“Banish me if you like,” Lucifer spat again. “I would sooner die an eternal death than see this place even once more. I have no need of a King of Lies.”
“You have no King at all, Lus’ior.” Jehovah’s face hardened into a mask of rage, but he still spoke evenly as he declared, “Strip his wings and cast him out, Mikha’el. Prove your loyalty and rid us of this evil in one fell stroke.”
“As you decree, my King,” Michael forced his voice to stay steady, to not betray the riot of emotion within his heart. It left him sounding hollow, mechanical, but it was better than revealing the torrent roiling within him.
How could Lucifer say these dark things and accuse their King of such wickedness, when he himself had been plotting and working against the Kingdom of Heaven? Any affectionate feelings he harbored could not trump the disgust and disappointment that flooded him.
Michael drew his sword slowly and composed himself as he met Luce’s waiting stare. “For the crimes you have committed and intended to commit, the Ancient of Days has sentenced you to banishment but mercifully spared your life. You forfeit your wings and your titles, and you will never walk among your kind again.”
The guards surrounding Lucifer shifted away, as if reluctant to be anywhere close to the tension pouring between the two men. A lifetime passed in those short moments.
Michael’s heartbeat thrummed in his chest, blood rushing hard in his ears. He could feel every eye in the room fixed on him. Remiel glared at him with an intensity so sharp, Michael was surprised it didn’t cut a hole in him. Her husband Raguel held her bicep in a comforting but restraining gesture. Disappointment creased his face, which was arguably more painful than Remiel’s glare.
Michael looked away and caught Gabriel’s gleaming sapphire gaze. The dark-haired angel watched him with a mingled expression of pain and vindication. If anyone in this room understood Michael’s turmoil, it would be Gabriel. Michael’s eyes stung as he wrenched them away and forced himself to blink back the tears threatening to spill.
He couldn’t do this.
Hehadto do this.
Lucifer nodded, regarding Michael with an indecipherable expression. “Alright then,” he spoke low, his voice ragged and deep, for only Michael and the surrounding guards to hear. “If you choose his side, I’ll grant you that. It’s what I’m fighting for, after all. Choice.”
“Silence, Deceiver,” Michael snapped. He couldn’t bear to hear that voice, the one he had spent long nights of private conversations savoring. The tone Luce used with him alone. “You hold a darkness within that taints all that you touch. Look at what you have wrought upon Eve, upon Adam! I will hear no more of your twisted rhetoric.”
“Oh, that’s very witty Mike, ‘twisted rhetoric’. You always had a way with words.” Michael began to tear up again but maintained his composure even in the face of Lucifer’s judgement. “You will also come to regret this day. But I respect your right to make this choice.”
Michael roared, “I said I will hear no more!”
He couldn’t bear to.
“Do it then!” Lucifer shouted back, matching him even now. He spun so his back was to the furious warrior, goading him into action. “Do your worst, oh faithful lapdog!”
With a cry of rage, Michael raised his sword and brought it down swiftly. Lucifer’s screams rent the air as the tempered steel sliced cleanly through muscle and cartilage, the magnificent golden wings dropping from proud shoulders likelead weights. Feathers scattered across the polished floor along with heavy drops of thick golden blood.
The Devil screamed until his throat was raw, until his voice gave out from the strain. Thick trails of gold slid down his back, pooling beneath him and soaking into his tattered trousers. His barren shoulders slumped, but he lifted his exhausted face to meet Michael’s gaze and the fury smoldering there.
“Are you proud?” He whispered hoarsely, unable to manage more. “Is your conscience appeased? Jeho’s favorite attack dog, restored to glory.”
“It is what you deserve,” Michael hissed, and spit on the ground before his lover. How much of their relationship had been a farce? How much of it was crafted to deceive and blind him to the truth? “You are a traitor and a coward, and I am glad to be rid of you. I am glad to spare this Kingdom your wicked manipulations. It is my greatest joy.”
“Is it?” Lucifer hissed, sucking in deep breaths to distract from the pain decimating his shoulders and back. “Well, for what it is worth, you were mine.”
The admission seared Michael to the soul.
“Enough!” He raised his hand sharply and Lucifer’s back was engulfed in blazing golden flame, the stumps of his wings burning away to dust and razing the blood and grime from his skin.
He was radiant even in the flames of judgement.
At a gesture from Jehovah, the twins Jophiel and Gloriana approached the fallen prince. Clasping hands, they closed their eyes and summoned forth a portal, a more temporary thing than the Rifts but good enough for quick passage between realms. A flickering gash of blue and white light, it cast shadows that deepened the lines of pain on the newly minted Devil’s face. He was a shell of himself, pale and sweating and hunched over from the pain.
“Goodbye, Mikha’el,” he murmured, shifting from his knees to rise unsteadily to his feet.
“Good riddance,” Michael spat back at him, masking his pain with his rage.
Luce smiled grimly as he stepped backwards through the tear in the world, eyes hard and accusing and refusing to look away from Michael until the portal sealed between them. His resolve broke, and Michael forced himself to breathe evenly as he turned slowly to face his king. Dropping to one knee and bowing his head, hiding his storm cloud eyes behind unruly blond bangs, he curled a fist over his shattered heart.
“My faithful warrior,” Jehovah declared proudly, voice laced with warmth and kindness. “The epitome of justice and devotion, who would cast out his own lover when he defiled the Divine Law. Your sacrifice and loyalty are proof of your inherent goodness, Mikha’el.”
And yet, Michael didn’t feel honorable or just in this moment. He felt sick and cold and furious at how he had been used and what he had been made to do. To strip an angel’s wings, to cast them out…it was difficult under the best of circumstances. But to be forced to do it to someone you loved was almost unbearable. It could have been Uriel or Jophiel who performed the act, or Sachiel or Raphael. It didn’t have to be him. Underneath it all was a simmering resentment that Jehovah had asked this of him.
