Darkness breathed around him.
Lucifer opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the heavy shadow that curled across his skin like a second flesh. His chest burned where Adam's blow had landed, but there was no pain now. Only cold. Cold that seeped into his bones and out the other side, as though he was standing half in reality, half in something older.
He pushed himself to his feet.
The ground beneath him wasn't stone or earth. It was… something between blood and shadow, shifting under his boots like liquid glass. The air was thick, metallic on his tongue. He exhaled softly, steam curling from his lips in thin red wisps.
Above him, three moons hung in the black sky. Massive. Red. Bleeding light down onto the realm. They pulsed slowly, almost like beating hearts. The sky itself was pitch black, dotted with faint white sparks like a dying ember field.
He turned in a slow circle, scanning the landscape.
