The silent forest was a pleasant alternative to the abandoned club. At least there, slipping between the pine trunks silently, his loneliness could be passed as intentional. He was the last one left on Earth. Even in his own blinded eyes, that stood out. Not that it was anything particularly odd. It wasn't Bezel's first time getting left behind. It wasn't even his second, or the third. If he counted all the cold nights when his immortal soul had faded into a mortal death, then it wasn't even ranked among the top ten. He should be more familiar with it by now. The perfect quiet. The cold air that rested against his cool skin. The mask crumbled on its hinges, leaving Bezel's true blank self fully exposed. And yet, there was undeniable strangeness to the stiff air. As if the show had continued, the audience veiled just beyond the curtains. If that was the case, then Bezel still had lines to deliver from his rusted jaws. 

He walked through the woods, as stoic and haunting as a ghost. The sunrise seemed galaxies away, its golden light was unable to cut through the thick pine nettles overhead to reach him. Or maybe it didn't feel the need to illuminate Bezel's path. Luckily, Bezel didn't require the sun's guidance to chase the trees towards the water. 

The thicket was much different from the last time he had seen it, choked with holy knights and whimpering priests. There was more life this time around. Not that it was meant for him to observe. His presence was a vacuum, forcing a cold breeze into the humid summer morning. One the inhabitants of the forest could feel. Some small furry creature chittered at him from a high branch. Overhead, birds fluttered into flight to escape his shadow. 

Jays and pigeons were the least of his problems, he knew. A fact that only grew more and more evident as the pine began to thin ahead. Bezel could hear their prayers carried in on the lake breeze, pressed back towards the shore as faithfully as the waves. The platoon Ira had warned him of. Bezel nearly scoffed to chase away the thought. What did he have to fear from Ossein-armed Heimrians? No, they were as fitful as pollen-heavy bumble bees. Bezel had nothing to worry about from them. 

Not from them, he thought, but their patrons. 

". . . hear my plea, grant me in me desperation. . ." 

". . . dear angels, grant us strength so that we may save this unworthy place," 

"Protect me so that I may protect others. . ."

Their cries filled Bezel's ears, begging in agony for what he had been so easily born with: power. Not that he had much left. What hadn't been burned away in the gate, he had stuck to Ira Rule to buy him time down below. There was just enough left to keep Bezel from fading into a Fourth of July finale. Which meant he had to do this without tricks, illusions, or Mayvalt there to soften him. The odds weren't great. Bezel stepped from the last of the forest's cloak. His polished leather shoes sunk into the thick sand, vanishing down to the laces. 

The lake was only a few meters further. The nearest knight, just a few steps beyond that. The woman was submerged up to her hips in the waters of Lake Seneca, her Ossein sword she held slung over her shoulder. Likely to keep it from the holy water's boiling touch. Her black cloaks dragged in the gentle waves at her side, casting a net of silky fabric to swirl in the silt at the bottom of the pool.

His kris caught the sunlight glittering freely over the beach, washing the waters in sparkling white waves. Maybe it was that little flash of silver that drew the nearest knight's attention. Maybe it was the chill he carried on the surface of his skin. Her eyes fluttered to Bezel. Confused at first, squinting beneath her creased eyebrows. He could see it the moment the pieces came into place for her. Her brown eyebrows snapped upwards, disappearing into her curls. She raised her sword over her head, slashing the white bone through the sky in the same manner as an air traffic conductor signaling with their neon baton. 

The knight stationed about ten feet towards her left side was the first to catch her signal. He turned to face her, tongue still rolling behind his teeth. She met his eye and clenched her fist, bringing it to a thump against the center of her chest. His gaze swung towards the beach then, finding Bezel on the sand. He probably would have liked to keep his cool, acting as statuesque as a garden gnome--but his expression betrayed him. His face twisted up, draining of color. His body contorted in a similar fashion, snapping around to face the next knight down the line. The soldier lifted his Ossein tipped spear above his head to gain attention. Once he had it, he repeated the same clenched fist thump as the first soldier. It was a domino game after that. The fear spread along both sides of the lake, zipping from knight to knight. Weapons raised, fists made and pressed to their ribs. It was no sign that Bezel recognized, but well, that was probably much of the point. 

He watched it play out, golden eyes chasing their flickering movements down the shore. The Prince slanted his stance to take on an appearance of carefree laziness. He slung his weapon over his shoulder, mimicking the position of the first knight he had seen. She had looked bored and docile that way--he hoped to appeal to that. Settling into a sleepy slouch was the easiest part. It was the waiting that vexed his imaginary temper. He knew if the Bishop had been there, he would have taken to shouting orders until he was obeyed. Mayvalt would have shoved past the warriors, using her bo to knock them flat in the lake. But Ira and Mayvalt had left--there was nothing left of them in Heimr. Well, nothing but the cut on Bezel's lip from where Ira had pinned his vulnerable skin against his own fangs. And that little scrape was hardly enough to chanel Ira Rule. So he waited. Doing nothing but soaking in the early morning sun until his cold flesh began to warm. 

The sunrise crept upwards, staining more and more of the horizon beyond the blue lake a burnt orange. At the halfway point, when snowy white clouds began to drink up the color of the sky returning it to a calm teal, was when Bezel's waiting seemed to draw to a close. A knight was wading through the lake towards him, head bowed so that Bezel could only see the top of their gray hair and where it hung down to lay against their black robes.

The ceremonial cloak was drenched in lake water, turning it an even inkier shade of night. Except where it was stained blood red along the edges, trimmed in shimmering scarlet fabric. That meant something--but Bezel couldn't remember what. Stronger than the fading recollection of his enemies silly traditions, was the scene of how it looked cast aside. How Ira's pale fingers had stripped the fabric from his thin shoulders, tossing it to crumple on the dirtied club floor. It was no feat of strength to blend in with a crowd. But it was certainly an act of devotion to break away from one. 

In any case--those useless garments were better worn by tile and old gum wrappers.

The knight climbed from the lake, cutting a path diagonally towards Bezel. As their paths drew nearer, the knight dropped their spear from the shoulder to hold it in their hands. The wooden staff dragged along the surface of the rippling waves, carving a small wake along the surface of the shifting waters. Bezel walked forward, to the edge of the sand. The whispering edges of the tide made attempts to grab him, begging for his divine flesh. 

The knight came to a rest just beyond the lip of the waters, where the lake was only deep enough to cling to the bottom of their ruined leather shoes. Bezel forced up a wince, one that rose into his pinched shoulders and pained expression. The soldier lifted their head, facing Bezel for the first time. Well, he found out, not exactly facing. Her pale face was curtained by long locks of silver hair. Her eyelids rested over the surface of her eyes, lashes sleeping against the tops of her cheeks. She was corpse still--except her mouth that rolled and whispered slumbering prayers. It was an image that reminded Bezel of his brother. Of how he had looked walking beneath the rotting flesh of the dead, forcing up her tongue to deliver his vile promises of war. 

"I don't suppose you could all stop doing that?" Bezel asked. 

The woman did not pause her prayers, instead she melted her replies into them. Blending with her soft voice, until it was hard to pick apart what was meant for him and what was meant for his distant kin. "We can not, lest a beast rise on our watch. . . our transgressions we hold against you, we beg you forgive us those angers,"

"Oh. . . 'kay." Bezel said, lifting his eyebrows. 

"Why have you come, Third Prince?" The woman asked. Her voice was strong as spider silk, and just as entrancing. She bowed her face once more and whispered softly towards the waters licking her boots, promising the waves sweet nothings to deliver home to the ears of her vain feather preening protectors. 

"Sightseeing." Bezel shrugged. 

"You mock us?" She scoffed. ". . . our dear angels, forgive us. . . for we are not worthy," 

Bezel lifted his palms in meek surrender. "No, no. Sorry. That just slipped out. I only came to help. You should have gotten an email. Your Cardinal is on my side now. We're doing this little teamup thing." 

The woman barked one harsh note of laughter between her prayers. "His Excellency would never have agreed to lay in the bed of the devil."

"Woah, slow down there. No one said anything about laying together." Bezel protested. "Absal-" 

"How dare you attempt to speak the name of any one of us, unfit devil!" She hissed. ". . . and yet we beg, please forgive us for our weakness. . . " 

Bezel sighed. "Okay, fine. I'll cut to the chase scene."

"What?" The woman paused, momentarily stuttering in her methodic prayer-pleading. 

"It's an expression." Bezel explained. "It means to skip to the most interesting part." 

"I--hm, well." The woman frowned before returning back to her hummed out hymnals. 

"Okay, so you've never heard of it before but that's fine." Bezel said. The woman might have rolled her eyes beneath her shut eyelids. "Point being I need all of you to stop those blessings for about twenty--eh, maybe thirty minutes."

"Blessed angels above. . ." the knight scowled. "Why would we do a thing like that, devil?" 

"To save the world?" Bezel suggested. 

". . .forgive us our weakness. . . " She prayed. 

"To save your precious little angels from Mammon advancing to their territory?" 

". . . may one day we be united. . . " 

Bezel lifted his fingers to his lips, tapping along the bruised flesh there in a display of thoughtfulness. "What do you want? A penthouse, a car? I have no use for any of my gathered Heimrian objects. You can have all of them--there's a lot of cash." 

"Begging is a sign of weakness." She said. 

"Then I'm not begging," Bezel grunted. "I'm praying and that is my penance." 

"You mock us again." She pointed. ". . .  your kin shall protect us for generations, we appeal to thee to make it so. . ." 

"Look," Bezel winced, meeting her shut eyes wearily. "I mean listen. This is for your greater good. It would immensely benefit us all if you gave me a head start here." 

"There is no way to convince me, demon. I am not as weak as the Soul, I can not be corrupted." She growled. ". . . burn the unworthy. . ."

"Yeah, yeah," Bezel scoffed. "Your soul is all holy and stuff." 

The woman laughed, forcing creases into Bezel's raised eyebrows. "The Soul, foolish Prince."

Bezel's unstirring heart didn't beat, didn't whimper--but he felt the ghost-like sting of it behind his ribs. "My Soul," he said, "the one the angels took from me. You know of it?" 

"Who among us doesn't know the Soul?" She said, head bowed. ". . . forgive him, angels, the one you gave to save us," 

"You know where the angels placed it?" Bezel knew better than to ask stupid questions, they only ever came with equally stupid answers. But his tongue had been hooked, yanked along by the puppet strings he used to make himself appear human. The invisible and entirely Heimrian part of Bezel that longed for an answer--to where his Soul had gone, why he could no longer feel it, and what he had to do to get it back. A human part that didn't really exist--since Bezel was far from human. 

The woman screwed up her lips into a scowl, as if Bezel was a sick kitten mewling at her boot. "In the one place you will never find it, devil. Right beneath your nose." 

Bezel frowned, creasing his eyebrows into fictitious thought. There was nothing under his nose but his lips, which hummed from the power he had recently channeled into them. "There's no point in keeping that secret, knight. I'm leaving Heimr tonight. I have already lost." 

"Then I am keeping this secret only to spite you further, demon Prince." She laughed. ". . . he who you delivered to save us, strengthen him," 

"Okay, yeah," Bezel sighed. "Fine, be that way. I'm only risking my tail to save your world. Which is an expression--I don't have a tail anymore, and if I did it would be the cheapest price I'm willing to pay to see this war never happens." 

"You wish to be seen as our savior, Prince? Is that why you go so far?" The woman asked from her dreamily drifting tongue. ". . . we pay for our sins with the blood of your enemy. . ."

Why do you do it? 

Ira Rule had asked him that, too. It was an impossible question. One that no answer could truly ever satisfy. 

"Because this is easier." Bezel shrugged. "I'm going to be dragged along no matter how much I kick and scream, I'd rather save my energy." 

"Then show us how easy it is, Third Prince." The knight chuckled darkly. Her spear shimmering in her grasp, turning pearl from the golden yellow sun. "Drown." 

"I'm going to speak to your manager about this, lady." Bezel growled sarcastically. "I'm leaving one star, and I'm never visiting again." 

The knight did not answer his taunts. She turned on her heels and walked back into the rising tides, the sounds of her prayers floating back to him on the wind and waves. Her cloak was licked up by the lake, dragging her down into the murky depths. She raised her spear over her shoulder, murmuring distantly. Bezel stood on the sands, his lips curled down into distaste. He wondered if Mayvalt would have had better luck. He should have brought Ira along at least. Even if there had been no time, the gate at Eden wouldn't have survived long enough for Ira to get back to it. Ira could have convinced them. Somehow. 

Bezel sucked in one breath and stepped forward into the water. The lake closed over the top of his leather shoe, eagerly awaiting the first taste of his flesh. The knights submerged up to their hips turned, gawking at him with widened eyes. Bezel lifted his free hand, the one not clasped around the hilt of his kris, and waved. They averted their gazes. Which was fine by Bezel. He didn't like the mosaic of Heimrian whims they wore on the surface of their pupils. 

Bezel turned his golden cat eyes towards his shoe resting in the water. The polished leather acted as some sort of a submarine, keeping the holy water from his skin for a moment more. Holy water was most feared by demons, most loved by humans--but it was wholly angelic. One of the oldest weapons of Elysium. Bezel was a creature of that place. And just as vulnerable to the magic as a beetle was to a boot. Something Mayvalt had lovingly pointed out back at Eden. 

He tilted his head in thought. When the rangale had cursed him, they had removed his ability to feel. Anything. The fabric of his shirt against his chest, the growling hunger in his stomach, the humor of a good joke. He did not even require oxygen to soothe the ache in his lungs. Because there was no ache at all, and not enough oxygen across all three realms to fill the pit inside of his chest. They had taken his ability to be. Hungry, thirsty, tired, breathless, enamored, angered, loved, curious. There was no space left for anything but the blackness. Which at the time, Bezel had foolishly accepted. It seemed the easiest of punishments. The sort that Bezel couldn't agonize over. A blissful escape from the heartache his life had been so full of. Only now, a question Bezel had never thought to ask before had risen up. Of all those things they had taken from him: had they left him pain? There were so few things in Heimr that had the ability to harm him, Bezel had never paused to wonder. 

His gaze fluttered to the teeth marks carved into his forearm, born from the growing flesh required to heal such a wound. He supposed not many people could sink their own fangs down to the bone, he supposed that it was because it hurt. Had it hurt? Bezel couldn't remember anymore. At the time, all that had mattered was the gate draining him of his life force. And last summer? When his nephew had driven a sword made of Elysium metals against him? Had that hurt? He realized, there was only one way left to answer his new found question. 

Bezel extended his leg, sliding the bottom of his leather shoe forward across the slippery sand. Holy water lurched for him as eagerly as starved lions, wrapping around the remainder of his submarine shoe and then some. It poured into the lip of his Italian lace-ups, and kissed the bare skin of his ankle. Water flickered up to soak the cusp of his black slacks. 

And Bezel had his answer. Lake Seneca was frigid. As cold as the heart of the deepest darkest trenches of the Arctic Ocean. So cold it turned hot instead, sending strange fuzziness up into his limbs. Where it collided with his body, his muscles were forced to tense over his bone. Bezel stiffened his jaw, lifting his gaze to the horizon. How strange, he thought, to finally feel. Was it because the lake was magic from a place the rangale could never have dared to influence? Elysium power was beyond anything Avernians could dream of, afterall. Lengths stronger. 

He forced his legs deeper into the boil, his gaze trained on the sunrise emerging from the other side of the lake. Water licked up to his thighs. Smoke thick with the scent of scorched flesh curled along the surface of the water. Bezel had seen demons dissolve into foam from the touch of a heavenly blessing. He had seen Ely do the same. And now it was his turn to burn.

His fingers curled tighter over the handle of his kris. The tongue of the sword was heavy across his shoulder. He turned his fuzz-filled brain towards that invisible touch, imagining that the chill rushing to fill his flushed skin was from the soft kiss of the blade against the side of his throat. 

Lakewater rose to his stomach. Beneath the waves, his skin bubbled and burst. Bezel's dress shirt soaked up the waves, hissing and spitting where it rested against his abdomen. His legs shook, trembling as the muscles required to keep them upright melted away. He managed six more steps before he fell. His momentum spat him forward. His chest hit the surface, followed by his face. Any air he had been uselessly storing in his lungs was expelled, forced out in a silent scream of bubbles. 

Bezel sunk to the bottom, sitting on his hands and knees in the swirling murky silt. It was almost perfect beneath that blanket of silence, tranquil and completely still. Well, except for the agony leaching into every cell of his being. 

Bezel slipped his sword from his shoulder and placed the talon-like hilt between his fangs. He clenched his jaws down until the handle creaked. Once he was sure he had it locked in his grip, he began to crawl forward along the bottom of Lake Seneca. Crawling was, well, quite humbling. Luckily, he didn't plan on making it to the bottom that way. 

Bezel moved slowly out, until the water hung several feet above his back. He collected his feet beneath himself, bracing them against the slimy sand bottom, and used the bank as a launching pad. The Prince shot out vertically from the shore, coasting for half a pace before the drag of the waves forced his weakened legs and trembling arms to begin kicking. 

The blade pressed against his chest, bumping him from the efforts of his graceless drowning. The tip rested over the scar he wore there. The bite of its steel tongue reminded him of things best left forgotten. So did the cool embrace of water against his skin, how it lapped at the edges of his muscle, biting them down until they were just bits of pink over his bones. Leaving him no more flesh to bury his past beneath. 

He extended his arms, digging his fingers into the waves to propel himself down towards the sand, dark, and cold. Not that it mattered very much with the holy water rotting away his strength, but Bezel had always been a skilled swimmer. As a child, he had known the sea. It was the end of his word, wrapped tight around the shores of his home. Diving, spear in hand, was the only way he could find to keep his mortal mother from starving. And himself, from a time when his body had needed such things as food and air. But he had owed it to her especially, a poor Heimrian woman who had been chased out of her village for birthing the devil--the first life Bezel had ruined. 

His fangs buried into the talon clenched between his jaws, gritting down to chase out the taste of fish cooked over hot stones. She was the first, but far from the last Heimrian he drove to death. There was a lake, far away from this one. Bezel had been in the waters the night he met his Soul. A Heimrian knight dressed in glowing silver armor, his sword raised. A weapon that had ripped into Bezel's ribs. Just a breaths' width from his beating heart. A Vestige wielder--one of the first of the angel's soldiers. Until Bezel had corrupted him with meaningless promises and secret touches. The price of falling had been fire. The scent of smoke scorching Bezel's lungs, curling from what they left of his body. That was carved into Bezel's mind. 

He kicked his charred legs, pushing himself through the murky depths. His body became lighter, harder to move down, as pieces of it peeled away. And then there had been this very lake, last summer when he had used the Bishop as a conduit to stop his older brother's invasion. How the Progeny has shunned him, turning him out for seeking odd aid from the enemy. How achingly familiar it all was. Just like him. Bezel wondered how Ira's story would end, then. If Bezel's place in it would drive him off the cliff. Just as it did to every Heimrian he touched. Their skin melted, bubbling into black ash--and Bezel went on. Even beginning to forget the way their voices sounded when they weren't screaming for mercy. And it was his fault. 

So, this much was nothing. This trial was insignificant compared to their Heimrian suffering. He deserved to be burned, too--knowing that not even this much could wash away his sins of being. That his skin would grow back, just as stained in their blood as it had always been. 

Bezel's eyelids might have opened--or they might have been flayed away--but the ending remained the same. He stared into the inky depths with his attuned golden eyes. And there it was. The gate. It was easy to spot--it was the only source of light in the lake. And it was massive. A rift ripped into Heimr, that had been made with much more power than Bezel had first imagined. 

The hole consumed much of the bottom of Lake Seneca, expanding much further out than Bezel could bear to swim to. The portal, unlike the weak sliver Bezel had managed, served as a clear window into Avernus beyond. Into the heart of Hell. Where there should have been lakebed, there was rust red skies. Bezel kicked desperately, reaching with worn fingers. 

His jaw creaked, going slack as the water bore down into his bones. His kris slipped from his grip, fluttering through the water until it sank to the bottom--vanishing into the gate. 

Well, at least it works. Bezel thought, like throwing a pebble into a black hole. 

He stretched out his hand, reaching to escape the flames which engulfed him. Just as they had. Their mercy had come to them as death, taking them away where Bezel couldn't find them. Not for the first time, he wished he could enjoy the bitterness of a goodbye. 

Hollow air licked along the exposed bones of his hands, cooling the freezing fire on his wet skin--or whatever was left of skin. Bezel grasped at the blankness of it, fingers flailing through nothing at all but empty space. Not air, or heat, or warmth. Just blissful apathy. He kicked his worn legs, pushing himself down into the pocket of Hell offered to him. Swimming down, every centimeter of his body strained by the force it took, became weightless falling in a second. His limbs went limp, surrendering into agony and exhaustion. Bezel followed his momentum, tumbling into the bottom of Lake Seneca, all the way through to the other side. 

The wind whipped at his bare eyes, stinging them with heavy smog and even thicker ash. He wanted to shout with his rotten lungs, he wanted to call out from his swollen tongue. He had made it. He did it. The relief which might have been there would have only lasted for only a second. Just long enough for Bezel's leather shoes to emerge from the gate--and then it was quickly replaced with a new challenge: free falling into the pits of Hell. Bezel plummeted. The air whistled past his ears, reminding him of something he had tried his hardest to forget. As the ground rushed towards him, rust red dust mounds and orange jagged rocks, he thought how achingly familiar the feeling was. The feeling of being cast out, and plummeting all the way down.