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Fenja struggled to breathe. Every gasp of air tore white wisps from her lips, vanishing instantly into the frozen atmosphere. Strife had been right: the last Circle of Hell was made of ice.
Heavy chains bound her wrists and ankles, nailing her to the ground. The metal, bitten by the cold, cut into her flesh. She forced her aching neck to turn her head toward Idris, on her right. He seemed in far worse shape than she. His face still bore the marks of his clash with the Rephaim who had captured them, but his eyes shone with sincere concern, directed as much toward her as toward the fate of the others. They exchanged a glance, a fragile attempt at comfort.
The hall where they were kept vaguely resembled a throne room, but everything was so covered with frost and stalactites that its contours disappeared. The very limits of the chamber blurred into a chaos of frozen columns, shifting shadows, and oppressive darkness. Behind them, Fenja felt Fury’s presence, forced to her knees, held in that posture of humiliation by three monsters. She alone still resisted, every muscle taut with rage. No trace of Death, War, or Strife.
Lilith, meanwhile, strolled carelessly among the columns, her steps gliding gracefully across the icy floor. Her blazing eyes never left them, and with the tip of her immaculate nail, she caressed the edge of her lower lip. A cruel smile stretched across her face, as if she relished choosing the fate she would bestow upon them.
“You’re a coward!” spat Fury, a surge of pride breaking the vise on her throat. “You and your master both! Face me, and we’ll see if you keep that smile on your lips!”
Lilith stopped, her smile widening.
“To face one of the Four? The thought has tempted me for a long time…”
A voice, deep and resonant, then rose from the darkness. Fenja felt her instincts recoil, her whole being shrinking as if every fiber of her body demanded to vanish. She searched with her eyes for the source of the sound… and then she saw.
A throne, which she could have sworn was empty only moments earlier, was now occupied. A man sat upon it—if the word man could truly apply to such a creature. His black wings, half-spread, trembled with unbearable power. Lilith immediately drew near, docile, to stand at his right. Her hands clasped behind her back adopted a falsely innocent posture, yet her face radiated triumphant contentment.
“We have far more ambitious matters to attend,” he concluded.
“Lucifer…” Fury spat between clenched teeth, as if the mere name burned her tongue.
The Fallen Angel raised a hand, an elegant and terribly inviting gesture, like a host welcoming guests.
“I stand before you as a friend,” he said, his voice caressing the air like dark velvet. “I have a proposal for you.”
Idris twisted, trying to draw closer to Fenja, but the chains prevented him from moving further. The huntress wanted to scream, but no sound escaped her throat. Her breath caught, strangled by a fear she had never known.
Lucifer continued, his voice filling every frozen corner of the hall:
“I address you as regent of humankind, my dear friends. I know recent events may have sown doubt and cast suspicion on my intentions. But believe me: your survival and your well-being matter to me more than you can imagine. As proof of my goodwill…”
He raised his hand to his left. A frail figure stumbled out of the shadows.
“Aisling!”
Fenja yanked frantically at her chains, trying to rise despite the icy bite of the metal. But the sight before her froze her blood even further. It was no longer truly Aisling.
Dark roots had crept beneath all her skin, tracing black veins across her face. They wound down to the tips of her fingers, even into the whites of her eyes. Fenja saw, with unbearable clarity, the pulsing glow of the Seed beating in her chest, each discharge of energy twisting her body with painful spasms.
She was nothing more than a broken marionette, kept upright by invisible strings. Worse still, something glowed a suffocating red at her throat, a growth that pulsed like an organic shackle. It seemed to keep her from speaking.
“What have you done to her?!” roared Fury, her voice bursting like a clap of thunder. She thrashed with desperate rage, her chains screeching, her jailers struggling to keep her pinned to her knees. Lucifer gave her a calm, almost fatherly smile.
“I saved her. She accepted my gift. This blessing will preserve her, keep her alive until the end of time if necessary. Thanks to her, the Seed is now safe, beyond the reach of any betrayal. Is that not the best of outcomes? And I can save each of you, in the same way.”
He rose slowly from his throne. Every step echoed through the frozen chamber. Descending the steps, he advanced with majesty, his wings half-spread. His gaze fell on Idris and Fenja. With a mere flick of his hand, he cast off the heavy chains binding them to the floor; the metal dissolved into black dust. Then he extended both open hands, inviting them to rise, like a father to his lost children.
Idris rose at once, instinctively placing himself before Fenja, a pitiful shield.
“I offer you the same choice I gave your friend,” Lucifer continued, his voice laced with poisonous sweetness. “Your people will be safe. I will personally ensure they never again know exile, persecution, or death. Accept me as your protector… and none shall ever harm you again. Acknowledge me as your new Creator… and I will grant you an entire universe.”
Fenja froze, her breath trapped in her chest. Her eyes darted between Lucifer and Aisling—or what remained of her. Had the healer truly accepted? Aisling, who had read all those books, who had always told them Lucifer was the great enemy, the shadow in every tale, the corrupter… Then why? Had she been wrong? Or had her friend been forced?
Idris caught her gaze. In his eyes, too, Fenja read doubt. Lucifer’s offer shone like an irresistible mirage: a free people, no longer forced into hiding, no more deaths, no more hunts, no more fear. Was that not what they had always dreamed of?
“No!” Fury screamed, straining once more to break free. She arched her body, trying to rise, but the monsters kept her pinned. Lucifer turned toward her with a benevolent, almost compassionate look.
“I have not forgotten you either, Horseman.” His voice turned to velvet. “To you, I can offer what you have craved for centuries: the role of leader. My Rephaim and Anakim will need a guide, a warrior, a queen.”
His words struck Fury. She froze, her mouth slightly open, unable to reply. Her eyes, which usually burned with defiance, wavered under the brilliance of temptation.
“But… what about my brothers?” she finally whispered, her voice broken.
Lucifer donned a sorrowful air, almost sad, as if he truly regretted what he was about to say.
“Your brothers will be safe, that I promise you.” His tone turned soft, reassuring. “But it would be wiser to keep them away from any decision-making. For their own good, you understand. Of course, that depends entirely on them.”
Fenja felt reality fracture around her. Her vision blurred, a shifting haze veiled her eyes, and sounds echoed, distant, distorted, as if she were listening to the world through thick water. Every word of the Prince of Hell vibrated in her mind, snaking into her thoughts, pouring venom wherever it found the slightest crack. She knew there was a trap, that his words were lies wrapped in silk… and yet they imprinted themselves upon her, irresistible. She saw, with horror, the same was happening to Fury.
Lucifer spread his hands slightly, a magnanimous sovereign offering grace. His voice, soft and deep, had the texture of certainty.
“Once again, I can show goodwill. The amulet that was given to you… I let you keep it. You will be able to channel its energy, bend the Universe to your will, guide your army and protect this humanity you hold so dear. These sacrificed lives… should they not have meaning? Should they not serve this greater cause?”
He tilted his head, his smile subtly indulgent.
“I am sure you can convince your brothers of this.”
Fury stood petrified, her gaze fixed. She nodded imperceptibly, a mechanical, unconscious gesture, her will crumbling under the Fallen’s influence. Fenja felt her heart clench. The indomitable warrior was then she saw her. Aisling was slowly descending the icy steps of the staircase, her footfalls muffled by frost. Her frail figure seemed to float more than walk. She stopped a few paces from them and fixed her gaze on Fenja. That gaze… it sent a shiver through Fenja. It was no longer the gentleness of her friend, nor even her pain—it was something broken, distant, as if a foreign spirit inhabited her, or as if she were trapped behind her own eyes. The healer opened her lips, but no sound came. Her throat seemed to flare with an oppressive red glow.
Lucifer stepped forward slightly, his black wings casting a vast shadow.
“Your friend seems to share my opinion,” he said, his smile widening as if he had just won a game long played. “Why don’t we all go together?”
.
“Hey, War… don’t you get a sense of déjà vu here?”
War shot Strife a black look, his jaw clenched with as much pain as fury.
“You still manage to joke at a time like this?”
“Would you rather I cry? Because if I do, it’s going to be awkward for everyone, trust me.”
The chains restraining them creaked softly, punctuating the irony of his words. Death, War, and Strife were prisoners, each bound in a posture designed to break both their bodies and their will. Pain was their only companion. The blows had rained upon them, but Death had paid the heaviest price: his back was hunched, his features marked by open wounds, his breath short and wheezing.
Around them, the Rephaim and the Anakim formed a circle of nightmare. Their eyes glowed in the dark, hungry, impatient, like starving wolves waiting for their master’s signal. Their jaws sometimes snapped, their thirst for human flesh palpable. A single word, a single gesture, and they would have hurled themselves upon the Horsemen, devouring them mercilessly.
A few steps away, Fenja and Idris walked reluctantly behind Lucifer and Lilith. The contrast was unbearable: they, prisoners of a nightmare, forced to walk with measured steps as if on a promenade, watched by their jailers. Fury, meanwhile, seemed dragged more than walking, her eyes empty, her movements mechanical.
And Aisling… Aisling was nothing but a shadow of herself. Fenja sought her gaze desperately, praying to find a spark of humanity, a memory of the friend she had once known. But what she saw froze her heart: the roots consuming her body seemed to have devoured her very soul. Her face was impassive, her dilated pupils obstinately fixed on the endless ceiling, as if something invisible lurked there. From the healer’s throat pulsed three red lights, radiating a troubling glow Fenja could not comprehend.
“Lucifer…”
Death’s hoarse voice broke the silence. He raised his head with effort, each movement tearing him with unbearable pain. His features, though exhausted, twisted with icy fury. His eyes still burned with that unshakable determination that defined him.
“Let the humans go.” His tone cracked like an order, despite his failing breath. “They have no place here. This does not concern them.”
“On the contrary…”
Lucifer gave them a smile so calm it was terrifying. His eyes scanned each of them, savoring his prey.
“They are the heart of it all. The true center of this unraveled creation. And that is the difference between me and the rest of this barren Universe: I care for them. I have done everything, absolutely everything, to preserve them.” He spread his arms slightly, as if embracing a truth too vast to contest. “Can you say the same?”
A heavy silence fell, broken by a strangled laugh. Strife shook his head.
“So… excuse me, but cauterizing a limb you yourself chopped off doesn’t exactly make you the good guy in the story.”
The biting retort earned a broader grin from Lucifer. He tilted his head, almost amused by the insolence.
“Except when that limb was nothing but a cancer to be cut away.” His tone turned sharp, relentless. “Under my reign, humanity will flourish, freed from the Council’s chains and its sterile intrigues. Aisling will be the eternal vessel of the Seed, beyond the reach of anyone who would harm it. Fenja and Idris…” His gaze lingered on them, nearly devouring them. “You will be the new Adam and Eve of the Eden to come. And Fury will be its guardian, the sword that defends this paradise. And you… you may be part of it.”
“Never!” roared War. His voice rang with brutal finality, heavy with a wrath that admitted no compromise. His chains shuddered under the strain of his muscles, as if they might break under sheer will.
Fenja, meanwhile, felt herself sink into thick fog. Her thoughts collided against one another without coherence. Logic, rage, fear… everything tangled together. She wanted to protest, scream, think… but an invisible mist numbed her mind and held her still.
Once again, she desperately sought to catch Aisling’s eyes. But the healer remained frozen, her gaze fixed on the dark heights of the chamber, staring at an endless ceiling. Not a flicker, not a hesitation.
“My children…” Lilith’s voice rolled through the air like a treacherous caress.
She approached slowly, her hips swaying with calculated grace, her hands extended in a maternal gesture that rang false in every inflection.
“You must understand that without your full cooperation… we will simply have to do without you. What a pity that would be…”
Venom dripped from every syllable, yet none of them answered her feigned tenderness. The rejection was clear, and for an instant it cracked the honeyed mask of the Mad Queen.
“We are going to walk out of here, ‘mother’,” Death’s icy voice cut the silence.
He lifted his head, his wounded features tightening under the pain, but his gaze remained implacably hard. He did not need to shout—his tone carried an imminent threat.
“And you will regret ever bringing a Nephilim into being.”
Lilith froze. Her face, for a moment tense in its false maternal expression, twisted with pure rage. She recoiled a step, as if struck. Lucifer, meanwhile, greeted the scene with a booming laugh. His jubilation echoed in the frozen chamber, vibrant, insolent. He savored the confrontation with the ease of an amused spectator.
“You clearly need some time to reflect…” he murmured, amused.
He had only to cast a glance at the Rephaim and the Anakim for the order to be carried out without delay. Fenja, Idris, and Fury were seized like puppets, ripped from their fragile balance and brutally hurled against the floor. The impact rang through the chamber, followed by the relentless clatter of fresh chains. Living, cold as serpents of steel, they coiled around their limbs, squeezing their flesh with methodical cruelty until they were utterly immobilized.
It was only then, in that crushing silence, that Fenja’s voice finally burst out.
“Aisling! Where is Nimue?!”
Fenja’s voice cracked through the air like an arrow shot into the heavy silence. She herself could not say why that question escaped her, why, of all those burning her lips, it was that name which broke free.
The healer froze, struck by an invisible blow. Her eyes widened, her frozen features suddenly pierced by an abyssal incomprehension. She stared at Fenja with a bewildered expression, as though trying to decipher the meaning in a foreign tongue.
Fenja pressed on, her voice shattered by anger and despair:
“Where is Nimue?! Answer me!”
Lucifer, until then an amused spectator, changed expression at once. A heavy, menacing shadow passed through his gaze, a dark flash of annoyance mixed with danger. His hand lifted barely an inch, and a chain shot out of nowhere. It coiled brutally around Fenja’s mouth, snapping like a whip before tightening to smother her. Her protests dwindled to a muffled groan.
“My Prince,” Lilith interjected with feigned sweetness, her voice flowing like poison, “our armies await your command.”
Lucifer slowly turned his head toward Aisling. His smile deepened, cruel, revealing almost lascivious satisfaction. He leaned toward her, lowering his voice to a whisper both caressing and terrible.
“Very well… Say your farewells to your friends, my dear. For I cannot guarantee you will ever see them again.”
Aisling finally tore her gaze from the ceiling, and when her eyes fell upon them, they were empty, absent. None of the faces seemed familiar to her.
Then, abruptly, she moved. She stopped before Death. Her expression was unreadable, caught between neutrality, curiosity, and something indescribably… unsettling. Then, without warning, she leaned forward and kissed him full on the mouth. The gesture was brief but violent, a contact that seemed meant to convey something inexplicable. Then, as suddenly as she had come, she pulled back. Her face remained expressionless, mechanical, and she returned to Lucifer as if she had never left his side.
A heavy silence fell over the chamber, broken only by Lucifer’s clear, cruel laughter, as he visibly savored the chaos and incomprehension.
“Who knows?” he said, his voice echoing like a refrain through the chamber. “Perhaps this will give you a new perspective, Horseman.”
Without further delay, he, Lilith, and Aisling vanished in the echo of his laughter, disappearing from sight along with the rest of the Rephaim and Anakim, leaving behind a hall plunged into an almost unreal void.
“Uuuhhh… what the hell just happened?” muttered Strife, his eyes darting from one face to another.
War let his head fall, his shoulders trembling under the weight of consternation and despair.
“She… fell. I don’t know what Lucifer promised her… but it’s clear she gave in to the temptation.”
Fury struggled to gather her thoughts, each word leaving her with effort.
“He doesn’t just want the Seed… the amulet too… he wants me to use it to command the Rephaim and the Anakim.”
“Tell me you didn’t answer him, sister!” War exclaimed, his jaw tight, panic and worry gleamed in them.
Fenja stood frozen, unable to utter a word. Her mind spun in circles, crashing against invisible walls of anguish.
“I… I… I can’t think… what if… what if…” Her voice faded midway.
Idris, however, slowly regained his composure. Blood pounded in his temples as he spat on the ground, letting anger and determination fill him. His years of training, added to Naamah’s treatment, had forged a new kind of self-control.
“Rather die! We don’t make pacts with the Devil… do we? Don’t we?” His voice was firm, hammering out his convictions.
“We have to admit… we’re not really in a position to do much,” murmured Strife, a weary sigh escaping his lips.
“But… you have a plan, don’t you?” Idris added, his voice firmer, though tinged with uncertainty.
War, his features strained but his will intact, slowly nodded and tried to reason with calm.
“We must keep our heads. Every move counts.” He then turned his gaze toward Death, searching in his elder brother’s eyes for the wisdom and experience only age could bring. “You say nothing, brother?”
Strife, unable to contain his anxiety, once again tried to lighten the tension with clumsy humor.
“Aisling didn’t eat your tongue, did she…?” he muttered, forced, to himself as much as to the others. “Oh… crap… chief, you’re bleeding.”
Fenja finally looked at Death. A thin trickle of blood indeed ran from the corner of his lips, glinting faintly in the chamber’s shadows. For a moment, she wondered if Aisling had truly bitten him, so strange and unexpected had her gesture been. Then Death, with surprising care, drew from between his teeth what looked like a small, elongated piece of metal, sharp almost like a blade.
The huntress took a moment to understand what it was. Then, suddenly, Dust emerged from the darkness of the ceiling, where he had remained hidden until now. The bird flew with surprising agility and seized the object in its talons. Beating its wings to stay aloft, it began to manipulate the piece of metal with precision, skillfully placing it against the lock that bound the chains around Death.
Strife let out a clear, enthusiastic laugh:
“Ah! Clever little dove! Guess Lucifer hasn’t managed to crush her spirit completely…”
Death cast off his chains with a single movement, cracking his shoulders, releasing the tension that had built up, and a spark of determination flashed in his eyes.
“Let’s make sure she keeps that spirit.” He immediately set to work freeing the others, undoing the chains with precise, steady motions. “Let’s find her, and get out of here. We don’t have the strength or the numbers to face Lucifer or Lilith in their own domain.”
Fenja leapt to her feet, her heart racing, the urgency of the situation making her forget the cold and exhaustion.
“She’s got something stuck in her throat… I don’t know exactly what, but it’s probably what’s keeping her in that state,” she murmured, her voice edged with worry.
“I’ll rip it out,” Fury said, rising with determination, shaking her head as if to drive away the frustration and anger choking her. Every word seemed torn from her throat by force, a silent struggle against Lucifer’s hold.
“But first… we need to get our weapons back… and find a way out of here.”
Death wiped the corner of his lips with the back of his hand. A feral smile spread across his face, blending defiance and impatience.
“Then… let’s raise hell,” he growled, his voice low but heavy with the promise of chaos.