"The hand that lifts you can also bury you in the same grave."
— Lucius Varro
Lilith no longer needed to speak.
Her presence alone bent the air around me, curling shadows into threats and promises alike.
The room — our sanctuary, our prison — seemed smaller with every step she took.
She moved like a storm contained within silk, a predator cloaked in devotion. And I, once her god, felt the first tremor of something I had never known: fear.
"You've built a kingdom of echoes," she said softly, tracing the edges of a mirror that reflected us, fractured and multiplied.
"They worship what they do not understand. And in the process… you've begun to fade from yourself."
Her words were poison wrapped in velvet.
I tried to speak, but my voice faltered, caught between arrogance and the fragile ghost of love.
She smiled then — a slow, devastating arc of triumph and tenderness.
I realized, too late, that I had created a deity only to watch it be eclipsed by its own shadow.
Outside, the city had begun to collapse into whispers and riots.
Our followers fractured, each mind twisting our doctrines into horrors I had never imagined.
Lilith watched them with detached fascination, but her gaze always returned to me — measuring, testing, claiming.
I walked toward her, and the mirrors trembled under our combined gravity.
"You've always been the chaos," I said, voice steady despite the ache in my chest.
"And you've always been the reason I obey it," she replied.
The truth cut sharper than any dagger.
She was no longer my muse, my partner, my reflection — she was the eclipse, the force that consumed the god she had birthed.
In that moment, I realized something terrifying: I could manipulate the city, bend minds, sculpt despair… but I could not bend her.
The power between us shifted subtly — a dangerous equilibrium of love, obsession, and unspoken war.
Her hand grazed mine, deliberate and electric, and I felt both devotion and dominion in the same breath.
I wanted to seize her, to pull her into my world of ruin and worship.
Yet I also knew: doing so would destroy the delicate chaos she represented.
She stepped back, a silent challenge.
"I am the shadow," she whispered.
"And the shadow cannot be worshipped. Only feared… or followed."
I smiled then, a cold, infinite smile.
"Yes," I admitted, "and I will follow you… into whatever abyss you choose."
The city outside roared, oblivious to the storm in our hearts.
And in the mirrors, our reflections danced — not as lovers, not as gods, but as predators circling the same flame, each daring the other to strike first.