish you both off and then double back to me!"

The debate raged on in escalating shouts. Sirin wanted to risk flying her to his mother's abode, while Baphomet wanted her to run with him so they could all move faster.

Baphomet clenched his jaw. "I will carry her. Satisfied?"

"No. Her weight will slow you too."

"We are losing precious seconds. Fly east." His tone brooked no arguments.

Sirin's huge, round eyes grew even rounder. He whipped his body around and embraced Abira with brief tenderness. He whispered into her eager ear, "Thank you for everything."

She looked at him askance. What had she done to make him so grateful? _He_ was the one that had saved _her_ life.

Sirin shot up with a shivering of leaves. His wings were outlined against the diamonds glittering in the sky for a second, then he disappeared.

Baphomet regarded her with hooded eyes. "I do not have time to explain the danger an elemental presents. If it catches you, use the light of the divine within you to thwart it. Send all your love, your hate. Whatever you are feeling the most strongly, send that to the divine light. That is the essence of defense cants. Your instincts will take over then. Or should."

Abira nodded as they dropped down to the waiting forest floor. "You are not planning to carry me, are you?"

"If you grow tired, I will. Sirin will come and get you if he can risk it. Your body is still too corrupted by the lesser realm, and you are not as swift as you will be. We are racing the moon. The light of dawn, if it touches the elemental, will banish it back to the realm of Chaos."

Abira seethed at his casual insult. She hated being called corrupted. It just sounded so low and mean, like she was some petty politician bought off with big company dollars. But she knew that now was not the time to take him to task. She consented to his plan, and they started out in all haste.

Baphomet bounded east, and Abira stumbled behind him. She was relieved that his pale form soaked up the distant glow of the moon, even under the leaves. The air whistled past her as she tripped a hundred times over gnarled roots.

As a nightmare filter darkened everything, she tried to breathe slow and deep. The pounding of her heart worked hard against her searing lungs.

She tried to keep his back in sight, but she was slipping further and further behind. Tears of frustration and rage built up in her as she felt her weakness in comparison to him. She was far faster and stronger than she had been even a day ago, but compared to his strength she was a crawling infant. To add to her mounting frustration, they had been running for so long that she expected to see the faint rays of dawn any second. But the night marched on with stubborn determination.

She finally fell to her knees, gasping. Bile rose in her dry throat as she conceded defeat. _I just need a minute_. Pain lanced her side, and exhaustion swallowed her inch by inch. She collapsed onto the waiting leaves.

What was so bad about an elemental anyway?

She heard nothing over her ragged breath, but she felt Baphomet's warm arms wrap around her. She was thrown over his shoulder like a bag of oats. He kept on moving as the branches snarled in her hair and pulled it away with painful jerks. She clung to his riding leathers, muffling her gasps of pain as her hair was pulled out.

Abira squeezed her eyes shut rather than look at the ground flying past beneath them. On and on they fled, ever onwards, but she began to feel something foul in the air.

Something no one could escape, no matter how long they ran.

Creeping dread and atrophied limbs. Grinning skulls chattering under branches. Leaves slipping over her skin with a whisper of death shrouds.

She knew then what the elemental did to cause such fear. It used the oldest and most profound terror of living things against them. It evoked the fear of death.

Which even demons feared.

Baphomet put on a burst of speed, but then he fell, hard and fast. They were tangled in each other, limbs flailing as they crashed into a clump of roots.

The impact of their fall was miniscule compared to what came next.

A low wailing and a deep cold heralded the arrival of some unseen thing. Abira had just enough time to crawl out from under Baphomet before the attack came. She looked up and saw vapors forming into snarling faces as they drifted down toward her.

Phantoms.

Angry ghosts clutched at her throat, pulling at her energy, her youth, and her beauty. She was alive, and they were only wispy wraiths.

They despised her with the envy of the once remembered. All they once had, she now had. They whispered with malicious glee in her unwilling ear. _You will be as us one day. Life is so fleeting in this dangerous world. Come with us now. Make it easy on yourself. Bring your light, and let us extinguish it for you._

Abira thrust herself back from the icy hands. She struck her head on a root with a sickening _crack,_ and stars exploded in front of the leering phantoms.

She felt another lurch of terror as the trees themselves moved against her. She felt a thick jerk, as roots rose that had long been tangled in the cool sweetness of earth.

They were rising to trap her. The leaves above shivered malice in unison with the phantoms.

The hard bark of the roots wrapped around her legs, her stomach, and her throat as the phantoms continued their whispered assault. The roots burst farther out of the ground to claim her completely.

Her vision began to blacken as an eager root tightened a noose about her neck. The spirits wailed, drowning her in their endless lament, their profound hatred.

She could find no method of attack. How do you hurt something that is already dead? How do you stop a vicious tree?

With steady effort, they began to win the battle for her life. She felt their influence spreading, her will to live fading into memory...

The cold weight of the tombstone sat upon her as worms crawled a slimy dance on her mummified flesh. Spirits wailed so long and loud that her head felt like it was splitting down the middle, splattering spongy ropes onto the waiting forest floor.

Death danced and whispered and tightened all around her consumed flesh. The tree welcomed her now.

For nourishment.

A furious battle cry brought her back from the edge of death. A beating of wings blew clean night air into her face. The phantoms gibbered as their strangling fingers dissolved.

Pure air melted their decayed souls away to less than a breeze.

Sirin was there, she saw him, and he was not dead, but alive and here to save them. He was tugging at the roots that imprisoned her and Baphomet, his seething, furious energy making his eyes glow with the light of angels.

But as he yanked on the lowly roots they sprang up and wrapped about him with ease, pulling him down while he screeched his battle cry. The roots, flecked with decayed earth, tightened around his wings.

The wings broke with a sickening snap as white feathers flew away to disappear into the dark void of the night. Sirin let out a final mewl and collapsed beside his father. The earth claimed them both as they sank with slow majesty into their fresh graves.

Silence lay thick on their trapped bodies. The ghosts had drifted away, and Abira dared not breathe lest the sound bring them back. Was it over? Was this some holding tactic of Eve? And what had caused Sirin and Baphomet to go so silent and limp?

Were they dead?

She heard a slithering. Then a low, garbled breath that choked through layers of mucus.

She could not help it.

She began to scream.
Eleven

She screamed, and heard her cry fade out as the hulking form in the shadows lurched closer. Her mind was chattering with numb fear at the merest hint of the thing.

It was still obscured in shadow and nightmares. But it was coming closer.

A serrated appendage slid towards her, the moonlight glinting off of gritty barbs. An oily voice filled her ears with dank filth.

"You are a beauty. I think I shall keep your face."

Abira squeezed her eyes shut as another serrated appendage slid towards her, stopping a hair's breadth from her foot. She searched for her divine power, but all she saw was darkness, deeper than any grave.

"I have waited long for you. You should be honored, Abira."

She shook her head, unable to speak, unable to comprehend how it knew her name.

A tickling began to scratch under her skin. Despair sidled up alongside her terror as she felt the stale air of the long dead wash over her face.

Visions began to cloud her mind, conjurations of obscene art. Bones and skulls patterned out in fantastic excess. Dry skin rubbing against shriveled bones. Long, yellow teeth bared silently against the casket that bound their bones.

This thing, this elemental, saw death—her death, any death—as Art. Pieces left behind were for it to toy with, to _create_ with.

"Look at me." The gurgling voice intensified the horrors dancing in her mind's eye.

Abira shook her head again as grave worms writhed against shiny beetles. Fetid earth cascaded down on her.

On _her._ On her rotting skin _._

Her lids flew open, and she looked down at her decaying body. Her slimy muscles detached from her bones in languid plops. Her grey intestines housed squirming legions of maggots.

Abira let out a wordless gasp, her tongue too corrupted to speak.

"Look at me. See the place of honor I have for your skin. My finest prize, the jewel of my collection."

Her head jerked up involuntarily as the elemental's hold on her strengthened. She felt her eyes begin to collapse, the warm liquid running like bitter tears. But despite her ruined eyes, she saw her living tomb in grisly detail.

The elemental pointed an appendage toward a rubbery bit of exposed flesh over and above what could have been its heart. She could not comprehend the rest of the thing, so she stared with fixed determination at the place of honor her stolen face would occupy.

But her curiosity, even in this teeming void of madness, drew her eyes to examine the thing in a last attempt to understand her fate. She looked over it with a dull finality. The too-thin, serrated legs held up an impossible bulk of rotting faces. Empty bags of skin and hair were pinned to bulging rings, the mouth holes sagging in perpetual agony.

Dripping yellow suckers plagued the underbelly of the elemental. The head boasted snapping teeth and miniscule eyes which gleamed at her with unholy hunger.

A patch of her skin fell away from her thigh and dropped with a soft splatter to the damp leaves.

The elemental's insectile eye flicked to the fallen skin. "I believe I will start with that delicacy."

The taste of excrement lingered after every word the thing uttered.

Something deep inside, deeper than anything Abira had ever felt before, snapped clean in half _._

This thing would not feast on her. It would not wear her head like a trophy.

She was a child of fallen angels, with the power of God's own divinity pulsing within her.

She took the two pieces of herself, divine and not, demon and not, and wove them into a smothering blanket of glorious light.

The golden light burst from her in a song that she could only have sung in the direst of straits. Her rage at the audacity of this creature compounded the blazing energy, the elements of her own Chaos mastered.

How dare this disgusting perversion even think of looking upon her divinity? How dare it presume to use her face as a token of nightmare esteem?

She sang a song of exploding suns as her heart burst with the light. The elemental screeched in primal horror, trying to dash back to the cover of trees, the cloak of night. The light pounded against the dark without quarter, splintering the reality in which the elemental dwelled. Its unspeakable form shriveled to dust in the wind, then dissolved in the majesty of her unleashed, divine power.

She sang on and on, warning those nearby who worked for Eve that they would share the same fate as the ill-omened elemental. All her frustration and pain unleashed a torrent of cleansing so profound that she felt her very soul scoured of impurities.

For less than a heartbeat, she truly felt _divine_.

The light faded, and her breath caught as she slowed her singing to a hum, and then stopped. Exhaustion shuddered through her body as the light fled, deserting her to the dark cold of the night. She lolled her head around, trying to see if the rot on her trapped body had at least stopped advancing.

Pain seared her consciousness, spent energies beat against her breast. But she forced open her heavy lids to see the damage that the elemental had racked her body with.

There was none.

No exposed bones, no glistening maggots. Only her riding leathers, and unmarred flesh underneath.

_It was an illusion,_ she thought, with something that was not quite joy. _An illusion. I was never covered with grave worms. I am alive._

Her exhaustion eased into a feeling of simply being tired after a period of quiet rest. She shrugged loose from the roots as soon as she was strong enough and crawled over to Baphomet. Neither he nor Sirin were fully immersed in the dirt which was a huge relief. She touched his chest and felt it rising. _He lives. For now._

She crawled over to Sirin, lamenting the desperate angle at which his wings were bent. The part of his body showing above the dirt was crumpled like the rag doll of a gigantic child.

Her heart ached at his broken body. She put her hand down with loving care on his narrow chest. She felt the thrum of his bird heart, beating ten times faster than hers ever could. Abira collapsed back on the ground as relief trickled through her.

They were both alive. But after banishing the elemental, she was not sure if she had the strength to heal them, or even to bring them back from the brink of death. She let out a breath that she had not even realized she was holding.

She felt herself recovering faster, and a thrill of pride crept into her. _I did it. I saved us, I used my divine powers. I did not need the prince to wake me with a kiss._

I saved the ancient and legendary demon Baphomet from a terrible fate. And I can't even change a tire.

She started to laugh, her mirth swallowed by the nervous trees _. I bet they didn't expect me to win. The wicked trees turned on me, how should I punish them?_

She patted the root beside her with fond familiarity. "Don't worry, Mr. Tree. We are still friends. Just keeping hiding us from Eve and I may even knit you a sweater."

She started howling again, tears coursing down her face. "I don't even know how to knit! And I defeated an elemental." She could not stop laughing, so she did not try. She guffawed until she was sobbing and trembling. The leaves sighed with understanding.

If I don't laugh, I might go crazy.

She sat with her back to the tree until the sobs faded into an occasional sniffle. She needed to make sure her hysteria had subsided before she figured out what to do next. She admired the winking stars high above the smothering trees.

To take her mind off the visions that were still bursting into her mind, she began to study the inert form of Baphomet, he who seemed strong even when immersed in dirt. There was just something so hard and immobile about him, so complete, so there.

It felt like he always had been and always would be.

_Can I convince him not to immerse himself in the water now? I think I can take care of myself._ Even as that thought departed, another worry presented itself. Could he survive alone without the power of his divinity? He had not saved them from anything. Sirin's feathered family and Abira's raw power had conquered their enemies.

When she felt strong enough, she got up and pulled the roots off of them, being especially tender with Sirin's wings. She brushed the clotted dirt off as best she could, then sat on a root beside him, willing him to wake soon.

Finally they both began stirring and blinking themselves into consciousness. The narrow finger of dawn's light had eased through the trees to hasten their awakening. Sirin's eyes opened first, and he immediately looked around to see if she was okay. She touched his jaw, trying to say without words what his bravery had meant to her. He smiled and slid his hand over hers.

When Baphomet sat up, they broke apart, and she gave them a brief outline of what had happened. They both looked shocked that she had defeated the elemental, but neither explained their reactions. Baphomet switched subjects, asking Sirin if he knew of a safe place to hide and rest.

Sirin knew of a tiny cave a short distance away, so they limped there.

They arrived at the cave after a short trek, and settled in. Sirin's wings were already showing signs of mending, and he began to comb through his displaced feathers in a familiar manner. He winced but bore his pain with quiet dignity.

Baphomet just sat there. His mind was clearly wandering on a different plane, so Abira just let him wander without interruption. She was relieved at not being the object of his scrutiny for once.

She admired how Sirin endured the mending of his wings with only winces. She wondered if he had suffered worse wounds, here in the lethal Aviary.

She switched her attention back to Baphomet, who still looked lost.

_I wonder if being saved by a woman has bruised his ego. And not just any woman, a woman from the lesser realm._ She felt a trickle of satisfaction at bringing his male ego low.

Served him right for not believing in her.

Sirin stood up, and stretched his wings with a cautious flex of his back muscles. They spread with his usual beauty, somehow made more beautiful by their drab surroundings of dripping stone and limp moss. He dropped back to his knees and slid his hand into hers with smooth courtesy. He then gave her a light kiss on her knuckles. That shivery-tickle crept up her arm again, but she hardly noticed.

For what felt like the thousandth time, butterflies burst into flight within her stomach. How could he do that to her with so little effort? A mere brushing of his lips made her feel like she was soaring to the heavens with him again. His singsong voice trilled with gratitude as he said, "I cannot think you enough, Lady Abira. I am forever in your debt." He kissed her hand again, his eyes fixed on hers. She felt the butterflies dancing all over her ribcage now. "I am at your service for any need that arises."

She blushed, and mumbled, "You would have done the same for me."

Sirin let go of her hand with much reluctance as they both sensed the hot anger of Baphomet pulsing at them. He put on his deadpan mask when they looked over, but you could still glimpse the coals smoldering behind his serene eyes.

He inclined his head with cool courtesy. "I owe you a debt, too, my fair Lady. I did not think we had a chance. I hold you in far higher esteem than before." He stood with his usual efficient manner and strolled to the cave entrance. "We have rested enough. Outrunning the Hounds of Hell is going to take us to the brink of endurance."

Abira tilted her head. "What makes you think that they are still pursuing us? Last I saw Eve was blind, and the hounds were not in much better shape."

"I am intimately familiar with Eve's thirst for vengeance. Make no mistake, she has healed the hounds, roused all her lackeys, and is pursuing us with single-minded determination. I hope to lose her and cross the Styx."

Abira tried again to dissuade him from seeking the crossing of the Styx. She pleaded, "Don't swim across that river. Let Sirin and me go to find help. There has got to be a solution we can discover that does not involve you dying or going crazy."

He kept his back to her as he walked on. "I must go with you. I have been outfoxed by Eve's maneuvers two times now." He slowed his step and glanced behind him. "I have grown lax. I have relied overmuch on my cants. Searching for my mother has consumed too much energy that has not been replenished. I have been shamed down this path because I have let myself get so weak. I will overcome the Styx, and I will find the empress."

He cast a lingering glare at Sirin. "My dishonor increases at every turn."

Abira frowned at his back when he turned away _._ It was not Sirin's fault that Baphomet kept screwing up.

A low, warbling horn sounded in the canopied distance, causing Sirin's and Baphomet's heads to whip around at the same second. They glanced at each other and nodded in mutual understanding.

Baphomet turned to her and said, "It begins. That is Eve's hunting horn."

Sirin touched her on the shoulder and said softly, "Run. I will scout their position."

She nodded, and began to run after Baphomet as Sirin shot to the sky. They loped east, their feet eating up the distance with savage appetite. She kept up with Baphomet's long stride much more easily now, which gave her a fleeting confidence.

The scenery blurred by, green and grey and brown. Her small feet barely seemed to touch the leaves beneath before they lifted again, to conquer another stride that drew her further from her enemy.

She felt so alive, so free, so perfect in this moment. Running with the wind against her face, Sirin's cawing echoing down to her, chasing the path that led to a river of God's tears...

She exalted as time faded to eternity, with the thrill that imminent danger brought _._ She understood why Baphomet put himself in danger.

The stimulation was _incredible_.

The long, low horn warbled in the distance again, and Baphomet risked a glance back. He breathed, "The hounds have been released."

Abira nodded and kept bounding. Sirin dropped down, bringing the smell of the sun with him, wings neatly tucked behind, snowy hair ruffled.

"Eve has roused half the court. I expect they will be moving much slower than us, considering their hangers-on and baggage. We are still outrunning them, but not by as much as I would like."

Baphomet panted around his next words. "How far behind?"

"Four leagues."

Baphomet cursed a viscous stream of anger under his breath. "How did she find us so fast?"

No one had an answer for him, so they all kept running. Sirin sprang into the air and yelled, "I will be back, Lady!" With that, he flew into the sky.

They splashed through merrily sparkling streams, raced past gnarled trees, scrambled up steep hills. Once, they ran straight under an icy waterfall and into a damp cave.

They emerged from the cave into gloomy daylight, to the smell of fresh blood. The odor of copper and salt lingered in her nostrils long after. Once she could have sworn she saw a deer peering at her with confused fear, but they passed it in such a blink that she could not be sure. The whirlwind of their passage uprooted squawking birds, which launched into the bright day above the gloom.

Even she knew they were leaving a trail that the most inept hunter could follow. She wondered if Baphomet had changed his strategy of outrunning Eve, but did not want to waste the breath to question him. So she followed on, trying to trust his judgment.

She felt her lungs burning, her step slowing, and a stitch growing in her side.

Baphomet sniffed the air and looked around, slowing his pace by the tiniest fraction. Abira caught the scent right after him. The smell of ash and charred wood, mingling with sulfurous fumes. She gagged a bit and swallowed back. This stench almost gave Ocypete competition.

But not quite.

They slowed as the trees ended, to find a wasteland that lay in twisted ruin. Abira stopped, and her eyes widened at the blasted landscape. She gasped for breath, holding her side, willing her trembling knees not to fail her.

She turned to Baphomet, who had stayed with her under the dubious safety of the tree cover. He was gasping in harsh tandem with her.

She worked saliva around in her dry mouth until she could ask, "We have to run over this? We will be completely exposed."

"There is no other way. The river lies beyond."

"Can you even cross? This doesn't look like the rest of the Aviary."

He took a few more enormous lungfuls of air and said, "This is still the Aviary. You have only seen the forest. Mountains, deserts, and wastelands like this dot it. The empress wanted her victims to face a wide variety of punishing landscapes."

She looked to the violet sky for the comfort of Sirin, but did not see him.

Abira shrunk back, feeling small in all this open space after the tight confines of the forest prison. She whispered, "I'm ready whenever you are."

So saying, they took their first steps into the burnt world. Rent cracks in the ruined land belched a smoky greeting.
Twelve

The black earth burned under her feet, leaving a chalky residue with every ashen step. Rises and crests hid shriveled husks of trees with branches that beseeched the world above in silent agony. Partly hidden holes gaped in the landscape, some fuming with dark gases. Rippling waves of molten rock lay under the ashen veil that dirtied her shoes.

She wondered if this was the true Hell.

Almost as if he heard her, Baphomet began to speak. "This was once forest, all the way to the Styx. There was a great battle here when the dragons rose in rebellion alongside Lilith's prisoners."

"Did they win the battle?"

"Yes, but they lost the war. The uprising came very close to victory. Too close. The empress has long suspected that Eve had a hand in stirring up the rebellion. The whole court united at the last possible moment to overcome the dragons."

He loped and jumped over obstacles as he told his tale of woe. Abira noticed that they both spoke with ease, even though they were moving with incredible speed and had taken only a very short rest.

"What started the battle?"

"That is a very long and sad tale spanning eons, my Lady. I should be glad to sit down with you one starry night and fill your ears with the wonders of the Dragon War. Alas, when the Hounds of Hell are on your heels, it is very difficult to give the tale its due."

They jumped down from a rocky incline and weaved their way in and out of the crumbled remains of the forest.

A wash of cool air hit her face as Sirin landed next to them, kicking up a mottled blanket of ash. He proceeded to rip an arrow from his shoulder and toss it to the ground, coughing and cursing from the pain. Blood flowed scarlet down his chest.

They stopped for a moment to parlay. Abira felt a surge of concern as she watched the blood flow thick and fast from his ragged wound. He seemed fine, so she restrained her natural worry _._ She thought wryly that not so long ago, if she had seen someone with an arrow wound fly down from the sky on wings, she would have thought she was going crazy.

Now it was just another day in Hades.

Sirin addressed his father. "They are exiting the tree cover."

Baphomet raised a long finger to his chin. "Eve is not trying to kill us. She is herding us like cattle." He looked around, his brow creased. "She knows we will either be driven into the caverns or across the Styx. She would not dare enter the dragons' caverns. I am not so sure the Styx would stop her."

Sirin blinked, bird-quick. His pupils dilated, and his feathers puffed. "I can fly Abira across the Styx easily enough. You must make your choice at the shore. But I cannot enter the caverns."

"The caverns are truly a Hell within Hell. I would rather risk losing her before the Styx and have at least a slight chance at survival."

Abira asked, "What is so bad about the caverns?"

Baphomet said, "Fire, and dragons cavorting in endless lava. The caverns are an embodiment of what the old human scriptures describe as Hell. The dragons rule there, and those earth worms know nothing of love nor compassion. Only greed, crude power grabs, and an insatiable gluttony mark their time upon this land."

Abira swallowed, nervous. "So even if Sirin manages to fly me over the river, you still risk either madness, dragons, or capture by Eve?"

Baphomet shook his head. "I will not leave you, so for me there is but one choice. I will swim in the tears that God left behind. May He have mercy on my honorable intentions." He nodded towards the desolation. "Come, let us run."

They started sprinting again as Sirin wheeled around to check on the hunting party. She saw a grimace cross his face as he launched into the air, and he did seem to be moving more slowly. She prayed silently that he would not be hurt further. This was not his problem, and his loyalty to her person was touching—and felt sincere.

After all, he could just fly away. He chose to help, risking his life in the venture.

Abira heard a long, low _aaaahhhooooo-aaaaaahhhhooooo_ , much closer this time. She stopped herself from worrying about Sirin, and concentrated on the ruined labyrinth ahead.

Baphomet swerved around a skeletal tree and put on a burst of speed. Abira challenged herself to keep up as the rush of adrenaline she was feeling peaked. She noticed that he was now coated in ash. Glancing down at her own body, she saw that she was covered in the same.

Baphomet threw back a caution as he skirted another ruined tree. "We must move more swiftly than this. The Hounds of Hell are desperate to win any chase, and they are much closer than I thought."

Abira asked, "Why are they so desperate?"

"Because they all have cants upon them that only Lilith or Lucifer can lift. If they catch their quarry three times in a row, Lucifer will break the cant, and they will be free to leave the Aviary. This adds a special haste to their step."

She felt a fleeting pity for the dogs. _Their suffering is a whim of the emperor's—just like mine. I hope we don't have to hurt any more of them._

She thrust such softness aside for survival's sake. Being kind here was akin to signing your death warrant.

Abira put on a burst of speed and found herself thrilled anew. This was easy, this was beautiful, she could conquer this terrain. She felt strong and free, her heart flying to the sun to soar with Sirin...

_I must be an optimist after all_ _if_ _I can find wonder in such a twisted nightmare._ She burst out laughing and earned a confused glance from Baphomet. She shook her head at him and ran, on and on, over crumbling earth and slick lava petrified with age.

_Aaaaahhhhooooo. Ahhhhhhoooooooooooo_.

Her heart clenched tight around her brief fling with wonder. Raw fear presented itself with preening delight. The fear gibbered at her, chattering monkey teeth clashing with delighted rage. It whispered: _We are old friends now. You didn't think I would leave you? I am here to stay unless Eve is killed. That is the only thing that will stop her from killing you!_

Abira worried about the voice clashing in her mind. Had the elemental planted the seed of madness in her?

Abira asked, "Can Eve die?"

Baphomet replied, "Only by God himself can the angels be destroyed. She can be bound for a time if you are strong enough, but eventually she will break free and come after you."

"So will she never stop trying to hunt me?"

Baphomet remained silent, leaving her to answer her own question.

The world shrank to a narrow tunnel as another horn blast exploded. She risked looking behind her, only to see glaring canine eyes. Plumes of dust swallowed most of the hounds, but she could feel the vibrations of their numbers under the ground. She whipped her head back around, but could see only a set of craggy cliffs that boxed them in.

Did Baphomet mean to climb the cliffs? Or have Sirin fly them over? Abira shot Baphomet a panicked glance. Then the baying began as the hounds realized their prey was in sight. Hundreds of hounds bellowed ecstatic howls. She glanced again and saw that the hounds had put on a burst of speed.

Her heart hammered against her ribcage, so hard she thought it might burst.

Baphomet swerved toward a narrow opening in the cliff ahead. The cavern pressed back into shadows while reaching out with greedy fingers to clutch them. An eye-watering stink of sulfur wafted from the cave. It was so rank that it made her nose and lungs itch.

The hounds bayed again, their blood-lust betrayed in every note of triumph. She put on a burst of speed and tumbled into the craggy cavern, not caring about as-of-yet unseen dragons. Her knees slammed against shale, and the sudden darkness shrouded her sight.

Abira rose with slow caution, brushing her leathers off before moving into the oppressive cavern. Baphomet stopped her with a calm hand. "We go no farther for now."

"But the hounds are near." She gagged around the noxious fumes coating her throat.

"The hounds dare not enter here. We should be safe enough now that we have crossed into the dragons' lair."

She glanced into the stinking darkness with a touch of relief _. I guess I will trust him to handle this._

A deep, rumbling voice rose from the darkness. "My Prince. It has been too long."

A long snout moved out of the shadows, sniffing with a touch of bored leisure. She strained to catch sight of the dragon, which was peering at her with burnt orange eyes.

Wonder overcame her as her childhood fondness for tales of dragons rose to the surface of her mind. _They are just as beautiful as Nana said...each scale holding all the colors known to God..._

Baphomet sketched a bow and said, "It has been far too long. May I ask for safe passage through King Olnera's realm?"

"You may ask. Perhaps you shall even receive. He was most pleased with your last offering."

Abira kept sneaking glances between the dragon, Baphomet, and the cave's entrance, where the approaching hounds would be waiting _._ Dragons ahead and hell-bent hounds behind. What a choice.

The dragon seemed to be friendly with Baphomet, so that gave her a silver lining to focus on. But Sirin had said he would not enter the caverns, and she could not bear to leave him behind. Not after he had risked so much to keep her safe.

So what was Baphomet's plan? Split up and reconnect later?

The dragon took another step forward, amber scales flashing iridescence. Rainbows moved under each scale with mesmerizing rhythm. The dragon spoke again, greed coating every syllable.

"What offerings do you propose, my Prince? The king's horde grows thin as of late."

Without a word, Baphomet removed a small pouch from one of his satchels. He tossed it to the hovering dragon with careless aim. A long arm snaked out and caught the pouch.

Abira glanced at Baphomet. He looked away, his cheeks flushed the palest pink. Warning bells began to ring in her mind. He was hiding something. But what?

The dragon shook the bag, pouring its glittering contents onto the stony floor. "Nine emeralds, ten gold pieces, and a dozen rubies?" Disdain crept into his tone. "This is a very small offering, my Prince. Perhaps a tender morsel to sweeten your passage?"

The dragon's orange eyes flicked to Abira and back to Baphomet.

She shot the dragon a filthy look. _You aren't going to eat me._ Her fairy tale reverence for the fabled dragon evaporated into the stinking mists. Now, to her newly jaded sight, he just looked like an overgrown lizard with wings. And bad breath to boot.

Baphomet avoided her gaze as he made his next proposal. "I have a feathered beast. Would that suite the king's palate?"

The dragon scratched a claw through the small fortune before him. "I think so. Then this cache and the feathered beast are promised to the king?"

Baphomet jerked his chin down with a stiff nod, sealing the deal—and his son's fate.

Abira took a step back as what Baphomet had done dawned on her. Her stomach twisted with disgust. Her fury landed hard on Baphomet's betraying shoulders.

If he was going to feed Sirin to the dragons, she would rather take her chances with Eve.

A half-formed plan developed in her racing mind. She could try to climb up the cliff and flag Sirin down. He could then fly them as best he could until they were at the Styx. Now that Baphomet had sold his son to the dragon's empty stomach, she felt no guilt at leaving him to his deserved fate.

She took another backward step toward the entrance, trying to remain silent. Casually, another. Baphomet turned to her, and his lips parted.

She turned and ran, furious beyond words at his betrayal.

His own _son_.

It would be only a matter of time before it was _s_ _he_ who was sacrificed.

She burst out of the dragons' lair and came to a halt. The way was now completely blocked, with the hounds forming a panting semi-circle around the cave's entrance. A few whined with exhaustion. One hound growled and snapped at another who stepped on its paw.

There were riders atop the hounds, and they looked down on her behind red leather masks. Every single face was hidden from her searching glare, and she felt a deep contempt at this cowardice.

She heard a soft step behind her, and an almost heartfelt plea. "Abira, trust me."

She could not.

The stillness was interrupted by a growing disturbance towards the rear of the pack. The hounds shuffled closer to each other to open a path. Through the sea of musty fur came their leader.

Abira's throat constricted as she saw yet another legend come to life. Six baleful eyes glared down from three enormous heads. This hound rivaled a bull elephant's immensity. Astride his neck sat Eve, a silken bandage covering her ruined eye sockets.

Baphomet stepped right beside Abira and bowed with more than a touch of mockery. "Eve."

Eve's lush lips curled in a sneer. She spat out, "Baphomet."

Silence ensued. No hound dared to pant. Even Eve's three-headed mount had gone deathly quiet, his slobber roping to the parched ground. The saliva landed on the dirt, between the slow rage of ancient demons and fallen angels.

Finally Eve spoke. "I have a message from the emperor."

"Speak it."

"He will lift the cant upon your head if you return to your search for Lilith, and give him the Lady Abira for further questioning."

Baphomet's face hardened. Light contempt dusted his words. "That is all?"

"Your father's patience is spent. He has always favored you over better sons, and his softness has made you arrogant and stupid." Eve leaned forward as if glaring with her empty sockets. "You shame him."

"How have I shamed him?"

Eve nodded with regal grace to someone on her left. A scarlet clad warrior stepped from behind her mount, dragging Sirin on a rope, tugging hard. His body was riddled with arrows, and his wings looked like they had been broken again.

Abira felt tears against her eyelids and willed them not to fall. She would not give Eve the satisfaction of her sorrow.

The warrior pulled Sirin right up to Baphomet and tugged hard, throwing him forward. He kicked Sirin in the back, so that he fell face-first onto the sharp rocks. Sirin gasped at the pain, his feathers stained with blood, his glory crushed under his struggling body.

Abira leaned over and began to fumble with the knots. The warrior stepped back quickly from the entrance to the cavern. She slipped her narrow fingers under the rope, disgusted at how tightly they had bound him. Sirin looked at her, his eyes huge twin suns. She tried to smile, hoping to comfort him, but failed. She kept tugging and pulling, still willing her tears not to drip on his already-ruined form.

Eve's laugh cut across her efforts. "The First Prince rutted with a monster. And not any monster, oh no. No perversity is too profound for the First Prince. You coupled with Ocypete and spawned this half-breed!" Her glee rang out against the rocks and fell warbling to the ground.

Baphomet said nothing, so Eve continued on. "When the emperor hears of this, it may just push him to the brink! Perhaps, if I am very lucky, he will crush you with his own hands."

Baphomet's voice finally sprang out, louder than Eve's contempt. "I did sire this beast upon Ocypete, yes. But my humiliation is nothing next to what yours will be when Lilith returns to claim what is hers. Your lust for power will come to naught. You will never hold Lilith's title of Empress. The whole court mocks your ridiculous ambitions to obtain her seat. You, dear stepmother, will always be second wife."

Eve's sharp intake of breath made Abira smile a tiny bit. She undid the last rope binding Sirin and sat back, trying to think over all this confusion. Baphomet's betrayal clouded her heart as she saw Sirin's ruined wings. He could not fly, so what should they do? He would take a half day or more to mend his broken wings...

Baphomet tasted triumph as Eve's silence stretched on, so he began to laugh with forced mirth. "The empress will be back. And I suspect the first thing she will do upon her return is put you back in your place—under her."
Thirteen

Abira felt a wicked pleasure at Eve's humiliation. She glanced under her lashes at Baphomet, who had the tiniest of smiles playing around his lips as he bowed to Eve and eased back into the cavern entrance.

He said, "I leave the courts to their amusements. I bid all my brothers, sisters, and various and assorted family farewell." He swept the hunting party with his cool glance. "I hope to see all of you at the next ball. Please tell the emperor I decline his request."

Abira noticed a wave of unease pass through those gathered. What was so bad about a ball? She sighed at her own stupidity. _It's Hell. Of course there will be something weird or horrible about a simple dance._

Baphomet reached down and grabbed her elbow, never taking his eyes off of Eve. He muttered under his breath, "Trust me, Abira." He tugged on her with desperate insistence. She stood up with slow reluctance, torn in two _. Can I trust him?_ _Am I willing to risk Sirin's life?_ She looked down at Sirin as he rose with shaking legs, his wings dragging on the unforgiving ground, arrow shafts bobbing with every move.

She looked back up at the gleaming fangs of the hounds, then looked at the waiting dragon, who had watched this exchange with mild amusement. He caught her eye and grinned, exposing rows of blackened teeth marching back.

Sirin let out a scream.

He jerked back toward Eve. He grabbed a rock outcropping and clung to it as something invisible pulled him. Tendons strained in his neck as blood pumped out of his many wounds. He cast a desperate look at Abira, his eyes pleading for help. Her hands were already reaching before he looked at her, and she clasped his wrists and pulled back.

She glared at Eve, who had her hand up and one long finger extended. She was making a come-hither motion with a gentle flexing of her palm. "I cannot hold you, Baphomet, without the emperor's consent." She grinned around glistening teeth. "But I can take your beast son. Perhaps his mother will see fit to remove the cant that plagues me if he is held in unpleasant circumstances. I would like my sight back."

Eve's power pulled Sirin even harder, and Abira's grasp slipped over his knuckles.

She grabbed his hands and pulled back, trying to find the divine power that would break Eve's. She clenched her teeth and searched with mounting desperation to find a surge of divinity.

The divinity eluded her.

The dragon rumbled in irritation and stepped out of the cavern. "Lady Eve, that tender morsel has been promised to my king. He is no longer your prey."

Eve stilled at the dragon's declaration, and Abira felt the pulling against Sirin lessen.

"He is the prey of the emperor's wife. Your king will have to find another morsel."

The dragon thumped and weaved out toward the hounds in a flash. His long muscles bunched under his iridescent scales with each enormous step. The hounds backed away, whining low in their throats. Abira watched the hounds' reactions with horrified fascination. They could take the dragon on if they all attacked at once. Why were they so frightened of him?

The obvious answer to her question came belting out of the dragon's creaking jaw. It shot a white hot blast of fire toward the darkening sky in response to Eve. The cant pulling on Sirin stopped, and Abira relaxed her hold as he collapsed, gasping, against the rock between them. She held on, afraid that Eve would start her antics again. A warm blanket of air made her eyes burn and her lungs sear as the dragon's flame roared on.

When the air had finally been scorched to his satisfaction, the dragon lowered his massive head to glare at the hunting party. He rumbled, "The king only answers to the emperor and empress."

Eve's face curdled under her silken bandage. Just then, the rider beside her took off his scarlet mask to regard the dragon.

It was the emperor, his sharp, terrible, beautiful face impassive. But his tone betrayed icy fury.

"You show my wife little courtesy, worm."

The dragon began backing away, the great head low, orange eyes shifting away. "My apologies, Emperor. I did not know your wife spoke for you."

The emperor jumped down from his hound with quick grace and strode to the dragon. He put his hand on the dragon's smoking snout. The dragon held completely still, lips pulled back in a nervous grin.

The emperor said softly, "Since you apologized, you will be spared a long death."

Then that crackling energy flowed over the emperor, and the dragon collapsed with an echoing crash. The emperor removed his hand from the fresh corpse and turned his attention to Abira and Sirin.

She shrunk back involuntarily as he came closer. He grabbed both of them before either could react. The pressure of expansion-contraction began, and she realized he was traveling with them somewhere. She was breathless and crushed for two heartbeats, then they fell hard onto cold metal. Wind caressed her hair and skin as she blinked her dry eyes.

They began to rock back and forth. When her vision cleared and she saw where they were, she wanted to scream.

In a hanging cage, of course. The emperor had dumped them ungraciously into yet another prison. Misty clouds drifted below them, undulating against the mountain's side. Abira's stomach plummeted to the valley thousands of feet below as she took in their position.

A cozy little village twinkled in the twilight under their swaying cage. Smoke rose from miniscule chimneys. She thought she spotted horse drawn carriages, but could not be sure at this distance.

She realized that this was how the emperor viewed his subjects. Tiny and insignificant, so far beneath him as to be almost invisible.

She took in her surroundings with careful scrutiny after the initial shock wore off. It was another giant bird cage, attached by a thick metal chain to a tree, which clung to the very edge of a soaring cliff. The gnarled tree branch that hung over them was abloom in gorgeous, pale white flowers that resembled lilies. Even as she admired their contrasting beauty against the emerging stars, a flower drifted down to land on her prison floor.

For some strange reason, the bloom gave her hope.

She turned her head and regarded the emperor, who was seated on a plush burgundy divan not three feet from the edge of the cliff. He lounged back with supine ease, calmly popping a candied cherry into his mouth.

She noted three female elves hovering a few paces away, their lowered faces drawn, their hair ornately swept up, jewels glittering on every finger. Very scant clothing adorned their nubile figures. Behind them grew a lavish sculpture garden, with meandering paths and exotic flowers of every conceivable color.

The sight would have been beautiful if the Devil's menacing presence had not dominated it.

The emperor chewed as he watched them, saying nothing. Sirin stood up without warning, causing the cage to rock. Abira's stomach rocked with it. She pressed herself down against the cold metal of the floor as hard as she could.

The emperor took a sip of white wine. Selected another cherry. Chewed. Sirin's feathers were puffing up, and his trembling pupils had eclipsed the gold in his irises.

The emperor stopped chewing and issued a cool challenge. "If you would speak, beast son of my son, speak. Do not stand there wishing me dead. Speak it aloud."

Sirin hissed, "How dare you treat the Lady Abira like this?"

The emperor took another cherry and slipped it into his waiting mouth. "I saved her. And I dare because I am the emperor."

"Saved her from what?"

"Baphomet's inevitable betrayal."

Abira cut in, her anger escalating in tandem with Sirin's. "Why did you even throw me into the Aviary to begin with?"

"To test your abilities. Your survival instincts. I thought I detected a strong aura of destiny about you. I wanted to see if I read you right."

She let sarcasm drip from her lips. "Did I pass your test with flying colors?"

"You did. Your healing of Blossom was unexpected, as was your defeat of an earth elemental. The only disappointment was my son's failings, which have so shamed me that I am tempted to banish him to the lesser realm until he finds the empress. Or strangle him. His fate varies with my moods."

Abira shot a question at him, hoping the random suddenness of her query would catch him off guard. "Why does Eve want me dead?"

"Did Baphomet not tell you?"

"No."

"Then let us play a game, Lady Abira. One question for you, one question for me. Fair?"

Abira fumed, her heart flaming with hatred for these stupid games she must play. "Fine," she snapped.

"Eve wants you dead because you may be a grave threat to her position. A long time ago, I was summoned to Paradise, for God would have words with me."

Abira leaned in, not daring to interrupt. The emperor continued on, marking her interest with an arched eyebrow. "God spoke to me at length of many things which do not concern you. One thing he said may have been about you. Or not."

He took a sip of wine and selected another cherry while he stared at her.

"Well?" said Abira, impatient. "What did God say that made Eve want to kill me?"

The emperor glared at her impertinence. "He said that the third daughter of Lilith would either be my greatest foe or my greatest ally in the trials ahead. Eve suspects that you are the third daughter of Lilith, given your incredible resemblance to the empress. The clues are adding up to support that conclusion, but I am still not certain. If you are indeed an ally, then you could supplant Eve's position as my second wife. If you are a foe, then you will cause no end of trouble for her and myself. Her reasoning is logical. Crush you now, while you are still unskilled in wielding your divine powers."

"I thought Lilith had thousands of children."

"She has thousands of sons. She only has two known daughters. You might be the precious third."

"What if I am not Lilith's? Would Eve want me dead then?"

"That is your third question."

Abira clamped her mouth shut, realizing perhaps a bit too late that a deal with the Devil was not to be taken lightly.

"Now for my first question. Where can I find your mother?"

She crossed her arms and remained silent. The emperor sighed. "You have no respect for royalty, nor do you respect the rules of our not-at-all amusing game. I do not believe I have been defied like this since Lilith left."

The emperor shrugged his massive shoulders, his tone indulgent. "You have my word that if I find your mother and she is not my empress, then no harm will come to her. If your mother is Lilith, then she need not fear me. She is my equal in all ways, and my superior in more ways than I care to admit."

Abira sat there, her arms crossed, her chin jutting. "I won't tell you where she is."

The emperor stood up and clapped. The whispering wind carried the sound to the hovering elves, one of whom scurried forward and stretched on the ground in absolute submission, the narrow tips of her toes brushing the edge of the cliff. "Bring me the rack."

The elf left, her soft footsteps receding with haste. No one said anything during her absence. Sirin stood above her, and they shared a brief look of terror, but then he went back to staring at the emperor, his blood dripping beside her.

Abira really did not like the sound of "the rack." Visions of medieval torture chambers coated in gore swam across her mind's eye. Her head rang with phantom screams of agony.

She touched Sirin's leg for comfort, feeling the soft brush of his feathers.

After what seemed like an eternity of watching the emperor chew and sip his way through sweet delicacies, the elf returned, bearing a mass of gleaming iron links. She held the rack out to her emperor, head bowed, jewels sparkling.

The emperor nodded at the tree holding their cage, and the elven maid began to unfurl the black metal. She draped chains and spikes over branches, weaving them with expert grace. When she finished, the tree trunk boasted an implied cross snarled with spikes and barbs.

The emperor traced his lips and stared at Abira. "If you do not tell me about your mother right now, I will have your beautiful beast chained to the rack with no food or water. He will be subjected to constant torture. You will be here, in the cage, listening to every wail. He could last up to three weeks before the gift of death releases him."

Her breath caught at this cruelty, this cunning. _He waited until I found someone to care about to start interrogating me._ She was truly amazed at how low this was. _His own grandson, used as leverage against me._

Sirin whispered, "I can bear the pain, my Lady. Perhaps you can think of a solution before I perish." Abira turned her face up to him, startled at his offering. The burnished gold of his eyes gleamed at her, ringed with downy lashes. He smiled with tender affection, despite their life-or-death predicament and the pain he must be experiencing from his wounds. "I trust you."

And there it was. She could not betray his trust, she could not look into those eyes, so full of life and promise. Her mother was far away and hated. Sirin was close and...

And what? Loved? Strongly liked?

Her heart gulped the answer _. Loved. I think he had me when he flew me away from the snakes. We are bound to each other._

The consequences of her choice weighed heavily on her slumped shoulders. She did not trust the emperor to keep his word either way. What if she told him all he wanted to know and he tortured Sirin to death anyway? And did something horrible to her mother?

The seconds ticked by as her mind whirled through all the possible ends to this dilemma. Sirin's presence made her feel something incredible, something beautiful.

Was preserving that feeling worth a betrayed mother?

Abira looked to the emperor _,_ who began to smirk in triumph. She knew that she could not lie to him because then he might do something even worse to Sirin than the rack.

The Devil had won this match.

Aloud, Abira stated dully, "My mother lives on Earth, in the lesser realm. She stays in a small cottage on the outskirts of a mountain town named Sylvan Glade. She prided herself on her invisibility to the local government, so I don't have an exact address for you."

"You will lead the way to the cottage tomorrow. I will let you rest the night, and we shall leave at dawn."

The emperor rose with satisfaction stamped on his hated face. Abira wanted to rip his living heart out and fling it over the precipice. The emperor beckoned to his three servants, who came hither silently, flowing like silk in a midnight breeze.

"See that the Lady Abira and this beast are comfortable together for the night. Have the beast's wounds tended."

The emperor strode off without a backward glance to retire for the evening. Abira sent every last ounce of hostility she could gather and flung it towards his retreating body.

The emperor paused and turned the barest degree, then continued on.
Fourteen

Sirin limped behind Abira as the elven maid led them through a maze of opulent halls and giant rooms. Abira noticed the grandeur with detachment as worries ate her insides away. They passed no one, which she found odd. It seemed like such a place should be crawling with servants. The silence echoed down on them and died a soft death in the lush pile of carpet.

They passed a cluster of wall nooks, and she admired the elven statues encased within. She almost screamed when one of the statues blinked. She looked around at the seemingly empty hallways and realized that servants stood everywhere, posing as discreet statues, hidden in plain sight.

There was something so profoundly and deeply wrong about this setup that she could not put it into words. As they climbed down, down, and ever down a spiraling staircase, the weight of the Devil's palace, of his lingering presence, crushed her desire to question him.

They eventually turned down a narrow hallway. Each door in the hall had a series of locks. The elf unlocked one of the doors and stepped aside. Abira peeped in and saw a room containing two small beds, with a bathing room opening off to the side. Sirin hesitated at the door but went in.

The servant bowed, and murmured that she would go to the apothecary to get some medicine. She stood there with meek subservience until Abira dismissed her.

As the elven servant closed the door and locked it, Abira glanced over their room and knew they had little chance of escape. No window graced the tiny space. The two beds were plain beige, the walls cool grey stone. The only light came from three flickering candles. She peeped into the bathing room to discover that the only item within was an empty metal tub. There was no way out. The walls were solid stone, as was the ceiling.

"Not quite as nice as Baphomet's quarters," she said with a soft sigh, sitting on the bed with relief. The bed was a trifle too hard, the weave of the blanket rough. But any bed was pure luxury after the hard branches of the distant Aviary _._ Sirin did not respond, and she looked up to see why he was so quiet.

He was blinking fast as he took in their surroundings. His panic was mounting, but why? He turned around and around, his feathers puffed, shaking with fear, his eyes darting to the corners of the low room as blood continued to seep from his many wounds.

Abira stared at him, confounded. She stood and asked, "Sirin, what's wrong?"

He folded in on himself in complete collapse, his broken wings twitching with painful jerks, his golden eyes dimmed to yellow in this dull room. He mumbled, "The walls. The space. Too small."

She took a deep breath, realizing that he may never have been indoors before. To a creature who flew to the heavens, this cramped room must be a torture. A chill blossomed within her breast as she saw yet another of the emperor's cruel little tricks playing out. He knew that Sirin would be frightened by being indoors, especially in such a small room.

The emperor would keep them caged for as long as he could.

A small, selfish part of her grew furious at Sirin. She was beyond spiritual and mental exhaustion, she had not properly slept in days, she was filthy, and now he was having some kind of a breakdown. All she wanted was to take a bath and fall into bed.

She shook her head, trying to clear the webs of petulance that clung to her self-absorbed thoughts. Sirin was suffering far more than she was.

Abira had no idea how to comfort someone with claustrophobia, but she reached out a tentative hand to stop his turning about. "Close your eyes and picture the bright morning sun through the clouds. It is all above you."

Sirin tried his hardest to hold still and stay calm, but he kept hyperventilating despite her soothing touch. He whispered with the innocence of a small child. "I feel like the walls are choking the breath out of me, suffocating me. The whole world is in this room, and all it wants is to squeeze the life out of me."

She heard a soft knock, and then a click as the door opened. The serving elf was back, with a basketful of bottles, bandages, and food. She noticed the scene before her with detached calm and set the basket on the bed. She approached Sirin with her small hands extended, singing a wordless tune of haunting beauty. Abira even felt herself lulled and soothed. The song was made of air and freedom, of light and clouds.

Sirin's eyes drifted, and he stood there, unfocused and smiling.

The elf then whispered another trilling song, and a bright light appeared and hovered over her head. She began to clean Sirin's wounds, pulling the arrow shafts out with practiced hands. Abira watched with fascination as the elf set his wings, wrapped his wounds with a salve that left a lingering scent of honeyed almonds, and helped him to stretch out on the bed. She touched his ivory hair with the barest tip of her finger, and his eyes closed.

For all of her efforts, she had not even taken five minutes. Abira shook herself out of her lull enough to ask, "How did you do that to him?" Abira could have healed his flesh wounds, but she did not know how to soothe his mind and spirit, or to make him sleep.

The elf kept her eyes riveted on the floor as she began packing up her supplies. She flicked her wrist to the light, which dimmed and disappeared. The room faded back to candlelight. She murmured, "It is a little gift of healing the elves have. He would have healed on his own, but the emperor wanted to lessen his suffering."

Abira wondered at Lucifer's methods. Why would he shove them in this casket of a room, yet demand Sirin be healed quickly? In a casual tone, she said, "Thank you very much for your help. You can look at me, you know. I am just a prisoner. They call me Lady Abira, but I think they are mocking me."

The elf placed a skin of water and a large loaf of bread on Abira's bed. She glanced up, and then back down just as quickly. "You are a daughter of angels. I dare not look upon your glory unless given permission."

Abira glimpsed the elf's eyes, emerald green and dusted with gold. Though the servant seemed afraid to look at her, Abira smiled at her with genuine warmth. "I am just Abira. Thank you for helping my friend."

The elf dropped her chin and curtsied, but Abira caught a flicker of surprise on her face. She said, "You are most welcome, my Lady. Do you wish to sleep deeply? I can perform the cant on you as well."

Abira felt the pull of that temptation, but her new paranoia stopped her from saying yes _. If I spend the night tossing and turning with worry, I won't be able to function very well tomorrow. But if I am in a magick-induced sleep, God knows what the emperor might slip in here and do._

She chose caution over function and said, "Thank you, but no. I will sleep on my own."

The elf nodded, curtsied again, and backed out of the door with her supplies. "Please ring the bell beside the door if you need anything." With that, she closed the door and locked it.

Abira spied the little brass bell, unnoticed earlier _._ She removed the water skin and bread, placing it on the floor so she could rest on the hard bed. She needed to think. She had to have a plan—

And she fell asleep before she could even finish the thought.

A dream seeped into her, a shivering nightmare. The night that she had parted from her mother was an awful one that had ended with Abira fleeing to the cold north in a stolen car. Her sleeping mind ran through it again and again, an endless loop of recriminations and vague guilt.

She sank into her dream.

Her mother loomed before her in the gibbous moonlight, her fury causing even the sturdy mountain trees to creak in alarm. Abira trembled before her, but did not break under her mother's crushing voice.

" _You will sacrifice the brat. Blood rituals are the most basic cants of our kind."_

Her mother's command made her knees knock and her breath freeze in her lungs. But she could not do it. She cried, "I won't learn cants if they involve murdering an innocent baby!"

Behind her, ringed by bulbous mushrooms, a tiny baby let out a thin wail of complaint. Abira cast a desperate glance at it, her heart breaking at the pitiful cries. The chubby arms and legs waved in feeble discord under the bright moonlight. The trees sighed with sorrow that such an innocent should be killed. Beside the infant was a sharp knife, the handle stained with old blood and even older sins.

Her mother took a step closer and hissed, "You will. This wailing sack of flesh is nothing. You could be something if you stopped letting your weakness overcome you."

" _I'm not weak! I'm normal! You are the one who's a psychopath!"_

And there it was, after all those years of carefully repressed hate. She had always bowed before her mother, small and afraid, meek and timid. But no longer. Her mother was a monster, intent on making Abira one too. Her mother had nothing so human as a soul behind her flat gaze.

Her loathing lurched to the forefront, and she took on a new resolve as her mother began the argument anew.

" _If you do not perform the ritual, all the wonders of your long life will be hidden from you. Already I see the burning curiosity in your eyes as you feel the divinity within. I will disown you, and you will be alone in the world. You will never know who you are."_

The temptation of that knowledge held Abira in sway for a split second. There were so many strange things she could not explain, and her mother claimed to have all the answers...

The tiny wail behind her made shame wash over her, drowning the temptation with a cleansing swell. How could she even think of murdering a baby? No knowledge was so precious...

Abira crossed her arms under the witnessing moon and shook her head. "I won't perform the ritual."

Her mother's eyes hooded, and she reached under her robe.

Abira's survival instincts kicked in. She jumped sideways to the infant, scooped it up in one graceful motion, fumbled the knifed into her shirt with less grace, and ran as fast as her stumbling legs would move, holding the cold baby against her warm chest.

Her mother did not follow.

Abira woke with a gasp, tears streaking down her cheeks. That poor pitiful baby, the innocent thing. She had almost decided to keep it, but had elected instead to walk into an emergency room, hand the baby to a startled nurse, and walk out again. Before anyone could react, she had driven off in her mother's stolen car.

She did not even know the gender of the baby.

She could not keep the infant safe from her mother, so she had handed it over to normal people, people who would love and care for an abandoned child, and who would try to find the child's parents. Abira had scanned the news for a time as the story of the mystery baby made a blip in the headlines between warring nations and water shortages. The news announced that the baby was a girl.

No birth family had claimed the little one, and the news happily reported that the little girl had been adopted by a suburban couple who had waited years for a child. She had been ecstatic to know that she had given all three of these people hope.

It had only occurred to her much later where her mother had gotten such an infant. Her stomach clenched every time she thought of it. The inbred mountain clans near their cottage paid a strange kind of homage to her mother. One of the clans that had just another useless mouth to feed must have sacrificed the baby to Abira's mother. The mother of the infant was probably _grateful_ that the burden had been disposed of to the local witch.

Abira sat there, locked in a strange room, wiping her tears with coarse cloth. The stuffy blackness hid the sight of her tears, and she muffled her sobs, trying not to wake Sirin. But her despair at how cruel people could be kept the tears rolling, and these dreams always forcibly reminded her of her greatest fear.

She had always harbored a deep terror that the sins of her mother would reflect in her own soul. That her mother's unlimited capacity for evil was buried deep inside Abira, waiting to spring out one day and devour who she thought she was. Or perhaps it would develop gradually, one tiny sin at a time, one petty cruelty atop another, until Abira was the one with the knife clutched in hand, an innocent wailing before her.

So she had fled from this fear of becoming her mother. After dropping off the baby, she had driven all the way to New York, with cash and her mother's car, to hide in the seething masses. It was the only city she knew of that was still going strong in the States.

She had no friends, and no relatives that she knew of. She did not know who her father was, as the subject had never once been mentioned by her mother, and Abira had been too afraid to ask. All Abira had left was her Nana and her wits, but she was afraid Nana was conspiring with her mother.

Nana might have known what her mother had planned that night. She had been suspiciously absent from her little cottage tucked high up in the mountains. She had always been there before, but had left suddenly, claiming a family emergency. Which was odd, since before that fateful night under the moon, Nana had never mentioned any living family.

_Well_ , Abira thought with grim humor _, there certainly was a family emergency, just not Nana's._ Abira felt a fresh smothering of guilt. She should have at least tried to tell Nana that she was okay, but she was afraid that any trail she left, no matter how faint, could be traced by her mother.

After running away, Abira had discovered that her money would run out fast in New York. Having no job or social skills to speak of, she had latched on to Matt, who had fancied himself her savior. She had grown loved and admired in their little bohemian circle, a quiet girl with big dark eyes whose past haunted her.

But she had never quite been _friends_ with anyone. No one had ever seemed completely comfortable around her.

She had thought she loved him, and she needed him to help her fit into society. Matt had seen her as a prize, something pretty to hang on his arm when his shows opened.

Abira felt another rising of guilt _._ She had hardly spared a thought about how Matt must be feeling after her disappearance. He must be worried sick. If only she could find a way to talk to him while they were at the cottage, to tell him she forgave him for abandoning her, to tell him she was alive.

The tears had slowed to a trickle as she sat in the dark, remembering the monster her mother was. There was no right choice when one was asked to betray either one person or another, but Sirin had done nothing but help her in the few days they had known each other.

Her mother had done nothing but hurt her over all the dark years of her childhood.

A soft rustle of feathers snapped her out of her guilt.

"Abira?" Sirin's voice, so low and musical, sang in her ears.

"I'm sorry, Sirin, I'll be quieter." Her throat betrayed her with its fumbling thickness, the sound of someone who had been crying for quite some time.

He was there, nestled beside her, pressing his feathers against her tear-streaked face. He wiped them off one at a time and held her in the foreign darkness.

Abira welled with gratitude for his silent comforting. Most men would not have known what to do. They would have pretended that they were asleep, or asked what was wrong and then tried to solve the problem. But he gave her exactly what she needed, the silent comfort of his embrace.

She pressed against his warm chest, feeling that odd, shivery tickle from him again. He stroked her hair and began to sing a wordless song that made her spirit soar to the stars with him. She lost herself in his touch and his voice, though she almost ruined it by speaking once or twice.

But she was wise enough to keep her lips shut and let herself be cherished by this rare, angelic man who knew what she desired.

He rocked back and forth, and she wondered yet again at the strength of her aching for him _._ She did not know him, they had not even spent a few hours awake together, yet she felt that they had known each other their whole lives.

She raised her head from his chest, seeking his lips in the warm darkness—

A soft tap at the door startled her. After the click and slide of the door, the same elven maid peeked in, face lowered. "Please rise, my Lady. We must meet the emperor in his suite."

Abira rose from Sirin's warm arms, blinking at the shaft of light from the door. She combed her fingers through her hair and brushed the ash from her riding leathers as best as she could, ashamed that she had not even thought to take a bath before falling into bed.

"Do I have time to bathe before facing the emperor?"

The elf swallowed. "I would not advise it, my Lady. He is not known for patience."

So Abira went to face the emperor dirty, disheveled, and irrevocably in love with his half-monster grandson.
Fifteen

They hurried through yet another maze of gargantuan halls and rooms to stand before the emperor, who was waiting with obvious impatience. He nodded to the elf, who disappeared. He clasped Abira's arm, his giant fingers curling tight. "Picture your mother's home in your mind. Stay focused on it, and I will summon the traveling cant."

_Does he even have the courtesy to utter good morning?_ Abira risked his wrath and asked a favor. "Is there a place outdoors where you could keep Sirin? He is petrified of small spaces."

The emperor sighed through his nose and jerked his head to another elf, who jumped right after the first. He said, "It is done. Now do as I told you."

Abira complied, hating that she was cowed by his hard skin and overbearing presence. She focused on the cottage as it would be now. The season had turned to autumn, so there would be gold and red nestled in the green. The small abode was snuggled right up to the mountain slope, the back yard boasting a view of mossy rocks and clinging trees.

She wove a vision of the verdant garden, lush with autumn blooms, as the pressure of his cant began to build. The sense of displacement squeezed the breath from her lungs. She concentrated on the bright red door with the circular window at its top, while trying to ignore the traveling cant. She pictured the whitewash and the stonework, all bright in early morning light.

The pressure roared around her while she clung to the emperor. The spatial disorientation of the traveling cant made it very difficult to hold the cottage in her mind, but she clung as hard as she could to the vision.

First, cool grass crunched under her grimy shoes. Then she heard a chuckling brook laced with the dainty melody of birdsong. She felt warm rays of sunlight beaming down and opened her eyes with caution, praying that she had delivered them to the right place.

She had, thank heavens. She sagged with relief, and then remembered herself and who she was touching. She snatched her hand away from the emperor and took a deep breath of fresh mountain air. She choked and gagged at the undercurrent of oily stink instead.

"I see you can taste the foul air of your lesser empire now."

Abira was confounded. She said, "It smelled fine before. Why is the air so disgusting now?"

"Because your divinity is strengthening, and your senses are becoming more in tune with your environment. This place will become impossible to bear as you stay longer in Hades. The idiot humans, the poisoned air, and the befouled water all conspire to overwhelm you."

Abira almost snapped a harsh retort at his unkind assessment of her home, but she bit her lip and held it back. She had to be nice, or Sirin would be on the rack. She had no doubt the emperor would do such a terrible thing.

To distract herself from her anger, she began to look for clues to her mother's—or Nana's—presence. The windows were dark, and she did not see a car. Weeds thrust up between the pavers leading to the front door with aggressive sureness. When she had run away two years ago, there had not been a single weed. Now they crowded over the garden in abundance.

She turned to the emperor and asked, "Does time flow differently between realms? I have only been gone for a few days, but the house looks abandoned."

"There is no difference. A day here is a day there. A night here is a night there. But you have not been here in quite some time, have you? Perhaps they abandoned the place to go searching for you."

Abira walked to the seventh paver from the door and wriggled her fingers under the heavy stone, worried that he was right. Nana and her mother could be out in the wide world searching for her.

Leaving her and Sirin to the Devil's tender mercy until the mystery of her maternal heritage was solved.

Weeds scratched at her olive hands as she dug further. She sat back on her heels and pulled her fingers up for closer inspection _._ She looked human again. She felt the emperor's impatience prickling the back of her neck and resumed the search for the key, eventually finding it nestled under a thick clod of dirt.

Abira unlocked the cheery little door and stepped in cautiously. She had always felt like an intruder in her mother's home, even when she lived here. Sunlight gleamed on the raised grain of the old floors, and the smell of dust made the back of her throat itch with a promised sneeze.

"Mother? Hello?"

Nothing. Only silence and dust greeted her. They walked from room to room, scanning every nook and cranny. The house was clean, if a little stale, and had all the gleaming antiques of Abira's life in place. Lucifer paused overlong through the door to her childhood room, and she caught the briefest glimpse of a stack of her books, but could see no further because of his bulk.

She let herself out of the back door to get away from his oppressive size in the tiny house. The slope of the mountain hid a cozy English garden that dozed under the buzzing of bees. She spied the tea table, dry leaves skittering across the painted iron. She leaned against the door frame and tried to guess what was going on. Her mother may have been contacted by Matt, and she could be in the city now. Should she call Matt and ask?

_No,_ Abira decided. _I will only give the emperor the bare minimum, and leading him to Matt could put Matt in jeopardy._ She thought of Sirin and gulped, hoping the emperor did not use the threat of the rack again if they were unable to find her mother.

Abira stepped back into the house, unable to linger any more without reason. She found the emperor standing in the tiny kitchen, his giant frame all out of proportion to the space it occupied. He was holding very still, watching her as she watched him. His opulent, purple tunic sat on his inert frame uneasily, as if cloth itself did not dare to touch the Devil.

Funny that she had not noticed that before. Some element about him simply defied every natural thing, even humble cloth.

Abira brushed past him into the living room and sat on her mother's couch, her arms crossed. Her mind raced to think of a way to hide Matt and Nana from Lucifer while protecting Sirin.

The emperor came in and said, "This house has a basement. Show me the entrance."

Abira cocked her head up at him. "There is no basement."

The emperor grabbed her arm, and she went along reluctantly. They walked slowly from room to room until they stood in front of her mother's clothing cabinet. They were in her mother's private sanctuary, where dark floors creaked with veiled threats at their uninvited presence.

Here, in the heart of her mother's domain, Abira felt like the worst kind of trespasser.

The emperor opened the cabinet and pushed aside her mother's clothes. The flowery scent of her favorite perfume hit Abira hard, and she could almost swear she felt a prickling gaze on the back of her neck. She turned around and saw only the canopied bed, neatly made and touched with dust.

The emperor pushed a release hidden by the clothes, and with a small click, a door swung open at the back of the cabinet. Abira stared at the black doorway before her, amazed that such a secret had been kept from her for so long. It made her wonder how many more secrets her mother was keeping from her.

The cloaking of truth just never seemed to end.

A deep stench of must and mildewed stone came blasting out of the darkness. Cold whirled around them, then crept out of the room.

The emperor stood aside in a mockery of courtesy. "After you, Lady Abira."

She did not want to go in there, but she steeled herself with the thought of Sirin held captive back at the palace. A wrongness, a sickness borne of festering, yawned out of the deep pit to push her away.

She ignored her instincts and took a tentative step toward the door, sniffing a coppery scent on the draft. The emperor leaned forward now, showing quite a bit of interest at the smell of fresh blood. He slid behind Abira as she took the first brave step into the darkness. The finely woven cloth of her mother's designer wardrobe brushed her shoulders and hips.

_Forbidden,_ they rustled at her _._

Unclean.

Abira pressed on, determined not to show fear in front of the emperor.

A light flared, and she glanced back to see that the emperor had lit one of the same glowing orbs above his head that the elf had used to see Sirin last night. She looked over her own head and saw another light as a shivering tickle wriggled down her body.

An icy chill assaulted them the instant they crossed the threshold. The stone steps sagged into the mountain, and they kept going down, an expectant hush between them. The thirsty walls drank in their warmth with frigid glee and gave nothing but dread for payment.

A low scream gurgled far below. Her heart started to pound, and her skin prickled as the noise swept through her. She stopped, knowing it would make the emperor mad but not caring, her eyes watering in animal panic. She began to react, to bolt—

A hard hand clamped on her shoulder. "You are such a tender innocent." The emperor grinned down at her discomfort. "You will never know how much pleasure I take in removing the caul from your eyes." He pushed her back to the dark steps where the screams had cut off. "Go on. Someone is performing a ritual, and I wish to see who."

She seethed at his presumption of her innocence. But, she reasoned with herself, what could be worse than what was behind her? The very Devil himself breathed down her neck. So she kept going down, feeling horrible for whoever—or whatever—was being tortured beneath. Every step made the mountain's weight push down her tense shoulders. With every heartbeat, she waited for the next bout of screams.

They came to a landing boasting three doors, crafted with charmless dark wood, that were closed firmly against them. Hand-hewn and damp with slimy mildew, the doors offered choices she did not want to make. Above them, the ceiling soared into shadows that their hovering lights could not pierce.

She noticed symbols carved into the stone above the doors. Her curiosity overcame her dread and she asked, "What do those carvings mean?"

"Hell, homage, and Heaven."

The shadows above their heads slithered. Creeping unease scrabbled at her already overwrought nerves. "Where do we go to find the ritual?"

"Homage. That is where a victim's life pays homage to his mistress or master. Heaven holds no such sacrifices and Hell—"

A screeching descended on them. Leathery wings slapped against her head, her neck. Sulfurous stink filled her nostrils as claws raked across her forehead. A sheet of crimson covered her face as she staggered back, flailing and screaming. Her own blood blinded her with stinging pain. Her attacker screamed triumph, and the searing agony of more claws slashed her raised arms.

Abira struck against a door, and it opened without a protest. She fell back, expecting a hard impact on stone, or even worse, another flight of stairs to fall down.

Instead she was greeted with wonder and harmony.

Abira floated into the sweetest bliss. Love consumed every last mote of her being as the light of creation winked at her perfection. Her soul sang with sweet release, swimming in a calm sea of hopes and dreams, joy and mirth. Her heart was set free, and it floated toward the all-consuming light. Peace wrapped a warm blanket around her shoulders. Her pain, her worries, her constant fear, all were soothed away in the brilliance.

She sensed vast intelligences gathering around her, singing a chorus of welcome to their lost daughter, whispering, reaching—

A hot hand grabbed her wrist and yanked hard, the strength irresistible. Abira twisted back, her heart screaming a nameless sorrow. She _needed_ to bask in the love and the peace. She was slammed down onto a damp floor and felt the vibration of a door slamming. Fresh blood coursed down her face as the sharp pain of her injuries throbbed.

Abira flew into a blind rage at the hated one that had taken her from the bliss, from the glory of Heaven itself. She scratched and kicked, bit and willed death to the terrible arms that had thrown her from such unconditional love.

Burning hands crushed her wrists together and shook her so fast that her teeth rattled in her head. Her skull whipped back against stone. Stars exploded in her bloodstained vision, more agony piled atop her existing pain. She gasped and bucked, cursing the loathed monster that would take her from such a place.

It felt as if her soul was being eaten alive, crumbling to dust in this corrupted world. And she knew who to blame.

She started to calm down as her captor demanded more of her attention with the press of his gigantic body. The emperor's cold voice slithered into her ears. "I killed the creature that attacked. We are safe."

Abira blinked the stinging blood out of her eyes, and the emperor swam into her scarlet-tinted sight, his nose almost touching hers. The unbearable tension of his nearness made her muscles crawl under her rent skin. She felt a thrusting arc under his tunic, pressed against her hipbone.

It would appear that the excitement had aroused the Devil. His bottomless black eyes pierced hers, and she felt the throb of blood coursing through him. She gasped, terrified, pinned under him, helpless and hurt.

Finally she stilled, and he released her. She sat up and pushed away from his arousal, still terrified that he would do as he pleased with her. With Sirin still captive in the palace, she could not defy Lucifer in any way...

But something seemed to stop him from making further advances, so she looked about to distract herself from her own rising needs. She glimpsed crumbled wings in the shadowy corner of the landing. Dark hair bristled over a scaly foot tipped with claws. She averted her eyes from the thing. It seemed even fouler now that she had tasted Heaven.

She stood up on unsteady legs as the emperor regarded her. He made no effort to hide the hard curve at the juncture of his thighs. She leveled her accusation at him, refusing to look below his nose. She hissed, "You took me from Heaven."

"I _saved_ you from Heaven."

Abira stepped back, furious. "That makes no sense. It was perfect, it was peaceful. I felt joy and happiness." She searched for words that could capture the perfection. "I felt God! And he loved me, which is something you fallen angels seem incapable of!" She hitched in another breath, her tempest building. "You had no right to take me from His arms!"

She felt the light of Paradise dimming faster as she regarded his despised face, the wonder receding into dreamy mists. She turned, lightning-quick, and reached for the door to Heaven _._ Just a glimpse, just a mote of God's endless love...

That was all she wanted.

Huge hands spun her around and slammed her into the wall beside the door to Heaven. Stars exploded in her vision again, but she did not care— _she was so close, she could almost taste the light..._

The emperor's reviled voice cut into her longing. "You had no right to fall into His arms to begin with. You, in your perpetual ignorance, do not understand the peril. Heaven is forbidden to demons like you unless God Himself invites you. He could have blinked you out of existence. And even fallen angels are capable of love. Do not speak of things you know naught of."

"Why do you care if I am blinked out of existence?"

"You are a mystery that still needs solving. You have information I may need, and you may be connected to my missing empress. Until we discover your origins, you shall stay alive. If you continue to defy me, those you love may not be so fortunate."

Abira switched to wheedling, her heart cramping with desperate need. "I want to go back," she whispered. "Just let me take one more look." She heard the pitiful whine of the addict in her own voice, and was too obsessed with getting her fix to care.

The emperor pushed her harder against the wall. Pain shot from her spine to her hips and she groaned. He whispered, "Idiot child. Just one more taste is always the beginning of the end." She felt the hot thick curve of his desire against her hip pressing harder than ever.

She wondered if she could use his desire to open the way to Heaven again.

He released her and stepped back. "If you try anything like that again, your beast pet will be chained to the rack for a day. Understand?"

Abira gulped and nodded, shoving away any thoughts of seduction. _Sirin. Sweet, noble Sirin. How could I have forgotten?_ Shame burned hot in her breast. How could she be so selfish?

She thought she might risk one more question, so she asked, "What is a door to Heaven doing in my mother's cottage?"

"I do not know." He opened the middle door and motioned for her to go first. Abira saw a narrow passage, as dank as the steps. She walked with mounting dread while straining her ears for more groans of agony. All she heard was a steady dripping and her own hammering heart.

They came to another landing with a trio of doors. She paused, uncertain, looking for symbols and seeing none. The emperor pushed past her and opened the middle door.

The metallic scent of pulsing blood greeted them. She steadied herself for the horrors within and stepped through.

Her hovering light revealed every grisly detail in sharp contrast. The glistening blood, the sharp instruments. Abira dropped to her knees, her stomach raising bile to the back of her throat, her heart shattering into a thousand shards.

A faint whiff of burnt pork caressed her. It smelled delicious and her mouth began to water. It was the most repulsing contradiction she had ever experienced.

Abira found the strength deep within herself to rise from her knees. She wobbled to her feet to look down on the ruined face before her.

No.

No.

No.
Sixteen

The ruined body of Matt was strapped down to a stone altar, his breath rattling within his exposed lungs. Each rib had been sawed through with surgical precision, the skin of his chest peeled away in neat strips. She glimpsed his heart pounding through the savage rending of his once-perfect body.

His breath choked and gurgled as he turned to her, his exquisite eyes still in his head. At least he had been spared the cruelty of blindness. She realized that he was probably only spared his eyes so he could see the utter desecration of his form.

She took a tentative step toward him. Could she heal him, like Blossom? Was it the same for humans?

He gurgled her name. "Abira?" A small bubble of frothy blood accompanied the word.

She nodded, lost as what to say to him.

He surprised her with his next words, which snapped her out of her fugue. "I'm sorry. I left you, I just let him take you, that monster. So sorry. Can you forgive me?"

He fell silent, gasping at the energy needed to speak without screaming. She found the strength to comfort him in his last moments and took another small step forward. The rank scent of old blood mingling with burnt pork made her choke as she responded. "There is nothing to forgive. Who did this to you?"

She knew the answer, of course, but she had to hear it from what was left of his lips.

"Your mother."

Abira felt the sickness rising again. The fresh bitterness of more bile coated the back of her throat. A savage beast rose in her breast and roared out in defiance.

The bitch would pay for this with a thousand screams.

Blood continued to seep over his flayed flesh. "She found me, and she made me pay for my crimes against you. For everything. You're kind and loving and I was always so cruel to you. All the lies. All the affairs. I was made to confess my sins."

She stood there, numb to the emperor, numb to the temptation of Heaven above, ignoring everything in existence except those pleading baby blues. "There is nothing to forgive, Matt. You took me in when I had nowhere else to go."

Somehow he managed a weak smile. His blood-streaked teeth made her want to weep from her dry eyes.

But this was beyond any cleansing that tears could do.

Abira forced herself to touch him, to stroke his hair. How he used to love that. The gold bristled under her questing fingers until a vicious serpent wrapped around her heart and demanded she bite the apple for a taste of knowledge.

She found herself biting, asking a terrible question of this tortured man in the name of bitter truth.

"Did you ever love me, even a little?"

"I love you now. I just caved in because I was so weak." He inhaled with slow agony, and she watched his lungs inflate, the blue veins shiny with mucus. "There was just so much temptation. It was so easy. My overnight success, you know. But I never loved any of them. Only you."

She felt stinging at the corners of her eyes, but blinked the salty tears back. She whispered, "I love you too."

"Then let me die."

As soon as he choked out this last sentence, he inhaled and started screaming. She watched as his flesh began to knit back together and heal, only to rip itself apart again at the fresh seams. He let out a keening, animal wail, rawer than any scream. It pierced her to see any living thing in this kind of anguish, but it made her revulsion hot and thick to see someone she loved treated so.

Abira pushed her revulsion down. She was struggling to stay in control, to avoid completely coming apart at her own wounded seams. She glanced back at the emperor, hope wobbling in her weak voice. "Can I save him, like I did Blossom?"

"He has a partial cant of healing and death on him. He will almost die, then be jerked back to life, over and over again. His human psyche is too weak to bear the burden of healing, so he will certainly die no matter what action you take." The emperor's tone was detached, indifferent to the sadness of the drama playing out before him. "It is a very clever combination of cants. I will have to use this." He gave her a knowing look. "Perhaps on a certain feathered beast."

Abira's heart skipped a double beat at the thought of Sirin in this same hideous situation.

Her loathing of the emperor grew a thousandfold, but she kept pushing and pulling, holding the bits of herself together. She had to help Matt, and she needed the Devil's hand.

Matt's crescendo of agonized gurgling peaked as the burnt wounds crusted and sloughed off his crisped skin. Abira turned back him, to his clenched teeth and his pitiful mewling, and whispered, "How do I stop it?"

"Ripping the heart out is the quickest way."

Matt looked at her, his wide, blue eyes making her think of the fleecy skies above, and nodded. Abira blinked again and moved before she could lose her nerve.

She steeled herself, and plunged her hand into the pulsating cavity. She pushed through twitching muscles and ripped his beating heart out in a flush of triumph. She crushed the heart of the man she loved, the narrow valves and thick chambers oozing blood on her straining fingers.

The warmth of his heart drained, along with the light from his eyes. He gave her a faint ghost of a smile, then was still, his glassy stare fixed on her.

She stood there, his ruined heart in her hand, as the emperor began a detailed perusal of the small chamber. She stared at Matt's face, at his glazed eyes, immobile with disbelief at having just ripped the living heart out of anyone, much less her old lover.

Doubt crept in and perched on her slumped shoulders, whispering.

Could she have saved him? Was the emperor lying? She dropped the heart back into his chest cavity, sick with regret at her haste. Why had she been so stupid as to trust Lucifer _? I might have figured out a way to save him._

"I am going to bury him." Abira combed the bits of loathing out of her tone with a fine-toothed brush.

The emperor shrugged as he continued his inspection of gleaming clamps and blades. "As you wish."

She unstrapped the tight leather binding him to the altar and threw him over her shoulder with ease. Her new strength gave her the briefest thrill of satisfaction, until her grief smothered it. Her fingers strayed over his body, searching for a spark of life, for a hint of his soul.

Nothing.

She climbed back up the long flight of stairs, her mind calculating, full of a rage she had never known she was capable of _._ She whispered her own, personal prayer for vengeance, step by step, minute by minute. _I will rip her heart out. I will eat it raw and pulsing over her dying husk. I will gouge out her eyes and burn her to the bone. I will pour acid in that foul womb she birthed me from._

I will hate until there is nothing left in me that can love.

On another level, below the vengeful seething, she felt a deep shame. _How could I think of doing that to another person? If I do that, I am just as bad as she is._

Abira hardened herself against such moral qualms. She made a fresh pledge of vengeance as she carried her dead lover's body out of the cottage _._ She would learn her cants. She would go back to Hades with Lucifer himself. She would learn all she could until she discovered the knowledge that would destroy the blight that was her mother.

Her shame pulled and chewed at her like a bothersome puppy. _What will Nana think of you if you do such a thing? What will Sirin think of how evil and cruel you are, with your plot of murderous revenge on your own mother?_ Abira pushed her worries away with the force of her righteousness, with a hardness of heart she had not had even a week ago.

She felt dark with fresh sin under the bright sun.

She knelt in the side yard, and his heavy body tumbled to the ground. She arranged him gently under a noble old pine. As if to contrast with her rage and grief, nature had put on a show this early autumn morning. Cotton candy clouds drifted in a flawless blue sky. Soft breezes ruffled her long hair. Trilling warbled out of the surrounding forest. All this peace and beauty sang with the glory of God's creation.

She went to get the spade from the storage building beside the cottage. She began to dig with furious strength, trying not to think, trying not to feel. She nearly succeeded in this, but small memories kept flashing across her mind. Matt taking her to Central Park, a basket of wine and grapes draped over his elegant forearm.

Matt kissing her with tender affection, sliding his fingers through her silky hair. His laughter, which always flowed so freely. His love of beautiful things, of beautiful people. His bizarre fascination with turtles, which she never did understand. He would read any book he could find on turtles, then would tell her a million useless facts about the shelled beasts while she watched him paint.

As sweat stung her eyes and her hair grew limp, she realized she did not remember even one fact that he had told her about turtles. She was too busy admiring how he painted, how handsome he was, how utterly normal he was, a state of being she had never really understood until she met him. She had never even asked him why he was so fascinated with turtles, if he had a childhood pet or...

She shook her head and broke into a fresh clump of dirt. She had been selfish and shallow.

No wonder he had strayed.

She kept digging as the sun pounded down. Her muscles started to cramp as she removed the last clump of rocky dirt. She jumped out of the shallow hole and rolled him to the edge. He had stiffened, and the bugs had started to crawl along his skin, marching to burrow into fresh food. She stamped and flicked them away, angry. Finally, after much fretting and tugging, he was in his final resting place.

She sat and panted, her legs hanging into his grave, saying his final rites in her own head. She could not form the words aloud while she could still see his face. Blood encrusted his mutilated body, and no groaning prayers or flowery words would lessen the ugliness of his death.

She hopped down and put her hand over his open eyes. She found herself searching yet again for the spark of life that could bring him back like Blossom, but found nothing. Only traumatized flesh cooled under her questing hands. She closed his lids and muttered a prayer of revenge. "I will make her pay, Matt."

She squatted there for what felt like a small eternity, fixing his face in her mind so she would never forget. She stood up, ready to get this labor over with. Abira shoveled the dirt in quickly, as unease danced with her grief. She wanted to leave now, to go...

To go where? Do I really want to go back to Hell?

She thought of Sirin, trapped and alone. _I have to go back. To help him, to learn about my powers. Perhaps we can flee to a small village, learning cants as we run from the emperor._

She comforted herself with this ridiculous fantasy as the lumps of dirt landed and she packed them in. She knew there was no running from the emperor. Even as she thought this, she sensed his eyes burning into her.

She was beginning to be afraid that the Devil's eye would always be fixed on her.

She turned to find the emperor watching her from the door, his face impassive as always, dark eyes absorbing the sun without a glimmer of reflected light. A small movement flicked behind him, and Abira stepped back, wary of new surprises.

Her mother stepped out from behind him, her face betraying nothing. Loathing sprang up within Abira and roared fury, but she suppressed her desire for immediate confrontation _._

She had to lure her mother, one small trust at a time, until the moment was perfect to seek revenge.

She brushed the grave dirt off with casual indifference, as if she had merely been starting a new garden. She strode over and bowed in a shallow mockery of courtesy to the emperor.

"Have you found your lost empress?"

Her mother took in a sharp breath. "You do not speak to his royal person in such a manner. Have I taught you nothing?"

Abira leveled a flat stare at her mother. "You have taught me much."

The emperor seemed amused by their exchange. A little smile threatened to curl up the corners of his lips. He answered her question with surprising courtesy. "I have not. Your mother does work for Lilith, however. She has been protecting and holding these ways to Heaven and Hell for a very long time at the empress' request." He inclined his head to the barest degree possible. "Lady Tahe, you have done well. It is no small thing to maintain such a portal for so long in this dying realm."

Lady Tahe curtsied at the compliment, all manners and grace.

Abira blinked. Her mother's name on paper, the one she had scrawled as she signed Abira over to the boarding school, was not Tahe.

What was this world in which you did not even know your own _mother's_ name? She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to hold her mounting anger back. She asked, "How did you know we were here? This place looks abandoned."

"I was here all along, in one of the lower hidden rooms. I have not bothered to maintain the upper portion of the property as most of my energies are spent below."

Abira nodded. She wanted desperately to ask about Nana, but she did not want to say anything at all about her in front of Lucifer. Instead, she asked sweetly, "When was the last time you saw the empress, Mother?"

"Not long. Perhaps fifty years ago."

The emperor nodded at her response. "That is when she disappeared."

Abira felt a bold recklessness seize her tongue. "So how exactly am I related to this cozy little demon family? Who's my father? I am dying to know after all this mystery."

Her mother took a step closer, her gaunt height making Abira think of daddy long legs hanging off the cottage shingles. Her arms were just too gangly, her ribcage too narrow.

And to Abira's eyes, she was too tall by a head or so.

"I am a third generation descendant of Lilith. She coupled with the archangel Lamun and begat her son, Andre, who begat a son named Zachary, who in turn begat me, Tahe."

"Then why does everyone say I look so much like Lilith?"

"Coincidence. Sometimes resemblances skip generations." Abira tasted a lie unfurling from Tahe's tongue but could not place it.

Abira regarded her mother with forced detachment, all of her energies spent on containing the whirlwind building in her heart. She asked, "Who is my father?"

Her mother fell silent and looked down. She finally said, "The archangel Kunnara."

Abira had never heard of the archangel Kunnara, but she would not give them the satisfaction of admitting further ignorance, so she jerked her chin down in stiff acknowledgment.

The emperor interjected. "That would explain why you are so powerful, Lady Abira. Your lineage is impeccable." His lips almost twitched with the barest shadow of a smile. "We are not related at all. My wife went astray yet again. You are not of my divine seed, but of another angel's. An angel that is not fallen. One of God's closest companions, in fact. You are halfway between Heaven and Hades."

Abira squinted at him, suspicious of his intent _. What is he getting at?_

As her mother glanced at the emperor under lowered lashes, Abira saw something that could have been fright draw over her face _._ What was she afraid of?

The emperor turned and brushed his lips over Tahe's knuckles. "My Lady, a pleasure as always. If you had told your daughter your true name, none of this confusion would have ensued. Please come visit the courts soon, as I am most curious as to how one of the highest angels in Heaven found his way into your bed. Archangels rarely dally with our tainted blood."

"I am sorry for the confusion, my liege. She is so young, I was just introducing her to the basics of her divinity and had no haste in the training. Her unwarranted abduction by Baphomet must have been quite a shock to my darling daughter. May I continue her education here, away from the politics of the courts? You see how innocent she is, how tender. I am afraid for her."

The emperor straightened and turned to Abira. "Oh, no, my Lady. Your exquisite daughter and I have unfinished business back at my palace. I will keep a personal watch over her."

He strode forward to Abira, looking down at her. "You will take up residence at court and begin your education, as you have much to learn. Say goodbye to your mother."

Abira jerked her chin down again. "Goodbye, Mother."

Her mother nodded back with stiff formality. "May I call on you soon?"

"Of course _._ I look forward to it."

With that, the emperor grasped her arm, and they traveled back to Hell to begin her education.
Seventeen

The emperor landed them right in the palace. They stood before a high set of doors that boasted a carving of lilies covered with snow. He pushed the door open with his mocking bow as her feet padded across the carpet that depicted the hunt for the unicorn.

_Is that the theme of this whole palace? Conquering beauty_? Her foot trod on the unicorn's soft flank, and she felt oddly guilty.

"Your new home, Lady Abira." She heard a low current of satisfaction purring in his throat as she stepped over the threshold. A shivering tickle washed over her, a slight tingling as she stood in the entryway.

Her mouth fell open, and stayed that way as she took in her new home.

A fire that danced with every shade of blue and violet known to man sat in a giant bowl at the very center of the round room. Sweeping lavender and cream couches circled the fire bowl, along with half a dozen side tables. Row after row of books marched to the dome above, which was set with paneled glass that showed off the purple firmament hosting the bright sun. She kept looking up and up, over easily fifty rows of books.

_I could lose myself for a hundred years in all this knowledge._ She could feel her fingers cramping to wrap themselves around a book so that she could lose herself, even for one short hour, in this tower of enlightenment. She floated towards the back wall, lost in the soaring beauty of her new home. She pushed open another set of double doors, which were rendered with crawling ivy.

She found a humid conservatory rich with verdant life. Giant flowers nodded to her in greeting, bright red petals contrasting with the greenery. Little benches were tucked away under sweeping fronds. She heard the merry tinkling of a fountain toward the back. Tiny, yellow flowers snuggled with huge, orange ones. The warm air pressed against her, and she took in a deep breath. The sharp scent of dirt was refreshing. The entire room was walled by hinged glass panes.

She noted that all of the panes were locked.

Abira clapped her hands in delight when she saw a tiny fairy shoot out from under a toadstool and flicker under the bench. It was shadowed by a fading trail of diamond luminescence.

Abira stepped back into her main living area and almost smacked straight into the emperor's chest. He saw how enraptured she was and took her hand in his, pressing her knuckles with his lips. The faintest tickle of power radiated from him. A low thrill crept down her back, even as her instincts warned her to stay away from his terrible touch.

He straightened after letting the kiss linger for a second too long. "I will send a handmaiden to see to your needs."

Abira nodded uncertainly, wary of all this generosity _. What does he expect in return?_ She thought about the kiss he had just given her and his reaction when she had been pressed under him before the barred door to Heaven.

The emperor continued on, the heat from his body caressing her. She was aware that they were all alone in a room with divans and a romantic little fire, and she began to wonder about his intentions. She felt panic—and a touch of hedonistic curiosity.

"We both know your mother was lying about something today. It could have been many things, or just one. She knows something of my empress that she is not telling. Did anything ring blatantly false to you?"

"No. She was acting very odd, though."

He penetrated her with his fiery gaze, and she saw the empty void of Chaos dancing in his expanding orbs. Abira could not pull herself away from his allure. She wanted to tell him the truth. He needed it. The longer he held her gaze, the more urgent she realized that his need was.

Did she not want to please her mighty emperor? The rewards could be great.

Lucifer purred, "I suspect you are telling the truth. Good. She was lying about who your father is, of that I am certain. We shall pursue the mystery of your paternal heritage soon."

She stilled her mind and fought back with silent determination. The slitted eye of this particular serpent would not hypnotize her. She blinked, and his spell was broken.

A mixture of anger and satisfaction flickered across his face, and he said, "Let me give you a few bits of advice before I leave to oversee my empire. One, do not trust anyone. Two, watch out for Eve. You are safe in your suite, as it is an unspoken rule of courtesy that one does not bring feuds into private quarters. You are free to go where you please within five leagues of the palace. The moment you step out of your suite, you are fair game for her plots. Understand?"

"Yes."

"I will see to your training in your divine powers. No knowledge is forbidden to you if you are willing to seek it. You can start working with a Master tomorrow. Understand?"

"I understand. But why would Eve care about me now? I am not the third daughter of Lilith that she was so worried would upset her scheme. So what could she have against me?"

"You were audacious enough to defy her when she was trying to capture you. You were part of her blinding. That is enough to enrage the mad tempest that is my wife."

He was stepping away toward the door. Abira shot one more question at him. "What about Baphomet and Sirin?"

"Baphomet will resume the search for his mother. I am casting him into the lesser realm, where he still may be of some use. That beast is in the rookery."

She had no idea what a rookery was. "Can I see him?"

The emperor threw her one last, long look, then he stepped out into the corridor and closed her door. It whispered shut, and she was all alone. If she had to play nice with that tyrant in order to gain knowledge and see Sirin, so be it, but he frightened her like nothing else in this world crawling with horrors.

He could turn and hurt her anytime, and she had little choice in the matter.

The fire beckoned to her. _Come. Sit. Think. Reflect_.

So she did. She sat down on a plush couch, and then stretched out, not caring if she was covered in grave dirt and ruining the upholstery. She had seen several other doors dotting her suite, but she needed to think before she went exploring. The fire lulled her, sang to her of the bliss of losing herself, even for a tiny while, in its gorgeous flames. After a little while, she dozed off.

She dreamed of being in Matt's arms, in another world, another time.

Another Abira.

A gentle voice lulled her awake. "Abira?"

She sat up, blinking and yawning, her heart gladdened by Sirin's voice. He was sitting on his knees in front of the couch, his golden eyes huge _. He is so exotic_. She felt a fluttering of her heart, a flush building deep within her _. So strange. So, so pretty._

She glanced up from her lustful musings and spied a human woman by the door. Doe brown eyes, textured black hair. Her features spoke of Africa, but there was some other lineage that Abira could not place.

Abira sat up, dusting off her stinking riding leathers. "Are you—"

"I am your new handmaiden, my Lady. My name is Scarlett." Her thick southern drawl, and the fact she spoke in English, made Abira's eyebrows shoot up.

Abira liked her on sight. Scarlett did not display that scurrying servitude that the elves had. She was bold enough to look Abira in the eye, and her accent made Abira long for the small comforts of home. Her Nana had a strong southern accent.

"It's nice to meet you, Scarlett. May I have a few minutes alone with Sirin?"

Scarlett inclined her head. "I have to go pick up your dinner and your new wardrobe." She had switched back to the language of this empire, the guttural language that had a touch of lilting elegance. Scarlett slipped out of the room as Abira turned to regard Sirin.

She took his light hands in hers and drew him to her, feeling the glorious vibration of his thrumming heart against her chest. He took his hands from hers and wrapped his arms around her back, crushing her to him. She hugged back fiercely, then remembered that he might still be injured.

Abira withdrew from his embrace with no small regret. She sought his eyes, worry lessening her pleasure at their reunion. "Are your wings healed?"

"Oh, yes, Lady Abira. I am whole again. One of the gifts of my father. I heal very quickly because of his blood."

He smiled, and his white teeth flashed in the firelight. "And I have more to thank you for. You have done much for me."

Abira cocked her head and said, "I thought we were even. You saved me from Eve's ambush, then I saved you from the elemental. We're fair and square."

"My Lady, you are too modest. I overheard you pleading for my father to treat me with fairness. Then you sacrificed your family so I would not be tortured on that rack. I am drowning in my debt to you."

She blushed hard, and pressed her thighs together to squelch the rising heat. His extreme nearness was stimulating more of a reaction than usual. "I'm sure you would have done the same." New worry creased her brow. "Do you still have a fear of being indoors?"

Sirin chuckled with trilling humor. "The elf's soothing cant has held. I am well for now." His irises dimmed to a dull ochre. "My Lady, I have yet another favor to ask you."

"Ask away _." Anything. Anything at all. Just let me run my fingers through your snowy feathers. Let me stroke the wind from your hair, kiss the sun on your lips._

"I need your protection against Eve. From what little news I have gathered from the servants, she is still resting from the excursion of the hunt, but her taste for vengeance is legendary even in Hell. She will snatch me from the rookery and throw me into her torture chambers if you do not claim me."

"Claim you for what?"

He clasped her hands, a feverish glow to his cheeks. "Claim me as your familiar, my Lady. If I am yours, then I will eat, sleep, and breath to serve you. I will live in your suite, where Eve cannot touch me."

Abira's fingers tightened around his. "I can't fight off Eve. She is far more powerful than me." A thrill of fear tickled her spine _._ Avoiding Eve was going to be a serious problem.

"Please, my Lady. I am at her mercy in the rookery." His eyes shone with need, pleading for her understanding.

"Why don't you just leave? Fly to the Aviary. Your mother is a force to be reckoned with. I am quite sure she can help you more than I can." Abira did not want to be parted from him, but if he was in danger here, she had to let him go.

Sirin lowered his face to their still-locked hands. "I do not want to leave such a tender heart as yours in this den of vipers." He glanced up at her, almost shy.

Abira's breath caught in her throat. _He still thinks I am a prisoner_. "I am not quite a prisoner anymore. I can leave the palace if I stay within five leagues. I am choosing to stay here because..."

_Because I have nowhere else to go? My lust for knowledge? My lust for him? My endless curiosity, which will probably send me to an early grave? The fact that I am petrified of turning this offer down, because if I do the emperor might keep me here anyway, under lock and key?_ She fumbled for a reason and settled on the most obvious one.

"I am staying here because I need to learn how to control my divine powers. I must learn if I am going to defend myself _._ The emperor himself offered to house me in this suite and to see about my education."

And I need that to get revenge on my mother.

Sirin shook his head back and forth. "It is a trap, a cruel game. I mistrust the emperor's motivation behind all this seeming generosity."

"I know. I am in the very maw of the beast, but my leash has been lengthened, and that is the best I can hope for."

He was silent for a moment, his feathers flattened _._ She hoped she had not disappointed him.

He looked back up and said, "We shall be trapped together. Claim me as your familiar, and I shall serve you in all things."

"I will claim you as my familiar." She hesitated, unsure of what burdens this entailed. "Is this a lifelong commitment?"

Sirin threw his head back and crowed with mirth. "No, my Lady. We are not getting married. You may dismiss me at any time." He stood up and flexed his wings, spinning around with unrestrained glee. Her eyes followed the lines of feather and wing with greed.

After his happy spin, he sat down on the divan next to her, and they stared at the endless dance of the flames. Abira felt as if they had just done something monumental, something wonderful or terrible. _Should I celebrate, or mourn trapping him here with me?_

His knee brushed hers, and she suddenly hated that she was still dressed in these filthy clothes.

A soft knock interrupted their separate musings, and Scarlett backed into the room, pulling a cart laden with covered dishes. She placed the cart at an angle in front of them and pulled the first lid off with a flourish. "A modest appetizer to whet your palate." She had uncovered a platter of meat and cheese. A decanter of wine sat in the center. It looked and smelled delicious.

Abira rubbed her stomach, which had not growled in hunger since her arrival here. "I thought I didn't have to eat."

"The divine only eat for pleasure in this realm, my Lady. You had to eat in the lesser realm, but not here. Refreshments are served as a courtesy."

Abira shrugged and popped a cheese wedge into her mouth. It exploded with a dozen subtle nuances of smoky flavor. She and Sirin munched with unrestrained enjoyment as Scarlett withdrew. Gluttony overcame them both, and the food quickly disappeared.

Sirin patted his slightly extended stomach. "That was delicious! I was starving!"

Abira looked at him, confused. "I thought you didn't have to eat because of your divine blood?"

Sirin smiled and looked a little embarrassed. "That rule only applies to those who do not have the taint of beast in their blood. I am afraid my mother's blood makes some aspects of me more animal than divine. I must eat and drink, or I will die. Do you not remember the emperor threatening to starve me to death on that rack?"

Abira nodded, remembering. "I did not really catch that at the time. I was more worried about your safety."

Scarlett backed into the room again, pulling a rack of ornate gowns. Abira gaped with silent amazement at the baroque excess of the attire. They were all full length, ornately beaded, finely stitched, and had to be laced in the back. She finally stammered, "I'm supposed to wear that?"

"Only to formal functions, my Lady. I will bring gowns for daily wear soon. Would you care for any more refreshments? Another serving of wine, perhaps?"

"No. I would love a bath and some nightclothes." She looked down at her filthy riding leathers _. I have not taken a bath or changed clothes in days._ Abira touched Sirin's shoulder. "Make yourself at home. I will be gone for a while."

Sirin smiled at her. "I will. Thank you. Unless you need a back scrub?"

Abira blushed so hard she could actually feel the blood pulsing against her reddened cheeks. "I am quite fine, thank you."

Sirin sighed. "I am unable to hide my disappointment."

If Scarlett had not been nearby...Abira squeezed his fingers and stood up. What was wrong with her? Every time the vaguest innuendo was presented, she panted like a dog in heat.

This was not like her at all.

Abira followed Scarlett into yet another room to bathe. The tub was wide, the water was hot, the soap extravagant. Abira started to undress and noticed that Scarlett was still there, scrub brush in hand.

She stopped, confused, then realized that pampered, royal demons probably did not undress or bathe themselves. She said, "I will take care of myself."

Scarlett nodded, placed the scrub brush on the edge of the tub, and quietly withdrew.

Later that night, after she was clean, content, and alone, she let her pent-up emotions slam across her heart. Her room echoed with wrenching sobs wrung from the depths of her grief. Too much had happened too fast, and she mourned Matt with a tight squeezing of her soul, her guilt swallowing her whole. She twisted her fine linen sheets back and forth, wishing it was her mother's—Tahe's—neck instead of cloth.

_I couldn't save him. Or could I?_ Over and over this guilt cycled, until she was screaming into her pillows, incoherent with despair.

Sirin crept in after a time and sat at the foot of her bed, saying nothing, just looking at her with molten eyes full of wonder and sympathy. He began to sing again, a melody that could have soothed the most savage beast to sleep. She clasped his warm hand, and he sang while caressing her fingers.

She finally rolled over, her puffy face pressing into the lavender-scented pillows as he slid into the bed beside her. He held her tight, and she never wanted him to let go.

She fell asleep to the heady beat of a caged bird's heart.
Eighteen

The next four weeks flew by in a blur of discovering new customs, meeting new people, and learning how to perform cants. With every lesson completed, Abira was swept up in the wonder of her new home. On top of having Scarlett and Sirin in her service, she was assigned an elven servant named Gwain and a portly Master named Derik. She fumbled through cants, absorbed history and current events, and began to grasp the nature of courtly courtesy and politics. She was too busy to think, which was how she wanted it.

Only at night, exhausted from the day's bout of fascinating lessons, did she mourn Matt in those slow, unfurling blinks before sleep overtook her. Her dreams were much more vivid here, and she would dream of some small joy they had shared. Buying their first new couch together, chatting with the salesperson. But in the dream he would turn to her, his face dripping blood, and the salesperson would morph into Abira's mother. She would strap his struggling form down to the contemporary couch and plunge her sharp nails into his stomach, wreathing his entrails around her neck like a scarf.

Abira would always stand there, frozen, unable to help him.

Abira would wake gasping and crying. She woke in a strange room that seemed a little less strange every day. She would stare at the cream plaster of her bower's ceiling and resolve to immerse herself deeper in this new world of wonder and intrigue.

Sirin sang her to sleep every night, holding her and stroking her hair. She was mourning Matt in his replacement's loving arms. It felt wrong, but only Sirin made her feel better in those hopeless moments. She would often jerk awake from a nightmare and calm herself by staring at Sirin's sleeping face, drinking in every minuscule detail of his features with endless thirst. She never tired of looking at him or of simply being with him, though they had not even kissed yet.

Her insides fluttered with anticipation at the thought.

Things began to seem calm and orderly. The same routine, every day, learning the culture of Hades and getting to know everyone. She never once saw Eve or Lucifer, and they began to feel like distant threats.

Then Muse walked into her life, and everything turned upside down.

On the day she met Muse, Abira had been studying for many hours with Master Derik. He was an endless source of knowledge about this storied place, and never ceased to amaze her with his detailed responses to even her most far-flung questions. He was also human, which made her feel more comfortable. Her own kin had such a hardness about them, with their oily black eyes and porcelain skin.

Master Derik felt nice and soft, safe and comfortable, with his belly paunch and rounded shoulders. These physical attributes spoke of many hours hunched over scrolls and books. It was hard not to trust a man who loved knowledge.

Even though the emperor had warned her to trust no one. Ever.

She was curious about her own seemingly uncontrollable powers, and had been pestering Derik for answers. She asked, "How did I defeat the elemental?"

Master Derik gave her a slow smile, and she had a feeling that she was in for a very long response. He said, "The reason you were able to fight off that horrid elemental is that defensive cants are reflexive to a powerful offspring of angels such as yourself. You only have to think, or form words, or envision what you desire. Your very essence, your divine soul, takes over if you focus enough of your attention on your target of destruction. Unfortunately, once the power is unleashed, you cannot yet control it. You could destroy a whole village because you felt threatened by another divine being. It takes much discipline to control raw power such as that."

Fascinated, Abira urged him to continue, and so he did. "The good news is that most cants do not require such dramatic flair. Someone with your natural abilities can control their divine energy to many ends using different techniques, but it takes years to master the basics. And to master complete control."

"What would happen if I unleashed my defensive cants on a demon stronger than me?"

"The two cants would likely clash, with disastrous results. In cases such as that, there is rarely a winner. Often both parties will perish. As I said, it is better to master your powers than to be controlled by raw instinct."

"So if anything at all threatens me, I will just blast it with my divine cants?"

"Only the direst of overt magickal threats will provoke that reaction. The earth elemental was a creature of Chaos, so your focused energy and instincts knew to destroy it. A cut-purse sneaking up behind you with a sharp knife in hand would not trigger any response. It is too subtle of an attack, and is not a magickal threat. The reflexive defensive cants have limited use in destroying certain foes."

"But the emperor took away all of Baphomet's divine powers in the Aviary. Can the same be done to me?"

Derik nodded. "You can be thrust into a mortal state, with no divinity to aid you. That is why you should never depend on the divine energies overmuch. Your own intellect is the best protection against foes."

They were sitting at a long table three stories up. Her books were behind them as they overlooked the central room, in which the fire roared and servants always seemed to be bustling. Abira looked over all of this—all of this labor, all of these priceless, hand-written books—and kept feeling that worm of doubt wriggle in her mind _. The emperor wants something._

Nothing in this world, or the next, is free.

Gwain slipped in her front door, hurrying over to stand beneath Abira and Derik. She curtsied in one fluid motion, her natural elegance shining as always.

"My Lady, I have brought your first companion. May I present Lady Muse, betrothed to our Emperor."

Another elf stepped into the room, her pale pink gown trailing behind every footfall. She glanced about, uncertain, then spied Gwain and drifted over with floating ease. She curtsied as well, and said, "My Lady Abira. Truly it is an honor to be selected as your companion."

Abira's jaw dropped in surprise; no one had mentioned thrusting a pseudo-best friend upon her _._ Especially not a pseudo-best friend engaged to the emperor. How was she supposed to be "companions" with this timid elf when she had so many books to read, so many cants to perfect, so many unfulfilled longings to be with Sirin?

She recovered herself by shutting her jaw and smiling. "I will be down in a moment, Lady Muse." So saying, she swept up her awkward gown to descend the tower stairs. Her Master called after her that they would resume their lessons on the morrow. Abira thanked him, stepped around a divan and inclined her head, indicating for Lady Muse to sit. "Would you care for refreshments?"

"Tea would be most welcome."

A solid silence fell between them, and they fidgeted a little while waiting for Gwain to prepare the tea. Derik had already slipped out of the room, his cloth slippers making no sound. Abira decided to break the ice by declaring her own ignorance. "Lady Muse, I'm sorry. I don't want to offend you, but I am still learning about the culture and customs here. You will probably be amazed at my ignorance."

A look of relief trickled over Muse. She leaned in, her bright green eyes wide. "I just moved into the palace this week. I do not know the first thing about courtly manners."

_Ah,_ Abira thought. _They are throwing us together because we are both learning about fitting in._ A tickle of suspicion bothered the back of her mind. The emperor had said to trust no one, ever. But Lady Muse seemed so unsure of herself. She had the look of a lost fawn in a haunted forest _. But that is the perfect disguise. A lost innocent. She could be a spy for Eve, trained to appear innocent._

Abira took a deep breath and tried to suppress her constant paranoia with small talk. She said, "I think that Muse is a very pretty name."

"My mother claimed that I inspired her. I think I mostly inspired her to drink, but who knows?"

Abira threw her head back and roared with genuine laughter. They chatted about their new suites, the overwhelming scale of the palace, and the small armies of servants that seemed to be hidden everywhere. On and on they talked, nibbling sweetmeats and sipping tea. They were fast friends by the end of their girl session.

Abira hoped Muse was not a spy, but the emperor's warning kept ringing in her ears _. Trust no one._

The conversation began to lull, and a small, comfortable silence fell. Abira turned to Muse with a languid smile. The day had faded to purple twilight, and the flames before them flickered brightly. "Where did you live before you came here?"

"In-Shadow, a little village to the north of here. You can spy it from your tower, I think. My mother and I lived above her apothecary in the merchant quarter."

"So you were a healer?"

"We usually left the healing to the other elves. We sold things that made people well. My main job was procurement and shopkeeping. I also had to keep the livestock. Unicorns do not do well in captivity and need constant attending." A faint line of worry creased her high brow. "I hope Mother is giving them proper care. Perhaps I should check on the morrow."

Abira gasped, her wonder ignited. "You have _unicorns_?"

Lady Mused grinned, her delight shining. "Oh, yes, we actually have a mother and three tiny foals right now. Part of the shop's success has been our luring of the unicorns. We shave bits off of their horns, then grind the shavings down to use as a cure-all. It does not hurt them, and they grow back the horn quickly. We are the only shop within a hundred leagues that boasts four unicorns."

"Does the horn really work as a cure for anything?"

"Any minor-to-moderate ailment. Festering wounds, headaches, womanly problems, muscle pains, that sort of thing. Do you want to go by the shop tomorrow and see them with me?"

A daring recklessness seized Abira _._ If she left her suite she would be fair game for Eve's plots, but she had been stuck in this lofty tower for too long. She would not be cowed by Eve any longer.

She breathed, "I would be delighted to go with you."

They agreed to meet outside of Abira's chambers at first light tomorrow, and then Lady Muse let herself out, not wishing to disturb the servants from their duties _._ She seemed just as uncomfortable with ordering people around as Abira did.

As the last of Muse's pink gown flitted out of the door, Abira wondered why the emperor would marry a common shopkeeper. She set this mystery aside and felt her excitement mounting. Real unicorns.

She prepared for bed quickly, and Sirin came in to sing. She slept deeply that night, her nightmares held at bay for once. Now she dreamed of glossy coats under a full moon. Sharp horns piercing the night sky. Split hooves pounding over silver meadows.

Abira woke refreshed and ready to see more of this world. Sirin's nestled beauty was a lovely sight first thing in the morning. She wondered at the strange intimacy of their relationship and at what was holding her back from initiating further advances. Was it because he was not human, because his lower torso shone with thousands of feathers and not hair?

Abira chuckled at this as she swung out of bed _. I'm not human either, so I guess it really doesn't matter._ Or was Sirin being a gentleman, despite his flirting and innuendo? She supposed that making the advances herself could be considered scandalous in this world of old-fashioned manners. Maybe she could ask Muse about what were considered acceptable relationship roles. With Scarlett's help, Abira got dressed as quickly as she could, sucking in her stomach so the gown could be laced from behind. She did not like being dressed like a child, but the clothing was designed to make women helpless unless there were another set of willing hands.

Visions of unicorns danced across her mind as she stepped into her slippers.

Lady Muse arrived right on time, and they were duly escorted by a stone-faced guard to a waiting carriage. Abira nearly fell when the train of her gown caught at the steps, but Muse caught her with an understanding smile. The stiff guard closed the door, climbed to the seat of the carriage, and shouted something to the horses. They were off with a lurch and clatter.

Abira could not help but feel a little smug as they bumped and rattled over the cobbled streets winding down to the village. She had walked out of her suite expecting to see Eve towering right over her door.

They both peered out from behind the curtained windows at the foot traffic. Tired farmers and journeymen jostled with highborn demon matrons and their trains of servants. Abira was glued to the scenery, the wild variety of it all. She saw so many races and creatures, and small cants being performed everywhere _._ She would have a thousand questions for Derik when she returned.

A small twinge of guilt accompanied that thought of Derik _. I forgot to cancel our morning lesson. Did Scarlett or Gwain take care of it?_ Another concern presented itself with this question. Abira hated entitled people, and she felt like she was becoming one. Always expecting others to do for you was a very easy habit to fall into. Luxuries began to feel like necessities. She resolved, as they bumped and wove their way down the mountain, to never make assumptions about what her servants did and did not do.

Soon enough, they pulled up in front of a darling brick shop in the nicer part of town.

Abira hopped out, almost childish in her eagerness, and only just avoided falling flat after tripping on her skirt _._ Muse followed with quick grace, unruffled by her full-length gown. The shop had a large wooden sign, with a picture of a bubbling cauldron, that hung overhead. The wide windows displayed carefully arranged packages.

Their guard moved around them and pulled open the shop door. Abira thanked him as they waltzed in. He grunted something that might have been, "You are welcome." She ignored his lack of manners as the warm, fruity scents of the shop enveloped them.

Roasted nuts mingled with the scent of crushed rose petals. A waft of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg. She inhaled and looked over the wares, which were wrapped with meticulous care in skins, folded in paper, or corked in glass _._ She admired the neat shelves, the spidery handwriting describing all of the cures, and the air of restorative health about the place.

A tall elven matron came bustling out of the back and flew over to Muse, hugging her fiercely. Her white hair was pulled behind her pointed ears. Her dress was demure, and she wore a plain apron. Abira perused the soaps, sniffing at the delicate scents, as this happy reunion commenced.

She always felt a little sad—and more than a little envious—when she saw mothers and daughters who had such strong bonds.

"Are you well, Muse?"

"Everything has been fine, Mother. Let me introduce you to Lady Abira."

Abira turned with a smile, and greetings ensued. She noticed a quiet air of exhaustion lingering around this elf. _Her work load doubled when her daughter left, I suppose._

"Lady Abira would love to see the foals. Do you mind?"

"No, of course not! Come this way."

Abira was led through a crowded room that was in complete disarray, nothing like the neat storefront they had just exited. She ducked under a doorway into a large courtyard. Early morning sun shone down on the dewy grass.

Abira stepped forward, not feeling the sun, not noticing the herb garden or the crystal-clear pool.

All she could see was the unicorns.

There, in the back corner, a unicorn was steadily nibbling at a leaf. Her long, lily-white neck stretched with dainty elegance, her horn shining, her tufted tail flicking back and forth. Three tiny foals were nestled beside the tree, their nubby horns covered with a dusting of fuzz.

The unicorn embodied purity just by standing there. Abira froze, enchanted, as the unicorn lowered its majestic head to study her _. I have wanted to see a unicorn all my life. How many times did I roam the forest around the cottage, hoping, praying for a glimpse? And here they are kept like common pets._

A snide voice, dripping with poisoned honey, interrupted her joy. "I believe the emperor would be delighted for these four unicorns to grace his gardens. He never tires of tamed beauty, and they would match the theme of the carpet so well."

The shine of the unicorn's deep majesty dimmed, and Abira turned, hoping she was wrong about the source of the voice. But no, there stood Eve, a cruel smile playing around her lips. She was wearing all white, the very vision of a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Muse's mother dropped to her knees, and Muse did the same, their fear palpable. Abira refused to scrape and bow, so she stood glaring at Eve's silken mask, feeling grim satisfaction that her eyes had not grown back yet. _I hope they never do._

Eve finally acknowledged the shopkeeper and her daughter. "You may rise. I will expect your gift of these four unicorns to be delivered on the morrow."

Abira wondered how Eve knew what they were doing without any eyes and decided she would rather not know.

Muse's mother kept her eyes downcast as she said in a very careful tone, "My Lady Eve, I must beg you to reconsider. I just lost all of my daughter's labors, since she is now betrothed to the emperor. Losing the unicorns would close my shop for sure."

Eve snorted, as if this was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. "You hoi-polloi always find a way. Consider it her dowry."

Abira stepped forward, anger flaring up at this brat masquerading as royalty. She snapped, "These so-called 'hoi-polloi' are the ones who pay the taxes that let you idle your endless life in plotting petty revenge. Why would you be so cruel as to take this woman's livelihood?"

"Because I can, you stupid child. You think because the emperor has gifted you his favors, you can talk to me like this?" Eve's form began to shimmer and wave, elongating, darkening. Her voice weaved between dimensions as her fury mounted, and yellow crackles of energy coursed over her. "When he tires of you, and he will, I will be waiting. Your sufferance depends on the whims of a notoriously fickle tyrant."

She settled down, her display of power fading into the quiet courtyard. She took a step towards Abira as the last of the yellow cracklings disappeared. "This is just a little game you and I play for now. Anyone who helps you, anyone you love, has been marked."

And with that, Eve disappeared, the displaced air swooshing with a loud _crack_ that made everyone jump.

Abira stood there, fists clenched _. So she means to make me a pariah. I've been one before._ She thought with fleeting dismay of boarding school, of the vicious taunts of the other girls, who could sniff out how alien she was.

Abira turned to Muse with a fixed smile, unclenching her fists. "Let's go back to the palace. I'll see if I can speak with the emperor about this."

She turned for one last look at the mother-of-pearl horn, the huge eyes, the precious foals _._

_I can't let Eve get her hands on them_.
Nineteen

Abira stood at the very top of her tower of knowledge, out on the windy balcony. It was a breathtaking view, if a little dizzying. The balcony wrapped around the entire tower, showing her a panorama of the palace grounds and surrounding city.

The palace's scale could only be appreciated by standing on a tower, and hers was not the tallest by any stretch. Over and around her, piercing spires and lush gardens blended with stained glass windows and medieval architecture. She could not even see the top of the palace, as it rose into the clouds surrounding the mountain top. She was living in a stone palace perched on the edge of a precipice, with the tiered city Eddene, of old glamor, beneath.

She wondered at the twists and turns of fate that had led her to stand here.

Eddene was another sight to behold, with a multitude of bustling citizens (smaller than ants from Abira's height), plunging waterfalls, ancient buildings leaning one atop the other, and cobbled, sloping streets, stretching all the way down to the lush valley below.

Sirin swept and plummeted as he continually tried to grasp clouds and bring them to her. He was valiantly attempting to amuse her while she waited, with growing impatience, for a response from the emperor. Lucifer had not yet replied to her request for an audience about the unicorns.

She admired his lean form as he landed next to her, the smell of sunshine and cloud wafting in with his descent. He grinned and presented a handful of foggy iridescence that the wind snatched away as soon as his fingers uncurled.

Abira smiled, despite her worries. He was arrogant and adorable, giving and fun-loving, carefree and serious, all at the same time. Between one thing and another, they were never given enough time alone. But now, Scarlett had left to see that Abira's message was delivered to the emperor.

This felt like an opportune time, when she was not too tired from her frenzied schedule, to take a moment with him. Perhaps tonight, she would stay up late with him, despite her exhaustion...

Their seeming solitude on this thrusting tower made her daring. She knew she should wait for the privacy of her bedchamber, and she knew they were not really alone while standing out here for all to see, but she did not care. She stepped within the arc of his partly-open wings and grasped his hands, noticing that shivering tickle yet again. She wondered what cants were on his head but dismissed that question for another time. She murmured, "Thank you. Only you could bring me a piece of the sky."

Sirin leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Anything for you, my Lady. You need only ask." Abira's heart clutched against her ribcage _. I should ask you to fly to the Aviary, to run, to just get out of here. Away from the danger, away from me. I should flee with you, and live like a wild woman in the midst of the woods. We should just soar into the sunset, two unwanted children seeking a new home._

She looked up at him, her heart full of what she wanted to say. He moved forward with aching slowness as Abira's lips parted. She leaned in, smelling the purity of his wind-bathed skin.

And then, despite every single worry she had sitting on her chest, they kissed, and the taste of sweet fruits and fresh air coursed down her body with a deep thrill. He pressed against her, his long arms wrapping her torso, his wings encasing her in the glory of an angel. She kissed back with fierce abandon, aching with pent-up longing. His kisses moved bird-quick down her jaw, over her neck, making her shiver with anticipation. The shivering swirled, with a light tingle, down to her toes.

She had the world at her feet and a true angel in her arms.

Their taste of burgeoning passion was interrupted by a small cough. Abira disengaged herself, her cheeks burning.

Scarlett stood in the doorway, a smirk lurking under her formal announcement. "My Lady's mother is here for a visit."

All the joy of Sirin's warm embrace left Abira. She now felt cold and wanting. She lifted an eyebrow at Sirin and murmured, "Well, her timing couldn't have been worse."

Sirin shrugged and grinned, a light in his eyes. He laughed and flew up, circling the tower with unrestrained glee, then swooped to dive into another cloud.

Scarlett frowned at his graceful flight. "He is not a worthy consort, my Lady."

"Our relationship is none of your concern, Scarlett. Bring my mother up here, please." Abira looked after her retreating form with a touch of unease, already regretting being so sharp with her. Why would Scarlett, who was so clever and quick, say such a thing? Scarlett had been an enormous help over the last month, and she seemed to show a deep concern for Abira's welfare, above and beyond what a typical handmaiden's duties entailed. By comparison, Gwain's cool efficiency always seemed so lifeless, so forced, as if she was just doing her duty with no obvious joy or spark of interest. Abira trusted Scarlett's judgment, and Scarlett's quiet dislike of Sirin concerned her more than she cared to admit.

I will ask her about it later. I just don't understand the class system here.

Abira leaned against the balcony railing, trying to suppress her petulance at the interruption. Her mother stepped out from the tower door, unbound hair whipping like the tempest she was. A bronze gown sat with limp indifference on her gaunt frame.

They looked at each other for a long while. Matt's agonized face swam up in her mind. She quashed the vision, desperate to keep the illusion of harmony until she could figure out a way to avenge him. Her mother broke the silence, her stiff voice showing no emotion.

"You look well."

"As do you."

The wind howled Abira's misery for her _._ She wanted to scream at her mother _. Why did you show up right when Sirin and I were kissing? Why?_

Her mother answered her unspoken question. "I hurried here because I did not realize the danger you were in until today. Are you insane?"

Abira cocked her head, curious. "Well, Eve hates me. But other than that, no danger since the Aviary."

Her mother closed her eyes and sighed through her nose. "No one has told you of the coming initiation rites? I was sure you would come back home after someone told you about the rites."

Abira shrugged, staring out at the violet sky and the fleecy clouds, trying to catch a glimpse of Sirin. She looked at everything but her mother.

"Well, you will be participating in them unless you leave with me now."

"What are they?" Abira struggled hard to keep her tone neutral, as the deep well of hatred she kept ice-cold just for her mother bubbled to the surface.

"They are what they sound like. When formally acknowledged descendants of Eve, Lilith, or Lucifer reach the age of twenty, they start their initiation rites to see if they are worthy of the bloodlines they represent."

Abira thought back. Her Master had mentioned something about that...

"You will be facing an opponent who has prepared for this their whole life. Literally since birth, they will have faced feints and cants and endless, smaller tests used to separate the weak from the strong. I can promise that Eve will make sure you face one of the strongest fledglings."

A slight nervousness crawled under Abira's skin. Her mother noted her growing unease, and a small smile of satisfaction lingered on her thin lips. "Each one of you will create a champion with your divine powers. The champion can be any creature you can conjure up, real or imagined. As long as it fits inside the fighting pit, it is allowed."

Abira gaped at that, her loathing for her mother receding at this news. "I don't know how to just create a living creature!"

"It will not be precisely living. Most will dissipate after a day or two. But yes, you are woefully unprepared. Baphomet's timing for whisking you away truly could not have been worse."

"Why?"

"Because the initiations start in three days, and if you stay in this realm, you must participate. The champions fight until one destroys the other."

"What will happen if I refuse?"

"You will be thrown into the Aviary again. Except this time, there will be a cant on your head that will make you mortal and imprison you until the emperor decides if he wishes to be merciful. The losers are often hunted for cruel sport, and the hounds are allowed to feast upon their divine flesh. Or perhaps you will be escorted to the dungeons. Or set free, to flee to the scarce charms of the lesser realm. It depends on the emperor's whim of the moment."

Abira's gorge began to rise, unable to comprehend such wicked detachment from one's own family. "So the emperor and Eve hunt their own sons and daughters, their own grandchildren? For the love of God, why?" It seemed cruel, even for them.

"This family is prolific. You truly could not count the descendants of any of the three fallen angels. Their descendants, including you, are disposable for sport if they show the slightest sign of weakness. The emperor abhors useless offspring, as he should."

Abira closed her eyes in horror. The Aviary would not be so bad if she could bring Sirin, but she had a feeling that would be forbidden. "Why didn't anyone tell me about this?"

"Your Master likely did mention the initiations. No doubt you were too busy mooning over that flying beast to listen."

Abira's lids snapped open. "How do you know what I do?"

"I have eyes and ears here. Have you learned nothing of this world? Are you still so innocent?" Her mother shook her head, incredulous. "Please, Abira, come with me now. I have so much to tell you, to show you."

Abira turned back toward the breathtaking view, torn _._ If she won, the rewards could be huge. If she lost, and was thrown back into the Aviary...

She could not leave Sirin. Nor could she trust anything her mother said.

Her mother threw her final card down. "Your father wishes to meet you."

Abira stilled. That was unexpected, and more tempting than she thought it would be _._ The emperor had said her mother was lying about who her father was, so this offer to meet him could solve even more mysteries.

Who was lying, Tahe or Lucifer?

Or were both of them lying to her?

_Maybe I could take a few books with me, learn on my own, and avoid my mother, or find Nana._ She glimpsed Sirin diving through another cloud _. I don't feel ready to face any kind of initiation, but I don't want to leave him._

"You want to take me back to Sylvan Glade?"

"Yes."

"Is Sirin welcome?"

Her mother's face tightened. "He is your familiar, so yes. Please tell me you are not coupling with that beast."

Abira sputtered, her angst rising. "That is not your concern!"

"It is my concern if my daughter is rutting with some wild beast born of Baphomet's perversity and a harpy's foul womb."

A sly voice interrupted what sounded like the beginning of a long lecture. "She has not been coupling with that beast, only enjoying his singing. Every night, without fail."

The emperor stepped out from the doorway, his giant frame looming above both of them. Abira's mother dropped to her knees, but Abira only managed a stiff curtsey, furious with his spying on such private moments. She was not surprised, but it made her feel violated to have her every move watched. She had actually entertained the stupid notion that the emperor had the decency to let her keep her most intimate moments hidden.

"You may rise. Why are you concerned about the initiation rites?"

"She has had no formal training, she has no patronage, and she does not know the least thing about handling court politics."

The emperor shrugged. "She has a great deal of divine power. Even more than Eve herself, I suspect."

Abira looked at him askance. "How could I have more divine power than an angel?"

"That is the very question I have been asking since my son dragged you here." A smile crept halfway up his face. "I think my wife is afraid of you. It is a very interesting situation indeed." He addressed her mother again. "I was just assigning a combative cants instructor to her. She was supposed to have one when she arrived, but somehow my orders were overlooked."

Eve. Eve stopped me from receiving the training I needed.

The emperor continued on in a conversational tone with her mother. "Did you know she defeated an elemental in the Aviary using just her raw, unrefined divinity?"

"Yes, Emperor. I was most proud."

"As you should be. I am sure that with a bit of polish she will be ready for the initiation rites. Besides, I have not released her from my service. She will stay within five leagues of the palace until I say otherwise."

The emperor leaned over and brushed Abira's knuckles with his lips. Abira blushed hard as the sweet fire burned her to the core, trying not to writhe away at his repulsive, but alluring, touch. This reaction seemed to please the emperor, as he was very slow to let go of her hand. "I came to see your progress in person, Lady Abira. You have made quite an impression upon Master Derik." Something cruel slithered under this seeming compliment, the hint of a split serpent tongue under every syllable Lucifer uttered.

She mumbled a thank you, unsure of what she had done to impress anybody. She switched subjects quickly.

"Emperor, did you receive my letter about the unicorns? Your future bride's family depends heavily on the income they bring to their shop. Eve wants them here to spite Muse and me."

The emperor said, "I did receive your missive. I will look into the matter."

And he turned around and left, just like that, without saying goodbye.

Abira and her mother let out low sighs at the same time. There was something very tense about being in the emperor's presence, something exhausting. Tahe muttered, "Well, that was unusually courteous for him. Something is lifting his spirits."

Her mother stared at her, eyes huge in her thin face. "Come with me. Flee this madness. You need to be with your true family now."

Abira shook her head. "I'm staying. I don't have much of a choice, as the emperor just reminded you."

"Your father and Nana will be disappointed. We can flee to him for protection. Lucifer does not dare to storm Heaven's gates for any reason."

Abira inhaled sharply at this offer. "I can go back to Heaven and meet my father?"

"Yes, if you come with me right now, before the emperor notices. Your father has petitioned God for protection, and our presence in Heaven has been granted."

Her father had always been a disheartening mystery. What kind of father would never once make an attempt at contact, then, almost twenty years later, jump up and demand an audience? Was her mother lying? Was unraveling her origins worth leaving all this excitement, all this heart-stopping adrenaline, all this _luxury_? Did her mother truly hold the key to Heaven itself?

And Abira, in a petty, small moment, decided she would risk the initiation, the wrath of Eve, the threat of the Aviary, and the loss of Heaven itself, just to spite her mother.

"Let them be disappointed. If my father is so eager to see me, he can come here and claim me."

Her mother's glare scorched her. "You are an insipid little fool," she hissed through clenched teeth. "I wish I had never laid eyes on you. You have been a burden on me since the second you were born."

And with those tender parting words, her mother stomped out, leaving Abira all alone at the top of the world, her heart weighed down with endless regrets. Her heart began to lift, though, as Sirin settled down beside her and frowned at her glum expression.

"I gather the visit did not go well?"

"You could say that."

"The emperor has been spying on us."

She nodded, frustration balling a tight knot in her stomach. "You overheard?"

"I have excellent hearing. I was not trying to eavesdrop, but a trick of the wind brought his words to me at the perfect moment."

She wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed her ear to his thrumming heart. He held her until she felt better, stroking her hair, kissing the top of her head. She looked up at him, and hoped they could find a way to love each other without the emperor's attention riveted to her every move.

But why? That was the question she wanted to have the answer to most of all. That tyrant had an empire to run, a missing wife, a mad second wife to tame, and from what she had heard, hundreds of other wives to entertain him. On top of his countless offspring and his discord with God, why was he giving her so much personal attention? What had she done to earn such a punishment?

She rested her head back on Sirin's narrow chest, loving him without end as she pondered the mystery of why the Devil's eye was fixed on her at every moment.

Scarlett stepped out onto the balcony and said, "Your combative cants instructor is here. Master Owin."
Twenty

After two days of training hell, she ached from her head down to the bottom of her spine. Utter exhaustion draped over every muscle. Her combative cants trainer, a wiry little demon, was without mercy.

He addressed her with the utmost gravity as he watched her latest combative champion dissipate into thin air. "You have insatiable amounts of divine power, and a certain flair for style, but your champions lack the deep essence that is needed for victory. You must weave some of your own cunning into the champions, or they will just be thoughtless killing machines. Your opponents' champions will crush them in no time. The more intelligent and larger a champion is, the harder they are to create. You should go for something large, since you are so strong in your divine gifts. It will counteract the lack of cunning your champions have."

Abira pressed her throbbing temples into her hands. This was the last lesson before tomorrow's initiation rites, and she had been fantasizing about running back to Earth. But that tasted of the easy way out, of cowardice. So she pushed on, through the draining of her powers that caused these merciless headaches, lamenting her stubborn pride with every throb.

"You will rest now, Lady Abira. I see by your face that we are at an end. Do you have any more questions before we part?"

"Why me?"

"Because you chose to. You do not have to participate. Many weaker demons do flee from the rites to live out humble lives with the commoners, risking the emperor's wrath if he finds them. Some escape to your lesser realm. But the power and prestige of being a fully-fledged demon of the courts is well worth the initiation rites. You will gain much status on top of your air of reclusive mystery."

"I have an air of reclusive mystery?"

"Oh, yes. In fact, rumor has it that most of the spectators are showing up just to see you perform. You are quite a novelty. Your insolence with our beloved emperor, your unusual resemblance to the empress, and your astonishing powers have the courts all aflutter."

Abira groaned into her palms and thanked Owin. He bowed himself out, and she sat at her study desk, staring at the reflection of her drawn face in the polished wood. She heard a tentative step behind her.

Sirin's musical voice sent a small thrill of pleasure down her back. "Lady, is there anything I can do to ease your burden?"

She looked up at his beauty, dazzled. "Just being here is enough."

He grinned so hard she thought his face would split in half. He preened a moment, fluffing the feathers around his hips. "Do you want to see a cant I learned today?"

She nodded, glad for any distraction. Of course, just looking at him was distraction enough. Sirin placed his fingers over her head with just a hint of pressure. She refrained from giggling as he stilled. The shivering tickle began to build and she waited, curious.

A soothing relaxation started at her crown and wriggled down her torso. Her muscles unclenched and her eyes stopped aching. Her headache eased back to a tolerable level, which was the greatest gift he could have given her. She sighed, grateful that he was such a fast learner. The cants he had learned in the Aviary with his mother had mostly been defensive or offensive, to help him fight for survival.

"Better?"

"Much. How did you do that?"

"I used a combination of a relaxation and withdrawal cants. I eased your muscle tension and then drew a little of my divine powers so that you would not feel so spent. It is a tricky balance, but I have been practicing with Scarlett."

A green-eyed monster snarled a warning, and Abira chided herself. _He is in love with you, not her. Don't be one of those women._ She thought back to when she had first seen him in the Aviary. How far they had come.

"Sirin, you have changed since I met you." She glanced up at him, hoping he would not take offense.

He chuckled and rubbed her shoulders with his wing tips. "I was awful when you first saw me. I was furious at my father for not acknowledging my existence. I am sorry you saw that side of me."

Abira placed her hand on his. "I understand. I have never met my father."

He looked surprised. "Really? With your powers? Anyone here would be proud to claim you as their daughter."

She shrugged, trying not to care. "I think it is because I am descended from a fallen angel. Maybe an angel who is right with God isn't supposed to dally with Lilith's tainted blood. From the clues I gathered, my father isn't fallen, but a close companion of God. He is probably indifferent, or embarrassed of me. The emperor told me I was not worthy of entrance into Heaven without God's specific permission, so I cannot just waltz up and ask Daddy for a reunion. My mother claimed that my father wanted to meet me, but I don't believe her. To further complicate the situation, the emperor believes my mother is lying about who my father is. So my past is shrouded in mystery."

She turned to study him, realizing how little they knew of each other _. I know virtually nothing about him._ What better way to pass the long night before this initiation rite than with Sirin?

So she spent the whole night talking and laughing and eating with him, drifting off to sleep with the giddiness lingering as he sang to her. She was a touch too rattled by tomorrow's trials to engage her half-hearted plan of seduction tonight. She promised her eager libido that tomorrow night she would make her move—if she passed the trial. The promise of pleasure tomorrow night strengthened her resolve, and she awoke refreshed and eager to get her ordeal over with.

As soon as she awoke, Abira hopped out of bed and found Gwain ready to help her into the day's formal wear. Gwain laced her into a gown of dark plum with silent indifference, her meek exterior displaying no hint of strain at today's big event. She handed her duties off to Scarlett, who guided Abira to the fighting pit.

Abira floated along, her heart soaring to the sun. She had never felt so in love with anyone, not even Matt, not even close. Sirin was so exotically strange, yet handsome, and had a fierce protectiveness gentled with a natural kindness. She made a bold decision as she walked over the vast grounds. _I will tell him I love him, tonight. We can figure out our future together._

Scarlett escorted her to the enormous, oval fighting pit, which was carved into the edge of the mountain. It had a sweep of tiered stone benches. The back side of the fighting pit was a sheer drop down into clouds.

Abira settled into the corded area reserved for contesting fledglings. She kept her eyes down, her posture meek, hoping to not draw attention.

She felt the weight of curious eyes drilling into the back of her head, and took a deep breath. The bats returned with claws and sharp teeth to tear apart her insides. She had no idea who her opponent would be, she had no idea what her champion would be, and she had no idea what to expect from the others.

Sitting there, she truly began to realize what a disadvantage she was at. These contestants had years of training under their belts, had vast knowledge of monstrous creatures to summon as champions, and knew their individual styles and preferences. To top all of that off, the whole spectacle was rigged to favor some over others. Of that, Abira had no doubt.

A slim brunette sat beside her, and two blondes settled in front. No one introduced themselves or even looked directly at her. She knew they were trying to appear aloof, but her neck crawled as more demons settled their gazes on her back. Abira felt grateful for Scarlett's comforting presence beside her.

Seats were filling up quicker now, and an expectant hush fell over the arena as a glaring light shot out from the clouds. There began a swelling of haunting harp music.

The emperor descended with grand opulence from the heavens, his floating majesty crowned by the sun. He was wearing robes of violet-gold that clung to his giant frame. He landed right in front of the throne to thundering applause. He made it appear natural to float in the clouds, so regal was his bearing, so glorious was his dark beauty.

Abira clapped with the rest of them, awed despite her hatred of the emperor. The audience settled down with an expectant hush, and the harp music died. Then an unseen herald sang out loud and clear. "First initiation rites featuring the fledglings Undra and Anna-te. Begin!"

She leaned in to watch what champions would be conjured, hoping to pick up a final lesson or two in technique. She was grateful that they did not drone on with endless speeches here.

The emperor would see blood flow, and quickly.

A seething, bluish mass formed at one end of the pit, and resolved itself into an elephant with barbed tusks. At the opposite end, a coiling, writhing mass had created a basilisk. The two hissed and stomped at each other until the elephant cut under the basilisk's jaw, throwing it up and down. Then the basilisk's fangs clamped into the elephant's grey flank, and the elephant's wild stomping carried them both around the ring. The elephant finally tossed the snake over the edge, with no little pride.

The herald spoke. "Winner is Anna-te." Four dozen or so elves came out and ushered the elephant, with barbed poles, to an enclosure in the rear. One slipped in basilisk blood, and the audience snickered and booed.

Abira leaned over and whispered, "What happens to the elephant?"

Scarlett whispered back, "They keep any champions that survive on display until they dissolve. Lets the families preen at how powerful their offspring is. Everyone takes any opportunity, no matter how small, to show off power."

Next, the herald announced Mauric and Physeus, and the crowd fell silent again, watching with eager tension. Mauric conjured up a fierce sky dragon (clever, because it could not be thrown over the cliff), and Physeus conjured up a flaming phoenix (clever, because it could not be thrown over the cliff, and also could rapidly heal itself). After a rousing battle in which the phoenix kept healing itself, the sky dragon managed to pin the phoenix down, and blasted so much fiery heat into its face that the bird combusted. The ashes drifted over the sheer cliff.

On and on the trials went, some champions clever, some using brute force, some using small size and incredible speed. Gore and guts and flames flew over the crowd more than once. The arena was not cleaned between bouts, so the visceral filth added up in lumpy drifts.

She was next, her bones whispered—her head began to buzz, her teeth clamped shut, her eyes watered in nervous tension. The herald confirmed her fears with his loud declaration.

"First initiation rites featuring Abira and Junati."

She cast a panicky glance around to see who her opponent was. A young male demon with red hair gave her an evil grin and turned to the arena. A billowing, noxious yellow cloud began to form a long shape that sharpened into a thirty foot-tall Cyclops, which roared so loud her eardrums ached.

Abira's mouth dropped open at that. Her combative instructor's words came back to haunt her. _The larger and more intelligent the champion, the harder it is to create._

This was a powerful opponent.

Her mind went blank as the Cyclops blinked and looked around. It strode to the edge of the mountain and ripped a boulder out to form a club. Everyone was turning, looking at her with a growing impatience, an agitated whispering.

Abira clamped down her concentration, remembering an old story that had scared her so as a child—tentacled, winged monsters rising from the deeps of the oceans to conquer mankind—eldritch horrors luring humanity with false promises of power—vast intelligences intent only on evil—

A grey cloud started brewing on her end of the field, and the spectators turned away from her and back to the fighting pit. Abira, in a moment of inspiration, realized that not one monster she had seen was machine-based. If she could make an organic-machine hybrid that the Cyclops could only dent on the outside, the day might be hers.

She merged and melded, her mind whirring with possibilities. What lurched out of the dense cloud shocked even her. Her chin sank to her chest, her divine powers utterly spent, as her champion made a grand entrance. Even through her exhaustion, she could not help but be proud of the obscene champion she had created.

It was so strange as to not even have a name.

It had writhing masses of tentacles tipped with hooks. It gleamed with oil and stunk of exhaust. It jumped forward and lashed all eight tentacles around the blinking Cyclops. The Cyclops wielded his weapon with no refrain, going first for the head to bash its opponent's brains in.

But Abira had not put her champion's brain in its head. She had put it where the tentacles bunched together, right under the gaping maw of the beast. The head was only a decoy.

Her champion dug its barbs deep into the flesh of the Cyclops, who lowed in bovine agony but kept bashing its opponent's head. The gears whirred and clicked, and all the tentacles gripped their barbed hooks into the Cyclops at once and ripped. Chunks of steaming flesh splattered the crowd.

The Cyclops was bellowing so loudly that the ground was vibrating. He fell as the barbed tentacles released him—only to drive straight into his eye sockets.

His brains blew out of his head in a meaty explosion. The Cyclops fell, twitched, and was still.

You could have heard a pin drop. No one cheered, no one moved. Abira looked around, confused. What had she done wrong? Every single bout before this had been met with a chorus of cheers and boos, but now only silence consumed the assembled. She glanced at Scarlett, who looked at her beseechingly. Tears swam in her brown eyes while her hand flew to her mouth.

The emperor's cold voice rang out over the crowd. "Guards, would you be so kind as to escort Abira to her suite? She is not to leave under any circumstances."

Two burly guards appeared before her with alarming speed and gripped her arms. They marched her past the staring eyes and over the nearly vacant palace grounds without a word, then shoved her into her suite and locked the door behind her.

Abira sat down on her divan, confounded, trembling with weakness from the exertion of creating such a champion. Was the redhead a favorite of the emperor? Had she committed some sort of faux-pas?

Nothing came to mind. She had followed her instructions to the letter.

Trembling panic made her begin to shake, made her limbs go cold, made her thoughts numb. She knew she had done something terrible and offensive, but she did not know what, and even worse, she did not know what the punishment would be for it. Would she be thrown back into the Aviary after all? Would she be executed?

Her heart almost stopped when she realized she was all alone. Had the emperor's guards already arrested Sirin, Gwain, and Scarlett? She had to find them and escape. She ran all over her suite, searching in every nook and cranny, in every side room.

Nothing. They were gone.

Abira bolted for the conservatory, willing to break a window to flee and continue the search. But try as she might, she could not open the windows. She tried cants first, but nothing worked. Then she tried prying open the windows. She banged, and then hit the glass with a stone bench, with no result. The window stayed locked, the panes unbroken. She threw the stone bench in an exhausted fury, breaking a small tree in half.

She collapsed, panting under a cool frond, conceding defeat for now. _The emperor must have some kind of staying cant on me. I can't leave and I can't use any of my cants. Did he make me mortal?_

Agitated unease stirred her emotions to a heady boil. She paced her empty rooms, listening for a sign of life. She climbed to the top of her tower to see if she could open the door to the balcony, but her quest proved fruitless. She scanned the skies from her gilded cage, hoping to catch a glimpse of Sirin, but saw nothing. Her deepest fear squeezed all the blood out of her heart. The emperor must have captured him.

He will put Sirin on the rack. Or in the dungeons. Or kill him outright. But what did I do, for Sirin to deserve such punishment?

Day crept into night as Abira died a million tiny deaths while fretting over Sirin's fate. She began to worry about bold Scarlett and meek Gwain, and anyone who had been tainted by her association.

A guilty little weasel kept running around and around her mind, nibbling, accusing, fretting. And try as she might, she could not get the squirmy little beast under control. It kept chattering, over and over, about all the horrors the emperor could cook up to torment her loved ones. Sirin, beaten and tortured. Or under a partial cant of healing and death, each breath laced with agony. Scarlett, locked in an iron maiden. Gwain, lashed. These living nightmares made the weasel run and bite until every corner of her soul boasted a festering wound.

Abira's tension continued to mount, until she thought she would explode. She tried to use a cant of calming on herself, but it did not work. She paced until she was dizzy with it, then paced some more. She tried to pour over books to find a way to break this hold, but could not concentrate. She tried every cant she had learned, scraping up every last scrap of divinity within her to perform even the simplest task.

Nothing. She could not even boil tepid bathwater _._ All her hard-earned knowledge of the last month had faded to nothing. She sat on the edge of her tub, nude and laughing, cold and hard and feeling just a little dead inside. A hollow emptiness swallowed her heart, as the laughter echoed throughout the lonely rooms.

When she crawled into bed that night, the sheets were ice cold and the bed hard. _The emperor's attention to even the smallest detail is really unnerving,_ she reflected as she stared at the ceiling.

The lack of Sirin's comfortable warmth, his glorious voice, made her loneliness that much harder to bear. She had grown so dependent on his company for her happiness, so used to his unflinching devotion _. I was taking him for granted._

Hardest of all, she admitted to herself before a fitful sleep overcame her, was to accept that her mother had been right. She should have gone back to the lesser realm, and met her father in Heaven.

She awoke screaming, to the sound of a dead unicorn foal thumping onto her bed.
Twenty One

Day two brought another pathetic unicorn corpse thudding to her floor.

On day three the last foal, its fuzzy nub of a horn caked in blood, collapsed onto a couch.

The mother unicorn's corpse was dropped into her bath on day four, killing any chance she had of retaining that small pleasure.

Every single corpse was dropped while she was asleep. So, to delay the inevitable, she stayed awake until she was hallucinating. She screamed Lucifer and Eve's names until her throat was hoarse, pounded on her suite's doors, pushed letters begging for mercy under her door-and received no response.

On day five, after passing out on her divan in an exhausted daze of fear, she awoke to the strong odor of burning flesh. She cracked a bleary eye and spied Gwain in her fire bowl, her pale hands crisping to black ruin.

On day six, Scarlett's inert form sat at her study desk.

Abira tried to bring them all back, but felt no life in them, nor did she feel any of her divine powers stirring.

By day seven, Abira was a shaking ruin. Corpses of creatures and of people littered everything she had once enjoyed. She found the courage to gather them all up and drag them to the spare bedroom that she had finally found this gruesome use for. The gasping stench of sewage gas tainted every breath she took in her gilded cell, even up to the very top of the tower.

They were all sealed in this tomb together.

She found herself rocking and humming, for how long she could not tell, staring at the dying blue and violet flames that had charred Gwain's flesh to ruin. They died down a little more each day, and soon would fade to nothing.

As would she.

She knew who the last victim would be, and her mind chattered in monkey rage at this final stab to her psyche. Even with the madness bouncing in her skull and her constant rocking, she dozed off.

A loud thump in the conservatory jerked her awake. She wandered without hurry, opening the door to the drooping plants and crumbled flowers, their own death releasing a perfume of fetid petals.

Sirin lay crumpled in the fountain's bowl, looking very odd. Abira wandered over to stroke his hair, glad they were together at last. She would follow him as soon as she could figure out a way to end this chicanery.

She paused, uncertain if it was him. Something was missing. He lacked something vital, something wonderful that should be there. She stared and stared for the longest time, then she understood.

His wings. His feathers. She rolled him onto his chest and discovered gaping wounds where his wings had once attached to his body. Deep furrows of ripped muscle opened to expose his ribcage. He had been defeathered, from his hips down to his feet. Only puckered wounds remained in the icy skin, thousands of crusted scabs.

Abira sat and rocked with him awhile, not thinking of anything in particular. She conjured the void in her mind, enjoying it, admiring the no-color of the no-space. She might have talked aloud; she was not sure. Rocking and humming and shredding dead leaves to bits were her only comforts right now.

At some point, her greatest comfort became pulling out her hair in giant clumps. Then it became scratching deep gouges in her arms and legs. Then it was picking her toenails out. She was even comforted by watching the flesh quickly knit itself back together.

Her final comfort was stroking Sirin's limp hand. She began to tell him her ideas for their future. Maybe a cozy little nest in the Aviary? Or perhaps they could jaunt off to Earth and start a magick show with their new cants, growing rich off the wonder of the masses. Or maybe, she told him with a smattering of coy giggles, they could even get married in a tiny country church out in the hick mountains she grew up in.

Now that would be silly, a beast and a demon getting married in a decent, God-fearing country church. Would God strike the church steeple the second they sealed their vows?

Sirin agreed that that would be very funny indeed, and they had a good, long laugh. He stroked her hair and told her all about the mechanics of building a safe nest for their little beast babies to play in. She nodded, happy beyond words, imagining little cherubs snuggled in a nest of downy fronds and silken sheets, cawing for their loving mama.

He murmured something of love, and she murmured back, not really hearing him, not really caring. All that mattered was his voice, so musical to her wanting ears.

Then, with a brutal twist, her madness spun away, revealing the depths of her wounded soul. She looked down at her lap, where Sirin's heavy head lay.

She had left his eyes open, the better to see her with.

Despair shuddered within, and Abira disengaged herself from the weight of dead dreams, sliding out from under his corpse. She stood there, weaving back and forth, staring down at the ragged wounds on her legs, arms, and stomach. She raised her hands to see her jagged nails, blood caked under the crescents. She touched her hair in slow wonder, feeling the matted lumps and clotted snarls.

She looked down on the lifeless body of an unloved son of an ancient demon.

But Abira loved him.

The leaves rustled and whispered. Abira shook her head, reluctant to let the madness crawl back in. She looked around and saw dead vines bunching on the ceiling. They writhed and pressed to form an enormous face, the eyes white flowers, the lips dead roses.

She took a step back as she recognized the face. Eve. She leered down, and her vines began to creep toward Abira, snaking with obvious malice.

Abira stood her ground and bundled all her malice into her divine center. She felt nothing as she worked against Eve's cants, and the vines crept closer, inch by wriggling inch.

She thought of Sirin, and something within her stirred. Then fumed.

Then exploded.

A whirlwind grew and swirled at the very center of her soul, begging for release. Abira coaxed and urged, prodded and pushed the terror. It seemed the cant upon her was too weak to stop this maelstrom.

She let go.

Her tempest of divine rage shot out, breaking the last lock that chained her powers. Her energy drove straight into Eve's vines, and they blackened and shriveled to husks. The winds of her angst lashed around the conservatory. Shattering glass sang with wild abandon against the buffeting air.

Eve's face dissolved into dead flora once again, and Abira was _free_.

She moved through the maelstrom with placid calm. It followed her with eager fingers, slamming the conservatory doors back and ripping books off the shelves in one smooth, serpentine motion. The air was awash in fluttering pages, and ancient tomes thumped to the ground.

Abira willed the tempest to silence. The screaming winds slowed; the last books dropped, with their heavy knowledge, to the carpet. She looked around as exhaustion dropped her to her knees. She sat there, contemplating the destruction she had wrought.

It looked like she had the Devil beat again.

Then the full force of her raw divinity frightened and shamed her. _What have I become, to shred plants and destroy priceless books for no purpose other than to soothe my broken heart? I could have stopped after I destroyed Eve's hold on me._

She stayed there in the chaos, studying it with a new dismay. But something was giving her the faintest whiff of hope. What was it, why did Abira feel a silver lining glinting within the center of this dark cloud?

Abira took a deep breath, and it hit her. The gasping, seeping stench of all those corpses had disappeared. Her dreamy slowness evaporated as she ran into the spare bedroom-turned-tomb.

No bodies littered the room. She twisted and flew to the conservatory, her heart in her throat, her breath stilled. No Sirin.

None of it was real. It was a ruse, an illusion.

She eyed the broken windows and the rocks beyond. She could climb and flee, searching for her loved ones. But she would not. She had broken the cants upon her, she had defeated the wily old archangel and his soiled wife. Abira would face them in her full power to demand they stop these idiot games.

She strode to her bathing room, trying not to envision the flaccid unicorn corpse that she had seen there. She warmed the water and climbed in, scrubbing the blood and tears away. She brushed her hair, she rubbed scented oils under her ears and dabbed her wrists with the same.

Abira perused her closet and selected a simple, unbleached linen tunic to wear. She left her feet bare, her hair unbound.

Then she waited, with easy patience, in front of her fiery blue-purple flames. She did not have to wait long.

Scarlett burst through the doors with huge eyes, gasping for breath. She saw Abira and sagged against the door. "I thought he was going to have you dragged to the dungeons for sure this time." She clutched the door as her breathing evened out, her wide, brown eyes fixed on Abira.

Abira rose and helped Scarlett to a divan. She found the refreshment cabinet well stocked, so she poured her servant a cup of wine and selected a plate of sweetmeats for her to nibble on.

Scarlett threw back the wine with alarming speed and held her cup out for more. Abira poured it and the whole performance was repeated again.

Scarlett set her cup aside and covered her face with her hands. "Oh, Abira," she whispered. "Why did you do it? Why?" Her southern twang drew out, clashing with strange discordance against the guttural tongue of Hell.

"I don't know what I did. Has the emperor hurt Sirin or Gwain?"

"I don't think so. He imprisoned you just now, and I thought I could run back here and stay with you if your guards would let me."

This gave Abira pause. She had only been here a few moments? What kind of cant had the emperor used to make time flow so strangely? She had witnessed seven risings of the moon since her captivity.

She felt truly touched at Scarlett's utter devotion. Scarlett was willing to be locked up with Abira in this plush prison.

She brought her attention back to Scarlett's babbling. The flush of exertion and wine made roses bloom under her warm, brown skin. She looked lovely, vibrantly alive.

"—and since the rebellions have grown more numerous and violent—"

Abira stopped Scarlett with a hand on the shoulder. "Please, start all over again. What rebellions?"

Scarlett inhaled a slow breath and began again, doling her words out at a more even pace.

"The reason you were imprisoned, even though you technically passed your initiation rites, was that you used a machine-monster hybrid as your champion. No technology that will usher in the taint of the lesser empire is allowed here."

"Why?"

Scarlett closed her eyes, grasped her cup, and held it out for Abira to fill. Abira complied, and Scarlett threw her wine back with eye-watering speed yet again. Her tongue now sufficiently loosened, she continued on.

"Because the angels' meddling with the natural evolution of man is what started the downfall that provoked God's wrath and subsequent punishment. That is a long, long story in and of itself. But as a result, mankind took a gigantic leap in intelligence without first quashing its violent, animal instincts."

Abira leaned in, her curiosity piqued. She had never heard this version of events from rambling Master Derik.

"The age of reason that has dawned on man started with the printing press. Technology snowballed from there, making life easier and longer for man with each generation. But now the tide is turning. The wonder of God and His angels has dimmed in humanity's mechanical minds. Gears grind where prayers were once howled. Streams where women baptized their infants are now polluted with the filth of manufacturing cheap plastics. And man, with his need for violent conquest, uses this technology to find more ways to brutally murder in endless wars."

Scarlett's voice trembled with restrained passion. "The wonder and mystery and faith of the universe has fled most peoples' hearts. Now they are stripping the Earth bare, poisoning it in their ever-expanding quest for more. All the creatures of legend, the ghouls and fairies and dragons, fled their corrupted homes to settle here, under the emperor's gaze. This realm grows more unstable every day as the refugees settle.

"But the rebellions are a whole other problem. You haven't seen much of this world, so you haven't experienced the seething discontent of the masses. As refugees run from the dying Earth with tales of what the machines can do, more farmers here resent the backbreaking labor of plowing and picking. Why exert yourself from sunup to sundown when a machine could do everything? The laundresses chafe every time the lye burns their skin. Why ruin your once soft and pretty hands when a machine could do the work for you? Most of this world's millions of inhabitants, the humble, tax-paying citizens, do not have an iota of the divine powers that grace the fallen angels' offspring. So they labor by the sweat of their collective brows. And they hate it. Life is brutal, stinking, and short for ninety-nine percent of them."

Abira was beginning to see the problem here. "Didn't the refugees explain about Earth's water shortages, its endless wars, the bombs, the escalating famines?"

"Oh, yes, a thousand times. But the masses just want a taste. Just little things, you know. Just a small machine to churn butter, to lessen a good wife's burden. Just a press, to spread the holy scripture to the faithful. The emperor employs crude machines in the palace for his own comfort, but the masses cannot have even seventeenth century technology. I understand the laws. Mankind's capacity for stupidity and greed is endless. Once the machines take hold, this world will start dying too. And there is nowhere else for humanity to flee."

Abira frowned at Scarlett's strong opposition to the rebellion. "Surely there has to be a happy medium? Something that will make people's lives easier, without the high cost that Earth has paid?"

Scarlett shook her head. "Once it starts, it becomes a runaway train. Mankind has ruined most of their planet and corrupted their immortal souls. The same sickness threatens here with every rebellion. Just last week, a group of farmers and retired mercenary soldiers stormed Lord Bezzle's manor based on the false rumor that he was keeping machines under lock and key. A crude printing press has been mocked up in the village of Redwing Down for the sole purpose of spreading pamphlets full of filthy lies about the emperor."

Abira thought, _Well, that's what you get when you live off of millions of people who have nothing to show for their endless labor except cruel tyrants and rich lords._ She had no sympathy for the ruling class here.

All they seemed to do was take.

"Thank you, Scarlett. This has been most enlightening. Am I to gather that no one knew machines could be created by cants until my display today?"

Scarlett nodded, her expression glum. "I know it was only a champion, and that it will dissipate in a few days, but the word will spread. The citizens will think the emperor and his lords are using machines for entertainment, while denying them the use of similar devices for relief from their labors. Creating machines, for any purpose at all, is forbidden. Unless, of course, the emperor deems it necessary."

Abira cast a sideways glance at Scarlett's nervous fear _. She seems to agree with the emperor, but what if she is just scared that we are being overheard? Does she agree with the rebellions in secret?_

Scarlett fidgeted and twisted her drab gown, tapping her foot. Abira waited, worried about what Scarlett was trying to say. Then Scarlett stood up and grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill from a desk. She wrote something down as quickly as she could and handed it over with wide eyes.

Abira took the paper and read:

Please destroy after reading. Emperor does not want you to know his divine powers are weakening. Eve is weakening. Don't know about Lilith. Real reason for rebellions is demon's cants are weakening too. Don't know why. Masses are rising up, sense weakness. Burn this.

Abira looked up at Scarlett and nodded, throwing the parchment into the flames before them.

A loud knock reverberated on Abira's door, and it flew open without her leave. A tall elf stood there in fine black livery. "The emperor demands an audience with you." He did not bow, nor did he cast his gaze down, but stared with loathing into her eyes. This was the first time she had ever seen an elf be anything other than meek.

It showed her how fast her social status had plummeted.

She rose and glanced at Scarlett. "Stay here and recuperate. Thank you for your concern and for enlightening me." Abira followed the impatient elf, who did not look behind to see if she was still with him. She felt hatred and mutterings trailing her every step, but she held her head high with feigned disdain _._ She even heard the words "traitor" and "execution" from one angry demon. She risked the quickest glance she could spare, and saw that the speaker was the redhead she had defeated. How did she keep making enemies with so little effort?

She was going to have to find Sirin, and anyone else who would come with her, so that they could escape as quickly as possible. Like it or not, she would have to go to her mother for help.

Satisfied with the simplicity of her plan, she glided with slow majesty up to meet with the furious Emperor of Hell and Earth.
Twenty Two

Abira stood in a room full of the emperor's fluttering sycophants. The emperor glared at her, then said quietly, "Leave us. Except Eve."

The room emptied at the speed of light. A door slammed behind her.

She was all alone with her enemies.

She glanced around, sickened by the excess. Finely carved pillars marched around the oval room. Ornately patterned carpet continued the hunt for the unicorn. Soaring windows and priceless gems sparkled _._ The emperor lounged in a throne winking with a fortune in rubies.

All this luxury, built on the backs of millions.

She decided to start the confrontation without preamble. "Why did you imprison me and use such a cruel cant?"

The emperor's fingers curled on the armrest. "You will not speak unless spoken to."

"I am not one of your insipid wives. I speak when I please."

Lucifer began to crackle with discordant energy, and Abira knew she had gone too far.

Again.

Lucifer's nostrils flared, and the energy faded. It was taking a painful internal struggle for him to remain civilized, and she hoped he would hold back out of fear of her latent powers.

He asked, "What are you talking about? I did not use any cants on you."

Eve stepped from behind her husband, laying a slim hand on his broad shoulder. Her eyes had been restored, Abira noted with a twitch of dismay. "I thought she needed a nice long meditation to think about her crimes against the empire. So I used a meditation cant to warp time. I also gave her a taste of things to come if she continues to defy us."

Abira balked at this. _Who do I trust? Eve or Lucifer? Was he really unaware of what happened?_ Aloud, she asked Eve, "Was it really necessary to make me think all those people and creatures died just to punish me?"

The emperor shifted. "Explain."

Abira recounted her seven days of terror and madness, sparing no detail. When she had finished, the emperor shook his wife's hand off of his shoulder. "You went too far, wife. We should not punish until we have judged."

"She broke the sacred law. Hundreds saw. Why wait?"

The emperor sat there, intimidating and inscrutable as he thought. Eve gave Abira a little smile, her regenerated eyes alight with conquest.

Abira stared at the emperor, surprised that fear no longer sluiced icy water over her insides. She was powerful enough to break Eve's cants, which meant she might be able to break his. She added, "My handmaiden explained after the initiation trials what I did. I knew of no such law against machines when I entered the trial and made the mechanical champion."

The emperor frowned. "Are you aware of how word will spread about this? How the rebellions will become more inflamed, more fueled by your ignorance?"

Abira took a step forward. "It is not my fault you can't do your job, Emperor. The rebellions would have ramped up sooner or later. And the reason I am kept in such ignorance is because I have been fed a very careful diet of information, flavored with omissions and half-truths. You yourself told me that if I stepped out of my suite, Eve could harm me. So I have stayed sequestered, away from the rest of this world that you can't seem to get under control."

Eve's lips parted, and two feverish spots pinked her cheeks. She swung around the emperor, her viper glare locked on Abira. "How dare you speak to the emperor this way? I'll—"

Then Abira _saw_ it. An iridescent wave unfurled from Eve's head and rolled toward her. She threw up a defensive wall cant without even thinking, and the two powers clashed with a silent sparking.

Eve's cant dissolved to nothing, and Abira stood there in quiet victory. Eve's face darkened, and she slipped a hand under her robe. The emperor reached forward and placed his hand on her hip. She stilled, her empty hand leaving her robe, her fingers twitching.

Abira continued on in utter calm. "I'm sick to death of these stupid games you fallen angels play to amuse yourselves. Let me leave this place, with any who choose to come with me, and I will not seek revenge."

The emperor started laughing then, a sound that would have made a stone statue weep blood. His wicked mirth in the face of Abira's declaration was unnerving. It was the strongest emotion she had ever seen him show, and that made it all the more unsettling.

He cut off his mirth and regarded her with a smirk.

"You truly are either the maddest or the stupidest divine child I have ever met. There is no revenge your feeble intellect could concoct that would touch me. Set aside such foolish notions. I have some truth for you."

Abira waited, a lingering uncertainty building. What new trick did the emperor have brewing in his depraved mind? She waited for his truth with as much calm as she could manage.

"You have made many foolish mistakes since my son brought you here. I think that by far the grossest error you made was ignoring my advice. You trusted someone. Do you recall my warning?"

"I do."

"Then do you trust your familiar beast? The one you kissed with such love only a few days ago? The one who sings you to sleep with such devotion?"

Her anger flared up at the reminder of how everything she said or did here was watched.

"Without question."

"Then let me enlighten you." The emperor nodded to Eve, who smiled with false brightness and stepped over to a nondescript door tucked behind a column. She opened it and dragged out some hideous thing, a beast born of carrion-eaters. The beast was gagged and bound, matted grey feathers ruffled. A low stink of bird excrement and moldy hay sat about its pink, wrinkled head. It had the rough proportions of Sirin's kind, but in its belly paunch and sloped spine it more resembled a vulture.

Abira felt pity for it. "What does this have to do with Sirin?"

Eve responded by digging her long nails into the monster's bald head, which it had been trying to tuck against its shoulder. She yanked the face up for Abira's full viewing. The monster opened its eyes.

Two golden suns flared, and then died out as the lids lowered.

Abira opened her mouth and closed it again. _No,_ she decided without quarter. _No, no, no, it cannot be him. This is a trick, an illusion._ She looked up at the emperor with feigned indifference. "If you are suggesting that this is Sirin, then you have placed an illusion on his head. He is under some kind of cant that makes him look like a monster."

A low gurgle escaped the beast's gag, and Abira spared a quick glance at the creature. Tears slid down its mottled, pink wrinkles. She felt a huge wave of guilt, as she had not meant to hurt the beast.

Eve grinned with glee. "I personally removed every last cant on his head. There were quite a few. Ocypete must have spent years perfecting his glorious looks with artifice. Touch him. Feel him. There is no illusion here."

Abira felt repulsed at the thought of even being near that pitiful beast, much less touching it. But she refused to show weakness in front of present company, so she shoved aside her queasiness, walked over, and pressed her fingertips onto the pink scalp.

She closed her eyes, feeling for that slight shivery-tickle that indicated that a cant was upon a living creature. She searched until she had scoured every last inch of the thing.

Nothing. This creature was as it seemed.

Abira stepped back and shook her head. "It is not under a cant, but that does not mean it is Sirin."

Eve yanked the gag out, then kicked the vulturesque beast in the ribs. "Speak, so that the Lady Abira may hear your voice."

The vulture neck bobbed in fear, the thin, wrinkled mass of pink-grey flesh fluttering. A beautiful, musical voice came fluting out. "My Lady Abira. I am sorry."

The contrast of his gorgeous voice and awful face made him even more bizarre.

Abira dropped to her knees to stare into the beast's face. Eve's and Lucifer's presence faded to the background. "Sirin, you...what happened?"

He turned his hideous face up to her, desperation embedded in his every syllable. "I have been under a layer of cants since I was born. Mother, she—I— _we_ maintained them so that I could make a case for my right to come to the courts with my father if we ever flew across him. She knew that Baphomet could barely admit to siring me if I was beautiful. If she presented me as I truly am, he would likely have killed me on sight."

"She cloaked your true form? Did you know what you—"

He lowered his eyes, the only part of his outward appearance that had ever been true. "Yes. I knew exactly what I looked like. Periodically, we would remove the cants to change my appearance as I aged."

Abira sat there, stunned beyond disbelief. This could not be her soaring angel, her beatific familiar, her savior, her companion. This could not be what she was in love with.

No.

Eve's snide laughter brought her out of her daze. Abira stood as Eve laughed hysterically. "I knew what he was, you know," she informed Abira, as she hiccuped around another burst of chuckles. "When you are as old as the emperor and me, you tend to see things as they really are, much sooner than everyone else does. I was waiting to reveal this truth after the vulture had seduced you, but you proved too modest. It is a shame I could not have that pleasure."

Eve doubled over, her hands on her thighs, her long, blond hair whispering against the carpet. Her helpless laughter caused Abira to see a red haze as the mirth pounded against her ears. Eve gasped, "You have no idea how amusing all of this has been. I went and spied on you myself, not believing my servants. It was rich! He sang to you every night, and you were mooning over a monster!"

"Stop it!" Abira screamed, her recovering sanity cracking. "Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!" She flew at Eve, who still brayed with laughter, and pulled her blonde hair back with a sickening _snap_.

Humiliation, mingling with heartbreak, made her jerk Eve's hair far harder than she would have thought possible.

Eve's head detached from her body and flew across the room, smashing against a pillar in an explosion of gore. Blood arced from Eve's ragged neck wound, spraying everyone present with scarlet raindrops. Her body unfolded, collapsed with a twitch, and was still.

_Did I kill her? Did I end this?_ Abira looked at the emperor, who was looking at his decapitated wife. _Will he kill me? Will he hurt Sirin?_

Lucifer looked back to Abira, as blood trickled down his cheeks like terrible tears. "She is going to be furious with you when she regenerates."

Abira's heart sank. "She isn't dead?"

"You cannot kill me, Lilith, or Eve. We are immortals. Our spirits will manifest a new body. Only God can destroy angels. I have never known Him to do so."

"How long does the regeneration take?"

The emperor sighed. "About a moon's turn. I suppose I could try to heal this body, but she hates bodies that have tasted death. Now you have deprived me of my wife for a month."

He pressed a long finger against his bloody cheek. "I have never experienced such blatant insubordination, even from Lilith. I truly do not know whether to take your life or take your hand in marriage."

Abira took a step back, her world shifting upside down. "Those are my choices?" She threw his insults back at him. "How many times have you called me an idiot? Why would you want to marry an idiot?"

"Your powers are, as I said, both breathtaking and a complete mystery. You are not an angel, only the offspring of angels, yet you have more divinity within you than Eve, who is one of God's first children. I have never encountered such a thing. You would bear me fine sons and daughters with whom to rule this chaotic realm. I plan on taking a firmer hand with the lesser realm in the near future, and our children will help with that goal."

"Don't you already have enough wives? Countless children?"

"No wives like you. And my children disappoint." He rose, his decision made. "Yes, I will marry you in one week's time. I cannot bear to kill such a promising young demon."

"I won't marry you. You are a tyrant, and I despise the sight of you."

"You will marry me if I am holding your pet vulture and those serving wenches in the dungeons. I am also hearing rumors of a beloved nanny in your upbringing. Perhaps I should find her? And your mother?"

Abira's heart skipped a beat. "You wouldn't."

"Do not lie to yourself. Of course I will. If you cause no more trouble whatsoever, I will not hunt down your nanny. If you continue to behave, I will keep your pets and servants locked in your tower with you. Upon our marriage and consummation, I will release all of them, and they will be free to go where they will."

Harrowing darkness clouded her soul _. He will release all of them upon consummation._

Upon consummation.

Her insides clenched at the idea of that violation even as she wondered what it would be like to lay with the Devil as his wife. "I can't trust you."

"Have I ever lied to you?"

"No. You've only had me kidnapped, imprisoned, and subjected to the cruel whims of your wife. You have threatened to harm those I love and withheld information from me. But no, I don't believe you have ever been _caught_ lying to me."

"Then you will trust me."

She stepped closer to him, suppressing the raw, animal panic that wanted her to flee from the threat of his person. "You keep saying how powerful I am. Who is to say I won't become stronger than even you one day?"

"You will never be my equal, just as Eve never was. Only Lilith mirrors my power."

He let his hungry eyes rove over her. "I tire of your constant mouth. On our wedding night I shall finally put it to good use."

Sirin lurched to his feet then, his wrinkled head bobbing up and down in a frenzy. He let out a low hiss at the emperor, his feathers puffing up around his bindings.

The emperor waved a hand of dismissal. "She will no longer want anything to do with you. Control your vile beast tongue."

The emperor called his guard to escort the Lady and her familiar back to her gilded prison. Two guards appeared to march them back to her suite. They yanked Sirin's bonds cruelly, and prodded Abira to stay in front of them during the long walk back. She walked in a daze, barely registering the snide murmuring of the few demons they passed. The guards shoved them into her chambers and locked the door with a loud _clank_.

Abira turned and undid Sirin's binding, her fumbling fingers avoiding any contact with him.

Silence draped the very air between them as the last of the rough rope fell to the carpet. Neither looked at the other. Abira stood there, eyes averted from his hideous face. She eventually went and sat in front of the merry flames, her heart aching.

Sirin's waddling sent a fresh waft of bird excrement over her. He whispered, "Lady Abira, I am sorry. I did not know when to tell you."

She said flatly, "Before I fell in love would have been a good time."

His breath caught in his reedy throat. "You love me."

"I love who I thought was you."

"I am still the same heart, the same soul! I can rebuild the cants, I can be as beautiful as you desire!"

She twisted her fingers together, holding back what she really wanted to say. No matter the cants, he would always be a monster underneath.

"You lied to me by omission."

"I will make it up to you. Please, Abira, I cannot live without you."

_Then don't_ , a cruel voice whispered in her mind. _Plummet to the rocks below and free me from this shame._ Abira's cheeks burned with self-loathing _. Did I only love him because of his exotic beauty? Was it all a lie?_

She addressed the burning fire, trying not to let the threatening sobs choke out. She cleared her throat to further suppress her angst and whispered, "Is there any way to fix you permanently? Not shallow illusion, I mean changing your whole body forever?"

She looked up at his crushed expression and shame overtook her. He responded in a flat voice, "There is only one way I know of."

He fell silent, and Abira waited for him to continue. When no more information was forthcoming, she grew impatient and snapped, "Well, what is it? What method will make you my Sirin again?"

A note of hysteria had crept into her voice.

He shrugged, a lost look on his wrinkled face. "There are demons who specialize in altering forms. They sculpt the flesh back to youth, they tighten muscles, I have even heard rumors that they can alter gender. But the sums are outrageous because it is a very delicate art, and only a few practice it to perfection. Most demons use illusion to maintain beauty, but a few want those bone-deep alterations that cannot be changed."

Abira leaned forward, hope glowing in her heart. "So it is a matter of money, and finding someone to perform the alteration cants?"

Sirin looked away, blinking back tears. The moisture made his eyes glitter like golden coins. "I do not think it is possible to make me look like what you want. The alterations can only fix so much. Maybe my face will be passable to you with the changes. Only illusion can create such beauty as I had in your eyes."

Abira sagged back against her divan, relieved _. I will settle for merely ugly, instead of hideous and repulsive._ "I will find a way to alter your form if you are willing to have the procedure done."

Sirin hesitated, opened his spotted mouth, and closed it again. "I will do whatever you wish. I must warn you that the alterations are rumored to be nothing short of torture, and often lead to a long, slow death if my body rejects the changes."

Her face fell with dull finality _._ She could not ask him to do such a thing just because she was shallow and in love with his beauty.

The dam finally burst, and she began to cry in great, heaving sobs. Somewhere in between the sobs, she managed to choke out to his hovering presence that she wanted to be alone, that she had to think. But what she really wanted to say was locked behind her swollen lips.

Looking at you makes me want to vomit.
Twenty Three

Abira tossed and turned in her hard bed, fruitlessly searching for a more comfortable position. Sirin had gone to the conservatory after she demanded to be left alone, and she missed the way his singing lulled her to sleep. She finally rose and drew her own bath, sinking into the hot water with gratitude. Despite all her worries, she began to relax as the heat eased into her tense muscles.

I need to think. I have got to have a plan.

But what plan could change Sirin into what she wanted him to be? She knew the answer to that question _. No plan will change a monster into an angel._ She felt the guilt within her as she tried to reason through this. Did her mother know of some way to change his body that was not as awful as the procedure he had mentioned? Was there some cant she could learn that would change him forever back to the way he was, with no pain for either of them? Did Master Derik have any knowledge of this?

She grew frustrated at her own shallowness _._ The Devil himself wanted her in his marriage bed, and she was worrying about making the one she loved _prettier_? Abira closed her eyes, thinking back to all the kind acts, large and small, that Sirin had gifted her with _._ He was still the same soul that she had cherished. There had to be a way to make this work.

She could _not_ lose him.

She felt a little better about herself after coming to this conclusion, and her thoughts drifted next to the problem of her impending wedding. Muse would know more about that. Abira would ask Gwain to fetch her, if Muse would come. She felt another probing tendril of guilt as she remembered that she was a pariah now _. I won't bother her after this. I don't want her new start in the courts to be tainted with my friendship._

It was too bad; she liked Muse. But Abira was seeing that becoming emotionally attached to others made her much easier to control.

She sat up from her bath with a sloshing of cooling water, as a part of the emperor's intentions became crystal clear.

He will use our children. He knows I will love them beyond all reason.

The long tunnel of darkness before her stretched without end. Once she bore his children, there was no telling how low he would go. He could control her, her power, every single aspect of her life, because he would threaten her—no, their—children. She had no doubt that he would murder his own offspring to rein her in.

A fierce shiver ran down her spine. If the emperor could control her using servants and a hideous familiar, then how compliant and obedient would she become with her children's lives threatened? And even worse, when they turned twenty, she could lose them in the initiation rites. She would be heartbroken if a child of hers was cast into the Aviary.

She would do _anything_ to protect her children from their terrible sire.

And he knew it.

Could she prevent pregnancy somehow, and fool the emperor? She cast that idea aside as soon as it surfaced. He would know, and he had made it very clear that he intended to wed her, bed her, and have her bear their children. Then he would use their children in his plan to subvert the lesser empire. She had no doubt that he would lock her away, and lovelessly take her until she conceived his offspring.

She sank back into the water, boiling with frustration as the neat jaws of his trap snapped shut around her _. I was actually arrogant enough to think I could outmaneuver him._ She groaned at her own stupidity. Lucifer had been conquering enemies and laying waste to countless plots against him for thousands of years before she was born.

What madness had made her think she could win this?

She knew what madness had overcome her. The idealistic optimism of youth. Well, she would not make that mistake again, for whatever good that did her.

Her bath now ruined, she got up with the intention of staring into her bowl of blue-purple flames. They calmed her, and gave her something beautiful to focus her agitation on.

She stepped into her bedroom, quite nude, to find Gwain standing at the foot of her bed, green eyes downcast. "My Lady, your companion wishes for an audience."

"Muse?"

"Yes, my Lady."

"What hour is it?"

"The hour of the hound."

Abira pulled a robe on as Gwain continued to avert her eyes _._ What did Muse want at this late hour? A sense of foreboding loomed _._ It could not be good _._ Gwain opened the door and formally announced Muse's presence, then withdrew to the refreshment cabinet.

Muse had a haunted look about her as she sat before the otherworldly flames. She stared at Abira with green eyes that were just like Gwain's—except that Muse's boasted purple shadows underneath. She stood and curtsied with mincing perfection. Abira reciprocated, then sat beside Muse. She hardly knew her, and yet she was glad to see her.

Muse cleared her throat, then accepted the wine and cheese that Gwain offered. "First I must thank you, Lady Abira. Your intervention saved my mother's shop. The emperor sent word that the unicorns were to remain her property."

Abira said, "No thanks needed. Your mother would not have been in that awful position if it wasn't for me." She paused, then threw the rest of her thoughts out in a flurry. "You should not be here. Every person I am connected with suffers sooner or later. I am now despised by the entire court, thanks to my antics at the initiation rites."

Muse looked at her for a second, then burst into tears. Abira patted her sharp shoulder blades, unsure of what to do. Muse had a good long cry, then accepted a silk square from Gwain. She blew her nose with a most unladylike honk and wiped her eyes, blinking at Abira.

She leaned in, whispering. "I know every word I speak can be overheard, but I do not care. And I do not care that you are an outcast."

She wrung the silken square, trembling. "I cannot bear to marry that monster. He is cruel and frightening, and all the other wives look down their noses at me."

Abira nodded, understanding a little too well. "I am not loved here, either."

"Yes, but you are of divine blood. They will forget the rules broken at the initiation rites and move on. I am a shopkeeper, and elven at that. A daughter of working refugees is not welcome in the bower. Elves are for the harem, not for the altar."

Abira was burning with curiosity at the strangeness of this situation, but checked her questions so as to be sensitive to Muse's needs. Muse continued on, pausing only for breath. "No female in this realm can deny the emperor's attentions and live. You do not even want to hear about the brides who balked at the altar." She slammed her fist down on her thigh. "But the reason he is marrying me is so awful. Love has nothing to do with it."

"Why is he marrying you?"

Muse hung her head. "It is well known that my father has been instrumental in the rebellions. He gathered all the willing elves to him, and we combined our small magicks for several successful attacks against the empire."

"So the emperor will keep you close to ensure that your father will not help in the rebellions?"

Muse shook her head. "He is much too cruel to do only that. Do you want to hear the whole sad story, from beginning to end?"

Abira patted Muse's shaking shoulder again, welcoming the distraction of someone else's problems. "Of course."

"I was born in the lesser realm, just like you, in one of the few old forests of Europe still untouched by man's corruption. Even then, the air tasted of foul chemicals borne by the grind of machinery. The world grew smaller every day, so my family fled here, despite knowing the tyrannical nature of the emperor. We fled from one Hell into another." She let out a wild little laugh.

"Our family was never on any imperial census. No property or papers document us. There is nothing to connect my father, my mother, and me. My mother took up apothecary work in In-Shadow, while my father roamed the realm. He was searching for my brothers, who had come here some time before.

"He found my brothers, along with the rebellion. My father took up the cause out of desperation, I am sure. Where do you flee, when one realm is dying and the other is ruled by the very Devil himself? He thought his wife and daughter were safe, nestled right under the shadow of Eddene. Father grew bolder and more famous each day."

"How did the emperor discover you and your mother?"

"I still do not know, and I suppose it does not matter. He found out from some loose tongue or other. One of his heralds strode into our shop one day, casual as you please, and offered a betrothal from the emperor to me. The emperor knew that I could not refuse. So I, of course, accepted, and was whisked here without delay. Then tonight, the emperor made me write this letter to my father. He dictated every word."

Muse withdrew a tightly rolled parchment from the folds of her skirt and placed it in Abira's hands. Abira unrolled the missive with dread sinking her heart.

Dear Father,

As you are well aware, I have had the great honor of being betrothed to our Emperor. We will marry at the ball, as is customary. My future husband wishes to meet with you to discuss certain rumors he has heard about your participation in revolts against him.

My beloved cautions that if you do not agree to meet with him by the moon's quarter turn, he will take out his frustrations on me, your only daughter. Please accept his request, or my life will be in peril.

Your ever-loving daughter,

Muse

Abira handed the letter back, afraid to ask what punishment the emperor had in mind _._ It was the same old bag of tricks with him. He used his enemies' loved ones as leverage against them. But he could not use that tactic against all of the millions of revolting peasants. So the emperor was going to the head of the hydra and cutting ruthlessly, hoping no more heads would take. Abira hated to admit it, but his tactics would most likely work.

What father would sacrifice his daughter to such abomination?

Muse tucked the parchment back into her gown, her face flaming. "The emperor told me not an hour ago what my fate would be if my father did not meet with him. He said he would lock me up in stocks, nude, at the entrance to the gladiators' quarters. He then said that if he could not have the pleasure of arresting my father, he would make sure his gladiators found pleasure in me."

Abira's jaw dropped, and she hugged Muse tight. Muse let out a huge sob, choking on her breath. She stuttered on, her hysteria becoming more and more evident. "The emperor said that the stocks would continue until my father presented himself or until I died. He is marrying me so that word will spread of the unusual circumstances—and of the punishment. I am to be a warning. A symbol to the rebels. He has never married an elf. The gossip will spread like wildfire."

She collapsed into Abira's arms then, despair radiating off of her slight form with each new shaking sob. After a waterfall of tears had dripped onto Abira, Muse sat up, with a small light of hope shining in her eyes. "But there may be a way out."

Abira leaned forward, forgetting to breath. "What way?"

Muse brushed her hair aside and murmured in her ear. "Many of the elven servants are sympathetic to my cause. One showed me an escape route through the sewers. It is filthy and dangerous, but offers a small chance of success. Come with me right now, and perhaps we can flee this madness together."

Temptation blossomed, hot and hard, in Abira's belly. _Run, just run away and let the others fend for themselves._ She had a split-second fantasy of escaping to join this rebellion.

Just as quickly, she came back to her senses. "Muse, I cannot. Please save yourself, and don't worry about me. Thank you so much for thinking of me."

Muse's face grew hard. "You are joking. Who would not want to leave this demons' lair?"

"It is not only my fate that hangs in the balance."

Muse shook her head. "I thought you could help the rebellion. With your natural abilities, you would be a perfect leader. Rumors about you have made the public very sympathetic to your plight."

Abira found it odd that rumors of her had reached the commoners. Was she really so exceptional? Or was it her striking resemblance to the empress that made tongues wag?

Muse leaned in, her voice caressing Abira's ear. "The elves serve the demon nobility round the clock, and we have seen signs that the demons are weakening. Their cants no longer hold. Rumors are that even Lucifer and Eve have lost many of their divine gifts. This is an unheard-of opportunity. Sacrifice the few to save the many. You could overthrow this tyrant one day, since you are the only demon who seems to grow stronger."

A certain warning rang in Abira's recent memory _. Trust no one._ She looked long and hard at Muse's tear-streaked face, studied her air of wild desperation _. She could be working for the emperor, testing my compliance. I can't take the risk. And surely I cannot be the strongest demon out there._

Abira shook her head. "I thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I am going to marry the emperor, to save the few that matter to me."

Muse rose quickly and curtsied with a stiff back. "By your leave, Lady Abira."

Abira stared as Muse stormed out, her skirts lashing, her chin held high. Something rang false about this whole drama, but what? Muse could be telling the truth, but she still wanted something from Abira for her own ends. She wanted a powerful demon for the rebellion, a symbol of changing times and shifting allegiances. She may have even been planted here by her father to lure Abira.

She could also have been a spy of Lucifer or Eve. Her story had sounded a touch overblown, a bit too dramatic.

On the other hand, that could simply be how Muse usually acted _._ Abira did not know her well enough to make that judgment call. Abira sighed, sad to lose contact with someone who could have been a friend _._

She stretched out on the couch, staring at the weaving flames, thinking of Sirin. She wondered if he was out in the conservatory, or flying under the waxing moon. She wanted to feel his arms around her, to hear his tender melodies.

"Does my Lady require any more services this evening?"

Abira started. She had forgotten that Gwain was there, peeping out of the shadows like a mouse. "No, thank you. Please get some rest."

Gwain stepped around the divan and fell to her knees in front of the couch. For once, her huge, emerald eyes were not downcast; instead, they made direct contact with Abira's. "You made the right choice with Lady Muse. She was as false as hens' teeth."

Abira was taken aback at Gwain's sudden bravery. She stammered, "Thank you. Do you know her?"

"No, but I know her kind. She is working for someone, as I think you sensed." Gwain moved forward and murmured, "You are the kindest and bravest demon in this accursed place. Do not let the corruption of your kin bring you low."

And with that, Gwain stood, curtsied, and withdrew.

Abira reclined, almost stupefied. Until now, Gwain had done nothing but scuttle around and avoid contact with everyone. Her sudden declaration threw Abira off guard. No one here seemed to be as they were at first appearance. She needed Sirin now, someone whom she understood.

Or thought she understood.

She stood, and slipped into the humid conservatory. She found him with his back to the door, nestled in a pile of fronds before the fountain. He had about a dozen books beside him, and was reading one even now, so absorbed that he did not hear her entrance. The vulture-hunch of his spine made her cringe.

Abira sat down beside him. He looked up, blinking, a hopeful smile touching his features. She smiled back, trying very hard not to grimace at his face. "Do you need any help?"

He glanced at the stack beside him and back at her. "I was just researching the alterations."

Abira's heart sank. He had spent all this time trying to do something for her; meanwhile, she had been bathing and dealing with Muse's problems. "I will help, then."

She plucked the biggest book off the top and opened it, her sharp eyes running down the table of contents. She flipped to a section that might be of use and scanned the words.

Sirin placed something small and blue on the open page, careful not to brush her with his mangy feathers.

Abira stopped her perusal to stare at the small gift. It was a feather, carved in some kind of bluish wood, with a fine leather cord knotted to form a necklace. She picked it up, amazed at the level of detail in the tiny carving. She made herself look Sirin full in the face then, gratitude shining in her heart. "It is beautiful. Thank you."

Sirin bobbed his head in a way that made her think of a carrion bird plunging its head into a fresh corpse. "I carved it as a token of my regard."

Abira looked at the carving with fresh wonder. "You carved this? I had no idea you were an artist!"

He smiled at her reaction. "I taught myself in the Aviary to carve symbols in the trees in order to pass messages along to my family. It is useful when pointing out a safe nest, or to warn of danger when you dare not risk a loud noise."

She put the necklace on, amazed at his skill. He was so perfect inside. Which should have been enough, but she felt small and shallow because it was not. A sudden thought struck her, and she searched for the courage to utter her query aloud.

"Sirin?"

"Yes, my Lady?"

"Would you love me the same if I looked as you did?"

He lowered his face. "I have thought of that, and I am just as repulsed by my appearance as you are. There are many beast females roaming the Aviary who are much like me. I have never, for one moment, found any of them desirable."

His whole body slumped. "I hid behind my mother's powerful cants and looked down on them all, sure that I would never be found out. I only dallied with beautiful beasts."

He gulped before his next confession. "I fell in love with your beauty first and your soul second."

Abira forced herself to grasp his mottled hand, and they sat there most of the night, searching in dusty old tomes for an answer to their problems.

The answer stayed hidden from their bleary eyes.
Twenty Four

The wedding preparations were likely to drive Abira mad.

She had never been a bridesmaid, nor attended a wedding. She had never mooned over glossy pictures of brides to be, never hunted for the perfect ring. The only notions she had of weddings were of the ones she had read about in books. The stories all sounded like the bride and groom were magically whisked to the altar, and joined in everlasting love in the blink of an eye.

The sore truth was that the flurries of activity stretched on for all of each day and part of each night. The days had flown by, and now there were only a few, precious hours left until she said her vows to the Devil before the entire court. Of course, this meant that the simple tasks of weaving flowers into her hair and applying cosmetics were done in an unbearable frenzy of fumbling servants.

Abira felt sorry for the handmaidens attending her, since they would probably be punished—or executed—if the emperor found something wanting in his bride's appearance. With this in mind, she kept her requests to a bare minimum.

Over the last week, she had been roughed in on her courtly etiquette, and on what happened before, during, and after the vows were spoken. She had attended dancing lessons, vow practice, and dress fittings, and had an endless army of female attendants demanding her attention for every second of every harried day.

Sirin had been reading tome after tedious tome, trying to find something that would help them either stop her wedding or fix his appearance. She had begged him, on one sad night, to flee to the Aviary before she was wed. "The emperor has no cants on you because he thinks you will not leave me." She had implored him with all of her heart, saying, "Go back to your mother and wait. I will find you again."

He had groomed and cleaned his feathers for their talk, and he no longer stank. Now he simply smelled like nothing at all, whereas the Sirin she had known had the scent of clouds and sunshine. He had bobbed his wrinkled head on his too-thin neck while Abira had forced herself to look at him. "I will not leave you to his mercies. I will stay, and if I can ever help you win this fight against him, I will." His glorious eyes blazed. "I am strong enough to fly out with one person at a time, you know. Ocypete would take in Gwain and Scarlett. I could do it tonight, under the cover of darkness."

Abira had relented to her revulsion and put her head in her hands so she would no longer see him. "I can't. He will go after my Nana, and I have no way of contacting her unless we go back to the lesser realm."

Sirin had stayed quiet for a small while, then ventured, "Tell me if you change your mind. Or think of a better plan." He had left her alone since then, as he continued to search book after book for answers.

When the hordes of attendants started to swarm her first thing every morning, Abira wanted to see the beautiful Sirin so much that she could taste it. To hear his musical voice, to laugh at his preening arrogance. She wished with all her heart to see the beauty that had once stolen her affections.

But something had broken between them, and she did not know how to put things back together that had fallen apart so fast. On one especially bad day, she had climbed to the top of the tower to escape her hovering handmaidens. She wanted to try to talk to Sirin like everything was normal, but had discovered him crunching on a still-fluttering songbird. He had turned to her, the tiny bird clamped in his mouth, red feathers sticking to his chin.

He had spit the bird out and apologized, but it was too late. She had seen him doing something an animal would do, not her shining savior.

Not her soaring angel.

She clutched the charm he had carved for her, a symbol of love, of refined tastes. She squeezed it so hard and for so long that throughout her ordeal of being an unwilling bride, there remained a faint imprint of a feather in her palm.

Abira was jerked back from her thoughts by a handmaiden's nervous request. She thrust her laments of Sirin aside and releasing the charm from her grip, tucking it into her corset. The elf repeated, "If my Lady would please look in the mirror."

She did, and saw a raven-haired beauty reflected. The cosmetics used iridescence and a touch of kohl to enhance her dark eyes. Her lips were luscious, her cheeks perfectly dusted with rouge.

The door to her bathing room opened, and Scarlett swept in, announcing the arrival of the dress. Abira thanked the handmaidens and hurried to see the dress, curious in spite of her escalating dread.

Four jittery elves were pushing a metal frame through the front doors. Her wedding dress hung there, and Abira felt a rare moment of pure delight.

The top boasted a fine, white-on-white design of butterflies weaving in blooms. Diamonds outlined the plunging neckline, the fluted sleeves, the dainty petals.

But the wonder of the edifice was in the skirt. Floor length with a sweeping train, the entire bottom was covered with fresh, white flowers in full bloom. Pale roses snuggled against creamy magnolias. Alabaster lilies crowded sprightly daises. And all around the glory of flowers, the tiniest of fairies and butterflies danced and sparkled to a tune only they could hear.

Her dress was literally aflutter.

One of the seamstresses startled Abira from her gaping by curtseying. She said, "My mistress apologizes for the late arrival of the dress, but she had to time the cants just right to keep the flowers from wilting before the ball is done."

The seamstress began to look afraid when no response was forthcoming. "Is the wedding gown satisfactory, my Lady?"

She found her voice again. "It is beyond my wildest expectations. Thank you so much."

The seamstress looked confused at her words. She opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. She mumbled, "You are just as kind as all have claimed."

Abira felt a twinge of deep sadness in her brief moment of ecstasy at beholding the dress. _Do any of these servants ever get a simple compliment?_ She said, "Please send your mistress my regards. And thank you again."

All four of the seamstresses curtsied with a rustling of coarse cloth, and withdrew. Scarlett turned to Abira, eyes aglow. "Truly, you will be the envy of everyone tonight."

Abira's eyes were riveted to the fluttering cloud of wings. She sighed and tore herself away. "I am the envy of no one in their right mind." She gestured for Scarlett to help her roll the dress to the master bedroom so that they could begin the next ordeal of squeezing her into it.

Half an hour of pinching and pulling later, Abira regarded herself in the mirror beside the vanity and felt a touch of awe at how surreal her appearance had become. Her gaze was moon-drenched midnight. Her hair swung unbound, with only a crown of flowers woven in her inky tresses. Fairies and butterflies twirled around her in a sparkling effervescence.

She was in a fairytale. A dark and heartbreaking fairytale, full of wonder and doubt, but a fairytale nonetheless. She turned around again and again, watching the butterflies hover and then settle back down when her skirt stilled. They engaged in a constant, carefree perusal, flitting from one petal to the next.

The only flaw that she could find was the dress' weight. The flowers were not light, and she felt a dragging at her lower back. However, with her divine strength growing every day, the slight discomfort was easy to manage. She glanced down at a stray butterfly that had alighted with a tickle on her ring finger.

It was worth a little back pain to be clothed in such a dress.

A musical voice interrupted her vanity. "Words cannot describe your glory, my Lady."

She turned and saw Sirin standing a few feet away, his eyes alight with wonder. "I have never seen anything so perfect as you."

Abira made herself go over and take the warm leather of his hand. "Thank you."

Sirin looked touched, then he shifted nervously. "It is not too late, even now. Come with me. I will fly us far away from here."

With the wedding ball right under her nose, she felt a surge of temptation that rose despite her best efforts to suppress it. Perhaps her Nana and the others were clever enough to go into hiding if she escaped...

Abira shook her head, refusing to cave in. "I cannot. Too many lives are at stake. Please, Sirin, leave now. Go back to the Aviary, get away while you still can."

He looked at her and shook his head. "I will not leave you, as I said before."

Gwain slipped into the room and said, "We need to leave now, my Lady." Abira turned to regard Gwain, who was wearing a white tunic and had flowers woven in her hair. She looked fresh and pretty, a blush of innocence coloring her fair skin, her corn husk locks shining.

Abira turned back to Sirin and hugged him tight, a miniature explosion of butterflies and fairies surrounding their embrace. He hugged back hard, and released her with reluctance. She gave him one last lingering frown before she went with Gwain.

She trailed Gwain as they left her suite for the long walk to the ballroom. Abira feigned bored indifference and ignored anyone she passed in the echoing halls. She refused to appear broken to the emperor's iron will, so she held her head high with haughty disregard.

They walked for a very long time, until Gwain indicated by a light press on her forearm that they should slow. The door to the ballroom was three stories tall, wrought in white wood and carved with lilies. Two liveried elves bowed them in with synchronized majesty.

Abira stepped in, feeling the shivery tickle of a cant on the threshold, and the perfect contrast of the ball met her astonished gaze. She and Gwain stood on a landing with enormous, twin staircases sweeping down to a full dance floor. Columns marched around the room, rising to meet ebony cherubs eternally smiling down in frozen mirth.

Every single ornament in the room was ebony—except for the pit of white fire in the center of the dance floor.

The flames in the gigantic pit flickered with ethereal light as the wonder of wonders caressed her senses. The fire sang from the perfect circle of black marble. It literally, truly sang a haunting song of consuming flames. The eerie music was like nothing she had ever heard, in this realm or the next. The harmony fractured and split, only to seamlessly merge again in a breathtaking crescendo.

Abira began her descent one slow step at a time, mindful of her train. She kept her attention riveted to the flames as they flickered and sparked in time to the melody they created.

She finally took her eyes off the white flames to scan the waiting crowd. Everyone in the room was dressed in their own perfect whiteness. She did not see one speck of color. Even hair and eyes had faded to white or black under some kind of dreamy illusion. Not a shade of grey showed.

The scene was a perfect contrast of black and white.

She wished that life was so simple. No more endless shades of grey coloring her decisions. If only right was right, and wrong was wrong, and there was no in-between to taint her soul.

Downward they glided as more heads turned to regard her. She saw curiosity, lust, and even some traces of pity reflected as she placed a dainty foot on the ballroom floor.

Abira's silken slippers whispered across the cold marble. She looked for Muse, for Baphomet, for anyone she had shared a word with. She saw no one she knew. Glancing behind her, she realized that she had even lost Gwain to the crowd. No one spoke to her, no one even spoke _near_ her. They just glanced, feigned indifference on most of their haughty faces, then turned back around without the slightest hint that they had seen her.

She was all alone in a dance with demons.

She looked at their elaborate gowns, their artfully coiffed hair, their white skin and black eyes. They seemed so unreal, like a dimension was missing from their essence _._ She promised herself she would never be like them.

_Oh yes you will,_ her conscience whispered _. Endless centuries of their company will corrupt you until there is nothing left of timid little Abira, the girl who loved books and unicorns. Your soul will diminish a fraction every day, until the emperor has broken you. You will be a beautiful husk for his amusement._ _Just like them._

Abira kept moving through the frozen sea of divine royalty. She maneuvered her way to the dais, her train trailing behind, butterflies fluttering on their chosen flowers. The dais was where the brides-to-be waited, standing three steps above the crowd so that all could envy the collected beauty of the emperor's exquisite taste. She felt a trace of panicked hope stir within her. Muse was not on the dais.

I hope she escaped.

Abira climbed the three short stairs and took her place as the fourteenth bride. She turned around to face the crowd, who had resumed their small talk. She was supposed to stand there, hands clasped, face demurely lowered, until the emperor's grand entrance to the ball.

She watched the crowd from under painted eyelids. No dancing or merriment commenced. Only a low babble with an undercurrent of tension hummed beneath the fire-music. Something was bothering the demons gathered herein, but she had no idea if it was something to do with the ball or with the escalating revolts.

She scanned under her lashes for Baphomet, Muse, Gwain, or even Blossom. Nothing. The last bride took the steps at the very end of the lineup, and Abira noticed her ornate, but not luxurious, dress. There was still no dancing, and very little movement among those gathered below.

Abira swept her glance to the right and left. She was in the dead center, wearing far and away the most astonishing dress. All of the others were beautiful, but none boasted live butterflies, nodding flowers, and winking fairy lights.

I am the prize of the ball. Lilith's replacement? Is that what Eve feared?

She lowered her gaze to the ebony marble, willing the spotlight of isolation to be removed from her shoulders. She waited as the crowd stilled and the murmurs faded away. The music from the flames shot up an octave, rising in a note of dramatic entry.

A deep ringing of bells _gonged_ from the pit, and the room brightened with the flare of rising flames. Abira risked a glance up to see the grand entrance of the emperor.

Two _gongs_. She swallowed.

Her wedding bells, from the very pits of Hell.

Her heart came to a stop as the last, deep _gong_ reverberated across the dance floor. Everyone's necks craned to see the landing at the top of the twin staircases.

Right on cue, the doors flew open and the emperor strode in, wearing a purple tunic with a golden sash. His dark gaze swept the room as all demons—except the brides—dropped to their knees, heads bowed with devout reverence.

They stayed in that awkward position as he took one step of the staircase at a time. When he reached the bottom, he bid in a booming voice, "Rise, and admire the glorious brides of your Emperor."

The crowd turned in unison and stared at the dais. Their wicked eyes crawled all over Abira's skin with ill-concealed curiosity.

The emperor swept through the crowd until he stood in front of the flames before his brides. The violet and sparkling gold on his person were the only colors in the room.

A smallish man with a white book appeared from behind a column and prodded the first bride to stand in front of the emperor. She complied and swept before him, head bowed, gaze lowered, swallowed by his huge presence.

The smallish man opened his book and began to drone in a ponderous monotony. The bride said "Yes" and "I do" in all the right places. When the smallish man finished, the emperor leaned down for a chaste kiss upon her raised brow. He withdrew his lips without the slightest hint of affection as a deep _gong_ shuddered against the silence.

The smallish man went down the line in an efficient pattern, and in no small time it was the bride next to Abira who strode to face her emperor. The bride stomped to the emperor with her chin up, which was quite a change from the meekness of all the others.

The white book was opened and the droning commenced. When the bride was to say 'I do,' no words fell from her lips. The emperor raised an eyebrow.

She stood there as the anxiety in the room swelled. The silence was so loud that Abira's ears buzzed.

The bride-to-be crossed her arms and said, "I will not."

Every breath in the room was held, every last black iris fixed on this reluctant bride. Abira cheered her on in the depths of her heart and waited to see what would happen to someone who dared to say no to the Devil.
Twenty Five

A low wailing shattered the collected silence of the assembly.

"Please, Emperor!" A shaking demon matron shoved through the crowd, her eyes wide, desperation stamped upon her face. "She is young and foolish! Have mercy on her!"

The emperor assessed her distress with a flat stare. He turned his attention back to the reluctant bride. Abira felt lightheaded and distant, like she was floating on a thundercloud while rain pounded underneath _. Please spare her. She is the only sane one up here._

The bride stared right back at Lucifer, the line of her stiff spine not softening a bit. The emperor sighed and glanced back at the mother (or so Abira guessed) of the bride. "She showed a great deal of promise."

Abira's heart sank at his use of the past tense.

With a slight flick of the emperor's fingers and a crackle of his discordant energy, the bride flipped over the rising flames. The tips of her unbound tresses sparked, and the smell of burnt husks snaked around the ballroom. The dress fell over, trapping fire and smoke under the heavy cloth. Her legs kicked within her silken stockings as she tried to shove the smothering dress away.

Her frenzied agony began in earnest as the flames bolted up and swallowed her wedding dress. The bride's mother stood there, petrified.

As did all others in the room.

Abira could not do it. She could not, would not, watch this horror unfold.

She did not think, she did not plan. She just ran and jumped, over the emperor, slamming all her weight into the flailing mass of smoking cloth and limbs. They both sailed to the waiting marble below, landing with a sickening crunch. The screams had mercifully stopped. Abira untangled the layers of dress with clumsy fingers to see if her intervention had saved the bride's life.

It had. The smoke inhalation had overwhelmed the almost-bride, and she began coughing and choking the minute Abira removed the suffocating cloth from her face. Her hair had all burned away, but Abira did not see any blackened flesh.

She remembered Muse saying that one did not even want to know what the emperor did to brides who refused him. Abira understood Muse's reluctance now as she looked at the bride-to-be in her arms.

The Devil burned those who defied him. Alive. In front of their friends and family.

Abira cast a spiteful glance at the approaching emperor, whose fury with her actions was apparent in every menacing step he took towards them. She gulped, realizing she was surrounding by his guards and his family.

Had she just signed the death warrants of Sirin, Nana, and herself, along with Scarlett and Gwain?

The almost-bride tugged at Abira's arm, and she looked down, opening her mouth to say something. But then the whole world turned upside down and stayed there.

Behind Abira, the white flames roared out of the pit with fiery delight and scorched the ceiling. Abira scrambled back into the press of the crowd, pulling the reluctant bride with her. She jumped to her feet to watch the jet of flames. Displaced air blasted around her in cool gusts, bringing a hint of flowers.

Of lilies.

The emperor, who had halted at the gusting flames, said one word while something almost resembling emotion passed across his hard features.

"Lilith."

The flames crashed down and twisted in a pearly vortex, faster and faster, until all Abira saw was a blur of movement.

And of all things, as if in homage to Abira's heavy dress, pure white lilies boiled up out of the pit and piled up around the edges, spilling onto the icy floor, covering the feet of those closest. The heady scent of thousands of blooms perfumed the air in a wonder of excess. Petals thrust from the violence of the upheaval flew in flurried gusts of perfumed air.

The trilling of songbirds, the rustle of feathers, and the hooting of owls came next. Tens of thousands of snowy birds burst from the pit, rising in singing glory to hover over the miracle unfolding below their wings.

_They are here to bear witness_ , Abira thought, happy with that notion. _The birds will spread the word to every last corner of the realms of the return of Lilith._

A head of shining, ebony hair parted the sea of blossoms in the center of the pit. Lilith's ascent had an air of wonder, a slow unfurling of paradise. When her entire height had risen, she faced the emperor with a fragrant bloom coyly pressed against her nose. She wore a dress of displaced flames that should have burned her torso with the wild abandon of a howling inferno.

Yet the fury of nature calmed and cooled for Lilith.

She came to her husband wreathed in flame, flowers, and feathers, and had a perfect and natural right to do so as she inhaled the simple pleasure of one fine bloom.

She seemed a true angel in the midst of her demon family.

Abira was agog at the empress' height and presence. She was just as strong as her husband, just as tall, but had an air of love about her, not cold rage.

The emperor said nothing for a long while, only stared at his empress' grand entrance. Finally one word crossed his lips.

"Wife."

He sounded so lost in that one word, so longing, so loving. Abira never would have thought him capable of such tenderness. She strained her ears with eager curiosity to hear the response of Lilith.

"Husband." Her voice hinted at the beauty of fresh snow under a silvery moon. It was indescribable.

"I have searched long for you. You left without a word of parting."

"I am sorry. Perhaps we can reconcile one day." Lilith moved the flower from her face then, and Abira gasped in the aching silence _. I do have her exact face. But how?_

Even the birds, many settled in the rafters or at the top of balconies, stopped their cooing and rustling to hear what the emperor would say.

He took a hesitant step towards Lilith, horror etched on his face. "You cannot mean to leave again. You have empires to rule, a husband and children left wanting. I have much to tell you. To give you."

He stilled himself with a blink, perhaps hearing the edge of desperation that had tinged his words. He took a deep breath and said with forced calm, "Please stay, Empress. I will right any wrongs between us."

"I cannot stay, and any wrongs will have to stay as they are. I only came to collect my youngest daughter."

Not an eyelid blinked, not a breath was taken, not one bird dared to twitch a wing. The dead air of the crypt settled over the empress' declaration.

Lilith turned to Abira and smiled. "Come. I have much forgiveness to ask of you."

Abira froze as every eye turned to her, the trapped bride wrapped in butterflies and despair, the pariah, the mysterious recluse who wore the empress' face. She was immobile under their scrutiny, her heart hammering at being the one singled out by this divine being. This soiled angel.

The emperor broke the spell with a low question. "Am I the father?"

"No."

With that flat statement, Lilith presented a finely boned hand to Abira. Abira floated forward, not quite in the moment that she was claimed by Lilith. Flowers crushed under her silken slippers as the emperor watched her with eyes of flint.

And then Abira was being wrapped in arms of cool fire, her head spinning in a daydream, her eyes seeking Lilith's. She could not think of anything to say, so she said something very obvious and foolish.

"I do not understand."

"You will soon enough. You have borne your trials well, and now it is time you rested in your mother's arms."

Abira nodded as she and her strange mother sunk in a profusion of flowers. Somewhere in her dim past an emperor was screaming himself hoarse. Abira felt sorry for him, for his corrupted soul, his denial of Heaven, his endless burden. But as the silence of flowers wrapped around her, she forgot all about him.

She clutched her mother in fear and wonder under a shadow of lilies.
Epilogue

Sirin crumpled, gasping in a filthy corner, blood trickling out of his nose. He flexed his wings with a monumental effort, willing them to heal straight and true. If he lost the gift of flight on top of every other trauma he had suffered, it would crush what little hope he had left in him.

The emperor towered above him, splattered blood decorating his purple tunic. He gave Sirin a feral grin and lashed the barbed hooks at his upturned face. The barbs dug in with a meaty _thunk_. Sirin screeched in prolonged agony.

"I find it beyond comprehension why Lady Abira would favor your attentions over mine. But who has ever understood a woman? In all my vast number of years, I have never once solved the mystery of any female."

The emperor jerked the barbed lash back, taking flayed strips of skin from Sirin's face. He threw the lash into a corner and turned to Scarlett and Gwain, who were clutching each other in a desperate search for comfort. "You two are most fortunate that I have my new wives to attend to my needs. I dare say my attentions might overwhelm you in your delicate state."

With that tender sentiment, the emperor strode out of their dungeon, slamming the iron door behind him. Silence descended as they were plunged into pitch-black darkness. Sirin was burning with a thousand different pains, and he moaned with utter despair as Gwain and Scarlett cried and sniffled.

Abira's face, so beautiful, so loving, was what he searched for in his heart. She was worth all this suffering, she who loved a beast such as him. She said she was in love with him, and he held onto that buoy lest he drown in this senseless sea of misery.

He wove the dark of her hair, the gleam of her eye. He conjured up his desperate love for her as his tormented wounds seeped and itched. He envisioned her long neck, her soft lips, her graceful cheekbones. But even as he took a small delight in this, the emperor's explanation of events hurt far more than any flesh wound he had inflicted upon Sirin.

_Please,_ he prayed. _Please let his words be another lie, another deceit. She would not leave us._

Almost as if she had heard his silent entreaty, Gwain scooted over to his corner on fumbling hands and knees. "Sirin? Do you believe what the emperor said about Abira voluntarily leaving us behind to go with Lilith?" Her voice sounded scratchy under her grief.

"No," Sirin gasped, trying to think around the pain. "He is a liar. Abira did not leave with Lilith of her own free will. As soon as she finds out he has imprisoned us, she will have us released."

Scarlett let out a low sob. "Why didn't you see what happened at the ball, Gwain? Weren't you her handmaiden for the duration of the wedding?"

Sirin heard Gwain's tears started afresh, her escalating sorrow reverberating against their own. "When she climbed the dais, one of the emperor's guards snatched me and threw me in here. That is why I suspect he is feeding us lies. Why else would he have done such a thing?"

_Because he had some other plan for you until something unexpected happened._ Sirin had no doubt that something strange had happened at the emperor's wedding ball, but what had gone wrong was still the question. He had known they were in for something foreboding when the emperor's guard had strode into Abira's suite and seized him and Scarlett.

_And to think that old Devil is my grandfather._ He wondered for the thousandth time at the cruel class system that kept creatures such as his mother on the lowest tier, yet left real monsters like the emperor perched at the top of the carrion heap.

The physical agony of his wounds throbbed and burned for a long time. He bore it as well as he could, trying not to let his distress worry the other two. He needed to think, to concentrate on a way out of this situation, and so he added up what few clues he had gathered from the emperor's ranting.

He was loathe to interrupt the others, but he needed to clarify one key point. "Gwain?"

"Yes?"

"When the emperor was interrogating us, did you hear him say that we would be fine bait for his trap?"

She paused. "Yes, he did say that. You were screaming so loudly that I barely caught it."

"That implies to me that Abira did not abandon us, but that something snatched her away. We would be useless as bait if she thought so little of our welfare."

Scarlett hiccuped, then ventured, "I could not believe him when he said she left of her own free will with Lilith. She is the only demon I have served under that is halfway decent."

Gwain confirmed that opinion, fierce loyalty in her tone. "She would never do such a thing. She is kind and noble and as much a victim as we."

Sirin was inclined to agree wholeheartedly. "Even after I deceived her with false beauty, she still found it in her heart to love me."

Gwain said, "You are much more than a false pretty face, Sirin. You threw yourself into learning all that cant lore so you would be a worthy familiar. You saved her in the Aviary from Eve's machinations. You sang her to sleep, every night without fail, in her darkest moments. You shine with love for her. Would that I could find half that devotion in a mate."

Sirin was shocked into silence for a moment, touched at her thoughtful assessment of him. He eventually said, "You are too kind. I do not know how to thank you."

A clank and creak froze all three. Their dungeon door lumbered open and an elite of the emperor's guard walked in, holding up a torch that dripped with liquefied flames. The drops fell and hissed on the moldy hay that was scattered about. Sirin eyed the flames with wary caution, pressing himself back into the corner at the guard's approach.

The guard squatted down and waved his torch with slow boredom over their huddled forms. "You three are about the luckiest prisoners I have had in many a year." His tone was amiable, his bronze skin scarred, his grin easy. Sirin did not trust him for a second.

He could _smell_ innocent blood on those calloused hands.

But Sirin's heart soared at the guard's words. _Abira has discovered we are missing, and she is having us released._ He relaxed a trifle, his puffed feathers flattening.

The next statement caused his fears to flare right back up. "Seems the emperor wants you lot on special assignment."

Scarlett blinked at the guard, some of her boldness creeping out. "What does that tyrant want us for?"

The guard reached over and slapped her hard on the cheek with casual disdain. "You will not be speaking such treason against our emperor." He leered at her and grabbed the fork of his pants. "I'll keep you on your knees on _my_ special assignment if you be lipping off again. Understand?"

She nodded mutely, her hand touching her reddened cheek. Sirin felt his beast side threatening to lash out at this guard, and he suppressed it hard _. I have to hear what he has to say. And if I attack him, he may take the punishment out on Scarlett and Gwain._

The guard stood up, giving Scarlett one more gap-toothed grin. "It's a shame about you leaving so soon. I'd love to take turns tumbling such beauties while the feather brain watched."

Sirin stilled his mounting rage, now only tempered by the hint of their impending release. He asked with a detached air, "We are leaving?"

"Appears so. The emperor, in his infinite wisdom, has thought of a use for you three."

They all leaned forward, hearing hope in that vague statement.

"Seems you three are to find our runaway brides for us."

Sirin blinked, confused. "How are we supposed to find Lilith and Abira? The emperor searched for the empress for decades with no result."

The guard kicked Sirin in his half-healed ribs. "You are the answer. Gods and demons know you are the ugliest answer I have ever seen, but it seems you have a bond of sorts with the Lady Abira. You her familiar?"

Sirin nodded, afraid to open his mouth lest it earn him another swift kick.

"Then she will be drawn to you like a moth to flame." The guard grinned down at the three of them. "See, the emperor, he knows how to get to people. You three are useless rotting down here. He plans to take you on a tour to touch Lady Abira's tender heart."

Sirin groaned with quiet despair. He understood now. The bond between a demon and that demon's familiar was very strong. Abira would feel his most potent emotions over vast distances. She would feel his pain, his suffering, and he would feel hers the longer they were separated.

Once you made the sacred vows, your soul would ache for unity. They could not be parted overlong without spiritual angst.

The guard continued, his pleasure at Sirin's groan making him smile even harder. "Now, this is how it is going to do. You three are just mouths to feed here in the dungeon. We could torture you, and that might lure our Lady back to the palace when she feels your pain. But there are too many ways in and out of this palace. Too many hidey holes. The emperor seems to think that my guards could be fooled or bribed into releasing you lot."

The guard swung the torch around to Gwain, who grabbed Scarlett even harder and shrunk back. "So the emperor is going to try a different tactic. He is going to put you on a traveling circuit, like them shows with the elephants. He will have you all in stockades in every town you go through until Lady Abira shows her pretty face to rescue you."

Sirin felt a slight lifting of his spirits again. Lots of things could go wrong when traveling, after all. They could figure out a way to escape in such circumstances.

"Prince Baphomet will be leading you lot, as he is still to find his mother. It is also his duty to keep you three alive, as the stockades can get quite a rise out of the peasants. I expect they will loathe you in particular, bird brain."

Sirin wondered at the raw hate that consumed this man before daring to ask his next question. "Why would they loathe me?"

The guard squinted at him and decided to answer the question without a kick. "You are a monster from the Aviary, and a half-breed at that. People out in the villages put their little ones down to sleep with tales of how the monsters from the Aviary will come and get them if they aren't good little sweetlings. I expect you will have the hardest time of all."

He leered at Gwain and Scarlett. "That is, of course, if the prince don't decide to let the villagers have their way with these two. Some of them men get lonely and would appreciate a little company. Maybe bird brain won't have it so bad as you two."

Sirin fought down another urge to choke this man. "Prince Baphomet has more honor than that. He would not let them be violated for the sport of peasants."

The guard threw back his head and roared with good humor. "You talking about the same Baphomet? The one that tortured your harpy aunts to death?"

Sirin blinked, surprised. Had the tale of his little family tragedy spread even to the emperor's dungeons? The guard slowed to soft chuckles as he regarded them. "You all don't know the ways of demons very well. Baphomet has no scruples I know of. He will probably be having his way with these two every night, I reckon. They are just refugees from the lesser empire. Nobody cares about such riffraff."

He gave Sirin another big grin. "You all will be leaving tomorrow. Oh, and I almost forgot. The emperor is not patient, so he is going to give the Lady Abira one month to collect you before he has you publicly executed."

He kicked all three of them for good measure, then strode out with a rattling clang of the door. There was nothing any of them could say to comfort the others, so they made a little nest together and huddled all night in the dark stink of the Devil's dungeons.

Sirin sat there, hating himself for allowing this. He should have left the second he found out she was to marry that tyrant, gathered up his feathered family, and swooped in to save her. They could have found that Nana of hers, saved Gwain and Scarlett, and hidden in the Aviary until they figured out a better solution.

But in his heart he knew that would never have worked. The whispers of the emperor's declining sanity had reached even the lonesome wilds of his home. The rumors of his consuming obsession with gathering brides were proving to be fact. Sirin had a feeling that the emperor would not let Abira go. He would pursue her with ruthless determination. He could send out legions of troops, hundreds of assassins, thousands of bounty hunters, on top of his divine powers and the powers of his sons, daughters, and distant relations.

What could a mother and daughter do against that?

And how was one familiar to help them?
Afterword

Thus ends the first novel of the epic fantasy series "The Last Savior." Thank you for reading my novel, and check out my personal website, www.eclecticcycle.com, for updates on the series.

Love it, hate it, or 'meh' about it, an honest review left with the retailer you purchased A Shadow of Lilies from is highly appreciated. I do read every single review, so your voice shall be heard! And your review is a big part of what encourages readers to try new books.

Drop a note via my site mentioned above if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions.

The next book in the series, A Binding of Demons, is now available at the retailer you discovered A Shadow of Lilies from.

This trilogy is complete. Book three of "The Last Savior Trilogy" is entitled "A Fury of Angels."

In the second book of "The Last Savior Trilogy," the world grows darker every waking moment. Lies and betrayal haunt Abira at every turn. Abira learns of a terrible cosmic war, a clashing of Order and Chaos....and finds herself thrust between the warring factions. Her mother, the fallen angel Lilith, had tasked her with a deadly ordeal. She is to help capture Eve and Lucifer so they can be judged before Heaven's golden eye. But as more and more of Lilith's past is revealed to Abira, she does not know who to trust. Caught between the fight for survival and the will of Lilith, she has to make terrible choices...choices that could blacken her immortal soul to ruin.
About the Author

R. Moses was a strange child prone to reading fantasies instead of bothering with other children, whom she frequently found troublesome. From this odd little youngling sprung an odd woman, who tries to capture the meanderings of her twisted imagination into a worthy tale.

R. Moses lives in the southeastern United States with her husband and daughter. She does not enjoy sunlight, nor does she care for vapid celebrity gossip or unrealistic reality T.V.

She does enjoy every minute of being a mama, a writer, an artist, and most minutes of being a wife.
Dedication

This novel is dedicated to my husband, whom I love more than ever after all these years. I look forward to growing wrinkly and eccentric with him while sitting on our porch in Sylvan Glade, sipping something cool.
