He’d been around me for who knew how long. If he was going to kill me, he would’ve done it already.
“What did I do wrong?”
“Other than killing me?”
He shot me a scathing look with regret flashing in his eyes.
“You didn’t do anything wrong back then.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I just didn’t want marriage or a child. Everything happened really fast, and Aziel provided me a safe place from everything. I never wanted it to end like it did.”
His face twisted into what looked like despair before he turned his back to me. “I’m sorry.”
“When did you learn you had to kill me?” I asked, ignoring the glaring obvious fact that he didn’t have to kill me. He chose to.
“I was supposed to kill you on our wedding night,” he said, and I gasped. “But I had a plan to escape into purgatory where nobody would find you.”
“You said you had a vision, but surely, you weren’t the only one.”
“No, I wasn’t.” His voice turned bitter. “There’s a blood witch who foresaw you. She told both my mother and your father about the prophecy before the seers even envisioned it.”
“A blood witch?” My brows shot up. “They’ve all been killed off…”
“She’s the last of her kind. She’s slippery, so she has never been caught.” He shrugged. “But the seers weren’t the first to have that prophecy.”
A tart taste coated my mouth. “The prophecy had nothing to do with Viktor, did it?”
“Clever hybrid.” He chuckled before reciting the prophecy,
“Born by the light
Soul created in night
Returned bathed in blood
The Crimson Demon
Beware of lightning in the flood
Calamity or liberation
Balance unhinged
Infatuation for Twilight
Contraband’s steady beat spills from flesh
Existence implodes.”
“The first part wasn’t an indication of me being the Crimson Demon…”
“No,” he said, turning back around with a grave look on his face. “The prophecy was more about how to create the Crimson Demon.”
“Then the seers…”
“They knew it, yes. So did King Zelek and Queen Astral. They are the ones who tasked me with killing you, and I was so angry at you.” Clear tears fell from his eyes as he walked over and sank to his knees in front of me. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Lightning in the flood was prophesying you filling me with lightning before driving your sword through me.”
He nodded, bowing his head forward. “I’m sorry, Lilith. If I hadn’t let my emotions guide me...”