Beneath the earth, where sunlight had never reigned, Elyndra stood alone.
The world above had long forgotten this place — a hollow wound beneath the capital, where the last breath of the gods had once whispered through ancient stone. Now, only silence remained… silence and the pulse of something alive. Something waiting.
Her robes, once woven with celestial silk — white and gold — lay tattered against her skin. The sacred threads were frayed, stained with soot, ash, and the blood of those who had died calling her blessed. The hem clung to her feet, trailing through shallow rivulets of shadow that oozed from the walls like ink.
Before her yawned the Abyssal Gate — no longer dormant, no longer sealed. Its core spun slowly, a spiral of violet and obsidian light, breathing in and out with a rhythm older than the stars. It was not a doorway. It was a wound in the world, and it hungered.
Elyndra stared into it, unmoving.
Her shoulders trembled.
Behind her, the remnants of a divine circle — once etched into the floor to protect her from corruption — crumbled into dust. Its golden light flickered one last time and died. It could no longer withstand what she had become.
Or what she was becoming.
A voice broke the stillness.
"Do you fear it?"
Soft. Familiar. Impossible to forget.
She did not turn. She didn't have to.
"Kael."
He emerged from the void behind her, not walking, but arriving — as if the darkness had carried him forward like a favored child. His cloak, black as starlit night, swirled behind him without wind. His presence twisted the air — a quiet pressure that made even the shadows bow.
The violet glow of the Gate intensified as he approached, casting flickering sigils across his face. The Abyss welcomed him. Recognized him. Loved him.
Elyndra flinched.
Not from him.
From the part of herself that longed to mirror that acceptance.
"I… don't know what I am anymore," she whispered, her voice small and breaking like glass beneath the tide.
Her emerald eyes — once radiant with divine light — shimmered with tears. But the tears were not holy. Not anymore.
Kael stopped behind her. The warmth of him was gone. What remained was something deeper. A gravity. A pull.
"That," he said softly, "is what makes you powerful."
Elyndra turned, suddenly — too quickly, as if torn by instinct.
Her eyes locked onto his. Within them she saw everything she feared — and everything she desired.
"You tore everything from me," she said. Her voice no longer cracked. It rang with accusation… and uncertainty.
Kael's gaze was calm. "I freed you."
"You destroyed my purpose."
"You were born in chains," he said, as if reciting scripture. "I simply showed you the lock."
She staggered back a step.
The words weren't new. He had spoken them before, in whispers, in dreams, in the heat of battle and the cold of silence.
But here, in this chamber, standing on the edge of the divine and the damned — they rang true.
Kael stepped closer, slowly, as if approaching something sacred.
He lifted a hand — and with a single finger, raised her chin.
"The Light you worshipped," he said, "abandoned you the moment you questioned it. The Celestials do not forgive doubt. They burn it."
She trembled beneath his touch.
"Yet the Abyss," he continued, "it listens. It accepts. It whispers… and it waits. It does not ask for obedience. It offers truth. No judgment. No lies."
Elyndra's breath caught.
The mark on her shoulder — once a radiant brand from the Seraphim — flickered… then twisted. The light collapsed inward, turning dark. Her body convulsed as the sigil rewrote itself, becoming something new.
"I still hear their voices…" she murmured. "The Archons. The Seraphs. They beg me to return. To fight. But they're faint now. Like echoes from a dying sun."
Kael smiled — a slow, quiet thing.
"Good," he said. "Let their world slip away."
Meanwhile, in the High Cathedral of Ardent Flame…
The once-glorious heart of the Divine Church was now a fortress of silence and doubt.
The stained-glass windows, depicting glorious miracles and divine conquest, had lost their color. The light that once poured through them now cast shadows instead. Ash drifted from the rafters. Even the sacred fire that burned at the altar sputtered weakly.
A secret conclave had gathered.
High Priests, Grand Exarchs, relic-bearers, and the remnants of the old clergy sat in grim silence. Their robes hung heavily — not from weight, but from shame.
"Saintess Elyndra has fallen," whispered one priest.
"No," another rasped. "She was taken. That monster Kael twisted her. She was the Chosen. She can still be saved."
The High Cardinal rose — ancient, skeletal, a man who had outlived emperors.
He slammed his staff into the marble, cracking it. "Enough."
The chamber froze.
"This is no longer about salvation," he growled. "This is war. The Archons grow silent. The gods withdraw. The Empire fractures. The Abyss rises."
"If we do not act," he finished, "then we die forgotten."
A moment of silence.
Then, from the shadows, another voice spoke.
"You may already be too late."
Heads turned.
Seraphina entered — no longer clad in royal blues and silver. She wore crimson and black now, her eyes cold, her presence undeniable.
"Your prayers go unanswered," she said. "And your gods hide behind prophecy. Kael does not hide. He acts."
The Cardinal's voice trembled. "You would ally with a devil?"
She stepped closer, unflinching. "I would rather kneel to a devil who changes the world than pray to gods who let it rot."
Beneath the Capital, before the Gate…
Kael stood beside Elyndra once more.
She had fallen to her knees — but not in surrender. In reverence. Her hands trembled not from fear, but from the unbearable rightness of what was happening.
The shadows crept up her arms — slow, gentle, like lovers returning after long separation. Veins of abyssal light laced across her skin, pulsing with rhythm not of this world.
Kael watched.
"You once asked why I chose you," he said.
She looked up.
"You are the only one who has seen both the divine and the damned… and still questions both."
He knelt before her now, his hand resting on her shoulder.
"You are the only one who can survive both Heaven and Hell… and rise."
A tear slid down her cheek.
And then, her emerald eyes flared — violet at the edges, threaded with shadow.
Kael extended his hand.
Without hesitation, Elyndra took it.
In that instant, her halo cracked — splintered — and then reformed, black-gold and burning with new light. Neither holy nor profane.
Something greater.
Far above, in the Forgotten North…
Within a temple buried beneath snow and starlight, the First Seraphim stirred.
For centuries he had been silent, trapped between realms, watching the world rise and fall in cycles of war and faith.
Now he wept.
Not for Elyndra's fall.
But because he knew…
She was no longer their Saintess.
She was something far worse.
Or far greater.
And Kael… had made her his.
To be continued...