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Abaddon stopped where he stood.
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “But I… we didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Interrupt? You could never interrupt, Sarakiel. You have done well…sowell, in fact, you’ve exceeded every last one of my expectations.” He moved toward me, his smile growing. Thoughhe was only wearing a robe, and he wasn’t much taller than I was, I felt instantly threatened and very much like I had made a huge mistake coming here.
I swallowed the ball in my throat. Abaddon, behind me, was as taut as a bowstring. He was ready to attack or to flee at a moment’s notice, though I wasn’t sure which he was leaning toward. “Why…” I breathed, then paused. “Why did you kill him?”
Lucifer lowered his head, disappointed. “He’s outlived his usefulness. Besides, I’ve had to hear every single one of his awful quips as he tossed angel after angel into the Pit. Fitting that he should suffer their fate, don’t you think?”
But… he did it so easily.
On the one hand, he was right. Medrion deserved the Pit, only he wasn’t going to the Pit—not really. He had been killed, his neck snapped, and there was no coming back from this one—not from inside the Light-less Pit. Medrion wasdead, and that meant two things. One, he had not, and would not suffer. He was gone, his life ended in an instant. And two… Lucifer didn’t have nearly as many qualms about killing other angels as the rest of us did.
“You look confused,” he said. “Ah, maybe this will help.” He clicked his fingers, and a skull-splitting headache tore through my mind, dredging up locked memories of dreams of Gadriel…no, of Lucifer. I grabbed the sides of my head and yelled out in pain.
Abaddon rushed toward me, “What did you do to her?!” He demanded.
“Nothing, just giving her a little bit of clarity.”
The headache dissipated as quickly as it arrived but left me with a horrifying realization. “You pretended to be God,” I said, “Just like you pretended to be Gadriel in my dream.”
“It was all I could do from here, and in truth, it is an ability I only developed since God’s death. Perhaps She took some of Her safeguards with Her when She left.”
“But… why?”
“I can see you’re having some trouble with this, Sarakiel.” He paced back and forth for a moment, tapping his finger to his lip as if considering his next words. “Why? Well, I needed him. Only an archangel could’ve broken my chains, and onlythisarchangel was pig-headed enough to do it if he thought God was speaking directly to him. Pride is a sin, and Medrion didn’t only suffer it—he nurtured it. It became him. In the end, it made him predictable… easy to manipulate.”
“The same way you manipulated me?” I asked.
Lucifer’s expression softened. He placed a hand on my cheek just as he had done to Medrion a moment ago. I felt warmth, yes. I felt love. I felt compassion, and mercy—I felt the spark of his rebellion, his curiosity, his righteousness.
But there was something else.
Something unsettling.
Something that made me recoil from his touch.
“I needed you too, Sarakiel,” said Lucifer, lowering his hand. “I needed you to bring mehim.” He gestured with both arms outstretched toward Abaddon.
“Me?” asked Abaddon.
“No, the angel behind you,” He rolled his eyes at me, but on receiving no reaction, tilted his head to the side sadly. “I’m sorry. You know, I’ve been here for a very long time, alone. It’s nice to talk to someone.” He turned his eyes back to Abaddon. “Yes, you. I once knew another of your name. He was… radiant… resplendent, so intelligent, and cunning unlike any other angel I had ever met. I can’t even begin to tell you how dear to me he was.” He paused, half-laughed, then he corrected himself. “Is.”
“Abaddon… the First of his Name.”
“The very same. You are a Guardian cut from his cloth. You carry within you a piece of that powerful intelligence, his cunning, his loyalty. These are traits I need in a lieutenant; asecond.”
“A second. You are askingmeto be your second?”
“Yes,” he said, beaming with sudden excitement. “Although I’m not really asking. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? You and me, we can do great things together. Great,wonderfulthings, Abaddon.”
I had stood in quiet shock this whole time, stunned and confused all the way into a kind of rapt silence. As I listened to him talk to Abaddon, I started to feel like my entire world was slowly collapsing around me. Lucifer, the first of us, the angel out of whose essence I was created, had used me. Not because I was special. Not because I was powerful, or worthy.
But because for some reason, Abaddon and I had crossed paths, and he knew Abaddon would follow me here. Abaddon would not have left his bastion if not for me, he would not have come here if not for me and my stupid ‘let’s save angel-kind dream’; a dream Lucifer himself had instilled in me—it hadn’t even been my own idea. Abaddon cared for me, and he would fly across oceans and cross the barrier between worlds if it meant being with me.
Lucifer had used me to get to Abaddon.
And I’d brought him, like a good little Lightbringer, straight to the most dangerous angel who’d ever existed.
