It has been only a day since he addressed the Nameless Litany.
Now he was here, Lilith's interrogation of his past interrupted by a demon too nosey for his own good.
Liam watched, his back against a damp dungeon wall, his arms crossed. He wasn't sure how long they'd been here. Time felt syrupy in the underground dark.
"He wasn't there at first," Liam answered Lilith's question, his voice quiet but clear.
Lilith, her grip firm on the neck of the struggling demon, didn't look away from her work.
"Your Father?"
"Yeah. When I was young, he wasn't around. Left my mom to raise me alone. She worked two jobs, always tired." He shrugged, the motion feeling strangely detached. "I learned to be quiet. To not be a problem."
"Then he came back?" Lilith prompted, her tone conversational, as if the discussion were as casual as any.
"After she died. Cancer." The word was a hard, small stone. "He swooped in like he owned the place, like he had any right. He didn't know me. I was just… a responsibility he resented. He'd drink. A lot."
Lilith adjusted her grip, pushing the demon's head a little deeper. Bubbles streamed to the surface.
"And when he drank?"
"He got loud. Then he got handsy. Nothing that left lasting marks, not on the outside anyway. Just… shoves. Slaps. Telling me I was a waste of space, that I'd end up just like my mother did — I believed him." Liam's gaze was fixed on the churning water, but he wasn't really seeing it. "I learned to be even quieter."
"How did it end?"
"One morning, I came downstairs. He was on the floor. Empty bottle of whiskey, empty pill bottle next to him. Overdose. The doctor said it was probably an accident, that he'd lost track." Liam let out a soft, humorless laugh. "I've never been sure."
"And now you say you also take those pills," Lilith stated.
"Not those pills," he corrected. "Mine is for the depression. The anxiety. The… everything."
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the increasingly weak thrashing from the water barrel.
Liam tilted his head. "He's been in there a while, no?"
Lilith blinked, as if suddenly remembering the demon whose head she was holding underwater.
"Oh. Yes."
With a single, fluid motion, she hauled the creature out. He gasped, a raw, desperate sound, his body convulsing as he choked on air and water.
Lilith waited until his heaving subsided into pitiful whimpers. "So," she said, her voice sweetly lethal. "Ready to say what House sent you?"
The demon, a spindly thing with mottled skin, spat a stream of brackish water.
"I'm not telling you shit," he croaked.
Lilith sighed. "Hmm. I thought you'd say that." And she plunged him back under.
"Well, he is quite determined," Liam commented, pushing off the wall to stand closer.
"Such spies are usually trained to choose death before speaking, if ever caught," Lilith explained, her attention on her work.
"Then shouldn't you try a more effective torture method?" Liam asked, genuinely curious.
"It won't matter. Their pain tolerance is through the roof. This is as good as any other option. Simpler, even."
"Then what's the point?" Liam pressed. "If you know he won't squeal?"
"Just seeing if we get lucky," Lilith said, her eyes still on the bubbling water. "If we can pin a House for sending spies to the Sovereign's castle, that'll be one less enemy to worry about for a while." She finally glanced at him, a faint, wry smile on her lips. "Besides, it gave us a chance to get through your years of childhood trauma."
Liam let out a short, sharp breath that was almost a laugh. "I guess. Though, still not sure why you needed any of this information."
She didn't answer.
"What do the pills do?" Lilith asked, her focus returning to him. "The ones you take."
Liam considered it. "They stop the pain. And sometimes the anxiety. They also stop that… weird feeling of bleakness. It's hard to explain, but when it happens, you could literally imagine getting your greatest heart's desire and…"
Lilith completed the thought, her voice softer than he'd ever heard it. "Life still won't seem worth living."
For a moment, they just stared. The truth of her statement hanging in the damp air. Then Liam's gaze flicked back to the barrel. The thrashing had stopped.
"Hey," he said. "I think our spy stopped moving."
Lilith quickly pulled the demon out. His body was limp, water leaking from his slack mouth and nose. She gave him a little shake, but there was no response.
"Might have left him in a bit too long," she observed clinically.
"Yeah, no shit," Liam laughed. A genuine, startled laugh.
Then he stopped.
He just watched her kill a person. Drown him in a barrel. And he couldn't care less.
He hadn't needed to act like he didn't care, to summon the cold detachment of the Primordial Demon. He just… didn't.
The realization was a quiet, internal click.
Lilith dropped the corpse back into the water with a splash. "Well, at least we know one of the Great Houses is sending spies to confirm details about you only a day before the council. Which means they're worried."
Liam leaned over, peering at the floating body.
"More worried than us?"
Lilith wiped her hands on a cloth. "No one is more worried than us. They stand a chance to gain a throne. We stand to lose our lives. The stakes are a tad bit different."
They began walking side-by-side out of the dungeon, leaving the dead spy to his watery grave.
"It seems many want your throne," Liam remarked as they ascended a narrow staircase.
"Indeed," Lilith said. "They've worked long and hard to get it. While you just went from abused and abandoned kid to demon god in no time."
Liam smirked. "Maybe I should sell them a course."
"Please don't."
They reached a more familiar, well-lit corridor. Liam stopped, turning to her.
"I've told you mine. So, what about you?"
"What about me?"
"The queen's tragic backstory," he said. "Before your fuck-up of a war. I'm sure it's interesting."
Lilith's voice was low, a defensive edge to it. "I've been royalty all my life. I'm not supposed to have a sad backstory."
Liam raised a brow. "'Supposed to?' Or you don't have one?"
"I don't have one."
He observed her expression with the precision of an actor seeing the flaws in another's act.
"Good thing I'm the one doing the lying and not you," Liam said, a sharp grin on his face, "or we'd be all kinds of fucked."
Lilith exhaled, a long, weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of her crown.
"Go rest, Liam. Big day tomorrow."
He watched her begin to walk away toward her wing of the castle. Confidence, real and unfeigned, settled in his voice. "It's just another scene. Like any other."
She paused, not looking back. "Except this scene determines whether we live or die."
His response was quick. "Every scene determines whether we live or die. And I play them as such."
She looked at him over her shoulder then, a true, unguarded smile touching her lips for a fleeting moment before she turned and continued walking.
As her footsteps faded, a familiar screen materialized at the edge of his vision.
[Lilith Zevra / Demon Queen]
[Loyalty: 2% → 5%]
He stood alone in the corridor, the silence now his own.
The phantom taste of whiskey and pills was gone, replaced by the lingering, metallic scent of dungeon water.
He found he preferred it.