110. Azrael
AZRAEL
My incorporeal form has returned despite the fact that I can’t see him—I can distinctly feel him. Levi’s discerning gaze studies me, brow furrowing as my eyes scan the room helplessly until they land on the bathroom door.
Where I hear giggling.
What in the sacred fuck?
Levi and I share a look for a fraction of a second before we’re both leaping out of the bed to our feet and barrelling towards the door. Levi’s magic shoves the door open so violently, it slams against the wall behind it, leaving a dent in the wood panelling of the wall.
Violette jolts, giving a shrill yelp as a fucking doppelganger clutches her to his chest.
“What the fuck is going on?”
I know the answer, of course, but my mind supplies zero explanations as to how the fuck my incorporeal form has manifested as a whole other person.
Violette’s throat dips and her cheeks flush beyond the heat of the tub.
“He’s you? You’re him? Isn’t he?”
Her eyes widen at the sight of Levi’s new appendages.
“You have wings..."
Her awe is short-lived as she takes in my expression.
She pushes herself out of my shadow’s arms, burying her face in her hands like she feels like she’s done something wrong.
My doppelganger gives me a sardonic smirk as if I’m the problem.
He then proceeds to casually explain he paid Persephone a visit, drank her blood from a chalice, and severed our soulbond with her in exchange for a corporeal form.
My teeth squeak in protest from how hard I’m grinding them.
“So, you’ve not only stolen all of my power, but now my body, too?”
The soulbond is something I should have done myself too long ago.
My doppelganger huffs a sardonic laugh. “If anything, it’s my body seeing as how it's my energy and magic that sustains it.”
Unease and anger are a revolting cocktail that causes nausea to seize my insides.
The fact that his words are in fact true make it all the more potent.
His gaze softens. “Shall we have this conversation in private? Lest we cause any undue stress to our beloveds?”
Our.
Beloveds.
Violette frowns, glancing between us briefly before she stands, wrapping a towel around her delectable form and striding towards me. She stands on her tip-toes and I lower to meet her and press a kiss to her lips. She lingers for a moment, searching my gaze.
“Let us know if you need anything. You’ll be... safe?”
Tenderness squeezes my heart. “Yes, little seraphim.”
She nods, caressing my arm reassuringly before she steps into Levi’s arms.
Levi’s expression is hard as stone as he glances between the both of us before giving me a pointed look that speaks of solidarity.
When the door shuts behind them, the silence between me and... me is painfully loud.
“I’m going to hazard a guess that you have no designs to return my energy body back to where it belongs?”
Even to me the words feel wrong, and unease trickles in as if somehow, someway, that, if anything, I’m the doppelganger.
He stares blankly at me. “You know that I know that you know the reality of the situation.”
It wouldn’t work even if we tried.
Just like the entropy of Ourinessa.
As if struggling against some unseen noose cinching tight around my throat, I finally speak the words that have been darkening every corner of my mind since I awakened as nothing more than a head cradled in Violette’s hands.
“This is the consequence of lamenting my existence, and atonement for my sins.”
He doesn’t need to respond.
Words that have haunted me since the destruction of Vassileo, my Hell realm, echo in my mind. “Only in death will you find freedom, Azrael.” Spoken by a soothsayer, Miroslav, whose origins even I am unable to fully discern.
It takes effort to force the memory away.
“Did you visit Ourinessa?”
“Just before I came here.”
“And... ?”
He gives me a look that says I already know the answer.
As long as I wish for death, Ourinessa will continue to deteriorate, and its souls will bleed back into the aether.
I already witnessed it with Vassileo. Though it was destroyed with far more violence... and instead of its souls returning to Akash, they were sucked into other realms.
I remain silent.
The sigh he expels isn’t one of judgment; it’s of sorrow.
“I’m sorry I can’t heal you, for you.”
Me too.
“Do you truly feel... healed? Like the cumulative weight of eons past is no longer crushing you?”
My twin props an elbow on the edge of the tub as he scrubs a hand over his mouth, and his gaze grows distant. Thoughtful.
“Healed would suggest a completion of the process, but heal-ing, yes. As for the weight of eons, when Levi tried to kill us... I did in fact experience a kind of death. However fleeting. When I spilled out of our body and was just a mass of shadowy life essence, I forgot everything. There was no me. I just... was. When I acted, it was on your behalf because I was guided by your desire, and whatever connectivity we still had in spirit. But when it waned, and I disappeared... I was in the aether.”
What in the sacred fuck?
I lean forward, eyes narrowed in disbelief. “The actual womb of Akash?”
He nods, eyes falling on some distant point as if his mind is travelling back there now. “Yes.”
I sit back, features gradually slackening as this registers in my mind.
“How did you make it back? And if you had no memory, why?”
The corners of his mouth slowly lift in a smile. “My soul was called back to hers.”
My lips part in awe as a profound weight settles on my chest, and the backs of my eyes begin to burn. Violette. Precious seraphim.
When his gaze finally returns to mine, it’s wetted by overwhelming love. He gives me a helpless, rueful smirk. “And even Levi’s.”
His admission doesn’t surprise me. I felt connected to Levi the moment I saw him. Silence hangs between us for several long moments before I finally speak, voice softened by awe.
“I’m jealous.”
He nods in understanding. “I know. I am... eternally grateful.”
What I wouldn’t give for such a reprieve...
To be liberated of all that haunts me. The eons of trauma that have been stored in this one body. To finally rest.
There is only one place I know of where one’s memories will be wiped clean, but it is not a domain I have access to.
Where would my soul even go if and when I do die, in this increasingly mortal form? My domains are in turmoil. Would I awaken in a chasm in my own hell realm?
The thought makes me shudder.
I doubt my soul would return to the paradise that is Ourinessa.
“So what shall we do about this newfound mortality?”
I close my eyes against the words. Hearing it confirmed aloud feels like a shotgun blast to my chest.
What good am I without my power?
My godhood?
Violette and Levi deserve me in my highest form.
Not this waning mortal shadow of my former self.
Tears spring to my eyes.
I’ve never felt so helpless in all my eons.
When I initially formed this cockamamie and wildly impulsive plan, I had no idea that becoming powerless would be part of it...
But life, if anything, has proven to be a perpetual process of letting go.
“I don’t fucking know. Have a mid-life crisis? Buy a Porsche?”
My shadow sags as a great sigh leaves his chest as he tips his head back on the lip of the tub. “Or you could just fulfill the final courting ritual, bathe her womb in your seed, and live happily ever after.”
My expression turns grim. “Yes, happily ever after until Levi and Violette die, at which point, if I were to get my power back, then I would be forced to spend an eternity grieving them with you.”
He has no rebuttal to that.
The steam still curling off the surface of the water beckons me.
My shadow shows no reaction as I strip away my clothes, step in, and sink into the tub.
It’s only when I prop my feet up on the edge of the tub just beside his head that his lip curls, and his eyes throw daggers at me as he growls, “Do you mind?”
I give him a bored look, keeping my feet right where they are. “Not at all.”
My shadow grumbles something unintelligible and props his feet up beside my head. I lean my head on them.
He sighs and does the same.
I close my eyes, but his words have them popping open again.
“I don’t want to share Violette and Levi with you.”
My lip curls. “The feeling is mutual.”
The look we share is ripe with both boredom and resentment, but in the face of an impasse, we both let go of what we cannot control. It’s a skill that took me... us? Eons to develop.
“So, you’re going to come with us to Abyrion’s palace?”
He looks mildly offended that I've even asked. “Nothing could stop me.”
Gradually, I nod, examining the shifting shadows on his otherwise identical body.
“How are Mors and Persephone?”
The look on his face softens. “Mors is... sweet, as usual.” His lips tilt in a rueful smirk as he adds, “Still Persephone’s fucking doormat.”
I huff a small laugh. They really are good together. He is the calm to her storm. Persephone and I were just... two storms.
“I love being Violette and Levi’s doormat.”
Not that they treat me like one, but either of them could wipe their muddy boots on me and I’d say, ‘Again, please.’
A soft grin tilts his lips. “... The greatest gift.”
We sit in comfortable silence, our heads perched on one another’s feet as we openly stare at each other, completely unencumbered by social norms because...
I am he, and he is me.
What formality could we possibly be bound by?
Perhaps this isn’t such a curse.
Perhaps it’s a gift.
Another ally.
The resentment in my chest is bleeding out by the second, replaced by something far warmer.
Precious.
I’ve never had a brother before.
Is that a childish thought?
Even if it is, he suffered the same loneliness, rejection, and heartbreak I did.
The countless deaths of our loved ones.
However, we do have a problem...
“You need another name.”
His lips curls again. “Fuck you, you need a new name.”
A sigh heaves from my chest as I sink into the water up to my chin, grumbling. “No.”
“We can’t both be Azrael,” he grumbles in retort.
“Fine, we’ll ask Violette and Levi to choose.” I don’t bother to stifle my grin. I already know what they’ll decide.
He glowers, rolling his eyes because he knows it too. “Fine.”
His scowl deepens.
“It’s just a name. I don’t care what they call me, so long as they’ll have me.”
My heart squeezes. Softens.
“So what are we going to do about Abyrion?”
He heaves a bored sigh. “Kill him, obviously. Or at least protect our little seraphim while she does it, if she wishes to have that satisfaction herself.”
Our little seraphim.
That’s going to take some getting used to.
I grunt in an assent. He continues.
“Somnus gave Levi the invitation to his carnival.”
Oh, fuck.
I’d forgotten about that gaudy charade of debauchery.
“Shit.”
He sighs. “Yes, excrement does sum it up.”
It’s been at least two centuries since I attended.
It was the only time I attended.
“At least the masks will work in our favor. Though he’ll no doubt recognize our magic..."
I scrub a wet hand down my face.
He grunts in agreement, staring into the distance.
Memories of my experiences there filter through my mind: debauchery, bargains, executions... Vague images of nude concubines on leashes.
“... Does he still require the guests of those invited to wear a leash and collar?”
A palladium leash and collar.
He snorts. “I’m going to hazard a guess, and say yes. Can’t risk the staff starting a revolution..."
A realization blossoms in my mind.
My gaze slides to other Azrael’s. His eyes meet mine at the same moment, widening slightly. Brightening as if gifted the same epiphany.
This might be fun after all.