Chapter Nine— echo
Angelina's POV
I didn't sleep that night.
How could I, with his words echoing in my mind? Loving you is what destroyed me the first time.
He'd loved me. Before, when I was someone I couldn't remember being, he'd loved me. And somehow, that love had led to his fall. Had led to all of this.
I sat in the cage, knees pulled to my chest, trying to piece together a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Heaven had erased my memories. That much was clear. But why? What had I done that was so terrible they'd needed to wipe me clean and start over?
And why couldn't I remember any of it?
I closed my eyes, reaching for something, anything that felt familiar about him. The way he moved. The cadence of his voice. The brief moments when his cruelty slipped and something softer showed through.
Nothing. Just emptiness where memories should be.
A sound made me look up. One of the souls had drifted lower, hovering just above the cage. Not screaming this time. Just watching me with eyes that seemed more aware than the others.
"You don't remember him, do you?" The voice was male. Old. Weary.
"Who are you?"
"No one important. Just another fool who made a deal with the devil." The soul pulsed weakly. "But I've been here long enough to see things. To understand things."
"What things?"
"You're not the first angel he's brought here. But you're the first one he's kept." The soul drifted closer. "The others, he broke them quickly. Efficiently. Like it was just business. But you?" A sound that might have been a laugh. "You, he's trying so hard not to break. Even while he's breaking you."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Doesn't it?" The soul began to drift away. "Love never does."
"Wait." I stood, reaching through the bars. "Please. Tell me what you know. Tell me what happened before."
But the soul was already gone, floating back up into the darkness with the others.
I sank back down, frustration burning in my chest. Everyone seemed to know more about my past than I did. Daemon. This soul. Probably half of Hell had more information about who I used to be than I did.
Heat spread across my scalp. That familiar hissing.
I didn't even bother checking how many strands I'd lost. What was the point? I was changing. Corrupting. Becoming something I didn't recognize. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.
The cage door swung open.
I looked up, startled. Daemon stood in the doorway, but something was different. He wasn't wearing his usual expression of cold amusement. Instead, he looked almost uncertain.
"Come with me," he said.
"Why?"
"Because I'm telling you to." But there was no bite in the words. "Please."
That last word made me stand. Daemon didn't say please. Didn't ask. He commanded, he demanded, he took. Hearing him request something felt wrong. Dangerous.
But I followed him anyway.
He led me through corridors I hadn't seen before. The obsidian walls gave way to something older. Stone that looked like it had been carved before humans walked the Earth. Symbols I didn't recognize covered every surface, glowing faintly in the darkness.
"Where are we going?"
"You wanted answers." He didn't look back. "I'm giving them to you."
We stopped in front of a massive door. Not black like everything else in Hell, but silver. It hurt to look at, like staring at the sun. The metal seemed to pulse with its own light, and the symbols carved into it were ones I recognized. Angelic script. The old language. The one that predated human speech.
"This door shouldn't exist here," I whispered.
"It shouldn't." Daemon placed his hand on the silver surface, and I saw him wince. It was burning him. "But I kept it anyway. As a reminder."
"Of what?"
"Of what I lost." He pushed, and the door swung open.
Beyond was a room that made my breath catch. It was beautiful. Not in the terrible, awful way Hell was beautiful, but genuinely, heartbreakingly beautiful. White marble floors. Walls that seemed to be made of light itself. And in the center, floating in the air, was a sphere of pure golden radiance.
It looked like a piece of Heaven.
"What is this place?" I stepped inside, feeling warmth for the first time since I'd arrived in Hell.
"My memory." Daemon stayed in the doorway, like he couldn't bring himself to enter. "Of before."
I moved toward the sphere, drawn to it. As I got closer, images began to form in the light. Two figures. Angels. They were walking through gardens I'd never seen, gardens that seemed to exist in eternal sunrise.
One of them was clearly Daemon. Younger somehow, though his face was the same. His hair was still black, but his eyes... his eyes were different. They held light instead of darkness. Joy instead of bitterness.
And the angel walking beside him, her hand in his, her silver hair catching the light...
"That's me," I breathed.
"That's you."
I watched the memory play out. Watched myself laugh at something he said. Watched him lean down and kiss my forehead with such tenderness it made my chest ache. Watched us exist in a moment of perfect happiness.
"We were together."
"For three hundred years." His voice came from behind me, rough with something that sounded like pain. "You were my light. My reason for existing. Everything good I ever was came from loving you."
The scene changed. Now we were in a hall of white stone. Other angels surrounded us. They were arguing. I could see my past self trying to defend Daemon, see him standing tall and defiant against accusations I couldn't quite hear.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I questioned the order." Daemon had moved into the room now, standing beside me. "The hierarchy. The way Heaven functioned. I saw cruelty dressed up as righteousness, and I called it out." He gestured to the memory. "They didn't like that."
In the sphere, I watched as the angels turned on him. Watched as Michael, golden and terrible, pronounced judgment. Watched as Daemon was given a choice.
"Recant or fall," Daemon said quietly. "Those were my options. Admit I was wrong, bow my head, and continue serving a system I knew was corrupt. Or stand by my beliefs and be cast out."
"You chose to fall."
"I chose truth over comfort." He looked at me. "And you tried to fall with me."
The memory shifted. I saw myself step forward, saw myself reach for Daemon as the other angels held him. Saw myself scream that if he fell, I would fall too.
"But they wouldn't let you." His hand moved like he wanted to touch me but didn't. "They said you were too valuable. Too pure. That I'd corrupted your thinking, twisted your love into something unholy."
In the sphere, I watched as they pulled me away from him. Watched as I fought and screamed and begged. Watched as Daemon was cast down, still reaching for me even as he fell.
Then the memory changed one last time. I was in a white room, alone except for one angel. He held his hand over my head, and I could see the light draining from my eyes. See the memories being stripped away. See myself being unmade and remade into someone who wouldn't remember what she'd lost.
"They gave you a choice," Daemon said. "Remember me and spend eternity knowing what you'd lost, or forget and live without the pain." He turned away. "You chose to forget."
The sphere's light dimmed, the memories fading.
I stood there, trying to process it all. Trying to reconcile what I'd seen with who I was now. I'd loved him. Truly loved him. Had been willing to fall for him. And then I'd chosen to forget rather than carry the weight of that loss.
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" My voice sounded strange. Distant.
"Would you have believed me?" He walked back toward the door. "Would you have trusted the devil's word about your own past?"
He was right. I wouldn't have. But seeing it, watching it unfold in the memory sphere...
"I still don't remember," I said. "Seeing it isn't the same as remembering it."
"I know." He paused in the doorway. "But now you know the truth. Now you understand why I can't..." He stopped, jaw clenching. "Why this has to be the way it is."
"Because you're afraid."
He turned to look at me, and for just a moment, the mask dropped completely. "Terrified," he admitted. "You destroyed me once by forgetting. By choosing to erase me from your existence like I meant nothing. Like three hundred years of love could just be wiped away because it was convenient."
"That's not fair. I didn't—"
"You did." His voice hardened. "You had a choice, and you chose the easy path. You chose to forget rather than fight. And that choice broke something in me that's never been fixed."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to defend a decision I didn't remember making. But how could I? I didn't know who I'd been back then. Didn't know what I'd been thinking or feeling. All I knew was that the me in that memory had loved him enough to try to fall with him.
And then had loved herself more.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"Don't be." He turned fully away. "It taught me an important lesson. Love is just another form of weakness. And I refuse to be weak ever again."
He started walking.
"Daemon, wait."
He stopped but didn't turn around.
"If you truly believe love is weakness, why did you keep this room? Why preserve these memories?" I moved toward him. "Why bring me here and show me the truth?"
Silence stretched between us.
"Because," he finally said, his voice barely audible, "even after everything, even hating you as much as I do, I can't seem to let you go. And that's the cruelest torture of all."
He left me standing in that room of light and memory, surrounded by evidence of a love I couldn't remember but somehow felt echoing in my bones.
I looked back at the sphere. The light had gone completely dark now. But in my mind, I could still see it. Could see us, happy and whole and together.
Could see what we'd lost.
Heat spread across my scalp. More strands turning black. But this time, I wasn't sure if it was corruption or just grief.