Chapter Thirty-two: The Princess of Hell

Chapter thirty-two: The Princess of Hell

The weight of her belly grew alongside the weight of her guilt, like the scales of justice balancing just so. The fleeting glimpses she got of Levistus at the mandatory court functions twisted the shard of shame deeper in her chest. He looked… frazzled. Unkempt, hair long and full, careless beard. Haggard, even, if she were to be unkind. But she couldn’t. This was her doing. She’d drove him to despair and it was showing.

His eyes always found her growing belly, taking it in before making eye contact – his heartbreak plain for her eyes only. She was the one who had to live with this. He never sought her out to speak, and any time she tried to corner him, to get him to talk to her – look at her like he used to – he managed to disappear before she could cross the crowded room. She was growing desperate, but not thoughtless enough to blatantly seek him out, Basileus’s constant hovering presence a warning in caution.

When she finally did manage to escape Basileus’s predatory watch and find Levistus leaned against a wall at another of Asmodeus’s celebratory gatherings, he looked startled, then trapped. His shock at not having slipped away before she found him might have been amusing if the sight of him searching for a way to avoid her didn’t swamp her with painful yearning. She’d done this. She had no one but herself to blame for his hesitance.

“My brother,” she spoke lowly, keeping the conversation neutral. “Have you any leads? It’s not like Azadiel to abandon… his duties.” 

Levistus cleared his throat, running a hand through his over-long hair, then down his scruffy beard. “I have been chasing leads for,” he looked down at her belly, swallowed visibly, then back up at her face, “months now. I’ve been blocked and misled at every turn.”

“He’s left us intentionally then?” her breaths grew heavy in her chest, familiar burning in her eyes had her turning back to the gruesome festivities in the hall to hide the tears she had no right to shed.

Levistus raised his hand, and for a brief, heart-stuttering moment, she thought he might touch her. Run his hand down her hair, caress her cheek… but he settled for tapping his finger on the back of her hand.

“It means there’s only a few places left he could be.” He withdrew his hand, cupping his wineglass with both. “And where I find Azadiel, I’m sure I’ll find Lucifer.”

He stepped back, looking around the room before offering her a brisk bow. “I’ll be sure he contacts you with all haste once I find him, my queen.”

With that, he walked away and the shards of her broken heart sunk into her guts, festering until they rotted with a new kind of self-loathing. She’d isolated herself from all whom she could call an ally. Placed herself on the sacrificial altar of her husband's viperous ambition for self preservation, for the survival of her child, for the slim hope that salvation still existed. She cradled her burgeoning belly, clinging to all she had left.

The final months were a waking dream, a surreal passage of time measured in the growing weight of her own body. Life had narrowed to the confines of the Malsheem, a palace she was transforming into the most beautiful prison imaginable. At her direction, heavy, blood-red tapestries were replaced with silks the color of twilight, and the cold obsidian floors were softened by plush carpets. Each change was a small, desperate act of rebellion, an attempt to breathe her own life into the stale, oppressive air. But the beauty was a lie, and she was its chief architect.

Her days were spent in the nursery. She would run her hands over the cradle, carved from the petrified wood of a long-dead Edenic tree, and feel nothing but the cold finality of her choices. She would watch the captured stars in the mobile twinkle and feel a pang of such profound loneliness it was a physical ache. This room, a masterpiece of celestial artistry and infernal wealth, was a monument to a love her child would never know. It was a perfect, gilded cage for a baby who was not yet born.

Asmodeus was a shadow at her side, his new, doting nature a form of tyranny. He would bring her fruits from the mortal realm, and their sweetness would turn to ash in her mouth, a reminder of all she had lost. He would place a hand on her stomach, a proprietary gesture that made her skin crawl, and speak of "his son," "his heir." She would smile, a placid, serene mask she was perfecting, while her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird calling out for a prince of ice and stone.

The birth, when it came, was a violation. The room was full of grim-faced attendants, their presence a sterile intrusion. Asmodeus stood near her head, not a comforting partner, but an impatient king awaiting his prize. Through the waves of agony that threatened to tear her apart, Benzosia closed her eyes and fled. She went to Stygia. She conjured the memory of a frozen spire, the feeling of a cool, strong hand in hers, the sound of a low voice promising to protect her. She clung to the ghost of Levistus, using his memory as an anchor in the storm of pain. He was the only thing that was real.

A new cry, sharp and surprisingly strong, ripped her from her reverie. The pain receded, leaving behind a hollow, trembling exhaustion.

"It is a girl, my king," the lead attendant announced.

Benzosia’s breath caught. Through the haze, she saw a flicker of something cross Asmodeus’s face—not anger, but surprise, as if this possibility had never occurred to him. For a terrifying second, the world held its breath.

The attendant, swaddling the crying infant, brought the child not to her, but to him. Benzosia watched as Asmodeus looked down at the tiny, squirming bundle.

And he melted.

The cold, calculating mask of the King of Hell dissolved, replaced by an expression of such pure, unadulterated wonder that it was more frightening than any rage she had ever seen. He reached out a hesitant finger and gently touched the baby’s cheek. The infant quieted instantly, her tiny, dark eyes blinking up at him.

“Glasya,” Asmodeus whispered, the name a soft, sibilant sound she had never heard before. He took the child, holding her with an awkward but fierce possessiveness.

He was utterly smitten.

Lying in the opulent bed, Benzosia felt a wave of relief so profound it was dizzying. Her daughter was safe from his disappointment. But a new, more insidious terror slithered into its place. This was not the simple love of a father. This was the obsessive fascination of a collector who had just acquired his most priceless treasure. He stared at Glasya—her daughter, Levistus’s daughter—as if she were a perfect, untainted extension of himself.

A triumphant smile graced his lips as he turned to Benzosia. "She is perfect," he declared. "A true princess of Hell. My daughter."

He did not bring the baby to her. He did not place their child in her arms. He stood by the window, rocking Glasya gently, showing her the grey, ashen expanse of their kingdom. Benzosia, the mother, the queen, could only watch. A prisoner in her own bed. The bars of her gilded cage had just slammed shut, locking her daughter inside with her.