City of Thorns by C.N. Crawford

Chapter 34

We didn’t start looking around until night had fallen and moonlight bathed the Asmodean Ward in haunting silver. For once, I wasn’t wearing some sexy gown—just black leather leggings and a dark sweater. We weren’t planning to be around anyone else, and it was the best way to blend into the night.

Tonight, the air in the City of Thorns was a little cooler than it had been, a nip along with the ocean breeze. The wind rushed through my red curls as we walked the empty streets.

Side by side, we followed the dark canals. Silent buildings loomed around us, the paint faded and chipped. Inside the once-grand houses and halls, we found portraits with their eyes crossed out, statues defaced. We tried the key in every lock we could find—the front doors, the bedrooms, the closets and drawers.

A sense of tragedy pressed down on every house, the sadness heavy in the air. And when we crossed into the building we’d been in before—the one with smashed busts and abandoned crystal decanters—Orion went very still. He stopped to look up at the ceiling, at the image of the nude woman with the snake wrapped around her. Only a thin sliver of moonlight cast a ghostly light over the place. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the curtains and furniture looked scorched in many places, and the glass of a mirror had been blackened.

Lost in thought, Orion was as still as the broken statues. The air seemed to grow darker around him, the room hotter. The weight of an oppressive sadness thickened the atmosphere.

“Do you remember this place?” I asked quietly.

He let out a long sigh. “I used to stare at her. I remember lying on the sofa and thinking I would marry her someday, and that I would save her from the serpent wrapped around her body. I can see now she doesn’t actually mind the serpent. I didn’t know she was the mother of our gods. I thought she belonged to us and that she needed me.” He turned, looking around the abandoned hall. “I remember the day the soldiers arrived.”

“The king’s soldiers?”

“I wasn’t scared of our king’s soldiers. I was scared of the mortals. They brought guns with them. But the part that scared me was the looks on their faces. I’d never seen such pure loathing like that before.”

I stared at him. “There were mortals here?”

“The king surrendered to them and agreed to let them round up the Lilu like they wanted. It was the last time he allowed mortal soldiers into the city.” He breathed in deeply. “I can’t say they had any signs of the morality you keep talking about. I think they thought we were like animals.”

“I'm sorry.” My heart broke for him.

“It’s not your fault,” he muttered.

“But this must be so painful for you.”

“I’ve thought about that day every day for hundreds of years.” He crossed the living room to a patch of wooden floor that had been stained darker than the rest. “This was where they cut out my brother’s heart. He fought back because he was trying to save our mother.” He traced his fingers over the stained floor. “He was the one…” His sentence trailed off, and he stood again and turned, pointing to the hall. “And that was where they cut out my father’s heart.”

I could hardly breathe. “I guess this answers my questions about why you have such disdain for mortals.”

His eyes gleamed. “It’s confusing to me that I have such a high regard for you, but you’re not what I expected.”

The floor creaked as I crossed the room to the mirror, and I stared into its blackened surface. “What’s with all the scorch marks? Did they start to burn this place?”

“That was from me. I couldn’t control my fire then, but if I could have, I’d have burned the entire army down. And most of the demons with it for turning on us.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Five.”

The breath left my lungs. “They put you in prison when you were five?” I asked, a little louder than I’d intended.

I crossed the room and looked into another of the scorched mirrors, half my face obscured by the smoke. But I could see my eyes, my cheekbones. Moonlight streamed in through the old, warped windows, tinging my face in ghostly light as I looked at myself. “What happened to the other Lilu? Were they killed right away, or were there others in prison with you?”

“That would be a good question for Mortana.”

I felt it again—that rising anger. He’d only been a little boy, and he’d watched mortals cut out his brother’s heart right on his living room floor. I felt like my chest was splitting in two when I thought of it.

My anger was rising again, like magma buried in a volcano.

When I thought of little Orion screaming for his father, I wanted to find those very mortals and rip their hearts from their chests. Power flooded me, and I felt like I could pull those Puritan fucks from their graves and kill them a second time.

A dark power imbued my body. I was clutching the side of the table so hard, I was breaking some of the wood. I glanced at my arm, where the image of the skeleton key was flickering—one with a skull shape burning like embers.

It was happening again.

When a demon feels a strong emotion...

When I looked up in the mirror, I saw the faint hint of golden light beaming from my forehead, but the shape was obscured by the scorch marks. I slapped my hand over it, my heart slamming.

Fuck. Fuck.

“Rowan?” Orion asked. “Why can I hear your heart beating like you’re about to be devoured? You’ll wake half the city.”

Orion had said a demon could erase her past, could wipe all her memories. She could get rid of the guilt…

What if I’d erased my own memories?

But I couldn’t just stand here permanently with my hand on my forehead, could I? What was I so scared of—that I was Mortana? He’d said I was human.

I slowed my heartbeat until my muscles started to relax again.

I was, quite simply, seeing things.

Shaking, I pulled my hand away and shifted so I could see my forehead. Nothing was there. No demon mark, no golden light.

“Orion? I think I’ve been hallucinating things.”

“Ah,” he said. “That’s because you’re here. I’m seeing them, too, the ghosts of my past. In here, they feel more vivid than ever.”

I let out a shaky breath and turned to him. “For a second, I thought I was turning into a demon.”

He gave me a sad smile. “You can’t turn into a demon. You’re mortal.”

Maybe the tragedy of this place was just getting to me. I reached into my pocket for the key and held it up. “Should we keep looking?”

* * *

We approacheda stone mansion in a section of the ward I’d never seen before. Canals flowed on either side of the building, gently moving south toward the Acheron River. An overgrown garden rambled out front, and stone paths curved through uncontrolled shrubs and tangles of vines.

Three stories high, the mansion boasted grandiose columns and ornate carvings of gargoyles. Balconies on the second and third floors overlooked the canals and the garden.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“This was once the home of the duke of the Asmodean Ward.”

I shivered as I looked up at it. “Why didn’t they put me here, if I’m supposed to be the duchess?”

“When Mortana was the only one left, she stayed in the building where you are now. It became the new residence of the Lilu’s representative.” He glanced at me, his eyes bright in the darkness. “And she probably didn’t want to be haunted by the memories of being instrumental in the death of her own father.”

I stared at the mansion, my blood growing colder. If tragedy could cling to a place, this palace was dripping in it. It felt tangible in the air. “The duke who lived here was Mortana’s father? What was his name?”

“Moloch.”

Orion started leading me through the rambling garden to the front door. Above us, a wooden shutter slammed forlornly against the stone window frame.

He slid his pale eyes to me as we approached the mansion. “The City of Thorns isn’t like your world. Here, magic imbues the air. Memories linger. Tragedy can wrap itself around the walls, the floors, the stone and wood. It stays there like a living and breathing thing. So if you are seeing things, I’m not surprised. This world was never meant for mortals, and even demons see things here sometimes.”

When we reached the door, I slid the key into the lock. And as my heart skipped a beat, I found that the lock turned.

I held my breath as the door swung open, revealing the inside of a palace, one covered in cobwebs. A cold shiver rippled through me as I took in the haunted beauty. Thin rays of moonlight streamed into a hall with towering ceilings. A white marble fireplace was inset into a wall, with a faded mural depicting lions and owls. Statues on columns stood around the hall, their faces smashed. The floor was a mosaic of deep blue and gold, with patterns of delicate rosettes, cracked in many places.

Once, this place would have gleamed with wealth and elegance, but even now, it had its own sort of beauty.

My pulse raced. “Orion?” I asked quietly. “Why would my mom have a key to this place? My mortal mom? Do you think she could have been a servant here at one point?”

“It hasn’t been inhabited in hundreds of years.”

I shook my head, trying to clear the fog from my mind. “Right. Of course.”

“Everyone always thought the duke disappeared during the purges.” His quiet voice echoed off the tile as he walked around the hall.

“And that was the last anyone has heard of him?” I asked.

“Maybe. About twenty years ago, a body was found in the gardens outside. The heart had been cut out, and the corpse had been burned beyond recognition. The rumors were that it was Duke Moloch himself, but no one knew how he ended up here, or where he’d come from. There could be Lilu who escaped, who live outside of the City of Thorns without their powers.”

A cool wind rushed into the room, rippling over my skin. Goosebumps rose on my arms. “Maybe my mom knew him.”

A disturbing thought crossed my mind. I’d never known who my dad was.

“And if he were alive,” said Orion, “Cambriel might have seen him as a rival for the throne.”

I thought I heard a creaking sound above me. When I looked up, I could just about make out the faded paint, a ceiling decorated with vines and ripe fruit. “Why would Moloch be a rival?”

“Long ago, the demons were ruled by a mad king named Azriel. He was obsessed with the idea of returning to the heavens, of reversing the loss in the heavenly wars. He called himself a god. He started killing his own subjects, burning them to death in the forests, ripping their hearts out. If he’d remained king, he could have slaughtered all of his own. He’d have done the mortals’ work for them.”

“He sounds terrifying.”

“It was Cambriel’s father, King Nergal, who challenged him to a trial by combat. By his family’s lineage, Nergal didn’t have much of a claim to the throne. But only the rightful heir can slaughter a king, and Nergal managed to do it. If our gods exist, they didn’t want the mad king to stay on the throne.”

I turned to look at Orion, frowning. “And the duke who owned this place—was he related to the mad king?”

Orion nodded. “Moloch was his bastard son.”

I closed my eyes, then rubbed them. “I’m just trying to process this. My mom—the normal, mortal mom I knew who made me macaroni and cheese and ate too many pizza rolls—she might have known the bastard son of a mad demon king.”

“That seems like a good summary.”

What. The. Hell? Why had she never told me about any of this? I’d spent my teenage years thinking my mom was sweet but boring.

How wrong had I been?