She would find Michael and Grim in the palace. One last look behind her was all she spared time for when she came to the crack in the earth. Ash and smoke. Smoke and ash. No Michael. No Grim.
Lily traveled between worlds, one second surrounded by an army and the next alone. She knew the way. Better than she had before. She saw the path although she had no eyes. It glowed in her consciousness in a way she’d never experienced before. Was this how Grim navigated? Had her fusion with Lucifer’s wings given her this ability? If so, she could forgive the pain. She would heal in time and the gift of safe travel between worlds would be well worth whatever suffering she’d had to endure.
The palace welcomed her with a cacophony of confusion. The army channeled down hallways and corridors meant for much lighter traffic. Their passing stirred the denizens of the walls into a swirling torment of screeches and moans and grasping hands. In fact, when Lily materialized and saw the walls, she knew that much of the Rogue army they’d just defeated had found themselves trapped in stone.
Just as the wings had helped her see the pathway between the canyon and the palace, they helped her see that Michael had been right. She suddenly knew that the purgatory Ezekiel had caused to manifest in the palace walls was a reflection of his own loss and pain. He avenged Elizabeth’s death, but the weight of all the tortured souls was wrapped around his own heart and soul like the chains of damnation.
Lucifer hadn’t intended the hell dimension to be a place of darkness. He had wanted freedom. He had led others to seek the same. Allowing the imprisonment of Rogues and their human slaves to continue would make Lucifer’s followers no better than those they fought.
Lily stepped to the nearest writhing wall. She ignored the painful groping of violent stone fingers. Lucifer’s wings—her wings—spread out behind her so that she was protected from the press of the Loyalist army. She allowed her backpack to fall at her feet. Her hands trembled, but she pressed her palms against the wall. It—they—moved beneath her hands. She ignored the revulsion that tried to frighten her away from her task. She had given all she had to give during the canyon battle, but she searched deep within herself for more.
“Lily, no!” Michael shouted.
He was alive. He was alive. He was alive.
She didn’t turn from the wall, but she felt a surge of renewed energy when Michael materialized behind her. His Brimstone blood was a bright, hot source of power he no longer tried to keep tamped down to prevent their connection. His heat amplified her affinity and it flowed through her hands.
“This is Ezekiel’s pain. He’s corrupted the palace with his grief and fury. I’ve got to set them free,” Lily said. Her jaw was stiff and she spoke through tight lips. Her entire body had become as hard as the marble she forced her affinity to enter.
“It’s not safe. Let go. Come away,” Michael protested. He’d come as close as he could come to her without touching. He respected her choice and her interface with the wall even though his instinct was to warn her away from danger. His nearness bolstered her efforts. He supported even as he urged her to caution.
“It’s not safe. You’re right. They’re trying to take me with them,” Lily said.
When they became he, she sensed the change. Stone hands grasped hers with a punishing grip and a familiar face flowed into focus. Abaddon. The leader of the Rogues who had jumped off the skywalk when she used Lucifer’s wings to ignite his Brimstone blood. She couldn’t back away from the violent grimace on his marbled face, but even if he hadn’t been holding her, she wouldn’t give up. She tightened her own fingers and pressed her face closer. She met his stony gaze. She ignored the sudden lengthening of his clenched teeth as they became more like fangs. He had been a handsome daemon. But the carved representation of his soul revealed his predatory nature and the darkness that claimed him.
The other souls in the wall had drawn back, giving Abaddon deference. She immediately understood why. He wasn’t only holding her. He was draining her. His darkness was a bottomless pit soaking up her soul like a hungry sponge.
The malevolent vacuum threatened to pull her apart. Her body had lightened as if she was completely hollowed out inside. She was a shell. Her physical form was still in the hell dimension, but the rest of her was drawn elsewhere by Abaddon and the other entities she tried to send away. The bag that rested on her feet interfered with the vacuum. The kachina dolls held her. They rooted her to this world where she belonged. But their hold was tenuous. Lily could feel herself slipping away. She watched in sinking dread as black marble began to seep from Abaddon’s hands into her skin. It flowed like obsidian threads weaving into and replacing the flesh of her fingers and arms.
She cried out. Cold agony began to replace her human cells.
“No,” Michael said. He pressed one hand between the wings on her back. Her world was with him. She knew it body and soul, and the emptiness inside her was suddenly filled with a rush of warmth and belonging.
“Oblivion calls. Or heaven. Damnation is a choice, not a sentence. Your time in limbo is over,” Lily said.
Abaddon understood. His grimace turned to a silent scream. His grip loosened and his stone hands were absorbed back into the wall.
The threads of dark marble flowed out of her skin and back into the wall as well. But it didn’t stop there. The inky color continued to flow. It moved away from where her fingers splayed against the marble, leaving alabaster stone in its wake. Abaddon and the rest of the stone carvings were swept along with the black, rushing away from Lily’s hands and her braced figure. The former leader of the Rogues became one with the jumble of faces and figures as they turned into nothing but a mass of writhing, indistinct features and limbs. The hallway brightened as the walls lightened. Straggling soldiers stopped to stare. Several bony destriers reared and shrieked in surprise. In the distance, greater reactions rang out, giving evidence that the change in the walls flowed outward throughout the palace.
“It’s too much, Lily. You have to let go,” Michael said. But he didn’t try to force her away from the wall. She could feel him pouring more energy from his blood into her body.
“This won’t just cleanse the palace of Rogue taint. This will save Ezekiel. It will help him to let go of his loss and move on,” Lily ground between clenched teeth.
“I won’t let you die to save him,” Michael said. Both of his hands were spread on her back now. He was still giving her all he had to help rather than drag her away.
“I hope it won’t come to that,” Lily said. But she wasn’t certain. Her body was human in spite of the affinity and in spite of her new wings. Michael was only half daemon. He gave her the power of his Brimstone heat, but although he was mighty he had a human half, too.
Grim had appeared with Michael. She only noticed him at the edge of her perception when he pressed his great ugly body up against his master’s legs. From that contact, Lily felt a new surge of power, but it was much smaller than she needed to cleanse an entire palace. There were so many souls in the walls. She could sense each and every one as they flowed farther and farther away.
Michael’s father showed in perfect gray contrast against the white wall when he suddenly appeared before them. He loomed as he spread his giant wings. Their tips stretched far to the left and right above them. Her warrior angel had arrived. Lily gasped. Grim howled. Michael jerked, but his fingers didn’t lose contact with her body. She didn’t pull her hands from the wall although she instinctively feared the touch of the frigid shadow. She’d seen him kill by absorbing daemons’ Brimstone heat on the battlefield. He was hungrier than the force she’d resisted moments before. And she wasn’t free to cringe away from his touch.
“Don’t hurt her,” Michael ordered. Lily cried out again when Michael’s hands grew hotter than her tender flesh could withstand without pain, but then his power entered her and strengthened her and the pain faded away.
“He won’t. He won’t hurt me. He’s my warrior angel. He was always meant to save me,” Lily said. The shadow had reached for her with enormous hands that suddenly became a normal size just before they met hers. Suddenly, she saw a version of Michael in her mind that she’d never seen. His father. As he’d been before he died. Beautiful. So beautiful and familiar he made tears well up in her eyes. But unlike his son, Michael’s father had ancient eyes. He’d protected so many souls in his long life. And he’d died to protect the woman and the baby he’d loved more than any before. Somehow, Lily was a part of that love. He showed her that now. That he had always been meant to protect her because she would eventually love his son.
“Thank you,” Lily said. Michael’s touch kept her tears from falling. She could feel his hands shaking and she didn’t want this to hurt him more than it had to. “He’s going to help us, but it means we have to say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry I resisted your legacy as long as I did. I was wrong. You’ll always be a part of me. And I’m glad,” Michael said.
The hands on hers seemed to solidify and warm. They still looked like shadow, but it was if a living person held her. The feeling passed in a flash as her warrior angel reared back and grew immense. He filled the entire corridor. Then he disintegrated in a thousand shadowy pieces that flowed outward to chase and complete the cleansing that Lily had begun.
He magnified the force of her affinity and Michael’s Brimstone by a thousandfold and the force of his clash with the remaining souls sent shock waves back through the connection. Lily was thrown from the wall. Michael was shoved by the blast of energy and his hands fell from her back. Grim left claw marks in the marble floor as his body was forced several feet against his iron will.
Silence filled the palace halls. Lily lay beside her backpack, drained, but breathing. She appreciated the slow, steady inhale and exhale before the silence was replaced by the noise of stunned soldiers getting back to their feet.
Michael came and found her collapsed near the newly emptied wall. She was completely depleted, but there was a smile curving her lips. He lifted her into his arms. He was covered in Brimstone blood and ash, but his jaw was soft. He was no longer pained by the wings now that they had become a part of her. The mantle of the hell dimension was where it had always belonged.
“My queen,” he murmured against her ear. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Your father was a guardian angel, wasn’t he? Before he chose to follow Lucifer to the hell dimension?” Lily asked. She already knew the answer. Her warrior angel had always been a guardian of sorts. Even before it manifested any power at all. And when Michael had first appeared to her with shadow wings, they had been his actual wings and not an illusion after all. They were with him like an aura, a gift from his real father that showed only when he was fully connected to his purpose.
“Yes. And he watched over us one last time,” Michael said.
“Like father, like son,” Lilly replied. Her wings, no longer Lucifer’s wings, fluttered when he settled her closer against his chest. “Will you be the queen’s Guardian, Michael D’Arcy Turov? Till death do us part?”
“I resisted the throne because somehow I knew it wasn’t my destiny. I was always meant to follow in the footsteps of your warrior angel. But I’m no angel, Lily. I’m half daemon and I find my Brimstone blood drives me more than I ever knew it would. I burn for you. For the song we create together,” Michael said. “So I have to reply till death do us part...and longer. Far, far longer.”
“The queen of hell knows nothing of angels. I’ve spent my whole life in shadows, but Brimstone fire creates a light I can’t resist. I was going to. I was going to run away to keep you from being tied to the throne. I didn’t realize the throne was meant for me,” Lily said. Something in the way her grip around his neck changed alerted him to a sudden shift in her mood, and Michael stopped to look down at her face. The remaining Loyalist army was returning to the hell dimension through the widened portal she’d made. They parted like a sea around Michael where he stood. It was still an intimate moment. With Michael, the whole world disappeared while they flew alone.
“You are free to go. I would never force you to stay in the hell dimension with me,” Lily said. With the Rogue army defeated, she might be freer to come and go than she had ever been, but she was still determined to marry only for love. A tiny spark of hope in her heart reminded her that Ezekiel had always intended for her to assume the throne, but she’d loved him without being sure of a return of affection for too long not to be gun-shy. She hoped the empty walls would help him to heal and be able to give and receive the love he’d denied himself for so long.
“You’ll be my queen and my wife for as long as it makes you happy,” Michael replied. He leaned to kiss her and in spite of an entire army around them, Lily focused only on his wine-flavored lips until a very tired Grim bumped up against Michael’s legs. Her soon-to-be husband lifted his mouth from hers and Lily reached to ruffle the top of Grim’s smoky head.
“Ever after, then,” she promised.
Epilogue
Ezekiel groomed his bony destrier himself. After many months of retirement, he still enjoyed his time with the creature that shared his memories of the battle field. The great beast enjoyed the attention and after his eons of loyal service, he deserved it. The fading purple glow on the horizon indicated that night was falling. He led the horselike creature back into the stables and into his worn stone stall. The destrier’s plated leather armor was gathering dust on the wall.
Ezekiel had loved and lost. But he rarely lost otherwise. The Ancient One and former daemon king had been one of Lucifer’s closest allies and friends. But he was rarely as impulsive and temperamental as the first king of the hell dimension had been. He was patient. He had spent centuries building a palace for a girl he hadn’t met. One who would end up filling his life with song...and sorrow. Because he played a long game and it took precedence over his heart. That organ was scarred, but it had still been difficult to resist the beautiful, passionate Sophia and her persistent daughter.
They had been his dearest loved ones for many years, but he had kept his distance because it wouldn’t do to coddle a future queen. It wouldn’t have been safe to name her as his heir. Not until she was wise enough to fully embrace her affinity’s power and accept her place. Not until Michael accepted the full burn of his Guardian legacy to stand by her side. He had channeled his love into the fight against the Rogues and the help he had given the D’Arcy family. All without knowing if his plans would fall into place. Autonomy was a tricky thing to manipulate. Lily and Michael had to be free to choose their places even if he’d been certain of what those places should be.
He had used the palace to slow time itself so that Lily and Michael would be peers. He hadn’t done it lightly. It had been the greatest work of his long life, but it had also been his heart’s desire.
He had long considered Lily the daughter of his heart.
Sophia had suspected. Especially when he had helped in the creation of the secret garden with his own two hands. She had visited the conservatory often to watch him dig in the dirt. He had kissed her once in a moment of weakness. Sweet, sweet Sophia. Nothing more than a kiss. He wasn’t a monk, but she was human. And he’d already learned his lesson about loving mortal women.
He hadn’t been able to save Elizabeth, but he had tried to be true to her memory by loving her family. They had become his even though he’d never been able to claim her as his bride.
Kissing Sophia had been a mistake, but no more so than the garden. She had loved him deeply ever after. Or at least as long as she’d lived. He’d tried his best to honor her even as he broke her heart.
He hoped she forgave him. Lily had been given a palace, the garden, a Guardian and ultimately the throne. He hadn’t foreseen the wings. He’d thought she would assume the mantle and wear the bronz
e wings as he had worn them. Her affinity was greater than his plans. She had become a better leader than he could have foreseen even with his experience. And Michael was a formidable regent, a Brimstone prince by her side whom no one dared go through to harm her.
“You know she feeds him apples. I’m not at all sure they’re good for him,” Sybil said. The seamstress—among other things—came up behind him as he stood at the stables behind the palace. He had an entire wing for his retirement apartments, but he was often too restless to enjoy them.
His destrier whickered at the woman who threatened his treats as if he protested. Ezekiel turned to meet his oldest ally. She was as lovely as she’d always been. Daemons weren’t immortal, only nearly so, but they did not age as mortals aged. If you knew where to look you could see their age in their eyes. Sybil’s eyes were bottomless pits. Deep and dark and too knowing by far. He ignored the tingle of awareness she always caused when she appeared out of the shadows. He’d never had time to explore those depths or the feelings they inspired in him.
He had sacrificed much to fulfill his duties to the throne. And fate had seen fit to tempt him time and time again with strong, desirable women he was forced to admire from afar.
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