Pain.
It wasn’t the sharp, fleeting kind that came with a blade wound or a burn. No, this was deeper—worse. It spread through her veins like molten iron, twisting and coiling around her very essence.
Sariel tried to move, to fight against it, but she couldn’t.
Something held her.
Not physically, but in a way far more absolute.
A weight—powerful, inescapable—pressed down on her soul, as though invisible chains had latched onto the very fabric of her being.
Her breath came in ragged gasps. She was no longer in the throne room. No longer amidst the battle.
Darkness surrounded her.
And in that darkness, a voice.
“You resist.”
It wasn’t Lucifer.
It was older. Colder. A whisper that slithered through the emptiness, curling around her mind like a serpent.
Sariel’s wings twitched. Her fingers clawed against nothingness.
“Where…” Her voice cracked. “…am I?”
A chuckle. Low, distant. Amused.
“You are exactly where you were meant to be.”
Then—light.
Not divine. Not warm.
A cold, eerie glow seeped into the space around her, revealing jagged obsidian walls stretching endlessly in all directions. Blackened chains dangled from the ceiling, pulsing with a sickly red aura. The floor was nothing but a swirling abyss, shifting and churning as if alive.
Sariel’s stomach twisted.
This was no ordinary chamber in Hell.
This was something older.
Something worse.
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Her eyes flickered to the chains. They weren’t normal. The moment she focused on them, she felt a pull—like they were reaching for her, waiting.
A presence stepped forward from the shadows.
It was tall, draped in robes of midnight, its face obscured by a mask of polished bone. Eyes like hollow voids peered through the slits, watching her.
Sariel swallowed hard. “Who are you?”
The figure tilted its head. “A keeper.”
Her chest ached, the lingering pain from Lucifer’s grip still burning through her.
She clenched her jaw. “A keeper of what?”
The figure extended a skeletal hand. The chains above rattled.
“Of oaths.”
Sariel’s pulse quickened.
She didn’t need to ask to know what that meant.
Lucifer hadn’t just seized her physically.
He had bound her.
A contract. A claim. Something she had never spoken, never agreed to—but something that had been imposed upon her nonetheless.
The Keeper stepped closer. “Your struggle is meaningless.”
Sariel’s wings flared. “Nothing is meaningless.”
The Keeper’s hollow gaze bore into her. “Then prove it.”
And the chains descended.
---
A Choice That Isn’t One
The moment the chains wrapped around her wrists, agony exploded through her body.
Not just physical.
It was deeper.
It reached into who she was, into the very essence of her being, and pulled.
Images flashed through her mind—Heaven, golden and pure, the echoes of melodies long lost. Then, Hell—twisted, violent, suffocating.
And then—
Nothing.
A void.
A place between.
A place where neutrality had no meaning.
Sariel screamed.
The chains tightened, pulling her forward.
The Keeper stood unmoving, watching.
“You were never free,” it murmured. “You were simply unclaimed.”
The words struck something deep inside her.
Unclaimed.
Not Heaven’s. Not Hell’s.
Just adrift.
But now?
Now she was being claimed.
The chains pulsed, something ancient and binding coiling around her.
She wasn’t making a choice.
The choice had already been made for her.
Her wings trembled.
No.
No, she wouldn’t—
The air around her rippled.
A force—familiar, yet foreign—rushed through the chamber, interrupting the ritual.
The Keeper turned sharply.
The chains recoiled.
And from the darkness—
A new figure emerged.
---
The One Who Stands Outside
Sariel could barely focus through the pain, but she saw him.
He was nothing like the demons of Hell.
Yet, he was no angel either.
His armor was dark, but it lacked the twisted corruption of Lucifer’s legions. His presence was sharp, wrong, as if he had no business existing in either realm.
The Keeper’s voice dropped to a low hiss.
“You do not belong here.”
The stranger didn’t flinch.
“Neither does she.”
Sariel tried to move, but the chains still bound her, digging into her skin, anchoring her in place.
The Keeper straightened. “She is bound by decree.”
The stranger took a step forward, his boots echoing against the obsidian. “By force.”
The Keeper’s eyes burned. “It is the same.”
A pause.
Then, the stranger smiled.
“No,” he murmured. “It isn’t.”
Then—
He moved.
Faster than Sariel could comprehend.
His blade, black as night, sang as it met the chains. Sparks erupted, the metal shrieking in protest. The Keeper hissed, shadows twisting violently as it raised a hand.
Too slow.
The stranger struck again.
The chains snapped.
Sariel gasped, her body collapsing forward as the weight lifted—only for a strong hand to catch her before she hit the ground.
“Steady,” the stranger murmured.
Sariel’s breath came in uneven gasps. The pain had lessened, but the mark of the binding still lingered, seared into her very essence.
She looked up at him, struggling to form words. “Who—”
“No time,” he interrupted. “They’ll be coming.”
The Keeper’s form rippled, growing taller, darker, its presence expanding.
“This changes nothing,” it intoned. “She is still marked.”
The stranger didn’t react.
He simply turned to Sariel.
And for the first time, she saw his eyes.
They weren’t angelic.
They weren’t demonic.
They were something else entirely.
“Come with me,” he said.
Sariel hesitated.
This wasn’t freedom.
This was simply another force, another unknown power extending a hand.
But what choice did she have?
Behind her, the chains were already reforming.
Lucifer’s mark was still there. The claim
still existed.
It was only a matter of time before it took hold again.
The Keeper’s voice echoed one final time.
“You will never outrun him.”
The stranger smirked.
“Watch me.”
Then he grabbed Sariel’s wrist—
And the world shattered
