Chapter 14

Caelel Silverhawk knew she was making history. In the long annals of Heaven, so few angels had fallen that many a demon she had met thought the very idea was a myth – and even those that had (if they had) had never returned to face the punishment that befit the crime of turning away from the Creator’s light. She did not know a single instance of Purification being carried out on this scale – especially not after the offending angel’s wings had been removed. The aching stumps she felt against her shoulder blades reminded her too painfully that history did not always come easily. She could hear the heavy weight of the Proctor moving behind her.

The angel that had taught her everything she knew – the angel that had seen countless generations of war-angels through their training and into the fires of the eternal war against Hell – stood behind her, shirtless, nearly nude, his golden body anointed in oil, his scarred features set and determined. And Cae?

Cae arched her back ever so subtly. She tightened her buttocks and bit her lower lip. She craned her head over her shoulder, giving him a look that dared him. A look that goaded him. A look that said: Well? Come on. Do it. Do it. Do it.

The Proctor did not seem taken aback by the sensual movement of her body ... but his eyes did flick down for just a moment. They flicked back up again – and she wondered, had the settled on her delicious ass? She grinned, ever so slightly ... and that was enough to set him over his edge. The whip cracked and a harsh flare of brilliant, almost silver pain crashed along her back. The blow had landed below her wings, horizontally along her skin. It drew a bright line of reddened skin that shone like she was being heated in a blacksmith’s forge, gold turning to ruby under pressure and heat. The line crossed diagonally, tapering off near her hip. A thin line of steam rose from it as the throbbing pain eased and slumped through her body.

In the aftermath of pain, there was supposed to be a blinding clarity. An awareness of the vastness of Creation and the depths of one’s Sin.

Instead, she merely felt sensation. The coolness of the floor against her stretched toes, the ache of her shoulders, the bite of the chain around her wrists. Her nipples were hard enough to cut glass and her sex was glimmering with arousal. She ducked her head forward and her hair tumbled around her cheeks as she tightened her hands into fists.

“Harder.”

The Proctor, drawing his arm back, hesitated. “What?”

She lifted her head and laughed. “I’ve been smacked in bed harder than- ahh!” She cried out as the whip cracked down again. This line crossed with the first, another ruby bright slash across her. The stinging sensation overlapped, overwhelmed, then cascaded through her as she arched her back against the whipping. Her ragged breathing filled the air and she wished so badly to flex her wings – the stifled movements of her stumps was not enough. She clenched her teeth, then continued. “ ... than that. Out of practice, Pro- ahhh!” She cried out again as he whipped her again ... then again and again. The blows started to fall faster and faster and each time they struck, she bucked her hips, writhed, strained against the chains.

Tears beaded at the corner of her eyes – but her moans and gasps were never the piteous mewls of someone begging release. Or. At least. Not that release. Not the release the angels had come to witness. They had expected shame. Well, she would feed them none.

“Yes!” She cried out as the next blow landed at the nape of her neck, then looped around – the whip having its own wily, serpentine mine. Some mischance or deliberate effort caused it to look around her throat and draw tight, squeezing the air from her ... just enough to be felt, not enough to truly choke her. Around the tightening, she let out a gay giggle, and groaned. “Harder! Choke me ... I’ve been a bad angel.” She laughed again as, with unseemly haste, the Proctor stepped close and wrenched the whip free, using his hand to tug it from around her neck without actually choking her more. His proximity, his heat, made her loins ache as she strained her hips to try and buck against him, which caused him to withdraw as if she was the one who had the whip, the chains, other implements of punishment and piety.

Cae laughed again. She had Citri whispering in her ear. Use your flame. Burn them with your passions.

It was all about territory, wasn’t it. Ceding ground, giving her room to maneuver. She looked away from the Proctor and to the onlooking crowd. Many were confused. Some were stunned. Others more, appalled. But she saw a few that had an expression she knew so well. She had felt it, masklike, on her face, in her early days in the Realm of Ruin. When she had first see Ruti’s member, vast and tumescent and just begging to be kissed. Licked. Caressed. That attentive, focused, shocked look, that face that said: What am I seeing? Why can I not look away?

Her grin was feral.

The Proctor snarled. “I know what you’re doing,” he said, his voice low.

“Oh?” she panted. “Is it working?”

He growled softly. “You will rue this ... mockery.” He snapped his fingers twice and the cart that carried his tools for the Purification was shifted around. Cae watched as the Proctor stomped over to the cart and wondered which implement he would select next. His hand drifted over the metal pear, the clamps, the collar, the gag ... then, to her surprise, continued on to the decorative candles surrounding them. He picked one up, lifting it from its seat with a quiet grunt. The flame flickered as wax beaded in the tiny cup that the wick created. The scent of the candle struck her back to some of her earliest memories. It was a sacred candle, holy. Blessed. The tingling in her nose made her almost want to sneeze.

“I didn’t think I was mocking anything...” Cae whispered, her voice husky. “Did not the Creators give us body? Flesh, supple and true, with which to touch and feel and love? Your scripture claims she brought our world into pain – if so, why is there so much-”

The Proctor tilted and a droplet of bright, hot white wax splashed onto her breast, coating an area roughly the size of her thumb, a single droplet beading down against her achingly hard silver nipple. The burning sensation of the wax against her skin drew from her a sound between a mewl and a moan. She hung limp as the sensation eased ever so slightly as the Proctor watched her face. His eyes flashed furiously.

“Your lies will not warp my will,” he murmured.

Another droplet. This one swept past her tit and instead skidded along her belly after almost missing her entirely. The beads caught and rolled along the runnels of her muscles and each stinging caress made her want to sob with the sensation. How could something feel so painful and so blessed at once? Steam rose from the beading wax as it clung, then hardened against her skin. She panted softly, her wing-stumps twitching. She wished so badly to spread her wings, to show the whole world what she felt. Instead, she lifted her chin, and crooned quietly.

“Is that the best you have, blackguard?” she whispered, huskily. “Or are you working yourself up to it?”

Another droplet, this against her shoulder. Before she could even hiss in pleasure-pain another droplet came, then another. One caught on her hip, another on her buttocks, staining her golden skin with white. She moaned quietly as the beads dried and hardened against her. She was looking as if she had been flecked with paint and the steam rising off the wax reminded her of the holy incense they burned at the front lines of battles. The smell of it was intoxicating and delicious. She let out a throaty chuckle.

“Are you hard?”

“You really are a hell-bitch, aren’t you?” The Proctor whispered behind her. He held out the candle and she felt the heat of the flame against the nape of her neck. Droplet after droplet seared her back, her buttocks, sliding between the crack, teasing her taint. One droplet clung and crawled with the same tenacity as Lord Arral’s lips, seeking out the folds of her cunt, but it was extinguished between her thighs, pricking the sensitive insides of her legs before it went cool. She panted softly, raggedly, trying to keep herself from sobbing with the sensation. When she was able to speak again, she hissed out.

“Y-You know what demons called me?”

Another droplet. It blazed against her exposed bicep now – he was holding the candle above her outstretched arm. The bead dripped and formed a glittering stalactite hanging from her elbow.

“I assume they called you slattern ... easy use whore, for you spread your thighs for each of them, didn’t you, Fallen One?”

Droplet on her shoulder. Then, risking her hair, a droplet splashed her cheek. She cried out aloud – but she shaped her voice, as she would sculpt a line of spearmen on the battle, to present their blades to onrushing cavalry. She made the sound a joyous moan, her hips bucking as she grinned wide and wicked.

“Mostly they called me General,” she grinned. “But when they were losing, they enjoyed calling me bitch.” She snapped her head, shooting a look at the Proctor – her eyes speaking the question as loudly as her body did: And what are you, oh war-angel? Oh sword of Heaven?

The Proctor drew his candle back. When her eye flicked down, she saw that the loincloth he wore about his broad hips was showing a faint stiffening. Despite his efforts, he was beginning to have the oh so natural reaction of a woman enjoying everything one does to her. In that subtle shifting, the Proctor could feel the battlefield slipping beneath him, sliding away as inexorably as a general seeing a flank give way to a sudden charge. Cae had read the journals of generals who had lost and survived – a rare treasure in the Realms, where many a head rolled for that kind of failure. Those that did not hide in their sniveling accusations of the other side’s unholy natures spoke of the feeling of powerlessness, of knowing that orders would not be heeded, that desperate commands might come to officers already dead, to bolster the will of soldiers who had already given way to fear, to panic, to the knowledge of their defeat.

She saw that look in the Proctor’s eyes.

“You’re wingless,” he growled softly. “What do you think you can accomplish? You’ve already lost it all.”

“Then why are you stopping the dripping?” Cae crooned.

The angels who watched the purification were leaning in now. And the Proctor responded just as she had expected. He stepped around before her front and then began to apply his sacred candle with a wild abandon. He didn’t simply drip it. He flashed it from side to side, swinging it as if it was a knife – or a paintbrush – sending the droplets scattering across her body, bright silver and white flecks that hissed and steamed on her skin. His face was the furious mask of an angel in a killing frenzy, and he snarled a soft prayer under his breath. “Oh Creator! Purify this sinful vessel-”

Droplet after droplet flashed against her. The candle’s flame continued to flicker and gutter with every motion, despite the frantic sweeps. Sacred magic kept it hot and furious. And every splash made Cae gasp and writhe against her chains, her breasts heaving, her buttocks tightening as she arched her back and bucked her hips. Her toes skittered along the ground as her chains clinked and she moaned aloud, cutting off his prayer. “Yes! Yes! Oh Daddy!”

The Proctor stumbled half back, his eyes boggling.

Cae grinned at him. “This isn’t the first time you beat me, Proctor...” She chuckled, raggedly. “Remember when I fled to the Realms, to meet with mortals? To learn their ways? And you whipped me for dereliction of duty? I was not brave enough to moan To then ... but now I am.” She licked her lips, slowly, her eyes flashing with heat. “If I fell in Hell, then why did I love it so then? Hmm?” She grinned, cocking her head as the wax cooled and hardened on her. She was left almost vitiliginous with white wax and silver wax and golden skin. Her nipples were both caked with wax, and they ached with such delicious sensation.

The Proctor set the candle down. His tent was now quite visible – but he dared not turn his back to her, lest the audience see it. He panted slowly. “ ... Oh Creator! Purify this sinful vessel. This fallen angel. This ... incarnate of wickedness...”

Cae licked her lips, slightly. “I see you want to quench your flame...”

“Oh Creator!” His hand drifted to the metal pear. Then he hesitated. “No ... no, I...” He frowned. “This Purification needs more than we’ve ever had to use before.”

The angels in the audience murmured quietly. Cae wondered if she imagined the note of confusion in their voice. The Proctor snapped his fingers and spoke a few quiet words to the servant angel that came to his side and ducked in close. Cae strained her ears, trying to hear what passed between the two. But none did. As he waited, the Proctor stalked past her – and then moved around. He stood behind her, and moved very close, so that the heat, the hardness of him almost brushed her buttocks. Cae knew why he did it ... at least ... the tactical reason.

He wanted to hide his cock. His arousal. His Creator given urge to fuck, to love, to feel. To be more than an unthinking mass of muscle and metal and fury. With a fierceness that shocked her, Cae wanted to succeed ... not for herself. Not for her wings. Not for Citri’s smile or Ruti’s gentleness, nor Arral’s warm arms, nor the depths of Degi’s soul. She wanted to succeed for him. For this nameless agent of the Highest, the council of Angels that had decided they knew, with utter, calcifying certainty, what it was that the Creator wished.

Cae turned her head, and whispered softly. “What ... is your name?”

The Proctor tensed. He remained perfectly still – but before he could respond, the two serving angels returned. They had pushed from the darkness of Heaven’s stores a portable font. It was essentially a small basin of chiseled stone and gold gilt, decorated with images of angelic victories and the glories of the Creator. It drifted on a cushion of shimmering air, and came to a rest before Cae, while she felt the warmth and heat of the Proctor. His hands went to her shoulders and he barked more orders.

“Loosen the chains.”

Her feet slapped the ground and she was so unprepared that she fell to her knees. The basin swelled before her and the pure clear water in it seemed to steam in the room. That made her realize just how cold it was. Holy water, dipped straight from the farthest reaches of Heaven and rushed here by eager servants. Her tongue darted along her lips and she looked down at the water. She wondered what would happen now.

“Do you repent?” The Proctor growled. He was pressed to her back down and she felt the hardness of his member against her shoulder blades. Her wing stumps slapped against his thighs and she panted quietly.

“Do you?” she hissed.

He shoved forward.

Cold water swirled around her face. Bubbles streamed from her nose, her mouth. She was too shocked to even react – the cold was intense, and the sudden lack of air struck her. She started to thrash, struggling – but the chains were tightened again, not enough to haul her into the air, but enough to give her no purchase. The cold against her face was enough to make the still-warm wax on her skin to feel even more... contrasted. She thrashed, then gasped and coughed and spat up holy water as the Proctor yanked her hair back. She flicked her head, her golden hair slapping back. She felt him throbbing against her, through his thin loincloth.

“Maybe I will leave you down there,” his voice was cold as the water.

Cae coughed again. Then she laughed. “I was already wet, Proctor.”

He blinked, and she heard a confused grunt escape his lips. But then he noticed that her knees had shifted ever so slightly aside, and a glimmering droplet of golden arousal beaded and fell to the ground between her thighs.

“You wench!” He snarled. He shoved her head down and pushed with his whole might now. His body and hers were molded together with his passion, their skin touching as she held her breath as hard as she could, her eyes opened into the darkness of the basin. A single air bubble swept along her cheek, then another, then another, and still the Proctor held her in – and still, his hardness throbbed against her shoulder blades. She tried to wriggle, not to escape ... but to grind against him. He held her down. And her heart beat. And her head swam. Darkness beaded around the edges of her eyes and she heard him whispering softly. “Oh Creator ... Creator...”

He yanked her head back. She coughed again, gasped again. Holy water washed some wax away, leaving her breasts golden and gleaming. She let out a giddy giggle, her head throbbing and pulsing. The sensation was remarkable. It left her feeling as if she was high on some kind of drug. She laughed and giggled and shook her head, her grin wicked.

“Your dear Proctor seems to be enjoying himself!” She called out. “He-”

He shoved her down again. She laughed into the water, heedless of the lost air. She knew that if she died under his hands ... well ... she doubted that he would allow such a stain on his honor. To fail in a Purification? It was as impossible to imagine as an angel falling, now wasn’t it? She was right in her thought – he pulled her back and she coughed and gasped and let loose another laugh.

“This isn’t working,” an angel called out from the crowd. He was one who looked at her with a stern glower – but behind him and to his left, she saw a male angel who was adjusting his leggings and blushing a bright silver. To his right, a female angel was nibbling her lower lip.

“Silence, Galeriel,” The Proctor barked.

“It’s clear as day!” Galeriel snapped.

“Mayhap you should use what she finds so pleasurable to torment her,” Kirel the Starfall called out.

Cae lifted her head, then grinned feral and fierce. “Do you volunte-”

The Proctor thrust her head beneath the water and bubbles frothed around her head as he baptized her in chill once more. His cock ground against her with tiny bucks of his hips. Cae wondered once more as that delightful pounding at her temples – did he even know he was doing it? Was a tiny fire in his blood driving his hips to grind against her without his conscious mind even noticing? She grinned as he pulled her head back. She forced herself to not gasp. Instead, her nostrils flared and she leaned back in his grip.

“Baptizing and whipping her hasn’t done much,” Kirel said, her voice cold. “We might as well try it.”

“I was chosen as her Questor, Starfall!” The Proctor barked.

“Mmm, yes, keep getting me off, it’s working just perfectly,” Cae purred, channeling her most Citri-esque voice.

The Proctor growled. “Falconheart! I need your might.”

“M-Me?” General Falconheart stepped from the crowd. He was wearing half armor, and Cae could see that his cheeks were flushed brightly. The Proctor thrust a chain at him, then pointed up. Falconheart gulped, squared his shoulders. Then he shot her a look. Their eyes met and she looked into his gaze, fearless. Careless. He looked away, unable to meet and bear it. She watched him fly up. He thrust up his hand and with a focused conjunction of power, summoned a heavy block that could hold the chain, attached to the ceiling of the vaulted, temple-like hall. He threaded the chain through it, and then landed ... and the Proctor yanked it between her legs, then tossed it back. Another angel flew up and Cae gasped as the golden chain nestled between her thighs. Her cuntlips spread for the link and she squeaked as the cold, cold chain pressed to her nethers.

“Improvising, eh?” Cae panted, quietly. “Think, Falconheart. Do you think that the Creator would have given us such useless tools in the face of obvious evil?” She smirked. “The spear works quite well – it does not need to be cast aside in under an hour in the face of a naked woma-ahh!”

She had not expected the pull – but the Proctor gave it. The yank drew the chain along the folds of her cunt, the edge of it bumping against her clit. The grinding pressure was shocking and fiercely pleasurable – but before she could crest and climax, it stopped and she was left suspended over the chain, her toes twitching and quivering. Her breasts swayed as she hung above the chain, hanging her head forward.

“Whip her,” the Proctor barked.

“With pleasure,” Kirel said, her voice dripping with feral eagerness. Cae snapped her head up – meeting the other woman’s eyes. She grinned.

“Still clad? Unpurified?” she asked.

“I am no Questor – I am merely his hands,” Kirel said, grinning wickedly as she hefted the glowing whip.

“No, she’s right,” the Proctor said, causing Kirel to snap her gaze around, glowering at the muscular, scarred mentor of so many centuries. But that mentorship did hold true. Kirel set the whip aside and Cae licked her lips as she watched the chain links and tabard slip up and over. Kirel beat her wings free as her modest breasts lifted, then dropped fetchingly. Her darker gold skin was glossy with an eager sweat, and her silver nipples ... they were achingly hard. Despite her sneer and her glower, Kirel was getting the heat of the moment between her thighs. Cae gave her a winsom smile.

“And the oil?” She crooned.

Kirel glared at her, and their eyes locked as Kirel wordlessly picked up some of the sacred oils. She started to rub her palms along her body, biting her lip as her fingers hesitated against her silvery nipples. She didn’t quite tug them ... but Cae saw the temptation flickering in her face.

Cae grinned at her. “Well, you may still be a bi-ahh!” She cried out in pure pleasure as the chain racked forward another link – and before she could quite work herself over the edge by bucking her hips, the whip cracked. Pain lashed along her shoulders and her wing-stumps fluttered and twitched. She hung her head forward, biting her lip so hard that they nearly bled as Kirel showed none of the restraint nor aim of the Proctor: Instead, she laid into Cae’s back as if she wished to draw blood, to flay the skin of

her back. The only thing that prevented her from splitting Cae’s skin was that Cae was as much a war angel as Kirel was.

That, and, well, she had to control herself somewhat lest she strike the Proctor or the increasingly troubled General Falconheart. Falconheart and her eyes met – she saw that he was holding the other half of the chain, tugging it back and forth with the Proctor, whenever they wished to grind her cunt and draw her close, agonizingly close, to climax. She gasped and grunted in time with Kirel’s whipping, the stinging sensation blending together so fiercely that she was able to take it with shocking equanimity. She grinned, tears beading at the corners of her eyes, and purred to Falconheart. “Enjoying the show?”

“Please, Cae...” He whispered. “Stop t-this defiance!”

Cae gasped again as Kirel managed to land a crack with the tip against one of her wing stumps. She closed her eyes and threw her head back – then cried out. “I am not defying ... I am being Purified. It is just that I am already pure. You all know it!” She snapped her gaze to the side, and her blazing glare transfixed Kirel, who froze in her whipping. “You watched me battle your fellows ... five on one, with my only hope to be slaying enough to get away. And yet, what did I do? What did I do, Starfall.”

“Y-You were captured!” Kirel snapped, furiously.

“She ... didn’t kill me when she had every chance too,” Falconheart said, his rumbly, bassy voice filling her with warm pleasure. The Proctor remained perfectly still – so that the chain was resting against her cunt, teasing her clit with the very edge of the next lock.

“Is this true?” The Proctor asked.

“It is,” Falconheart said.

“No, she lies,” Kirel said. Her hands shook with fury as she stalked towards the chain, grabbing onto the bit right behind Cae’s ass. She yanked up, so that the chain rasped against Cae’s taint and anus, the other edge pressing fiercely against her clit. Cae cried out in shocked pleasure-pain, her eyes half closing as she trembled. Her toes were barely touching the floor. “Say it! You were outmatched by five war angels! T-They all buy into your damn legend, Caelel! The youngest general, the woman who studied mortal leaders, the winner of the Great Campaign against Ruthel, the Savior of Ul-Nassar ... but I never did!” She wrenched on the chain. “I knew you in the Academy. Flighty. Distracted. Romantic! You wept over mortal dead and thought you were oh so secretive with your fascination-”

“Kirel!” The Proctor barked.

Cae, canting her head back slightly, blinked. “I ... I remember you now...” She whispered. “You were the skinny girl in the back of every class-”

“Shut up!” Kirel snapped.

“You’re my age, you absurd creature,” Cae hissed. “And all you’ve been is an archer?”

“Bitch.” Kirel leaned in close, her breath hot against Cae’s lips.

“I always thought you were pretty,” Cae whispered back. Then she leaned in and kissed the shocked Kirel on the lips. Kirel’s hand wrenched on the chain – more out of shock than of any need to cause pain ... or pleasure. But it was enough. Cae moaned warmly into her mouth, her back arching, her arms straining against her restraints, as her warm juices gushed against the chain, making it glitter as if she had freshly oiled it. She broke the kiss and Kirel recoiled backwards, looking as if she had just been slapped in the face.

Cae panted, quietly. “If you wish to see defiance...” She murmured, her voice a husky purr. “I will show you defiance.”

Falconheart actually took a step back.

Cae closed her eyes.

She...

Was actually loving this?

The give of ground. The movement of souls. But more, the play. Even if they didn’t know it was a play. The pleasure and pain, mixing together. It was like her true memory of being punished, enhanced and driven higher and higher by her creativity. In short, she had to tell Arral and Ruti and Degi of this. She was sure that even Citri could enjoy splashing her with wax – and she wondered if he could work some magic to make them hotter, yet, not more damaging.

But she also wished it to be over.

And in that indecision, she felt the change coming over her with a new, brighter power. Stronger. Stronger than ever before. She realized, in a flash, that practice didn’t merely make a sword swing truer, did not simply make a tactical mind more flexible and supple. It also could hone even something as esoteric as feeling two decisions, to want and to not want. To be more than a singular purpose, honed and grasped in the hands of the Host of Heaven. To be a person.

To be as the Creator wanted her to be.

The change came first in her eyes. They glowed a brilliant gold. Then it came in her skin, which became glossier and brighter. The scars and seams that the whip had managed to score, despite her toughness, flared, turned silver, then gold, fading away to nothingness. Her wings-stumps lifted ... and then flared outwards and with a blazing concussion of holy energy, the chain that was straining between her thighs snapped and shattered apart. Kirel was flung away. The Proctor stumbled. Falconheart skidded away on his armored ass as the second set of wings unfolded beneath her upper set – all glowing like the dawning sun. She beat her wings again and felt the exultant change as she floated off the ground, naked and perfect.

The awed angels looked at her as she hovered before them.

The Proctor, stumbling around to stand before her, looked up, his own wings flaring wide, his eyes opened as far as his scarred features could make them. He managed to speak in the stunned silence. “What... are you?”

“I am that I am,” Cae said, her smile warm.

The Proctor fell to his knees. Tears beaded and fell down his cheeks – down cheeks that had never known wet that was not blood. From eyes that had never once wavered, not in five thousand years. She gently flapped her lower wings, drifting to him. Her hand caressed his cheek, gently. Her voice was soft. “I don’t blame you.”

The sudden sound of a blaring trumpet filled the air.

The angels in the crowd managed to tear their wide eyes from her – and then looked even more shocked. The Highest did not travel from beyond their ancient and hallowed chambers near the Creator’s Throne. They were the most powerful and respected of Heaven, the highest of the highest. Their names were the kind of names that could split stone and shatter bones, just for being spoken. Their armor was ornate, their panoplies shocking. Cae was impressed they had thrown it all on so quickly ... or, maybe, she was simply impressed that they wore such weight of metal and magic every day.

The First was the one who landed before her. His symbols were manifold – hammers and maces, rearing lions, snarling dragons. They were worked into his armor, marking him clearly as the First, the head of the Highest. Like the rest, his name was too potent to even be written, lest the page it be scrawled on burst into flames. It came of being second only to the Creator herself – and her name was never to be spoken, either. He carried in his hand his flaming sword, while his other hand was a gauntlet with razor sharp claws and heavy weight in the palm. That gauntlet could crush, slash, kill just as easily as his flaming blade.