Champion of God

“What are you going to do?” Lilitha’s voice echoed through the room as she tugged at the bars. “What are you going to do?!”

Her pleas fell on deaf ears. She knew what was coming. Damon had painted the picture vividly enough.

The nightmares were about to become reality. “No, no, no, no, no,” she muttered. She watched two men disappear through a door at the end of the room. They returned moments later, their arms laden with tools.

Lilitha’s gaze was drawn to the saw. “NO!” she roared. “He’s still alive! He’s still alive! SILUS!”

Silus remained motionless. The captain’s teeth were bared in a grimace. Mandalay stood beside him, silent, arms crossed, his back to Lilitha.

His golden hair was pulled back into a ponytail, glinting in the firelight. Lilitha continued to scream, her head thrashing as she pulled at the bars. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Oh, God, Silus! Silus! FATHER!”

He stirred as they rolled him onto his stomach. He tried to rise but collapsed back onto the floor.

“Chain him to the bars,” the captain ordered. “He might be weak but he’ll find strength to fight, I’m sure.”

Lilitha watched as they fastened the chains to the cell bars, forcing him to lie flat, arms and legs stretched out. He turned his head and their eyes met.

“Father,” she choked out. She couldn’t tell if he recognized her. She couldn’t tell if he heard her or even knew who she was.

But then his lips parted and she thought she heard him whisper her name. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“Prop up his head,” the captain commanded.

They placed a wooden block under his chin. The captain knelt beside him. Mandalay handed him the saw.

The captain looked up at him. “Watch closely how I do it,” he said, as if teaching a lesson. Lilitha gritted her teeth. She was panting so hard she felt dizzy.

Her sweaty hands slipped on the bars. As the saw touched Silus’s left horn, Lilitha screamed, “I love you, Father!”

Tears streamed down her face as she squeezed her eyes shut. Silus bellowed. Lilitha screamed. She screamed and screamed, trying to drown out the sounds of Silus’s agony.

Trying to drown out the grinding sounds of the saw. She let go of the bars and covered her ears, still screaming as Silus roared. The sound seemed to make the dungeon vibrate.

It seeped into her bloodstream, into her bones, into the deepest part of her brain where it would remain like a thorn for the rest of her life. Lilitha didn’t know what she was screaming.

She was roaring too, her human and Diablon voice mixed together. No one tried to silence her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t scream louder than Silus.

She wanted to throw herself against the bars—but the baby stopped her. So she started pulling at her hair. She raked her fingers down her arms and legs, using the pain to try to dull the agony in her chest.

It didn’t work. Nothing worked!

“STOOOP!” Bellow after bellow after bellow. Screaming. Roaring. Shouting from the men.

And in the midst of it all was that terrible grinding sound. She would remember it. She would remember it forever. Then the smell of blood came.

So much blood! It filled her lungs and sinuses. Lilitha coughed and spluttered, choking on it. It was not the same as human blood. Toxic. Noxious. Wrong!

This was wrong! This was not how it was meant to be!

~You see, our horns are vascularized,~ Damon’s voice echoed in her mind. ~We feel everything and it bleeds like a waterfall.~

She didn’t want to look. Up until then, she’d kept her eyes squeezed shut but now they flung open. And she saw. And she ~knew~.

And she understood everything Damon had ever felt. All his rage. All his darkness. She saw it reflected in Silus’s blood. She heard it in the echo of his screams.

Then, just like that, the bellowing stopped. Silus was either unconscious or dead. But the grinding noise continued—it made her skin crawl.

It set her teeth on edge. It gnawed a hole in her stomach the size of the world. Silus’s left horn was a bloody stump and they were almost finished sawing off the other.

~Mandalay~ was almost finished. The captain stood over him, arms folded, watching. Lilitha slid to her knees and vomited. Her arms were shaking.

Spit hung from her mouth as she stared blankly at the ground. Her tears had stopped, though her throat felt like it was closed over. She raised a trembling hand to pinch her nose.

The smell of her father. The smell of his death. The dungeon turned black. It brightened again and she found herself on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

The grinding noise had stopped, though she could still hear the echo of it in her ears. The men were quietly murmuring to each other.

Lilitha couldn’t look. She couldn’t look at Silus’s body as they hauled him away, right past her cell. Taking a shuddering breath, she closed her eyes.

A tear leaked out as she clutched his necklace, holding onto the memory of his life. Not his death. His ~life~.

“Lilitha,” a whisper broke the silence.

Lilitha’s eyes snapped open. She blinked. The dungeon was empty except for herself and one Champion. He was looking down at her through the bars, his blue eyes catching the light.

“You killed him,” she croaked. He didn’t respond. “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

Mandalay’s voice was tight but firm. “I saved you.”

Lilitha’s hysterical laughter echoed in the silence.

Mandalay glanced over his shoulder. “Keep quiet!”

Then she started to cry. Her tears were hot on her cheeks. Sobs clawed up her throat and she kept snorting through her nose.

He grabbed the bars, his hands stained with blood. “I had to do it. To save you. To be rid of them. They kill people. They’re monsters, Lilitha!”

Lilitha pushed herself up, hands braced against the floor as she took slow deep breaths. She glared into his eyes. “~You’re~ the monster.”

“We’re running out of time. Be honest with me. Captain Gavron claims you’re one of them. That you didn’t transform, but were born a monster.”

Lilitha just stared back at him.

“Don’t hold back, tell me!” His voice echoed in the hollow space, and he anxiously glanced over his shoulder again.

She pushed herself up against the cold bars, resting her back against them as she sat. It was a struggle to breathe, her throat clogged with tears and her chest heavy with anger. The metallic scent of Silus’s blood was suffocating her.

She lifted her gaze to find Mandalay observing her, his eyes shining in the dim, flickering light. They seemed unusually large in his pale face. His gaze kept darting to her stomach. Lilitha glanced down at herself, then back up at him.

“It’s yours,” she confessed.

“What’s mine?”

She gently placed her hand on her stomach. Mandalay’s eyes widened in shock. He let go of the bars and took a step back.

“You’re lying.”

“No, he’s the one lying. That Southern captain is lying.”

“It—it’s mine?”

“You were right all along.” She managed to get to her knees and clung to the bars, looking up at Mandalay with pleading eyes. It wasn’t hard to let the tears seep into her voice. “You were right all along. You’re always right.”

Mandalay wiped his trembling arm across his mouth, then quickly pulled it away, remembering it was stained with Silus’s blood.

“Are you sure? He says it’s a monster.”

“He doesn’t know anything. How could he? I know what’s inside me. No one else. I’m its mother.”

Mandalay just stared at her.

“They manipulated me. They hurt me.” The tears were already welling up in her eyes. She let them flow freely down her cheeks. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t escape.”

He kept staring, then something in his expression softened. He moved closer to the bars, then halted. His jaw clenched.

“You just said you hated me. You were screaming. You were screaming for him.”

“He bewitched me! You understand that, don’t you?” She gripped the bars tighter.

“You called him 'father.’ You said you loved him.”

“It was their spell! But he’s dead now. And now—now I can see. I didn’t love him at all. I-I love you.”

Mandalay frowned. Lilitha’s heart pounded in her throat. The tears wouldn’t stop. All for the baby. All for the clan. For Silus’s memory. She’d never wanted to live as much as she did now. She had to escape. If there was any chance at all…

Mandalay’s gaze dropped to her stomach, then quickly returned to her eyes.

“Please…” Her lips quivered.

Mandalay stepped back, shaking his head. “You are a witch.”

Lilitha’s heart plummeted as he walked away from her cell and vanished up the dungeon stairwell, his heavy footsteps fading into the distance.