Later in life, as she became more aware of the true nature of her order, Sister Aseneth came to know a great deal about the crude, base, and sinful things humans did. Sister Melia, in particular was fond of recounting her dalliances on Vintal and had a running list of the best and worst entreaties that the planet’s famously amorous natives made to her, in total ignorance of her true vocation. Aseneth did her very best to block these from her mind and pray, not just for Sister Melia but for all the poor souls in her stories, but she had a guilty favorite among all those stories. Shortly after her first mission on the planet, while drinking away her reward money in Tirol, a man once asked her ‘if it hurt when she fell from heaven.’

Far from the crudest line Melia had ever mentioned, but it struck Aseneth as perhaps the most blasphemous.

Now she had a definite answer. It did, indeed, hurt to fall from heaven.

In the Serene Abbey’s observation deck, an angel had come to her. It had come in a pleasant form, and offered her the Gift of Wrath: a divine blessing that granted her the power to destroy whatever displeased her and the wisdom to enact it without falling into sin. It showed her a vision: the Serene Abbey opening its doors, reformed, with every nun a shining paragon of faith, virtuous valkyries that would sweep across the universe cleansing evil. She would be their leader, and in time a saint. Billions would beg favor of her relics, kneeling at the altar of her skull. They would launch a crusade in Aseneth’s name!

All she needed to do was wait. She just had to let this moment in time pass, let disaster and pestilence sweep over one miniscule corner of the universe. She just needed to obey the woman she had obeyed every day of her life since she was born, and so exactly what she had always done: absolutely nothing.

It was all she ever wanted. But Aseneth knew well enough when she was being bribed. Power, glory, and sainthood in exchange for her determination and compassion? If that was the kind of deal the angels were making, she would rather be among devils.

This gave her the rare privilege of seeing an angel in its wrathful form, and it very nearly killed her. If it had used the scourge in its left hand, there wouldn’t have even been ashes left of her. But it let her live, for its own inscrutable reasons, despite her insolence.

If she had been in proper shape, she could have floated down to Vintal safely. If she was in a rush, she could have chosen her destination and protected herself. Instead, what remained of Sister Aseneth in her smoking crater was most of a skeleton and a fragile wisp of a soul. Still, all her years of diligent cultivation weren’t just for show. It took her a week of half-instinctive reconstruction to regain full consciousness, and another week to put her vitals back together by absorbing energy from the sun and rain. Once she could breathe and pull power from the air around her, reconstructing her body was a quicker task. That was when she discovered a virulent little curse running rampant in her lungs and blood, one which returned no matter how many times she purged it. The only way to stop it from infecting her was to stop absorbing energy from her surroundings at all.

Before she fell from the Abbey, she could have lived for decades on her accumulated life force. But the near total destruction of her body left only the feeble reserves contained in her bone marrow, which she avoided tapping into even when rebuilding. She ought to find a secluded natural space and patiently rebuild her life force over the course of months. But the process of purging the curse that suffused the air consumed almost as much power as she gained in the course of contracting it. If she were a less disciplined cultivator with inferior control, absorbing energy at all would be a net negative process. Returning to full power under these conditions would take decades.

So she stood up from her crater, still soaked in rain and soot, and sought out the nearest human habitation. She found a ruined old castle filled with rich debauchees, who immediately recognized her superiority and became her servants. They offered themselves up to her in body and soul. So she took from them what they offered. As she expected, absorbing energy directly from other living beings was far more effective, but these nobles had pitiful reserves. It was like trying to quench her thirst one drop at a time.

Still, it was better than nothing. When she hungered, they came willingly, eager to see whom among them she would select. When Aseneth realized it was a gloomy and somber affair, they immediately set about dancing and singing in her honor. She disliked their ostentatious costumes, and they fashioned new ones from the skins of animals. She found one of the debauchees most obedient and the others crowned her their chief, the primary interpreter of Aseneth’s will, all without her having to say a word. She simply sat in the purifying flame and they brought her a new volunteer to give up their energy. This was worship, she knew. It was sacrifice. And every element, from the dance and song to the way they screamed when the victim gave up the ghost, felt right and correct, in accordance with primordial rites written upon the foundations of the earth.

So when she felt two presences far greater than those of her followers, they ran out and brought them back for her. Of the three volunteers, the first was unsuitable, and she offered him to her followers instead. The other two were excellent, each with enough power to bypass years of recovery.

One was younger and less refined, but of excellent stock and with greater reserves, while the other was more powerful but leaner. The first would be more pleasant to digest. He came to her without resistance. This time there were other forces, one from above and one from below, that sought to take away her prize. The secrets hidden in his body rose up against her, but she quelled them with a gentle word. The infernal intruder attempted to discharge all the boy’s power at once to deny it to her, but she cut off its influence. After no small number of frustrations, Aseneth was able to enjoy her meal.

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Her reserves swelled, and she gorged herself as never before. When, finally, all that remained was the boy’s soul, she savored it. But unlike all the others, it didn’t stay down. It roiled inside. At first she thought it was trying to escape, and she suppressed it, but that only made it worse.

Aseneth realized that it was changing her from within. The whole surface of contact between their souls was a vector of transformation and contamination. She pulled back, but it stuck to her. She expelled it from her body, but traces remained. What was this frantic, desperate will to survive? For what reason did it need to act?

Love. And loss. The loss of a friend, a child, a family member, a follower. Love for all those who remained, whom he needed to protect. People she needed to protect as well. Or wasn’t that why she gave up everything she wanted and left home? She saw herself as the boy saw her, a terrifying pagan goddess bathed in fire and gore which was about to eat him.

Something dark and old twisted inside of her. It wanted blood and worship. But she knew it now, and named it, and the cage which had closed around her mind when she landed on this sinful world opened. Aseneth looked at what she had wrought and wept.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

Benicio Cecchini didn’t doubt the words of oracles. Given how many close scrapes he’d survived, he didn’t even doubt his interpretation of his own oracle. But watching the baron’s bastard drowned, pelted, and slaughtered in front of him left him really, desperately wondering how he was going to get out of this one.

When twin golden lions, the guardian spirits of House Gulphay, erupted from the boy’s body, he at once regretted doing Phaero this favor and cheered for his freedom. These ancient and powerful constructs, which Cechini doubted he could have defeated if the boy used them earlier, filled him with fear and hope alike. But then a woman’s silhouette emerged from the fire and swept them away like gnats. The boy’s body erupted with enough power to blow the castle apart, but she conquered and drew it out like water from a pitcher.

He was rather curious about why a cultivator who had conquered at least the fifth realm of soul cultivation was hanging around in the woods undiscovered instead of ruling a diocese somewhere, but it seemed like a pointless question at the moment.

Then, after the woman in the fire finished eating Cato and Benicio felt even the boy’s soul flicker out, at the very last moment when his own death seemed certain, things turned around just as they always did. The lamia roared and twisted, and seemed like it was trying to cough up what she had just eaten. Her followers scattered in horror, and as he felt the iron-strong bands of ivy loosen around his limbs, Benicio whispered a swift prayer in thanks to the poor lad who had given this monster indigestion.

But that was all the time he could spare. No time to wait and see if she was going to die on the spot, and his chances running were slim. Now, as she was weakened and distracted, was the time to fight.

Benicio spilled his blood on the earth and cast a pocketful of spices and perfumes all around him. Without the remains themselves at hand, without even knowing how many people this monster had killed, this was probably the most slapdash necromancy he had ever attempted. But at least he knew two of their names.

“Brother Julius of Beroli! Cato of Inillo, I call you!”

He welcomed them in the ancient tongues, and felt their shades rise up. A shade was not by any means the same as a person’s soul. That passed beyond this world after death, beyond the reach of any mortal works. But a lifetime of accumulated sin hung upon a person’s soul like dirt, and hung most thickly on the wicked and those who died sudden and violent deaths, without the chance to turn their faces toward God in their final moments. When the soul passed, that shell of spiritual filth remained in the shape of the soul, now unfettered and free to enact its most violent desires.

The night darkened and a black cloud passed over the half-moon. The stars winked out. The fire burned pale and chill. A wavering shade, that of Brother Julius, rose from the earth by the fire and wandered toward him, growing more and more distinct as the black mist thickened. Though Cato’s shade failed to appear, there came a dozen more, stumbling in from beyond Benicio’s vision. They scattered away from the foul lamia like rabbits fleeing a wolf, and came towards Benicio instead, enticed by his blood.

But something else appeared at the very edge of the firelight. Another shade, taller and more solid than the rest, which was not tempted by the blood offering. He was sure it was the bastard Cato’s. But this one was bound with threads of gleaming silver, and golden pages inscribed with silver ink were impaled on its mouth and heart. This one wasn’t under his influence at all. It hadn’t obeyed his call: it had obeyed something else’s.

Benicio’s heart skipped a beat, torn between terror and excitement for a moment.

But it was only for a moment.

“Destroy it!”

He cast more droplets of blood towards the apparition, and the shades obeyed him. Smoky bodies of shadow and mist slammed into one another, but they could not endure the touch of the silver threads, and the apparition’s touch dispelled them. Benicio bathed it in flames hot enough to melt steel, but it stepped forward untouched. It lifted him by the throat with a hand cold as the grave and drained away his life force, just like the lamia had done to Cato. Benicio felt his flesh withering away and aging. In just moments he aged thirty years, and he felt the apparition become even more solid, as though it was swollen full of power.

Then it dropped him to the ground, half dead, and stalked towards the bonfire and the lamia drenched in its flames. In the moments before he lost consciousness, Benicio saw it reach out towards her and gently pluck a bright and shining gem from between her eyes.