49. GODRIC
Whenever I stood before the Proelium Primum frieze, the only thing that assailed me was irony.
This depiction of the First Battle between Heaven and Hell had probably once been inspirational. Then it became an outdated relic of an unending conflict that is drawing to an end, and not in any way the combatants imagined.
Now, as I stare up at the elaborate work of art, I feel nothing but the memories crashing down on me. Of the first day I dragged her here to stand trial before the archangels.
My gaze moves to my father’s likeness, where I leashed her after I brought her back from the Divination, and left her unable to sit down—for seven hours.
“How about I pee on your boots this time in gratitude?”
Her words once she realized what I’d done to her ring in my ears, again. I almost smile, against my will, as I did then. That was the first time I realized my reaction was hers to dictate.
Even though it was a shocking anomaly, I wasn’t worried. Not too much. I thought I’d done my part, solved the puzzle, and caught that impossible being. She had messed with my mind, what no one had ever touched, but that would end when she became someone else’s problem. Even when I’d suspected there was no one else. That it always had to be me.
I hated it when my father stressed that fact, and assigned me to her.
Still, I’d convinced myself that she would turn out to be just another charge, like the dozens I’d fathomed, molded, then sent on their way. The only difference was that, in her case, I would get what I need from her—then get rid of her.
Now, I can’t even imagine it. That my motives had once been that basic, and my life that uncomplicated.
It’s probably why I’m here, summoning my father this way. It’s—nostalgic.
Sighing, I withdraw Zawal, the sword he’d forged for me, from my own Essence, and place it beneath his feet. I don’t go through the whole taking-the-knee, fist-on-heart ritual. That was part of her “trial.” This is an informal summoning, in lieu of texting him.
As soon as I feel his presence on the other side, I employ my Transmogrifying Grace and warp the very substance of the barriers between us. Then I’m inside the Conventus Locus, where the archangelic family have been assembling since the last century.
It was Gabriel’s project, a part of his obsession with both inspiring and indulging in human entertainment. He fancies himself and the other archangels as Heaven’s version of the Knights of Camelot. I’m sure the connotation went over the others’ heads. While choosing that tale to emulate only proves he himself probably never followed its grandeur and nobility to the dismal end.
My father is probably the only one who realizes the significance of this place, and knows how the legend was born, and how it expired. He knows the most about humankind, even when he never shows it—or anything else for that matter. I doubt even his “siblings” know much of anything about him.
He’s now sitting at the massive round table, his winged back to me, looking as if he’s been here a while.
It’s one of the first things I learned about him. That constructs like time don’t apply to him in the same way it does to other beings. Like everything else, he doesn’t experience it the same.
“Father.”
His head turns, and for a moment, he looks almost—melancholy. The disturbing expression is gone as he stands up, and walks towards me.
I wait, knowing what will come.
A couple of strides from me, he opens his arms.
I close the remaining distance, walking into his embrace.
His arms close around me, and I feel it. The sheer endlessness of his being. Of his power. Of his—love.
I let out a long breath and let him do what he needs to.
When it’s over, he steps away, tilting his head to the side, his eyes, so much like mine, appraising me.
It’s always hard to decipher his mood. He does have those, what not even Gideon is aware of. I’m in the unique position of being “of him,” in way not even he is.
“I expected to see you sooner upon your return,” he says, and as always his voice sounds more like mine does in my own ears.
It’s not a chastisement. My father doesn’t do that. Not his parenting style. It was a statement of his own expectations.
I shrug as I walk away to the table. “Sooner or later—time isn’t of much relevance to us.”
“It is, as it pertains to all we are involved with, and in.”
Dragging a chair, I flash my wings away as I sit down. I know he doesn’t like it when I am “wingless” in his presence. It reminds him too much that I am “other.” It’s why I always do it. I need him to never forget that.
Sitting back in the chair in a way he never could, I say, “I didn’t feel like visiting. Or reporting.”
Without moving, he’s looming above me. “It was not a report that I waited on. It was your own status that concerned me.”
I tilt my head up to meet his gaze, so much like mine, yet so different. “My status is what it always was, and always will be. It will never change.”
“Less than half an Earth year ago, I would have never contested that statement. Now—things have changed. You have.” I continue holding his gaze. I always let him lead the conversation, to find out what he wants with me. He always wants something. He gets to his point. “Is it because of Wen White? Is having her as your charge—compromising you, in any way?”
“I never thought I’d see the day when you second-guessed a decision you made,” I say, letting my lips curl in derision.
His gaze darkens at my insolence. He’s not angry. He’s—unsettled. “You were very much against having her anywhere near this domain, let alone being personally involved in deciphering her. Your reasons were valid.”
I huff. “Yet, you overruled me.”
“I brought her here.”
The sharp swerve of his declaration makes my every muscle tense, and everything inside me surge with alarm and aggression.
She didn’t tell me. But then, up until our disastrous cavern interlude, she hadn’t been telling me anything. Her unknown silence, and the hurt behind it had been opening a chasm inside me that felt as deep as her void. The need to bridge it had driven me to her breakfast table—and the chain reaction leading to this moment.
For now, I only nod. Father can take it whichever way he pleases. Either that I’m aware of the incident, or I’m requesting he elaborate.
He chooses to elaborate. “She demanded an audience. She believed I’m the only one who can find you, who can order you back.”
Of course she did. She’s probably the sole being in the history of Existence to ever seek the Archangel of Death of her own free will. “You no doubt disabused her of those assumptions.”
“Indeed. But it wasn’t the particulars of her audience with me that mattered. It was her state. I’ve seen her when you’d just plucked her from her life as a demon’s slave. She might have been flimsy of body, but she possessed an almost incomprehensible fortitude of mind and spirit. This time, those were almost—threadbare. As if she was being consumed by some psychic and spiritual—famine.”
I force everything within me to go still. If I’m not meticulously guarded and constantly vigilant, the very idea of her suffering, at all, let alone on my account might drive me insane.
Outwardly, under my father’s watchful gaze, I give him the son he created, the instrument he values. The Firstborn of Death. “It’s because I did what you wished. I made her depend on me. She now considers me her anchor in this world, and can’t contemplate her life here without me. My disappearance gave her a—consuming taste of that scenario.”
A suspended perpetuity passes as he examines me, before he says, “So she’s more amenable? You’re finding it easier to plumb the secrets she is wrapped around?”
I nod, because I have to. “I’m getting there.” A beat before I add, “Shouldn’t we talk about something of importance?”
“With her turning out to be a Null, on top of her original conundrum, what could be of more importance than her anomalous existence?”
“She’s only a mystery I’ll eventually solve. We should spend our time together strategizing for actual concerns.”
“She is my actual concern. I must decipher what she is.”
A wave of apprehension propels me to my feet. “You’re making too much of this inconsequential pet project. I am dealing with it, and I will furnish you with what you wish for. As always.”
He contemplates me in silence. He’s not convinced.
When Astaroth asked me to probe his position, even if at the price of prolonging my exposure, I summoned my father expecting the worst. Or so I thought. This is the worst.
To fucking bloody Heaven with his position. With it all. I’d remain this close to him, whatever the unspeakable consequences, until I take his focus away from her.
Since there’s only one way that might possibly work, something premature and foolhardy and could jeopardize everything I ever planned, I square off with him. “Now that’s taken care of, and since you insisted that time is relevant, I submit that it’s overdue for us to discuss the matters you have long neglected.”
In response to my unknown challenge, my father’s wings turn pitch black, and the chamber fills with his power.
Anyone else, even his siblings, would have been blinded. Any lesser being would have been stripped of their senses or more, their minds, maybe even lives.
My perceptions expand instead, and with them the powers I keep compressed. He’s reminding me that only he can unleash me.
His form is still a storm of entropy when he speaks, his voice bearing down on me from all ends of eternity, tranquil and void of inflection. It’s as if I’m hearing myself after everything inside me dies.
“If you don’t resolve her mystery, I will have to step in. I’d rather not, but if you can’t, or won’t do what you must, Wen White will become my charge.”
Her mark blazes within my Sigillum, as if in outrage at his decree. Before it burns through my clothes like it did once before, a flash of absolute nonexistence turns everywhere and everytime off.
When it dissipates, my father is gone.
The urge to hurtle after him into his domain almost overpowers me. Even though I can, I’d never done it, never wanting to plunge even deeper into his world. I shouldn’t now. It would serve no purpose but expose my compromised state.
And then, I know him. He left to avoid the possibility of a confrontation. He wouldn’t want to be forced to end me. Not before I served my purpose. While I never confronted him, to serve mine.
I care nothing about any of that anymore. Or that he gave me his first ever ultimatum. Only that it is about her.
If I don’t give him something to satisfy him, and soon, she might be lost to me.
I would do anything, anything at all, so that would never come to pass.