Chapter Seventeen
Lucifer
The past
“Did you see His new creations?” my brother, Michael, asked, ascending the golden path with light in his eyes.
Everything was gold. The trees shimmered with it. The road beneath our feet, the wind in our hair—it all gleamed as if Heaven itself was dipped in sunlight. It wasn’t just beautiful. It was home. And for as long as I could remember, home had been gilded.
Gold was all that existed.
Sometimes I wondered if we were gold, too—our blood, our bones, our souls. But I knew better. Angels. Family. Born in the First Light, crafted by His hand. The oldest of His creations.
“He made us more brothers and sisters?” I asked, letting my robe swish as I glided halfway down the steps to meet Michael.
“No,” Michael said, smiling faintly, “but I’ve heard they have a likeness to us.”
I frowned. “They’ll live here?”
He shook his head. “No. He made them a world of their own. Filled with other creatures. Earth, sky, water. Time. It’s vast and wild. And we—we get to see it. He’s shown us glimpses through the scrying glass.”
I stopped by his side, looking toward the distant expanse where the scrying glass shimmered like starlight.
Michael leaned closer, eyes bright. “Do you think this is it?”
“What?”
“Our purpose. Maybe…maybe we’re meant to guide them.”
We had gold.
Was there meant to be anything else?
“Come on. We’re allowed to see them. That must mean something.” Michael said, grabbing my hand and tugging me forward.
We raced through the garden. A vast expanse of gilded petals and shimmering vines spread beneath our feet, as though the ground itself bloomed with joy at our passing.
In the center of that sacred place stood the well—circular, perfect, quiet.
It had always been there. But until now, it had shown us very little.
Dots. Blurs. Shapes we couldn’t understand.
Michael believed that was changing. That maybe the well, like us, was finally waking to its purpose.
When we neared the crowd gathered around it, several of our siblings stepped aside, allowing us to pass. A gasp broke the stillness—Lailah’s voice—and Michael quickened his pace. He peered in first. His jaw fell open.
I stepped up beside him.
“They are like us,” I murmured.
Two beings stood in a field—not of gold, but green. Earthy, soft. They had skin like ours, but no glow. No robes. The female’s chest held twin mounds I hadn’t seen before, and the male…bore the same strange appendage I glimpsed only in passing when I changed my robes.
I knew the difference between brothers and sisters, but I’d never considered what made us male and female. We simply were.
But these new creations…they were unhidden. Their bodies felt purposeful. Defined.
My eyes dropped again to their forms. Everything about them was different. Not just their shape—but the colors surrounding them. And the way they touched. The way their mouths moved—not to speak, but to express.
Suddenly the images rippled.
A pulse of red bloomed across the ground like petals scattered from the sky. I gasped and gripped my chest as something thudded deep inside me.
It was…sharp. Vibrant. And unfamiliar.
I blinked. A bare foot. Then, it was gone. The red vanished, replaced again by green fields and the same two beings, walking hand in hand.
“What was that?” I asked, unsettled.
“What was what?” Michael responded without turning his head.
“The petals. The…red.” I glanced at him. “Didn’t you feel that?”
He shook his head. “No. Look—see the trees. Their forest isn’t like ours. It’s full of texture. Shadows. It’s…rich.”
He didn’t see it.
The red. The foot. The pain in my chest.
He felt nothing.
I looked back into the well, squinting at the unfamiliar shapes. The humans were beneath a tree, their hands outstretched, gently running over a massive creature’s fur. It rumbled contentedly.
“Oh! God told me of this creature,” Lailah called from across the well. “He says it will not speak. No language. It won’t need one. They shall only know peace—just like us.”
“How will they talk to each other?” Haniel asked beside her.
“Maybe they’ll make something up,” Lailah replied. “They don’t need words right now. They already understand each other.”
I kept watching as the humans smiled—not with their mouths alone, but their entire faces. Their eyes lit up when they looked at one another. Fingers laced. Cheeks brushed. They plucked small fruits from trees and popped them into their mouths.
“They eat them!” Haniel gasped, pressing close to the well. “The berries vanish inside. I didn’t know mouths could do that.”
I didn’t either.
“Maybe theirs differs from ours,” Lailah suggested, and the others nodded in agreement. “Perhaps they require it for some reason.”
“I’m going to ask—” someone started.
“Don’t disturb Him,” Lailah interjected quickly. “Imagine how He must feel after creating all of this. How big is their world?”
The liquid in the well shimmered and rippled, and the image of the couple dissolved completely. A quiet hush swept through the gathered angels, but I stepped back, still caught on what I’d seen—the foot, the red petals…the pressure in my chest.
Had I imagined it?
I pressed a hand against my heart.
“What’s wrong?” Michael asked beside me. “Why do you touch your chest like that?”
I hesitated, eyes on the now-still surface of the well. Angels don’t keep secrets, I reminded myself. There was no need to. We were open and united. We had nothing but each other.
But this…
If only I saw it, maybe it was meant for me.
“I shall rest my body, brother,” I said quietly, and turned away.
???
The well held my siblings' attention for days. Every waking moment, they gathered near it in awe, watching the creations God had placed in that strange new world. So similar, and yet so different from our own.
The male and female continued to wander through forests. They met curious beasts, stroked their coats, climbed trees, and shared food. Always together. Always touching. Consuming.
The chewing and swallowing stunned us all.
At one point, Haniel—ever the brave one—had plucked one of our golden apples and tried to imitate the act. The moment the fruit touched her tongue, she spat it out with an expression of dismay. The taste, she said, was dull. Lifeless. Nothing like what the humans seemed to enjoy.
No one tried again after that.
“What do you think?” Faye’s voice stirred me. I hadn’t realized she’d sat beside me until she tucked her feet beneath her robe and adjusted the folds at her waist.
I turned slightly. “About what?”
“Them.” She nodded toward the well. “The humans.”
Too many angels still hovered around it, their wings shimmering in the golden light. The soft hum of curiosity filled the air. But I had stopped standing at the edge. I watched from a distance now. It felt easier this way.
“I didn’t know a mouth could do more than speak,” I murmured, eyes still focused ahead.
A wistful edge slipped into her voice as she said, “None of us did.”
A pause stretched between us before she added, “I suppose He thought of more ideas when He made the humans.”
I glanced at her. Her gaze remained fixed on the well, contemplative.
“Or maybe…,” she said, quieter now. “His creations become their own making. Something beyond His control.”
I stared at her, but she didn’t elaborate. The idea echoed through my mind—quiet, radical, dangerous.
Something beyond His control.
I looked back toward the well, a flicker of the red petals resurfacing in my mind. The foot. The pain in my chest.
And I wondered—
Was it possible for something to exist that even God hadn’t planned?
Faye had always differed from other angels. When I asked her how she knew things the rest of us didn’t, she confessed the scrying glass showed her more. Not just images, but echoes. Sensations. Fragments of futures.
So, it didn’t surprise me that she had a name for them.
“Is that what they’re called?” I asked.
She gestured toward the angels gathered near the well, their gasps rising like birds into the golden canopy above us. “They will have many names,” she said softly. “And many languages.”
She shivered visibly. Her eyes remained fixed on the well, but I saw her fingers twitch.
“What is it?” I asked. “What do you see?”
Faye didn’t answer immediately. Her voice dropped into a whisper as she confessed, “Every time I look at them…the future I sense… I’ve never felt such a thing.”
I studied her. “What does it feel like?”
“I don’t know.” Her brow furrowed deeper. “It makes my chest tighten. My limbs feel heavy and…tired. It’s not a sensation I want to encounter again.”
Then she said it.
“Lucifer, I think something will go wrong with these humans.”
A strange, defensive instinct bloomed in me. I took her hand quickly, as if to anchor her—or maybe myself.
“Nothing can go wrong,” I said. “They seem like us. And nothing has ever happened to us.”
But the crease in her brow didn’t vanish.
Instead, she reached up and cupped my cheek. Her voice was full of emotion I didn’t understand. “You are beautiful, brother. The most beautiful of us all.”
I turned my face away, brushing her hand aside gently. It wasn’t the first time she had said such things. Beauty was a language we all spoke. We recognized it in one another, in our home, in the golden harmony of our world.
And yet, as she looked back toward the well again, her expression only grew more severe.
“Come quick!” Michael’s voice rang out. He waved us forward with both hands.
Faye and I exchanged a last glance before moving toward the gathering. The crowd of angels parted just enough, and I stepped up beside my brother.
I looked into the water.
And gasped.
“Look,” Haniel said, pointing. “There’s a darkened part of the forest. The male doesn’t want her going near it.”