Chapter 9 Seraphiel #2
“Mikhail named you Arabella,” I told her. “The beautiful one. You are still beautiful, Thyssy. Maybe even more so.”
“Because this form reminds you of her?” She smiled again, that holy purpose shining again. “Let’s go save the Well, hm? Then we can figure out how to get you back to her, even if Revel won’t go.”
I saw her thoughts, her intention and her need to divest herself of the pool of immense divine power that she held inside.
She had been sent here to take his place, to release him from what had begun as a call to service and had devolved into a prison.
I was stunned at the sheer force of the power she held to complete her mission.
At the strength she exhibited to be able to move and converse while holding back a detonation that could level Sanctuary entirely if she lost her grip.
The power was dangerous, and precariously held. Now that she was awake, it was consuming her from the inside out, degrading her vessel with every moment her mission remained unfulfilled.
“Revel won’t go?”
“He says he needs to stay,” she murmured. “He’s glimpsed his future and needs to protect her.”
“Not Feather? Please tell me Revel isn’t interested in her, too.” I already knew how much Feather liked Revel’s thick columns.
“I’m not sure,” she said, taking my hand. “But I was given the resources for a task I can’t complete. If Revel won’t go, perhaps I can help you instead. It’s not like I can keep going like this.” She gestured to her center. “It’s enough to restore you, Raffy. I can’t think of a better sacrifice.”
She would give her life to cleanse me? I fell to one knee in gratitude, my heart racing at the unexpected hope she offered.
I was still kneeling when Gavriel arrived on foot, his tattered wings flaring out behind him. “Have you been inside?”
“No.” I rose and pushed the door open. The sound of bees was amplified by a thousand as we stepped inside.
“After you.” Gavriel waved me in, but hesitated with his hand on the door, tilting his head as he listened to faint voices in the distance.
“Perception’s guiding the younger ones to safety, but he’s the only one who can hear me.
I can’t close it completely, in case Hope or one of the others needs my help.
” He followed, leaving the thick door open a tiny crack.
I had to struggle not to tell them to let the rest of them perish. They’d hurt my little one, and I didn’t care if they all died.
The Maker Hall was much darker than I remembered, but filled with the same tables and tools it had housed since before Mikhail’s time.
Against one wall sat the cauldron I’d fashioned for forging Celestial swords.
On the other side was Mikhail’s living space.
A bed, with piles of lush blankets and pillows, glitter scattered over the cloth.
I sucked in a breath, wishing I could smell Feather’s roses and spice over my own sulfur and ash, but I could not.
On the far wall, the door to the Well of Souls—which looked like a nondescript earthly kiln—shuddered without stopping. I approached it quickly, acutely aware of the cloud of fine, silt-like powder shaking free. I inhaled and tasted the dust, then spat to one side.
“What is it?” Thysia breathed.
“A mistake I made after I went to the Abyss,” I managed to say, guilt stopping my words. I felt Gavriel’s mind brush against mine, and I let him see what I had done. He could not provide absolution for this crime, not when I would never forgive myself.
Azazel. Azazel, hear me.
I couldn’t see the one I was calling out to, but I could feel his pain and fear. Desperation. If he weren’t the only one who could hear me in Sanctuary, I would leave him alone. His mind was scattered, his energy too weak to begin with.
I had known Mikhail’s Apprentice since his creation.
Azazel had been a dreamer, a poet. A fragile spirit, like a butterfly amidst falcons.
I was shocked to see in his thoughts that he hadn’t pursued his gift of prophecy, but turned to Making instead.
If he’d been trained to read his dreams, to interpret the visions I now sent every day and every night, he would have known who was calling him.
He would have told Mikhail or Gavriel I was in need of a rescue.
But he was too weak; his prophecies became meaningless gibberish, even in his own thoughts.
Still, I was desperate. Each year I lost more and more of who I was, in my efforts to save as many souls in the Abyss as possible. I’d taken their smut onto myself, and freed some.
At first, I’d been able to keep the core of my soul pure by allowing the Abyss to coalesce on my external form. I had grown hideous, but that was better than the alternative: permitting the taint to enter my form and touch my spirit.
Small horns had recently formed on my head, along with a whiplike tail behind me, as if I were a caricature of some sort of devil.
Nothing that had originated in the Maker’s mind, I knew that.
No, the Abyss was drawing on the memories of the souls from Earth who, through twisted teachings during their lives, believed the Great Singer of Songs had consigned them to some fictional eternal damnation.
As if a Mother would do such a hideous thing to any of Her children.
I’d sung as clearly and brightly as I could to all in the void of Her limitless grace.
All they needed to do was turn to Her. Desire Her more than the guilt and shame and fear that weighed down their souls.
But that false belief they had, that Her grace had limits, held them fast. They believed they had been thrown away.
AZAZEL!
Leavemealonepleaseleavemealone
AZAZEL, HEAR ME.
I felt his mind crumble at the very moment that the filth invaded my mouth, coating my tongue, turning it into a charred, forked monstrosity. And still, I called out. Save me, Gavriel! Don’t forget me. Don’t throw me away.
Someone save me.
“I called out thousands of times through the Well, one of the only conduits between the realms. I held my lips to the temporal crack I found after centuries of searching, and screamed until someone heard me. Azazel. I showed him no mercy. I don’t deserve any now.”
“Poor Azazel,” my sister murmured. She’d seen the memory as well. “His vessel was never the strongest, was it?”
“I drove him mad,” I admitted softly. “I broke his mind.”
“He sent Feather to Earth,” Gavriel said at last. “Mikhail told him to throw her away. Back into the Well. He didn’t.” He nodded to the small door covering the miniature portal to Earth that Novices were sent through on their first trip.
Thysia sucked in a breath. “But he sealed up the Well, didn’t he?” She ran a hand over the crumbling lip of material that was slowly being shaken loose. “He used his own soul and made a Great Sacrifice.”
“He became a seal.” Gavriel sighed heavily. “We believed he did it because he was a spy for the Abyss…”
“He was the opposite,” I said brusquely, a plan forming in my head. “He must have sensed the evil I bear. The weakness between the realms. Without his sacrifice, Sanctuary would have fallen long before today.”
“How do we repair the seal now?”
I slanted a glance at Thysia. “You wouldn’t happen to know if any Celestial sacrifices are wandering around Sanctuary?
” I joked. She curled her lip. We both knew her sacrificial mission had parameters, and real dangers.
Unloosing that amount of power in here was likely to bring the entire realm down around our ears.
More dust sifted into the air, and I cradled my head in my hands.
The shadows on the other side of the seal were calling out, begging me to help them break through and crush this realm.
The shadows within me echoed their desire.
But if I gave them what they begged for, Gavriel would fall, and then Feather would follow.
“I don’t know what to do!” I screamed to the ceiling. The evil that swam under my skin mocked my weakness.
“I have an idea.” Gavriel stepped between us, taking the Celestial blade from Thysia. “You created this realm, Rafe. Could you use my sword—your sword—to make a new seal? Or repair the breaking one?”
I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “There’s not enough material there.”
Gav lifted a sheath from one of the tables and withdrew a smoky blade.
It hummed, recognizing me. I had made it for the first of Sanctuary’s Makers long ago, fashioning it from a mixture of my own energy and the smut I’d accumulated for centuries in my work in this realm and on Earth.
I wasn’t certain anyone knew, but the two soul blades I’d made had both been my feathers at one time, sacrificed willingly and transformed.
Unlike Celestial swords, which were pure, righteous energy, these smaller cousins were a perfect blend of shadow and soulfire.
Before I could ask what he intended, Gavriel had extended his wing and sliced away a handful of his own feathers. He barely flinched at the cut. “Will this be enough?”
“Good Maker,” my sister cried out in horror. “How are you still standing?” I swallowed, wondering the same thing.
Gavriel merely smiled, staring into my face. “This is nothing. A pinch, compared to the pain I already know.” His eyes were pools of sorrow.
I imagined my own looked much the same.
“The pain from losing your soulmate?” Thysia asked, taking the feathers and holding them out to me. My own fingers wouldn’t work, as I waited for his answer.
“No,” he said, not breaking my gaze. “The pain of not saving my friend. Of giving up, and letting the gate fail. My best friend cried out, again and again, and I was too mired in my own concerns and grief to keep the lines of communication open. This is the least I can do in penance.” He reached for another handful of feathers.