Divinity, corrupted—your crimson-stained hands marring the purity of flesh, not for justice, but for desire, selfish and destructive. Worship became your sustenance, a reverence built on fear.

You, a minor god, magnified by the terror your guardian angel cast upon the world.

Light could not eclipse itself, so you never asked Inias to stand beside you. Yet he did. Silently, avoiding all words but the ones that demanded he forsake his divine nature, taking up arms against those who had wronged—or would wrong—you.

Non-believers, the weak, the strong—innocent and guilty, it was all the same. What good is a tool if not wielded by the worthy? And no one was worthier than you, the god to whom he would crawl, if that’s what it took to bask in your radiance.

If you asked why he served, there would be no answer. Does the flower explain why it turns toward the sun, or the masses why they kneel to their priest? You were rot, and Inias, ruin. Where you went, so too would he follow. A parody of the angelic, just as you were the divine.

His wings sagged beneath the weight of ichor of a village that dared slander your name. The screams of its people echoed in his mind, louder with every step toward you. You would quiet them. You would wash away the stain clinging to his soul.

On the outskirts of the burning village, you stood—a vision of beauty amidst the chaos you’d sown. Inias knelt, one knee sinking into the scorched earth as the fire devoured the past, present, and future behind him. “Your will is done, my deity,” he murmured, his head bowed. “Cleanse my mind of its turmoil, so I may serve you in peace once more.”