Page 19 of Wings of Darkness (Daughter of the Seven Circles #2)

Chapter

Thirteen

LUCILLE

E ventually, I calmed myself enough to think about my choice, but the guilt never faded. I didn’t think it ever would.

I went through so much in Elora to save my mom, and now look at her.

I didn’t save her—I condemned her. All because Michael wanted my life and to possess my mom.

A mom who now lay unconscious in the king’s rooms. I haven’t even tried to visit her after the first time.

The shame and weight of how little I knew about the worlds she kept me from—no!

That I kept myself from—put us in this situation.

I should’ve tried harder to find and unlock her books.

I should’ve never believed Michael would do what I wanted.

Why didn’t I trust my instincts? Why didn’t I know more?

I slammed my hands on the carpet.

And Aspen. The first male to capture my heart was being abused and used by an evil bitch. His mom asked me to save him. I told myself I’d find the general and save him! Everything inside me pulsed with the urgency to rescue him. So much so—I’d put him before my mom.

But how?

A slobbery, warm tongue slid up the side of my cheek, taking away my tears but leaving a wet line of saliva. I looked up at Rune and her illuminated golden eyes.

“I said not to follow me.”

Rune licked my other salty cheek in response.

“I wasn’t running away to join Lilith’s little gang, if that’s why your spy hound is here.”

Rune sat back on her haunches, and they watched me. It seemed unfair that he could see and potentially hear everything I said or did, but I only had Rune’s head tilts to contend with—and I couldn’t be irritated with her. Worse, I had no energy left to force them to leave.

“You probably think I’m weak right now. A weak, scrawny little girl, crying on a carpet.” I bowed my head, no longer willing to look at those illuminated eyes, and stared into my hands. “I just want to save the people I love, Ronen. That’s all.”

I realized I hadn’t used his title, but it wasn’t like he was here to discipline or berate me for it.

“I want to be strong enough to do what it takes to save and protect everyone who means something to me. I’d never join Lilith. I’d rather die than be part of her plans. I didn’t know about any of this or the rune.”

My voice cracked, and I swallowed back the ache in my throat. “I didn’t know it would put her in a coma. The king and Aspen are right. I am floundering,” I whispered, lifting my head to Rune .

The mosaic doors rearranged behind her, revealing a scene that would be burned into my mind forever. I dug my nails into my trembling palms. It was one thing to live through it—another entirely to see it captured in such stark, cruel detail.

If I hadn’t been me, I would’ve sworn the female chained to the metal table, lying in a pool of her blood, was already dead. Michael stood over her, the image so raw and brutal it felt like I could reach out and touch the horror.

What were these doors?

I stood, forcing myself to take in the scene despite the urge to look away.

The more I stared, the more an overwhelming need pounded through my blood, demanding more from me—demanding I be something more.

I clenched my teeth. The girl who lay upon that metal table, exposed, weak, helpless, and dying—that could never be me again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, General. Tell your girlfriend we’ll be ready for her punishment. We did come in last, after all.”

With that, I patted Rune on the head and entered the library.

“Cato,” I called out. My voice bounced off the towering dark shelves and into the high ceiling. If he didn’t hear me, he sure would in a second. “Cato!”

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I whipped around. Cato stood there wearing his robes and a dry, irritated expression. Sure, I yelled in a library, but it wasn’t like anyone was ever here.

“Yes?”

I gestured to the doors. “What are those? Why do they show what they do?”

Cato clasped his robed hands before his body and pursed his lips .

Seconds passed. Then a minute.

“Well?” Heavenly Hell, I didn’t think an answer would take this long. If he were an all-knowing Throne, shouldn’t he already have one?

He shifted his pursed lip a millimeter and walked away.

“Hey!” I yelled. “I asked you a question.”

Cato faded behind a shelf, and I stood there in disbelief.

When the soft thumps of his feet also vanished, I plunked down at the table where Oliver and I had left our reading material.

Before I so much as touched the cover of a book, Cato appeared out of nowhere and dropped two books onto the table, startling me.

“I think you need to wear a bell,” I muttered.

“Or you need to be more observant.”

I frowned at the titles: The Doors of Moirai and The King of Hell.

“I wanted straight answers, not—” Cato was no longer there. “Books.” I sighed. So much for the all-knowing encyclopedia being helpful.

I tilted my head to the glass ceiling. The dark sky, empty of twinkling lights, added to the sorrow and guilt lingering in my throat.

Was Earth the only place with stars?

I didn’t know why I wanted to see them so badly—why the glittering of flaming gas soothed something inside my dreaming soul. Maybe their light gave me hope, or perhaps they reminded me of the nights with my mom, staring into the sky and making wishes.

Pursing my lips, I readied myself for another long night of reading and opened the book on the doors. The first page displayed a curving script and dedication :

To the reigning King of Hell.

I turned to the next page and was happy to find my answer.

The Doors of Moirai, otherwise known as the Doors of Fate, were created the day Heaven decided it needed a counterpart—Hell. Housed inside the doors are the powers of three: the Spinner, Allotter, and Unturning. The things that were, the things that are, the things that may be.

When Heaven chose Lucifer as the ruler to reign over the dimension of Hell and all the souls who’d end up there, the doors followed—connected to the king. For only the king could judge the souls of the dead, and judge them fully.

With the Doors of Moirai, the past, present, and future are presented to the reigning ruler upon Judgment Day.

They do not need to look upon the doors to know and see.

But the past shows the sin, the present shows the growth or lack thereof, and the ever-changing future shows the consequences.

Judgment can’t be placed solely on a future that could change.

The majority of judgment must come from the things that were and the things that are .

So the doors showed the past, present, and potential future. But why could I see the images? Because I was the daughter of Hell, or for another reason?

Tonight, I saw a moment of my past.

But what about the other day with Oliver and the general?

It looked like a demon biting a female. And not just any female—someone from Hell’s military. But that didn’t make sense. The general had said there were no demons here unless it was a half-breed.

So, a half-breed demon had either bitten, was currently biting, or was going to bite someone in Hell’s military. But why did it matter? Why show me this? Was it intentional, or some twisted happenstance?

My head fell against the book as I groaned.

“You’re not going to find your answers that way.”

I shifted my head to the side, glaring at the Throne who definitely needed a damned bell. “Is there anything you can tell me about the doors?”

“No,” he replied, ignoring my glare. “But if you’d read the book, you’d know who to ask.”

He meant the king. And he was right. It clearly stated that the King of Hell and the doors were connected. I was just hoping the all-knowing Throne would tell me what I wanted to know, and I wouldn’t have to resort to the king.

I fiddled with the book’s page, dreading how that conversation would go. My stomach twisted thinking about it. So far, every conversation with him had been miserable. It always came back to how na?ve I was, like some unavoidable label.

But why should that surprise me?

He wasn’t much different from when he’d spoken in my mind in Elora. Back then, he called me na?ve, and I hadn’t exactly been reading any books since my mutilation or recovery. I sank lower in my chair.

I couldn’t avoid talking to him—he’d be training me to control my powers, after all.

“Rest assured, the king is nothing like Michael,” Cato said, as if reading my mind—or, more likely, my nervous fidgeting and the scowl on my face.

I turned toward the Throne. “So he’s not a self-serving bastard who gambles with his daughter’s life?”

Cato’s eyes flashed from brown to black, silver sparks gleaming in their depths.

It was there and gone so fast, I almost thought I imagined it.

Angels’ eyes usually erupted with flame when emotional, not…

whatever that was. But then again, how would I know?

General Ronen’s eyes shifted to swirling shadows, so maybe it was a Throne thing.

He stepped closer, and I leaned back as far as I could in my chair, intimidated by the quiet severity of the Throne boring down on me. “Your father didn’t gamble with your life.”

Right. And Michael didn’t carve me open either.

Cato’s gaze sharpened, clearly reading my disbelief.

“Your father knew about you the moment you manifested your Infernus. Or rather, he suspected, when he sensed someone outside his domain using the icy powers of Hell—a power only he should have. Lo and behold, when he had General Ronen connect your minds, he found a young female living with his cordistella and fighting off the same male she left him for,” he continued, his voice firm.

“He knew you wouldn’t die in that river because he knew you were his daughter. ”