Prologue - A Flame Must Continue to Burn

The Promised Land — Unknown Year

“I understand Kamael, but will you let Cassiel go as well?” Mikhael asks the figure—a God, but she knows better—sitting on the throne. She averts her gaze so as not to be blinded by the light. It flickers and sways, casting rainbows across the crystalline palace walls and the tall doors through which Kamael had just left.

Kamael, who had chosen to Fall.

“Mikhael, why do you worry?” The figure extends a hand, caressing her pairs of white wings. “Cassiel has his uses, just as Kamael does. Both need to be tested.”

She shifts, contemplating, and her wings extend far and wide behind her with a brilliance outmatched only by the figure. The pair around her ankles throb uncomfortably. “I trust your plans, Your Grace,” she replies. I just wish you’d tell me what they are. The way you used to.

“It is almost time again.”

She frowns. “Four Artifacts remain. The Fallen will only try harder to decrease this number. We need you now more than ever.”

“That is true. But you know I must sleep now if I am to wake again.” The light surrounding the figure dims slightly, if only for a moment. “Have some faith in humans, Mikhael. Especially the Seven Families I’ve entrusted my Artifacts to.”

The last time you went into a sleep cycle, one of the Artifacts was destroyed, she wants to say. But she stifles this urge.

“Come before me, Mikhael.”

She steps out from behind the throne, lightly descending the stairs, and kneels with her head bowed. Moments later, her God’s Aeon—divine energy—pulses, golden waves cascading outwards from the throne room. It pulses again, washing the heavens in a soft glow. The energy pulses once more, travelling into Mikhael herself and imbuing her with certain memories from her God’s past. She fails to stifle a gasp as the images rush through her head. Her head throbs, dizzy from the swell of information.

What she’s just learned is dangerous. It’s something that she should never have known—much less anybody else. But it’s only confirmed her suspicions about her God’s weakness.

It’s confirmed her fears about their future plans.

And it hurts to see how much her old friend has changed.

You were never this untrusting before.

But time isn’t something Mikhael can rewind, and she most definitely doesn’t have the ability to even try. Not anymore, for as long as she stays an angel by her friend’s—no, a God’s—side. Now, at all costs, the Artifacts must be protected.

I’ll have to take more precautions when dealing with Kamael and Cassiel. Especially Kamael.

“Why would you show me this now?” Mikhael asks as she opens her eyes.

But the light on the throne dims and the small figure slumps, their long black hair falling across their gentle face.

“…It’s funny that you don’t look any different from that day,” Mikhael whispers. “And yet, you’re not one of us anymore.” Her features tighten. “Or rather, we’re no longer like you.”

A moment later, she stands and bows before turning and extending her hand. The space around her fingers ripples and she reaches in to draw out a flaming sword. Mikhael chants, melodic voice filtering through the charged air. She slashes the sword several times. Its flames twist and twirl outwards, forming arcane patterns.

With one last heavy swing, the magic circle is sent toward the doors, engraving its pattern on them. The throne room glows briefly, a protective covering shimmering into existence. She puts away her sword as the space around her ripples once again.

Mikhael gazes upon the frail form of her old friend as the wings around her head cover her vision, furling over her eyes until all she sees is darkness.

“Very well, then. Leave everything to me, Your Grace…no, Lilith,” Mikhael whispers, smiling wryly before she vanishes from the space.

***

A three-story pagoda topped with a gold finial peeks out against a backdrop of misty waterfalls. It stands proudly amongst a sea of foliage in one of the floating cities of The Promised Land.

Or, as Kamael likes to call it, The Land of Lies.

Green-tiled roofs tilt upward slightly at the tips and drape outwards from each floor of the tower. Red-framed balconies line each level, providing a place for a moment’s respite. The podium on the first level tapers into a stone staircase, surrounded on all edges by green shrubbery and trees.

Kamael walks up the path with heavy footsteps, expression vacant and eyes devoid of the mirth present in them earlier. He carries a little box in his hands, locked tightly. Tufts of red leaves and mahogany bushes dot the passing tranquil scenery, but he pays it no mind. The staircase gives way to a humble dirt path, leading further into the mountain forests.

Cassiel had looked at him, so kindly, so trusting, so—

—cruel.

He makes his way up the stone stairs, and his hand slips past the supporting pillars at the entrance.

He knows best that Cassiel is the cruelest angel of them all. In the most unexpected ways. Because of Cassiel’s innocence, obliviousness, and ignorance, he can’t return a gaze as pure as his friend’s.

Friends.

Somehow, they’ve come to call each other friends. Kamael still doesn’t know when his attempts to get through to Cassiel actually, well, got through. Or why he felt the need to try so hard to do that at all, really. He’d been alone for millennia now, the gap in his memories not helping at all with the solitude that was wrapped around him.

But he never lets himself forget: he is different from Cassiel. From Mikhael. From all the other angels that came into existence after him, crafted by the hands of a God that tore his world apart.

Or as vaguely as he can remember, anyways.

Inside the pagoda, his footsteps resound in the secluded void and up more flights of stairs. The conscious feeling of guilt at what he is about to do is like a spiralling suction stemming from his heart, threatening to compress and crush the rest of him into a singular point.

He needs to remember. He needs to know. The bits and pieces that have been returning to him over the years isn’t enough to sate his desires. Like sparks that blossom into flame, the fragments have only spurred him on. He’s almost remembered everything about his past, and what he does know is that this so-called God is the one that gifted him memories of a fake reality.

He’s so close to unravelling the truth that it would be a sin not to. No matter the cost.

Kamael reaches the top floor of the tower, entering a room with a small wooden table in its center. He places the small treasure chest in his hands upon the table.

Mechanically, with practiced motions, he subconsciously reaches into his sleeve for the key Lucifer gave him. He inserts it into the gold-plated keyhole and twists. There is a soft click as the case opens.

Only now, is there a flicker of emotion in his eyes. He stares down hungrily at a golden apple sitting on the plush velvet inside the chest. This apple has already been bitten, but he doesn’t mind this. He cradles it in trembling hands, eyes wide and unseeing. His breaths come labored now, shuddering and fighting their way out of their cage.

Kamael bites into the golden fruit, a thin trail of honey nectar dripping down and spilling out the side of his mouth.

Sweeping lashes flutter in pleasure and glistening cerulean orbs dim further, violent sparks and crashing desires flickering in their unwavering depths.

His lips slowly curve into a smile.

The Promised Land, this earth, these angels, those humans—all of them are false.

He’ll reclaim his original world no matter what. He’ll rip it from the hands of this God himself.