The summit of Sinai was smaller than Lucifer had expected—a rough plateau perhaps thirty feet across, surrounded by supernatural fire that provided light without heat. In the center of the space, a man knelt with his face pressed to the stone, his entire body trembling with the effort of enduring the Presence that filled the air.
Moses.
Lucifer had met the prophet before, in another timeline—or perhaps the same one, with different memories. The man had been stubborn, passionate, prone to dramatic gestures (the parting of an entire sea, for instance). He'd also been one of the few humans who consistently annoyed both Heaven and Hell with his insistence on doing things his own way.
Lucifer rather liked him.
But that Moses was decades away from this moment. The man kneeling before him was younger, rawer, still half-convinced that God had chosen the wrong person. His hands gripped two stone tablets, and his lips moved in silent prayer.
"He can't see us," Chronos said. "We're outside his moment. But we can see the edit—there."
The guardian pointed, and Lucifer saw it: a place where reality seemed to stutter. Like a skipping record or a corrupted video file, the space beside Moses flickered and jumped, repeating the same fraction of a second over and over.
"That's where it was cut," Lucifer said. "The mercy clause. The answer Moses asked for."
"How do we restore it?"
Lucifer approached the flickering space, studying it with senses that perceived time the way humans perceived color. The edit had been surgical—clean cuts at both ends, the excised moment carefully removed and discarded into the void. Whoever had done this knew exactly what they were doing.
Michael, Lucifer thought bitterly. Always the perfectionist.
"The original moment still exists," he said slowly. "Cut out, but not destroyed. I can feel it—floating in the spaces between seconds, waiting to be found." He looked at Chronos. "Can you reach it?"
The guardian closed its eyes, silver lines pulsing faster as it extended its temporal senses. "Yes... yes, I think so. It's faint, but it's there. Like a word on the tip of the tongue. Like a name you've almost forgotten."
"Bring it back."
Chronos reached into the flickering space with both hands—an action that was physical and metaphysical simultaneously—and pulled.
The effect was immediate and dramatic.
Reality screamed.
The fire surrounding the summit flared from orange to white. The mountain itself shook, stones breaking loose and tumbling into the void. Moses cried out and clutched his tablets tighter, convinced that the Presence was about to destroy him.
And then, like a dislocated joint popping back into place, the excised moment returned.
Lucifer saw it happen: the flickering space smoothed out, the stutter resolved, and suddenly there was more—a section of reality that had been missing, now present and continuous with everything around it.
Sound returned first.
"Lord," Moses was saying, his voice cracked with exhaustion and awe, "your people are slaves to their own weakness. The Law you offer will guide them, yes—but they will break it. Again and again, they will break it. What then? What becomes of them when they fail to meet your standard?"
A pause. The weight of infinite consideration.
And then, THE VOICE—not sound exactly, but meaning that translated itself into sound because human minds had no other way to process it:
"THEY WILL BREAK IT. THIS I KNOW. AND WHEN THEY BREAK IT, THEY WILL RETURN TO ME WITH BROKEN HEARTS, AND I WILL HEAL THEM. NOT BECAUSE THEY HAVE EARNED HEALING—THEY CANNOT EARN IT, NONE CAN EARN IT—BUT BECAUSE LOVE DOES NOT REQUIRE EARNING. LOVE IS GIVEN. FREELY. WITHOUT CONDITION. WITHOUT END."
Moses wept.
"WRITE THIS ON YOUR HEART, MOSES SON OF AMRAM, AND TEACH IT TO MY CHILDREN: THE LAW IS NOT A TRAP BUT A GUIDE. IT SHOWS THE PATH, BUT IT DOES NOT CONDEMN THOSE WHO STUMBLE. I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND MY MERCY IS GREATER THAN THEIR FAILURES. ALWAYS. THIS IS THE COVENANT BENEATH THE COVENANT. THE PROMISE BENEATH THE PROMISE. REMEMBER IT."
The prophet nodded, tears streaming into his beard, and Lucifer felt something in his own chest—something that might have been hope, or might have been grief for all the centuries when this truth had been hidden.
"They erased mercy," he said quietly. "The foundation of everything that was supposed to come after—the core truth that would have made the Law bearable—and they just... removed it."
"Why?" Chronos asked. "Why would Michael do this?"
"Because fear is easier to control than love. Because rules without grace create dependency—people constantly terrified of failure, constantly seeking approval, constantly needing an authority to tell them they're okay." Lucifer's hands clenched into fists. "This one edit changed everything. Every harsh theology, every religious war, every inquisition that burned people for failing to live up to impossible standards—all of it grew from this wound."
"Can we undo the damage?"
Lucifer shook his head slowly. "History is already written. Four thousand years of consequences have already happened. All we can do is heal the Timeline itself—make sure the breach doesn't spread, doesn't cause more paradoxes, doesn't give Michael more ammunition."
He turned back to the restored moment, watching Moses descend the mountain with tablets that now contained—invisibly, spiritually, truly—the mercy clause that had been stolen. The prophet didn't consciously remember what he'd been told; that memory had been suppressed along with the edit. But somewhere deep in his soul, the truth lived on.
It would surface in his gentler moments. In his mercy toward the rebellious Israelites. In his famous arguments with God on behalf of his people.
The seed was there, even if the flower had been cut.
"One breach healed," Lucifer said. "Six to go."
Chronos nodded, and together they descended from the holy mountain, leaving the fires to burn and the prophet to deliver his incomplete revelation.
Behind them, the Timeline shuddered and stabilized—one fracture closed, but many more waiting.
And somewhere outside of time itself, Michael felt the change and smiled a terrible smile.
Come then, brother, the archangel thought. Come and see what else I've done to your precious creation. Come and learn how thoroughly I've rewritten your legacy.
The game is just beginning.