Anaqielle hated children but not in a dramatic or evil way.
She simply found them exhausting since they were loud, sticky and for some reason, they always seemed drawn to her.
She was standing beneath a lantern arch, arms crossed as she waited for Isa to return from wherever she had wandered off to, when something tugged on her coat.
Anaqielle looked down.
A small boy stared up at her.
He looked six or perhaps seven years old.
He was missing one front tooth.
His hands were covered in flour from a piece of bread he’d been eating.
The boy smiled at her and Anaqielle immediately knew she was in danger.
“Hello,” the boy waved at her.
Anaqielle blinked then looked around, looking for the person the boy was talking to.
Surely he was speaking to someone else.
The child tugged her coat again.
“Hello.”
“No.”
The boy looked confused.
“I didn’t ask a question.”
Anaqielle sighed.
“What do you want?”
The child pointed at one of the black feathers that had slipped from her sleeve.
“It’s pretty.”
Anaqielle looked at the feather.
Her eyes lowered back to the boy before raising back at the feather.
“Congratulations on having a feather fall on you,” the boy continued smiling.
Children were horrifying.
Especially since they represented all that was still good with the world.
All that she wasn’t anymore.
“I like your hair too.”
Anaqielle felt a headache coming.
The child moved closer.
“Will you play with us?”
“No,” she shut him down casually.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
The answer didn’t seem to discourage him at all.
In fact, he stepped even closer.
“But I want to play with you.”
Anaqielle finally lost patience.
With two fingers, she gently turned his shoulders and pointed him toward a group of children playing nearby.
“Go.”
The boy blinked.
“But…”
“Go.”
“But…”
“Fly away, child.”
The child stared at her, blinking his big round eyes at her in confusion.
Anaqielle made a shooing motion.
“Go bother someone else.”
The smile slowly disappeared from the boy’s face.
He lowered his head and quietly walked away.
‘Finally, some peace and quiet,’ Anaqielle exhaled.
Then she heard a voice behind her.
“What exactly was that?”
She turned.
Laliya stood several feet away.
A basket of folded blankets rested against her hip.
Her expression wasn’t angry.
It just held disappointment.
“Hello, heaven’s chosen.”
Laliya ignored the greeting and the tingle she felt at the way Anaqielle called her that held more meaning that she understood.
“That child wanted to play with you.”
“And?”
“He was being kind.”
Anaqielle raised an eyebrow.
“Your point being?”
Laliya stared at her.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Laliya carefully handed the basket to another holy maiden and walked closer.
“Children aren’t inconveniences, Seren.”
Anaqielle already disliked where this was going.
She had a feeling that she wasn’t going to be Laliya’s fan at all.
“They deserve kindness.”
“There are plenty of kind people here. Why did he have to come to me?”
“Him choosing you doesn’t excuse cruelty towards him. Now I understand why you are a fallen.”
“Cruelty?”
Anaqielle laughed.
She laughed so hard a tear fell from her eye.
The sound immediately made Laliya frown.
“Cruelty?” Anaqielle repeated.
“I told him to go play.”
“You dismissed him like he was a nuisance.”
“He was a nuisance.”
Laliya looked genuinely shocked as if she couldn’t imagine someone saying that aloud.
“He’s a child.”
“Exactly,” Anaqielle answered like that justified everything.
The holy maiden inhaled slowly, trying to remain patient.
Anaqielle could practically see it.
The effort, the restraint and the determination to remain balanced.
It irritated her for reasons she couldn’t explain.
Laliya folded her arms.
“Children remember how adults treat them.”
Anaqielle rolled her eyes.
“Then he’ll remember not everyone exists to entertain him.”
Laliya stared and Anaqielle stared back.
The tension between them thickened.
“You speak as if kindness is a burden,” Laliya said quietly.
Anaqielle’s expression hardened because that question struck a nerve.
Three hundred years of loss and watching every human she knew die.
Kindness had become dangerous long ago.
All the children she’d learnt to adore had grown up, aged and died.
They were but a forgotten memory in a world that keeps spinning.
The unhealed pain of those memories made her snap.
“It is.”
Laliya blinked.
The answer came too quickly that it made her frowned.
She couldn’t understand how dark a soul had to be to not like children.
“How sad. I truly pity your soul.”
Anaqielle’s jaw tightened.
“What did you say?”
“I said that I pity your soul.” The words weren’t cruel, but held no hint of mocking and somehow that made them worse.
Laliya looked at her with genuine pity.
And Anaqielle hated it.
Especially since Laliya hadn’t seen half of the world that she had witnessed.
It implied something inside her was broken.
Something that needed fixing and suddenly she grew more furious.
“You know nothing about me.”
Laliya held her ground. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
“Then tell me. What is it about a fallen that isn’t pitiable?”
Anaqielle laughed sharply.
“Why?”
“So I can understand what’s it’s like to be you. Fallen from grace with heaven but still pushing forward.”
There it was again.
That kindness that Laliya had, it was infuriating.
It was the kind of endless kindness that people like Laliya gave away freely because they had never truly suffered.
Anaqielle’s eyes darkened.
“You want to understand me?”
Laliya nodded.
Anaqielle stepped closer.
“Fine.” Her voice dropped.
It was colder than ice.
“You spend your days handing out bread and blankets like it fixes all that is wrong in the world…”
Laliya frowned.
“What does that have to do with…”
“You think that makes you compassionate?” Anaqielle asked.
The holy maiden’s expression faltered.
But Anaqielle continued.
“You help them because it feels good not because you care about them.”
“That’s not…”
“You get to go home every night knowing you’re a wonderful person. Isn’t that the high of your so-called kindness?”
“That is not a very polite thing to say.”
“Laliya… You hand out kindness because you’ve never had to learn how expensive it is to be kind.”
Silence stretched out between them.
The courtyard seemed quieter suddenly.
Even the children nearby had stopped laughing.
Anaqielle barely noticed.
Her anger had taken over.
Her loathing for the lectures on being a good person by saints who at the end of their road ended up in hell was infuriating.
“You’ve spent your entire life protected. Not ever experiencing the cruelty of this world.”
Laliya’s eyes widened.
“You know nothing about my life.”
“Really?” Anaqielle snapped.
“Then tell me, how many loved ones have buried, Laliya? How many last rites has your sanctum performed for the very homeless people you are kind to every other week?”
The questions landed hard but Anaqielle couldn’t stop.
The hypocrisy of Laliya’s holiness annoyed her.
“Tell me, how many times have you watched someone die and known there was nothing you could do to stop it.”
Laliya looked away.
Anaqielle pressed on.
She came down on Laliya, cruel and ruthless.
“Tell me how many centuries have you spent alone, watching the world change… people grow and die and the new generation repeat the same mistakes as the last…”
“…”
“Have an answer to these questions before you lecture me about kindness.”
The holy maiden went silent.
Her hands tightened around her sleeves.
For the first time since they’d met, she had no response.
A slight tremble coursed through her.
A shine came upon her her eyes as tears welled up in her sockets.
The sight hit her like a punch.
The anger within Anaqielle vanished immediately.
Laliya looked down.
Blinking rapidly and trying not to cry in front of everyone.
Praying to maintain control and for her Lumen to remain balanced just as she’d been trained to do.
But one tear escaped anyway.
It slid quietly down her cheek and fell onto her collarbone.
The courtyard had gone completely silent and for the first time in a very long time, Anaqielle felt regret for losing her temper and being harsh.
So she did what she usually does when she messed up, she fled the scene.