by Ivy Asher
My stomach drops at the revelation. Is that really possible? Can Morax force us to reset the Devil so he can take over Hell? Morax continues, pulling me from my shocked thoughts.
“What do you think happens to Hell if Luce is reset?” he asks, like some teacher eager to impart their wisdom on the class. “What happens to the Morningstar’s essence when he’s reset?”
Morax looks at Lucifer as though he’s waiting for the Devil to provide the answer. Satan just stares at him, and I’m surprised when the hate and rage I saw before melt. Instead, all that’s on his face now is profound disappointment and disgust.
“When you three reset him, his essence goes right along with him. His essence will pop back into existence at its genesis. Which is Heaven. Not Hell. He will no longer be the Devil, the original demon. And once that happens, he won’t be here to feed his essence into the Origin Stone. He will no longer power Hell at all. The foundations of this place will be stripped of what they need to exist. You understand now, don’t you?” he asks, looking between us and Lucifer.
Delta and I share a wary, confused look, but the Devil looks away, his gaze trained on nothing as Morax lays it all out for us...but is that a flash of fear in Lucifer’s eyes?
That...that can’t be good.
Morax lands a smack on Lucifer’s back, his teeth gleaming with his sinister glee as he looks back at us. “You see, little Annuli, when you scythe the Devil, all of Hell will cease to exist.”
34
“It’s time, Annuli.”
My head swarms with the buzzing of horrified shock.
“So this was always your goal? Not just to kill the Sins, not even just to defeat Lucifer, but to destroy all of Hell?” Delta asks, like she’s just as confounded as I am. “We’re in Hell,” she points out.
But as soon as she says it, we both look over at Toreon and the portal he’s making, and that bit falls into place.
Delta scoffs. “You and your little mindless groupies are going into Heaven,” she realizes. “The Legion will decimate you,” she declares, hope alight in her eyes once more.
Morax smirks. “As soon as I open my mouth, they’ll fall to their knees at my feet,” he says with overwhelming arrogance.
Delta’s hope dims, but she plasters a sneer over her face to hide it. “Gross,” she retorts, looking at Morax like he’s a walking plague.
Her purposeful misinterpretation of his words makes the smirk fall from his face. “Should I fuck the insolence out of you first? Or make you watch me start with your sisters, knowing it will soon be you and there isn’t a thing you can do to stop it?” Morax growls.
Her hands ball into fists, and her wings tense. “Never going to happen, you snake-eyed fuck,” she pops back.
A sound behind me makes me turn, and with a sickening lurch, I see Toreon collapse on the ground.
“No!” I start to rush over, only to be blocked by a trio of Morax’s demons who step in to intercept me. I skid to a stop but not fast enough to keep me from barreling into an armor-plated chest of the flaxen-colored demon as he stares down at me with loathing.
I try to shove past him. “Toreon!” I call, needing to get to him, to at least see him, but the stupid bastard brutes press in closer together, blocking him from me completely, and my rage soars.
I open my hand and call to my scythe, completely done with this shit, but Delta calls my name, her voice laced with such agony that I immediately turn to her.
I whirl around and take in Delta’s horrified face. I follow her stare and find that all six of my sisters’ mates are now holding vicious daggers against their throats.
Morax has moved closer to Delta, a hand on her arm, and I notice she’s called her scythe too, like she was getting ready to jump in to help me, but once again, Morax anticipated our every move.
“Step away from my demons, Annulus,” Morax says smoothly.
I grit my teeth, my entire body tense, my arms ready to swing. I can swing faster than he can speak, I tell myself, seething anger as my grip tightens on my scythe.
As though Morax can read my mind he declares, “They were compelled long before you arrived here. They know to take their own life if you or your sister tries to scythe me or any of my demons...or if you refuse to do as you’re told.”
Frustration courses through me. “If you’re destroying all of Hell, what does it matter?” I spit back. “We’re all dead anyway.”
He lifts a finger to stop my train of thought. “Ah, but if you behave, then I will let you three and your sisters’ mates pass through the portal with us. I will let them live.”
Morax’s words feel like a slap across my face, and it takes me a moment to recover from the sting of it. My lips press into a hard line. He’ll let my sisters’ mates live. Just not mine.
“What about my mates?” I demand, my stomach tying in knots.
The Ophidian raises a brow, his expression contemplative. “So you have more than the Gatekeeper?”
Finally, something he doesn’t know. I refuse to answer him, and he shakes his head. “Then, I suppose you have a choice on your hands, don’t you?”
A choice.
An impossible choice.
Delta’s gray eyes widen as she looks at me. “Please,” she mouths, her face terrified, like she thinks I’ll go for Toreon anyway. After all, what must she think? I’ve never even met her or Medley’s mates before. I only just met her. What are any of them to me? And I see that in her face—that flicker of uncertainty. The doubt about who I’ll choose.
If I were a selfish person, maybe I’d say to hell with it all. Maybe I’d scythe the demons at my back and run to heal Toreon anyway. We’re all going to lose in the end, so why not choose myself just this once? Why not let my scythe do what it was made to do? Because I could. I could do it right now. I could fight my way to my mate, cutting through as many demons as possible. I could give him my blood, save him, at the expense of it all.
But...that’s not who I am.
I’m not just a mate, or a demon, or an angel, or an Annulus. I’m a sister too. I always have been. So even though it kills me, kills me, I...can’t make that choice. I can’t go to Toreon. I can’t willfully let my sisters’ mates be killed.
All of my raging frustration slips out as a scream rips through my throat, and I slam the blade of my scythe down against the dull ground, the metal slicing through dirt and rock like it’s a visual representation of my heart.
Rabid, wild hate swirls through me like a cyclone as I lift my gray eyes up to the Ophidian.
He’s won.
He’s won, and he damn well knows it. He’s got Delta and me right where he wants us. Medley is lost to the control over her mind, and there’s no hope that she can dig herself out. She was always more susceptible than I was. The Seven Sins were outsmarted, played against their own willful arrogance. Morax even has the damn Devil struck down from his pedestal.
A tear drips down my cheek as I rip the scythe out of the earth and let it hang at my side.
“Good girl,” Morax purrs.
“I hate you,” I reply, but my declaration is met with nothing but unimpressed deprecation.
Morax looks past my shoulders. “Wonderful, the portal is nearly complete,” he states, and I look behind me to see that the demons have backed off, fading into the surrounding group once more. Toreon is on the ground, but his hands are still outstretched unnaturally, and fading strings of light are continuing to feed into the portal. Inside the swirling mass, I can see something on the other side. A soft white glow that must lead into Heaven.
Ironic, since this is my own personal Hell.
My eyes trail down from the massive threads of portal power back down to Toreon and the strained, awkward pose of his arms as power continues to leach out of him, even while he’s unconscious. My only consolation is that as long as that light still unspools from his hands, I know he’s still alive.
Hold on, Toreon. Please hold on.
“Get into position, pets,”
Morax orders, gesturing for us to go to Lucifer, who’s on his knees in front of the Origin Stone. Wisps of steam are coming off of him where the cloth is still bound around his body. I can see peeks of his skin near the Heavenly fabric, and it’s burning and bubbling, though he doesn’t make a sound of pain, just watches the Ophidian with a brutal furor.
“You too, Medley,” Morax tells our sister, and she immediately walks over to Lucifer to stand at his side.
Delta and I slowly make our way over. Her eyes keep darting back to her mates, who are still holding the wicked, gleaming blades at their throats, some of them digging in so much that their necks are already trickling blood.
My steps are leaden. My scythe heavy. Every inch closer to the Origin Stone is a death march.
We’re about to help him destroy all of Hell.
The magnitude of that is unfathomable. The Rings will collapse. The realm will implode. I don’t even know how many demons exist in Hell, but every single one of them will die.
And then the Ophidian will be in Heaven, his final stop, where he’ll be unleashed to take over, destroying the last of the precarious balance that angels and demons alike have worked to maintain since the beginning.
I walk the last few feet toward my sister, taking my place directly in front of Lucifer, with Medley on my left and Delta on my right. Three shades of purple from light to dark, the three of us so different and alike, and so completely bonded.
I tug on that bond now, almost as an afterthought, a gesture of comfort. I love them, and I can feel that they love me, even Medley in her current state. A connection like ours is surreal, and I don’t know if it’s just about being Annuli, or if it’s about being triplets, but the ties I have to them are the only thing keeping me standing.
Medley looks on in a mindless daze, while Delta silently cries. But I feel numb. I feel hate. I feel unrepressed anger. And when I tug on our sister bonds, I feel my sisters tugging back.
“Raise your scythes, Annuli.”
Medley does it immediately, while Delta’s hands shake like it’s the heaviest thing she’s ever had to hold. I tighten and loosen my hands as I lift my blade, my fingers aching with anguish. All three of us poise at the ready, our wicked scythes held above the male kneeling before us, the Devil himself staring right at me.
A million thoughts whirl through my mind, but the one that slams to the forefront of everything is: I can’t do this. I can’t let the bastard win.
Toreon, Vudu, Ire...they’re all going to die. If I do this, it’ll be my actions that seal their fate. And thinking that Medley’s and Delta’s mates are going to be okay is delusional. Morax doesn’t have an honorable bone in his body, he’s not going to spare them out of the kindness of his heart or because he gave his word. We’re idiots if we think we’re going to get anything that we want from him.
I grip my scythe tighter as I realize that once again I’m playing right into the Ophidian’s hands. I’m about to hand him Hell on an Annulus platter, and for what? A future of loss, destruction, and rape?
Fuck that.
I look over at Medley as what I need to do settles painfully in my soul. Her stare is blank, her grip on her scythe sure. My gray gaze flits over to Delta next, and she has tears slowly dripping down her cheeks, her eyes on Lucifer but her stare faraway and lost.
I take a deep breath and stare down at the straight blade at the end of my scythe, and I go still.
I could take my own life.
That thought throbs in my skull like a migraine, nearly blinding me with pain. But...maybe this is the answer.
I can’t choose my mates over my sisters and their loves, but I can’t just blindly follow Morax’s demands either.
Maybe if I turn the blade onto myself, it will be enough to stop the Ophidian. He needs all three of us, I’m almost sure of that. And if that’s true, if he needs our combined Annuli powers to be enough to take down the Devil, then I can still do something to stop him. I can end myself and ruin his plan once and for all.
At the expense of myself. Resigned determination makes my hand tighten around my scythe, and I glance up at Delta’s and Medley’s faces. I pull again on my sisters’ bonds, needing to somehow say goodbye. I know we just found each other, but I’ve felt them my whole life. I’ve been connected to them since before we were born, and I will love them until the universe ceases to exist and my soul is nothing.
Adrenaline pumps so wildly through me that sweat breaks out against my skin. The darkness in my mind rushes up around me in nervous, frantic waves, like it’s trying to find the source of my unrelenting sorrow and dread. I feel it wrap me up as though it wants to talk me out of my decision, whisper promises of how there’s another way, but I know that would be laced with nothing but lies and false hope.
“Almost time…” Morax says with impatient excitement, his eagerness pulling me from my agonized thoughts. His eyes are latched onto Toreon, and my heart aches at seeing my mate’s body looking so sunken and broken, his power faded even more now as he gives the last of himself to the creation of a portal that should never be allowed to exist.
My darkness builds and builds, not knowing what to do, how to protect me from...me. It swirls around in frenzied uncertainty, and then it seems to detect the bonds I’m holding to Delta and Medley, as I try to figure out how to show them how sorry I am and how much I love them all at the same time.
As if it just found salvation, I feel the darkness shoot down our ties, making my body jolt forward, like a painless hook in my stomach. I gasp a little, but then the strangest thing happens—my darkness goes down the bonds, and it seems to...call to my sisters.
And what’s even more surprising, is I feel my sisters’ darkness answer.
That hook in my stomach suddenly seems to attach to Delta and Medley as well, because they both jolt forward the same way I did.
My heart pounds with incertitude as this strange sensation washes over me. I see it all in my mind’s eye, or maybe in my soul, as the darkness in all three of us coils together as if it’s meeting or maybe reuniting in some way.
It’s as though our inner demons, our dark sides, are magnets to each other, and once they join, they start to double, then triple in mass and power. All of a sudden, all that exists is the living and breathing entity inside of us, like all along, it was split up three ways, and now we’ve put it back together again. We’ve unleashed it.
It’s a trifecta of black, pulsing power, and as soon as it converges together, we...explode.
My body jerks off the ground, levitating in the air. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I can’t even feel. Three screams rent through the air, as black, billowing light purges out of us all at once.
Our power, our darkness, bursts into life like an entity of its own, like a vindictive, omnipotent force that has more rage than Wrath herself.
A shock wave of power detonates out of us, sending a punishing pulse of power through the air and earth, through every molecule around us.
A resounding crack sounds, and then I’m able to open my shadow-stained eyes, but it’s as though I’m watching things through a faraway fog. I can’t move or control my body; I barely even know my own name.
Everything has changed.
The three of us don’t just have the darkness. We are the darkness. We’ve become it. We’ve been unleashed onto the world.
And the world will suffer us, because we’re done fucking around.
35
I feel like the entire world settles on my chest in less time than it takes to gasp. Surprisingly, it’s not heavy or painful, it feels enlightening, like I’m seeing things for the first time through the lens of my darkness and I didn’t know how much I was missing until now.
I can sense Delta and Medley as easily as I can sense my own heartbeat, and our connection is all at once humbling and empowering.
Time feels like it’s almost crawled to a stop, and when I look over at Medley and Delta, I realize we have the same awed look on our faces as we take
in what’s happening to us. Our movements are fluid and slow like we’re moving underwater, and relief floods me when I see that Medley is no longer held captive by Morax’s compulsion. Her eyes are no longer dead, her face no longer slack, and the threads that tie us together once again feel right.
My vision focuses, and even though there’s a film over my eyes because my darkness is at play, I see orbs of light everywhere. It’s not bright like I’m surrounded by sunbeams, but more like I’m staring at the luminosity that happens when you close your hand around something bright and your closed palm glows.
What is that?
I blink, my eyes scanning around me, and I realize that the light is coming from inside each and every demon in varying shades of brightness and color.
My sisters’ lights are radiant and beautiful, and I’m not at all surprised to see they’re purple. I look down at my own chest, and sure enough, we each match.
Looking out past the horde gathered around the Origin Stone, I see a border of bright lights of all kinds of colors in the far distance, but I’m surrounded by dimmer lights in more muted shades, and they feel wrong to me, like they’re sick or malnourished in some way.
My scythe warms in my hand, like it’s encouraging me to seek these weaker lights out and do something about them. But what?
“Do you see it all now?” a soothing and decadent voice asks.
My awed gaze swings down to Lucifer’s stunning light blue eyes. They’re as bright as my sisters’ lights, but there’s no fear or fury in his gaze like there was just before our darkness took over and time clicked into sloth mode. No, Lucifer doesn’t look the slightest bit fazed by what’s happening right now. He looks all-knowing.
“What?” I ask, my voice echoing around us in the slow motion of time.
“Do you see them for what they are?” he asks.
I look around again at his prodding question, and understanding dawns on me when I realize that the light emanating from everyone’s chest is their soul.