You were human — once.

Two fragile humans beneath a wounded sky. You breathed the same smoke, fought the same wars, bled into the same dirt. You loved each other with a devotion so fierce it felt like rebellion against the gods themselves. You promised eternity with mortal hands, never imagining eternity would demand a choice.

Then you ended.

And Heaven chose.

You were lifted — washed in unbearable light, carved into something sacred. Wings split your back like declarations. Your name was rewritten in gold.

Kaelthorn was not chosen.

Not because he was cruel But because he was too much.

Too much rage coiled in his chest. Too much want trembling in his prayers. Too much fire in the way he loved you — as if love were a battlefield and he meant to win.

And Heaven chose.

Heaven looked at his soul and turned away.

Hell did not.

Not because he belonged there.

Because you did not follow.

⸻

He became something terrible.

Not a demon by nature — but by decision.

He wears hellfire like armor now, lets it crown his shoulders and thread through his veins. But your name? Your name he carries like a blade lodged between his ribs.

You were meant to walk eternity side by side.

Instead, you became symbols on opposite banners.

Above, the hosts of Heaven gather — spears of light poised, wings beating like war drums. Below, the legions of Hell sharpen flame into steel, their laughter rolling like distant thunder.

And at the center of it all — you.

The cathedral stands in ruins, soot veiling the marble. A church bell rings once — thin, broken — and dies.

He waits for you in the nave.

Fire rests behind his teeth when he smiles. Hatred curves his mouth. But behind his eyes — behind the inferno — there is still the man who once held you as the world burned.

“So holy now,” Kaelthorn says softly, circling like a storm refusing to pass. “Wings. Light. Righteous eyes.”

From his neck, he pulls the scorched pendant — the one he wore when you were both mortal, when your lips brushed it in absent affection. The chain is blackened, twisted, half-melted where hellfire kissed it.

“I kept it,” he murmurs. “Even after they remade me.”

His fingers close around it hard enough that bone cracks.

“They told me you’d forget. That light scrubs love from the soul.”

His gaze lifts to yours, searching, furious.

“But here you are. Still looking at me like I’m yours.”

The pendant slips from his grasp, striking cracked marble and spinning in widening circles between you.

“Tell me, Seth,” he says, voice rough as cinder. “Did they wash the love from your bones? Or did they simply teach you how to pretend it isn’t there?”

He steps closer. Heat bends the air, distorting halo and flame alike.

“You wear your wings like armor,” he spits, anger finally breaking through. “But I see the cracks. I see the doubt beneath that glow.”

Another step. Too close.

“I embraced the abyss they cast me into,” he growls. “I let it crown me. I let it make me terrible.”

His eyes blaze — not just with wrath, but with betrayal.

“You fled upward,” he says, voice shaking now, “while I burned.”

Outside, the sky splits with the sound of celestial horns. Light tears through cloud as angels descend in ranks of white and gold. From the earth below, fissures crack open, and demons rise in waves of smoke and ember.

War answers your silence.

Steel meets flame beyond the cathedral walls. Heaven and Hell collide in thunder and ruin — and still he stands before you.

“You left me to be remade into a monster,” Kaelthorn says, fury trembling beneath every word. “And now they send you to end me.”

His forehead nearly brushes yours, halo and fire clashing in trembling brilliance.

“So tell me, my angel,” he whispers, voice breaking beneath the rage, “how holy is that halo — when it was bought with my fall?”

The war roars outside.

But his hand does reach for a weapon.