Amber heard the bells first.
Not the usual chi of vespers, nor the slow toll of mourning, but sothing wrong — hollow, sharp, as if struck against bone. The sound ran through the convent halls like a blade through silk. Every nun paused mid-step. Every prayer faltered.
From her narrow window, Amber saw crimson banners rising over the basilica spires — blood-red cloth bearing the insignia of the Inquisition.
Her stomach dropped.
"The bishop..." she whispered. "He must have done it."
The air outside was trembling — not with wind, but with the hum of armored boots against the stone road. She hurried to the cloister walk, her sandals slapping against the marble.
Below, in the courtyard, black-armored soldiers drove halberds into the earth, the ground vibrating with each strike. Their armor glead like oil under the gray light. And behind them rolled a carriage of dark gold, its wheels carved with thorns that dripped faint trails of incense-smoke.
Amber didn’t need to see who stepped out to know.
The scent of sanctified ash told her.
High Inquisitor Seraphel.
He erged like a statue co to life — tall, austere, his silver hair bound back in braids of discipline. In one hand he carried a censer whose smoke curled like ghosts; in the other, a sword still wrapped in white cloth. His eyes were the pale blue of winter water — cold, depthless, rciless.
When he spoke, even the wind seed to kneel.
"By the command of the Council of Light, the false prophet is summoned to judgnt."
The word judgnt struck Amber like ice.
Judgnt in the tongue of the Inquisition ant one thing — confession by pain.
She turned and ran.
By the ti she reached the inner chapel, the Saintess was already there, waiting before the altar. Her veil was gone. Her long white hair spilled freely down her shoulders. The candlelight turned her pale skin into marble, her calm into sothing unearthly.
Behind her stood Lucifer.
He didn’t move, didn’t speak. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back, his hood drawn low — yet the faint shimr of his aura bled through the black fabric like light leaking from cracks in stone.
Seraphel entered with asured steps. The censer swung, trailing tendrils of silver smoke that shaped themselves into faint, screaming faces before vanishing. The scent of burning frankincense and iron filled the air.
"So," he said, voice like glass. "The heretic dares stand in holy ground."
Lucifer smiled faintly. "And yet, here I am, unburned..."
The Inquisitor’s jaw tightened. "You were accused of slander against the bishops of Virelith church of leonidus .You spoke vile things of their order — of the Council itself."
"Hahahahaha....I spoke truth, only but the truth," Lucifer replied simply. "And truth has always been the Church’s greatest blasphemy."
Murmurs rippled through the priests and nuns who had followed. So crossed themselves; others dared not breathe.
Seraphel let the censer swing again, its chain clinking like manacles. "By order of the Council of Light," he declared, "the false prophet will be examined for corruption. Any who obstruct this decree shall share the heretic’s fate."
The Saintess’s eyes flashed. "You will find no corruption here, Seraphel. Only the cracks of your own hypocrisy reflected back at you."
"Then he will not fear," he said coldly, "the Trial of Reflection."
Amber gasped aloud. Even the oldest priests recoiled.
The Trial — a rite forbidden for over a century. Its mirrors, cast from consecrated silver, revealed the soul’s hidden stains. Those who bore deceit or unclean intent were burned — not by fire, but by the reflection of their own sin.
Seraphel gestured, and a group of acolytes rolled in a massive mirror. It was circular, frad in angelic wings of gold and ivory. Its surface rippled faintly, like still water disturbed by sothing beneath.
The High Inquisitor raised his hand. "Look."
Aiden or Lucifer as of now, did not hesitate. He stepped forward, gaze steady.
His reflection appeared pure, untouched — his eyes calm, his breath even. For a mont, the silence was absolute.
Then the light within the mirror began to shift.
Sothing stirred behind her reflection — like smoke moving against glass. His mirrored eyes flared gold. A second form took shape beside him — wings of shadow, eyes burning like suns behind storm clouds, with white hair glowing.
Aiden’s reflection.
’to che...’ he thought.
[Lilith is laughing]
But before it was fully viisble. The mirror groaned under its own surface, a long cracking sound like ice splitting on a frozen river.
"What? The mirror broke!" Seraphel shouted.
The mirror didn’t broke, it shattered.
Silver shards exploded outward, scattering like falling stars. The shockwave blew out the candles; the world went briefly dark.
When the light returned, a single ember hovered in the air — floating from the heart of the ruined mirror. It drifted slowly, as if choosing.
Then it flared — a small wing of fire unfolding in midair — and descended into the Saintess’s outstretched hands.
She gasped. The fla did not burn her. Instead, it pulsed softly, like a living thing breathing in her palm.
Seraphel drew his blade. The cloth binding it fell away, revealing steel etched with scripture. "Then I’ll cut the heresy from him myself."
He lunged.
Lucifer smiled, he had fought with flora, her sword the fastest there was, so he just moved faster.
His hand rose — bare — and caught the blade mid-swing.
[Skill Serpent’s Breath used]
The impact scread light and sound. The tal glowed white, hissed, and lted like wax between his fingers.
When he opened his palm, molten silver dripped to the floor, pooling at his feet.
"You failed to judge," Lucifer said softly, "you failed to be even an Inquisitor....now you even failed to swing a simple sword...."
The High Inquisitor staggered back, eyes wide in disbelief. Around him, the other priests began to pray in desperate fragnts, their words colliding, fading into silence.
The Saintess turned toward Lucifer, the fla still pulsing in her palm. "What... what is this?"
Lucifer looked at her, his tone both solemn and tender.
"The beginning," he said. "The Gospel of Ash. God’s final word to those who still dare to believe."
’...or...just so tricks....haha’ he thought.
And as he spoke, every candle in the chapel turned toward her fla — their light bending like supplicants in prayer.
Outside, the bells of Virelith began to toll.
But not in warning.
In Prophecy, his false made up prophecy.
The night that followed was like the eye of a storm — too still, too bright.
Amber walked through the ruins of the chapel, the air heavy with the sll of smoke and sanctity. The statues of saints lay toppled, their faces cracked. The holy oil still burned faintly along the altar steps.
The Saintess stood before the altar again, the ember now settled into her chest, glowing faintly beneath her skin — as if she had swallowed the sun itself.
Lucifer stood near the doorway, his eyes fixed on her. The flicker of fla painted his expression in shifting shades — awe, sorrow, pride, sothing darker still.
"She hasn’t spoken in hours," Amber whispered. "Is she—"
He looked to the window — the dawn rising beyond, painted red by the city’s smoke. "The Inquisition won’t rest. The bishop will call for the Council’s full wrath."
Amber’s hands clenched. "What will you do?"
Lucifer turned, his gaze steady. "I will not hide. I will show them truth — their own reflection. Like how they tried today..."
She approached him, the fla at her chest flickering with each breath. "A world where the Church no longer speaks for God. A world where His word walks on burning feet."
Lucifer said nothing. He simply looked at her — as though seeing, in her, both the end and the beginning of everything he had built.
"I dread of you," she whispered suddenly. "Before any of this. A shadow standing in a temple of light, telling that belief was the first sin."
He smiled faintly. "Dreams are God’s way of warning Himself."
Her eyes glowed brighter. "And you? Who warns you, Lucifer?"
He reached out then, almost without aning to. His fingers brushed her jaw. The warmth beneath her skin wasn’t human. It pulsed with a heartbeat not her own.
"Fire doesn’t need warning," he said quietly. "It only needs fuel...."
For a long mont, they stood like that — prophet and saintess, fla and shadow, their reflections flickering across the cracked glass behind them.
By morning, leonidus had changed.
The story spread like wildfire: the mirror that broke, the fla that chose, the Inquisitor whose sword lted at a the prophets touch. The faithful gathered at the chapel gates, whispering prayers not from fear but from wonder.
So called it miracle.
Others called it on.
The Cardinals in their marble towers called it heresy incarnate.
But the people called it revolution. Revolution of faith.
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