Sixth day of September, in the year 2556, in one of the homes of the Domiel lineage.

The Codex of Virtues was not merely a collection of writings. It was the immutable voice of our Society, the echo of the first Patriarchs. It named every caste, traced every path, defined every duty. Within it lay certainties, undeniable truths written in straight, ancient lines that allowed little wandering. It was the eternal pillar to which everyone turned, from their birth to their death.

After the disappearance of the one who was no longer spoken of—when their voices had fallen silent, when the Bible itself was fading into oblivion—its foundations were gathered, distilled, and rewritten in a language suited to our new world. The first Patriarchs had guided the lost souls, tracing their writings with the ink of the past to shape a new future. Driven by the need for order in those ancient days of chaos, they had engraved within those pages the laws, the principles, and the punishments—reflections of the past itself.

Later, they inscribed the Virtues there as well. Not as abstract ideals, but as foundations, pillars upon which our lives would stand; a breath of life unique to each of us, yet binding us together in unity. They guided the steps of every individual, of each of the five castes, for everyone possessed their own Virtues. Wandering had no place within those pages, for we were born and lived for the duty that The Codex of Virtues revealed within us at our Age of Initiation.

The ten precepts—the rules that raised our Society into absolute order—each carried their punishment. Whoever broke one of these precepts was compelled to endure the sentence that followed. Abel had broken the tenth precept: “The child is a living oath”; punishment: “marking by stigma.” Those who exposed themselves to such a fate rarely regained their former place within Society. The precepts were not meant to be broken.

We were all subject to them. It was the order of things. Though Patriarchs sometimes worked to grant exceptions to certain punishments, it was the role of The Concord, the army, to deal with transgressions. Yet again—we were all subject to it. Patriarchs themselves facing their sins had happened before, rarely, but I could not help drawing a parallel with my own self.

I was breaking at least three precepts.

The third precept: “The ancient fault was born of unrestrained desire. Let the bearer of seed never desire what he must not sow.”
Punishment: isolation and chemical lobotomy.

As for the other two—may God forgive me—I had broken them in my thoughts and in my dreams ever since meeting that tempting fruit.

The first precept: “The seed is not for all. Only the chosen one may offer it, the rest must fade.”
Punishment: castration.

It meant that only the one chosen for the bearer held the right to love and cherish their body.

And the fourth precept: “The seed is an offering. Whoever steals it shall be emptied.”
Punishment: extraction of the genital glands.

I was aware of my sins. They burned within me with the cruelty of a brand from a white-hot iron. Yet that was precisely where the devil’s cunning lay: it was so difficult to resist.

For when I knocked at the door of Saul and Simon’s household, I had prepared myself not to let my desires rule me any longer.

And yet I failed. Miserably.

Simon still possessed that graceful elegance that was uniquely his, and Saul behaved like the protective seeder he was toward his household. Then there was Enoch, whose candid demeanor almost made me smile.

I saw the subtle straightening of his shoulders when he noticed me. In doing so, he offered me a most beautiful sight. His complexion was as soft as moonlight, and his hair—long, untamed curls—was crowned with a veil worthy of the purest souls. And there were his eyes: pale blue, wide and naïve, yet so adorably turned toward me.

All I had to do was breathe, whisper—and I knew Enoch would be there, whatever I asked of him.

He had dressed so beautifully for this day.

How could I not melt?

His robe fell in draped waves of fabric so light, in a white that suited a Domiel better than anything else; a white that did not shout, but remained calm, like the feathers of an angel. It was the simplest of garments: no jewel, no ornament. The sleeves, wide and airy, floated around his arms like halos of light. They glided and swayed, brushing the air as though blessing it with every movement. The bodice, perfectly fitted, crossed its fabric over his slender chest with careful delicacy. And the lower part of the garment, long and fluid, cascaded to the floor in a fall of regular folds that danced with each step as he approached.

He greeted me with a polite inclination of his head, yet his radiant smile betrayed the full measure of the euphoria he must have been feeling in that moment—on that day.

Enoch was a magnificent boy.

I would never have turned away from him… if he had not been there.

He had done nothing, said nothing to draw my attention, yet I felt his presence like a blade beneath my throat; like a surge deep within my stomach. I knew he was there even before I saw him. 

And when I did see him, I once again had the impression that the world only made sense in his presence.

Abel seemed to halt time itself—space, sound, even reason—when my gaze fell upon his withdrawn figure. When our eyes met, he stepped forward slowly, draped in a gown so pure, so perfectly simple that it became sacred upon him.

I had never believed those who claimed to have seen God or His angels, for none of them walked the earth—but standing there before Abel, watching his measured steps, I wanted to believe them. Haloed in pearly white and scattered gleams of light, he surely belonged to paradise.

My heart, so disciplined to show nothing but duty, missed a beat.

The gown was beautiful—but it was he who caused it all, whether one spoke of admiration or of the fire rising within my chest.

Abel’s soft curves, his shoulders broader than those of other bearers, wrapped in that trailing mantle; his irised gaze, burning with a silent warning directed at me. I missed nothing of his long white strands, disciplined in their straightness, which slid into the hollow of his shoulder when he inclined his head slightly in greeting.

He wore no veil like Enoch.

Abel was not pure.

He had already carried seed, already carried a fruit.

And yet…

He did nothing to seduce me.

I knew well that the tongues of hell were after me—that I was the problem. Abel did nothing but exist beneath my gaze.

And yet a suffocating heat rose within me. It burned through my being, and I thought I could feel the damned clutching at my ankles to drag me down into the abyss. The devil himself seemed to know that a beauty like Abel was the sort that could never belong to anyone.

He was everyone’s muse—always unattainable, always desired, always forgiven for everything; the oasis after forty days in the desert; paradise after purgatory.

I was a sinner.

The worst kind—to desire a man while bound to his brother.

But Adam himself had not been able to resist sin.

Just as I knew I could not resist thinking these things.

"The Domiel bearers certainly possess a beauty that casts their peers into shadow. Your mere presence is enough to dull the beauty of those around you," I complimented.

Simon—his eyes even redder than during our first meetings—offered a deeply flattered smile as a delicate blush crept across his cheeks. Enoch lifted a hand to his face as though it might melt beneath my words, and perhaps it would have, had it not been firmly attached to that small body.

As for Abel, my words seemed no more than wind. They brushed past him without leaving the slightest trace.

"You are magnificent, Enoch."

After all, I was here for him first. Our duties bound us undeniably to one another.

He beamed at the more intimate compliment—one meant only for him—and was surely about to return it when Saul stepped forward.

"Father," Saul called out to me.