by Meg Xuemei X
“You try to tune it down to look like power five,” I said. “Seven is rare among witches and mages. When you ascend to eight, you’ll be at your peak.”
“It’s extremely difficult to reach level eight,” she said, eying me warily. “No one else has detected my true power.”
“I’m not just anyone.”
“I see that. You won’t rat me out, right?”
“To that up-to-no-good Lucifer? Why do you hide your power? Everyone here wants to show off and get into Lucifer’s, his heir’s, or the archdemons’ inner circle.”
“I’m not just anyone,” she said, throwing my words back at me, and even shot me a defiant look.
I arched an eyebrow, waiting for her explanation. I had allowed her to trail after me. If she lied, there’d be no more free passes. Or I might just kill her if I decided she was trouble.
“I come from one of the greatest ancient witch bloodlines,” she said. “It’s not by choice that I serve the Underworld. I was born in a demon-controlled region, but even if I had been born in the demigods’ Half-Earth, the demons might have still snatched me, as they did to so many witches and mages.”
I’d never heard that at the Half-Blood Academy. I’d just assumed those mages and witches had betrayed their own kind to serve Lucifer.
“I’ve been downplaying my power so I don’t draw attention to myself. Yet I have to display enough power to be useful to stay alive.”
“Don’t you know when you backed me up in class today, you sealed your fate?” I asked. “If I go down, they’ll put you down, too.”
“I placed my bet on you, princess,” she said darkly. “You won’t go down, but I will at a certain point. I’ve made peace with that.”
I walked around the room to inspect the place. Angel padded along on my left while Lisa scurried along on my right so she could talk to me while cleansing the bad energy.
As she’d said, she was handy.
“I need a new bed,” I said. “I’m not going to sleep on the incubi’s bed.”
Lisa clapped her hands and murmured something, and the old bed vanished. In its place was a new bed with clean pink sheets. A weird white wind twirled through the room as Lisa rearranged all the furniture.
“This place can host at least ten people,” she said admiringly. “I’m moving in with you.”
“That’s not going to happen, Black Widow,” I said firmly.
Angel growled his agreement and glared at the witch.
“I can cook. I’ll clean. I won’t bring boys here. You’ve seen what I can do, and I’ll be at your convenience. You need someone you can trust to watch your back, Icy Dagger, and I am that person.”
“No,” I said coldly.
I didn’t trust anyone who’d sworn fealty to the devil, and everyone in Hell had done just that, except for me and possibly Loki and his dukes.
The witch’s face dropped.
“Spill,” I commanded. “It’s time you tell me what you really want from me.”
She didn’t answer.
I turned to her, my arms crossing over my chest. Angel gave her an evil eye.
She swallowed hard, then lifted her eyes and met mine.
“I heard about you before they brought you to Hell,” she said. “There were rumors about the Lost Princess. They said that you’d ended up in the Half-Blood Academy, drinking pink wine, eating crème brûlée, and fucking all four demigods. They also said you were of weak blood because you were too attached to mortals. You would defend your friends above all.”
“You think being my friend will benefit you?” I said softly. “I brought more danger to them than I could protect them from.”
“Yet they’re all safe in the Half-Blood Academy and you’re in Hell.”
I blinked.
“I don’t care about my safety,” she said. “I’m a lost cause, but I have a little sister who’s only nine years old. When she reaches eleven, they’ll drag her here to be a servant, as they did to me. All I want from you is that when you get out of here, you find my sister in Prague and bring her to your demigods-controlled realm so she’ll have a life.”
I skimmed her mind and saw her sister’s image—a mousy-haired cute little girl.
I knew how it felt to care for someone so much yet felt utterly helpless to protect them.
“I might not get out of Hell either,” I said.
My main mission wasn’t getting out of here, though I’d try my best to return to my demigods. I had to bring down Ares and Lucifer first, and if I had to go down with them, so be it.
“But I can promise you this: I’ll send a message to my demigod mates as soon as I have the chance. They’ll get your sister to Staten Island in North America. They’ll take care of her. Tell me her address.”
I’d ask Héctor to find the little girl in Prague and bring her to safety when I saw him again in the Dreaming.
I never leave a debt unpaid.
Lisa’s eyes became misty. “Thank you, Ice Dagger.”
“Icy Dagger,” I corrected her.
With the witch’s touch, my new quarters smelled of jasmine and roses and peppermint. To my satisfaction, there wasn’t a trace of the two incubi who had once taken up residence here.
~
I didn’t meet my demigods in the Dreaming after I fell asleep. Angel guarded the door. It was convenient, him having two heads. While one slept, the other kept watch.
Every night, I tried to reach my mates and failed. I couldn’t even fabricate a dream in this damned place. Our mating bond had gone mute once again.
I went to classes every day and returned to my secret quarters covered in gore and blood. In every class, students were divided into two camps. All the half-bloods gathered around me. Somehow under Lisa’s influence, the mages and witches had also thrown their lot in with me.
I was kind of their alpha now. When I’d been in the Half-Blood Academy, I’d never needed to carry the burden of leadership. I’d been an initiate, whose life was all about training, hanging out with my friends, riding my mates wildly, eating a lot of crème brûlée, and looking forward to a grand party.
The red-horned archdemon, who had been an instructor, had made himself scarce after our encounter in my first class. No matter, I’d eventually hunt him down.
I tried to escape this place a few times, only to have the binding spell cast by Lucifer activate and toast my every cell until I retreated to the grounds of Hell’s Academy. Loki hadn’t lied to me. Satan’s school was indeed warded. The only way out of here was on graduation day or when Ares and Lucifer came to collect me.
Left to rot here—not even Loki and his dukes had visited me once—my memory started fading at a fast speed. I bet that was one of Ares’s and Lucifer’s strategies: to isolate me and surround me with violence. When I had absolutely nothing left and no one to cling to, I’d eventually become their pawn.
Every night I still tried hard to reach the Dreaming, hoping to catch a glimpse of my mates. And every morning when I opened my eyes, I had a harder time remembering them. Gradually, even the colors of their eyes faded from my memory bank.
One day, I realized I’d lost track of how long I’d survived Hell.
Every moment I was alone, I practiced and pushed my magic, trying to break Lucifer’s and Ares’s spells and regain my Titan powers, especially the Flame of Rainbows. But it remained an ember in the ash.
My immortal enemies would never release me until I swore fealty to them, and without the Living Flame, I could never defeat them.
As time passed and dulled my spirits, I’d abandoned hope once again that my mates would come for me or that I’d be able to return to them.
I lived in a loop of nightmares as time stretched forever. Without my mates, I was nothing but a hard, cold shell. Yet I vowed to keep on until the day I dragged the god and the devil down to the Hell I’d designed for them.
Even they didn’t show up in Hell’s Academy.
I sank deeper into endless despair until I turned into a creature fr
om the inferno who knew nothing but bloodlust.
I’d sworn not to bend or break.
I kept my promises, but I was turning into something worse than a broken thing.
And one day, my mates became vast, shifting shadows that I could no longer hold onto in my memories.
In my darkest, bleakest hour, I dreamed again.
CHAPTER 17
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He wasn’t the brightest morning star—she was. Yet Lucifer was worshiped and Lilith forgotten, intentionally ignored when history had been written by men in a way that stole every glory from their female counterparts while repressing females as much as possible.
They feel threatened by us, a dark, lovely voice whispered to me. When we become too powerful, they can’t get a hard-on.
That’s not true with my demigods, I protested. They—they—
Yet you can’t remember their faces now, Lilith said. Her elegant hand brushed a wild strand of hair behind my ear. You’re growing weak, my Belle Celeste. Hell is sustaining you, but if you don’t know how to feed in this realm, you’ll become weaker.
She’d been the one who’d urged the angels to choose freedom and leave heaven’s gate. She’d led the fallen angels to war so they could all be free of those rules that bound their true natures.
She’d fallen first after they lost the war, and Lucifer had followed her. Together they’d founded a home—Hell—for all the fallen.
Hell wasn’t like heaven, and the fallen could no longer return to their former home.
They’d blamed her for the cost of freedom and punished her by erasing every record of her imprint and influence on history.
But mostly they’d done it because she was a powerful female.
As her daughter, I’d finally learned the truth.
“Mom,” I called.
She sat with me on a marble bench, waves of silver flames surrounding us, guarding us.
She didn’t look exactly like the Lilith whom Loki had shown me from his memories. She’d turned all silver. Her eyes sparkled with silvery light. A diamond crown rested on her silvery head between her beautiful silvery horns.
She smelled like a night rose that wasn’t from this world.
My mother was lethally beautiful.
She was no longer the Queen of Hell. She was now queen of everything and nothing.
“Look at you, you’re all grown up,” she said with approval, her cool hand cupping my face. “My daughter who carries my genetic imprint and my power and more.”
I wanted to lean into her touch, but I didn’t.
“I’m my own person. I’m Mari—”I stuttered. I was beginning to forget my former self.
She laughed musically. “Of course you are. We don’t have much time, dearest, and I don’t have enough power to come to you again. More importantly, we can’t let our enemies know we’ve reconnected.” Her expression turned lethal again, silver flame leaping in her eyes.
“Know what your enemies truly desire,” she said. “Lucifer longs to return to heaven more than anything. He wants to reclaim heaven and defeat his former brethren. Ares has always wanted to rule Mount Olympus. He has both a superiority and inferiority complex. He tried to overthrow his father and failed.”
“My existence rekindled their ambitions,” I said drily.
“They never give up their hunts,” Lilith said. “And they never forget a grudge. Use that against them.”
“Tell me how to defeat them without my Living Flame, mother.”
“Bring them to me,” she said with vicious, hungry delight.
A dozen ideas twirled in my mind, but nothing clicked.
“You’re outside of every law of physics and magic. There are no rules for you, Belle Marigold Celeste,” she said softly, musically, and lethally. “Be who you want to be.”
“You talk like Septum, full of riddles,” I said.
“Loki won’t tell you this,” she said. “The leyline to the Void is in the Seventh Hell, and it’s a one-way trip. That’s why I couldn’t come with you when I sent my only child to worlds I wasn’t in, leaving me no way to protect you. You’re outside any rulebook and can unmake the gods and the worlds. You can roam and rule in any world if you know how. Do not limit yourself. You’re beyond any mortal, immortal, or god’s limitations. Yet coming to the Void should be your last resort since the realm has craved your return and won’t let you go easily again.”
Her image started shimmering, and I knew we didn’t have much time.
“Mom, I’ll find a way to come to the Void and get you out,” I said eagerly.
“I want you to live to your fullest potential, daughter. You don’t need to worry about me. Vanquish our enemies and make me proud.”
“But Mom—”
She lowered her head, her horns thrusting against my temples, and they turned from silver to crimson.
“What the fuck?” I yelled, trying to shrug her off.
She pinned me against an unseen wall, and pain blossomed in my chest.
Was my own mother deceiving me so she could feed from me?
Feed, she commanded. I’ll see you again, my child.
My mother vanished with her silver flame.
I stumbled, finding myself standing in the core of an inferno that twirled like a firestorm.
Feed, Mom had said.
My arms flew open, and I roared and drank the purest hellfire from Hell’s core.
I was part of Hell, and my mother was its founder and original queen. I’d come home. I was royalty.
Fire and storm and darkness coursed in my veins, reviving me, rebuilding me, and transforming me.
I was full and strong.
I woke up remembering my true name—Belle Marigold Celeste—and my demigods’ faces emerged from the shadows. They were no longer obscure outlines. Everything about them was etched in my mind and my heart and would never be lost again.
Time could no longer damage me in the realm of the inferno.
Walking down memory lane, I gazed into the bright eyes of my demigod mates, and each gaze held the wonders of the galaxies.
CHAPTER 18
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I swaggered into the last class of the day with my witch friend by my side and other half-bloods flanking me.
“Icy Dagger is here.” A demon spat.
The pureblood demons watched me with hatred, fear, and certain respect, their eyes darting between my vicious face and my twitching hands hovering over my swords. I wanted to kill them. The urge was strong. As soon as they provoked me, I would attack.
After many battles in various classes and many foes felled under my blades, the purebloods usually gave me a wide berth.
We still fought in the battle class, but they wouldn’t cut down those who were under my protection. If they hurt one of mine, I cut down five of them in retaliation.
The pureblood instructors were wary of me as well, but the half-blood instructors sided with me. Some of the mage instructors also backed me up.
Everyone was now just trying to stay alive through graduation so we could all face our “common enemies”—the demigods and their armies.
The term in Hell’s Academy was six months, versus three years in the Half-Blood Academy.
My heart pounded against my rib cage at the prospect of going to the surface to “fight” the demigods. I didn’t believe that Lucifer would ever allow me to have the privilege before he was sure that I was his completely.
At any given moment, Lucifer and Ares could come to collect me.
Mom had mapped out their ultimate plans, and they were hellbent on using me as their most lethal weapon to do their conquering. Their spies were watching my every move, yet I had the upper hand.
I had exclusive knowledge.
Mom had taught me useful things in the Dreaming. I now knew how and where to draw in Hell’s energy and drink its potent hellfire. Hell could no longer erase the demigods from my memory.
As long as I held onto my mates, I’d
never be turned, though I would certainly pretend to be turned and beat the god and the devil at their own games.
I grinned savagely at the image of burning my immortal enemies and bleeding them dry.
“So, who’s this new instructor everyone’s talking about?” I asked. “Is he a half-blood, a demon, or something else? Is he going to tell us to introduce ourselves by maiming and killing a fellow student?” I pointed at a few powerful demon students—my intended victims should that be the case. “And to sit on your corpse to listen to his boring lecture? You sick fuckers think violence is an art and get off from it. There’s nothing artistic about your kind of crude carnage, though I won’t mind slaying you all.”
The demons snarled, but they managed to rein in their bloodlust. It wouldn’t end well for them to attack me. They were getting smart.
“I’ll do none of those things,” a bright female voice announced. “This is the class for mastering illusions.”
Esme Von Rouche, the Headmistress of the Half-Blood Academy in her unimpeachable black suit, walked into the room.
I spat, my eyes burning. “Or fucking deception.”
If Loki hadn’t revealed the headmistress’s true identity, I’d never have known that she was Vi, my former guardian who had taken me in, given me a temporary home, and then vanished on me without a trace.
Only to surface a few years later and arrange to have me brought to the Half-Blood Academy, where she posed as the headmistress to monitor me for the Prince of Hell.
The woman who stalked into the classroom didn’t look like Esme, but this time I could see through her glamour.
As Vi, she’d appeared in her early thirties with warm, brown eyes and chestnut hair. As Esme, her eyes had appeared a pale green and her auburn hair had been pinned stylishly to the top of her head, not a single hair out of place.
The “new instructor” bore the appearance of a black witch with jet black hair and red lips. Dark magic rippled around her.
Her deep, gray eyes held my cold, furious gaze, betraying no emotions.
“They’re coming for you, Marigold,” she said softly.
And then, she and I were no longer in the class.