C28 ♱ Chapter • 28 ♱

♱ •⋅ 1750 B.C. ⋅• ♱

"I knew" he said as I entered my room and felt my body tremble.

What exactly had he known? Asmodeus had told Callisto about Azrael? No, it could not be that, after all if this was the case he would not have entered so quietly in my room.

He wouldn’t just be sitting there.

"Do you think they’ll catch the culprits?" he asked and breathed relieved, he was talking about the village.

I settled.

"Yes, but... first we have to clear your image" I said stretching "they soiled your name as they tried to soil Lucifer’s honor."

Calisto just shook his head.

"I heard from Azrael."

Sure, I thought. When I blew his plans, he had to tell me.

What would he do if Callisto only found out for me? Or worse, what would he do if I found out everything and told Callisto?

He needed an excuse, he needed a way to hide and at the same time look useful.

Azrael was really someone smart.

"So?" I asked as I loosened my hair, "What did you think? I was thinking about visiting the place again, I want to bring more supplies and also a little more about the tributes, it seemed to me kind of... specific and I also want to find out where the girls ended up..."

He stared at me.

"Were they just... girls?" he asked as he approached me and I nodded.

"Yes, girls 13 to 24 years. They took her saying that they would be offerings to you, slaves."

Calisto has shrunk himself.

"But I do not allow you to demand slavery among my people."

I settled.

"I know" I sighed "but there are many uninformed territories out there."

Calisto winced at me.

"How many? In how many villages did this happen?"

I took advantage of the moment and looked in the mirror while changing, Asra’s body remained phenomenal.

I didn’t know how many villages had been attacked, after all it was only the first day of investigation, but I knew what Elaine had discovered in the novel.

26 villages attacked during 26 moons.

"28, there were 28 villages" I muttered "approximately, in the end, there may have been more. Tributes are demanded whenever the blood moon rises in the heavens."

"Demons..." Callisto growled and I hurried to hold his arm and stop him.

"No, don’t even waste your time. It wasn’t the demons that were responsible for it."

"Then who?" He practically growled.

"Humans" I muttered "it was them."

Callisto’s eyes were laden with hatred and bitterness.

"But... how? They are of their own race! How can they?" He seemed surprised, frightened.

It was understandable that he felt this way, it was something that not even I who was human at another time could understand. The human race was cruel to itself, disloyal, inhumane.

It was as if we were constantly trying to punish ourselves simply for existing.

"Don’t try to understand" I muttered "they are like that, humans are like that."

Calisto did not seem to accept, not even consider it normal.

"They are human!" He said at the end "how can they? If they were demons I would even understand."

I settled.

"But demons are loyal" I reminded him "not humans."

Calisto then sank into my bed as if searching among the sheets and pillows for the answers to all his questions.

"Why is that?" He muttered and all I could do was sit next to him on the bed and with a singing smile, caress his face with my fingertips.

"Because they probably had something to gain."

"What?" he asked and I knew that at that moment he was questioning himself. Wondering if there was something that was really worth it. If there was anything that made a betrayal like that worthwhile.

"Power" I said without trying to soften "maybe... a little money or maybe..." I took a deep breath before continuing "who knows they are simply monsters. There are humans like that."

Callisto looked at me, his eyes so fixed on mine that he seemed to want to look into my soul.

"Why?" he asked me again and I could see that now, his lips trembled like those of a child about to cry.

"What happened?" I asked and he sank his face into my lap as he tied my hip.

"I don’t want a world like this for Loren," he said with a voice embargoed "I don’t want a world so cruel to him, he’s..."

"Sweet" I spoke before he could and the king in my lap just nodded "he is too sweet for his own good."

"What do I do?" he asked me and all I could think of was answers too futile to be worthy of being said.

"Just let it grow" - he can not.

"He has to deal with some things himself" - he would be killed.

"Children know how to defend themselves" - Loren suffers from a curse.

"In the end, you can’t protect your child from the world" - unless the world is trying to kill him.

I sighed and now it was more out of frustration.

"This world is really horrible" I told him as I leaned my forehead against his "but it’s Loren we’re talking about."

The pink quartz eyes shone softly, a warm, gentle glow.

"Loren is the kind of person who makes the world a better place," I whispered and Calisto who now sunk his face into my neck, nodded.

"He will, won’t he?"

"Yes" I said and even if I knew that in the novel things had happened differently, this would not be so.

This Loren could live in the mortal world, this Loren would not be arrested or pay for sins he did not commit.

In this... he would be exactly what he was born to be: a person capable of changing the world.

The crown prince of the infernal throne, as well as the only one capable of ruling all angels.

Loren possessed infinite potential and while everyone in the novel had only discovered it after his death, I smiled - because I knew how far he could go, because... Asra was also a kind of hybrid.

"Let me go with you," he said taking me by surprise and when my eyes met yours, Callisto repeated - when he returns to the village this time... let me go with you.

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