Page 12 of Blaze of Our Lives

“Everyone be seated, please,” Lilith directed as she moved to the bay window and stared out into the yard. My mother had been otherworldly beautiful as an Immortal. As a human, she was no less stunning. Her posture and grace were quietly commanding even without magic. With her back to us, she continued to speak. “In the beginning, Pandora was good—as good as a Demon could be. We were both flawed and inexperienced as Goddesses. We leaned on each other for support.”

I scanned the room. Surprise, matching my own, showed on each face present except for Gideon’s. My guess was that he’d been alive since the beginning.

Lilith continued. “The catalyst as to why we’re here now is that the Higher Power gifted Pandora a box and to me, It gifted a key.”

“Literally?” Tim asked.

My mother shook her head then turned to face her audience. “No. The key was words. But the box… was indeed a box. It was ornate and lovely—made of delicate ivory and priceless jewels.”

“Ivory from an elephant’s tusk?” I asked. I knew it had to be a long time ago. Long before elephants.

“It was more likely made from a mammoth tusk,” Tim said. “The species existed as far back as six-point-tow million years ago and only went extinct about three thousand years ago.”

“Who knows the way of It? It works in mysterious ways. But that’s not the point.” My mother paused and sighed. “I was jealous. I wanted the box, but it wasn’t to be. Pandora was the favored Goddess. She knew it, and I knew it. The only rule she had to follow was never to open the box.” Lilith sat and pressed her temples. “It was my self-imposed mission to make her open it. I wanted the Higher Power to love me more that It loved her. It became an obsession.”

“Holy fuckballs,” Candy Vargo muttered.

Lilith glanced sharply at the Keeper of Fate and gave her a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Pandora wouldn’t open it. Oh, she wanted to, but she wanted the love of the Higher Power more.”

“But she did eventually open it,” I stated.

Lilith nodded. “She did.”

“Why?” I pressed. It would save a hell of a lot of time if Immortals just put their cards on the table. It sucked that this was the first time the story was being revealed. It might have helped earlier in this deadly game. Whatever. I realized that wasn’t how they operated. It was maddening. Note to self: Ask pointed questions, and don’t accept non-answers.

Lilith glanced at her brother. He nodded curtly with very little emotion showing on his face.

“When I spoke of Pandora’s lover…” Lilith ran her hands through her hair and sighed dramatically. It seemed as if she wasn’t going to add anything else. However, the next part of the sordid story hit me in the head like the plot of a shitty TV movie.

I wasn’t having any of it. The beating-around-the-bush crap was getting old. “You slept with him.”

She nodded slowly.

I took a semi-educated guess since I’d done my fair share of crappy TV. “Pandora was pissed you slept with her man and opened the box to punish you, unleashing a whole lot of shit on the world.”

“In the short version, yes,” Lilith stated. “I won in my quest to make her open the box, even though that hadn’t been my intention at the time. It was a good million years after she’d received the box. I’d long given up on tricking her into opening it.”

“Did you love him?” I asked.

“Who?” she questioned, truly confused.

I squinted at her in disbelief. “The guy you banged. Pandora’s lover.”

“No, I didn’t. Honestly, I don’t even remember what he looked like, let alone his name.”

“How is that possible?” I shouted. Was everyone crazy, or was it just me? Glancing around the room, it was clear I was the only one perturbed. Daisy appeared to be perplexed, but she was also fairly new to the insanity.

“Cecily, try to understand this. It will be difficult as you are so young, but do please try,” Lilith pleaded, sounding older than time. She stood ramrod straight, and her eyes held a faraway look. “When one lives forever, the centuries blend together. Time ceases to have meaning. Things that might have once seemed important tend to fade into an obscurity-laden malaise. Beauty becomes monotonous. Intimacy means little to nothing. Food is eaten simply to sustain life. Pleasure of any kind holds no value—one millennium bleeds into the next.” She crossed the room and cupped my cheek in her hand. “The only thing that one who can no longer find joy in living desires is love—not necessarily physical. Just love. It's the only emotion that can begin to give meaning to an unending existence. I’ve always done my job as the Goddess of the Darkness. I’ve protected and taken care of my people. However, I didn’t start living until I met your father.” She tucked my hair behind my ear as if I were a small child. “Understanding love was foreign. Your father, and then you, helped me feel love for the first time in my endless immortality. It was, and is, the greatest gift of my life.”

Her words gave me a heck of lot to mull over. Truly understanding was impossible. But if I was being honest with myself, I couldn’t recall what I’d eaten last year, even last week. Memories from my childhood were either the super happy ones or the ones that left some kind of scar. The rest was a blur. In a screwed-up way, it made sense that Lilith would have forgotten who Pandora’s lover was. A million years is a long freakin’ time. Hell, I’d never had a relationship that had passed the three-year mark.

A gamut of emotions raced in my mind. Sadness was at the forefront. The thought that one day I would have a million years behind me was nuts. Would Abaddon still love me? Would I love him? Would I even remember him after a million years? The icky and heartbreaking possibilities were endless.

I pushed the horrible random thoughts away and did my best to stay in the present. “Okay,” I whispered, placing my hand over my mother’s. I would leave the past where it belonged. It was smart to know the background of what had happened, but it was immaterial to what was going down now. “I kind of get it. It might take me a few centuries to comprehend it. But I’m sorry for judging you.”

Lilith smiled. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Cecily. My regret is that my interaction with a man whose face I can’t remember caused Pandora, who had once been my friend, to do the one thing she was forbidden to do. That’s on me.”

“Bullshit,” Candy Vargo grunted. “You didn’t open the fuckin’ box. Ain’t none of us here, except maybe Daisy and Cecily, who don’t have a shady background that should stay in the past.”

---