The sound of her weeping clawed at me .
I stood in the obsidian halls outside her chamber, my fists clenched at my sides, her quiet sobs echoing through the infernal stone. The walls of Hell carried every whisper, every gasp—but this? This was different.
This hurt.
Sylvia's cries were not the wails of the damned, not the theatrical suffering of sinners who deserved their fate. Hers were the tears of someone who had lost everything.
And I, the King of Hell, found myself frozen outside her door like a damned soul myself.
---
Pathetic.
I should not care.
I did not want to care.
She was a means to an end, a tool, a temporary solution to a celestial wound that refused to heal. Nothing more.
Yet...
The moment her first tear had fallen, I'd felt it. A sharp, unwelcome pang in my chest, as if her sorrow had pierced through the centuries of ice around my heart.
I snarled, raking a hand through my hair.
This is weakness.
And yet, I couldn't leave.
---
The rosemary had been a mistake.
I hadn't intended it as cruelty. If anything, I'd thought...
What? That it would comfort her?
Foolish.
Vhorg had reported her reaction, the way she had clutched the herb to her chest like a talisman. The way she had wept over it.
And now, standing here like some lovestruck mortal, I was torn between the urge to storm into her chamber and demand she stop her sniveling—
And the even more dangerous urge to kneel beside her and wipe those tears away.
---
The walls pulsed with her slowing breaths as she finally succumbed to exhaustion.
I exhaled, my wings twitching behind me.
This was absurd. I am lucifer. The First of the Fallen. I did not linger outside prison doors like a servant.
And yet...
I found my hand hovering over the latch.
Just one look.
One glance to assure myself she was unharmed. That she was still strong enough to be useful.
Nothing more.
---
The door opened without a sound.
She lay curled on the cot, her face streaked with dried tears, the rosemary still clutched in her fingers. Even in sleep, she did not look peaceful. Her brow was furrowed, her lips slightly parted as if caught mid-protest.
Beautiful.
Fragile.
The thought sent a ripple of irritation through me. She was not fragile. She had faced me without flinching, had spat in my presence, had dared to defy me.
And now, here she was, sobbing by something as simple as missing home.
I stepped closer, my shadow falling over her.
One touch.
That was all it would take. A brush of my fingers against her cheek, a whisper of power to ease her dreams.
My hand lifted.
Then stopped.
No.
I was not her comfort. I was her captor. Her tormentor. The reason she wept in the first place.
I withdrew, my jaw tight.
Let her hate me.
Let her curse my name.
It was better this way.
---
I sealed the door behind me, the lock clicking shut with finality.
Vhorg waited in the shadows, his scarred face unreadable.
"Shall I remove the herb, Master?"
I hesitated.
"No," I said at last. "Let her keep it."
Then I turned and strode down the hall, her quiet sorrow still clinging to me like a ghost.