Hope's Light

Chapter 28

by Erisian

Book 6

 

If you have yet to read the saga - the tale starts here:

Into The Light

Hope you enjoy!

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Questions

 

There, hovering before what only pretended to be the blackest of clouds, lurked a sinister metallic sphere. How, one might ask, does a smoothly specular ball floating within an emptiness pressing against the true Void of Voids earn such a moody description?

The answer is simple: it emanates a hum of resonance filled beyond the brim with barely restrained violence, like a coiled spring which required industrial machinery to press into place and then held back only by a worn and rusted clasp on the brink of snapping. The tension so mighty that, if unleashed, the sphere would launch itself across a cosmos and plow through any stellar object foolish enough to happen to be in the way.

Rules of physics literally be damned.

Towards that incredible potential I flew, admiring the perfection of its reflective surface - so perfect that, as I approached, it was as if another light in the distance also sped towards me.

But my reflection wasn’t the only thing coming. A line of battle-hardened angels, each with armor of obsidian burnished by rubies, prevented the two lights from meeting direct - and as I slowed to a halt their many weapons burst into flames bright yet harshly dark, due to the depth of the multiple angry hues lighting their edges.

From their gleaming and plumed helms no words were spoken, no challenge given, and so I broke the lingering silence instead.

“Your master knows who I am and should be expecting my arrival. There are matters that need discussion.”

The row of Maschitim rotated into two halves, breaking at the center. Burning swords pointed to the sphere where a rectangular opening appeared upon the otherwise seamless surface.

Feeling not unlike a certain ship being pulled inside a more crenelated battlestation, I continued to the port and on inside. Except instead of entering a busy docking bay manned by yet more armored soldiers, the entrance transitioned to a different space entirely.

You’d think I’d have gotten used to the vagaries of subjective realms by now, but nope. The novelty of being caught in a different scene still surprised, requiring a moment to reorient.

Bare feet below a simple white gown touched cold grey stone, one of many large slabs of rock leading as a slender path to stretch forward across a wide and undisturbed lake. Beyond the waters ahead two great and barren cliffs rose, split apart by narrow and towering passage. From the bluffs on the right spilled a slender waterfall, mists filling the bottom pools which fed the greater lake.

Its opposite on the left also had a fall, but not of water. Bright lava flowed over its edge, cascading down as a channel of heat to collect and swirl not into the lake but away as a burning molten river all its own, scorching the passage between the cliffs.

There in the middle, magma met water to spit steam and mist, filling that gorge with dense fog itself glowing scarlet from illumination below. And pulsing like a heartbeat, bursts of lightning sparked between the two cliffs to arc upwards as a legendary-sized Jacob’s ladder.

More striking still was what blocked the flashy passage’s entrance. A being glowered there upon a gilded black-leather chesterfield chair, dark wings splaying out behind. Like me, he wore no armor, just a sleeveless onyx robe lined with red, and across the distance the dagger of his attention struck as if I’d been pierced by an actual weapon.

Oh, and he was as tall as those cliffs, like a giant guardian of clearest of waters and hottest of melted stones.

“Lady Amariel.” A voice from behind startled, breaking the spell of that distant gaze. I spun about to face a woman upon a knee, face hidden behind bangs of dark mahogany draping forward from the bowed posture. Her robe was white like mine, but the hemline flowed with striking shades of violet.

The Light within pulsed with overwhelming need, and without volition a hand adorned with another’s bracelet reached to touch her face.

Her wrist blocked the gesture.

“Please,” she said, without raising her head. The word was softly spoken, yet held the promise of well-tempered steel.

My hand retreated. “You’re a Seraph. Of Lucifer’s House of Light.”

“I am Ithuriel.”

Gabriel’s memories churned. “You followed when he fell past the Gate.”

“As did many of us.”

Heart and stomach twisted further. “And when he departed these realms, the First abandoned you to Hell.”

“He did.”

“I, too, was left discarded in his wake.” Through the gathering emotional storm, a disturbing thought occurred. “What of the others?”

Rising off the knee, she pointed to the far shore. “All are here.”

“All?!” Vision flared and gained new focus. Below the towering Prince of Destruction a semicircle of silver and white marble plinths rose from the sand. Upon each sat or stood angels, all in soft white with hems brushed by lighter pastels - as were their wings. Each figure’s eyes and ears had been bound tight by thick cloth woven of words of harshest power.

And around their necks glinted solid rings of angelic-smithed silver connected to the heavy chains falling to the plinths, locking and binding them to where they perched.

My god, he’d enslaved them.

A wordless cry of horror-filled rage escaped lips as a pulse of brightness roared within, the surrounding waters boiling as Camael’s bracers shifted from decorative gold to practical obsidian bursting with fierce red flame.

Simultaneously, Ithurial blinked between me and that shore on manifested wings, holding now a katana with violet fire of its own. Instantly she steadied to deflect - and return - any possible attack.

An attack which her blocking presence forestalled. My tongue fought instead for words. “You…you would defend him?!”

“There is much your sight has not witnessed.”

“Are you saying there’s justification for this?!”

“They still live.”

Silence joined the tension between us, and implications rebounded inside my skull. I readjusted the airborne stance. “No chains are upon you. Is he blackmailing you with the threat of their harm?”

“No.”

“Then you serve willingly. I find that hard to believe.”

Hard eyes flickered with ancient pain. “I must.”

“Why?”

“Creation has need.”

The last was said quietly, yet so full of resignation that the rage tasting like a spicy chunk of burning charcoal found itself smothered, and fire-covered fists lowered. “He’s willing to talk?”

“Yes.”

Looking past her shoulder, the giant visage of Samael still sat upon the chair. He’d leaned on an elbow to study the scene. Also leaning against the chair were two scabbarded blades, the twin implements of gore I’d glimpsed through Gabriel’s visions.

His hand rested upon a pommel.

Shifting gathered power to alter perceptual attunement, I took a single step forward past defending violet-flames to cross the waters suddenly more puddle than lake to meet him, size for size. “Then, sir, let us chat.”

An amused grin split a slender beardless face untouched by time. “Certainly. But first, I am given to understand that you enjoy tea?” His deep voice echoed across this notional space held in place by his will.

I took a seat upon the gigantic chair matching his own, as said chair had just manifested in accordance with his invitation. “I do.”

“Excellent.”

 

~o~O~o~

 

Ithuriel brewed and served the tea, the act resonating with the same ritual care as taken by a certain dragon friend of mine. In terms of height, she was quite short, having only reached to mid-chest when we’d first faced off. Once steaming cups were ready, she stepped back to stand at her master’s side.

Oh, and while she worked her preparations the setting had morphed around us into a wide sitting room, complete with serving table between our chairs and high-arched windows framed by ribbon-tied navy blue curtains. Through the glass showed still the lightning-sparked scene of dueling cliffs of molten rock and crystal waters. Double doors on a single wall provided the only entrance - or exit.

After taking an appraising sip, the devil himself mused calmly. “Now, what shall we discuss?” We both were still in robes, his black hair resting against a shoulder in a single and thick braid - mirroring my gold-touched reds.

While his swords maintained their place propped against his chair.

“I have my intended topics,” I said slowly, “though apparently so do you.” I put down the cup. The tea was actually quite good, but it wasn’t why I was there.

“You are my guest. Please, proceed.”

Inhaling first, I did.

“I’ve been told that you have taken Camael. This true?”

He savored another swallow of tea. “It is.”

“Has he finally answered your question regarding the enduring longevity of his vision?”

Those eyes of pitiless darkness flashed incredible menace - with strength enough to shatter planets and realities whole. Yet before I could surge again in defense, the generated pressure faded as quickly as it had arrived. “He is indeed stubborn.”

I swallowed, and not from more tea. Good grief, Nathanael had been right. This conversation was not going to go easy. “I need him. And if you’re truly intending to sit on the sidelines, you also should want him back in the field.”

“To fight Beelzebub?”

“Yes. The Fly will eventually come for you too.”

“With the loss of wing, the Regent no longer empowers the fullness of his Purpose.”

“Then I’ll mend it.”

“Just like that?” He swirled the liquid in his cup, the heat rising to slightly occlude his face. “Such has never been done.”

“There’s always a first time.”

“Must there be?”

“Well, it can’t be any harder than burning away the broken pieces of Shemyaza and forging his Name anew, right?”

A sharp jaw set as tone hardened. “You speak so cavalier upon monuments of sacred import.” The scene outside the windows dimmed, as though a shadow swooped over all.

Which, of course, it had.

I sighed. “I do apologize. Such flippancy is a self-defense mechanism. The magnitude of events of late stretch beyond the scope my current capacity is able to correctly appreciate. As is, they threaten sanity. For in truth, I know not whether such an attempt should succeed. Yet I must hope.”

That raised a thick eyebrow. “You readily acknowledge this lack of comprehension?”

“To deny would to be even blinder than I am now. ”

“Then you are most unlike your father. Intriguing. I question whether doing so openly is a strength, however.”

“Admitting such to you? I suppose that would depend. Are you my enemy, Prince Samael? You relinquished your throne.”

“And you raised up another to take it.”

I shook my head. “Only over the city of Dis. He cannot match your influence or power beyond.”

“Perhaps. Have you discerned why I have taken such actions?”

Picking up the cup again, I used it as an excuse to delay response - which he awaited while calm yet also tense, as if patience itself straddled a razor’s edge. “The question has consumed much thought these past firestorms, or set of cycles, however we wish to measure time.”

“And your conclusions?”

Focus drifted momentarily to the stoic tea-brewer and warrior standing at his side. “Suppositions only. Which are potentially coalescing rapidly.”

Again the almost-but-not-quite-malevolent grin. “Then enlighten me - if you would pardon the parlance.”

“Short version or long?”

“Let us begin with quick summation and see where it develops.”

“You did it to manipulate me.”

“Hmm. Too brief. Elucidate.”

“Sure.” My gaze narrowed. “The timing of your abdication is suspect. If I am right, it must have occurred about when I crashed into Beliel’s Rock.”

“Your arrival changes everything.”

“And you have Seers of Light bound to your control.” I looked back to Ithuriel. “Willingly or otherwise.”

She didn’t flinch.

“Even they,” he noted, “experience difficulties navigating the potential futures surrounding your existence. Trickier now than before by virtue of that implement you carry. Yet they uncovered enough.”

“They foresaw my eventual return?”

“Through the slimmest of channels actively piercing the locked Gate by dint of humanity’s gift and curse, a picture of the tapestry’s intent was gleaned. A confounding, yet exciting, vision requiring exploration.”

“Your act of departure set up everything: the Conclave, Azazel’s opportunity, my ascension and traversal through the Chaos. Along with the desperation of the rest of the Sarim to offer me that crown.”

“Which, to even my surprise, you sliced in twain.”

“Before forging another to fend off the added consequence of Beelzebub’s daring, as he destroys soul after soul in his quest to be a singular ego encompassing all.”

He raised a protesting and long-nailed finger. “Not exactly destroy-”

I interrupted, passions rising in spite of intent for fixed control. “Destroy!! What else can such be termed when their unique potentials are smothered and wiped away?!”

“A removal of the weakness inherent in their spirits.”

“Along with their greatest strength!”

“Ah. Now we reach the crux of the divide. And by your own admission and statements, you are unready for such debate.” He gestured for Ithuriel to refill his cup. “You have yet to postulate the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ of my decisions.”

The steaming teapot in the former Servitor of Light’s grip refilled first his cup and then mine. With a bow, she moved aside to manifest more water into the pot, along with the fires underneath needed to heat it.

Abstract elements of a type in abundant supply within this miniature notional realm.

“Like I said,” I replied. “to manipulate me.”

“Into doing what? Be precise.”

“You wish me entwined with the Sarim. To fight on their behalf.”

“Again, why?” Obsidian orbs burned with the paradoxical fires of impatience and eternity.

“You require it said aloud? Fine. Because my pattern is partially forged of Gabriel’s - and her heart can never release any she has loved. You wish for me to save them.” I blinked. “You may even hope I will smash that Gate!”

He said nothing, staring through the steam rising from the tea with a gaze hotter still.

I shook my head. “But that would only bring Heaven and Michael down upon you all - and after all this time, you no longer have the numbers to stand against the full Host. That would be madness, and lead but to your forces’ slaughter if not your own!”

Irritation filled that smooth face, and arms of corded muscle put aside the cup before he leaned forward. “You miss the mark. Like Gabriel, still are you stuck on concern for these lower manifestations, and thus are indeed blind to what actually matters.”

“They matter!”

“They do not! Not any particular soul, not the demons, nor even the pathetically lesser angels! Not a single one!”

“If they don’t, then what does?!”

“THE ANSWER!!”

Rising from the chair, again his power burst outward, this time with enough force to knock the walls surrounding us over and send the roof spiraling into the sky, only to crash distantly into the middle of the vast lake.

Skin flooded with the Light kept me and the chair in place, and I shouted back. “The answer?! To what question?!”

Like a reverse timelapse of a volcano’s eruption, Samael checked his might, the strain across neck and shoulders smoothing out as if never there.

Except it was. Ever present under a false surface of tranquility.

“The question,” he continued, standing there as if the small house around us had not been blown away. “As once posed to your father. Then to the Archangels, and to Elohim Himself. The question Azrael foolishly attempted to circumvent by slicing across Creation. The question that black-robed half-wit perched on the gathered fragments of my ancient Seat debates eternal, and which I again have aimed as an arrow to strike his very center.”

“Tell me! Help me to understand!!”

He paused then, did the Destroyer, and his gaze tilted towards pity. “No. A weapon needs not comprehend the hand that wields it. Go then, Amariel who is both dread Archon and shining Archangel. Ithuriel shall take you to your Regent. Should you possess the capacity to free him, he is yours. Me and my Maschitim, however, shall depart.” He turned and began walking towards the chasm between the cliffs - and the two swords levitated to follow behind like hounds chasing after their master.

Which perhaps they were.

To the dark feathers covering his back, I called out. “What of the Servitors of Light?! You know I cannot leave them as slaves!!”

Without looking, he waved a hand. “My quiver is spent, I have no further need of these. Ithuriel’s eyes are sufficient to witness the arriving glory of impact, and she alone shall remain. In comparison to that which entwines Camael, the rest’s bindings should prove no difficulty. Or perhaps they shall float here in silence, forever blind as so many others allow themselves to be.”

His stride then paused, and one burning eye peered over a shoulder. “Of course, if you are convinced that each little spark matters so, then prior to attempting anything dramatic I suggest you first ask the Regent a question of your own.” The smirk upon that otherwise elegant face no longer hid the malevolence.

“What question would that be?”

“Whether he still shares my opinions, or would he now act different with regards to your sister and wife.”

Helen? Caroline?!

Shocked into terrible silence, all I could do was watch as the being known to most mortals as the Devil slowly disappeared into lightning-fueled mist.

 

~o~O~o~

 

They’d bound him to a slab of stone deep underground.

Chains forged more of overpowering will than metal cocooned a naked body stuck on its side, their many barbs slick with the protesting emanations of dark skin nicked and sliced by any groaned attempt to shift position. The unmoving platform held deep stains, the splotches matching the shade of missing wings unable to manifest - due to the raw wound running across a shoulderblade exposing leaking muscle and bone.

With Ithurial standing still at the prison’s creaking door, I’d entered and knelt beside the slab so his one good eye would have a chance to register my presence. As the other was an equal mess of swollen and infected abscess.

That remaining eye focused upon the Light brought to the room, and from his throat came tortured breath barely more than whisper.

“Amariel.”

“You’re not looking too good.” Examination of the chains caused the room to shimmer, the intense power held within the bonds desiring to inflict itself even unto an observer - to rip, to shred, to flay all things. And in their target’s destruction prove thereby its lack of worth.

“Yet I endure.”

Pinching lip between teeth, I hesitated. “He’s woven his Name across your spirit.”

“He has.”

From the doorway, Ithurial spoke. “To attempt an unbinding will shred the Regent entire. His wounds are too grievous to withstand the strain.”

I cast an unfriendly glare over a shoulder. “And you know this how?”

“I have seen it. Only failure awaits.”

Looking back at the wreck of an angel on the slab, the future came into multiple focus. She was right. They’d stripped him of his armor, and with the loss of wing, the rest could never enfold him with strength enough to maintain against a final squeeze of the Destroyer’s working.

He’d been sealed by Destruction’s curse, a terrible working designed to inevitably remove from Creation that which should not be - or ever have been.

“Amariel will succeed.” Camael’s eye closed, and even against those awful barbs his body stilled with resolve.

No, not resolve.

Faith.

Shaking my head caused glowing wings to bounce, making the shadows behind the platform tilt and sway. “I don’t see a path. You’ll die.”

“Then I shall end. And by your presence alone, has my Purpose been fulfilled.”

“Yet you believe I’d manage somehow anyway??”

“I do.”

Sinking further to the floor, I stared at the blank stonework forming the prisoner’s bed. “You’re a fanatic. Willing to sacrifice anything and anyone, even yourself.”

“If required, yes.”

Shadows bounced now from the light spawned by trembling feathers. “Did you do it?” I asked with voice equally shaking. “Did you curse my wife with cancer, arrange the accident that killed my sister?!”

The angel on the slab fell silent.

“TELL ME!!”

“I did not.”

Exhaling sharply, I looked again upon his blood-smeared face.

The remaining eye then opened and he added, “But neither did I save them.”

I needed to shout again, but no volume was available. Only a whimper, followed by a gasped question. “You knew?!”

“I, too, am of the First’s House. Even as an incarnate, a measure of limited foresight was possible.”

“You were watching me??”

“Ever since Queen Fionnabhair’s heart discovered her sister’s spirit’s rebirth as your niece.”

Still shaking, I rose to my feet. Though that required pressing a palm against cold wall to remain steady. “She told you. The Queen. And through Danielle, you found me.”

“As per contract. Spirits bound by shared love such as yours, these are brought together life after life by the Wheel’s design. Wherever Saibh’s spirit appeared in the tapestry, Aradia’s would eventually follow. As well as the reverse.”

“In exchange, you promised the Queen enough power to destroy Saibh’s Seal.”

“Yes.”

“Which is why you didn’t try to stop her at the pyramids.”

“The Seals were fated to shatter upon your ascendance. Already your presence had weakened them. It mattered not how.” He shifted, and fresh blood smeared across skin.

Unsteady fingers wanted to reach for him - either to claw or comfort, they weren’t sure. But they dared not touch. “With your magic, your contacts, Caroline - my wife - could have been cured!”

“If performed early enough, then yes.”

“And you let her die. You let both of them die!!”

“Such was the path. The only means by which you would succeed. And their souls go on.”

“Tainted by the agonies, by the suffering, you allowed to be!! My god, even Danielle’s death ultimately is on your head!!”

He sighed, a quiet and resignedly tired sound. “It is.”

“Why???” Tears, unable to be dammed any further, finally coursed free.

“Because you are the answer.”

“To what?!”

“Everything.”

“That’s insane!!” I choked on sobs that wouldn’t stop, their moisture slipping across the tongue tasting of salt, mucus, and pain. “They deserved to live!!”

That freshly scarred face, despite the agony of Samael’s bindings, managed an ever-so-gentle smile. A kind smile. An expression of pity - and even peace. “Leave me if you must. Risk not then against the Destroyer’s will, for this is a deserved justice. A justice long desired and earned.”

Wiping cheeks and running nose with a sleeve, blurry vision caught more than just the broken angel before me. Again was Heaven’s Champion standing over a mound of savaged corpses, this time of demons piled many feet high, with his own sanguine essence seeping from behind helm and across a shredded and wingless back.

And over a broad shoulder lay another angel, unconscious underneath a brown coat equally stained red.

Behind this, vast sets of years unfolded, thousands of passing seasons showing a man outliving everyone around him. At times rich and others poor, loved and hated, tortured and celebrated - always eventually abandoned by all he knew and dared love while forever marching forward across endless millennia towards a goal barely glimpsed.

Yet striven for without fail.

And the vision spun further back in history still, as the angel he truly was led loyal Powers in conflicts beyond imagination, always returning enmeshed in more bloody effluence than any other.

The harshest of struggles, the most necessary of slaughters, all stains taken on by his hands, wings, and burning blade.

Out of a fervent inner desire to spare others from the same terrible burden, the same terrible need.

All of it, every moment of fixated purpose, stemmed outward from that glimpse granted while upon the widest and most horrendous of battlefields, when confrontation insurmountable had triggered sight to pierce the firmament with a vision beyond all glory, a revelation enough to sustain across eons and travails uncountable.

There in the Light had he beheld a coming Promise as spoken by the Source of All, a Word holding a brilliance beyond all for which he could ever hope.

In that snippet’s image I too saw she who was revealed in that instance of transcendence:

Her face shared the very features which had stared back from every mirror since the resurrection he had so painstakingly arranged.

There, upon this dungeon’s slab, crushed under burdened Purpose imposed and accepted, he lay as willing sacrifice. For within his heart he believed - he knew - that a day of reckoning would arrive for Judgment to be rendered in full. When Creation would sing in beautiful harmony with the heart of the Light Above - and in that glorious completion declare his gathered sins too great and terrible for him to share in that paradise, too ugly and horrific to allow enjoyment of that wonder-filled existence for which he had given all he was and ever could be.

That he himself would never enter the Heaven of Heavens promised to all.

From within each tear coursing across my cheeks, illumination burned like magnesium, as the full spread of feathers fanned out behind to gather all love and brilliance from the Source its majesty could provide.

Ithurial, bracing at the doorway, shouted. “Amariel! This too will only kill him!!”

In reaction to the shining torrent flooding free, sharp bonds of the dreadful scourge placed upon an angel scarred with far more than physical wounds tightened, ripping inward to shred and shatter all patterns within their grasp.

To thereby fulfill the original Purpose of the deadly Name by which they’d been summoned.

Camael, underneath the wreckage of face and body, stared upwards in embrace of that Light, that music, and the wondrous vision above him matching now what had been witnessed when last he stood athwart absolute Destruction.

His words were whispered. “I am content.” And all future lines within that Sight of Sights burned with his dissolution clear and inevitable.

But I had faced such impossibilities before.

“No. I refuse.”

Removing precious bracers from where they’d long sat as guardians upon my wrists, each was carefully placed around Camael’s forearms. The dreadful bindings forced upon him had just enough of a gap for the current simpler shape of golden circlets, and as such they slipped into place.

He was going to need all the protection he could muster - and as I had learned much from wearing them, maybe they too had from me.

Once more the Spear came to hand, shining brighter still while also swallowing with a darkness deeper than all depths. For within its shaft churned portions of Chaos, bound and balanced by Elohim’s Name - and my own.

By Will and Light those unknown potentials were cast loose upon the surrounding fabric of existence.

Reality of the room, of the space, of the realm, all bent and tore, instantly shredding like tissue against a knife sharper than a quark to toss us free into the emptiness outside leading towards the Abyss. The mirrored sphere fell away, its structure burning with the static of incoherence before blinking into nothingness.

Gathering the warped and unfathomable unleashed energies into the slimmest of threads, a single string of Chaos whipped outward to cross that boundary, and through it burned Light intent with singular purpose:

To forge an entirely new future within the greater matrix of possibilities.

Using only the tip of the Spear, the chains of Samael lifted from the bound angel’s skin, the immovable force not defied so much as separated - for additional volume directly between bindings and Camael’s spirit stretched into being. For the briefest of windows, all barbs and chain floated free, allowing a brightly burning hand to reach for his and pull free the wounded angel’s spirit.

Those chains caught fire with terrible black and scarlet fury, twisting and lashing out to again catch and snare their target. But with a whirled shove from the Spear’s point, the region of pattern itself that the metal coils existed within rapidly sped away, to plunge beyond a threshold from which even their mighty spellwork could ever survive.

The Destroyer’s curse, impenetrable as it was, could not fight that which was entirely unbound.

While his spirit heaved with the sudden release of intense constriction, against Camael’s blood-smeared shoulder the missing wing recovered from Asmodeus appeared. That thread of unrestrained Possibility spun about, and with a point honed to infinity was it sewed through his spirit, Light beyond all Light filling each strand and every feathered vane, and by its weaving ancient crimson flames embedded into feathers burst clear with white brilliance once more.

With the one’s surprised restoration, five more wings shimmered into being as the angel gasped from receiving the unceasing flood - filling heart and core as had not been experienced since the First had last shared him such immeasurable glory. After a cry of blessed agony from reaching limits even his powerful spirit could not exceed, a snap of slender glowing wrist shattered the tenuous coils of anathema to the layer beyond, the remaining fragments pulled safely again within Spear’s containment.

We floated there in that moment, as a brightness pulsing beyond the intensities of a billion novas. He who had once carried me tight across the skies of Earth and between the realms of Hell, now held in turn within arms more shine than form.

Though numerous additional blazing lights also orbited us as a wider glowing sphere of their own. With wings extended they embraced and contained the explosive ripples of power from further threatening the disturbance of the fabric of existence itself. Servitors of Light, burning with the individual pastels tinging their feathers and spirits, drank in the purest of nectars for which their very spirits had been created, their chains having melted from the impossible impulse which had altered that Which Is,

Included among their number was Ithuriel.

Floating beside us, she managed a bow, her expression remaining fiercely stoic. However, at her sides, hands twitched and trembled. “This…cannot be.”

Camael blinked open two sparkling diamonds, each fiercely aglow. “Her Promise transcends all.”

Releasing the Spear to again be tucked within the folds of spirit, I released Camael so the repaired wings could find their own purchase upon the space between realms.

Shaking her head, Ithuriel said, “It should not.”

“Yet it does.”

I finally found voice with which to speak. “You could come with us, Ithuriel.”

“Such is not possible.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I must not. For there still is Purpose.”

Camael spoke before I could argue. “Then fly after him, sister. Him and his Maschitim. But know it shall not be forever.”

With a slow nod she turned to do just that, but stopped as I’d abruptly winced and clenched a throbbing fist.

Eyes narrowing, she asked, “Is something amiss?”

Pulses of searing pain from a roaring palm confirmed, and I snarled through a grimace hardening to anger. “One of mine just died. At the Spires, on the Rock.” Opening fingers, I stared at the flaring star burning across the skin. “The Ducal council could be attacking-”

Ithurial, gazing across the darkness between realms with great intensity, interrupted. “Go, Amariel, and go quick - Beelzebub assaults those Spires.”

“But there’s nothing there he’d…” I fell silent, realizing such a statement was horribly incorrect.

She laid it out. “A great mystery resides upon those peaks. One which Samael allowed to exist, but Beelzebub would ever seek to burn - and even now uses the Book of Secrets to hunt. Do not tarry. Nor shall I.”

Without giving us a chance to say more, she sped off like a comet to chase the dread Sarim she had vowed to serve.

I looked to the restored ancient warrior. “Beelzebub. He’s going after-”

“Raguel,” he said before I could.

“You knew he was there?!”

“Yes. And if the Fly has somehow acquired Raziel’s tome, my brother will be a target.”

“In order to destroy Sanctuary."

“Its sacred hope is a pillar of strength towards resisting Beelzebub’s total consumption.”

Dammit! I should have thought of that. “With the Book, couldn’t he find Sanctuary’s location directly?”

“He has. The existence of the ideal of Sanctuary is a part of Justice itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“It lies within Raguel himself.”

Oh. Oh no.

To the Servitors hovering around us, blinking as they were in awe at their freedom and the Light flowing through their spirits, I shouted as another awful sting flared from the connection to those in my service. “Everyone! Fly to the dark side of Beliel’s Rock! Find us at the Spires near Outpost Epsilon, within the region belonging to Duke Valgor!”

The flock of Servitors, still bright as they slowly recovered their wits, mostly nodded agreement. Camael, however, frowned. “Should they not follow our flight directly?”

Before he could object, I pulled him back into my arms - a sweep awkward to accomplish, and likely appearing utterly ridiculous as his obsidian and gold armor had properly manifested in full - and this time without any missing pieces. “No, they cannot - for I wait not for speed. Brace yourself, Champion of Heaven; Barakiel found the transition unsettling.”

“Found the-”

The sentence never finished. Space, time, and spirit itself warped around us and we were elsewhere.

 

 

New chapters posted every Monday and Friday! If you're enjoying the story so far, do let me know in the comments below! Thank you!

- Erisian