I try to conjure up the images I have seen of him.
They exist, but there’s just not new media of him. At least nothing not taken from a very distant position. Anything new is grainy and indistinct.
Not that it matters how he looks. But I don’t have a clear picture of him in my head as I both will the doors to the throne room to open, and try to will them to stay shut forever.
It doesn’t matter what I want. The doors open both too late and too early.
I look up and I see him. The room might as well be kilometers long. He’s all the way at the back, seated on a black throne, his shoulders straight, legs spread, hands on his knees. He’s looking ahead, at me.
I realize he has no idea who I am or what I look like—not really. I know more about him than he does about me. Perhaps that puts me at an advantage in some way. At the very least, I’ll cling to that like a lifeline.
“Approach.”
I would have expected a command from him to sound distant, but no. It’s like that word blooms inside my chest and spreads outward, filling me. Compelling me. All thoughts I had only a moment ago about claiming my advantage evaporate.
I can explain mitosis, but I can’t explain anything that’s happening in my body right now.
I feel frozen, and yet, my feet are moving. My body rushing to do his bidding. It feels like a crisis. How could it be anything else? One thing I’m not is biddable.
You’re also not an idiot. Disobeying him right now could ruin everything.
Yes. I’m not being a doormat. I’m being smart. Within the realm of the very risky thing that I’m doing.
As I get closer to him, it feels as if the room gets larger, or perhaps I’m getting smaller. Like I’m shrinking beneath his uncompromising, icy gaze. By the time I get to the throne, I feel small enough to fit into someone’s pocket.
And yet there is not a single pocket in the vicinity that I would trust.
“Give me your name.”
He is an imposing figure. I knew he was scarred. Everyone knows that. What I didn’t anticipate was how extreme the contrast is between that scarred flesh on his right side, and the pristine beauty of his left. His features are perfectly shaped. He has the strong features of a leader. A sharp nose, an expertly crafted jaw. If not for the scarring, he would be beautiful.
As it is, he’s lethal. I’ve never seen anything like him.
The scars make his looks border on the demonic. Because I can’t look away from them, or him. Because he is handsome, somehow, and yet the word isn’t quite strong enough.
I can tell, even with him sitting up on the raised throne, that he is as tall as rumored to be, if not more so. So far, he is all anyone has ever said.
And that is concerning.
I crane my neck, tilting my chin upward. “Lilith.”
It is not, at the moment, his features that make him frightening. It’s the fire in his eyes, which flares high and bright, and for a moment, I worry I’m in hell already. Like he might have dragged me down here with him, where everything is brimstone and intensity.
A black hole…
I look into his eyes, and they are fathomless.
There is no end to his depths. A black, bottomless well.
For the first time I’m properly afraid.
But I won’t show it.
“Lilith and Eve,” he said, thinking, considering. “An interesting combination of names. Did your mother do that intentionally?”
“Yes,” I say. “And also no. By which I mean, she thought it was an amusing combination, and liked both names, but I don’t think there is deep symbolism attached.”
“Interesting. I was wondering if it meant that you were the disobedient one. After all, in mythology, she was the first wife of Adam, who was banished for not complying with his wishes.”
