Chapter 82 Learning to Wait
“You slept fourteen hours.”
Lilith blinked awake to find Sera standing over her with an expression caught between concern and amusement. Sunlight streamed through windows at an angle that suggested late morning or possibly early afternoon.
“That can’t be right.”
“It is. I checked with a servant because I thought maybe time worked differently here.” Sera sat on the edge of the bed. “Apparently we both just slept like we’d been awake for a week straight.”
“I feel amazing though.” Lilith stretched, feeling more rested than she had since arriving at the Vestibulum months ago. “No nightmares, no waking up anxious. Just actual sleep.”
“Same. This kingdom is dangerous for productivity.” Sera gestured toward the window. “Belphegor sent a message saying to meet him in the eastern gardens whenever you wake up. No rush, obviously.”
They found the gardens after getting thoroughly lost twice, the palace layout seeming to shift depending on which corridor you took. When they finally emerged into sunlight, Lilith stopped short at the view.
The gardens sprawled in controlled chaos, plants growing in patterns that suggested someone cared deeply but refused to force anything into unnatural shapes. Fruit trees heavy with produce no one had bothered harvesting yet. Flowers blooming in clusters where they’d seeded themselves. A pond thick with lily pads and lazy fish.
Belphegor sat under a massive tree, surrounded by cushions and books he clearly wasn’t reading. He glanced up when they approached.
“You found it. Good.” He gestured to the cushions. “Sit. We’re learning about patience today.”
“Is that really what Sloth is?” Sera asked, settling beside Lilith. “Just patience?”
“Patience is part of it. So is knowing what deserves your energy and what doesn’t.” Belphegor picked up one of the books and opened it seemingly at random. “Most people waste themselves on things that don’t matter because they think constant motion equals productivity. Sloth understands that sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is nothing.”
He pointed to a section of the garden where vegetables grew in neat rows. “See those? Planted six weeks ago. They’ll be ready in another three weeks, maybe four. You can’t make them grow faster by checking on them every hour or worrying about the timeline. They grow at the speed they grow, and your anxiety doesn’t change that.”
“So you just wait,” Lilith said.
“You wait strategically. You prepare the soil, plant at the right time, water when needed. Then you let nature handle the rest instead of exhausting yourself trying to control variables you can’t change anyway.” He closed the book. “Same principle applies to most things. Politics, relationships, prophecies about choosing which brother to bind yourself to for eternity.”
The casual mention of her situation made Lilith’s stomach tighten. “That’s different.”
“Is it? You can’t force yourself to know your heart. You can’t logic your way into certainty about something that’s fundamentally emotional. So you do what you can, learn what you need to learn, and then you wait for the answer to arrive on its own.”
“And if it doesn’t arrive in time?”
“Then you make a choice without certainty and live with it. But rushing the process just means you’ll definitely make the wrong choice.” Belphegor stood with his characteristic lazy grace. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
He led them deeper into the gardens to a greenhouse that looked ancient, glass panels clouded with age and plants growing in wild profusion inside. The air was humid and thick with the scent of growing things.
“This is my actual project,” Belphegor said, gesturing to rows of unusual plants Lilith didn’t recognize. “Most of them take years to mature. Some take decades. I started this collection when I was young, and I’ll probably die before some of them bloom.”
“That’s depressing,” Sera observed.
“That’s patience. Knowing you’re building something you might never see completed but doing it anyway because the work matters more than witnessing the result.” He stopped at a plant with deep purple leaves. “This one will bloom once in its lifetime, probably fifty years from now. When it does, the flower will only last a single night before dying.”
Lilith stared at the plant, trying to imagine caring for something for decades just for one night of beauty. “Why bother?”
“Because that one night will be worth every year of waiting. Because some things can’t be rushed without destroying them. Because patience isn’t passive, it’s active choosing to let time do what time does.” He touched one of the purple leaves gently. “Your prophecy wants you to choose now, choose quickly, get it done. But maybe the real power is refusing to be rushed into something that deserves time.”
They wandered through the greenhouse while Belphegor pointed out various plants and their impossibly long cultivation periods. Sera asked questions with genuine interest, and Lilith noticed how Belphegor’s usual sleepy demeanor sharpened when answering her. How he moved slightly closer when explaining something. How Sera unconsciously mirrored his posture.
Interesting.
“Can I ask you something?” Sera said eventually. “Doesn’t it frustrate you? Waiting so long for results? Never seeing some of these plants bloom?”
“Sometimes. But frustration is just energy wasted on things you can’t control.” Belphegor’s smile was slight. “I’d rather put that energy into the plants I can help, the moments I can influence, than burn myself out raging against time.”
They returned to the cushions under the tree, and Belphegor produced food from somewhere, bread and cheese and fruit that had clearly been sitting there for a while but somehow still tasted perfect. They ate in comfortable silence, the kind that felt natural rather than awkward.
“Your kingdom is nothing like I expected,” Lilith admitted. “I thought it would be people just lying around doing nothing, but everyone seems busy. Just slowly.”
“Sloth gets a bad reputation because people confuse it with laziness. Real Sloth is about efficiency. Why waste energy on performative productivity when you can conserve it for things that actually need doing?” He bit into an apple. “Besides, slow doesn’t mean ineffective. My kingdom’s agriculture produces more yield per acre than any other realm because we work with natural rhythms instead of against them.”
Sera had questions about the farming techniques, and soon she and Belphegor were deep in conversation about crop rotation and soil quality while Lilith half-listened and mostly thought.
All the kingdoms she’d visited, all the lessons learned. Azrael teaching her about worth and perfection. Cain showing her strength through controlled fury. Mammon explaining value versus cost. Asmodeus revealing the power of understanding desire. And now Belphegor offering patience as its own kind of power.
She still didn’t know who to choose. But maybe that was okay. Maybe forcing an answer before it was ready would just guarantee choosing wrong.
“You’re overthinking,” Belphegor said, interrupting her spiral. “I can see it from here.”
“How do you know I’m not just thinking the regular amount?”
“Because thinking the regular amount doesn’t make your face do that.” He gestured vaguely at her expression. “You’re trying to solve a problem that can’t be solved through analysis. Stop working so hard at it.”
“I don’t know how to stop.”
“Practice. Start small. Right now, in this moment, what do you need?”
Lilith thought about it honestly. “To not think about any of it for a while.”
“Then don’t. Lie here, watch clouds, let your brain rest.” Belphegor settled back into his cushions. “Everything will still be there tomorrow. The prophecy, the choice, the dying father. It’s not going anywhere just because you take an afternoon off from worrying about it.”
So Lilith did something she hadn’t done since arriving in the demon realm. She stopped. Lay back in the cushions, watched clouds drift across an impossibly blue sky, and let her mind wander without forcing it in any particular direction.
Sera and Belphegor’s conversation faded to pleasant background noise. The sun was warm but not aggressive. Time moved at whatever pace it wanted, and for once, Lilith didn’t fight it.
She must have dozed because when she opened her eyes, the sun had shifted considerably and Sera was laughing at something Belphegor had said, her whole face bright with genuine amusement.
Yeah. Definitely interesting.