Lucifer collided with the earth with an almighty bang, his bones shattering and skin opening in countless lacerations on impact. Dirt erupted up around him at the same time, while a foot-deep indent was left below him. Face down and struggling for breath, he could barely move. All he could see was the fading light of dusk as darkness settled all around.

As his breaths leveled out, letting him pick up the earthy smells of grass, plants, and dirt, something else registered. More than the agony that roiled his body as his bones reset and his skin pulled back together. More than his mind that was scrambled incoherently. The sensation was feather light. Looking up with a strike of pain, his head now working with his spine almost realigned, he saw how correct that description had been. Falling like ash, remnants of what had once been his wings settled on his healing flesh. His flesh that was drying of silvery-black torrents—of his blood.

Part angel, and now…part something else.

The rest came back to him as the hemorrhaging in his brain healed itself. Michael. Gabriel. The punishment. And his fall that felt like it had taken forever and only seconds at the same time.

Lucifer settled back on his haunches, capturing his raised knees with his arms. Hearing far and wide, he picked up the sounds of foraging wild animals, trickling water from a stream, and beyond that, humans. But the population was pitiful, and he knew why as the sound of lapping waves at the surrounding shores he could hear but not see reached him from every direction. He had been banished to a scarcely civilized land. An island. A place on Earth that he would have the least lives to influence.

Alone again and with Gabriel so far away, his anger resurfaced as he glared upward—and he froze. Something swayed back and forth below the brightening stars, gliding slowly down, down…down. Lucifer held up a hand, letting the white downy feather settle across his palm. “Gabriel.” His chest hurt with his exhaled words while he remembered the fear across her beautiful face. She had tried to save him. Again. Because she still cared for him? Or out of obligation? But Michael had arrived, ready to provoke him. Set on the act of banishing Lucifer for good.

Lucifer’s fingers curled around the feather, rebreaking bones to crush the soft length. And now this… He strained to force his fractured fist to unclench from the anger that shot through his veins like a cobra’s fatal acid. A gift from her. His only supporter. A lifeline. And proof that Gabriel had not completely turned her back on him after all this time. Proof that she still held hope for him.

As he looked the feather over, using his forefinger and thumb to straighten out the vanes on either side of the shaft, he felt the power that resonated through it. The power of angels to communicate from one world to the next, and to traverse across one realm. He knew what Gabriel wanted him to do with this gift of hers—she wanted him to reach out to God. To finally beg forgiveness and repent.

Lucifer’s nostrils flared at the thought. Gabriel had always seen the good in others, always seen hope even when there was none. God had forsaken him. He had sent Michael to do his bidding rather than waste his time on the angel he had given up on long ago. Using this gift from her in that way would be a waste. He would not grovel. Even if his pride would allow it, there would be no use. Lucifer knew the only way now to reach God would be to draw him down here to him. But it was not forgiveness or love he wanted anymore. Those things were not his to hope for. He now realized they never had been.

Confronted with this harsh reality, Lucifer’s heart hardened. His loss of acceptance, stature, and the love his heart desired more than anything, but that would never be his, morphed into burning rage. A flame so bright he would burn this world to ashes. His small crimes would be nothing compared to what he would turn God’s humans into. And with this gift, he would not have to toil away decades or even centuries to start making his impression on the world. With this gift, he had a way to speed things up.

Groaning at the stabs of pain as he got to his feet, Lucifer clambered out of the indent his landing had made and stood tall. His back still felt like it was ablaze. The heated pain resonated more and more for every second his body healed from the fall. He had a feeling the lack of relief was meant to be a reminder of his crimes, of being individual and not pandering to God’s every whim. A reminder of wanting something more. Free will—without his wings, he felt the ability to fully act as he wished.

Instead of letting the pain force him to conform, he used it to spur himself on.

Limping forward, only the dark sky was visible above the huge tree-lined clearing he had landed in. He held the feather out before him with a shaking arm, tapping into its angelic energy. His lids shut out the starry view, and with the crashing of unseen water soothing him, he drew the power into himself. The celebration he had viewed from above rose in his mind, in a stone castle and surrounded by an expansive city.

The dusty Persian plain came alive in his mind like he was seeing it from the looking glass above. Not the kingdom he had come from, but the one he had won. Babylon—with its new king. Lucifer forced his free hand up, his thumb and middle finger cracking back into alignment as he pressed them together.

With a bone-jarring click, he vanished into the night.