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She thought I was here to take her up to salvation.

And she’d believed it couldn’t come to pass for her, believed she was damned and slated to be sentenced to an afterlife of torment.

All because of what she was?

Something she had no control over.

I brushed my fingers against hers and pulled on my power a little.

And then I felt it.

It was worse than that.

She’d been made into this hybrid form. It had been forced upon her.

I pulled a little harder.

Memories flooded into me. Just surface memories, because I couldn’t delve any deeper while she was in this state, or it could undo her.

Crossborn.

Loneliness.

Hopelessness.

Grief.

Devastation.

And through all of that, the urge to do good, to make the lives of others better than hers had been thus far, rose above the rest.

And she’d still believed she was damned?

I gritted my teeth.

No.

It wasn’t how it should be.

There was no righteousness in that.

It was all… wrong.

I’d also registered that she’d been propelled out here due to the Hellfire I’d seen Ariana battling. Hellfire from a manufactured weapon that shouldn’t exist.

This wasn’t her fate.

That weapon wasn’t supposed to be.

As such, she shouldn’t have been thrown out here and made vulnerable enough for that fiend to stab her.

This wasn’t order.

“You are far from being damned,little shadow.”

“I’m… darkness.”

“That is what you were made into, notwhoyou are. I can see it… so much light blazing around you.” I smiled as her eyes widened in disbelief, a spark of hope breaking through. “You are much more than this.” I pressed my hand to her forehead. She was feverish, her skin on fire with it. “You will show them. You will show them all.”