Chapter 6 #2
Lucifer grimaced, murmuring, “We fell together to escape the tyranny of thrones and crowns, to rule each his dominion, bound by rebellion but not by hierarchy.
You would now raise this one, fashion eternity in your own image, and believe this is not rebellion against us—your brothers.
Do you think the others will not follow your example?
That Mammon will not breed his own heirs, or that Satan will not carve his own legion?
You would fracture what unity we still possess.
You forget that eternity was claimed the moment we fell. It belongs to me."
Bound not by hierarchy? I flinched, wanting to speak.
Had I not clawed my way through the ranks to stand here?
Were there not orders, and circles, and dominions at every turn?
Had I not been judged by the imps and the lesser shades, made to bow before the minor dukes and barons of Lust?
Had I not offered myself before the marquises, the counts, the princes of sin, each testing the limits of my devotion, my body, my soul? What delusion!
I began to see what lay beneath them. Rebellion and equality were just words.
This was not a court of equals, not truly.
These demons had fallen together, yes, but even in damnation, they carried with them the shape of what they had left behind.
There was no single throne here, yet Lucifer ruled all the same—not necessarily by decree, but by the weight of his history.
He had been the first to defy God, and that gave him a terrible gravity he was still clinging to, millennia later.
Asmodeus did not kneel, defying this order, but neither was he free.
Not truly. If it had been, I would not be here, being subjected to the whims of these ancient creatures.
I looked around and knew that none of the others were free, either, and perhaps not even Lucifer himself.
Each lord of Hell held dominion over their sphere, but only so long as the others allowed it.
To elevate me—a mortal—was not merely an indulgence.
It was a fracture, for it had never been done, and Lucifer feared what would come next.
If Asmodeus could do so, what would stop Mammon from raising kings of greed, or Belphegor from fashioning avatars of sloth?
It was not my elevation they feared, but what it represented: the beginning of dynasties, of rival legacies that might one day challenge even Lucifer’s unspoken reign.
For all their defiance of Heaven, they could not escape the shape of power itself.
If Asmodeus was replying to Lucifer, I did not hear it, for I fell into my own thoughts.
How strange it was to see power shaping demons the way it did men, to watch them stumble into the same snares they once condemned and fought against. These beings had fallen from grace in their refusal to bow to humanity, only to mirror us in the end.
It was a petty, human squabble, wasn’t it?
In my years of service, I had obeyed a God who demanded unquestioning obedience.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” That was His law.
Those who faltered were cast into torment without hope of mercy.
And for his defiance to this greedy God, Lucifer bore the weight of his rebellion still—damned not for evil, but for refusing to bow.
Now I stood here, watching the same hand of judgment stretch forth again.
The same voice that once cried “Non serviam”—I will not serve—now sat in judgment of me!
What was worse was the irony of it all. This fascinating, beautiful, terrible fallen angel could not see that he was becoming what God had been to him.
He was blind to the same rebellion taking root beneath him.
Shouldn’t he have known what pulling rank would breed?
It fostered dishonesty. It fostered anger.
One day, I saw it clearly: Lucifer would be pulled down from his rule over Hell.
And despite all the fear I had of him, despite the anxiety bubbling in me now, I knew with great certainty Lucifer would not rule me.
I had given everything to belong to Asmodeus, and I had never once consented to be bound by another.
Consent mattered in these hellish realms more than it had in Heaven, and I refused then and there to suffer under the power of another.
Damn his rank and his history. Damn my trembling legs and the body that shook beneath the weight of his legacy. Asmodeus was risking everything—for me.
Non serviam.
And before I could stop myself, the words broke free, my voice rising in the presence of the court. “Non serviam!”
Oh, you could have heard a pin drop. They all turned to look at me.
“What,” Lucifer hissed, “did you say?”
“Your words,” I muttered. “The meaning of which you seem to have forgotten!”
I stood up and stared at each of them, and I was glad for their shock, for they each could have killed me in an instant.
I rushed to speak, breathless but unyielding, and rage was pouring out of me.
“I gave my mortal life to stand here! I spent years worshipping a God who would have seen me waste away in guilt and denial—who called my love a sin, who would have condemned me to eternal torment for desiring the touch of another man, even in tenderness.
" My voice shook, but I pressed on. "I was told to fear pleasure, to loathe my own body. And for what? So that I might live a life of silence and die only to be cast into the very pit I now stand in?”
I dared to lift my eyes to Lucifer. "But I rebelled.
As you once did. I refused to serve a master who demanded my shame.
I chose to claim what was denied me, and in doing so, I tore down the life that bound me.
Now you would stand in judgment as He once did?
You, who defied Heaven's tyranny? Will you dictate the will of a man? Of a demon who rebelled at your side? Is that not the very arrogance you once rose against?”
I stepped forward, heart thunderous, and I was shouting now just to hear myself over the sound of my fear. “You have become the very thing you fell for. Aren’t you ashamed to rule this way, bearing the same control as your holy Father?”
The chamber fell still. The weight of my words hung in the air like smoke, dangerous and alive. Lucifer's eyes met mine. The moment they did, I thought I might burst into flame from within. My heart convulsed. My mouth tasted of ash and blood. Oh, I had done something very foolish, hadn’t I?
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life...” (Romans 6:23)
No one had warned me that death could stand upright and be so beautiful.
For a long moment, Lucifer said nothing.
The court held its breath. It took everything in me to remain standing.
I wanted to reach for Asmodeus’s hand, or collapse at its feet, to be gathered beneath its touch like some unruly dog seeking shelter.
I worried that if Lucifer lashed out, it would not save me.
You chose to do this, little lamb, and now you must bear the consequences . . .
"You,” Lucifer said finally, “speak boldly.”
Who knew if this was praise or critique.
Lucifer’s voice was sharp. When, finally, a smile split his lips, I still shook with fear.
He began to pace, strong human hands clasped behind his back, with those umbral dark wings tucked neatly in place.
"You would cast my own rebellion back upon me, as though it grants you the same right.
You speak of freedom. But you forget what freedom costs.
" His eyes glinted, something colder stirring behind them. I don’t know what he saw as he looked at me, but his brow furrowed softly.
“Or perhaps you do know.” He looked up at Asmodeus next.
"You would put your mark on him?" he said, voice now addressed to Asmodeus though his eyes never left mine.
"You would write your name where grace once lived? "
"He gave his grace away," Asmodeus answered. "He offered it freely. And so, he is empty, waiting to be claimed"
"They always do," murmured Belphegor, voice thin and distant. “All your little pets are the same.”
“Not him,” Asmodeus snapped. “He knows the cost.”
I should have asked then what Belphegor meant.
If this was the first time Asmodeus had brought a human into the Court of Kings, what had come before?
How many had been tested and found wanting?
Had others stood in the realms of Hell, trembling beneath Asmodeus’ watchful eye, only to be broken or cast aside?
Yes, I thought suddenly. That must have been what happened.
"He knows the cost," Asmodeus said again, unwavering.
Lucifer's gaze darkened. I felt him reach through me, peeling back every layer. In my mind, I stood aside as Lucifer rushed through every closed door. He saw every prayer I had whispered in secret, every night I had begged for the hunger to be taken from me, every stolen glance at another boy, every time I had pleaded to be made clean. Every lie I told beneath my priest’s collar. Every act of silent desperation.
His voice coiled around me. "Do you believe you will be made holy in Hell, Alessandro? Do you think this sanctifies your desire?"
"No," I said, though my throat burned as I spoke. "Only that my desire will no longer damn me."
Something shifted in the air, a sound like the long exhale of ancient stone.
"He is proud," Satan observed, rising from his seat.
"He is mine," Asmodeus said. "He has passed through fire. He has offered blood, and body, and name. He has forsaken the mortal world entirely. Let him be raised up."
Belphegor's voice came soft, almost amused. "Let it speak. Let the thing say what it believes itself to be."
It took me a second to understand that Belphegor was referring to me. Lucifer’s golden gaze slid over me again and gestured rather casually. "What do you want? Why don’t you show us?"
The world cracked. The sigils beneath my feet ignited, light searing upward. And suddenly I was elsewhere, walking the broken halls of my own memory.
Ten, a child at the altar, fists clenched until they bled, whispering into cupped palms beneath the towering crucifix.
"Take it. Please take it. I do not want to feel this.
" I begged God to strip the desire from me, to hollow me out and make me clean.
I believed then that if I prayed hard enough, I could kill the part of me that made me unworthy.
Seventeen, wrapped in robes too large for me, drowning in fabric and shame. Kneeling in the chapel’s confessional and lying to my confessor once again. "I have been clean, Father. I have been good." But my hands still smelled of my own release.
Twenty, at the bedside of a dying boy in the town where I had been preaching.
A boy I had never dared to touch, but whom I had loved in silence for nearly a year.
I think, in the way he smiled at me in those final days, he knew.
Perhaps he had always known. I never kissed him.
I never dared. Instead, I sat at his side and held his hand until the last breath left his chest.
A lifetime of this. A lifetime spent at war with myself, despising what I was, fearing that love itself was a kind of curse I had been born to carry.
And then I was back, kneeling in the red circle, but something inside me had broken open.
"To be what I am without shame," I said. "To give myself to what calls me. To belong to something that does not ask me to carve myself down to be worthy of it." My voice grew stronger. "I wish to be by Asmodeus’ side forever."
Lucifer's mouth curved, though whether in amusement or contempt, I could not say.
"Forever," he repeated, his voice colder now. "You cannot comprehend the vastness of forever, boy."
The sigils beneath me flared brighter. My veins burned. My spine arched. Something loosened inside my chest as the words spilled free. "Perhaps not. But I want to be remade. Claimed."
Lucifer said nothing for a long moment, but the light in his eyes flared, brighter, hungrier. The weight of him pressed against the chamber like a gathering storm.
Asmodeus stepped forward, voice calm but certain. "He makes this choice."
Lucifer tilted his head the barest fraction. "Then let him burn."
And the court fell silent again.