Lilith stood on the stone-man’s corpse. Dusk-purple veins dimmed, and the body sloughed into a carpet of grit. She hadn’t even checked the rubble when weight vanished—her whole body drifted upward.
The Little White Dragon twisted to look. Everything in the room fell as if the world had flipped; she plunged with curtains of water and shards of stone, down toward the slabbed floor.
Lilith managed half a roll midair, then hit flat, straight as a board. The hatchling lay wide-eyed, while splashing water and pebbles thumped down a heartbeat after her.
She touched her face. It was slick with water. The tiny stones stung like hail, but they left no cuts, not even a bruise.
Like a sudden downpour. Over in a blink.
Lilith blinked back. She lay there, staring at the ceiling stripped of its water-skin, staring into the dark-violet eye etched in sigils above.
A prickle of wrongness rose first, then the thought clicked. Since entering the hidden passage, everything she’d seen sat obediently on the ground. That never fit.
In the Inverted City, the stone coffins she pried had hung from the sky or squatted upside down. How could any coffin lie meek on the floor, waiting for her hands?
So it was the stone-man playing tricks. It must have flipped the chamber’s gravity. Yet when Lilith came in from outside, she felt no mismatch at the threshold. How?
Probably some illusion craft, she told herself, a reed-thin answer to calm the pond.
“Huff.” The Knight-Captain looked down at the Little White Dragon sprawled on the stones and offered a calloused hand.
Lilith took that solid right hand and sat up, then let him prop her in the corner like a fallen banner. She pressed her left palm to her brow, canceling the emergency prayer she’d used in the fight. Blood welled again from the hatchling’s forehead, but bandage and gauze dammed it back.
A muffled groan slipped out as she cupped her belly. The pain bit like snapped ribs—because they were. A few, at least. No way this hurt without breaks.
She couldn’t treat this kind of wound. So she softened her breath, sank into the wall like a tired leaf, and waited for her body’s hard, patient weavers to knit bone.
“Think I could yank a rib and use it as a weapon?” Lilith joked, half-serious, at the Knight-Captain. The imposing man answered with silence. She stuck out her tongue, then tucked her chin and shut up.
They sat in that damp silence. Maybe he couldn’t stand the mood. Maybe his strength couldn’t hold him outside. In a flicker, the Knight-Captain slipped back into Lilith’s body like a shadow into a lamp.
She sighed at the empty space beside her. She opened the little pouch strapped to her left forearm and fished out a biscuit shattered in the fight. She stared at the water’s skin and gnawed.
A few bites, and the compressed biscuit was gone. She swallowed too fast and choked; the Little White Dragon coughed hard, ribs protesting, until the dry mass finally slid down.
Clutching her aching upper abdomen, she fumbled for a drink. Before she even lifted her pack flap, a waterskin pressed cool against her cheek.
Lilith looked up. The Black Swordsman stood there with the bottle in hand. She took it, tipped her head back, and gulped hard. She almost choked again, but fought the cough down.
“How’d you get yourself like this?” His voice came dull through the helm. He sat beside her, sword in his arms, watching the girl at his side.
“Careless. Overconfident. Didn’t react in time.” Lilith snapped her skin shut and stared at the water’s dull mirror. “What else would it be? We’ve traveled three years together. You know me. But you—how long since I last heard you speak?”
“Not sure. A year or two.” The Black Swordsman counted on his fingers, then gave her a not-so-certain answer. “As a guardian, I shouldn’t chat unless needed.”
“Is that so? When we first met, you talked plenty.” Lilith’s white hair fell in sparse strands along her cheeks, veiling her expression. “So why talk now? Because I’m not the White Holy Maiden anymore?”
“Because I think we need to talk.” He cut off her self-reproach and spoke to the Little White Dragon with grave weight. “A Black Swordsman guards his White Holy Maiden to the death. Even if you step down, I won’t step back. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you can guard yourself.” His gaze flicked to the bandage wound around her brow.
Lilith pouted and pretended she hadn’t heard that line.
“Why didn’t you use a phantom from the start?” He shifted the topic, a hint of anger rumbling in the dull voice. “One use of the Captain or Mona would’ve ended it. You wouldn’t be this hurt.”
“I’ve got to train. If I don’t fight on my own, how do I grow? I can’t lean on you forever.” Lilith fired back, righteous as thunder. But three years side by side, after gates-of-hell escapes, meant he could read her like weather.
“Tell the truth.” The Black Swordsman watched her, calm as a lake at dusk.
“I don’t want you to disappear.” His stare broke her bluff. She curled up like a hamster ball and muttered, sullen and small. “After inheriting the Taint, every phantom I use speeds its bite into you. Three more real fights at most, and the Taint will fold you into itself. Your minds will go.”
“But even if you don’t use us, the Taint still eats at us. We’ll vanish anyway.” He didn’t spare the knife.
“I know, but listen—if I let it erode slow, and keep a tight leash, your minds can hold for years. In that time, I’ll find a way to save you…” Her words stumbled, flimsy as paper boats. She lifted her head, met his eyes, and fell silent. She wasn’t a gullible child. Years with the Taint had taught her what could and couldn’t be done.
“I can’t protect you much longer, Lilith. But I can still protect you for a while.” The Black Swordsman gripped his sword and went to one knee, helm tilted toward her. “You know this. I’ve got little left to give. Let us walk this last stretch with you.”
Lilith looked at him kneeling on cold stone. She held her breath a moment, then pushed off the wall and fought her way upright.
“Enough!” she shouted, sudden as thunder. “I said I won’t use you, so I won’t! Get back in there and stay put!”
The Little White Dragon thrust out a hand and stuffed him back inside in one motion. She puffed out her cheeks and growled, “I will find a way to cleanse the Taint. I can protect myself—and all of you.”
