The Sinner

I shake my head and bury my face against his neck. “No, I’m overcome. I love you so much.”

He chuckles. “My Li’ili is overcome? Now I have lived to see everything.”

I pull back to see him, hold his face in my hands. I’m changing the memory but maybe he’ll understand.

“You are my light. My life. I will never love another as I love you.”

His eyes darken with his own boundless love and lust that ignites at the fierce conviction in my eyes.

“Ki-áñg ngu,” he says. “My beloved. I will love you until the end of time.”

He kisses me. Gently. Deeply. Then his hands slide down to cup my heavy breasts, to knead and caress, then move lower. To where we’re still joined.

“I want this again.”

I nod, and my eyes fall shut as he strokes my aching core of pleasure. My own need to have him is rekindled too, even though I’m raw and sore. I want him again. All night. Every night…

But we’re out of nights.

The truth kept coming even after I gasped awake. I saw our last horrifying night in all its bloody clarity.

Babylonians stormed the house, taking us all to the ziggurat. Casziel was already there, on his knees. Torchlight flickered, casting slices of light over his blood-spattered skin. They’d tortured him to the brink of death, but his fire still burned. They brutalized him but he was still fighting. For me. For his family. His sister, his parents, and my father, the high priest—we were all bound and gagged and forced to kneel on the stony floor. One by one, they fell with necks sliced open and blood pouring.

And then it was my turn.

The horrified anguish on Casziel’s face tore my heart to shreds. They hadn’t gagged him, and his screams were ragged as the dagger was laid against my neck. With my eyes, I begged him to give himself mercy. Saving me was impossible. My death was inevitable, but I’d wait for him to join me in the afterlife.

My hand slipped to my belly, not yet rounded—we both would.

But he didn’t understand and blamed himself. Then the blade opened my throat, and my last image was of my beloved screaming, head thrown back, neck corded, eyes bulging, every muscle taut and pulling against his bonds. His scream followed me into darkness…

And then there was nothing.

I shot to sitting in my bedroom, tears brimming in my eyes. The horror of what Casziel had endured wracked me while the love I had for him washed over every bloody memory. I clutched my abdomen.

A baby…

Joy flooded me and just as quickly curdled to anguish. My bed was empty.

“No. No, no, no. Not yet. Please…” I drew a breath. “Casziel.”

Nothing.

“Casziel.”

Only the rain striking the windowpane—closed tight—answered.

Tears of frustration and fear pricked my eyes, but I wiped them away angrily. “No. Not when I just got you back…”

My gaze fell on a piece of paper sitting on my bedside table. I grabbed it, devoured it, even as it tore me to shreds, word by word.

My beloved,

Now the truth is wholly yours. But somewhere in your deepest self, you’ve always been Li’ili. Brave and fierce and so beautiful, my heart weeps with joy that you were once mine. Forgive me for concealing us, but there is no hope for me. I cannot cross the Veil and into the light. It’s too bright and pure for a sinner like me.

You’ll be safe. When I’m truly gone, Ashtaroth will be powerless, and you’ll have others more powerful than me watching over you—loving you. That’s the lesson it’s taken me four millennia to learn: love is stronger than hate. You taught me that. You called my love forth—summoned it—and it rose up through the murky, bloody depths of me and broke the surface. I regret that it took so long; I’d have loved to spend an eternity of lifetimes searching and then finding you, loving you again and again. But I can’t, and you must not let your light go out for me. You’re too bright for one man. There is nothing small or silly about you and never has been. As the poet said, you contain multitudes.

And I’d like to think that even in Oblivion, there will be a part of me that remembers loving you, and I’ll know peace at last.