The chamber dimmed as if the very light bent in deference.
Then he arrived.
Uriel.
He did not descend with fire or thunder. He simply appeared a presence forged of absolute law. Wings of geometric flame folded behind his back, eyes white-hot and unblinking. He wasn't beauty like Gabriel or might like Michael.
He was finality.
Lucien's heart thudded once. Then twice. Then steadied.
He'd prepared for this.
Azariel's voice was lower now, almost reverent. "Let it be recorded: Uriel, Angel of Judgment, has entered the Eye of Truth. The court shall proceed with his testimony."
Malak stepped forward first, voice oiled with self-assurance. "Archangel Uriel, do you remember drafting the Scroll of Destiny concerning the mortal boy, Jonas?"
"I do."
"Did the Scroll ever change?"
"No."
Lucien's eyes narrowed.
"Then explain the current contradiction," Malak continued, pacing. "A decree of death… followed by a soul contract divine silence on the mortal's protection. And yet, Seraphiel intervened. How can that be, unless she acted outside the divine framework?"
Uriel's gaze never moved. "Because the framework itself was disturbed."
A hush fell.
Lucien stood. "Are you saying someone interfered with the Scroll after it was written?"
Uriel answered with no hesitation. "Yes."
Azariel leaned forward. "Explain."
"There was a fracture in the script. A divergence woven into the margin. Something that wasn't written by Heaven."
The silence broke into chaos.
Azariel banged the gavel. "Order!"
Lucien pressed. "Was this divergence demonic?"
Uriel blinked slow, calculating.
"No."
The courtroom reeled.
Malak stepped in. "Then where did it come from?"
Uriel's answer was worse than silence.
"I do not know."
Even Azariel sat stunned.
Lucien moved in. "So, Archangel Uriel given that the Scroll was altered, and given that the source was unknown even to you can you truthfully say Seraphiel's actions were rebellion?"
Uriel paused.
For the first time, judgment hesitated.
"No," he said finally. "She did what I could not. She saw something we were not meant to."
Lucien's voice dropped to a whisper. "So who's truly on trial, Uriel? Seraphiel… or the system itself?"
Uriel looked up, toward the balcony where Thrones watched silently.
Then down at Seraphiel.
"Perhaps both."
The Angel's Truth
The chamber was quieter than usual.
Uriel's testimony had shaken the very marble beneath the Court. For the first time, doubt wasn't just whispered it pulsed like a second heartbeat in every observer.
Today, Seraphiel would finally speak.
Azariel's voice echoed, solemn. "The accused, Seraphiel of the First Choir, will now step into the Eye of Truth and deliver her statement."
Lucien looked to her. "You don't have to play by their script. Just speak."
Seraphiel nodded once, then stepped forward into the glowing circle. Her chains rattled softly. But her wings once bound now twitched with quiet defiance.
She looked out not at the judge, not at Malak, but directly at the Thrones above.
"I did not fall," she said. "I chose."
A ripple moved through the courtroom.
"I chose not to stand idle while a child's scream echoed unanswered. I chose not to bury compassion beneath bureaucracy. I chose not to let prophecy silence my soul."
Malak stood abruptly. "The accused is grandstanding. This is not testimony it's confession."
Azariel raised a hand. "She is within her rights."
Seraphiel continued. "I obeyed every command ever given until I saw the cost. Until I saw a child about to be erased, not by demonic decree, but by the willful omission of those sworn to protect."
Lucien's eyes burned with pride, but he kept still.
"I didn't just save Jonas," she said. "I saved what little purity remained in us. And if that makes me guilty then I welcome the sentence."
She stepped back, fire in her gaze.
For once, even Malak had no immediate retort. He simply stared, jaw clenched.
Lucien rose. "Let the Court note: this is not the voice of rebellion. It's the voice of awakening."
But Azariel didn't strike the gavel.
Instead, he looked skyward.
A shadow moved behind the divine veil. Something vast. Watching. Calculating.
And then, for the first time in centuries… the veil shimmered.
A Throne leaned forward.
And spoke.
"Bring us the boy."
The command wasn't thunder. It was law.
Lucien's pulse spiked.
Seraphiel's eyes widened.
Azariel stood.
"So it is decreed. The trial will halt. The boy must be presented. Only then will judgment proceed."
Lucien whispered, "They're scared."
Seraphiel murmured back, "No… they're cornered."
And Lucien knew what came next.
The race for Jonas had begun.
And the entire Court angel, demon, and Throne was about to start hunting.
Beneath the Gavel's Shadow
The echo of the Throne's command still hung in the air like a thunderclap frozen in time. Bring us the boy. With those four words, the trial shifted. No longer was it just Seraphiel's soul on the line it was now the life of a child who had never asked to be born into a story etched in celestial ink.
Lucien stood frozen at the heart of the Court, his thoughts racing. That voice he had only heard a Throne speak once before. It wasn't merely sound. It was pressure, like gravity folding inward. Authority so pure it left no room for denial.
Azariel dismissed the court with a single nod, and one by one, the divine withdrew. Malak lingered near the Eye of Truth, his face unreadable, but the edges of his mouth twitched ever so slightly.
He was pleased.
Lucien approached Seraphiel. The guards hadn't shackled her again yet. They stood aside, uncertain, as if afraid to touch her after the Throne's decree.
"That wasn't a judgment," she said softly. "It was a warning."
Lucien nodded. "They've stopped pretending. The moment Jonas appears, this trial ends one way or another."
Seraphiel narrowed her eyes. "They'll try to control him. Twist him. Or worse…"
"Erase him," Lucien finished grimly. "If Jonas proves the Scroll was altered, that means divine law can be rewritten. That means free will isn't a defect. It's a loophole."
She looked him over. "You knew this day would come."
He didn't deny it. "I've been preparing since I left the Circle."
Seraphiel blinked. "Hell?"
"No," Lucien said. "The deeper one. The Library."
She went still.
The Library of the Unwritten the secret vault of forsaken prophecies and stories Heaven discarded.
"What did you find?" she asked.
Lucien smiled faintly. "A name scratched out. One not in any Scroll or song. Jonas."
Before either could say more, Azariel returned. His golden armor gleamed under the receding light. He approached with an expression far colder than usual.
"Lucien," the judge said, "you are temporarily released from courtroom duties."
Lucien stiffened. "On whose authority?"
Azariel raised a hand. "Mine. And theirs."
He pointed toward the empty Throne balcony.
"They wish for the boy to be found. But not by you."
Seraphiel's wings twitched. "That's convenient."
Azariel ignored her. "A squad of Dominion-class Seraphim has already been dispatched."
"To retrieve him?" Lucien asked.
Azariel didn't answer.
That was enough.
Lucien spun on his heel and marched out of the courtroom, shadows clinging to his cloak like old memories. As he walked through the Halls of Balance, the marble cracked beneath his boots. Every step marked the rising of something long suppressed.
He passed a statue of Justice blindfolded, wings open, sword down.
"Liar," he muttered.
By the time he reached the Outer Gates, three demons waited for him. Not the clawed beasts of myth, but cloaked figures in mortal shapes. One wore a suit made of whispers. Another had eyes like polished obsidian. The third carried a book that bled shadows.
"My Lord Advocate," the first said. "We felt the summons."
Lucien didn't waste time. "Activate the Sigil Chain. I need a gate into the Wound."
The second demon hissed. "That realm is sealed. Even Hell fears it."
"Then tremble later," Lucien snapped. "Jonas is there. And if the angels get to him first, this trial becomes a purge."
The third demon tilted his head. "And the consequences?"
Lucien's voice dropped to a growl. "We lose the only soul that can prove Heaven lied."
The demons exchanged glances. Then nodded.
They began drawing the Sigil Chain across the stone a rune-forged key to reach forbidden realms. As they worked, Lucien's mind turned.
Jonas. A child who should've died. Who did die, according to the Scroll. But Seraphiel's intervention had pulled him back into a space between fate and faith. The Wound.
He remembered something from the Library. A phrase written in dying ink:
"Those who fall into the Wound carry with them fragments of truth no god can bear."
Back in the Court, Malak stood alone in the viewing chamber. A portal shimmered before him one only Thrones could access.
A voice like rusted silver poured from it. "The Advocate moves."
Malak bowed his head. "As expected."
"You will stop him."
He looked up. "No. I will follow him."
"But the Throne commands"
"I do not serve truth," Malak said. "I enforce it. And if truth has cracks, I intend to seal them with blood."
The portal hissed closed.
Meanwhile, back at the edge of the realm, the Sigil Chain pulsed with heat and light. The runes twisted and broke space. Lucien stepped forward, wind swirling around him.
The portal to the Wound opened a swirling gate of black and gold, the color of broken absolutes.
He turned to his demons. "Hold the gate. If I don't return"
"You will," the first said.
Lucien grinned. "You always say that."
Then he stepped through.
The Wound swallowed him whole.