All was blackness. She floated; formless, shapeless. It was familiar, and so very welcome.
She had been recalled. Snatched from the arms of her lover and her demon, and returned to the oblivion from whence she had come.
And yet…something was not right. She retained a sense of self, and she could not hear the others that were part of her and she them. It was not as it was before.
"You have been summoned. You have been found deficient, and a betrayer. Prepare to face judgment."
The comforting blankness was snatched away, and she stood once beneath the white marble dome. The columns still stretched their way up in alabaster smoothness, to support the richly carved arching stone overhead, but there was no moon to illuminate the beauty.
Instead the sky was full of orange and red fire, swirling in a furious tempest of flame. The heat smote her, driving her to her knees.
Involuntarily she cried out in pain. The form returned to her was hers, complete with the abuses heaped upon it by Czernobog in her beloved's body.
The agony of the physical body was nothing to the raging anguish of her own treachery.
The Elder appeared before her, resplendent in robes of white and gold samite, stained bloody crimson by the furious sky above. Never before had she beheld such a stern sight. Her heart plummeted in her breast.
"Why have you done this?" the Elder asked, and beneath the sternness there lay deep sadness. "Why have you so forgotten your Father? Why turn your back so?"
"Forgive me, forgive me!" she cried, clasping her hands before her. "If not for my sake then for his! Can you not save him from the beast that has taken hold of his soul?"
"Even now, you plead for him. In another, that would be admirable. In you, it is foul indeed. Did you really find the love of a man more fulfilling, more consuming than the love of your Lord Father?"
"No! Never! The love I felt for Ilya complimented my love of my Father!"
"Lies. It supplanted your love of your Father. How else to explain what occurred?"
"I do not know!" she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "I do not know! I never dreamed such a thing would be possible. I was created pure, and yet the human heart had such sway. Others have succeeded where I failed, why was I so different? I was the same as all the others!"
"Your own choice, from the free will granted to you in order to complete your mission, is what resulted in this base treachery," the Elder rebuked. "Think not to place blame on something unnamed and unknowing. The weakness was in you! In the path you chose!"
"Then why—"
"Enough!" The Elder's roar left her cowering before him. "Your fate has been decreed. You will be punished, but with a purpose. Your betrayal of your Father was not one of ill-intent, and this carries much weight. You will be given chance for absolution."
"But what of Ilya?"
"We now speak of you."
"What must I do?"
"Release him, release all that you have experienced, release the memories and the feelings. Release them and they will vanish as if they never were. Then and only then can you be reborn into the image your Father chose for you."
"Release…you mean forget? Forget Ilya? Forget everything we were together?"
"Yes."
Her mind worked frantically, now leaning one way, now the other. Were she to agree, all would be forgiven, and she would indeed be born anew, with no memory of her mortal form, no memory of her betrayal.
And no memory of anything else either. Ilya, the village, the chapel, dancing in the snow, drinking tea in the starosta's house, her first encounter with things like the sun and the wind and the rain with the sensations and abilities of a human being…
The touch of his hand on her skin, his lips on hers, the way her heart would flutter when their eyes would meet, the gentle teasing sound of his voice.
That a kind, gentle man named Ilya Gavril once existed. A simple priest, seeking to aid and comfort the people of the little village he'd been sent to. That this man had loved the woman she had become.
All would be gone, forever.
"I…I cannot do that, Elder."
"I see. This was not unexpected. The sense of self, once granted, is difficult to relinquish. This is why it is the most precious gift granted to humanity. However, for you forgiveness is still offered, but you must take a long and forbidding road to attain it. Know if you choose this, you will be given a form appropriate to your sins, and you will be alone. Until you complete your atonement, your prayers will fall as if upon stone. Your Father will repudiate you utterly, until that time that you can redeem yourself.
"The forgiveness of Christ is not for you, His sacrifice was for that of humanity's sake, and you are not and never will be a true part of humanity. Humanity is never given any proof of God's existence for a reason. Evidence is the counter of faith and it is their faith which must lead them. You had no faith, you had no need of faith. Your Father was as real to you as the chapel you lived in or the heart within your breast. Faith cannot save you. Your act of contrition is yours and yours alone."
"Tell me! I will do anything but for losing what remains of my heart!"
"You must kill him."
"What?"
"Father Ilya Gavril. His body has been irretrievably desecrated. It can no longer be the temple God had created all mortal bodies to be. It must be destroyed. Free him of the demon by your own hand."
"There must be another way! Cast the demon out—"
"No. The damage you were sent to prevent will come about, the seeds have already been sown that will lead to the downfall. The damage that has resulted from your betrayal is left to you to mend."
"I must slay his form, and so free his soul? Then where shall he go?"
"He will sleep till Judgment Day, and so be given the choice as will all the others. His heart will be deemed truly repentant, or not. His ultimate destination is his choice, as it is every mortal's."
"His body is lost, but I have yet a chance to save his soul? I will do this that you ask of me!"
"Heed my words, and reflect upon them when you begin to realize what has been wrought within your new body," the Elder intoned ominously. "You will exist until the end of days, never knowing a hunger for food, or a thirst for drink, or exhaustion for sleep. Your body will be all but immortal, and you will regain the transformation which was lost to you upon your fornication, to a limited degree.
"But while you need no food nor drink, a different hunger you will know, and it will be terrible indeed. While you are invulnerable to nearly all machinations of man, your weakness will be great."
"What is going to happen to me?" she whispered, eyes large and round in fear.
"That which so usurped the place in your heart which should only belong to your Father will be your yoke. No weapon of nature or of man will be able to harm you, unless that weapon is wielded by a man you love. Your love has been instilled with the vile venom of the angel-killing sword, who's taste you learned so well. All weapons will be transformed into such when used by a man for whom your love has extended."
"The man I love is gone, rent asunder by the foul demon who wears his face. I am safe."
"Be not so certain of this. Your existence will be long, stretching until the Son steps foot upon the firmament once more. Your heart has been opened to mortal love. There will be others who will enter that door. Further, the injuries you sustain from one such as they can only be healed by one method, the carnal sin which led to the downfall of both you and Father Ilya Gavril. You will have no say in choice, the nearest man will suffice. You will lay with him and his seed will spill within your barren womb and this is what shall heal you.
"If sufficiently injured you will not live, but neither will you die. You will exist in a wretched half state until your body finds what it needs to restore itself. Should the injuries be severe enough, only then will you sleep, and you will only sleep until a suitable man nears you. Then you will be as an animal, seeking only that release."
"O my Father, please spare me!"
"The way was offered and rejected. Feel you now able to turn away from the gracious forgiveness that has been lain at your feet? Know you this; this forgiveness will not be allowed again. If so refused here, it is so refused for eternity."
Swallowing hard, her breath pounded in her throat, her heart thudded in her ears. The future before stretched out in horrifying clarity. Her body would be but for two things, slaying the body of her beloved and to be used by any man who desired her. It was beyond grim.
But the tearing agony that sheared through her chest at the thought of losing all the experiences she had gained, and the very idea of not being "Varya" any longer...
She would endure to preserve what Ilya had loved.
"I will accept the punishment. I will find the body of my beloved and slay it, and so doing will return the fiend to his hellfire and brimstone and allow Ilya a chance for entry to Heaven once more."
"So it shall be. Know this, daughter Varya Nadeanenko. You are cast out of God's Kingdom, adrift and alone, but you are not cast out of our thoughts. Ever will you be with us, and we will be watching. Your Father still loves you, even as a father will love a wayward child. Complete your task quickly and return to us, child of God."
More tears fell from her eyes at the benediction, even as they fell out of terror and remorse.
"Blessings of our Father be upon you."
The furious sky churned back into blackness, along with everything else.