Xorn didn’t like the smell of Ferdinand’s arrogance. He remembered the old Hallowed when he’d been just a boy with those breathtaking eyes. But Ferdinand had always been a spirited human. That’s why Xorn had taken him into one of his prized human tribes.

He regretted it now. Ferdinand would never forgive him for what happened. Demons fought amongst one another and no matter how he tried to stabilize his people, they didn’t seem capable of civility. His organized tribes had quickly disintegrated into target practice from neighboring armies. Few had managed to survive.

Brushing off the old memories, he conjured shadow, the magic coming easily to him with so much onyx sprouting from the ground. Malice had nearly overtaken this world. He looked up, the soft glow of Celestia hidden by the sun’s dull shroud. His ancient home was up there, still spilling its tainted Light onto angels. They were wrong. He’d learned that when Mehmet had called to them, explained the lies and twisted tales of the Seraphim that had led angels down the wrong path. That’s when he Fell, along with so many others, and bathed the world in their blood and pain.

With grim determination, he delved into the shadows and traveled towards Nethara, his ex-lover and one of the most powerful generals of Mehmet’s forces. She’d been the first to tell him how to fix the angels and the Fallen. Light was what had caused the problem. If it was snuffed out, their world could be saved.

He still believed that. The Darkness caressed his skin and made him feel safe. It whispered promises of refuge and it had never failed to hide him when he was in danger. It had even listened to his wish to become human, at least, to a point. His fingers ran up and gripped one of his wretched horns. He hated the obvious mark that he was still a supernatural creature doomed to sin. He wanted to be wiped clean of the mark that was Celestia and the painful event that was the Fall. He didn’t want to be an angel. He’d ripped off his wings long ago. But now, he was a demon, and he didn’t want that either. He just wanted to be free.

A hot blast hit him in the face when he exited his shadow portal and entered into Nethara’s domain. She still preferred the liquid lava pools and cracked lands that had created her. She was too powerful, too strange. She’d never Fallen, even if she had a heart as black as the rest of them. She’d been born in these flames, once a creature of the purest Light. Even he couldn’t believe how much she’d changed.

Nethara had known he was coming, just as she always knew when a soul stepped onto her merciless lands. Her beautiful form emerged from the pillars of smoke that billowed from the ground. A golden triangle tattoo swirled with fresh power at her forehead. It was beautiful, but Xorn hated the new mark. Ever since she’d mutilated herself, tried to retain her old power after she’d filled with malice, she’d started to slip away.

The way she walked towards him now with confidence and sensual poise said that this was Nethara, commander of demons and a creature of death, and not the kind soul he’d fallen in love with. His Nethara wouldn’t harm even the smallest of creatures. She’d loved life. But that part of her had died when she’d accepted malice. It was the Darkness he’d brought with him when he Fell. He blamed himself for what she was now. Slates of demon scales wrapped around her form, but they weren’t her own. She had skin as soft and fragile as any human’s because the malice hadn’t come naturally to her, so she clothed herself in the remnants of her enemies. Long talons spiked at her shoulders where she’d crafted vambraces from Mehmet’s prized demons that had tested their luck against her. Fangs ran across her collar in a gruesome necklace and leathery fabric clung to her hips, glittering with the most beautiful of demonic wings she’d ripped from one of the other females that had made the mistake of coming too close to Xorn, at a time when he’d belonged to her.

“Xorn,” she said with a purr. Her eyes beamed with fiery red and she grinned. Madness tinged at the edges of her gaze, but she was lucid enough today to speak to him, to remember their times together had once meant something. She should have felt the twist in her gut like he did. Instead, she eased closer to him until he smelled the familiar musk of her as if nothing had ever changed.

“I haven’t come for games,” he said with a warning growl. He wouldn’t fall for her seduction. Not after she’d broken his heart.

Seeming unperturbed by his tone, she eased closer. “You’ve come to speak of the girl?” she guessed as she trailed her fingers through drifting smoke left over from Xorn’s portal. Her fingers wound through the soft tendrils until her touch ran up his arm.

He ignored the shiver her icy touch gave him. If he gave in to the desire he saw in her eyes, he’d only find himself empty and miserable when her madness took her again. “You’re indulging in one of your rare spells of lucidity,” he said and forced himself to step away. “What staved off the madness this time?”

She scoffed and her necklace of fangs jingled as she moved. “It’s not madness,” she corrected. “It’s malice.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Call it what you wish. But yes, I have come to speak of the girl.”

Nethara grinned and swirled, suddenly unfurling her bat-like wings she kept tucked beneath the folds of her elaborate outfit. They’d once been sheets of fine, white feathers, but now she was a demon through and through. His breath caught at the majestic image of smoke unfurling from her taloned wings, revealing a sliver of porcelain skin beneath her plated armor. “Why don’t we go for a flight?” she teased. She used to carry him when he’d lost his wings. In spite of her delicate appearance, she could lift boulders if she wished. “Just for a little while?”

She pressed against his shoulder and teased her wings around them just like she used to do when they’d been together. He closed his eyes and tried not to get wrapped up in the memories. That route only brought suffering and pain.

He curled his toes and focused on the blistering heat that threatened to breathe through his skin. Pain only gave him power and he drew from the physical suffering and turned it into shadows that steeled him against desire.

He wasn’t like Nethara who thrived in this world of embers. She held ice in her heart and could withstand the most terrifying of flames. “Fine. I’ll let you take me to the temple where I’m not roasting like a pig.”

She yipped with delight and came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She paused, her wings hanging above them like a threatening omen. Her breath puffed hot against his neck. “To the temple, then,” she agreed, and flared her wings, lifting them in a powerful thrust that sent them careening into the folds of Darkness and shadow.

* * *

Xorn indulged in the brief contact of Nethara’s grip around his body as they glided on the warm currents that ran aplenty in Nethara’s territory. He’d missed flying, although he wouldn’t admit that to anyone. They didn’t speak as they made their way to the obsidian temple that Mehmet had been erecting ever since the Fall. To what god Mehmet worshiped, Xorn wasn’t sure. Perhaps the temple wasn’t to a god at all, just the sense of loss and pain that seemed to consume them all.

Demons glittered the landscape as they burrowed into the soil, bringing collections of the rarer onyx shards with them that writhed with shadow and power. The temple itself never seemed to grow larger, but he knew that the majority of its development was in the bowels of the onyx tunnels.

He listened to the soft, powerful beats of Nethara’s wings. He closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of burning rocks that reminded him of when they’d first met. She’d been so fragile back at the start of the world.

When they landed and he faced her again, he forced himself to see what she was now. Garbed in scales and fangs of those she’d slain, her ruby eyes gleamed with the merciless truth. Whatever love they’d had was now an ember that had been doused by shadow.

“I need you to stay on your side of the border for the next few days,” he said, getting straight to business.

Nethara stretched her wings and adjusted her necklace. “What would make me want to leave?” she asked. She gave him a flirtatious wink. “The girl’s land runs between Belial’s territory and yours. Do you intend to take him on your own?” She gave him a pout. “You know I’m the stronger one. I could help you get the girl. Belial won’t know what hit him.”

Xorn crossed his arms and walked to the edge of the cliff Nethara had landed them on. The onyx temple jutted in a series of spires that offered reprieve from the molten lands. His blistered feet ached against the cool throb of stone. “Belial’s dead,” he said.

Nethara blinked. “What?”

“He made the mistake of going up against Anark. The fool.”

Nethara snarled and madness threatened at the edges of her fingertips, taking the form of sparks and shadow. “An angel dares to come to our lands?”

Xorn ignored her outrage, but the spitting fires of her madness tempered his desire for her. This was what she was now. She was a creature of hatred and anger. The Light that festered at her forehead wasn’t compatible with the malice seated in her heart. If he could find a way to destroy Light completely from this world, perhaps he could save her.

But that would be a long time from now. First, he needed to make sure Nethara wouldn’t interfere with his plans. If he was going to destroy the Light, he first needed to lure it into shadow.

“The girl thinks Anark killed her parents, but she’s the reason the fires started. She’s the one who called Belial to her home.” He’d seen the look of twisted anguish the ancient Hallowed had tried to hide from him. He believed the girl could be saved. No matter that Ferdinand had become estranged, he’d liked the Hallowed for a reason. He, too, believed in second chances. “If I can teach her to control her gifts, she’ll be a valuable ally against the angels.”

Nethara’s red eyes went wide. “We should kill her while she’s young and weak.”

Xorn snatched Nethara’s wrist and wound shadows around her. She screeched with rage, and while her muscles could overpower him, her magic could not. “This is my decision, and you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to do.”

“Or what?” she snapped.

He burrowed shadows into her skin and she hissed, but he knew how she worked now. She reacted to a show of brute force and power. He leaned in. “You know what happens to demons that get in my way.”

Instead of growling, she grinned. Her flared wings relaxed and the talons along the arches retracted. “So powerful,” she hissed as he released her wrist. She ran a touch up his arm. “My Xorn.”

He turned from her and summoned a portal home. “I’m not yours, Nethara. Not anymore.”