Unity Faithweaver's Arc

Chapter 5 of 4

Unity stood in the dark house. Lucifer sat across from her, red and still. She held his fear in her chest, ready to give it. But when she reached for it, she found she had nothing else. No throne. No welcome. No proof he belonged with the others. The fear alone would not make him stay. She needed something to offer, and her hands were empty. "The others want to unite all faiths," Unity said. "You are one of the five. I came to bring you in." Lucifer did not move. "They cast me out. Now they want me back." He looked at the broken windows. "Why would I believe you?" Unity had no answer. She had come with fear and a mission and nothing more. The silence pressed on her. She felt the house swallow her words. The door creaked. Figures filed in behind her. Robed people with horns on their hoods and painted masks. They carried glowing stones and arcane marks on their banners. They were Lucifer's worshippers, come to the one place that still named him. They raised their hands toward him. Then they saw Unity and began to kneel. "Stand up," Unity said. "Please." They rose, confused. She turned back to Lucifer. He watched his followers watch her. For the first time, something in his face shifted. An old man stepped through the crowd. His head was bald, his robe white, a silver glow around him. Gandi Silverlight. He had followed her from the hill. Unity knew him as the quiet one from the gathering, the man who spoke of peace when others argued. He did not kneel. He looked at Lucifer with plain eyes. "You ask him for belief," Gandi said to Unity. "But belief is not a gift you carry. It is a thing you show." He pointed to the worshippers. "They came to this dark place for him. That is proof enough that he belongs somewhere." Unity understood. She had been looking for an object to hand over. She had none. But she could give Lucifer what he had never gotten. She knelt before him herself. "Stand up," Lucifer said, flat. "You don't kneel. You told them not to." "I know," Unity said. "I kneel because no one ever did for you." She stayed down. "That is what I have to offer. Not a seat they saved. A god who came to find you." Lucifer stood. His tail dragged across the floor. He looked at his followers, at Gandi, at the girl on her knees in his house. Then he reached down and pulled her up by the arm. "Give me the fear," he said. Unity pressed her hand to her chest. The cold thread unwound. She passed it to him. He took it without flinching. The weight left her at last. She could breathe fully now. But as the fear entered Lucifer, his worshippers stirred behind her, their eyes turning dark and hungry, and she saw she had not freed him. She had woken something that answered to him alone.