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The story goes: The Everlight came to the Lord of Lies to redeem him, and she was betrayed.
*
On one of Exandria's countless forgotten battlefields, two silhouettes cut a stark contrast against the darkened sky. Around them lies a wasteland of shattered swords and splintered shields, the echoes of fallen soldiers.
One of the figures radiates a dim, fiery glow, as though he’s made of smoldering ember. Curled horns sit atop his head like a crown, and he surveys the desolation around them as if savoring the evidence of suffering etched into the earth beneath his feet. The figure opposite him shines with a warm, comforting light that seems to push back the darkness. A pair of ivory wings stretch wide from her back, and her hair seems a living crown of flame, dancing in the night, flickering with a warmth that feels like hope. It strikes him how completely out of place she looks in this ruin of a world.
He smiles. She has showed up with no warning and no army, and he can smell a deal in the air. No doubt he can guess her intent.
“You want to see what happened to the last person who tried to redeem and forgive me?” he asks. But to his surprise, she’s not here to offer forgiveness.
She asks for his.
*
He loves it when people let him set the terms of a bargain. The grander the request, the more he relishes it, knowing he can ask for something even more impossible in return. And so he makes a very straightforward suggestion for his very straightforward sibling. To win his forgiveness, simply cure every wound he’s ever suffered.
He's very proud of it. Not simply the impossibility of it, but knowing how much it hurts her to know others are hurting.
Her face falls at first. Disappointment that she won’t be able to meet his demands, or simply the pain she feels from pure sympathy? He’s about to cut their conversation short, to summon his armies and fight her there and then, but just as he opens his mouth, she nods in determination and raises her hands to his.
Is the glint in her eye a reflection of his own fire, or is it a gleam of victory? Could she have wanted him to ask for this, is she trying to trick him? Trick him? He could still walk away.
Exandria holds its breath.
*
He hasn’t felt her light for centuries, and something in him hungers for it. Hungers to be enveloped by its safety and warmth, to be Imri again in her eyes. For a moment, he’s back on that ship before they ever found this world. He can feel himself burn and twist trying to save them all, see her turning into pure light to save him in return. Whatever undeserving mortals she has wasted her gifts on afterwards, she created that light for him . And here she is, offering it again. All he needs to do is stretch out his hand to hers and take it. And why shouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he be happy, why shouldn’t he be loved? Her gifts were meant for him, why shouldn’t he take them? Let her try to work her miracle. Let her try to trick him as best she can.
He takes her hand. Her gaze is focused, but he can feel the nervous excitement simmering beneath her skin. She rests her forehead against his and closes her eyes. He feels instant relief, like untangling a knot he’d never noticed tightening. Little silver strands start escaping from her gleaming form, spinning around them both before shooting off in the distance, as though searching for something. And when they connect to whatever they’re searching for -
*
Light.
*
They stand in a cathedral. The traces of war around them fade away, a suggestion from a reality that they are free to ignore. Columns of pure, radiant energy rise from the ground, arching gracefully to form an ethereal dome above them. The walls pulse gently with every breath she takes, shifting from gold to silver and back. Every part of it radiates light and hope and life. He feels it seeping into him, soothing every hurt.
She must be exhausting every bit of her power for this, every follower she has. He can see her straining to channel it, trying to craft a miracle from the strands that envelop her, those little shining prayers from her little, shiny mortals.
Her eyes are closed, and there are no onlookers. There is no one to see his darkened horns slowly retreat and turn into a halo of golden hair. No one to see a hateful smirk turn into a carefree smile. No one to witness her most ambitious feat since they built a world together. But he senses the change, feels the weight of centuries of rage and pain and hate leaving him. She’s so close to succeeding. All she needs is a little more power. “Just a bit more” , he thinks, and the thought alone is enough to make little red embers dance along the glittering strands she’s trying to control. Power. The little tendrils start vibrating with it. The embers play among them like little beads, spreading all the way out to their source, finding all her followers. She frowns. “Just a bit more” . As the last bit of pain leaves him, he is flooded with hope. For a fraction of a second, there is only serenity and love and an ocean of possibility. A flash of a future with his family, of bickering and agreeing and belonging. The embers enter her clerics as they pray so fervently to change him.
Panic. “Wait-”
Everything shatters.
*
Across Exandria, clerics fall to the ground, burning from within.
The cathedral disappears, revealing the truth of what surrounds them, the fire and pain and wounds that the gods have carved into the world. The air is thick with the acrid smell of a broken miracle –some from the frayed and broken silver threads still hanging in the air, some from the twisted and blackened strands of his own fire. She’s on the ground, pale. Her light is dimming, she’s fading fast.
No .
He will not let her be taken away. He has spent centuries banished from her divine light, he will not be cut off from it again. All she has to do is wake up. He could make her see that their family is the only thing that’s real, the only thing that matters. The mortals are a distraction, insignificant puppets that had no right to come between them, no right to separate the gods. She would understand that now, she just sacrificed them for his sake. She could convince the others, make them see that he was right all along. They would listen to her. Their siblings would choose to follow him like this. He could lead them. They could be a family.
All she has to do is wake up.
Full of strength and beauty from her miracle, he thinks: How hard could saving her be?
He reaches for the dark currents of his own power, tries to shape it into something that will bring her back. The red embers flare against her, like she is shielded from him somehow. Instead, the ground beneath them fractures, jagged lines of molten flame searing through the cracks. Cold, unfeeling proof that there is nothing in him that could elicit warmth and light in any way that matters.
But he will not lose.
If she cannot wake up to give him her light, he will take it. He grabs at the remaining glimmers of her power hanging in the air, but it is like trying to capture a cloud. Every glinting thread slips through his grasp like smoke.
He hates to make a bargain without setting the terms, but in desperation, he shouts an offer to whatever might be listening. A fraction of a lie for a fraction of the light she is so eager to give away. And if she were awake, he knows, the deal would be sealed in an instant. But magic is capricious, demanding a steeper price than she would. And so as he finally, finally manages to grasp the silvery threads, they twist and turn in his hands, becoming a jagged shard that burrows its way into his chest. And as his lie enters her, giving some color to her pale cheeks again, he can feel it taking some of his power with it, stealing it away. His newfound strength seeps out of him, his healed skin starts to burn anew. He feels his horns reemerge, centuries of injuries coming back, all at once. He roars in pain and fury. Flames whip through the air, and the sky writhes in a tempest born of his boundless rage.
And through all of this, she lies on the ground, untouched. Her light is dimmed, but no longer in danger of going out. Of course she would be her own miracle. Of course this world held no solace for him.
He leaves her there – the Dawnfather will come to save her soon, and he’s in no shape for a fight. But all over the world, true believers of the Everlight burn with an unnatural fever. By the time the dawn comes, she will have almost no followers left in Exandria.
*
The story goes: The Everlight came to the Lord of Lies to redeem him, and she was betrayed.
*
In Elysium, the Everlight weeps for the mortals who died in her service, for a world torn apart by war, and for her brother who she could not help. Deep down in her endless well of love and forgiveness, a seed of deceit grows and changes, learning to soothe those hurts that cannot be healed. A little lie.
*
In the nine hells, Asmodeus boasts to his generals about the blow he has struck against the prime deities, and flinches at a pain he cannot place. In his chest, waves of darkness crash against a shard of light. A sliver of hope that cannot be extinguished until the stars twinkle out of the sky.