The sky above them was blackened, not by night, but by a silence that had outlived the sun. The wind moved slow, dragging ash across the ground like old regrets. Luca stood with Simon, the earth beneath their feet still cracked from judgment. Neither had spoken for a while.
Finally, Luca broke the quiet.
"But Father… why do you refuse to show Gabriel the truth?" His voice carried no anger, only the kind of sorrow that builds up in someone who has seen too much and understood too little. He looked tired, not in body, but in soul. "Out of all five of us, he loved you the most. He followed you when the rest of us questioned. He believed in you more than all of us combined."
Simon didn't look at him. He stared ahead at the dying horizon, eyes dull yet burning. He wasn't the boy anymore. Not William. Not even Simon the Shepherd. He was something else now. Something unnameable. Something the heavens feared and the depths had begun to remember.
"I, on the other hand," Luca continued quietly, "betrayed you more times than I can count. Yet… you let me see everything."
His voice grew softer, like he was afraid of the answer.
"With Mike, I understand. Even if you told him the whole truth, nothing would change. He would stay loyal. Still your perfect son. But Gabriel"
Simon smiled. A slow, dry thing. It wasn't warm. It was a shadow of a memory that didn't belong in a human face. A smile not made for comfort, but survival.
"Gabriel has always been… mischievous," Simon said. "Don't confuse his curiosity for love. He feels, yes. But his feelings are shallow. Temporary. He gets bored and walks away. He looks back only when there's something shiny."
He turned to face Luca. His gaze was hollow, yet it burned like a furnace inside a dying cathedral.
"Tell me, with all the knowledge in his head, with all the techniques he holds… why is he the weakest among you?" he asked. "Because he lacks the one thing that matters: devotion. His love isn't loyalty, it's obsession with where I came from. He doesn't love me. He loves my origin. There's a difference."
Simon's tone turned cold.
"I can't count on him. But I can keep him interested. I can make sure he keeps looking."
Luca didn't reply. The wind stirred again, raising grey dust from the ground. It spun around Simon but did not touch him. Nothing ever did anymore.
Simon lowered his voice, but it carried like thunder.
"Don't speak of the past, Lucifer," he said, not cruelly, but with a finality that stilled the wind. "In this life, you are not my betrayer. You are my brother. Play that role. The part of me you once called 'Father' is sealed. And the part of you that betrayed me, and Michael, is sealed too. Let's not speak of things we don't fully remember. Not yet. We chose this path for a reason. Let's honor it."
Luca bowed his head slightly.
They sat there together, silent, like two ruins of ancient temples. The world seemed to dim around them. And then, slowly, Simon's eyes closed.
And the present… faded.
He was standing beneath the First Sky.
Before Eden. Before flesh. Before the first lie.
The Throne burned above, not with fire, but with presence. The stars weren't stars. They were eyes. Eyes that watched, and sang, and screamed.
Simon was not Simon then. He was light given form. One of the First Seven.
And beside him stood another.
Beautiful. Brilliant. Radiant.
The Morning Star.
Lucifer.
He hadn't fallen yet. His wings were wide, wider than the heavens themselves. They weren't heavy with pride back then. They carried sorrow. The kind of sorrow angels were never meant to bear.
They stood together at the Sea of Glass, where every future reflected in light too pure for time.
Lucifer turned to him.
"I've seen them," he whispered. "The ones made of clay. He intends to give them breath… like ours."
His voice trembled with something deeper than fear.
"Why them?"
Simon remembered how he had answered, even now.
"Because they're unfinished," he said. "And in their weakness, they are closer to Him than we are."
Lucifer's wings shook.
"Then I'll finish them myself," he said. "I'll teach them. Shape them. If they are to carry divinity, they should learn from the one who has seen it all."
That was the beginning.
Not of rebellion.
But of a promise.
And promises in Heaven were like oaths carved in fire.
Then came the war.
Angels tore at each other. Grace cracked. Harmonies broke like bones. What was once song became screams. What was once light turned to ruin.
Michael fought.
Raphael fell.
Gabriel wept.
Lucifer burned.
Simon remembered standing still as the sky itself cracked apart. The Throne dimmed. And the One who had sat on it… went silent.
He never spoke again.
Simon opened his eyes.
He was back in the present, sitting beside Luca in a world too broken to heal.
"Do you regret it?" Simon asked quietly.
Luca looked at him, his eyes tired but still sharp.
"Which part?"
"The fall. The betrayal. The silence."
Luca exhaled slowly. The air around them trembled.
"I regret nothing," he said. "Except that He stopped speaking."
Simon's eyes lit gold.
"Then help me make Him speak again."
And then, softer, so soft even Luca almost didn't hear it, Simon said to the wind:
"If He won't speak... then I will take His place. After all… we are two sides of the same coin."
Luca turned toward him, but the words were already gone. Something in his mind refused to hold them. Erased. Forgotten. Like a name wiped from the Book.
Then the ground shifted beneath them.
The air thickened.
The world seemed to groan.
Something deep, ancient, stirred beneath the dirt. It moved like a memory too old to die.
"The seals," Luca whispered. "They're breaking."
"They must," Simon said, rising to his feet.
"And when they do?"
Simon didn't hesitate.
"Then the old war begins again. But this time…"
He turned to Luca, the fire in his eyes no longer hidden.
"This time, we finish it."
And with that, the memory vanished. But the fire in Simon's eyes stayed, burning quietly beneath the ash of a forgotten heaven.