And Once More Saw The Stars

by Rae Magdon

  “There might be a quicker way,” Lady Godiva said. “When Michael came down to open the gate of Dis, he said that he wouldn’t be able to help Lilith get her soul back. But if the two of you succeed...”

  Hope stirred faintly in Lilith’s chest. “Do you think he would help her?”

  “I am sure he would. She did save Eva’s life.”

  Lilith swallowed thickly, staring down at Lady Godiva. “You’re going to stay here with her, aren’t you? She deserves to be looked after.”

  Their guide nodded. “I have to. Michael said I couldn’t venture beyond the Eighth Circle.” Carefully, she eased Grace onto her back, settling the pirate’s head in her lap and brushing aside her hair. “She’ll be safe here with me. The Malebolge can’t cross over into the sixth ditch. The rest of the way to Judecca should be clear.”

  Lilith bent down and took Grace’s limp hand in hers. “Thank you for saving her,” she whispered, giving it a tight squeeze. “I… I was wrong.” Reluctantly, she let Grace’s fingers go and rose to stand at Eva’s side. “We’ll come back. I promise.”

  “I know you will.” Lady Godiva relaxed back into the sloping side of the ditch. “Be careful, First One. The next time I see you, I hope you’ll have your soul again. From everything I’ve seen, your repentance is true.”

  “After all the things I’ve done, I’m still not sure I’m worthy.” She began to turn away, pausing only long enough to add, “But I hope you’re right.”

  Together, she and Eva walked along the side of the ditch that followed the bridge, searching for a place to start climbing. After a minute, they stopped in front of an uneven stretch of rock, one with plenty of crags and ledges jutting out. Lilith started scaling the steep slope first, kicking away a few loose stones before she found a proper foothold. A slide of gravel hissed as it rolled down behind her.

  “You don’t have to climb, you know,” Eva said as she began to pull herself up. “Why don’t you use your wings?”

  Lilith stared up towards the bridge, and the muscles along her back flexed as she hauled herself up over another rock. “I don’t want to shift,” she grunted.

  “Why not?”

  She did not offer an answer, scaling the steep slope of the ditch in silence instead. Her fingers dislodged a few small clouds of red dust, and she closed her mouth to keep from breathing it in. She squinted her eyes, but somehow, she managed to pick out the next handhold. Eventually, the dust began to settle, and she let out a low grunt as she hauled herself over the edge of the cliff. She lowered her hand back down, and Eva took it, climbing back onto the bridge beside her.

  Lilith reached out, running her thumb over Eva’s cheek and brushing aside a smudge of dirt. “How can you even ask that question?” she whispered, her hand shaking as she drew it back. “How can you stand to be near me?”

  Understanding dawned on Eva’s face. “You’re afraid of shifting because of what happened with the Malebolge.”

  Lilith shook her head. “No. Because of what I did.” Her voice broke, and her eyes stung with the effort of holding back tears. “Despite what I promised, I used you. I manipulated you. I broke your will and turned you into what I wanted.” Weight crushed in on her chest, making it nearly impossible to breathe, and her throat would not open. She turned her head away. “You never should have given me your trust. I don’t deserve it.”

  She started when warm fingers circled her wrist, but she did not look back. “You do deserve my trust,” Eva insisted.

  “I made you into my thrall, just like I was going to do when we first met. I betrayed you.”

  Eva’s grip on her arm tightened, and she turned to stand directly in front of her. “Look at me,” she ordered, and Lilith reluctantly raised her eyes. The softness she saw in her lover’s face made her want to scream and claw out of her own skin. “I said yes.”

  Lilith squeezed her eyes shut. Guilt burned a gaping hole in the pit of her stomach. “I was feeding. It doesn’t count.”

  “You didn’t start feeding until after I said yes.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I promised myself I would never use my powers like that again. Thousands of years, and I thought I had finally broken free. But He was right all along. I can’t change what He made me.” When she opened her eyes again, hot tears cut over her cheeks. Her vision blurred, and Eva became a pale pink smudge lined with gold. She swiped a hand over her face, gritting her teeth until her jaw throbbed with pain.

  “Lilith…” Warm lips covered hers, drawing them into a kiss. When she tried to jerk away, Eva cupped the side of her face. The gentle hand stayed when Eva finally pulled back a few inches to speak, sliding up to stroke her wet cheek. “You’re crying. You’ve already changed, with or without your soul.”

  When Eva opened her arms, she fell into them without hesitation. Her chest shuddered with ugly, heaving sobs, and she tugged the fabric of Eva’s shirt into her fists, tasting the salt of her own tears. Her fingers shook even though they weren’t touching bare skin. “Eva, I…”

  Eva’s fingertips ghosted down from her cheek and followed the line of her throat. They only stopped once they were resting directly over her heart. “Do you remember what I felt the night you repented?”

  Lilith’s lips trembled. She tried to answer, but it was impossible to form words. In all her thousands of years wandering Earth, she had never encountered a heart so open to the idea of love. It was Eva’s love that had given her enough strength to cast off Shaitan’s chains and repent, and it was her love for Eva that had brought her here, to the very edge of Judecca to reclaim her soul. She stared into Eva’s face, trying to memorize the shape of her smile. “I remember. I’m just not sure why I deserved it then...” She hesitated. “And I certainly don’t deserve it anymore.”

  Eva squeezed both of her hands tighter. “I decide who is deserving of my love. You were deserving the first time you tried to feed from me and didn’t find what you were expecting, and you’re still deserving now.”

  They kissed again, and this time, Lilith met the press of Eva’s mouth with her own. She opened her hands, letting them settle at the familiar swell of Eva’s hips, and soft fingers threaded through her hair, urging her closer. Her legs would not hold anymore. She sank to the ground, still clutching at Eva’s waist. She ignored the wings sprouting from her shoulders, and she did not even feel her horns grow when Eva pressed her onto her back.

  Consumed with hot kisses, she arched into Eva’s hands as they slid down along her bare torso, cupping her breasts before learning the curves of her sides. They took every inch of bare skin, soothing the tightness of guilt in her chest until it released. Warm lips followed, trailing down the column of her throat, nuzzling her pulse point, inhaling her scent. “Please, Lilith,” Eva murmured as she began toying with the button at the front of her pants, pausing only long enough to look up into her eyes. “Let me show you.”

  Lilith swallowed, her throat throbbing with more tears. There were so many things she wanted to say, but the words disappeared before they could pass her lips. Instead, she nodded her head once.

  The button popped open, and her zipper came down. Eva paused to undo her boots, kissing the swell of her hipbone before she pulled them off and threw them aside. For a moment, the sight of Eva above her, offering to soothe her, was too overwhelming for Lilith to bear. She ached to taste Eva’s feelings, not her lust or submission, but the deeper emotions she had found when she first touched Eva’s soul.

  Hesitantly, she reached forward, sifting through the cloud that hovered between them. What she found made tears run from her eyes all over again. Love. Pure, honest, and unconditional. The love that had budded within her before she even realized it, and the love that had blossomed in both of them the first time she tried to feed from Eva. She clasped at it, drawing it in with a ragged breath. She could not feed from these emotions, but she hungered for them anyway. She needed them to keep g
oing.

  Slowly, Eva pulled off her clothes, stripping her shirt over her head and pushing down her pants. A soft whimper echoed between them, and it took Lilith a moment to realize that it had come from her throat. Just imagining warm, naked flesh sliding over hers sent a surge of heat between her legs. “Please,” she said softly, reaching out with one hand. She caught the edge of Eva’s arm, brushing the edges of her claws over pale skin. “Touch me.”

  Eva took her invitation, pulling a tight red nipple into her mouth and circling the bud with her tongue. Lilith’s first instinct was to grip the back of Eva’s head and pull her closer, but instead, she lifted her arms up and crossed her wrists, making herself vulnerable. She was rewarded when Eva began kissing a wandering line down her stomach, tickling her skin with her hot breath and the curtain of her hair. A sharp nip beside the dip of her navel made her gasp, but a warm tongue hurried to soothe the brief sting.

  “God, you’re so beautiful,” Eva mumbled against her skin as she eased between her thighs, nuzzling the point of her hipbone. The words made Lilith’s stomach muscles tense, and Eva scattered kisses over them until some of the tightness faded. One of Eva’s hands slid up along her thigh, draping her knee over a shoulder as she dipped her head.

  Lilith shuddered at the first shock of warmth between her legs. She let out a soft gasp, her fingernails biting into her palms. Somehow, she managed to keep her hands above her head as Eva’s lips folded around her clit, drawing it into her mouth. Her hips tried to push forward, seeking more of the blissful heat, but she forced herself to hold still, quivering with tension. “Please, more,” she rasped, her voice shaking as she stared down past her breasts.

  Eva’s mouth was everywhere at once, pulling at the hard point of her clit, sliding down to tease the fluttering muscles at her entrance, pushing inside with her tongue. Lilith threw her head back, and this time, she brought one hand down, gripping Eva’s shoulder. When she felt soft fingers cover her claws, encouraging the touch, the small connection was enough to push past the last of her boundaries.

  Their souls knew each other.

  Lilith gasped as the full power of Eva’s love rushed over her. Hope, strength, and tenderness filled the void where her soul should have been, sealing together the torn scraps that she had managed to keep when it was ripped from her. She took her fill of them without guilt, driving out her own despair. “I love you,” she said again, drunk with the release of those words. “I love you, I love you, I -” Even after pleasure made it impossible to speak, the words kept running through her mind, binding the last of the broken places.

  A flood poured out from deep inside of her, spilling over Eva’s lips and into her mouth. She whimpered as Eva slipped her tongue deeper, drinking as much as she could before kissing back up to her clit. When she pulled it into her mouth and painted slow circles over the twitching bud, Lilith thought she would shake apart. She bucked, tears streaming down her cheeks as Eva’s fingers pushed inside of her.

  She rocked against the new fullness, trying to take Eva’s fingers as deep as possible. They curled forward, and she screamed, digging her heel behind Eva’s shoulder as she arched into the touch. She could sense Eva’s lust pouring off of her in rippling sheets, but for once, it was not what she needed. She was still so full of love that she did not have enough room for anything else, no matter how sweet it tasted.

  When Eva began to pull away from her, Lilith nearly shattered. It was too soon. “Please, don’t - don’t stop, don’t… leave…”

  Eva smiled up at her, giving another soft push to reassure her that she was not going to stop. “I’m not leaving. I’ll never leave you,” she said as she kissed her way back up along Lilith’s stomach.

  Lilith shuddered as Eva’s lips caught collarbone, her chin, and the corner of her mouth before coaxing her lips apart with the press of her tongue. The fingers inside of her kept curling, dragging over the slick, ridged flesh of her front wall until they found a spot that made her cry out into their kiss. “Please,” she begged as they broke apart for air, “let me… let me touch you. Let me show you that I love you, too.”

  She tensed when her own words sank in, sure that she had made a mistake, but all she felt was another surge of love. Eva took her hand, bringing it down between their bodies and cupping it between her legs. She pushed her hips forward in encouragement, her breath hitching at the contact.

  Still clutching at the fingers inside of her, Lilith ran the edge of her claw through Eva’s folds, gasping at the heat and wetness that spilled over her hand. Being wanted made her head swim, but it was the trust that Eva was placing in her that made more tears slide down her cheeks. She pressed against Eva’s clit, flicking the tight bundle as gently as she could.

  She lost herself in Eva’s responses, savoring each toss of her hair as she rocked forward, every small gasp spilling from between her lips. But Eva’s fingers never stopped, and soon, she was hovering on the edge again, pushing up into each curling thrust as her inner muscles fluttered. Their hands moved together, falling into the same shared rhythm.

  “I love you, Eva,” she said one last time.

  “I love you, too.”

  They froze in a second that lasted forever, pressed so tightly together that they bled over the lines that separated their souls. Love blotted out the bridge, the ditch, the sky, and everything else. They came together with sharp pulses and shared breaths, fluttering and pulling, thrusting through the aftershocks as their lips met in another desperate kiss. Finally, they collapsed into each other, still shuddering as Lilith’s blazing white eyes faded to a soft glow. Lilith sighed, every muscle in her body relaxing as Eva’s comfortable weight settled on top of her.

  Eva reached out with her left hand, brushing aside the dark curls that fell across her forehead. Lips kissed the edge of her chin, the points of her cheeks, the tip of her nose. Eva’s other hand stayed between her legs. “Do you remember now?” she asked, staring up with a fragile hope that tugged at Lilith’s heart. For a moment, she could have sworn that she already had her soul back. “Do you see how much I…”

  “I do.” She let Eva trace the shape of her face with gentle fingers, blinking back the last of her tears. “Now, and for always.”

  Canto XXI:

  Whereat I turned me round, and saw before me

  And underfoot a lake, that from the frost

  The semblance had of glass, and not of water.

  They crossed the bridge hand in hand, stripped of the last of their doubts and most of their clothes. “I think Lady Godiva had the right idea,” Eva said, gesturing at the torn leg of her pants. “This is the last pair I have, and my shirt isn’t much better.”

  “Don’t worry. There’s no one around to care,” Lilith said. “We’re walking right over the last few ditches, and most of the sinners in the Ninth Circle won’t be able to comment.” Eva opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, but closed it again after a moment and tightened her grip on Lilith’s hand. She did not want to fill these last shared moments alone with conversation. Once they crossed into the Ninth Circle, there was no guarantee that they would come back.

  They crossed the seventh, eighth, and ninth ditches, and although Eva caught glimpses of figures running through them, she did not glance down. She could only look at the dark pit yawning open in front of them. It was large, so large that it was impossible to see the other side, but she saw the lip falling away into nothingness. Above it rose a great black tower, silhouetted against the eerie red glow of the sky, and as they moved forward, it took on a familiar shape. “That’s not a tower at all,” she murmured, dropping Lilith’s hand at last as she stopped to tilt her head up. The last of the mist had vanished, leaving her a clear view. “It’s…”

  “A giant,” Lilith finished for her. “Hopefully, we’ve found a helpful one. Some of them can be frustrating, or even dangerous.”

  Eva’s eyes widened. “There ar
e more than one?”

  “Yes.”

  Lilith took her by the elbow to lead her forward, and she did not resist. Other black forms rose on either side of the first, following the lip of the cliff in an endless line that curved back on itself. As they drew closer, the dark shapes began to look more human, but their size set them apart. They were so enormous that their torsos towered over the Eighth Circle, and the top of the Ninth Circle’s cliffs only came up to their waists. Large, rusting chains hung from their wrists and crossed the broad expanses of their chests, binding them forever to the wall of the pit.

  Lilith seemed to recognize one of them, and she guided them along the lip of the great chasm until they stopped in front of its wide belly. Eva looked up, but the giant was so tall that she could barely see the underside of his large chin. “Antaeus!” Lilith hollered, cupping her hands on either side of her mouth. “We request passage to the Ninth Circle!”

  There was a loud rumble, and slowly, the giant bent down, lowering his great head. He was so large that Eva could make out each strand of hair in his wild beard. He squinted his huge eyes at the two of them, trying to understand what he was seeing. “You are the First One,” he said in a whisper that still managed to boom in their ears. Eva gripped Lilith’s arm to prevent herself from taking a step back at the loud noise. “He said you would come.”

  Eva suppressed a shudder, but Lilith squared her shoulders as she stared up into Antaeus’s face. “Then your Master must have told you that I won’t leave without my soul. Lower us down to Treachery.”

  Antaeus laughed, and the rush of air and sound nearly bowled both of them over. Eva stumbled, but Lilith unfurled her wings, trying to shelter her until the sound had passed. “What do I care for your soul, or your problems? I have no reason to help you.”