Akil’s powerful wings cut through the air scattering violet embers along his wake, painting streaks of light across the sky. He was nearing the crash site, and the air was growing colder, thoughts of his recent battle forgotten, like it never happened.

  He landed at the edge of the crash site deftly, dismissing his wings into flames once more. He could taste the scent of the divine fire in the air, sweet, sharp, and all together wrong. Below, at the bottom lay a crater of obsidian glass and black sand as though the Infernal Code recoiled from the comet’s impact.

  At the center was light. Pulsing dimly, wrapped in smoke and feathers.

  Akil hesitated, but he was enraptured by the sight. Taking a deep breath, he descended, his boots sinking into the molten dust. The Code reached out to him, whispering in a tongue only a Progeny can hear.

  Anomaly detected.

  No soul of light shall touch the Infernal Realm and live.

  Akil ignored the whispers, the moment he took his first steps towards the creature of light, he wasn’t going to be deterred by anyone… or any force.

  He walked towards the light, and when the smoke parted, he saw her.

  A woman lay among broken feathers and fractured dark crystals, her body half-buried in the crater floor. Wings, vast and white, burned at the edges and one of the lay at a crooked angle, most likely broken. Her blood glows a faint silver, refusing to seep into the ground.

  As Akil got closer, he noticed the space around her distorted and shimmering slightly like the very world was against her presence, her being caused the world to ache and groan. The Sigil branded unto his core, his very soul, marking him as a Sin of Lust, flared with pain. He stuttered to a stop, this was the first time he felt his being rejecting another’s this violently. Curiosity encompassing his pain, he marched towards the woman.

  Akil got close to her figure and felt space itself pushing him away, he flared his presence, demanding that he be let through and it acquiesced. Pushing past the pain, he knelt beside the young looking woman, hair glistening silver and splayed around her lithe frame, she was breathing albeit faintly.

  He cocked his head slightly, the violet glow if his eyes flickers. Akil’s seen angels before — corpses, playthings for his mother’s courts, stripped of of their divine will and flames — but this one was… different. She held an ethereal beauty that felt pure, dangerous but something inside him stirred, not desire… not yet, something else he couldn’t place.

  Still kneeling beside her still form, he reached out, fingers hovering just above her cheek. The heat of her aura stinging his skin.

  “You do know that’ll be a bad idea, yes?” A voice spoke behind his kneeling frame.

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  Shoulders tensing, he answered. “Then stop me.”

  “We both know that’s an action in futility,” Syrene retorted, a sigh escaping her lips as she gazed from the edge of the crater. “If you like your head attached to your body and your soul intact, you’ll offer that creature a mercy.”

  “No.” His voice carried a finality to it, brooking no argument.

  He hadn’t even turned around to address her, his gaze was intent on the fallen angel. Then a presence erupted around him, blades of shimmering green light materialized around him.

  Chuckling, he said, “That’s clearly an action in futility.”

  “I’m doing this for your sake Akil. If you won’t do it, then I will.” Her hand rose, glowing with emerald light, ready to unleash the blades at a moment’s notice.

  Slowly, he turned around to face her, standing up to his full height he gazed up at her from the bottom of the crater. “You’re welcome to try Syrene…” Then he smiled.

  “I thought I could scare you off at least…” She sighed dejectedly, emerald light dimming around her fingers as she dismissed the blades. “I hope you’re prepared for the consequences.” She disappeared in a swirl of green flames.

  Akil cocked an eyebrow, dismissing Syrene from his mind as he knelt back beside the angel. Then he spoke, his voice barely a whisper. “What brings you here creature of light? This is no place for your kind.”

  Her lips part, a tremor of sound. “Light…not anymore.”

  Akil was startled, the words cut through him like a blade dipped in mercy.

  The wind howled above and Akil steeled his mind for the action he was about to take. He needed answers and she was the only one who could sate his curiosity.

  The Infernal Code surged in protest, no longer a whisper, its voice thundered in his mind.

  Touch her, and you will burn.

  Protect her, and you will fail.

  He hesitated at that moment. Every instinct, every teaching, every order from Lirien’s endless sermons screamed to step back and let the Code devour her. But his hand moved on its own.

  Akil brushed the edge of her burnt wing and a rush of heat enveloped him, not pain but connection, a name imprinted in his mind, Veyra. For a heartbeat, their pulses aligned, and the Code screamed.

  The crater erupts in a violent storm of violet and silver fire, reaching high above and illuminating the surroundings in a surreal glow.

  Akil uncharacteristically threw his body over her, shielding her from the worst of the shockwaves that bursts outward, shattering obsidian spires and shaking the crater.

  Syrene, still reeling from the aftershock left by the Code’s scream, observed this scene from a distance. “What have you brought upon these lands, you bastard?” She muttered, weariness bleeding into her words.

  Minutes passed before Akil opened his eyes again. The world was quiet, the Code had gone silent too.

  'She… is dangerous'. Akil marveled at the way he tried to shield her without a shred of self-preservation in his mind. He looked down, she was still breathing — albeit faintly — as the divine glow around her slowly dimmed.

  He stood, gathering her in his arms, a weight that felt heavier than her body seemed. The violet flame coiled around him, masking traces of celestial energy, warping the air so that no Infernal eye could see.

  Conjuring his wings once again, he took flight, he heard the Code uttering, weaker now but still containing a barely concealed Infernal fury.

  You cannot protect her forever, Child of Lust.

  She will unmake you.

  Akil grimaced in pain but didn’t answer. Above the storm, his wings cut through the dark.

  Below, the battlefield burned quietly.

  Cut to: The Palace of Lust, Night.

  In her throne of rose quartz and shadows, Lirien, the Demon of Lust, lifted her head. Her eyes flared, narrowing.

  Her fingers traced the stem of her glass, swirling crimson liquid within.

  “My son,” she murmured, “has touched something forbidden.”