Chapter 40

** Lucifer's Revelation**

Lucifer sat alone in his grand obsidian throne room, the dark gleam of the polished stone reflecting the flickering infernos of the underworld. Despite the power he wielded, despite the legions that bowed at his feet, there was something—a certain *someone*—who weighed heavily on his mind.

When the summons to the council in Lanom had first reached him, he had been filled with an unfamiliar sense of dread. Lucifer, the once-mighty Morningstar, afraid? He scoffed at the idea, yet the unsettling truth gnawed at him. Athena, his mortal beloved, had stirred emotions within him that no celestial being or mortal ever had before. And now, knowing that she could cross realms—walk between the mortal world and Lanom as easily as one might stroll through a garden—had changed everything.