37. Architecti
Architecti
I t is an easy mistake to think that angels are good or incapable of evil. Just as it is an egregious error to assume that demonkind is evil or incapable of good. The gods made us in their image, and yet, we have free will.
The most heinous error of all is to assume that the gods are infallible.
We are as they are. And it is our free will that means we can sin , just as demons can save .
Today, Interitus and I are eighteen.
Today, we will gaze upon the Mirror of Fate and witness a vision of our futures.
This ceremony is far less regal than the others. We are to enter the Room of Fates, locate the Mirror inside and see what it shows us. It sounds so simple, and yet it is the hardest rite of all.
What if we do not like the future it shows us?
What if our fate terrifies us?
Worse, what if it thrills us?
Interitus stands beside me, our hands entwined on the door handle.
“Are you ready?” she says to me.
“No. Are you?” I ask.
She smiles, a dark little thing made of shadows and blades.
“I don’t care what the mirror says. I already know my fate.”
“How can that be so?” I ask.
“Because I’ve decided it. No matter what the gods throw at me, I shall carve it from their bones if I must.”
“Interitus,” I scold. “You can’t talk like that. What if they materialise? What if they hear?”
“I think you’re missing the point, dear sister.”
I frown at her, our hands twisting the knob.
“I. Don’t. Care,” she whispers.
For eighteen years, I have tried with all my celestial being to love my sister, and I do. It has always been us, together, with our parents gone much of the time doing what celestials must do. This is the way with angels—we are a community, raising children together.
When I felt alone, she was there.
When I felt afraid, or sad, or jealous, she was there.
But the thing I didn’t like to admit, is that sometimes she was the reason I was afraid.
We step in to the Room of Fates and stand before the mirror just as millions of angels have before us. This mirror has always existed.
And it will stand long after we are gone.
Interitus, in an unusual bout of politeness, lets me step in front of the mirror first.
The Crowned Moth flutters from my shoulder, dancing around the mirror’s gilded frame.
The surface ripples and shifts, flickering with an infinite number of futures, made bigger by the fact my moth dances with the mirror.
Its starry wings flirt with the blanket of stars shimmering beneath the mirror’s surface.
A tower appears, I stand atop it, my hands twining with the stars, weaving possibility and futures. Tears fall down my cheeks.
I don’t understand.
My hands weave a tapestry of souls and civilisations, love and art and the most beautiful memories.
But the longer I stare at myself, the more I realise I am not crying in sorrow.
It is because I am burdened. Burdened by the weight of choice, of carrying so much free will.
For every thread I weave and cut, there are an infinite number of others.
It’s too much. My power lies not just in creation, but in the responsibility of that creation.
This is not the future I thought I had.
The mirage trembles.
Interitus has stepped into the mirror’s view.
I swear the tower I am standing on flickers, one moment I stand on it, the next I am trapped in it. But as soon as the vision appears, it’s gone.
Interitus laughs. “Such nonsense. Look.” She pushes me out of the way, and my fate dissolves. In its place, a ruined garden. Dead plants, a derelict castle. The stars I so carefully weaved fall from the sky like hail.
Interitus appears in the mirage, her wings are fully blackened. She smiles next to me, her teeth sharper than they were, I swear.
Every step she takes another path crumbles and dies. And she smiles harder.
It makes cold slip down my spine and into my wing tips.
“You have the gall to stand there and judge me,” she spits.
I huff at her. “You’re a destroyer.”
She snaps her head towards me. “And you’re naive. I am not destroying anything. I am not causing the end of things. Merely acknowledging them.”
“Not if you’re choosing to end them for the mortals.”
She snarls. “And you’re doing the same by providing a predestined future. You’re creating the illusion of free will but you’re no better than me, sister.”
“You’re deluded, I don’t choose for them, I give them possibilities to choose from.”
“AND THEY CHOOSE THEIR ENDING.” She shakes, but I realise too late it’s not fear or frustration.
It’s fury. I gasp as I scan along her outstretched arm.
“Interitus, what have you done?”
She tilts her head at her hand, which is buried deep inside the mirror. She grips the mirage between her clenched fingers.
“Be careful, you could?—”
Her smile cuts me off. It’s vicious, and toothy, and full of venom.
“I am so tired of your self-righteousness. I don’t want to be at war with you,” she says and slowly pulls her hand out of the mirror.
“And yet you fight with everyone.”
I realise my mistake a heartbeat too late. The rage starts in her eyebrow, one sharp arch that filters into her eyes. They grow cold and hard and dead.
It makes me swallow.
“I’m sorry, Interitus. I didn’t mean it. Just… Just be careful. The mirror.”
Her neck cords.
“Interitus, please, it’s older than our bloodline. Don’t do this because I said the wrong thing. I’m sorry.”
I call the Crowned Moth to me, desperate to weave any future that isn’t the one unfolding before me. But I’m too late.
My moth isn’t fast enough.
I reach for her starry wings, but my magic is panicking. She’s producing too many futures and none of them are in my control. She sinks under the weight, as possibility spawns thousands of Architect moths from her wings.
Interitus, with her hand still buried inside the mirror, clenches our fate in her fist.
The sound is hideous. A creaking like nails clawing at a chalkboard prison. Like metal shrieking against metal. Like the howling of a mother losing her baby.
I clasp my hands to my ears.
The mirror wobbles, its surface bulging and flexing.
“Please don’t destroy it.” I get on my knees and beg.
“I will not have my future determined. Not by you or the elders or the fucking gods.”
She rips her hand from the mirror, and it bursts. A million, trillion futures erupt. Stars and fate and futures scatter around the room in light and dust and screams.
The mirror bleeds life onto the floor. I scramble up, desperate to stand it up. Desperate to grab my moth and weave a future where the mirror heals and fixes itself. But my moth is exhausted. My panic overwhelmed it.
I scoop up the pieces and furiously try to put them back into the frame. But it’s too late. The Mirror of Fate is broken and I can’t fix it.
“What have you done?” I whisper.
“You did this,” Interitus says.
“No,” I shake my head. And it’s the first time I’ve openly disagreed with her. “You did this. You went too far this time.”
She smiles. I’ve always loved it when someone bestows a smile upon me, but hers, I’ve grown to hate.
She picks up a piece of the mirror and hands it to me.
“And what do you see now, sister?” she asks.
I can’t answer, because as my eyes draw down upon the mirror, I am sickened. But more than anything, I’m terrified by the singular looping future I see before me.