Chapter Twenty: Into the Swamp
Crack. A not-quite-crisp snap.
Lilith looked down. The brassy key had split clean through—the half stuck in the black door’s lock, the other half in the Little White Dragon’s hand.
She wanted to swear, heat flaring under her ribs, but good manners corked the words. The Little White Dragon stared wide-eyed at the key, trying to figure out how it broke.
Nope. Ever since she first saw the word “physics,” she knew they weren’t meant to get along. Asking Lilith to analyze this was asking a fish to climb a tree.
“This is ridiculous.” Lilith sighed. The Little White Dragon lifted her slim leg and kicked the black iron door. The half-key jolted out a notch. Lilith grabbed it and yanked it free.
No key now, but she still had a way to open that shut black gate.
The Little White Dragon put her right thumb in her mouth and bit down. Sharp canine teeth nicked tender skin. A bead of crimson welled from Lilith’s finger. She smeared it on the black door before the wound could knit.
The keyless lock clicked open. Lilith pushed lightly, and a pitch-black passage yawned beyond.
“Opening doors like this always feels so unreal,” Lilith muttered. “Why does White Dragon blood open every door?”
“I’ve no idea. Fate’s gifts never make sense. It gives and it takes by whim,” Nidhogg said, shaking her head. Even the Black Dragon couldn’t explain Lilith’s quirk.
“Fine.” Lilith pouted. “Let’s figure out how to get down.”
She had a point. The door was open, but the passage behind it dropped into bottomless dark—a vertical shaft. Free fall straight to floor two.
Lilith isn’t the queen of hard landings. She’s sturdier than Geralt, sure, but nowhere near those monsters who leap from any height, pop up, and swing a charged strike. From this height, she’d likely get hurt. The shaft was too narrow—no way to spread her wings.
“You’ve got a cloak, don’t you?” Nidhogg reminded her. “It should cushion the impact.”
“Oh—right.” Lilith smacked her forehead, chagrin bright as sparks. Her eyes lit up. She grabbed Nidhogg’s hands, blue eyes shining like a fangirl meeting her idol. “You’re a genius!”
“But my cloak’s still on cooldown.” She checked her clothes. The Grand Mausoleum was dim, starved of light. Her Holy Cloak needed longer to reweave its radiance, so its guard hadn’t returned yet. “Looks like you go first.”
“I’ll wait below. Don’t get hurt.” Nidhogg nodded, carefully walking her through it again: if timing gets tight, hook the ceiling with your tendrils, then find a moment to spread your wings and glide.
Lilith answered every point. No need to worry—she’s not stupid. She wouldn’t splat herself.
Nidhogg nodded, confirmed Lilith was ready, then stepped to the rim and leapt. She vanished into the second layer of the dungeon.
“I’ll take her and head down too.” After Nidhogg’s silhouette disappeared, Abaddon came to Lilith’s side. The gray little Demon summoned a violet vortex. She’d already stepped half inside, only half a face—painted with a scarlet spiral—still looking at Lilith. Litt, cradled in Abaddon’s arms, waved with bright energy. “See you later, Mom!”
The purple whirl closed. The two little ones vanished from Lilith’s sight.
“Guess it’s just me.” Lilith stood at the edge and drew a deep breath, calm pooling like still water. She waited as her clothing finished charging. When blue-white light bloomed on the Holy Cloak again, Lilith let herself tip and fell headfirst into the narrow dark.
The shaft was shockingly tight. Even Lilith felt cramped inside it. She had no idea how Nidhogg’s figure squeezed through.
Lilith shut her eyes. She was light; her descent was slow, a feather drifting down a well. She could’ve opened her eyes and watched the view if she wanted. She didn’t. Truth be told, the Little White Dragon’s a bit afraid of heights. Better to ignore the scenery than scare herself half to death. Eyes closed, she waited to hit ground face-first in perfect form. The Holy Cloak’s grace was with her; she wasn’t worried about crashing and becoming a memory.
Half-adrift in that carefree fall, she heard a sound that clamped a hand around her heart.
Pop!
She knew that sound. It was her cloak’s barrier shattering. Lilith’s eyes flew open. She looked down—then met the gaze of a towering rider on horseback.
She hung in midair. Below stretched a boundless swamp. Mud lay under a skin of black vegetation, species unknown, packed like scales. Water that forgot to flow had rotted through uncounted years into a nauseating ink. Here and there, bubbles shouldered up, glug-glug, touched the surface, then burst with a wet plop.
She could almost see the stench. Even before she touched ground, the foul air had her pinching her nose.
But this wasn’t the time to gripe about the surroundings. A towering rider waited beneath her. Steel plate wrapped him head to toe. He rode a skinless skeletal horse. Ghost-blue blood coursed inside that corpse-white frame, a chill that crawled under the skin.
Worse was the rider himself. Armor sealed him tight, except for the head. Not because he’d forgotten a helmet.
He didn’t have a head.
Where a head should be, blue fire burned like a torch. In his hands lay a bow two, maybe three meters long. He raised that titanic bow and leveled it at the drifting Lilith.
Mist condensed in his grip into an arrow over two meters long. The great bow curved into a full moon. Drawn to the limit, it pointed at Lilith in the sky, ready to shoot the Little White Dragon out of the air.
Lilith clicked her tongue. She flared her wings.
