41. The Circles of Sin
THE CIRCLES OF SIN
Seraphina
The air tears past my face as I climb faster and higher. My wings burn with the effort, muscles that haven’t been used for so long screaming with every beat.
Still, I force them to work harder and the pit of violence gradually falls away beneath me, the clashing of steel, the smell of blood, the screaming voices all being swallowed by distance.
I don’t look down.
I can’t.
His final breath is still echoing in my ears. That wet and gurgling rattle that doesn’t get easier to hear the more times you’re exposed to it.
So I fly.
The space not far above me now ripples like oil on water, and I head for that same strange shimmer that swallowed the others.
A barrier.
A wound in the world.
An exit.
It has to be.
My chest tightens but I don’t slow. If anything, I push harder, my wings driving downward with everything I have, pushing my body beyond its limits. I’m almost grateful to Silver for forcing the Iron Root kata on us because I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been.
Wind roars in my ears as the shimmering surface rushes toward me.
I brace.
Then hit it.
I expect impact or resistance where there is none. The world simply folds, exactly like passing through a hellgate.
For a heartbeat everything is silent.
Then I’m through, and cooler air rushes into my lungs as the new world reforms around me.
I hover instinctively, wings beating as I take in the space around me, and freeze.
Someone is standing on the ground below me. Ground that must sit on the surface of the pit’s ceiling.
It’s a woman with long dark hair, skin almost glasslike, smooth and luminous in a way that makes the rest of the world seem dull beside her.
She looks up and her eyes are the color of emeralds shattered into a thousand pieces. This is a woman who's been through something. A lot of things. Her stare is fractured and beautiful and terrible all at once.
Recognition strikes instantly.
Maeva.
Maeva of Envy.
The Mirror Sister.
I looked her up after seeing her and Seren in The Meet. Her life and her story, raised by Leviathan, is arguably worse than Eurya’s, raised by Satan himself.
Maeva’s gaze drifts past me and I look around, beyond the breathtaking woman to the place the hellgate spat me out.
I’ve been here before, not so long ago.
A hall of mirrors with a dais at its center.
I’m back in the sixth game, only this time I’m flying through it. Right through the beam of gold glittering light, and above me, there’s another shimmer in the sky.
Another exit.
The moment I notice it, Maeva nods, and a wave of one of the most dangerous of the seven sins hits me. Hard.
Envy slams into my chest like a blade sliding between ribs.
Now when I look at Maeva, I see the perfection of her face, the effortless power in posture, and something ugly twists inside me.
I should kill her.
That was the plan all along after all.
That’s why I let the Overlords take me in that alley.
That’s why I swapped places with Lorelei.
How I ended up disembarking that ship at the harbor onto the Iron Isle.
The Seven Sisters are evil. They are supposed to die.
My fingers tighten around the hilt of my katana, but the thought doesn’t settle the way it used to.
Because the sisters aren’t what I thought, and the world isn’t as simple as I once wanted it to be.
The demonic creatures I was raised to believe incapable of good like kindness, envy’s enemy, have shown me more of it than anyone else ever has.
The memories start to hit me at once.
My first few moments on the Iron Isle, stomach churning after my first hellgate crossing. Yuvi reassuring me after my stomach turned inside out the first time I experienced a hellgate when he didn’t need to. It confused me at the time but now I see the gesture of kindness for what it was.
Then Khali in line on the Sparring Yard ash during my first run in with Lilliana, and all the days since when her and Az and Reiva have treated me with kindness. A nephilim who looked at them like monsters for far too long.
Khali braiding my hair. Reiva and his kind words of encouragement as he hauled me to my feet after sparring. Az’s dry voice or inappropriate jokes cutting through tension with a single perfectly timed comment whenever he’s sensed we’ve needed it.
And Silver.
His healing fingers. His steady voice telling me to believe in myself like he believes in me.
The envy twists inside me again, but this time I push back.
Kindness balances envy.
Sure, all those people who have shown kindness are perfectly capable of envy too. Hell, I’ve seen it come out of them. But this isn’t about being one or the other…
The burning pressure in my chest begins to loosen.
Slowly the poison of the sixth game starts to lose its grip.
Maeva’s watching me with her big green eyes like I’m a puzzle she’s deciding whether to solve.
I don’t dive toward her. I don’t raise my katana. I don’t attack.
Instead, I turn my gaze upward, toward the shimmering veil high above the cavern, and I do as Reiva ordered… I fly.
My wings catch the rising currents of air, driving me upward with growing speed.
The pull of envy fades like a receding tide and ahead of me the shimmer in the sky grows closer. I push harder toward it, faster than I’ve ever flown, propelling myself to the exit.
I cut straight through it and the world bends again.
Brief silence, and I’m through, my wings faltering for half a second as the world reforms.
I spy another figure waiting on the ground of this new circle of Hell, controlling the veil like a hellgate.
It's another woman, and I know immediately she’s one of them. A Sister, but not one I’ve ever seen before.
Her skin is warm bronze, sun-kissed and glowing against the crimson haze around her. Long golden tattoos wind down both of her arms, intricate patterns that shimmer like real treasure. But it’s her hair that steals the breath from my lungs.
It pours down her back like waves of molten sunlight. Golden and radiant. Every strand catching the light as though it’s alive.
The most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen, and for a heartbeat I simply stare.
Then recognition clicks into place from the endless hours I spent combing through every scrap of information I could find about the Seven Sisters.
It’s Orena.
Orena of Greed.
The Merchant of Souls, according to the scrolls.
She watches me with a calm, knowing smile and our eyes meet.
I dip my chin in a silent acknowledgment and she returns it with the faintest tilt of her head.
Greed suddenly tangles with the remnants of wrath that still burns in my veins, goaded by the fading poison of envy clawing at my thoughts.
It dawns on me where I am. I’m in the exact part of Hell where the fifth game took place. That place that almost killed Az.
Except now I’m shooting up through the ravine, until I'm soaring high above it. The sharp narrow walls are no longer an issue.
Two sins twist together inside me, each trying to dig its claws in and for a moment, it’s overwhelming.
Hideous thoughts slither through my mind and my wings falter for half a beat, but I force myself to breathe through it.
Greed’s counterweight…
Generosity.
I think about the last couple of months. About the Iron Isle, about everything I expected when I arrived, and everything I found instead.
I think about the fortress kitchens, about the three meals a day everyone on the island receives, no matter where you place in the hierarchy.
It takes someone who’s experienced what it’s like not to have that, to have felt an empty stomach and damn near starvation to see that for the generosity it is, not greed.
I think about my training gear appearing freshly laundered every morning, folded neatly at the foot of my bed without me ever asking. The small quiet kindnesses that keep an army running.
Then my alliance. Khali, Az and Reiva. My chest tightens at his name.
They gave up hours of their own training time to help me, to make me stronger. All while I lied to them about my abilities, and they never once made me feel like a burden despite my best efforts to be exactly that at the beginning.
Then Silver. My wings ache at the memories of his generosity.
The nights in his turret, the hours he spent helping me learn how to fly again.
Healing the wounds in my back, giving his time, his power, his patience.
Greedy for passion and generous with pleasure.
I focus on it, on all of it, holding onto the memories like an anchor.
The greedy hunger in my chest begins to loosen its claws and my wings steady again.
Above me, another shimmer waits in the sky.
The next exit.
I push harder, until I’m driving myself upward. The world bends and fractures again, colors smearing across my vision as I cross the boundary.
I leave the fifth game beneath me and enter the fourth, lust, where another Sister I’ve not met who can only be Lyssandra of Desire beams up at me.
She has a smooth and tawny complexion and pale pink hair, with beauty, charisma and sensuality rolling off her so intensely I almost choke.
I force my focus to stay on the magic tears in the sky and one by one I pass through them, leaving another circle of Hell behind me.
Wrath.
Envy.
Greed.
Lust.
Pride.
Pride is the hardest as my ears fill with Diana’s final scream, but I make it to the silence and through the next layer of Hell.
Sloth.
And finally, where it all began. My first time in Hell.
Gluttony.
The cavern ceiling above the overflowing tables of the feast of endless need shimmers and for a heartbeat my mind flashes with the memory of Silver’s mouth against mine before entering the pit.
It feels like lifetimes have passed, but my stomach does a flip as I catapult my way through the veil of the first and final game.
This time when the world bends around me, the air doesn’t choke me with sin. The weight of them lifts completely.
When my boots hit the ground, it’s on smooth black stone instead of blood-soaked ash. I stumble a half step as my wings fold away and my muscles tremble from the endless climb through Hell.
Music drifts through the air, strings and drums and laughter.
Lanterns hang from wrought iron arches above a wide courtyard, their golden light spilling across long wooden tables loaded with food. Platters of roasted meat. Fresh bread. Bowls of fruit. Barrels of ale and wine.
People are everywhere.
A few familiar faces of cadets who look as surprised as I feel to have made it. Members of the Iron Choir, less silent than usual when we’d pass them in the halls of Vulcaris.
There are lots of staff from Vulcaris actually, some working, some drinking and chatting.
Makina is with Yuvi and Zaheer. Ravi yips and wags her tail when she sees me but thankfully must realize now is not the time to take a running leap at me.
Not unless she wants to fold me in half and send me flying across the…
What even is this place?
I don’t know, but it’s certainly not a game or a battlefield, it’s a celebration.
The air smells like cedar and iron and smoke, and my heart is still pounding from the final game when a familiar voice speaks behind me.
“Well done, Little Nephilim.”
I turn.
Silver stands a few paces away.
And the smile he gives me when our eyes meet reminds me why I stopped wanting to repent.
Because Silver Ardentis is many things to many people, but to me, he is proof that a life without any sin would be a boring life indeed.