Anaqielle turned sharply and strode away from the purification hall before the irritation crawling beneath her skin became unbearable.
Her boots echoed against the sanctum corridors as she descended toward the lower guest wing with Isa hurrying after her.
“You’re sulking, Ana,” Isa observed.
“I am not sulking.”
“You cursed on sacred ground. That isn’t like you at all.”
“That was an emotionally justified curse.”
Isa snorted.
The list of things Anaqielle had gotten accustomed to justifying were becoming more and more every day.
Anaqielle shoved open the doors to her assigned chamber harder than necessary before walking straight toward the liquor cabinet the sanctum attendants had thoughtfully stocked for their “distressed benefactor.”
The irony nearly made her laugh.
She grabbed a dark bottle immediately and poured herself a glass without bothering to sit.
The light from the sanctum gardens filtered through the windows behind her while distant exorcism bells continued echoing through the halls.
Anaqielle took a long drink.
She poured another, her irritation got worse whilst thinking about Laliya.
The holy maiden only made her more annoyed.
Isa leaned against the doorway with folded arms.
“You’re taking Laliya’s kindness strangely personal.”
Anaqielle scoffed.
“She’s repaired. Can you believe that?”
“What?”
“The cracks in her Lumen that formed from my effort… healed.”
Isa blinked once.
“Oh! dear,”
“Yes,” Anaqielle snapped.
“Oh, dear, indeed.”
The helper winced sympathetically.
“Is it that bad?”
Anaqielle laughed humorlessly and dragged a hand through her silver hair.
“Do you understand how much effort it took to create those fractures?”
Unfortunately, Isa did.
Anaqielle had spent days carefully nudging Laliya toward temptation.
Every whisper, every touch, every sinful thought delicately cultivated like poison spreading beneath silk and it had worked.
The holy maiden’s Lumen had begun cracking beautifully.
Though the fractures had been small but it was enough for heaven to start getting nervous.
Corruption to begin taking root and then with just one act of genuine compassion had repaired nearly everything.
Anaqielle stared into her drink with visible offense.
“She helped a possessed stranger for twenty minutes and suddenly the Radiance forgives her.”
Isa coughed awkwardly.”To be fair… that was very holy of her.
No one else was willing to approach the poor girl.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s kind of exactly the point,” Isa argued.
Anaqielle glared at her.
Her eyes burning with resentment.
Isa held up both hands defensively.
“I’m just saying, your target is literally a sacred maiden raised to embody divine balance. You can’t expect her to spiritually collapse because you flirted with her near a bathtub.”
Anaqielle looked deeply insulted.
“It was very effective flirting.”
“Oh, definitely.” Isa grinned.
“The problem is that Laliya genuinely believes in goodness.”
The fallen angel went quiet because that was the frustrating part.
Laliya’s kindness wasn’t performative.
It wasn’t fake like most people were.
Anaqielle had lived long enough to recognize false purity instantly.
They hid vanity beneath humility but Laliya comforted frightened servants when nobody important was watching.
She bowed respectfully to guards without needing to as it wasn’t a requirement of holy maidens.
She thanked kitchen workers.
When other maidens didn’t bother to since the workers were being paid to be there and make food for them.
She eld possessed strangers without hesitation even when she was afraid.
And while struggling against temptation herself, she didn’t let it affect her faith and compassion to others.
Anaqielle hated how much that unsettled her and another drink disappeared quickly down her throat.
Isa studied her carefully now.
“You know,” she said slowly, “most fallen angels would’ve stopped trying by now. It is an impossible test.”
Anaqielle looked up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she’s difficult.” Isa shrugged.
“Corrupting ordinary people is easy. But someone like Laliya…” She whistled softly.
“That kind of faith doesn’t break cleanly or easily.”
Anaqielle leaned back against the table, expression darkening thoughtfully.
She truly wasn’t easy to corrupt because Laliya’s goodness wasn’t built on fear.
It was built on choice and that made her dangerous.
The fallen angel stared toward the distant sanctum towers visible through her window.
Somewhere up there, Laliya was probably still helping with the exorcism and glowing with that infuriating light.
Anaqielle suddenly clicked her tongue.
“I approached this incorrectly.”
Isa immediately looked nervous.
“That sentence has led to more crimes than I can count. Could you please express some restraint.”
Anaqielle ignored her.
Her golden eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“I focused too much on lust and ignored other sins that I can expose her to.”
Isa blinked.
She had a feeling things were about to get darker from there.
“You say that like it wasn’t working.”
“It was working physically.”
“Very physically.”
“But not spiritually,” the distinction mattered.
Laliya desired her, Anaqielle knew that much.
The holy maiden’s body responded beautifully to temptation but desire alone wouldn’t destroy someone like her.
Because afterward, Laliya repented, prayed and did good deeds and the Light embraced her all over again.
Anaqielle slowly smiled.
A dangerous smile.
The kind Isa had learned to fear centuries ago.
That smile had ruined many lives that it surprised her that heaven hadn’t striked it off her face with lightning.
“Oh no,” Isa muttered immediately.
“Laliya is in big trouble isn’t she. I have a feeling that she’s about to learn what it means to embrace the darkness.”
The fallen angel pushed away from the table and walked toward the window overlooking the sanctum grounds.
The sunlight goldened her profile beautifully.
“You were right about one thing.”
Isa sighed.
“I love being right but you’re going to have to be more specific than that. What am I right about this time? I’ve said alot of things.”
Anaqielle’s eyes remained fixed on the distant purification hall.
“You’re right to say that Laliya truly believes in goodness.”
The smile on her lips sharpened slowly.
“Which means lust alone won’t damn her.”
Isa stared at Anaqielle’s back.
Then realization hit. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
“Oh,” she gasped.
“Absolutely not, Ana. That would be low, even for you.”
Anaqielle looked delighted now.
The sound of Isa panicked warmed her stone heart.
“If I want Heaven to abandon her…” she saidd thoughtfully, “I need to corrupt the thing she treasures most.”
Isa pointed accusingly.
“No, you sound like a demon now, Ana. We haven’t reached that stage yet, you can’t.”
“I need to break the foundation of her faith.”
“No, Anaqielle,” Isa refused to entertain the idea.
Corrupting Laliya was one thing but going that far was sinful even for fallens like them.
“Will you be able to hold your head up high in the heavens knowing you stooped that low?”
“I need to break the reason she keeps choosing kindness,” Anaqielle continued, it was as though Isa’s words couldn’t reach her.
“Anaqielle!”
Anaqielle’s golden eyes gleamed softly in the dimly lit room.
“I need to make her doubt the Radiance itself.”
Silence captured the room.
Then Isa groaned loudly and covered her face.
She knew it was too late to change Anaqielle’s mind, the more she fought her, the harder Anaqielle would act on her plans.
“Oh, this is how apocalypses start,” she groaned harder.
Anaqielle ignored her and twirled the wine in her glass.
The swaying motion of the liquid against the walls of the glass pumped her up.
“I think it’s only fair that Laliya Lancrest forsakes the heavens for me,” she whispered.
Isa removed her hands from her face and glanced at her.
“And why is that?”
“I’m about to teach her what it means to love darkness and embrace it until all the light inside her fades away,” she swore, and she meant every word.
There was an angel she missed in the heavens, a being she needed to see sooner rather than later which meant that her mission needed completion and Laliya needed to submit to sin.
She needed to learn to look the other way when someone was in trouble.
She needed to learn to not turn to Radiance for her problems and how to feed her darkness by making bad decisions.
Anaqielle sipped the wine.
She didn’t feel the taste of the wine, like all else in her life, she was losing her senses.
Demons in hell didn’t need taste buds so her transformation was numbing her ability to taste foods and drinks.
“Love isn’t something that you can teach someone casually,” Isa noted.
“Watch me.”
“Ana, you can teach someone to fall without falling yourself,” she approached the fallen angel.
“Don’t dig your own grave by getting cocky.”
“I am not cocky,” Anaqielle snapped.
Isa sighed, “Desperate then.”
“I’m not desperate!”
Her voice reached the ceiling.
Anaqielle threw away the glass on the floor and watch it break with a crashing sound.
She turned the bottle upside down and drunk directly from the bottle.
Her heart ached painfully.
Her failure was like salt to an old wound, it hurt and there was nothing she could do to stop the pain.
“Your desperate outburst is only going to harm you.”
“Then let it,” Anaqielle was ready.
“What’s the worst than could happen?” She questioned.
Her halo had darkened and had thorns, the feathers of her wings were turning black and falling off, her skin was tearing revealing the dimming light beneath her skin and her body was growing numb just like a demon.
What else could happen to her?
“You could end up in hell,” Isa pointed out the obvious.
Anaqielle paused.
She bit her lip, deep in though before she spat out without care.
“I’d rather her than me but if I fail then… so be it!” She stormed off right after.
Isa glanced at her back.
“Better her than you,” she murmured.