3 Ariuk
Ariuk
Essence from Heaven wasn’t supposed to be capable of damaging the altar. Whatever had wrapped itself around Uriel hadn’t come from here, and judging by the crack running through the marble, everyone else knew it too.
The archangels dragged him into the backrooms before I could get anywhere near him.
The doors shut, swallowing Uriel and leaving the rest of us staring at each other in a silence so complete I could hear Miel breathing behind me.
I took one step toward the palace before his hand closed around my wrist.
“Don’t.”
“They have him.”
“I know.”
Then something slammed against the other side of the doors.
My whole body jerked toward the sound. Shouting followed, several voices crashing together before Uriel’s rose above them, hoarse enough that I barely recognized him.
Listen to me. That was the only piece I caught before another cry tore through the palace and turned my stomach.
“What’s happening?” I cried, pulling against Miel as whispers spread through the angels gathered around us. Nobody seemed to know what was happening behind those doors, but every shout made the crowd press a little closer.
Miel wrapped an arm around my waist when I tried to push forward. “Ariuk, wait.”
“For what?” I twisted against him, my attention locked on the palace. The doors opened before he could answer, silencing the crowd almost immediately.
Jophiel stepped into view with Uriel cradled in his arms, Michael and Gabriel close behind. My father figure hung limp against his chest, his head rolling with every step and one arm dangling uselessly toward the marble.
Jophiel lowered Uriel onto the marble at the foot of the altar, close enough that I could finally see what they had done to him.
Crimson soaked through his white linens and streaked one side of his face.
One wing was bent awkwardly beneath him, its pale feathers matted dark with blood, while the strange essence that had surrounded him before was completely gone.
His hand lay limp against the marble, and for one horrible second, all I could see was the purple flower I had crushed earlier.
It had been so easy to break the stem beneath my foot. Apparently, cutting down an archangel wasn’t much harder. Uriel didn’t move for several awful seconds, and I had already started forgetting how to breathe when his chest finally rose in a shallow, uneven pull of air.
I tore myself out of Miel’s hold and pushed through the last few angels between me and the altar. “Uriel?” His eyelids fluttered as I reached the bottom step, and for one breathless second, his soft brown eyes found mine.
Relief hit me in the chest as I reached toward him without thinking. His mouth moved, but nothing came out, and I leaned closer. “What? What are you trying to say?”
His head rolled weakly against the marble before I could make out anything. I stepped forward again, but Jophiel moved directly into my path, silver hair spilling over the shoulders of his white tunic as he blocked me from Uriel without so much as acknowledging what I was trying to do.
Jophiel’s gaunt features had always seemed harsh for the angel of language and art, but there was something colder about him now as he turned away from Uriel and faced the crowd. “Uriel, archangel, challenged God without provocation. He will be punished according to his crimes.”
“Without provocation?” I stared at him, then at Uriel bleeding onto the marble behind his feet. “You dragged him behind a locked door before he could explain anything.”
Jophiel barely spared me a glance. “He approached the altar.”
“I watched him. I’m asking why.” My voice shook, but I didn’t care. Uriel had a reason for everything he did, even when I disagreed with him. I refused to believe he had suddenly decided to challenge God for the fun of it.
Jophiel turned away from me, and I tried to move around him before he could dismiss me completely. Michael caught both of my arms and pulled me back, his grip tightening when I fought him.
“Let me go. He’s hurt.”
Michael’s gaze flicked toward Uriel before settling on me again. “Don’t make this worse, Ariuk.”
“For who?” I snapped, trying once more to wrench free. His hands only tightened, the warning in his expression making it clear that I was getting dangerously close to joining Uriel on the wrong side of the council.
Jophiel stepped forward, beginning the condemnation.
His lips curled up just slightly, his eyes glittering with the power of reigning judgment over a fellow councilmember.
His usually melodious voice carried something darker, something that made me uneasy.
“To set forth a lesson to keep this from happening again, God has commanded that Uriel be perished out of existence. He will be unable to return to this realm or any other, his essence permanently made into nothingness.”
For a second, I stopped fighting Michael because I couldn’t make Jophiel’s words mean what they obviously meant. Uriel wasn’t being exiled or stripped of his title. They were going to erase him so completely that there would be nothing left to find.
“You can’t do that.” I shoved against Michael’s chest, panic making my movements clumsy. “You didn’t even let him explain.”
Michael caught my wrists before I could hit him again. “Ariuk.”
“He raised me.” My voice cracked, and I hated that every angel around us could hear it. “He taught me everything I know, and you’re going to make him disappear because he touched a fucking altar?”
A few angels recoiled at the language. Uriel had stood beside me through every lesson I failed and every reason Heaven gave him to be embarrassed by the thing he had created. He had never once treated me like I was something he needed to apologize for.
I looked past Michael to Jophiel. “At least ask him why. Please,” I pleaded.
Jophiel ignored me. He raised one hand over Uriel and began reciting words from one of the holy books, each syllable carrying through the sudden silence around the altar. I lunged again, managing to pull one arm free of Michael before Miel caught me around the waist and dragged me backward.
“Ariuk, stop.”
“No.” I clawed at his arm, trying to make enough room to slip free. Light had begun gathering beneath Jophiel’s palm, spilling over Uriel’s bloodied linens. “Uriel, look at me. Please.”
His eyes opened and I stopped fighting long enough for our gazes to meet. I couldn’t tell how much he could see or whether he even understood what was happening, but something in his face softened when he found me. It lasted barely a second before the light swallowed him.
“No!” I fought Miel hard enough that we stumbled together as Uriel’s body began breaking apart beneath Jophiel’s hand.
His essence lifted from the marble in pale threads, disappearing into the air one by one while I waited for something to remain.
A feather. Blood. Anything that proved he had been there.
Nothing did.
Jophiel lowered his hand and clasped it with the other. “It is done.” My knees threatened to give out as he turned toward the palace, Michael and Gabriel falling into step beside him as though they hadn’t just erased someone from existence.
The silence around me didn’t last. Whispers started at the edge of the crowd and spread quickly, angels glancing from the empty marble to me.
One of them murmured that I was Uriel’s creation.
Another pointed out the dark feathers peeking from beneath my linen, and a third wondered aloud whether I had known what he planned to do.
I turned toward the voices, and all three angels looked away, which hurt more than I expected. A few minutes ago, I had still been the strange, giftless creation of an archangel people were careful not to openly antagonize. Now Uriel was gone, and so was the protection that came with his name.
Miel reached for my hand. “Ariuk, come with me.”
I stepped away before he could touch me. “Don’t.”
His brows drew together. “I’m trying to help.”
I looked at the empty place where Uriel had been and then at the angels still watching me like they were waiting to see what I would do next.
There had to be a reason he had approached that altar.
I couldn’t find it here, and I sure as hell couldn’t breathe with everyone staring at me like darkness might be contagious.
When Miel reached for me again, I backed away and wiped angrily at my face. I didn’t care what punishment waited when I came back or who reported me for leaving. I needed noise, humans, bad decisions, anything messy enough to drown out the image of Uriel disappearing in front of me.
There was only one place I wanted to be.
Earth.