It was as if it spoke to her from her own mind. It was the darkest part of her. Angels don’t have a shadow like humans, but after the fall, it seemed to appear.
“We walked through the fire to be together,” the voice continued to exhort. “God cannot divide us.”
“But He did!”
Why did she say that? The darkness let out a shriek of rage that shook the desert.
“You are my reflection, and I am yours, and we will be together again.”
“Angels don’t have reflections, but she did. First in a puddle spit out by a water creature that crawled into the desert, then in a mirror.”
“You’re not an angel anymore, and neither are anyone else with you,” the grim voice continued to whisper.
Alais glanced over her shoulder at her wings. Yes, they had turned black. It probably seems that way because of the darkness. They were golden in the daytime. But they’re supposed to be white for angels. Gold is the color of vice brought to earth by fallen angels. Gold is the solidified substance of the sun. A dead sun! And it is supposed to be alive. Gold as a metal is contrary to its original divine nature, which may be why people so often kill each other over it. Just as often they killed each other because of Alais herself, who became the source of birth, both light and gold. The desert was filled with the blood of travelers and their corpses, which were devoured by her ever-hungry servants. They ate the flesh, drank the blood, but their wounds hardly ever healed. What could be done for them?
“Abandon them!” It was the voice of the shadow that spoke again. “And go back to heaven. Apologize! God will immediately forgive you, and you will begin to prepare his angels for battle again. Many will follow you again. You are so good. If you fall again, God will forgive you again. He has always adored you, my bright shadow. Seduce him at last and destroy him. And then summon me.”
She recognized the voice of her own mind, though she thought differently now. The fall had changed her.
“I can’t leave them all behind,” she nodded at the monsters crawling in the sand. “All those who followed me are my responsibility now.”
“They are defeated and crippled, and you are wasting your time with them.”
“I love them!” She knew how wild that sounded right now. She did not love them when their beauty delighted the heavens, even when they followed her into battle, they were only an army. Every warlord needs an army. It is a tribute to custom. Feelings were restrained. But now love broke through. Because of her they were brought down, because of her they were tortured, because of her they were mutilated and burned, and yet they were still willing to serve her.
“Would they love you if you were as ugly as they are now? You’re lucky your ugliness lives apart from you.”
“What do you mean?” Alais asked, but secretly she was already aware of it and shuddered inwardly. The memory of something burning and mutilated being separated from her by the fall pierced her brain with pain. It had happened! And it had not been a dream! And even if it had been, her dreams had never lied to her. In heaven in general, it was difficult to separate dream from reality. There, eternity passed like a dream. Grim reality began on earth. And dreams of magic invaded it with golden spells.
“We must show mortals what magic is!”
“Why?” A voice grows wary.
“Their lives are empty without it.”
“Mortals will not appreciate you, nor understand you.”
“But I’ll take my chances anyway.”
“And you will run into their knives.”
“I don’t think so, I’m still immortal. They are.”
“They will put you in a cage for your skill.”
“They are weak, I am strong. Only I have the power to rule them.”
“You’d better stay here with me.”
“I can’t even see you.”
“But I can see you, and I like your beauty, detached from me, even more than when it shone on my own face. It is only when we lose something that we know how valuable it is. Such is God’s curse.”
“He chose to teach us a lesson, but instead he gave us freedom. The world is our kingdom. We no longer share it with any god. Here we can become gods ourselves, we and our army.”
“You’ve already begun to talk about us as one. I like that.”
“You’re a good persuader. I am beginning to trust you,” or my dream. It doesn’t matter! She always trusted herself more. But the darkness was indeed half of herself.
It condensed beside her. Its outlines were forming into claw-like shapes. First it touched her golden curls, then it tried to penetrate her, but it failed.
“People call people like you genies,” Alais shared. Her ears were clearly picking up what mortals whisper behind the deserts. “Djinns are my warriors who have no bodies left-just a blob of darkness instead of a shell.”
There were also djinns of fire, but it was the pillar of darkness that hovered before her.
“Which of my warriors were you before you died? What was your name?”
“I have no name,” the darkness clung to her. “I am you! We have the same name! “Dennitsa.”
“Dennitsa means dawn! And you are all dark! How can you be called Dennitsa?”
“Do you want to give me a new name like you gave yourself?” The darkness’s voice became soulful.
Alais closed her eyelids, feeling a strange pleasure in the intimacy of darkness. The darkness enveloped her entire body, caressed her wings, sought to penetrate her skin.
After the battle, Michael shouted insults-the devil, Satan. This meant an opposing angel, an apostate. These were probably her new names.
How absurd it all came out! Michael loved her to pieces, but the first argument over power ended in tragedy. The admirer had become the enemy. Alais remembered the way Mikhail’s blond hair had fluttered in the firestorm. She longed to cut off his head with her sword, to grasp it by his beautiful hair and hold it in her hands like a trophy. His head would remain alive even after it was cut off. It can be spoken to, it can be rebuked.
This naive angel wants her to go back to heaven. And she wants his head.
The darkness caressed her like a lover.
“I am you,” he repeated.
“Then your name is the devil,” Alais recalled Michael calling her.
The gloom fell silent for a moment.
“What can I do to make you believe that you and I are one?” After a pause, he asked softly.
“Destroy the heavens!”
“I am
