White is the harshest color.

          It’s meant to symbolize purity and cleanliness, something kept so pristine it’s void of color. It represents great effort to keep something clean, actively keeping it the same. It represents the light, something white in the darkness.

          What no one says is how maddening it is to be spotless. How a single speck of dust can drive one insane. How the effort can be exhausting, all consuming, until you can’t do anything else. How the light can be blinding.

          Sitting in his cell, Samael stares at the wall ahead, his eyes carefully tracing over the grooves in the bricks. He won’t stop rubbing his thumbs, not until he’s sure they’re as clean as the wall ahead of him. 

          From above his head behind him, a light pours through, as if the cell wasn’t bright enough. Parts of the cell look grayer in the shadows, easier to look at than forward. But Samael can’t make himself look away. The shadows aren’t dark at all, but they remind him of too much. The wall burns Samael’s eyes from staring, but that pain is more tolerable than the memories.

          Outside his cell, Samael hears footsteps. He completely freezes, listening. The clank of metal boots approach his door and keep going past him, paying him no thought.

          Samael feels his shoulders slump some. He exhales, not even aware he was holding his breath.

          After they were done asking their questions and poking around him, the powers that be tossed him into a cell, telling him practically nothing. All that they had said they’d come for him once they’d reached their verdict of his trial, one he wasn’t allowed to participate in. Samael had spent weeks in his cell, watching the day turn to night and back to day again. He’d lost count of the days, the monotony of each one blurring them all into one.

          It had been a difficult journey getting back into Heaven. They didn’t exactly welcome traitors. He was lucky they didn’t smite him on sight. He had to plead and beg for them not to just exile him again. Even once they let him in, they threw him from interrogation to interrogation, trying to figure out why he’d come back in the first place. After weeks of that, they finally tossed him into a cell, telling him to wait for his trial. He’d been there ever since.

          Samael sits back, resting his head on the wall behind him. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Even though he’d been locked away and damn near tortured, Samael couldn’t stop thinking: he was home. After so many centuries, he is finally back in Heaven. After his trial, he’d gladly serve whatever sentence they gave him, even if it was another hundred years if it meant he would be home again.

          And so the fallen angel felt a small smile on his lips. It’d been so long since the last time he smiled, his facial muscles hurt.

          Samael hears a door creak open, snapping him out of his thoughts. Standing at his door is a small group of angel guards. Just how many, he can’t see, but they stand in their full armor, their wings on full display, their weapons readied at him. Samael understands the precaution. He doesn’t blame them, they’re just doing their jobs.

          The angel gets up and exits, counting four angels there to escort him. He can’t see their faces through their helmets. Samael isn’t even sure they’re looking at him. They don’t say anything, instead just one breaks off and starts leading the rest, with Samael between them.

          The prisons of Heaven are a decent distance from the city. Even once they reach the outer gate, they’re still a large distance from the Citadel. It’s weird, Samael thinks as he’s essentially paraded through the streets towards the center. All around, he could see angels seeing him, watching him pass. Most didn’t think much of the scene, just a glance and that was it. Others though, they kept staring even as Samael was past their field of view. 

          The roads are made of a gray stone, one that appeared almost like it was covered in glitter. The light shines on it strangely, although beautifully. It is an array of colors, unlike the cell walls. Between the stones is rich red dirt, up until the side paths that took a more solid path look. Samael can’t take his eyes off of the city. So much is familiar. So much had changed.

          As they neared the center, the angels crossed over a river that passed through the city. The waters were clear, clear all the way through where Samael could see the crystal riverbed. The sight amazed Samael so much he slowed down to admire it longer.

          One of the angels behind Samael lowered his spear and stabbed Samael’s back. The tip of the blade emerged through Samael’s stomach, covered in his blood. As Samael stares in shock, he hears, “Keep. Moving.”

          Samael takes a step forward and the spear is removed, although he still feels it pressed against his back if he were to slow down again. Using his grace he closes the wound, although the process takes the rest of the trip to the Citadel.

          The Citadel of Heaven is a fortress, with whatever’s inside hidden and guarded from the rest of the city by nearly impenetrable walls. Aside from the home of the archangels and the council room, not much was known about what was in the Citadel.

          Lead up the stairs to the western gate, Samael sees all the swords stabbed in the ground on the steps. Swords that were stabbed into the steps as a rejection of Heaven. Swords left behind by those who fall.

          As Samael nears the gate, he keeps his eyes forward, not wanting to see his sword.

          Past the gate is a hall with statues commemorating the Knights of Heaven along the walls. The hall itself leads to the council room, where the escorts take Samael.

          The council room is a circular room with a dome over top. The dome itself has many gaps and cut out sections to provide lighting. The room starts at the same height as the hall floor before some steps descend to a smaller circle in the center of the room. All along the walls are seats meant for the council facing the center. Opposite of the hall Samael stepped through are three seats larger and more grand than the rest, meant for the King of Heaven, his right hand, and his left hand. And standing amidst the three thrones are two scribes of Heaven. 

          In the middle throne, the tallest of the three, sits Michael, Firstborn of God, the supreme general of the angels, King of Heaven. To his side are Anael, Queen of Heaven, and Luther, the first angel. From his seat, Michael calls out to Samael.

          “Step forward, wayward child,” Michael says.

          Samael takes a tentative step forward, and then another, until he’s in the center of the circle. His feet pass over gashes and grooves in the stone, where bits of the material were sliced and cut. Looking up from the ground, Samael glances at the council around him. They are Michael’s most trusted angels, from grigori and seraphim alike, advising him on any matters of Heaven Michael calls them for. And today, they decide Samael’s fate.

          Samael’s eyes finally land on Michael, who looks at Samael with disinterest. This wasn’t the first trial of a traitor Michael’s been in, Samael knows that. He’s seen the other cells.

          “Of what echelon are you from?” Michael asks him.

          “I am a seraph, lord.”

          “A seraph,” Michael repeats, nodding his head. He turns his head to his left, at Luther, whose eyes are still focused on Samael.

          “Tell me, seraph, why did you come back? Why, after all this time, have you come back?”

          Samael swallows hard. “I wanted forgiveness, lord. I missed my home, my people. I wanted to come back.”

          “Your home. Your people,” Michael repeats. Something in his voice is off. The archangel chuckles. “Tell me then seraph, why did you betray your home, your people?”

          The way Michael spits out those words causes Samael to flinch. The vitriol is palpable. 

          “I made a mistake! Please, I came back for forgiveness!” Samael pleads. He glances around every which way trying to see what the other angels are thinking, but they’re unreadable.

          “Hmm.” Michael sits back in his seat, studying Samael. “The council has come to a decision, seraph. After a short deliberation, we reached our verdict. We just needed your testimony in front of the council for the records.”

          A short deliberation? Samael thinks.

          “I, King Michael, accept your request.”

          All of Samael’s thoughts immediately disappear, instead being replaced by a feeling of joy. The weight on his shoulders he didn’t even know he was carrying is lifted right off and he feels like cheering.

          “As is customary, you must serve your sentence to be welcomed back as a child of Heaven. For your punishment, you will be stripped of your grace and cast out into exile on Earth. You must redeem yourself, prove you are worthy of forgiveness. Afterwards, your grace will be restored and you will be welcome home once more. If you fail to complete your task, you will live out the remainder of your days as a mere human. That is my verdict.”

          Each word felt like a consecutive punch to the guy for Samael. Bit by bit, his smile falls off his face until all that remains is a look of despair. He feels tears swell in his eyes, but he can’t look away from Michael. Samael had never heard of a punishment like this. Being cast out of Heaven? How many angels had received this sentence?

          Michael motions to one of the scribes next to him. “Radueriel, do the honors.”

          Radueriel smiles and steps forward, holding an empty glass orb. She says a few words in a tongue older than angels themselves and the orb starts floating right above her palm. 

          An angel’s grace flows throughout their whole body. Human bodies are far too small for the full scope of an angel’s grace, often leaving their grace as a sort of aura. Their grace is all filling, reaching every corner of the nerves and insides and covering every inch of skin from outside.

          As the orb floats, it pulls Samael’s grace right out of him. And he feels it be ripped off of every single nerve. The whole process lasts a minute, with every excruciating process destroying him. It feels like his skin is being ripped off his body, slowly, consistently. 

          After the last bit of grace leaves him, Samael falls to the ground, nearly blacked out from the pain, his skin red and sore. There is an empty feeling in his back, and he feels tiny. Where his wings once were, now is nothing. His wings, the very ones he’d missed so long were torn away from him again.

          There, in the middle of the council room, lying on the floor, Samael lets out a sob as a tear hits the floor.

          The ground underneath Samael begins to crumble away and open, revealing a cloudy sky below. The opening expands quickly and although Samael tries his best to keep from falling, it’s of no use.

          And so Samael falls again, Heaven slowly disappearing from his view, until he is truly alone.