Chapter 16
Present Aeon
Luc stumbled through the main reading room and out into the brightness of the well-traveled path between the Library and the instructional buildings.
Terrified faces and bloodied bodies, crumbled stone and shattered glass, trailed after him.
He feared if he glanced down, he’d find blood on his hands.
Around him, angels were going about their routine tasks, moving in isolation or in groups of two or three. Some of the travelers waved at Luc as they passed by, but he couldn’t raise his hand.
Did they know? But they couldn’t. They would hate him.
Though, obviously, someone knew. Whoever had built that room. Whoever cared for it.
Cold sweat dampened his collar. Chills rolled down his arms in waves.
He couldn’t stay there. He had to get out. Spreading his wings, he headed for the only place that might calm his thoughts.
When he arrived there, the Void was as it had always been, though he resented the watchtowers that had recently been erected. Normally, he didn’t pay them any mind, but now they felt like two overbearing sets of eyes as he crash-landed near the obelisk.
Wait. The watchtowers.
Why the watchtowers? Why the border reinforcements?
Was it all for him? Did the Council know? Did Michael know?
Was this why Michael hated him? Why his projects kept being turned down?
Luc’s stomach churned. His vision swam. He leaned against the obelisk’s cool stone, gulping in aether and not getting enough.
Luc rubbed his face, trying to scrub the vision from his brain, but it remained there. Lila had been right. The Council wasn’t to be trusted. No one was to be trusted.
But of course, Lila was right. She was always right. She had no business being right! Luc was the brightest angel! The most brilliant one. He was the herald of a glorious age, not a…a…
Wheezing for breath, he clutched his chest and sank down beside the obelisk.
He turned over every interaction he’d ever had for a clue that someone had known about his vision.
Because someone knew—someone had to know—and that someone had stayed quiet and had, most definitely, convinced others to stay quiet.
And to what end? Why lie to him? Why not just…cast him into the Void and be done with him?
Luc didn’t know. He only knew, with more and more encroaching certainty, that his vision was the reason he’d been put on the Council.
He’d always been told that it was, of course, but now he knew it was not because he was destined to do great things among the angels.
It was so the Council could monitor him and his activities.
So they could monitor his ideas—and stamp them out.
He’d thought it strange that Michael had allowed him to join the Council when the warrior held him in such contempt.
But at the time, he’d believed that even Michael couldn’t deny his genius.
His destiny. Or that, perhaps, Michael was bowing to the wishes of the majority.
Or the wishes of the outgoing architect, Hadri.
And of every possible betrayal, the knowledge that Hadri had betrayed him stung the worst. No wonder he’d refused to tell Luc what he knew of his vision.
Yet, from their first meeting, he’d been intensely interested in Luc.
He’d taken him into his confidence and badgered him into sharing his ideas.
He’d volunteered to mentor Luc, and Luc had never asked him why; instead, he’d believed he was so special that of course the Council architect had nothing better to do than supervise his trivial student projects.
What a fool he’d been.
Bent over on his knees and forearms, Luc stared at the Void, and the Void stared back at him. Was it laughing at him? Had it known the whole time? Did the angels live in the Void’s stomach, as Lila had suggested? Was the Void about to spew him out, a seed it hadn’t meant to swallow?
And what of the Creator? Surely, He knew who Luc was. What Luc was.
Was Luc the reason He’d moved on from the angels? Why He hid out in the Void?
Somehow, that made a terrible, cruel sense.
What fool would tend to a world that is destined to destroy itself?
Luc pressed his forehead to the marble platform, trying to ground himself on it, but the roiling of his stomach and the chaos of his thoughts wouldn’t cease. There were too many questions with no answers that only led to more questions with no answers. Or answers he didn’t like.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there, bent double, only that, at some point, the questions gave way to memories, and his fears gained flesh. The scenes of his existence flickered behind his eyelids, and they should have been familiar to him, but he saw them for the first time.