Chapter 5
Voices came and went, some whispered, others loud and angry.
All familiar. Uriel woke a few times, stumbled to the bathroom with Raphael’s help, and even drank bowls of warm broth.
The ache in his leg faded, but his soul dragged.
The overwhelm continued no matter how much he shoved away the memories.
He’d been a monster, hadn’t he? Devoured magic with the attempt to close fractures between worlds, but it changed him, made him a beast. What happened after that was a jumble of confusion.
He stared into an unfamiliar room, drapes closed, but light filtering through in gentle waves that made Uriel think of daylight and sunshine. Raphael treated him with the gentlest care, helping him shower, eat, use the bathroom, and returning him to rest. But the emptiness inside made him ravenous.
Raphael muttered a comment about cooking something for Uriel and vanished. The space beyond Uriel’s room silent. Where was he?
The door to his space opened and Morningstar stood in the doorway, huddled in an oversized coat, sunglasses covering his eyes.
He was thinner than Uriel remembered, no less beautiful, but the cracks of his broken soul flickered through his exterior mask of perfection from the shattered energy beneath.
He wasn’t whole. Had they not found the catalyst?
He wouldn’t be free if they hadn’t, right?
“You’ll need to get up and come with me,” Morningstar said.
Uriel stared at him, unwilling to do anything. Existing hurt.
Morningstar approached the bed. Beneath the cracks of teal soul aura peeking through his mask of humanity, Uriel watched shadows move. He sat up, alarmed.
“They are supposed to be gone,” Uriel said.
“Dark and light have to co-exist. One without the other isn’t possible. You know that better than most,” Morningstar said as he took a hold of Uriel’s arm and hauled him out of the bed.
Uriel’s leg trembled, but Morningstar held him up.
“Who shot you?” Morningstar asked.
“Shot?” Uriel didn’t know that word. “Like with an arrow?” Had there been arrows?
Morningstar pressed his forehead to Uriel’s and for a half second Uriel felt his brother sorting through memories as if he could turn the pages of the book of Uriel’s life. He paused on the doctor and Uriel’s heart skipped a beat at the memory, Silas and Mason, a dragon, and Wade.
“The redhead died?” Morningstar asked gently.
Uriel flinched.
Morningstar tugged Uriel toward the door. “We’ll go slow since you’re still healing. But you need magic.”
“I don’t want it,” Uriel said.
“Will you abandon Raphael then?”
“No,” Uriel protested. “Can’t I just be like the other seraphim?”
“You will always be a creator, no matter how many times you Fall. Take the shadows or avoid them, they will seek you out. Right now, you look like a rag doll lost in the dirt for half a century.”
“Feel like it too,” Uriel agreed.
“You already made the choice in this life to take the shadows and use them. If you release them all and live without magic, you’ll age and die. Is that what you want?”
Uriel started to protest that he hadn’t taken any shadows, but remembered breaking the other’s chains by taking the magic from them. “Where are we going?”
“The celestial realm.”
“This isn’t the celestial realm?”
Morningstar laughed. “Right, cause your stuffy ass white fairies would let any color in their world? What you see is what I built, a small world between for the catalyst and me. The celestial realm is still boring bright lights and white everything.”
“I don’t want to see it,” Uriel said. Another failure.
“They refuse to change. Is that what you want for them?”
“They have that choice.”
“But a handful get to choose for everyone?” Morningstar insisted. “What about all the rainbow butterflies you and Raphael designed? The ones in your memory that escaped? The redhead who threw himself on you to save you. What would he have wanted.”
Wade had been chatty, full of life, interested in mortal books and helping anyone who needed a hand. Sweet to the very core as Raphael had designed.
They made it to the door and Morningstar waited for Uriel to make the choice. Raphael appeared outside; expression concerned. “What’s going on?”
“He needs shadows,” Morningstar said.
Raphael winced. “He needs more rest.”
“He could be healed already.”
“Physically, maybe, not emotionally,” Raphael protested.
“My memories are a mess,” Uriel confessed. “I feel… too much. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“There is a seraph in his recent memory who died?” Morningstar asked Raphael pointedly.
Raphael tilted his head and frowned. “No one said anything. There were only a handful of seraphim at the hospital, and I relocated them elsewhere after I moved Uriel.”
“A redhead, named Wade,” Uriel said. “Was he in the group you relocated?”
“No redheads. Only one male among them, his name was Hart.”
Uriel’s heart broke again, and a deep pool of rage took a grip on him, demanding something.
“The humans shot Uriel,” Morningstar said.
“They said it was an accident. Claimed he pulled a monster out of nowhere.”
“Created,” Uriel corrected. “From the magic on the chains holding two other seraphim captive. The third already dead. Where did they get that magic? Who harnessed it? And it wasn’t a monster.
It was a dragon of some kind. It protected me, and blasted a hole in the wall so Silas and Mason could escape. ”
“There was damage to their building, but no dragon or other seraphim when I arrived,” Raphael said.
“Where did they get the magic?” Morningstar repeated Uriel’s question. His gaze flipped to Uriel. “Maybe we should go question this doctor.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Raphael said.
“Because they have guns?” Morningstar asked.
“Partially, yes. Uriel’s still healing.”
“And I am the Morningstar. I eat pain for breakfast.”
“Your lovers will kill me for taking you anywhere they aren’t,” Raphael said.
“Then stay here. Uriel and I will go without you.”
“No. You have trouble returning on your own. I won’t have the strength to carry you and Uriel back. Michael said he won’t help again. Is Lucian home or out searching for Yuri?”
“He’s home. Was making jam with the seraph.” Morningstar sounded annoyed. Uriel wondered who Lucian and the seraph were.
“Call Lucian then. He comes with and we will all go.”
Morningstar glared a moment longer, but huffed and slid Uriel to lean against Raphael.
“Don’t go anywhere. I will be right back.
” His small mortal form disappeared and a large Onari male with horns and navy-blue skin appeared where he’d been.
He stretched out black wings tipped with gold and took to the sky.
Uriel stared in wonder. The Onari had wings?