The sky was bleeding.
Ash snowed through Ereshka's palace ruins, each flake calling out the dead.
Lyssa traveled through debris, her hide scarred, one horn broken. All directions burned with the divine court of Twilight. The marble spires were shattered, black blood running down their surfaces.
At the heart of it all lay Ereshka, the goddess of desire and dusk — her wings broken, her light dimming.
Lyssa stumbled forward on shaking legs. "Mistress!"
Ereshka's eyes flickered open, faint embers behind them. Her voice came like a dying flame.
"Too late, little spark. The gods… have divided my flame."
Lyssa fell beside her, clutching her hand — cool, almost glassy. "They can't kill you. You're eternal."
Ereshka's mouth twisted in a weak smile. "Even eternity ends when heaven grows greedy."
Her hand trembled as she stroked Lyssa's cheek. "You were my shadow, my sin. Don't let them unmake you."
Lyssa swallowed, her voice shaking. "Tell me what to do."
But the words would not be said. Ereshka's body broke like glass and the light that had been divine fire burst into a thousand motes that drifted out into the wasteland sky.
Lyssa's shriek tore through the silence, ringing over the dying world.
When she could shriek no longer, she panted softly, "They'll pay for this."
---
Footsteps crunched behind her — slow, deliberate.
"Tough," a voice that could've cut through steel growled. "I'd cry too, if I was too busy mopping up the trash she left behind."
Lyssa whirled. A figure stepped out of the smoke — black plate, scimitar-curled horns, molten-metal eyes of silver. Valacirn, Duke of the Fifth Circle.
Lyssa's claws curled. "Valacirn. You're here to rob your betters?"
He smiled grimly. "Better? She was a liability. A goddess of lust—nothing but rot dressed up in perfume."
He paced around her, wings leaving trails of embers. "And her pets… slaves with illusions of love."
Lyssa spat on the ground at his feet. "We served with loyalty, not lust."
Valacirn's laughter thundered low, cruel. "You served on your back, little succubus. Don't pretend nobility."
She sprang, claws glinting. He sidestepped, quiet as night, and struck with a sigiled iron blade into her belly. Her howl turned to snarl as he ripped it out. The blade burned, not with flame, but with holy power — the kind that unmade things such as she.
"You should've stayed on your knees," he said softly. "Now, you'll make a fine experiment for the mortals. They love dissecting what they don't understand."
Lyssa's vision blurred. She tried to strike him again, but the iron spread its curse — binding her limbs in chains of light.
Valacirn crouched to her level, his breath cold against her ear.
"When they ask you who you once were, tell them: the last sin of Ereshka."
All went black.
---
When Lyssa awoke again, it wasn't fire or coals that she beheld — it was glass.
She hung suspended in a tank, wires tracing along her veins. A chorus of strange voices danced on the other side of the glass.
"Subject Seven demonstrates regenerative ability…"
"Glyph the sigil: infernal class, unknown class."
Lyssa stood, barely conscious, but deep in her breast — beneath all the pain — something pulsed.
A gentle glow.
A memory.
A fading whisper of a goddess: Don't let them unmake you.
Her eyes opened all the way, and for the first time since the fall, they blazed with purpose.