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Aisling was petrified. Her body shook with such violence that her muscles and bones ached from it. She knew this sensation, the absolute vertigo before a power so overwhelming it seemed to rewrite the very rules of existence. She had already faced the presence of the Four Horsemen, the aura of angels, the icy cruelty of demons, the unfathomable might of the Makers, the incandescent fury of the Charred Council… But nothing, nothing had ever resembled this.
What she felt now went beyond her. Every fiber of her being screamed that she was nothing, less than dust, before the entity seated in front of her. This being did not merely exist: it radiated. Danger, seduction, threat, promise… all fused within him, in a force so vast that even his simple breaths seemed to shape the air itself. Aisling felt like a mouse pinned under the gaze of a serpent. Tears streamed down her cheeks, beyond her ability to hold them back. Better to die here and now than continue breathing air saturated with such invisible venom.
“Do not be afraid.”
Lucifer’s voice rolled through the space, deep, soft, almost caressing, yet every syllable vibrated with such subtle irony it became terrifying. His smile revealed lips too perfect, his clear gaze pierced her like cold flames. She did not know whether it was desire or death she read in them, but she could have sworn both burned there, inextricably bound.
“I will not harm you.”
Nothing had ever sounded less true.
“What… what do you want from me?” she whispered, her voice barely audible, so weak that shame rose in her.
Lucifer tilted his head slightly, his smile widening with a poisonous grace.
“My only wish is to share this meal with you… and to talk. Nothing more.”
With his graceful hand, he gestured toward the plate placed before her. At its center, a dark red fruit, cracked and studded with translucent beads, gleamed beneath a thin film of frost. Its surface seemed to throb softly, like a still-beating heart. Aisling froze, stunned by the absurdity of the request.
“… To eat? … This?”
“Yes.”
Lucifer’s smile widened further, revealing a beauty of almost unbearable perfection, and yet pierced by such subtle cruelty it became intolerable. His eyes lit up with an indecipherable gleam, a promise of rapture and damnation entwined. The young woman’s first instinct was to tell herself the fruit was poisoned.
“I… I am not hungry…” she stammered.
“Eat!”
The voice exploded in the air, like a thunderclap. She jolted violently. Terror rose higher still, a suffocating tide that made her clutch the arms of the chair. Lucifer observed her trembling, then suddenly his expression softened. At once it became a caress. His voice resumed that venomous sweetness.
“Or not… as you wish.” He made a slight motion with his hand, elegant, careless. “This fruit can wait. It is enough for me that we are alone, you and I. Nothing else. A simple conversation.”
Aisling let her eyes wander through the room, searching frantically for an escape. But there was nothing. No door, no passage, not even an illusion to cling to. She was trapped, irrevocably, and her body was nothing more than a shattered mass of fatigue and pain. Even had she found an exit, she knew she would never have had the strength to run.
So, instinctively, she did the only thing left to her: buy time. Stretch every second, praying in silence that unexpected help might arrive, that someone might pull her from this before Lucifer decided to shatter the fragile game he had begun.
“I… I don’t know what to talk about…” she breathed in a strangled voice, more pleading than reluctant.
Lucifer, meanwhile, reclined in his chair, settling with theatrical ease. His fingers brushed idly against the edge of the table, as if already savoring every word she might utter. His gaze never left her, heavy, incandescent, devouring.
“Of whatever you wish,” he answered softly, almost charming. “It does not matter. I want to hear your ideas. Your thoughts. Your hopes. Your dreams. Speak to me…”
His voice had the texture of velvet, but beneath that caress hid the steel of a command. There was no escaping his injunction. Her throat tight, she finally dared to articulate, in a weak voice strangled by fear:
“… Was it… was it you who orchestrated the abduction of my people?”
Lucifer arched an amused brow, and shook his head slowly.
“No.” His voice resonated like a frozen caress. “That was Lilith’s work. I admit I allowed her to do it, however.”
“Why?!” she cried, her throat torn by raw despair. “Why us?! We did nothing!”
“No?” he repeated with deliciously mocking slowness, raising a brow in an expression that mingled amusement with contained cruelty. His gaze lit up with biting irony.
“Yet the Creator showed almost indecent generosity toward you. He gave you a world all your own, at the expense of countless others. He endowed you with free will, with near limitless potential… and all that, without demanding the slightest sacrifice in return. Tell me, is that not profoundly unjust?”
Aisling felt her breath shatter in her chest. Her lips trembled as she managed to whisper:
“It is… it is you. You who worked for the destruction of Earth… for the annihilation of humanity…”
Lucifer then raised an elegant hand, his long pale fingers lifting in a gesture that was neither abrupt nor aggressive, but of an almost professorial gentleness.
“No,” he said with venomous serenity. “No, no, no… I only spoke aloud what the rest of Creation whispered in silence… Without necessarily agreeing. As for that disaster, it was the Council’s doing. For centuries it had felt its powers wither, crumble, dissolve like sand slipping through its fingers. Its terror of losing authority only grew… and it feared above all else that the rest of Creation might discover this weakness. So, to divert attention, to feed its illusions of control, it sent War… and burdened him with the crime.”
His gaze darkened, a glint of cruel amusement flickering in his pupils.
“And as for Abaddon, it took very little to inflame his obsession with an invasion from Hell.”
Aisling’s voice came out broken, accusatory, but trembling:
“A fear that you… that you planted in him…”
Lucifer gave a smile almost tender, feigning modesty. He inclined his head slightly, pale hair falling across his flawless face.
“Barely… suggested,” he murmured, his voice soft and sweet as a slow poison. “Abaddon fed his own ghosts. The Council fashioned its own monsters. The Horsemen followed their own fears. Fear…” His eyes blazed with a burning light. “Fear is an infinitely powerful engine.”
Aisling felt her heart race, a painful revolt rising inside her. Her fists tightened weakly against the table.
“But… why?! Why… why do you hate us so much?!”
A low laugh, almost silky, slipped from Lucifer. He shook his head, and his eyes fixed upon her with troubling intensity.
“Oh, my dear child… no. Not at all.” His lips stretched into a smile so beautiful it became unbearable. “I do not hate you. On the contrary. I admire you… I see myself in you. So much potential… so many contradictions. You are chaos and freedom incarnate. You are… a fragment of me.”
Aisling was utterly lost, and it must have shown on her face, for Lucifer, with cruel insight, immediately pressed on, as though savoring her confusion.
“In truth, your situation is indeed profoundly unjust. But not in the way you might believe. No… I would say the Creator was particularly cruel to you.”
“Cruel?” Aisling repeated, almost breathless.
“Yes. What other word could one use? He gave you life, a splendid kingdom, a unique authority, immense power… but never once gave you a key to understand them, nor a single weapon with which to wield them. Then He vanished. He abandoned you, alone, at the mercy of the Council, of angels, of demons, and the rest of Creation. Without aid. Without guide. Just a cruel playground where you were the designated prey. Is that not a farce of divine cruelty? Oh, I know what you are thinking. You are telling yourself that to do nothing, to abstain, is scarcely better… is it not?”
Aisling stiffened, frozen with horror at the thought that he could read even her thoughts.
“Know that I tried to help you, long ago.”
“I do not believe you.”
Lucifer chuckled softly, a laugh without joy.
“Of course. War or Strife must have told you the version they preferred… How, long ago, they failed to stop me from offering you my hand. How I turned my own lieutenants against one another, to claim their power… and gift it to you.”
Aisling furrowed her brows, shaking her head in disbelief.
“What are you talking about?”
“I succeeded in extracting, in distilling the darkest, most dreadful traits of my subjects—hatred, fear, lust—into a single essence: the Animus. And this essence, I passed on to you. It was a weapon, the first true one, to protect you.”
A nervous laugh escaped Aisling, joyless, almost strangled.
“You call that helping us?”
“Was it better to leave you defenseless? Blind, naïve, bowing before a Creator who had abandoned you? To leave you to the claws of an entire Creation that envied you, despised you, hated you?”
He straightened then and left his chair. His step was measured, a studied slowness as he walked along the table, his fingers idly caressing the black cloth.
“I did what I could to help you…” he breathed.
“By… contaminating us?”
“The purity of a race is always its weakness. The Nephilim are the glaring proof: their bastardy was their strength, their omnipotence. Their mixture, their claimed imperfection, made them unstoppable.”
Aisling had to fight to keep her mind from wandering toward Ogias and his kin. Fear clenched her stomach at the thought that Lucifer might rummage through her thoughts. But at last he reached her side, looming over her. And then she truly grasped his stature: immense, magnificent, terrifying.
“I merely sought to improve you,” he concluded in a soft, glacial voice. “And I fully intend to continue.”
“Why?!” Aisling cried out, desperate, her voice shattered by anguish. “Why all of this?!”
“Oh, my lady… what a shame, what a tragedy that no one has ever revealed the truth to you.”
Lucifer knelt, and his hands, burning hot and intoxicating, closed around Aisling’s own. She arched instantly at his touch, unable to suppress the moan that slipped from her lips. The contrast of her icy skin against his searing warmth was unbearable and alluring at once.
His fingers brushed her arm, sliding lazily along the dark, knotted lines of the roots that now coiled across almost her entire body.
“No one ever told you, did they?… No one ever confided to you why humanity had been judged too dangerous to survive.”
Aisling tried to avert her eyes, but found herself ensnared by the golden irises of the fallen angel. She knew she should not listen, she knew he lied, that he manipulated… but the question burned her lips, uncontrollable.
“What do you… what do you mean?”
A smile brushed Lucifer’s lips. He lifted his hand, and with the tip of a claw traced slowly the ridge of the seed embedded in Aisling’s chest. She shuddered violently.
“You were stripped of a priceless treasure. But in doing so… you were endowed with the greatest power of all. Do you know that Earth is the only world deprived of its Tree?”
Aisling’s eyes widened, shaken.
“Every world has its Tree. But in truth, there is only one. A single Tree, fragmented, incomplete. And the day it is restored to wholeness…” He leaned in, his eyes blazing with ecstatic light. “…that day will be the greatest Creation has ever known. And that privilege was meant to be yours.”
“But… the Council hid the seed…”
“Yes, hoping to keep it jealously for themselves. A few others knew. Each one dreaming of seizing the crumbs of that glorious day.”
“And if… if the seed were replanted? What would happen? It would save Earth, yes… it would heal the Tree of Creation… But then?”
A silence fell. Lucifer lowered his gaze toward the seed buried in her chest, his expression touched by a troubling tenderness. When at last he raised his head, his eyes gleamed with overwhelming warmth.
“My adorable friend… then it will be possible… to meet the Creator. That is the ultimate reward. That is the prize for which so many beings conspire, bargain, betray in the shadows… and all of it, without you ever knowing.”
Aisling’s breath caught. She had heard his words. She knew he spoke seriously. But her mind refused to grasp the enormity of it. The universe seemed to tilt. The power of all Creation… locked inside a seed. Inside her.
A brutal instinct snapped her awake. She tore her hand violently from Lucifer’s grasp and pressed both palms hard against her chest.
“I will never let you have it!” she cried in a broken voice.
With one last effort, she tried to stand. Her legs trembled, for a moment she thought she might succeed… But her strength betrayed her, and she collapsed heavily to the ground, winded.
Lucifer let out a light laugh, almost melodious. Then he slowly circled the chair, his steps gliding across the floor. He crouched beside Aisling and extended his hand. Without waiting for permission, he helped her up with deceptive gentleness, guiding her back to the chair and forcing her down into it once more.
“Adorable child,” he breathed, his face dangerously close above hers, his warm breath brushing her lips, “I have no ambition to be the one who replants the Tree to confront our Creator.”
His hands rested on the chair’s arms, enclosing her almost within an invisible prison. Aisling, tense, kept her palms pressed against her chest.
“But… it was He who cast you down…”
“Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” A mocking smile curved Lucifer’s lips. “I have everything I desire. Absolutely everything… except perhaps… a companion.”
Aisling’s blood froze. Her face drained of color, her eyes widening in horror.
“No…”
“Do not misunderstand me, my dear,” Lucifer raised a soothing hand, falsely tender. “This is not about love… but about power. And what you carry here makes you infinitely desirable. Infinitely powerful. I want that strength to remain in you. And I want you to accept to reign… at my side.”
“To reign… over Hell?” she whimpered, her voice barely audible.
He rose slowly, unfolding his full height, magnificent and terrifying all at once. His gaze blazed with ambition.
“Over everything.”
With a fluid gesture, he drew the plate and the fruit closer.
“Eat. And let us talk. I treasure your ideas… share them with me.”
She swallowed, hardly daring to believe.
“To eat? Nothing more than that?”
“Yes. Eat, and let us talk. Just the two of us.”
Her eyes fell back to the fruit. It pulsed in her fingers like living flesh, repulsive. A violent nausea seized her as she brought the fruit near her lips. Suddenly, she recoiled, slamming it back down on the plate, gasping.
“I will pass, if you do not mind…”
A flash of rage crossed Lucifer’s face. In a sudden movement, he swept part of the table aside with his arm. Dishes, platters, the remains of the banquet crashed to the floor in a deafening clamor.
“EAT!” he thundered, his voice booming, shaking the chamber. “OBEY!”
Aisling, rigid, her hands still over her chest, screamed at the top of her lungs, her throat tearing:
“NEVER!”
Her cry left her empty, yet strangely freed. For the first time, the fear that had shackled her seemed to shatter.
“I will never reign at your side!” Aisling hurled, her voice strangled by rage and terror. “And the seed will destroy me before you can taste a single fragment of its power!”
Lucifer froze. His perfect face twisted, his features tightening under the assault of a rage so violent that the very air seemed to vibrate. The illusion of his appearance cracked, revealing the shadow of a titanic, nightmarish creature with indistinct contours. Aisling thought she felt the room itself contract.
But in a single breath, he regained control. His smile returned, more cruel than ever, and a low, deep, sordid laugh rolled from his throat, filling the chamber.
“You are certainly no ordinary human. But… I understand. It is only natural that you should need convincing.”
He straightened with calculated elegance, then advanced toward her. Before she could recoil, his icy hand seized hers with a feigned, almost tender gentleness, beneath which she sensed the implacable grip of an iron vice. With his other arm, he encircled her waist.
Aisling clenched her teeth, her body no longer obeying her. Her legs trembled, unable to resist.
“If you will follow me, my dear…” Lucifer whispered in her ear, his low, seductive voice saturated with threat. “I have something to show you.”
And as he drew her with deliberate slowness, the darkness behind them seemed to stir. Between two massive columns, a door emerged, carved with shifting runes. It opened with a shiver of shadows onto a balcony. The moment she crossed the threshold, Aisling felt the air change: heavier, thick with the metallic stench of blood, of smoke, of sulfur. She found herself suspended above an immense hall stretching as far as the eye could see.
Her mind reeled at the sight. Was it a prison, with its rows of black iron cages stacked one upon another? A torture chamber, with its hanging chains, its hooks, its stone altars stained crimson? Or a hellish laboratory, with its vats filled with dark fluids in which pulsed formless shadows? The place seemed to be all of these at once.
In the cages, behind twisted bars like talons, huddled gaunt silhouettes. Hollow faces, wild eyes fixed on nothing or begging silently. Her heart stopped for an instant. She recognized some of the features. The people of Nimrach. All of them. Every man, every woman, every vanished child. The others must have come from the other islands, from the capital. Everything that remained of Humanity was here, crammed together like cattle.
A wave of vertigo seized her, and she clutched the black stone balustrade to keep from collapsing, her fingers whitening as they tightened. Her eyes searched the hall desperately, looking for any path to reach them, but there was nothing. The balcony loomed above that abyss of horror like a spectator’s tribune, without exit.
“What are you doing to them?!” she screamed, her voice ringing with fury that barely masked her panic.
“I am saving them,” Lucifer whispered, his soft voice resonating like a poisoned caress. “I am sheltering them from the rest of Creation… until they can be made stronger.”
Aisling felt his shadow engulf her. With the tip of a sharpened claw, he gently lifted her chin, forcing her gaze to shift from the balcony toward a corner of the hall.
There, in the ruddy gloom, aligned vats similar to those she had seen in Naamah’s tower. Misshapen silhouettes floated within. She recognized the horror at once: Rephaim. But they were not alone. Beside them moved other creatures, terribly different yet bearing the same brand of profanation. Their bodies still carried remnants of withered wings, reduced to ragged stumps. Their skin, leathery and scarred, looked as though it had been burned, then stitched back together.
“You… you did this to angels too…”
Lucifer gave a smile almost tender, but his golden eyes glittered with abyssal cruelty.
“The Anakim,” he declared in a solemn tone, as though presenting a masterpiece. “There can be no war without soldiers. Together, Rephaim and Anakim shall form the perfect army for Humanity. After all… is it not natural that they defend the race that gave them birth?”
The timbre of his voice vibrated with cruel amusement, almost childlike, proud of his work.
Aisling felt nausea seize her. Horror tightened her throat, and she bent suddenly over the railing, vomiting what little her stomach still held. Her tears blurred her vision as she wiped her mouth with a trembling hand.
“Humans…” she sobbed. “You crossed demons, angels… with humans…”
Lucifer turned toward her slowly, as though savoring the moment. His smile grew calm, almost benevolent.
“To help you. To protect you. The purity of a race is always its weakness. But with an army born of three—angels, demons, and humans—you are invincible, against Heaven as against Hell.”
“No…” Aisling whispered, shaken with sobs, her hands clenched on the railing.
Lucifer straightened, and his gaze shone with triumphant fire.
“With this army, you will reconquer Earth… and more besides. Overthrow the Council. Decide the fate of all Creation. That is what you were born for. That is your purpuse. Your destiny.”
“NO!”
Lucifer did not even seem to hear. His expression softened almost tenderly, and he stepped closer to her, adopting a falsely compassionate posture. His hand lifted her chin.
“Of course… I could choose to transform only part of them. Keep some of your people just as they are…”
Aisling raised tear-filled, pleading eyes to him.
“Mercy…” she whispered, her voice so fragile it seemed not to be her own, strangled between dry lips.
Lucifer smiled. He knew he had already won.
“I will give you the power to resist the seed. It will remain within you, protected, untouchable, beyond the reach of any. You will be at my side, under my wing, safe from the world and its torments. And you… you will watch over the new humanity, your dear humanity, while my Anakim and Rephaim armies reconquer every Realm in its name.”
His golden eyes blazed, hypnotic.
“They will overthrow the Council. And from that chaos will rise a new order… one that I shall guide. Tell me, my sweet… is this not what you have always desired deep within your heart? To save your own, to grant your world a future?”
Each word struck Aisling like a hammer. Her will crumbled.
“You… you will leave my friends unharmed?” she asked, her voice fractured with hope. “The Horsemen? You will spare them? They… they will be safe?”
Lucifer inclined his head slightly, offering a reverence.
“You have my word.” His smile widened, honeyed, deceitful. “Now…”
He raised a hand. In his palm appeared the red fruit, vibrant, pulsing. Its scarlet glow throbbed, at once alluring and repulsive.
“Eat.”
Aisling stretched out a trembling hand. Her fingers brushed the clammy, heated surface of the fruit, and a shiver coursed through her. She lifted it to her face, hesitating, nausea rising in her throat. She closed her eyes one last time, praying,for her friends, for humanity, for herself.
And, after one final hesitation, she bit into the infernal fruit.