Lilith
“And for goodness’ sake, would somebody please wake up the duchess already? This was supposed to be for her benefit.”
I opened my eyes to glare at the indignant countess. She shrank back into her chair and the commotion slowly died off as the dozen or so demons seated around the table realized the faux pas. Nobody in the room respected me, not really, but the moment they stopped pretending to recognize the authority behind my title was the moment their own titles stopped meaning anything.
“My benefit?” I stood up with enough force to knock my chair over. “We’ve been here for four goddamn hours and this is the first time any of you blood sucking worms have even deigned to acknowledge me. So, if this truly is for my benefit, then let’s drop this act and actually address the issues at hand. Then just maybe we could make a real fucking difference for the people who desperately need it.”
The room was completely still, and the nobles stared back at me in either shock or offense. All of them except for one, who was grinning in amusement.
“I believe that Duchess Lilith is feeling a bit under the weather.” Rose stepped forward from the back of the room to interject. “Perhaps it would be best if we reconvened at another time.”
“No. I think the duchess is of perfectly sound mind,” Count Devos argued, still grinning at me. “And she’s right. Hel hasn’t had a single impactful change since the last council was dissolved nearly eight millennia ago. We’ve grown complacent. Stagnated by infighting. Left behind by any measurable standard. We’re the laughingstock of the lower planes, and that’s not going to change until we do.”
I glared at the man. “Count Devos, I don’t need—”
Lilith, this is Bryce. I don’t know how much time I have, so I’ll be quick. Mother contracted with a service in the hells to resurrect me. They called themselves ‘the institute.’ I’m about to try to escape, but I don’t know anything about where I’m being kept. They won’t kill me if I’m caught, but this may be the last message I can send. Please, if there’s no way to get to me, then don’t tell Thea.
“Duchess, you don’t need what?” the count asked, and I latched onto Bryce’s messaging spell, keeping the connection open while I replied.
“I don’t need to be here for this.” I squared my shoulders and put as much authority into my voice as I could manage before continuing. “Every single one of you is to remain here until a new council is formed. I’ll be back by the end of the week. If there are any conflicts left unresolved at that point, I’ll deal with them my way.”
I ignored the shouting as I stomped out of the room. Rose followed me, closing the door behind us to cut off the noise. It looked like she was about to say something, but I held up a finger in order to finally respond to Bryce’s message.
Don’t try to escape by yourself. You’ll never make it out without being discovered. Find a place to lie low, and wait for us. Use your concealment spell if you can, but send me another message before you do. I’ll hold the connection open and use it to track you. Stay safe, Bryce. Help is on the way.
I’ll try. Thank you, Lilith.
I latched onto the connection again and secured it before finally addressing the patiently waiting dryad. “I just received a message from Bryce. She’s being held against her will somewhere in the lower planes. Ne’ara, from the feel of it.”
“Thea’s girlfriend? I thought she was in Tess’s afterlife.”
“That’s what Chorus told us, but it seems like the woman who is after her managed to find a way around it.”
“This can’t possibly end well,” Rose pointed out the obvious, and I agreed with her, so she continued. “Is there any reason not to simply contact Tess and have her solve this problem for us? She tends to take things like this personally.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“She’ll insist on taking Bryce back to her afterlife.”
“Which she will do, regardless.”
“Not if Bryce ascends first. A mantle would prevent her from being sent to an afterlife on death, and any secrets she might have already learned would hopefully be irrelevant at that point, because as a goddess, she would be permitted to know them.”
“You’re grasping.” Rose frowned at me, but continued before I could object. “You have no way of knowing what she learned in the afterlife. Even if you did, and it was all somehow safe knowledge, Bryce would have failed her candidacy when she died. Now, in order to ascend, she’ll need to attract the attention of an entirely different mantle. A mortal attracting the attention of a single mantle in their lifetime is exceedingly rare. Two is all but impossible.”
“Except she already has,” I responded with a smile, and Rose blinked back at me. “I can feel it in the connection that I’m holding open. It’s barely anything at this point. In fact, she probably hasn’t even noticed it yet, but it's there.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I’m not exactly an expert on the topic,” I admitted. “My best guess is that multiple mantles were on the verge of considering her before one made her a candidate. Now she’s done something while in captivity to attract the attention of whichever didn’t win out the first time around.”
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Rose continued to argue. “You must realize that one life isn’t worth making an enemy of the most powerful being in existence. Even if that weren’t the case, the elf already chose to go to Tess’s afterlife. Who's to say she doesn't want to return?”
“I won’t force Bryce to do anything, but she’s still a member of our household, and that means we’re going to do our best to ensure she can at least make that choice for herself. Besides, I hardly consider Tess to be the most powerful being in existence. She may be the goddess of magic, but she’s still only a human.”
“A human who is older than every living demon prince combined,” she countered, and I smiled back at her.
“But not older than me. Did I ever tell you about the time I spared her life?”
“Gods forbid you ever let anyone forget it.” The poor dryad let out a resigned breath before finally nodding. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”
“Stay here and keep the nobility in line. Don’t let them out unless they have a workable solution, or there’s only one of them left alive.”
“Orrid isn’t going to be happy if you kill off all of your vassals.” She gave me a disapproving look, but I waved it off.
“He should have thought about that before leaving me in charge, besides they all have heirs. If we can’t get peace with this batch, then we’ll do it with the next.” My smile grew sinister, and she rolled her eyes at me.
“And yet, you wonder where your reputation comes from.”
“It really is a mystery, isn’t it? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an old protégé to contact and a half-dozen favors to call in.”
~~~~~
“Ne’ara? You’re certain that’s where she is?” the mass of living shadow asked. Tymrit always did have a flair for the dramatic, but still, was it too much to ask that his manifestations have a face? It felt unnerving talking to a formless void.
“Far from it. Which is why I need you to make sure she’s there before I reach out to Prince Al’kais and start making accusations.” The shadow didn’t respond, and the silence dragged on for far too long. “Tymrit, what aren’t you telling me?”
“Tess activated one of my agents yesterday without talking to me first. When I confronted her about it, she said there was something in the lower planes she needed retrieved. She seemed furious, so I didn’t pry any further.”
“Can you call back your agent?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Not without Tess knowing that it was me. I’m sorry, Lilith, but I’m already on thin ice with her and I’m not willing to give up my mantle for this.”
“It’s alright, I understand. Can you at least confirm Bryce’s location for me?”
“I can do that much,” he assured me, before continuing with a mischievous undertone. “Although you’ve been out of the game for a while. I can’t promise anything if it comes down to a race between you and an agent I trained myself.”
“Truly? How could you have so little faith in me?” A smile crept up on my face as a wave of nostalgia washed over me. “Should we bet on it?”
“The usual?” he asked, and I nodded in agreement.
“The usual. I’ll see you in Hel when all of this is over.”
“I doubt it.” The shadow dissipated with an ominous chuckle, and I turned to leave. It wouldn’t take long for Tymrit to confirm whether or not Bryce was in Ne’ara, which meant I needed to be ready to meet with Prince Al’kais the moment I got word back from him.