Page 8 of Judge of Saints and Sinners

Hiriam was unfazed and followed me, a deep burgundy shadow, those claws clicking against the hardwood floors as he moved. “He heard about your little pet, that he’s gotten lost in the world again.”

I took a long, slow drink from my goblet. “And? What does he want me to do about it? He knows I can’t travel into the living world right now. It would wipe me out completely. He should send a Brotherhood warrior or maybe even one of you.”

“The Bane is busy elsewhere, and you know that the Brotherhood are all currently overextended as it is. Poor, poor little hellion, you’re going to have to go on your own.”

“Cerberus is a part of Hell and a part of me. He will come home. I don’t know why my father is so concerned with this.”

Hiram bared a mouthful of sharp teeth in my direction. “If you dragged your head out of your ass for half a decade, then you would realize that we need every creature, every soldier here to help. The Corrupted gain souls every day. The Drude’s power is growing, which means your father’s is lessening.”

My power flashed out of me in an instant, the flames wrapping themselves around Hiram and holding him aloft as the heatless fire wrapped keenly around his neck, an extension of my own flexed fingers. “In case you missed it, servant, until very recently, my father, and my own brothers, conspired to lock me up in a pit in the very bowels of this world. The only place I have my head is in the future because this world was destined to go down in fire and ashes. And if it’s time has come, then I will stand at the helm, in the position thrust upon me, wearing my family’s shackles until the very end.”

Hiriam snarled, the sound muted as I squeezed his thick throat. Then with a roll of one shoulder, I released him. “Now, run home to your master. I don’t jump at anyone’s command, not anymore.”

Hiriam shot me one last murderous look then stalked back towards the window. He paused by my chair, his head tilting as he observed my drawings. Dread curled in my belly, and I barely resisted the urge to strike out with my powers.

But then, he would know what it might mean. What it meant to me, the last thing that really held value in my world. Thankfully, after another lurching twist of his body, his thick, leathery wings spread, taking up half the room and effectively shattering the window behind him. I didn’t blink, unaffected by his destructive tendencies.

Once a spoiled human, always a spoiled human. He just had special tricks now. Just before he leapt into the darkened Underworld sky, a few final words slipped from his mouth. A warning, a dare. It wasn’t until he was a speck in the distance, flapping obediently towards the Court of Hell, that I realized what he’d said.

“It serves you right to lose another one.”

The words rolled over and over in my mind as I stalked back to my chair. Small bits of glass and wood from the shattered window lay across the page now. I brushed them aside, ignoring the pinprick of a sharp edge as I stared down at the flower I’d drawn. A lily, the petals bright in bloom, with one, delicate petal falling along the stem.

I tilted my head. Sighing, I tossed the paper down on the stack. I’d drawn this flower over and over since I’d been freed nearly a year ago.

She had carried lilies, her little boy's favorite flower, straight from the garden in her front lawn. I could remember that moment like it was yesterday, the pain greater than being gutted and twice as lasting. At least the dead couldn’t feel anymore.

Because we, their caretakers, felt everything.

Fuck my life.

Relaxing my spine, my body fell back into the softness of the chair, a courtesy I rarely extended to it. But I wanted to think. I wanted to let those words soak in. So much had happened while I was imprisoned. And while I was concerned I’d left part of my mind in that cave, I knew that the important things would come back to me. Making sure I was finally alone, I pulled my power from the lantern and threw myself into darkness.

My teeth gritted, my fangs a painful pinch as my eyes closed.

“Another what?” I asked out loud, as if I could command my damaged mind and its fickle tendencies to find me the answer.

My mind hummed, always anxious, always on edge these days, and even with my eyes closed, I was bombarded with the thousands of sights and scenes of the Underworld around me. There were souls arriving at the dam, the last step in their journey into the Underworld. I could hear Kharon’s creatures, the reapers, herding them, guarding them from the corrupted souls that the Drude had turned against us.

The mysterious force had been around for almost a century now, a power that grew and grew until my father went from disregarding it as a deformed creature, to understanding that this thing could be the end of the Underworld as we knew it.

Souls powered the Underworld. The incoming souls paid a toll—one coin to the ferryman, one to the judge—but it was their passing through the dam that fed Lucifer and our powers. With the Drude siphoning off the power of those souls, we were weak. This meant more attacks, more souls being taken and changed. Suddenly, my father's last kingdom was too large, too cumbersome for the six of us to rule.

Not that it mattered now. Once upon a time, the life force of the Underworld had been the processing of souls, the guardians of souls as they healed or as they were punished. Then, when they were ready, they were ushered to the Pointe where they were sent back into the world. Some went on to become members of the Brotherhood. Some were chosen by the Seraphim. Others, the most obedient and deadly, were taken into my father’s personal army, the Bane.

But all of it was cylindrical. A necessary part of life. We were meant to play our part. But I’d always known, always wondered, why the good souls, the rehabilitated souls that we were sending back onto Earth, were not getting any better. There was no bettering the world now.

It was a flawed system for a race designed to do only one thing. Live. Die. Try again.

I huffed out a breath, my body cooling as my power sank deep into my core, throbbing painfully as I tried to give my mind the quiet it needed to process.

Another what?

Fuck that male. I was almost in enough of a mood to chase him down and break a leg or two just to prove to Father how annoying his messenger was. But I didn’t have time for vengeance. Not yet. There would be an end to the world. Then I could have my moment with that winged bastard.

Moving awkwardly, I moved to stroke a hand down my hair. It was long these days, a bright silvery blond. My fingers dug deep, and I swirled them at my scalp, thinking about how my mother had once treated me like this. She had been one of the few people who had never feared me. Even when I had been in my true form.

My eyes grew heavy as my mind dragged me through my memories. She had called me beautiful, her first and finest creation. The only female to ever use those words to me, until… My chest heaved as I threw myself into a standing position. Whipping my hand over my chest, I pressed hard at my center, waiting, hoping, unfeeling. There used to be a pounding there sometimes, a pull. But now, it was quiet, so quiet that I never would've guessed that I’d been experiencing nearly constant pain.