Chapter Thirty-Five

Lilith settled Litt and Abaddon onto the skeletal horse beside them, bones clacking like cold windchimes.

She and Nidhogg rode another mount; Little White Dragon stayed in Nidhogg’s arms, yet her worry gnawed like a rat.

Her brows knotted, and she kept cutting glances toward the two shadows on the neighboring saddle.

“Very worried?” Nidhogg dipped her head toward Lilith, voice low like midnight water. “You keep looking at Litt’s side.”

“Mm.” Lilith’s answer was muffled, like a shell on the shore. “She’s still a child, and a Reaper Fragment.”

“If the Grand Mausoleum’s Reaper Fragment has designs on her, I might not shield her.”

“This place itself is a blade-field; even I get cut, let alone them.”

“You don’t have to worry that hard.” Nidhogg soothed Little White Dragon, words like warm smoke.

“Those little ones, especially Abaddon, run like shadows.”

“If danger touches them, she’ll whisk Litt away.”

“Say what you want, I still worry.” Lilith’s mouth twisted like a knot.

“Now I finally get what parents feel.”

“If I could, I’d stuff Litt in a pocket space every day, safe like a pearl in a shell.”

“Care less about them, and care more about yourself.” Nidhogg tapped Lilith’s small nose, a dragon-claw light as a feather.

Her slender Black Dragon fingers tickled, and Lilith wrinkled her nose, tail swatting Nidhogg with playful sting.

“You’re so good with words,” she half-pouted, half-smiled.

“I’m not joking. You really need to look after yourself.” Nidhogg folded her smile away like a fan.

“In fights, you keep buying openings with your own blood, trading wound for wound.”

“You’re porcelain and quick to bruise, yet you don’t protect yourself.”

“I don’t know where that wrecking habit came from, but break it soon.”

“Every time you finish a fight, you’re a ledger of cuts.”

“If you won’t ache for yourself, I will—and so will those two.”

“You’re not traveling alone anymore.”

“We all carry you in our hearts; carry yourself, too. Okay?”

“Okay… I get it.” Lilith ducked her head, voice soft as drifting ash.

“It’s not on purpose.”

“My self-heal is strong, and that style is… efficient.”

“Sorry. I won’t dare again.”

She started to explain, then Nidhogg’s look hit like a cold bell.

Little White Dragon lowered her head, tapped her fingers together, and muttered, hurt like a cub.

“Forget it.” Nidhogg sighed, breath like a tired ember.

“Whatever you promise now, a real fight will burn it away.”

“I never quite know what to do with you.”

“I’ll find a way to carve this lesson into your bones.”

“By the way, I remember you weren’t keen on being Litt’s mom at first.” Nidhogg let the scolding go, tossing the topic like a pebble.

“Back then, you couldn’t accept that word, and now you called yourself mom.”

“Because it makes her happier.” Lilith’s tone was calm, like still water.

“I’ve made peace with it.”

“No matter how I deny it, until she grows, Litt sees me as her mother.”

“I can’t argue that away, so I go with it, and she smiles.”

At first, Lilith resisted being called mom because a frayed shard of her old male spirit still tugged like a stubborn thread.

The Black Dragon had snapped most of it, leaving almost nothing but this small, cute body.

She’d reconciled with the little dragon she wore, yet not with becoming a mother so easily.

Now she’s thought it through; struggle won’t bend fact.

Better to lie flat and face it, like reeds yielding to wind—good for everyone.

“Good. Clear mind, clear path.” Nidhogg rubbed Lilith’s head, palm warm as sun on scales.

She shifted Lilith in her arms, making a safer nest for the little dragon to lie in.

The records say the Grand Mausoleum’s dungeon second floor is smaller than the first, like a shrunk map.

Maybe skeletal horses cut distance like knives, or maybe this floor truly is half the size.

They crossed the ashen-black plain.

Little White Dragon didn’t feel that farmland of emptiness again, where every step was a dead end.

Drowsy in Nidhogg’s embrace like a leaf on a stream, she finally saw the next shape on the horizon.

It was a tower, vast and high, a stone spear stabbing the sky.

Somehow she hadn’t noticed it until now, as if fog hid a giant behind a gauze veil.

Ghostly blue mist blurred its face.

From the giant’s windows she glimpsed fully drawn great bows, curved like crescent moons.

One more step, and an arrow might pluck her off the saddle.

It could pin her to the earth and make her heart fly right out of her chest.

“Careful. The Undead knights we met before should be nearby.” Nidhogg dipped her voice, a shadow under the wind.

Little White Dragon shifted and sat up.

Her small leg felt like mended porcelain.

The two broken bones had knit back.

The skin had healed to smooth silk, but inside the structure still felt flimsy, not ready to bear weight.

Even so, she propped her leg and stayed in Nidhogg’s arms, safe like a bird in a nest.

As they drew near, Litt and Abaddon had already opened a dark violet vortex.

They slipped through like minnows vanishing into a whirlpool.

The ever-more-reliable little Demon left them a tiny communicator, a pebble-sized tool to toggle the gate.

When needed, Abaddon could send help in a heartbeat.

“Are we going into that tower?” Lilith asked, doubt fluttering like a moth.

“Of course we are. How else do we go deeper?” Nidhogg shot back, words clean as steel.

“Alright… nothing then.” Lilith breathed out, the sigh a faint cloud.

“You’re right.”