Previously on TRUE & LIE:Rafael and Berzebit bled out beneath the Mirror of True Self. Viviane's laughter echoed over their bodies, and she declared Ben's burden: he must eliminate the Devil. She vowed to return in thirty minutes to begin his training.
Viviane left the shattered chamber and walked through corridors the color of old bruises. Seven doors waited for her — iron-banded portals that hummed with something older than fear.
She opened the first. Then the second. Each step sounded like a denial.
When she pushed the seventh door, a light spilled out that did not belong to the world. She had to turn her face away; the brilliance sucked the air from her chest.
The chamber beyond was vast, hung with tapestries that swallowed sound. At its center, on a dais that rose like a carved mountain, stood a throne — not of gold, but of concentrated absence. Above it hung a brilliance shaped like a human silhouette, so intense that no one present could look upon it for long.
Other guardians filled the room in scattered ranks: their posture reverent, yet wary.
Viviane slid into a seat among them, palms damp, trying to steady her breath. When she spoke, her voice faltered, then hardened into practiced defiance.
"I did what I was commanded," she said. "I killed Nathaniel."
Silence fell like a blade. Nothing moved. Then the brilliance shifted.
The throne answered not with anger but with pressure, an old, patient thunder. A hand — or the echo of one — struck the table. The sound was like a world closing its lid.
A voice filled the room. It did not scream. It did not shout. It simply spoke, and everything leaned in to hear.
"What did you do, Viviane?"
Her throat worked. "I carried out the sentence."
The voice did not soften.
"It is forbidden."
The single word reverberated through bone and memory: forbidden.
"You have altered destiny," the voice continued. "You have broken the law no guardian may break. You killed one who was not yours to kill. Berzebit. Nathaniel. Both touched by strands beyond your right."
The condemnation tasted like lightning.
"To change the ordained is to make yourself less than a guardian. You will pay — not in rank, not in shame — but in what you promised in ancient vows: your immortality. Your soul will be forfeit."
Viviane's laugh came out thin, brittle. "You speak as if you can take what I've already given. I did it to preserve the greater plan."
Around her, the other guardians stirred uneasily. One of them — older, hair streaked with silver like spider-webs in moonlight — slammed his hand against the table. The crack jolted Viviane's composure.
Her eyes flashed. "You would chain me for doing what had to be done? If the prophecy is flawed—"
The elder's voice cut her down. "If the prophecy is flawed, you are the flaw. Your hands have stained what we swore to protect. That stain cannot be burned away."
The throne's light narrowed like a blade. Viviane felt it as a cold that reached deeper than skin — a measure being taken of her soul. For the first time, fear — real, shuddering fear — creased her face.
"You will be stripped," the throne-voice said. "You will be unmade, tether by tether, until nothing of heaven's authority remains. Your immortality will return to the treasury of the Law. Let this stand as warning: no guardian may shape destiny as though it were clay."
As the first thread of her immortality was loosed, Viviane's laugh frayed into a ragged sound. The guardians' chant rose and braided into itself — a cold, deliberate unmaking. Threads of light unwound from around her like ropes, and each snapped seam felt like a law being sewn back into place.
Viviane dropped to her knees. Blood slicked the palms she pressed to stone. Her voice, once silk and cruelty, became raw and broken.
"Please… forgive me," she begged. "Give me another chance. I—" She clawed at the floor until her nails bled. "See me. I am not like the rest. I— I am an archangel. I fought him. I forced him to hide. I weakened him. I did what had to be done to shield us all."
Silence swallowed the chamber. Even the light on the throne seemed to lean closer, weighing her claim.
"You were never meant to bend the ordained," the throne-voice said at last. "Titles do not excuse the breaking of law."
Viviane trembled. Tears streaked her face, mingling with blood. "Then let me fix it. Let me make him—make Ben—the weapon. I will train him. I will make him the sword that severs the Devoir. Let me redeem myself."
The guardians' liturgy hummed. The elder stepped forward, his voice old as winter. "To bind a guardian to one mortal is dangerous. To hand fate to a hand already stained is more dangerous still."
The throne pulsed, a narrowing light. "We will not restore what you have lost. But the Law is not only punishment. It is balance. If you will humble yourself, then you shall be made small and bound. You will no longer claim immortality. You shall serve the very charge you desecrated — under watch, under oath. You will be given the mortal's leash: you will teach him, but you will be watched. Every lie will be struck from you as the threads leave your bones."
Viviane's laugh broke, thin and stunned. "So I will be… punished and used?"
"You will be bound," the throne-voice said. "And whoever breaks that bond will answer to the Law."
When the liturgy resumed, a loop of light sank into her chest like a brand. She hissed, then keened — no longer the voice that once cut others down, but the sound of a creature losing its sky.
"Make him the warrior," she whispered, more to herself than to anyone. "Let me fix it."
Her eyes burned — not with repentance alone, but with a new calculation: a vow that could be spun into plan.
Outside, far below, a bell tolled once more. Its peal rolled toward the ruined chamber where Ben still knelt over blood.
And though the guardians did not hear it, Viviane smiled — not in defiance, but in the quiet smile of one who had just enough rope to weave a snare.