I am Truth.

But the barrier itself wasn’t the only thing bothering him. If anything, the wall Aurelius was building between them - by simply demanding, imposing, and judging - seemed even more impenetrable than the fire itself. It was storming frustrating. But Adolin knew how to be persistent, and he wasn’t about to stop trying.

“I’m asking you now, aren’t I?” - he said, exhaling heavily as his brows drew together. He had to be one of the ten fools for doing this, but he stepped closer again, close enough to the flames that he could feel their heat prickling against his skin. “I don’t need you to prove anything to me. I just need you to talk to me like a storming person.”

It doesn't burn, of course. Instead the fires leap away from Adolin's touch and shrink into a slender, snake-like rope, which winds its thin tendrils around the prince's fingers to lock them in place. In lieu of Aurelius's angelic aura, these are replacements for his usual chains, though they barely nip at skin while crackling and burning at nothing.

"Don't touch me."

"Do you think you’ll earn sympathy from playing both sides?"

How did a mortal like him wander into this mess? There was no place for Adolin to safely belong.

“Shall I regale you with tales of how your demon twisted my own desires against me? Of how I blissfully forced my own partner into a cage I made myself? Shall I make you do the same?”

He doesn’t touch Adolin, but the chains of flame around his fingers spread up the man’s arms before dragging him into the air, a tight and persistent force that threatens to make the man’s heels leave the pavement below.

This is humanity at its finest.

This is virtue at its worst.

Between the bits and babbles of the pactbearer's words, Aurelius pieces together the fragments of Vanth's current state. He's weak, but he's also freer than ever before, away from Sebastian's touch and Yophiel's taint on his soul. The more he loses, the more Aurelius gains. It's a simple principle of Good vs. Evil.

"So don't say no," the angel continues. "If it's difficult, do as you've always done. Please the people you've always pleased."

"Find happiness in what little joys you can grasp."

He stops gripping the other's jaw, and shifts to cup a hand over the one already holding Vanth's. "What can I do when Sebastian is that important to you? I've already acknowledged it, haven't I?"

If this just this, he could do much more.

"You and Angelescu will be right by each other, going down the very same path." He pauses, a smile reaching his eyes in a light giddy-feeling.

"What i mean is, it is only a matter of time before the both of you lose yourselves. Then truly, the both of you will know what it is like to be abandoned."

He leans in close, daringly. He inhales Aurelius's scent and releases a content sigh. "Perhaps you are yet to be punished, but your precious Seraph....I am not sure I can say the same for him."

He moves back, breaking free from Aurelius and creating space between them.

"You should be careful."

What does he mean.

Questions he doesn't want to ask leach into his mind, and the flame on his fingertips sputters out in unpleasant surprise when Sebastian leans in to sniff him. He swipes at the demon's face and misses, stepping forward when Sebastian withdraws.

"What are you—"

"...!!"

There's a flurry of wind that forces Aurelius to shield his face. When he lowers his arm, Sebastian is already gone. In its place, a cold weight settles at the pit of Aurelius's stomach.

Klaus.

"If it wasn't because of that, then why?!" - he asks.

When Aurelius shoves him, Adolin's eyes widen. He stumbles several steps backward before managing to regain his balance, only to find Aurelius looking even more shaken than before.

The sight of him staring down at his own hands, wiping at them as though he could somehow scrub the guilt from his skin, makes something in Adolin's chest ache.

"Aurelius, I…" - he begins, only to stop. Storms.

Adolin doesn't understand half of what is happening here. But he does know one thing: he needs to breathe and not let Aurelius's anger drag him into his own. They won't get anywhere if they both lose control.

"You don't know," he realizes as something inside him twists. "He never told you—or you simply swallowed his lies."

"And you never thought to question it?"

Incredulity builds upon disdain, disbelief, and dismay: why would Adolin believe Sebastian's story over his own? Why stand on the side of the very demon who killed him once?

This world was a mad, mad place.

"Do you want me to show you wounds as proof? I'm afraid I'll disappoint you. There are no scars—I didn't bleed from that demon's hand. Go back to that monster you call a man, and ask him what he's done. Ask yourself whether I've ever truly hurt you, and Vanth whether I've even touched him since his accursed wedding."

Behind the wall of flames, Aurelius's golden irises are dyed by flickering fires, drenched in shades of red and orange that crackle starkly in the air.

I love you. I love you.

His words echo through their bond. Words unsaid, but bodies speaking the loudest, and their soul practically wailing these words.

I love you.

Klaus has heard them before, has said them countless times, but never like this. Those words had never been spoken with so much... desperation.

It wasn't only that, either.

"I'm sorry---," he echoes. If ANYONE was sorry, it was Klaus. Aurelius had nothing to apologize for. What happened was not his fault. One couldn't control the temptation they had. Aurelius had been strong to hold his own under wraps until Sebastian came unraveling all of Aurelius' restraint.

"I love you. I will always love you." Eyebrows knit together as he seals his lips with Aurelius, yearningly.

Frowning, the prince parts his lips to refute whatever he’s about to say, but the words die in his throat when firm hands grip him tighter, pulling him closer with the same desperate conviction behind those harsh words. Adolin’s heart races, his entire body tensing, and when he speaks, it’s a warning.

“Aurelius, you’re hurting me.”

That light had been caused by an angel. Sebastian’s words come rushing back to him, and seeing Aurelius so distressed, Adolin’s stomach twists as he realizes that, yes, perhaps Aurelius really had done it with his own hands.

For his laughable, misplaced faith?

No, but what right did Aurelius have to judge him where he’d failed himself? What position did any Angel who had fallen to delusion have to decry a mortal still carrying the torch of conviction in his hands?

Even if his faith was given to a false hope, a hateful demon?

But wasn’t this all horribly backwards? Somewhere in the course of dismantling Sebastian’s lies, Aurelius had removed a single block out of order and sent the whole confused tower crashing onto himself. Buried beneath the rubble, would anyone even hear his voice or see his truths?

“You think I killed them?”

“You think I did it all to prove a point?”

His grip on Adolin tightens even more before suddenly, he’s pushing the human backwards. Aurelius wipes his palms against his jacket, appalled. The sharp sting of betrayal burns his chest, even as more laughter bubbles up his throat.

Incredible. Ridiculous.

Yes, perhaps Adolin’s right. Klaus might have dealt the killing blow, but Aurelius was the one who asked. Fear was as foul a motive as petty revenge, in any case. There was nothing noble about those deaths or the hand he’d played in them. He stares at his palms and wipes them some more, tasting bile at the back of his tongue.

Or...

No, your god did punish you?" He lets it sit, then clicks his tongue and leans in closer.

"I believe your god gifted you Angelescu. That is why you were not punished. You did nothing wrong. You were only claiming what belonged to you in the first place.

If your god did not wish for you to have that seraph all to himself, wouldn't he have lived just like the rest? Unseen by your eyes? Perhaps he would have just been another subject, and you would not have cared."

He releases Aurelius' wrist.

"Why think so hard about it?

Aurelius's eyes dart instead, gaze flickering erratically between Sebastian's brows and nose, a clear sign of his unsettled thoughts. The hand that's freed goes instantly to push against the demon's chest while blood rushes to his face.

He can't decide whether he's more angry or humiliated. Small flickers of distress, like errant fires, try to travel across his bond with Klaus before he stamps them out viciously to keep their connection carefully calm. His partner has enough burdens to carry without him adding on more.

Klaus was his—was his—isn't, no, no—

"God," he pushes out, half speech and half prayer, "would want us,"

"to serve Him equally. An abomination like you—"

He has to stop, pathetically, to catch his breath; Aurelius gulps down air the next instant before spitting out between gnashed teeth: "—would never understand His grace."

Or is this what happened after, leaving Vanth less than whole when his partner isn't within arm's reach? Vanth speaks of sides, but as far as Aurelius is concerned, they had found a quiet truce. Attending their wedding was a token of acknowledgment, however grudgingly he gave it. Nothing else should have come between them after that.

And yet Sebastian induced him to make a terrible mistake, one that Klaus avenged at a grievous price to his heart.

"I did nothing to incite this," Aurelius retorts, before admitting, "I never got the chance."

"You lost yours when I was robbed of my choice."

When he learned that Klaus had killed Vanth as well as Sebastian in their last encounter, a heavy sense of inevitability had settled in his chest. It isn't that they had to come to heads—it was that Sebastian could never be content with peace.

Demons were always destined to doom those by their side.

"I told you I wanted to save you. You said you were better off with him, a creature who delights in ruining others. Did you not understand his nature from the start?"

It is the first time he's touching Vanth without his divinity in this backup city, so Aurelius holds firm, his stare relentless.

"He's ruining you just as he ruined us. He'll destroy that other mortal next, the prince foolish enough to cast aside his lot just to stay by your side."

His other hand pries off the one gripping his wrist, entwining their fingers instead.

the fade is cold and dark. it lacks colour, except for the same shade of green that is forever etched into his arm. this, perhaps, is the opposite feeling.

the inquisitor is not falling into the fade, or stumbling out of it. he is not hurt, not sickly, there is no burn in his left hand anymore, no nerves alight with pain. all there is is warmth. it fills his chest until he feels he could breathe forever, until he feels larger than life. intimate had been an appropriate thing to call it— he feels aurelius' power connecting to muscles beneath skin.

little others have ever reached that far with such gentleness. his breath stumbles.

it's meticulous work. he's not sure what he expected. certainly not that aurelius would create these wings feather by feather, connecting each with a detailed focus. there are a hundred eyes on the inquisitor at all times, and suddenly they're all here, in a single man.

he opens his eyes— he hadn't realized he'd closed them again. the light is near blinding to somebody unused to it. he doesn't think to try it yet, moving them with only his thoughts, but he shrugs his shoulders to feel it out, listening for the rustling of feathers.

his eyes are wide when he looks at aurelius, more yellow than green in the shining light.

' now?, ' he asks quietly.

Like the note of a song, the echo of a hymn.

"Yes," he breathes, expression softening to a smile. "How lovely."

"Well done."

It is as harmonious as he'd hoped—no, much better, since Iloren had trusted him the entire way. Even his eyes have taken on the divinus's own colors, miniature suns reflecting his own radiance back.

"I think you look quite beautiful with them," Aurelius adds honestly, and moves to take Iloren by the hand. "Come and look with me? There's a mirror in one of the rooms downstairs."

"You are correct. I do not know anything." Yet, he can wager a guess. At that, he grins.

He's right.

Aurelius's hands spasm in Sebastian's grip, never managing to reach their mark. Even when the hard surface of the wall digs into his shoulders a moment later, the angel only stares, a slow chill crawling up his spine.

Curiously, though, Aurelius’s words seemed to soften something in Adolin. His expression was still troubled, of course, but he let out another heavy sigh, trying to pull himself back together. Aurelius wasn’t a bad person. He was just storming difficult. “I’m not blind, Aurelius. And I’m not going to pretend Sebastian isn’t a chull-brain sometimes. But even he can change, if he wants to.”

The first step toward making a change was admitting how difficult it was - he remembered the conversation he’d had with Sebastian at the bar. And, storms, he wanted to believe that was true.

Stupid man.

How sweetly the fattened hen sings before it's set out for slaughter. How much worse for a bird who's already suffered a fatal fate once, and yet returns for more.

What was it with these demons? How could the people they hurt still come crawling back to them for more punishment when Aurelius gave them a more obvious alternative?

What was there to love about a demon who only offered pain with his promises? Keep his humanity, like hell.

"Do you think he'll let you make that choice?"

"The only reason he's kind to you is because you humans break too easily. You think he can change? Is that what he tells you? That he'll try for your sake? For Vanth's? Do you honestly think his words are worth trusting?"

Aurelius takes hold of Adolin's other wrist too, dragging it away from the wound he so fruitlessly tries to hide.

It's almost as if Sebastian had just read Aurelius' mind in knowing what he really wanted to say. His words overlapped with Aurelius'. "Come, now. You and I both know that is how it is supposed to be." He paused, head tilting, that same smile on his lips.

"I did not lie to you. I only spoke the truth. Think about it, Angel." Now, Sebastian pushes back, standing tall and towering over Aurelius with a smirk.

"How many years have you lived? Compared to your beloved Seraph? How many of his kind have you met? Yet, out of all of them, Angelescu was sent your way. Am I wrong?"

But having lived through part of those beliefs himself, they sing to his heart like a siren's song. Coaxing. Beckoning.

And it isn't as if Sebastian is wholly wrong. Why else would his Father have denounced Anghelescu from Heaven, only to fall at Aurelius's hand years later when he objected to that rule? He'd paved the way for Anghelescu's return with his own hands, even going so far as killing anyone who tried (dared) to take the seraph's place—

"Stop. A test, you—"

"What do you know? All you do is talk and talk, you abhorrent thing."