19.9

Zyrdicia sat on the stones in front of a mass of flames raging in the fireplace. She could not physically sit any nearer to it without igniting her clothes - not that she would have particularly minded such a thing. Her head rested on her leather-clad knees as she stared at the conflagration.

When she had returned to her quarters, a single, black angel wing had awaited her. Someone had left the present on her bed. She knew that it belonged to Baal, a gift sent by Azriok. Perhaps it was an apology. Azriok had promised her that he would rip Baal apart. She suspected he sent her the wing to remind her that he always kept promises to her.

Something about the gift struck a deep chord in her this time. It was as though he knew Baal's escape to Hell tormented her. Azriok finished for her what she could not finish alone, giving her a sense of closure. She could feel Azriok's wondrous essence stir within her own soul. It made her miss the dark angel terribly. Part of her still wanted very much to believe he had nothing to do with Baal's brutality. But then, another part of her could not believe he had not orchestrated it.

Three different entities purporting to "care" about me cross my path tonight, and I've never felt lonelier. Magnus is trapped by the sun in a box, Azriok is trapped by me in Hell and Dirk is trapped by-who knows what, she thought sadly as she stared at the flames.

She could have called back any of her servants. Their company would be of no use though. None of them would have been able to alleviate her present loneliness. Since the betrothal, she had grown increasingly distant from them.

She closed her eyes, wishing for once she could have the freedom every mortal took for granted, the privilege of floating peacefully into a dream devoid of demons, the capacity to sleep whenever she was tired.

Oh, Azriok, what does all this mean? None of it makes any sense, she thought wearily. At least you used to never hesitate to enfold me in your wings and hold me as I fell asleep. How I miss that!

She shuddered suddenly, her nervous system waking her automatically as she started to drift off into visions of velvet wings. She blinked, then yawned. She had given Magnus more of her blood than she should have before she left Lyr. Already, though, she could feel it slowly replenishing itself within her body.

"Deesh, you cannot know how much it pains us to watch you languish in this world."

Zyrdicia sat bolt upright. She looked around the room frantically, searching for the source of the silent Tenaebran voice.

"Here," it beckoned gently.

"Where?"

"Above you!"

She craned her head up and found the black-winged speaker stretched horizontally along the ceiling, watching her. She recognized Azazel from her liberation from the Underworld.

He smiled ruefully from his surreal place directly overhead. "A piece of flesh vermin sending you away like an unwanted pet, Deesh? He's so unworthy!"

"It's none of your business. Go away or I'll banish you from this dimension." Her words only seemed to encourage Azazel.

"You demean all that you are by accepting such slights from the dregs of Creation."

"Leave me alone."

"Azriok aches for the moment he can hold you again. You could fall asleep wrapped in his wings just as you used to."

"Reading my thoughts when I'm tired is hardly impressive. You've had your fun. Now go away."

"Azriok has the other of Baal's wings for you in Tenaebra, a gift to welcome you when you come to him."

"I have no need of a matched set."

"He also has the vanquished Duke of Hell to whom the wings belong."

"Baal?" Zyrdicia's eyes glittered. She was unable to mask her interest. In her mind's eye, she saw the once-mighty angel of war on his knees, chained and wingless. The image expanded suddenly, eradicating awareness in her consciousness of anything but its illusion. Her room in Castle Blackpool melted away. She was now in Tenaebra . . . home.

Azriok stood next to Baal's bound body. He reached out to her, caressing her cheek tenderly with icy fingers. She shivered at the touch, then bowed her head submissively.

He smiled, "I saved the kill for you, precious. You can exact vengeance personally."

She looked up into his enormous ebony eyes. She gasped involuntarily when she beheld them. She felt as though she were looking in a mirror. The old familiarity of Azriok's eyes was now magnified to perfection. She was no longer looking into the countenance of an entity who merely knew her better than anyone else in the cosmos - she was instead staring at her soul's completion. It was at once both the epitome of loneliness and potentially the perfect antidote to that sensation.

"Do you still believe Sephiroth are incapable of love, Deesh?"

Zyrdicia swallowed hard as the realization of his predicament struck her with crushing force. Vanity. His ego made love for her not merely possible but inescapable. He had no choice but to love the part of himself that had become her.

"Never in the history of Creation has it been possible for one of us to feel love for another," he explained softly. "Until now. For you, I sacrificed my imperviousness to the Seraphim curse. I never imagined conquering Zyr would cost me this."

"I'm sorry for you."

"Sephiroth are whole. This loneliness, this incompleteness is a curse alien to our race."

She had never seen Azriok's beautiful face look as pained as he did at this moment. "Do you expect me to feel pity?" she whispered weakly. "You eradicated that emotion in me long ago."

"I expect you to feel yearning. It has already tormented you for most of your life," he smiled sadly. "The circle is now complete. I put this thing in you as a child, now you've vested me with it."

"Sharing it with you does not diminish my own suffering."

"We can end each other's torment, precious." He pulled her into his strong, sheltering arms, bringing his wings forward around her softly, enveloping her in blissful darkness. His arms tightened around her, but this time there was no threat or danger in the gesture. It was safe, the only place in the entire cosmos where she truly belonged.

From him, she never would have to fear rejection for experiencing the monstrous blood hunger, shame at suffering Baal's wrath, disgust at her flesh's betrayal of the power coursing within her. Azriok already knew her every ache and sadness in ways no one else possibly could.

"I hate you," she sighed contently, closing her eyes as her cheek fell against the cold flesh of his shoulder. There were no Tenaebran words for the sentence that followed. She had to revert to mortal speech to convey a sentiment alien to Hell's magical tongue. "And I love you."

Azriok was silent a long time. His fingers entwined delicately in her hair as he regarded her with the dark eyes that contained infinity. Centuries could pass unnoticed as she stared into those eyes. He sighed sadly, his breath the whisper of a thousand night breezes against her skin. Her profession was an admission that his most important lesson to her had failed.

Azriok normally named "love" using a Seraphim word, or a synonym in his native vocabulary - desire, passion, adoration. When he called her "beloved" in the past, the word he used connoted one who is cherished or coveted. There was no suitable equivalent this time. When he spoke finally, he used mortal speech with her for the first time in her life. The words came as a chagrined confession, an emblem of his own shame. "I am cursed to love you as well."

Zyrdicia stiffened in his arms. Something was not right. His tenor and cadence uttering human syllables sounded identical to someone else. She blinked. The instant her eyes moved, the Tenaebran world vanished. She found herself back in Castle Blackpool, in front of the fire, wrapped in warm, mortal arms rather than icy, angelic ones. Her husband knelt on one knee next to where she sat on the stones of the fireplace. She had not the slightest inkling as to how he had come in, or how long ago.

She could not resist the very powerful urge to push him away as she struggled to master her confusion. Azazel was gone. She could not grasp how this situation had come to be. For a moment, the boundary between her dreamworld and reality had fully disintegrated. For once, she wanted to go back into the dreamworld. Her soul ached for Azriok. The abrupt severance of contact with him made her feel as though a vital organ had been ripped out.

"Calm down!" Dirk commanded in a surprised whisper as she tried to pull away. His arms tightened around her reflexively.

"Did I just fall asleep?" she mumbled, befuddled.

"Of course not," he frowned, perplexed."Your eyes were open."

"But how did you get here?"

"Through the door. Obviously."

"How long ago?"

"Just a moment ago. What has come over you?" Dirk now looked as confused as she did.

Her stomach turned. Surely the dream could not be so perverse. She wondered now just which of the lords of Hell Azazel served. Her voice trembled as she lied, "I remember a Sephiroth messenger appearing. . .and then I don't remember anything. Until I woke up in your arms, and had no idea how I got there."

"You don't remember?" Dirk arched an eyebrow skeptically.

Zyrdicia shook her head helplessly. "No."

Dirk's blue eyes bored into her relentlessly.

Zyrdicia gulped. She realized he looked as though he no longer believed a word she uttered. Does he sense I was with Azriok? she wondered nervously.

He shook his head impatiently. "Zyrdicia, really! Your propensity to flee truly annoys me. Whether to a distant world, to death or to unconsciousness, I have no more patience for it."

"But I really don't remember!" she protested.

"Of course not. Nor do I," he replied, his tone cutting.

Zyrdicia inhaled deeply and turned her face back toward the fire. This was easily the most surreal evening of recent memory. First Magnus, then Azriok, now Dirk. A profession of love from Magnus was easy to accept, for it was merely an acknowledgment of the adoring dependence she took for granted with him. She regarded it vaguely as a dog's affection for its master. From Azriok, it was everything she had ever wanted at one time in her life. Now she found it profoundly disturbing. For all she knew, Azazel had tricked her, wrapping her in an illusion. From Dirk, she was certain that it had not happened. She had to believe it had not.

"There was no conversation a moment ago!" she insisted.

"Of course there wasn't," he confirmed coldly.

A long silence ensued. Finally, he noted, "You are shaking."

She lied, "I'm just cold."

"Your hands were bleeding when you left my chamber."

"The studs on your armor probably caught my wrist. It's nothing."

He gathered both her hands, turning them over so that he could see her wrists. A few thin scratches were the only evidence of the fresh incisions made there but a short time ago. By tomorrow, there would be no sign of them at all. "You did this after we quarrelled?"

"Mm," she nodded. Seeing the misunderstanding on his face, she explained, "It had nothing to do with you. It was just something I needed to do."

"Were you trying to kill yourself?"

"That would be futile. I can't die anymore, remember?" she smiled softly.

"If you needed pain, why didn't you come to me?" he whispered intently, his brow furrowed. "You didn't trust me to do it?"

"It was something I needed to do myself." Her smile vanished as she added, "Besides, like so many things, it is not your duty."

He frowned, disliking the reference. At this particular moment, he could not even remember what he had been thinking about to justify sending her away. "I don't know what came over me," he said in a subdued tone.

"An attack of common sense," she responded earnestly. "We both needed to be reminded of what our pact is - and is not. I won't bother you with my need for touch. Until our deal is finished and I can depart, I'll make other arrangements."

"I might very well still find a way kill you, were you to be so foolish," he glared in disbelief. Her sudden change in demeanor both baffled and irked him. He rolled his eyes, reluctant to say the words that followed. He half-sneered as he admitted, "Your bizarre needs - for touch, pain and destruction, for killing, for protection from the demons in your sleep - I find them incomprehensibly delightful." It sounded more like an annoyed admission to himself than a profession to her. His tone hardened as he added, "I don't share my possessions - ever."