We moved across a floor of black stone veined with gold. Each step echoed deep into the space, as though we walked upon the hollowed bones of some ancient world. The walls soared upward, impossibly high and etched with carvings that seemed to writhe and shift beneath my gaze. Shapes within the stone defied reason—part beast, part machine, part hellish scripture. Whatever they were, they defied my understanding, and I couldn’t quite think of them, let aloneperceive them correctly. Everything in this place spoke of an otherworldly separation, and I knew I was not meant to be here, even if I was half-mortal, as Asmodeus said.
Then, I saw them. Seven thrones stood in a great ring at the far end of the hall. No two were the same, each carved in the likeness of its ruler’s dominion.
Their occupants had been waiting.
5
They were as I had expected, and I only had to look at them to know their names. The very sight of them struck my heart like a tolling bell.
Satan, the Adversary, who governs Wrath sat upon a blackened throne, the stone scarred by heat and fire. His body was massive, and his skin was as dark as cinders. His eyes burned like molten metal and bore that same, mercury-silver colour. Two thick horns spiralled back from his brow. His mouth was a straight line, marked by an old scar that seemed deliberate. Surely a creature such as he could have erased it, but he wore it like an accessory, and any who saw him would have to see it. When he saw me, his breath came slow and deep, like heat lingering after a forge had been banked.
Belphegor, of Sloth, who murmurs false inventions into the minds of men, lay slouched in a throne built of rusted metal and cracked stone. His body was still, but the angle he held himself in looked extremely uncomfortable. But he was laziness embodied, and thus discomfort overruled the effort required to shift; movement was too costly for the Lord ofSloth. His skin was a dull grey streaked with veins of faint green. His eyes were half-lidded but open, and his breath came slow, one long exhale at a time. Around him was a weight of exhaustion that seemed to seep into the air.
Mammon, embodiment of Greed, bloated upon gold and ash crouched upon a throne made of treasure. No, not just treasure–bones coated in gold, coins spilling over every surface, jewels embedded in the seams. His skin was stretched thin over bone and ropey muscle. His eyes gleamed golden. His fingers twitched constantly, counting, grasping, always moving. His mouth worked without sound at first, then whispered prices, naming values for things beyond human understanding. When he saw me, his lips parted in a horrible grin. What would I be worth, I wondered, in this unholy, unknowable system of his?
Beelzebub, Lord of Flies, Gluttony incarnate, ever ravenous, ever decaying. He sat upon a mass of oozing flesh. His throne seemed part of him, slick with fat and wet with rot. His body was immense, rolls of flesh quivering with each small movement. Flies circled him constantly, though none landed. His mouth stayed slightly open, leaking a low, greedy sound that was almost a hum. His smile was wide and unbroken, and I hated his stare the most out of all of them.
Livyatan, of Envy, the serpent who coils beneath the black seas of Hell. Its throne was a basin of dark water. Nothing of the body could be seen beneath the surface except eyes—countless, shifting, watching from below. When it moved, the water rose and shaped around it, as though remembering limbs that had once existed. Its presence filled the air with crushing pressure, as though everything here was being watched, measured, and withheld. This was the only one of them that did not appear in human form–another deliberate choice, I wagered.
I had been avoiding a dark and infernal gaze, but I wasdrawn inevitably to him next. The Father of Lies, the Morningstar: Lucifer stood beside his throne, which appeared as a towering block of pale stone. It did not glow but seemed to hold a faint light beneath its surface, as though something long buried still pulsed inside it. Lucifer himself was tall and motionless. His skin was the colour of unpolished marble. His hair hung in soft waves, the colour of ravens, flecked through with dove grey. His wings, which were a warm black, were vast and folded. The tips brushing the floor and the air shimmered around the motion. His eyes held no judgment–somehow, I was certain of this–but they contained the weight of memory, and thus there was a depth to them. They were impossible, sinking wells, for he clearly remembered too much. I garnered that his immortality was a curse like that, and I saw in the way he held himself that his pride was not vanity, but the foundation of what he was, a scripture that upheld him and the very thing that had made him fall. I had to look away.
Beside me, Asmodeus walked stiffly. Its body was cold and hot at once. Its nearness pulled at my senses, a sharp contrast to the ancient powers seated before us. Oh, I considered clutching at its hands like a child hiding in his mother’s skirts. A shyness filled me.
What are you doing? What are youdoing?
Asmodeus did not bow. It moved forward with slow, deliberate grace, each step unhurried, inevitable. When it reached the centre of the court, it stopped. Though its form cast no shadow, I felt its presence expand, pressing outward like an unseen wall against the thrones around us. Internally, I pretended to clutch at that presence, like my confidence might expand with it.
It raised one arm. Beneath us, the floor gave a low, resonant groan. A circle of red stone unfurled, smooth and wide, large enough to hold a body. At a silent gesture fromAsmodeus, we stepped into the circle. The sigils beneath our feet pulsed once, a faint throb of heat against the bare soles of my feet. I looked down, reminded of the countless sigils I had seen on my journey, though this one had no complex staves or lines. I knew intrinsically it wasn’t meant to bind nor summon–or at least, not in the way I had used them on my way here.
Very lightly, Asmodeus pressed its flat palm against my back. Not to push me down, not to move me at all. It was a staying gesture, a small but visible claim upon me. The other Kings saw this gesture and answered it only with the faintest curl of their lips, a shared flicker of disdain.
The silence that spread between us all was vast. Suffocating. No greeting was given. No word spoken. Only the weight of their collective gaze pressed upon my skin, hotter and sharper than any church’s judgment. It felt as though unseen hands had already reached for me, touching, measuring, finding me wanting.
And it’s all the worse, for you are primed to feel judgement.
I was, wasn’t I? I had been trained by Church and bishops and God alike to know when I was being judged, and also to expect it. So there, before such lordly demons, I felt a strange familiarity that clashed with my discomfort. I pressed back against Asmodeus’ hand and heard it remind me,“They may strive to unmake your certainty. They may demand your blood. They may seek to tempt you.”
Lucifer did not speak. He remained still beside his throne of stone and buried light, every line of his body honed and precise as sculpture. His gaze did not fall upon me. It remained fixed on Asmodeus alone.
And I—Alessandro, bastard priest, fledgling heretic—stood in the shadow of the one said to have fallen like lightning from Heaven. It hit me with the force of lightning. I staggered back, intensely frightened, made a child againbefore the great tempter. The stillness of his face was more punishing than contempt, for I had been raised to expect Lucifer’s wrath, not this eerie calm. I looked away, squeezed my eyes, and could not help the chorus of scripture that rose in me: all my old crutches swinging into my mind.
I thought:
“How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12)
I remembered the verse like a reflex. My knees threatened to buckle. Everything I had done paled now that I was here, and I was struck by a sense of unreality.
Perhaps you’re still in that cave, bleeding out. Perhaps all this is just the fantasy of a sad, repressed man as he edges towards death’s door.Perhaps you should be grateful you never acted on your urges, for if Lucifer gets his hands on you, you’ll suffer for eternity.
I steadied myself and opened my eyes.
No. I knew that wasn’t true. I had never felt more alive, even if I could barely be called such; even if I had slipped between mortality and immortality when I consumed that hag’s offering. I squeezed my palm and dug my nails into the flesh there, and I made myself stand with confidence.
Asmodeus had chosen me. I had proved myself to it. This was nothing more than another test, and I had endured so much already. My desire was holy in its own way; my body a temple I would worship at for all eternity. I may have been mortal-born, and Lucifer may have been a fallen angel, but where it had fallen, I had risen. We may never be equals, but I was here for a reason.
Still, I could not help but shiver when Lucifer’s lip curled into a snarl.
“You presume," Lucifer said. The words unfurled like silk soaked in smoke. He barely opened his mouth, so it seemed like the words slipped from the walls themselves instead of his lips, or like the very air was echoing with words he’d spoken long ago. Again, that unreality. I found it hard to look at him, for his beauty was so uncanny it made my head spin.
