Chapter 3
Gavriel
The crowd of Guides and Protectors standing around me in the Assembly Hall was as loud as a flock of frightened crows, but their voices were nothing compared to the horrific refrain in my head.
The voice of my best friend for thousands of years, Mikhail, was the loudest. You told my mate to sacrifice herself? You told my sweet soul to throw herself away?
Even the memory of what I’d said to Feather in careless anger struck me like a series of blows. I had done exactly what he’d accused me of. His mate had been unmade because of my cruelty.
If he dies, it will be my fault. Sunny was right, and Mikhail was as close to death as any Angelus I’d ever seen.
Now he lay in his room, faded almost beyond recognition, tended by Sunny and Righteous, or so I thought.
My mind was muddled and hazy, the ache in my heart so similar to the pain I’d felt after my own mate, Arabella, had been taken from me.
Mikhail was the one who’d lost his mate.
Why did my heart feel as if it, too, were being sliced into pieces no bigger than dust?
And why had Feather looked so like Arabella before she entered the Great Gate?
Like a diminutive, silver version of the Angelus Mikhail had created for me to love. To be faithful to.
“High Angelus, are you listening?” The leader of the Guides—who had been named Tradition back when they were a Protector, though the voluminous hoods and golden robes they adopted when they took on the Guide role rendered them fairly anonymous—settled a hand on my shoulder and shook me gently, like they were trying to wake me up.
“You have my attention,” I said, trying not to react to the unsolicited touch.
Tradition and I had worked together for over a thousand years, and though I wouldn’t call them a friend, they were a respected colleague.
I’d given them more and more responsibility as the years had stretched on.
I traveled on earthly missions almost constantly, so I’d needed someone here I could trust, and Tradition cared more about rules and following them than anyone.
They didn’t have an ounce of creativity in their soul, but they made certain no one stepped out of line in my absence.
Tradition dropped their hand. “Can we be certain the individual in question—Feather, yes?—didn’t damage the Great Gate when she sealed it, like the traitor Azazel did the Well of Souls?
You said it couldn’t be opened.” I nodded, and they stepped back.
I listened to their thoughts, curious, but the only thing flying through Tradition’s mind was how this new information might affect the myriad rules and laws that they constantly juggled.
Another Guide, who had once been Ambition, stepped forward, their voice distraught. “Did you mean… ever again?” My expression must have conveyed answer enough. The Guide gasped. “Then that means the way to the Celestial Realm will be blocked.”
A sour odor drifted past my face, and I grimaced. Someone in this group needed purifying. Maybe more than one of them—the fear and unease the week’s events had generated was obviously burdening even some senior Guides’ souls with unworthy, dangerous thoughts.
Ambition made a frustrated sound. “So none of us will ever be able to ascend and leave this realm?” The room exploded into squawking, their thoughts filled with petty concerns.
Another waft of bitterness lingered in the air, and I hoped it wasn’t the smut I’d almost definitely accumulated from my own shameful thoughts and actions over the past days.
“We’re stuck here forever, then?” Ambition grumbled.
Of course what they were worried about was leaving Sanctuary. Not that the Celestial Realm might be under attack. Not that Mikhail was close to death. Not that a young Novice had been unmade, and left me… left us both better and worse off than before. Did no one here think beyond their own desires?
“You are correct, though I believe there is a way out of Sanctuary.” I managed to inject calm into my voice, and the panicked crowd began to respond to my words, settling.
“The paths to the Celestial Realm and the Abyss both lie beyond the Great Gate. The only way to access the Celestial Realm now would be for souls traveling directly there from Earth.” I didn’t mention my fear that the Abyss had plans to tear down the Celestial Gate.
Seeing one of their only High Angeli leaders broken and weeping was enough trauma for one day.
“It might be possible for one of you to go to Earth as a human, live an entirely blameless life, and then move directly to the Celestial Realm.”
“We just live on Earth?” Ambition snorted. “If that’s all that’s necessary to ascend, why haven’t we been doing that all along? Why bother being a Guide here?” A few others mumbled in agreement, but more of the gathered crowd wisely backed away from their colleague.
Tradition let out a soft tsk, bowed, and wove around the others and out of the room, their head filled with the laws that would need to be re-examined, now that the gate was closed. I didn’t blame them for leaving; if I could get away with it, I would as well.
A Guide’s duty, their vow to serve as a teacher to our younger Protectors, was supposed to be sacrificial.
By giving up the valuable work of repairing the balance on Earth, the Guides’ souls were strengthened and brightened, preparing them to ascend…
but it wasn’t meant to be seen primarily as a path out of Sanctuary.
Or a way to shirk the duties we had to Earth.
I smiled gently at the blustering fool. “That path has always been open to all. It’s so difficult, though, I can’t remember anyone selecting it. Would you like to be the first?”
Ambition hesitated. “What would I have to do?”
I put one hand on their back, my fingers coming close to the join of their shoulder and wing.
“You would need to hold still while I stripped your wings away. Then Mikhail would carve out your naming mark and send you to Earth to be reborn as fully human. You would live out a life with no possibility of returning to Sanctuary.”
Their golden face had gone a lighter shade as I spoke. “But I would end up in the Celestial Realm after a few short years?”
I hummed slightly. “Humans are given much grace since they aren’t born understanding how important it is to stand against the shadows, to choose the good, every day of their lives.
We, on the other hand, know what’s at stake.
If you made every righteous choice in that fully human life, never lying, or cheating, or putting yourself above others…
never crawling over another to get more than your fair share…
” I let my voice trail off as Ambition swallowed audibly.
“Then I’m certain you would be welcomed directly into the Celestial Realm.
If not? If you made even one single mistake, your soul would almost surely fester in the Abyss for a very long while.
” The Guide tried to step away from me, but I had my hand hooked around the wing joint securely.
“Would you like to begin that journey now? I can take your wings for you.”
They froze, and said in a whimper, “Please don’t. I apologize, High Angelus Gavriel. I should have known...”
“Yes, you should have,” I agreed. “I heard many things today that concerned me. Protectors spouting untrue information and ridiculous questions. Mikhail and I thought the teachings in Sanctuary were going on as they should, but it seems some of the more important lessons are being left out. Expect to have someone monitoring your lectures, Guide.” I let my glare land on all the Guides in the space, one by one. “All of you.”
“You, High Angelus?” Hope, one of our most advanced Protectors, stepped forward as I let Ambition go.
“You’ve been gone so much. I, for one, would welcome a more consistent presence here.
Especially with High Angelus Mikhail…” Her voice trailed off, and I saw true fear in her eyes.
This one, at least, understood what was at stake.
I waved the rest of the crowd away, and waited until they left—many of them still grumbling—before lifting a hand, gesturing for Hope to continue.
She stepped close, murmuring, “High Angelus, please stay here, at least for a while. We’re all frightened. And some of what I’ve heard… frightens me more than whatever Feather did to the gate.” She seemed nervous to admit to being afraid.
For a moment, my mind flashed back two thousand years, when my own High Angelic mentor, Haneul, had comforted me after a battle with a shadowed demon that had grown strong enough to crawl out of the Abyss.
Her words echoed in my mind. “Remember, young Gavriel, that sharing fear is the first step to defeating it. Sharing your weakness is how you grow strong.”
I had believed Haneul then; she had been like a wise older sister to me.
But she was gone, ascended. I stared into Hope’s fearful eyes and knew she needed me to be the confident, fearless leader she had always known.
I stuffed away my weakness, my almost overwhelming fear for Sanctuary’s future, and shook my head.
“My presence on Earth is even more vital now. I must keep an eye on the balance. I’ll assign you and Valor to monitor the lectures.
Righteous will take my position while I’m gone. All will be well.”
“High Angelus.” Her burnished gold eyes widened.
“Righteous hasn’t been himself for some time.
He… At the Great Gate, he…” She stammered a bit longer, and I shook my head.
I had been completely focused on Feather and then Mikhail, and though I had witnessed some sort of scuffle between Righteous and Feather’s friend Sunny, I didn’t see what had Hope so distraught.