Anaqielle didn’t stop walking until the temple was far behind her.
She crossed two streets, passed a fountain, and nearly frightened a merchant into dropping a basket of fruit.
The moment she reached a quiet alley, she kicked a loose stone across the pavement.
It shattered against a wall.
“Unbelievable.” Another stone followed.
“Absolutely unbelievable.”
She kept kicking stones on the ground.
“Who cries during an argument?” She asked, thrown off by Laliya’s reaction.
“Most people.”
Anaqielle spun around.
Isa sat atop a stack of wooden crates, eating a peach.
Her amused expression and carefree relaxed posture made her stand out among the busy maidens.
Anaqielle pointed accusingly.
“You saw that?”
“I saw everything, yes.” Isa took another bite.
Her eyes sparkling with more amusement.
“It was fascinating.”
Anaqielle groaned and dragged both hands through her hair.
She ruffled her hair in irritation.
Since her fall, that was the most she has felt her feelings stir.
“I hate her.”
“No, you don’t,” Isa called bull.
“I do.”
“No.”
“I absolutely do,” Anaqielle insisted.
Arguing with Laliya felt as though she was breaking a child into pieces and that feeling stung.
Isa chewed thoughtfully.
“You’re upset?”
Anaqielle admitted.
“I am.”
“Do you feel embarrassed?”
Anaqielle drew on the ground with her foot, her head lowered and eyes cast down in shame.
“Possibly.”
“What about guilt? Do you feel that?”
Anaqielle looked offended.
She loathed how one conversation with Laliya has awakened all those emotions in her heart.
Isa raised an eyebrow.
Anaqielle looked away.
“…A little.”
Isa smirked.
There it was.
The truth they both knew too well.
Anaqielle immediately resumed pacing.
“I don’t understand her,” she complained.
“No one asked you to understand her.”
“She walks around acting like she can fix everything wrong in the world. No one can fix everything wrong in the world.”
“That’s called kindness, darling.”
“It’s called being annoying.”
Isa nearly laughed.
Her Seren’s thinking never ceases to amuse her.
Ever since Anaqielle fell from the way of the Radiance, her thinking kept going downhill in the most hilarious way possible.
Anaqielle continued ranting.
“And that look…”
“What look?”
“That look.”
Isa sighed.
“How very descriptive of you. I can picture exactly what you mean,” she said sarcastically before rolling her eyes.
“The one where she stares at you like she’s trying to understand you.”
“Oh.” Isa nodded.
She didn’t know the look Anaqielle mentioned as she hadn’t had contact with Laliya but she took Anaqielle’s word for it.
“That look,” she added like she understood.
“Exactly!” Anaqielle threw her hands into the air.
Relieved that Isa got it and understood why she was frustrated.
“I would rather spend another three centuries in exile than deal with that woman,” her mouth moved faster than her brain.
Isa nearly choked on her peach.
“That seems excessive,” she regained her composure.
“I’m serious.”
She stopped pacing.
For the first time her frustration became genuine.
It was raw and honest.
Heaven seemed to be messing with her by sending her to Laliya.
The trial back to paradise, to her home and her family was ridiculously brutal that she wanted to scream.
“Maybe becoming a demon would be easier.”
Silence enveloped the space between them.
Isa’s expression immediately changed.
Anaqielle noticed too late.
“What?”
Isa hopped off the crates.
“What did you just say?”
Anaqielle shrugged.
“You heard me.”
Thwack!
The sound echoed through the alley.
Anaqielle froze in place.
Then, slowly…
very slowly, she turned her head back toward Isa.
She touched her burning cheek.
A tinge of crimson blush had formed on the spot Isa’s hand landed on.
Four fingers left a print on her soft cheek.
“What do you think you are doing?” Anaqielle glared hatefully at her.
Isa pointed at her.
“No.”
Anaqielle stared.
Her eyes were murderous and extremely unfriendly.
She felt the urge to off Isa from the surface of the earth, hell and ensure none of her Lumen is left behind to find peace in eternal light of heaven.
Isa pointed harder.
“No.”
“I’ve been alive for over seven hundred years and till date, no one has ever raised their hand to me,” she let out through gritted teeth.
“I don’t care.”
“You slapped me!”
“And i’ll do it again.”
Anaqielle looked genuinely offended.
Every argument she could muster, she directed to her eyes which held enough animosity to damn a soul.
Isa folded her arms.
The humor had vanished from her face.
“You don’t get to say things like that.”
The fallen angel blinked.
“What things?”
“That becoming a demon would be easier.”
Anaqielle rolled her eyes.
“It was a figure of speech.”
Isa stepped closer.
“No, Ana,” her voice softened which somehow felt more serious.
“You spent three hundred years begging the sky to let you back in.” The words silenced Anaqielle immediately.
Isa continued.
“You remember the first decade after we fell, right?”
Anaqielle’s jaw tightened.
Of course she remembered.
The hunger, the grief and the constant waiting for any sign of hope that heaven would forgive her sins and let her back in.
Looking up every night hoping the heaven would answer her.
That it would pity her situation and grant her mercy.
It never did.
“You remember how many times you tried to climb the celestial peaks?” Isa asked quietly.
Anaqielle looked away.
It was five times, maybe six.
The memory wasn’t pleasant.
“You remember standing in snowstorms until your wings froze because you thought heaven might take pity on you?”
Silence followed.
Those were the darkest moments in Anaqielle’s life.
The desperation she’d felt during the first century had broken her soul and plunged her into despair.
The way of light felt wrong.
The rules were painted black that it made one wonder if heaven is what they aiming for or hell itself.
Like now, she was required to corrupt an innocent soul to steal her spot in heaven.
A cruel game by heaven to take only one of them and feel justified to send the other to the darkest parts of hell.
“And now you’re talking about becoming a demon because a pretty holy maiden made you feel bad?”
Anaqielle glared at her.
“That’s not what happened.”
“Then explain it.”
She couldn’t, not properly because the problem wasn’t the argument.
The problem was the guilt that seeped into her stone heart.
The moment that tear slid down Laliya’s face.
The way her own anger had disappeared instantly afterward.
That is what unsettled her more than anything.
It undid centuries worth of work she put into not feeling or caring about any human, their feelings or their lives.
Isa watched realization slowly dawn across her friend’s face then sighed.
“There she is.”
“What?”
“The actual problem,” Isa pointed out.
The fallen angel looked away.
However, Isa had already caught on and once her fallen companion took a bite at something, she wouldn’t drop it until she made her point clear.
Isa crossed her arms.
“You hurt her and you care about it”
“I know.”
The admission came quietly.
It was almost unwilling and the hesitation resonated deeply in Anaqielle.
“You didn’t mean to. Let it go.”
“I know.”
“You feel guilty?”
Anaqielle groaned.
Isa smiled slightly.
“There it is.”
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate feelings.”
“I know.”
“I hate her.”
Isa immediately pointed.
“No, you don’t,” she said.
“With those blue-grey eyes, I doubt you have the ability to hate her.”
Anaqielle opened her mouth then closed it again which was answer enough.
She wanted to argue, to exchange words with Isa about the eyes things but even she didn’t trust what she wanted to say.
When she saw tears in those blue-grey eyes, her resolve softened which was proof enough that Isa was right.
Eyes were her weakness, especially when they were attached to a beautiful face.
Isa’s smile softened.
“You know what I think?”
Anaqielle muttered something unintelligible.
“I think this is the first time in centuries you’ve cared about hurting someone. And it scared you.”
The words landed surprisingly hard.
Anaqielle didn’t respond because she wasn’t sure Isa was wrong.
The alley fell quiet.
Eventually Isa stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t need to like the mission, darling.”
Anaqielle stared at the ground.
“You don’t even need to like her,” she added.
Another pause followed from the fallen.
“But if you give up now, everything we’ve suffered was for nothing.”
The words were gentle.
It wasn’t a cruel lecture, just the truth coming from a soft place.
“We finally have a chance.”
Anaqielle closed her eyes.
Heaven, home and tree hundred years of longing weighed down on her.
Isa squeezed her shoulder.
“At the very least finish what you started.”
Slowly, Anaqielle opened her eyes again.
A long sigh escaped her.
Then another before she finally let out, “Fine.”
Isa grinned immediately.
“There you go. Keep up your spirits and remember the goal.”
“I still hate this.”
“Of course you do.”
“And I am not apologizing.”
“You absolutely are,” Isa said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“I am not.”
“You made a saint cry. How are you supposed to win her trust and convince her to willingly fall to sin if you don’t apologize?”
“That sounds dramatic when you say it like that,” Anaqielle kicked another stone.
Isa laughed.
“It should. It’s not like the heavens are asking you to preserve her holiness. They want her ruined,” she uttered, honestly.
“So, ruin her!”
Despite herself, Anaqielle found the corner of her mouth twitching upward just slightly.
Not because she wanted to return to the mission and not because she suddenly understood Laliya but because Isa was right.
She had spent three hundred years wanting a way home.
She wasn’t walking away now.
She dropped her fractured excuses and regained her determination.
“This is why heaven decided to let you fall with me,” she admitted, playfully moving her eyebrow up and down.
“It knew that I’d need you to knock senses into me every now and then.”
Isa made a twirl with pride.
“I am that good.”
“You do realize that pride is a sin, right?” Anaqielle asked.
“And if we are to go back home, you’re gonna need to double it down a notch with that!”
Isa scoffed, “Says the most prideful Seren I know.”
“I aim to please,” Anaqielle confessed, get voice full of the very pride she was warning Isa against.