Chapter 26: A Professor’s Secret
I found Lilith in the west tower library just after midnight. She sat alone, fingers trailing across an open page of a thick, rune-etched volume. Her expression wasn’t her usual unreadable mask—it was softer, almost... haunted.
"You ever regret it?" I asked.
She didn’t flinch. "Regret what?"
"Becoming a professor. Teaching... me. Us."
Lilith’s gaze lingered on the page a moment longer. Then she closed the book. "I never intended to teach. I was forged for war. I broke kingdoms before I learned how to correct grammar."
I smiled faintly. "Could’ve fooled me."
She turned, cloak rustling like wind through silk. "The truth is... I once loved a human. Before all this."
I blinked. That was... unexpected.
"It ended in fire," she said. "And betrayal. I swore I’d never teach another mortal anything but fear."
"But you changed your mind."
"I didn’t," she said. "You changed it for me."
And then, like the moment had never happened, she picked up the book again.
But something lingered in the air after I left—the weight of history, heavy and real.
And a crack in Lilith’s armor that no blade could have made.
