Chapter Text
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
No one wanted to mess with the new king of Hell.
He’d killed Lilith while still human, and with Azazel’s demise a couple of years earlier, there were none powerful enough to make a claim on the throne.
Alistair’s death was still spoken of in whispers. The demon who had imprisoned his father on the rack, who had expressed displeasure for his inability to torture and break his brother as planned was himself tortured and broken before all of Hell before the king ruthlessly obliterated him.
There was only one being associated with Hell, aside from Lucifer locked tight in his cage, with the power and the ability to unseat the king. And she stepped foot into Hell for the first time in all her existence once it was known that the formerly human Sam Winchester had taken the throne.
Demons cringed and hissed and watched with fear and anticipation as she strode determinedly through the wastes and the corridors of the palace and the length of the ostentatious Throne Room to confront the new king.
Kyria Morningstar, only child of Lucifer, stood at the foot at the throne and studied the rugged giant seated there with cold, hard eyes.
The legend of Sam Winchester, Boy King of Hell, grew exponentially when she bowed.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
The archangel entered Hell’s palace with the stealth honed from centuries of hiding himself from his brothers. None knew he passed as he headed straight for his target. The black-haired head turned and grey eyes met his amber ones.
“You shouldn’t have come, Gabriel,” Kyria said quietly.
“You’re here,” he replied just as quietly. But where her voice held a measure of sorrow, his contained horror. The nephilim just sat on the great black and grey bed and watched the archangel shake his head. “They said you were here, but I didn’t believe them. You would never have come here. The only reason I came was to see for myself. I came to prove them wrong, but you’re here. Why are you here?”
“I had to.”
Gabriel’s horror swiftly morphed into cold fury. “He forced you?” It didn’t fit what he knew of the younger, taller Winchester, but then neither did storming Hell and taking over. “If he hurt you – “
But she shook her head in negation. “I believe I proved a long time ago that it is exceedingly difficult to force me to do anything I don’t want to do.”
“You wanted nothing to do with any of this!” Gabriel exclaimed in frustration. “You refuted all connection to Hell! And now you’re here. It can’t be a coincidence that you fell so soon after Winchester took the throne. What I want to know is why, Kyria?”
She tilted her head and regarded him sadly. “You shouldn’t have come.”
There was an undercurrent to the repeated phrase that Gabriel couldn’t quite place. It made him wary. Wariness quickly spiraled into solid, not-quite-panicking worry when he realized he couldn’t fly away.
“I warded the palace against angels. Once they enter, they cannot leave without the permission of the king. You are the first to try.”
The horror was back and Gabriel stared at the nephilim with wide eyes. Trapped. She made the palace of Hell into a roach motel for angels. She always had thought of angels as pests. “If you set the wards, you can release them,” he tried.
Kyria shook her head again. “Not without his approval.”
“What happened to you?” he whispered in entreaty.
She just looked at him with sad eyes as the door opened without a knock to admit the king. “The wards,” he began before taking note of the room’s second occupant. Anger transformed Sam’s face, highlighting the blackened eyes. “Trickster!” he spat in recognition.
“Archangel,” the Morningstar’s daughter corrected softly. “Specifically Gabriel.” Her gaze flicked back to the angel. “I did try to warn you – you shouldn’t have come. I would gather you crossed him before and he isn’t pleased with you. Now you won’t leave.” She got to her feet and made for the door.
Sam caught her arm as she passed. Kyria met his furious eyes without hesitation. “He is the only member of my family that I like.” For a creature who thwarted Heaven and Hell for millennia, she was remarkably soft-spoken in regards to the scowling king of Hell. “Don’t hurt him too much please.”
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
Sam continued as though binding and imprisoning an intruding archangel was commonplace. He waited until he had Kyria alone before confronting her.
She appeared neither surprised nor frightened when Sam closed the door behind him. There was no need to lock it – no demon would dare enter without his permission. They also cowered when he raged. Kyria just sat there and listened calmly. And he knew she listened because she repeated details back later that he had only told her in the middle of a deadly rant.
Her stoic acceptance infuriated him. He was the king of Hell! Yes, she might be the daughter of the devil, but she had shied away from that power until he came along. He was the one in control! And yet there was a part of him, part of the darkness he took within him, that recognized her as an equal. Not a rival. Her first act was to bow before him, she submitted. Only to a degree, he recognized, however – he held the reins of power because she didn’t want them.
Kyria was the only creature who dared tell him “no.”
As much as he hated the obstacle, Sam did understand its importance and significance. She was here only because she wanted to be. Here. With him.
The knowledge turned him on in ways he couldn’t begin to describe.
So he had no response when she took advantage of a lull in his rant about the irritating Trickster/Archangel to note with faint surprise and amusement, “You’re jealous.”
His anger changed direction as she looked at him and laughed. “Seriously? You are unbelievable.” Her mood sobered quickly. “He’s my uncle.”
Sam was insecure and well-educated enough to know that such relationships didn’t necessarily mean the same thing to things that weren’t wholly human.
For the first time, he saw her patience with him run thin. “I told you in the beginning, I will not speak falsely to you. In an extended family where everyone dearly wants to kill me, I got along with Gabriel. Probably because he skipped out on Heaven ages ago and didn’t feel like blowing his cover by turning me in. I am his brother’s daughter – there isn’t enough chocolate in Pennsylvania to cause such a lapse of judgment as taking me to bed. Of all the things you could worry about, that isn’t one of them.”
He caught her chin in his hand and turned her head up to face him. His grip was strong and rough, but she didn’t fight it, just met his gaze unflinching. The only one who would dare to argue with him.
She had sworn to speak only truth to him. But he had been well read Before, enough to know that a person could still mislead with half-truths.
He realized his thumb was caressing her cheek and stopped. “You are mine,” he told her, voice tight and icy. Then he pushed her onto the bed.
It wasn’t the first time he had done so. She never fought. Even when he wanted her to. Even when he wanted to dominate her and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the one with the power. Somehow it never turned out that way. Somehow he was always left with the feeling that he had power only because she allowed have to have any. That for all her seeming submission she was an unyielding pillar of strength and it was he that should be grateful she chose to offer him support.
Such knowledge did not stop him from growling, “You’re mine,” his mouth against her ear, his hands rough as they divested her of her clothing.
Such knowledge was not shaken by her breathy agreement, “Only yours.”
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
Kyria was only allowed to visit Gabriel because Sam knew it caused the archangel pain.
Even with his Grace bound, the demons could do little to hurt him. Sometimes when Sam was bored, he would pick up a knife himself. It only happened rarely however, for Gabriel reminded the king of Before, of when he was still human. Gabriel took great delight in talking to Sam of such times. So Sam sent Kyria instead.
She didn’t use a knife. She didn’t need one. It caused him pain merely to see her here in Hell, to know she had become that which she fought so long and so hard against. Kyria had been the last, and the brightest, and the most stubborn of the nephilim. All of the others had been killed or else Fallen. Kyria alone had held out, had persevered. While it was true she had withdrawn following the death of her partner, Gabriel had never expected it to send her down the road into Hell.
He loved her like a daughter he would never have. Could never have, for the children of angels often led short and cursed lives and were reviled by Heaven. Knowing she defied the will of Heaven and Hell, that she refused to fit into molds cast upon her, had always made Gabriel feel a little less alone after he fled Heaven. And she was so much like Lucifer had been before his Fall, so much like the brother he had loved that it had hurt.
And now, as her father before her, she had fallen into the depths of Hell.
So although she never raised a hand to him, Kyria still hurt him more than knives ever could.
“Why bother coming if you aren’t going to talk to me?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me,” she retorted.
Gabriel glared at his niece. “You don’t bring me any candy.”
She smirked and said nothing. She didn’t bring candy because the king had a grudge against him and Kyria only ever did as the king commanded. She rarely even contested his commands, or his actions. It filled Gabriel with equal parts pain and rage when she came bruised. Never her face of course, but she did little to hide the darkened handprints that occasionally colored her arms. Pain that she let herself be harmed, rage that the arrogant twerp dared to harm her. It could only ever be Sam, for he was too possessive of her to allow any other to so much as touch her.
If Gabriel ever got free, he would smite the sonuvabitch. But the king would never approve the release of the archangel’s bonds, and any angel that approached would be caught in the same trap he had walked into. Not that another angel would come – Heaven must have learned its lesson when Gabriel failed to return. Thus Gabriel was condemned to remain in this desolate, lifeless place, as its poison slowly seeped into his Grace. He’d held out this long, but eventually he knew just staying here would choke his Grace.
He wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Do you enjoy seeing me brought down like this, Kyria?” he demanded harshly. “Seeing me powerless and cursed to wither down in this wretched place? What, because you’ve gone and Fallen, I must be condemned to a slower, more painful Fall?”
Her smirk didn’t falter. If anything, it widened. “You can be remarkably oblivious, you know?”
“About what?” Gabriel demanded.
“Angels – all angels – are alarmingly short-sighted. You’ve been down here for a while and haven’t started choking on sulfur yet.”
“So? Archangel.” It would take him longer to feel the effects. Of course that meant it would also hurt more.
Kyria laughed. “That won’t help you much down here. A filter on the other hand . . .”
Gabriel snorted. “I’m sure a filter would be very nice, but I don’t see one, do you?”
She smirked again as she held out a hand.
The archangel’s eyes widened at the sight. “But – but – how? You’re here!”
Her good humor faded as Kyria dropped her eyes to the loops of lightning arcing around her fingers. The lightning that nephilim lost when they fell.
“You haven’t Fallen,” he whispered in amazement. Hope stirred within him. She wasn’t lost.
“I am the daughter of the devil,” she said softly, “I never needed to Fall to enter Hell.”
He shook his head in confusion. “Why are you here, then, if you haven’t Fallen?”
“I have to be here. I am the only one who can.”
“Can what?” Gabriel pressed. He could survive Hell indefinitely with Kyria around to filter the ambient power; she was the half human daughter of an archangel – as long as she didn’t Fall, her mere presence cleaned the power Gabriel drew upon. But this – this right here was the answer to the riddle that plagued him. After millennia of denying Hell, Kyria suddenly did an about face and marched straight in and Gabriel needed to know why.
The answer wasn’t anything he expected, but in hindsight it made so much sense.
“Save Sam Winchester from himself.”
And would suffice.