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The Knight-Commander’s chambers are exactly as she left them. She had always greatly valued her privacy, and even servants were forbidden from entering her quarters. Not that she would have needed the servants, anyway; the Commander had everything ordered and organized entirely to her liking, from the scrolls stacked neatly on her desk to the perfectly smoothed sheets on her bed to the shiny, polished mirror on her wall.
(Wenduag has always hated that calm sense of order, but she had loved being the single exception to her mistress’s rules. Such delight she had taken in tangling those bedsheets, in sweeping papers and trinkets off tables. But it is easier, in this moment, to remember the things she hates.)
Wenduag steps silently into the room, a bottle of booze hanging loosely in one hand as she surveys her surroundings. She’d thought Anevia or Irabeth, at least, would have gone through the Commander’s things by now. But no- the Commander probably left a stack of important documents for them in the war room just in case of this exact situation. Controlling and blunt to the very end.
Personally, Wenduag doesn’t see what the fuss is about. Why should they continue to follow the Commander’s orders now? She’s dead.
The booze burns in Wenduag’s throat as she takes a long drink, and the fire in her stomach helps to steel herself.
(She’d gone drinking with her mistress once, back in Alushinyrra. Before that she’d never seen her mistress imbibe more than a single serving of wine, but that night she went through glass after glass, desperate to drown out the furious whisperings of the aeon in her head.
“This place is all wrong”, she’d claimed, but Wenduag had disagreed.
“This place is perfect. Nothing like the Crusades. We could conquer it all, you and me. You would rule, and I would be your warlord. We would fight for ourselves and nothing else, and there’d be no dying in the name of love or loyalty or any of that nonsense.”
“You’re so full of shit.” Looking back, Wenduag still doesn’t know if it was the alcohol or the aeon or something else entirely, but in that moment her mistress’s face had held a rare, stark honesty. “It’s all nonsense, and we all die. But if I have to die, I damn well better be remembered for it. Isn’t that better than bleeding out in a gutter somewhere without a purpose?”
“Nah, I’ll just live forever. Dying for things is an uplander’s game,” Wenduag had told her, and maybe that was when she should have known.)
“They’re holding a memorial for you,” Wenduag says to the empty room. She scoffs and takes another swig from her bottle. “You’re getting a statue, too. Right in the middle of the city. There’s going to be a ceremony and speeches and all that garbage. You’d be lapping it all up if you were here right now, you arrogant fool.”
She laughs to herself, short and harsh, and adds, “They’ll all be tripping over themselves trying to figure out how to describe you. I guess that’s the whole point of dying like a hero, huh? Nobody wants to call you out as the bastard that you were.”
(And she was, she really was. Wenduag had never minded- her mistress was strong and cunning and powerful, and a bleeding heart never did a person any good, anyway. The smart uplanders had been of like mind- they needed that power, whatever form it came in- but there were always whispers, whispers that the new Commander was harsh and cruel and cold.
Idiots, the lot of them. They had never seen her in the rush of battle, wreathed in flames and boiling over with righteous fury. They had never known her in the bedroom, all heat and passion and burning touches.
Whatever else Wenduag’s mistress had been, she was anything but cold.)
Wenduag’s booze is starting to run low. She takes another long drink and practically empties the bottle. “I’m not sticking around for all that. I got my fill of stuck-up uplander speeches when you were alive.” She wanders over to the desk, runs a finger across the dusty surface, and with one last swig finishes off he drink.
“But I guess you were good for one thing, at least. Us neathers got our land. We’re moving out tomorrow. The uplanders respect our strength now- and they recognize me as the neathers’ Queen.” Wenduag smiles and does her best to savor the triumph without lingering on the bitterness. “We’re going to make our own legacy, all for ourselves.”
(Just like we said we would, you and I, she almost adds.)
“So, you see, I don’t need you at all,” she says. “I’m strong enough on my own. I never needed you.”
Wenduag turns the empty bottle over in her hand. She doesn’t know why she came up here. The uplanders need to make their bottles bigger. Or their booze stronger. Either way, she should be out celebrating with the rest of her people. There’s nothing left for her in this empty, orderly room.
A blaze rises in Wenduag’s chest, and suddenly she cannot do this anymore. Her fist clenches around the bottle, and in one swift motion she whirls around and hurls it against the Commander’s bedroom wall with all her might.
“You lying bitch!”
Glass scatters across the stone floor, and the destruction satisfies something within Wenduag which the whiskey could not. Without pausing to think, she grabs the Commander’s desk and upends it, sending scrolls, ink bottles, and splintered wood spilling across the room.
“You said you would stay!”
She tears a tapestry from the wall, reveling in the loud ripping sound it makes as she wrenches it down and hurls it into the cold ashes of the fireplace.
“You promised!”
The mirror is next- that damned mirror that gave the Commander so many headaches, that showed her secrets which Wenduag could never understand. There has been nothing magical about it for some time now, but the Commander still kept it polished and pristine. Now Wenduag shatters it with her bare hand, barely noticing how the glass cuts into her skin.
“I hate you!” she shrieks. “You and your power and your purpose and your lies!”
She pulls the sheets from the bed, ready to rip them to shreds- but dammit, they still smell like her, and that scent is like a heavy weight dropped straight on Wenduag’s chest.
(She always smelled like smoke and ash and incense, even before she took the devil’s deal. Wenduag remembers the scent of her filling her lungs as they embraced, when Wenduag had cried and tried to hide it by burying her head in her mistress’s hair.
“I will never abandon you. I promise you that,” her mistress had whispered, and Wenduag knew even then it wasn’t a promise that could be kept, but she’d let herself believe it anyway.)
Her fury dies in her throat, and Wenduag collapses to the floor, the bedsheets still bundled in her hands. She holds them tightly, breathing in the only remnant left of her Commander, and her cut hand is bleeding through the linens-
(Blood on her hands and blood on her lips. “We are connected, now and forever.”)
-but Wenduag doesn’t care. The wound will scar over with time-
(Hands, soft and warm, tracing across her scars. “You’re beautiful, you know. You really are.”)
-and she will live. She will live through the pain and the shattered promises. She will be strong.
But for tonight, for the first time since the closing of the Worldwound-
(a rush of flame, a burst of light, a too-late protest already dying on her lips)
-Wenduag allows herself to break, just a little. She buries her head in the sheets that still smell like her and shakes with silent grief until a fitful sleep finally overwhelms her.
A rush of heat startles Wenduag awake. It takes a moment to orient herself through the remaining haze of drink and exhaustion, and for a moment she thinks it is the roaring fireplace which has disturbed her.
But then she blinks, and her vision clears, and the world shifts beneath her as she recognizes both the figure in front of her and the burning echo in her blood. The name falls from Wenduag’s lips in a desperate, disbelieving breath.
“Lilith.”
It’s impossible, but it’s true- Knight-Commander Lilith stands in front of the fireplace, looking as whole and real as she did just moments before she threw herself into the Worldwound. Her brow furrows slightly- an expression Wenduag knows all too well, the only indication of confusion or hesitation which ever manages to break through the Commander’s guarded exterior. It’s this small motion, so familiar that it aches, which convinces Wenduag this is no illusion or trick standing before her.
“Wenduag.” Her mistress’s voice is low, almost a whisper. “What are you…”
She trails off as she turns slowly to survey the room, and Wenduag can do nothing but drink in the sight of her. The Commander has appeared in her devil form- deep red skin, dark curved horns, eyes that glow like embers. She wears a simple gown, long and black, and her dark red hair falls in a long curtain down her back. All in all, she looks rather too proper and clean for a dead woman- but then, she would, wouldn’t she? Quietly, she takes in the chaos Wenduag has made of her room, turning in a slow circle until her eyes rest on Wenduag once more.
“Why, exactly, has a cyclone been unleashed upon my quarters?”
And just like that Wenduag unfreezes, as the Commander’s voice- haughty and demanding and unapologetically self-interested- breaks whatever spell her sudden appearance had cast upon Wenduag’s senses. She springs to her feet, anger burning away any other coherent thought.
“What are you doing here?!”
The Commander peers down at Wenduag, her voice even as she replies. “I would have thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“Happy to see you?” Wenduag repeats in a snarl. “No- no, you don’t get off that easy! Not after you went off and died and left me! You think you can do that, and then show up again like nothing happened?!”
Her accusation barely seems to faze the Commander, who looks down and smooths the fabric of her gown. She doesn’t even try to rush to her own defense, speaking up only when Wenduag pauses to take a breath. “I had to take care of some other things before I returned. Hell has its own set of rules, and you would not believe the bureaucracy-”
“The bureaucracy?”
And Wenduag can control her rage no longer. She launches herself forward, unsure of what she even intends to do but unable to stand by a moment longer. The Commander sidesteps out of the way, her movement alert and precise as always, but Wenduag is in too much of a rage to leave it at that.
They’ve done this type of dance before, although never quite like this. The Commander dodges Wenduag’s attack once more, twice more, and on the third charge finally stands still and allows Wenduag to grab her arms and pin her against the wall.
Wenduag wants to rip this woman limb from limb. She wants to hold her close and make her swear to never leave her side again. She wants to do both and everything else in between, but now that Lilith is only inches away, Wenduag can only stare. In the silence, her heart races, and she can feel their pulses running in time. Her mistress’s skin burns hot under her hands.
“I did what I had to do,” Lilith whispers, soft but firm. “And then I came back. I’m sorry it took so long. But I promised, didn’t I? I promised I wouldn’t leave you. I keep my promises, Wenduag.”
Wenduag’s hands tremble, her anger crumbling under that stare, and then it all breaks away and her arms tighten around Lilith once more, not in an attack but an embrace. She buries her head in Lilith’s chest and holds her tighter, closer, unwilling to ever let her go again. “I really do hate you sometimes, you know.”
The warmth around Wenduag increases as Lilith returns the embrace, resting her lips against Wenduag’s forehead. “I missed you, too.”
“It’s not really this easy, is it? That you can come back, just like that.”
“Not…exactly,” Lilith admits. “I had a contract, remember? I’m a true devil now. I have a place in Hell, and duties to go with it. I have a realm to rule, and I must return to it. But…”
“But what?”
Wenduag can feel Lilith’s lips curl into a self-satisfied smile. “But we have a contract, too, don’t we? I remember a certain something was promised to me before I went into battle.”
In spite of herself, Wenduag laughs.
(“Kiss for good luck?”
“Disgusting. But…I suppose you can have one kiss. But only when this is all over, and you come back to me.”
The promise feels like it was made ages and ages ago- hopeful words spoken on the precipice of danger, as if the promise could be enough to ward off death. How very Lilith to seize upon those paper-thin hopes and twist them into iron.
Had she known even then? Had she been formulating this all in her head? Wenduag can’t say for sure, but she remembers the victory in her smile as she took in Wenduag’s words. “Fine. It’s a deal.”)
“You slippery devil.”
“A promise is a promise. I held up my end of the bargain.” Lilith tilts her head to trace a line with her lips down to Wenduag’s jaw, pausing on the way to whisper, “But you still owe me that kiss.”
Wenduag’s breath catches as Lilith’s kisses continue down to her neck. Without thinking, she pulls the woman even closer than before, her hands seizing upon that long red hair, and everything else in the world is forgotten as they fall to the floor together. Death has not greatly changed Lilith; she is much as Wenduag remembers, save for the flames that have always lived under her skin which burn hotter now than ever before.
And Wenduag has never been so happy to burn.
Much, much later, when Wenduag and Lilith have finally exhausted themselves and simply lie nestled together in bed, the flames which have been burning lowly in the fireplace blaze high with renewed life. Lilith sighs, and a wave of dread hits Wenduag anew.
“You have to go back, don’t you?”
“I’m a mistress of Hell,” Lilith says by way of answer. “And you’re Queen of the neathers. We both have places to return to.” Her voice carries equal amounts of resolve and regret, and she traces a finger lightly along Wenduag’s cheek. “But I can come back again, if that’s what you want.”
Wenduag grabs Lilith’s hand and holds it in place. “I want you.”
“I’ll give you that. As much as I can.”
“For as long as we have.” It’s not exactly a happy ending, but Wenduag has never expected anything of the sort. This arrangement is far from perfect, but…maybe it can still be good. Maybe even good enough. “Don’t you forget, or I’ll claw my way to Hell and hunt you down myself.”
Lilith smiles- a rare, honest smile, and Wenduag tries to commit that look on her face to memory. “I know you will. But I do have to go, for now.” She glances towards the blazing fire, then back to Wenduag, and her honest smile sharpens into a taunting grin. “Do I get my kiss before I leave?”
Wenduag huffs and cranes her head away. “Hardly. You can collect your debt later.”
“There’ll be interest.”
“I can take that.”
“Deal.” Lilith brings Wenduag’s hands to her lips, pressing a soft kiss against her knuckles. Her teasing voice goes soft as she whispers, “Until next time. I love you.”
It’s not something they say often. Neither of them are made for love, and they know it. But they’ve found it anyway in this strange bond they share, this feeling between them that is twisted and burning and beautiful.
“And I love you,” Wenduag whispers back. She gives Lilith’s hand one last squeeze, then slowly lets her go.
And just like that, her mistress is gone again. The fireplace sits empty and cold, and Wenduag is alone in the sheets that still smell like smoke and ash and incense.
As tempting as it might be to lay there all day, Wenduag pulls herself from the bed and leaves the Commander’s room behind her. She has wasted enough time here; she must be returning to her people and her plans for the future. They are leaving soon, and they are going to make a new world and a new life for themselves. Wenduag will rule over them, and she will see that they achieve every ounce of greatness they deserve.
And wherever they settle down, Wenduag promises herself, she will ensure that throughout the day and for all hours of the night, the fireplace in her quarters will always be kept burning.