Pure but dark. Night but day. Even when hate fills our hearts, the light will find a way.

Prayers 104

Like cracks spider webbing through broken glass, stabbing pain cascaded through Noranda. Doubled over and frozen in place, she clutched at her heart while the amulet of her Dark Lord hanging about her neck burned. Her weight supported by the observatory's threshold, she struggled to remain upright and also comprehend the suddenness of the under worldly wrath unleashed upon her.

She had been seeking more clues to the future by using the dwarven built device. But now the fallen angel was fighting back pain so immense and crushing to her tainted soul, that her teeth ground together. She summoned forth more strength than she thought she possessed, all for the singular purpose of preventing a painful scream from bursting out of her. Her thoughts blinded as every second of the torment she endured seared itself into her and reminded her of a time long ago; a time when she had experienced similar anguish and righteous punishment at the hands of the Greater Goddess.

Baring the pain, the fallen angel took heed as the foreboding voice of the darkest of all the gods spoke to her. "Betray me again, and I shall unleash upon you the full power of my wrath."

As suddenly as it had come, the admonishment ended and the medallion of her god returned to its normal, lifeless state. Noranda removed it from beneath her robes and stared at the symbol now devoid of an unholy presence. "Why are you displeased with me, my Lord? I don't understand. What have I done to anger you?"

But her plea for an answer went without response as Noranda drew in a breath that shuddered in her lungs. She rubbed at the ache in her chest and closed her eyes, swallowing heavily as the pain caused her to remember how Descist punished those that failed him. That punishment would be thousands of times worse than her banishment from heaven to the mortal world.

Determined for answers, and that she would have to find them for herself, Noranda returned to the observatory and stared to the reproduced heavens above her. "Why?" She asked again, this time to herself as she scanned the dome, knowing the information she desired resided there.

And that is when she saw it; a star at the base of the constellation representing the Greater Goddess flickered. But the stars were just painted on representations. They didn't have the ability to illuminate or act as this one did.

Focused on the light, Noranda recounted the name of each star that comprised the formation in the night sky. Each had a name corresponding to one of the Greater Goddess's archangels, and the flickering star was known by many. It was called Ule in elvish, Galesh Ru in dwarvish, and in the common tongue of the humans, it was simply known as The Accuser; named after her.

She squinted at the anomaly, cursing its very existence silently at first. Then calling out in realization, "I know you're here!" The only response was the continued glittering of the star that shouldn't be there as it mocked her calls by remaining mute.

Infuriated by the silence, Noranda gathered dark forces to her. Like a torrent they came, and she lashed out, unleashing black streaks of lightning upon the anomaly. The surrounding stonework shattered into uncountable particles of fine dust. But still the flickering light remained, hovering there and taunting her.

"Noranda," a voice called to her; her own voice.

"No." She refused to accept what she was hearing. "This is not possible."

"Why?" the voice asked, sickeningly pleasant and sweet.

Noranda pondered striking at it again, but chose to answer it instead when she realized how futile the outburst would have been. "Because you are no more. I killed you. You're dead!"

"As long as you exist, Noranda, so will I," the voice replied, and the light continued to twinkle. "It is now time. I have come for you."

"I reject you!" Noranda screamed back at the beacon hanging there before her.

"You cannot reject yourself," it responded.

Her patience pushed to its limit, Noranda gave into her urges and prepared to strike at the light once more, but it flared into a brilliant beacon and blinded the fallen angel, forcing her down to her knees before it. Shielding her eyes, Noranda remained in disbelief as she saw the being of dark hair and white robes with angelic wings hovering in front of her.

Noranda gasped and retreated. She looked upon the face that was her own, and her hand covered her mouth opened wide in horror. "This can't be."

The form that could have been her twin spoke. "Noranda, enough of this. Come to me. Come home."

"You can't exist. It's not possible." Unconsciously Noranda conjured another bolt of lightning from her fingers to strike down the luminous being.

The attack hit its mark, but instead of the angel reacting, it was Noranda who endured pain scorching through her darkened being once more. She slumped back to the ground, while the angelic form watched, unharmed. "What are you?" she demanded.

"Is it not obvious? I am you, Noranda," the angel replied.

"You lie! You're a trick." Noranda spat her reply. "Sent here by Earoni to confuse me. It won't work."

"I am no trick," the being countered her accusation. "I am the manifestation of what you once were and what you still are. I am your soul, pure and strong."

"Lies!" Standing uneasily and wracked with pain, Noranda grabbed the medallion bearing the form of the serpent about her neck. Using it to focus her strength, the surrounding air began to grow frigid and dark as she sensed the presence of her god come to her.

The angel looked to the representation of the heavens. "My time is short here, Noranda. Please don't do this."

"You are nothing of me!" Noranda proclaimed.

"Noranda," the angel warned as her form faded slightly. She perceived a living darkness as it closed in to suppress her, a void so great that it could snuff out the universe in a single breath. "This is not the way it was meant to be. I know that you can feel it despite what pain you have suffered. For I feel it as well. Earoni will accept us back." And with that, the being reached out her hand.

"You can not know what I have endured." Noranda shuddered, her skin growing raw and icy as the darkness from the deepest and most unholy bowels of the world consumed everything. "Begone foul vision!"

A crash like thunder ensued that rattled the palace to its very foundations and then - nothing. There was no trace left of the angel, only the blackened, cratered stones of the floor where the holy servant once stood.

Noranda relaxed her guard, allowing the gloom to recede. Still she believed it to be some sort of trick and shook her head as she feared all these years of waiting for revenge in a mortal shell had finally driven her mad.

The only small comfort was the warmth now radiating from the medallion she wore. But it was not enough. She had too much built up inside her; too many raw and primal urges from a variety of emotions usually kept so well under control. Rage, confusion, frustration, and fear all swirled within her like a bubbling cauldron. Tapping into all the rawness of these parts of her, Noranda slammed her hand down onto the half orb on which was painted the southern hemisphere of Geiha. No longer contained, all her passions rushed out of her in a massive roar of power, shattering the globe and sending the gears and mechanics beneath the floor into a cascade of destruction.

Descist stood amongst the swirling darkness of the abyss. Before him, a pool of molten rock swirled and showed him all that was happening in the palace observatory. Teeth tight in restrained furor, he observed the image of the fallen angel who served him as she stormed out after wrecking destruction upon the once magnificent device.

"You control the mind and body." Octavia's form resolved in the blackness. "But her soul is still that of an angel."

"She has betrayed me," Descist snarled.

"What she is betrays you," Octeava corrected. "But Noranda's mortal shell is as loyal to you as the hound to its master."

"I should not spare her." His wrath withheld, the Dark Lord lamented his decisions.

"If you destroyed her, you would have lost perhaps your most valuable ally," the Fate of Chaos said. "The only one capable of controlling and maintaining the Child of Darkness to our side in this conflict."

Descist deplored those words and the truth he feared behind them. "Without the spirit she is nothing to me."

"The body has power too, and it is power enough." Octeava calmly folded her hands into the sleeves of her black robes. "Humans are always troublesome. You must harness the power that is available to you. Make her not wish to embrace that of her which is still of the Greater Goddess. She has no conscious thought of what the purest part of her does."

"Which makes her even more dangerous." Descist returned to his underworldly seat of stone

"Soon you will control the spirit too." Octeava wanted him to realize how events would play out and not act in a manner that would be too rash. "She will come to you. The angel's soul will appear to you and then you will crush it. Then nothing can stand in our way."

Descist waved his hands and the image in the pool faded. "If she is not completely mine, Noranda's usefulness begins to wane."

The dark Fate reminded one last time. "Destroy her, and you destroy your hope for revenge."