Chapter 5 – The Wound of Existence

The moment Lucien crossed the threshold, time itself folded. Reality buckled, collapsing in on itself like a dying star. He wasn't falling, not exactly. It felt like being unraveled and rewritten mid-motion. The Wound was not a place meant to be traversed it was a consequence. An accident in the divine blueprint.

He landed if that's what you could call it on a shifting plain of broken hymns. The sky above was a patchwork of shattered scripture, verses that blinked in and out of existence, and below, the ground pulsed like a wounded memory.

The Wound, a realm between realms. Here, discarded truths rotted alongside failed miracles and erased souls.

Lucien straightened, breathing in the air if it could even be called that. It smelled like burned incense and regret.

His boots crunched on forgotten prophecies as he walked, eyes scanning the horizon. He wasn't alone. He could feel it. The Wound was never empty. It was a place that fed on anomalies, on loopholes in divine law.

And Jonas was the biggest anomaly of them all.

A faint voice whispered across the wind. A child's voice.

"Lucien…"

He froze. The voice had no direction. No echo. It was inside him.

"Jonas?" he called, drawing the infernal brand from his coat, letting it pulse with demonic energy. "Where are you?"

A flicker. A shimmer. A boy appeared at the edge of a crumbling ledge, staring into a mirror that reflected no image.

Lucien approached slowly. "Jonas."

The boy turned.

He couldn't have been more than eight. Pale skin, silver eyes, a faint halo of energy around his head that crackled like broken lightning. But there was something ancient behind those eyes. Something that didn't belong in a child.

"You're not supposed to be here," Jonas said flatly.

Lucien knelt. "I had to find you. They're coming. The Court. Malak. If they get to you first"

"They'll erase me," Jonas finished. "Or turn me into proof they can control."

Lucien hesitated. "You know what you are?"

Jonas looked back at the mirror. "I'm not just a child. I'm the variable. The proof that the Scroll isn't absolute."

Lucien's chest tightened. "And what else?"

Jonas slowly lifted his hand. The mirror twisted, revealing not a reflection but a memory Seraphiel, shielding him from a Seraph's blade. Her wings wrapped tight around him. Her tears falling.

"I saw what Heaven feared," Jonas whispered. "Not Hell. Not sin. But mercy. Choice."

Lucien stood, fire building behind his eyes. "We can use that. Come with me. You can testify"

"No." The boy's voice changed. It grew deeper. Layered.

Lucien froze. "Who are you?"

Jonas smiled softly. "I'm still Jonas. But I've seen the Wound. I've become part of it. I've seen the lies beneath the Light. And I've seen what comes if the truth is unleashed too fast."

"What does that mean?"

Jonas stepped back. "If I return to the Court, everything breaks. Not just the trial. The balance. The Thrones. The way souls are weighed."

Lucien scowled. "So what, you hide forever? Let Seraphiel be judged and cast down for saving you?"

"No," Jonas said. "But I won't go with you alone."

Suddenly, the air shuddered.

A blade of light crashed into the ground between them, cracking the earth.

Lucien spun, drawing his obsidian-forged dagger.

From the sky descended a figure in gold and crimson. Wreaths of holy flame curled around his armor, and his eyes glowed with divine fury.

Malak.

Lucien's mouth twisted. "You always show up when conversation gets interesting."

Malak ignored him, stepping toward the boy.

"Jonas. You are to return with me. By decree of the Throne."

Jonas stared, unafraid. "You'll kill me if I don't comply."

Malak didn't deny it.

Lucien stepped between them. "You'll have to go through me."

Malak extended his hand, and a massive warhammer materialized, etched with runes of absolute judgment.

"You aren't on trial anymore, Advocate. You're a rogue."

Lucien raised his dagger. It pulsed, feeding off the corruption in the Wound. "You always did hate improvisation."

Without warning, Malak struck.

Lucien barely dodged, the hammer grazing his shoulder and sending him skidding across the shattered ground. Pain flared, but he gritted his teeth and retaliated, slashing upward in a crescent of infernal flame. Malak deflected it with a sweep of his wings.

Jonas stepped back, eyes wide.

The sky above them pulsed, reacting to their clash.

"You know this ends with you dead," Malak said, voice like steel.

"I've died before," Lucien growled. "Didn't take."

They clashed again light versus shadow, heaven's wrath versus hell's cunning. The Wound cracked, bled, and shifted with every blow.

Finally, Lucien ducked under a strike and landed a punch that sent Malak staggering.

"Jonas!" Lucien shouted. "Now's your chance run!"

But Jonas didn't move.

Instead, he lifted both hands. And spoke.

Not in a language anyone living should know.

The Wound responded.

Time slowed.

Both Lucien and Malak froze, mid-motion.

Jonas's voice echoed with layers. Not just his own. A chorus. Ancient. Ageless.

"I am not a weapon," he said. "I am not a tool."

The ground beneath him split, and a glyph burned across the sky.

"I am the result of mercy."

With a final word, he vanished.

Lucien stumbled as time resumed.

Malak roared, striking the ground in fury, cracking the foundation of the realm.

"He's gone…" Lucien muttered. "He locked himself away again."

Malak turned, eyes wild. "This is your fault. This entire circus. You gave a child the illusion of choice."

Lucien sheathed his blade. "And you would've denied him humanity altogether."

Malak didn't respond. He turned and vanished in a burst of holy flame.

Lucien looked toward the sky, where the glyph still faintly pulsed.

Jonas had chosen exile over manipulation. Self-sacrifice over weaponization.

Back at the Court, Seraphiel's wings flared.

Something had changed.

Something big.

And every angel in the room could feel it.

Objection Sustained

The silence that followed Jonas's disappearance echoed through the Celestial Court like the aftermath of a thunderclap. Not a word was spoken. Not a breath dared disturb the air. The glyph left by the boy still lingered faintly above Seraphiel, a mark even the scribes couldn't decipher. It glowed with an energy older than Heaven itself.

Seraphiel's head was bowed, eyes closed, her wrists still chained by divine seals. She could feel it Jonas had made his choice. And the Court, for all its laws and dominion, could not override it.

Chief Justice Thamiel stood slowly. His voice, when it came, was a grinding tectonic force. "The anomaly has removed itself from judgment."

A murmur ran through the Tribunal, a mix of unease and relief. One less variable. But also, one less tool.

Lucien reappeared in the center of the courtroom in a storm of smoke and ash, his coat scorched, one arm bleeding where Malak's hammer had clipped him. He didn't speak at first. He looked directly at Seraphiel.

She met his gaze with a faint, sad smile. He's safe, she mouthed.

Lucien turned toward the Tribunal and raised his voice. "Well then. Now that we've lost our star witness, perhaps the Court would like to explain why they tried to destroy him?"

Gasps. Audible ones. Even from the angels.

Archangel Camael, seated in judgment beside Thamiel, narrowed his eyes. "Mind your tongue, Advocate. You walk the edge of contempt."

Lucien spread his arms wide. "Contempt? Please. I leapt over that line four chapters ago."

Several lower angels flinched at the mention of "chapters." It was an old truth only devils and scribes tracked time in narratives.

Lucien continued, pacing. "This trial isn't about Seraphiel's actions. It's about control. About making an example of what happens when angels act with compassion instead of command. And Jonas… he wasn't a child to you. He was evidence. One that you were going to erase."

Thamiel's stone features didn't waver. "The boy threatened the structure of divine law."

Lucien stepped closer. "So does the truth. Doesn't mean we get to crucify it every time it gets inconvenient."

The murmuring returned, louder now. A few of the cherubim seated in the balconies whispered among themselves. The Archangels looked to one another, uncertain.

Malak reappeared at Lucien's side in a burst of gold fire, his armor marred from battle, expression grim. "He fled. He's sealed himself in the Wound. He's beyond reach."

Thamiel nodded once. "Then the anomaly shall not be considered in this judgment. We proceed."

Lucien's voice dropped an octave, serious now. "Without Jonas, the context of Seraphiel's actions vanishes. You're trying to judge her for breaking law, but you won't acknowledge what forced her to act."

"Do you have any new evidence?" snapped Camael. "Or are you here just to monologue us into moral guilt?"

Lucien turned toward the scribe's lectern, and the recordkeeper a pale-eyed angel known as Orphean frowned as Lucien's stare pinned him.

"I have more than evidence," Lucien said slowly. "I have testimony. Not from the child. From Heaven's own archives."

He reached into his coat and pulled out a scroll, bound in threads of both light and shadow.

The Court erupted.

Thamiel's eyes flared. "That scroll is forbidden."

Lucien smiled coldly. "Only forbidden to those afraid of its contents."

Camael rose. "You tampered with the Vault."

"I borrowed a page. Sue me."

He unrolled the scroll, revealing a transcript. "This is a record from over two thousand years ago. A Trial of Compassion. A near-forgotten case of an angel who defied orders to save a mortal city condemned to annihilation. She was sentenced. Silenced. Erased from memory."

Lucien turned the scroll toward the Court. "Do you know who she was?"

A hush fell.

Lucien whispered, "Seraphiel's predecessor."

The angels froze. Even the Judges.

"The same pattern. The same verdict. And yet, every time, the angel who chose mercy vanished from your archives. Tell me how many other scrolls have you hidden?"

Orphean looked down. His hands trembled.

Seraphiel finally raised her voice. "He's right."

Everyone turned to her. Her voice was steady now, resolute.

"You created us to be loyal, obedient. But you also gave us will. And you feared it from the moment one of us used it for kindness instead of conquest."

Lucien stepped beside her. "This isn't just about her. It's about a system that has no room for growth. Only control. And now that truth is unraveling."

Camael's eyes blazed. "This is blasphemy."

Lucien turned to Thamiel. "Then let me finish it with a question."

He took a deep breath.

"If an angel disobeys to protect the innocent… is that still a sin?"

The Court fell completely silent.

Thamiel didn't answer.

But Orphean did. Quietly. "It is a choice."

And with that, a ripple of divine static surged across the Court.

The chains on Seraphiel cracked.

Not broken.

But weakening.

Lucien turned to her. "The verdict's not in yet. But the tide is shifting."