Chapter 46
The first thing that struck me about the Citadel was how overwhelming it all was.
“Why in the stars are there so many angels here?”
I looked around in every direction, unsure of what to focus on. It was so much, all at once. The angels, the colors, the activities, the food smells, the sounds, the chariots…My head started throbbing. I wouldn’t be able to stay here long. Not in the middle of all of this.
“Well, there are several thousand Farasees in the Order. Their families have to live and thrive somewhere,” Ellabeth said.
“But I thought they lived back on the main island of Ouanaviel?” Amayah said, her voice shaking. “I agree with Safah. There’s just so…many of them. And not just Seraphim. It seems at least ten out of the twelve angelic ranks are here.”
I frowned, trailing a slew of Seraphim flying past us.
Many of the elemental angels chose to fly around in their fyused skin instead of their Seraphim ones.
I watched as bodies of fire, water, ice, earth, metals, shadows, lightning, and other elements I didn’t have a chance to process, flew by.
None of them were starry like myself, which was odd.
Then I ogled the Mortents, with their jeweled eyes and glossy skin. Unlike Quazar and his Marked in Xadari Legion, these were unmarked. I narrowed my eyes at them, wondering how so many Mortents became Marked, yet somehow, these angels had escaped the same fate.
A slew of Lawrents and Goverents flew by. They were so similar. Both angelic ranks had colorful, galactic skin that shimmered like the stars, and five pairs of feathered wings. One would think they were the same rank until you looked into their eyes.
Lawrents had stunning, multi-colored eyes. Many of these had one eye of gold, and another jeweled like color. But the Goverents had brightly lit, incandescent eyes. As if a lightning bolt had ignited behind their irises and never burned out.
Prodding shadows gingerly trailed my arms and hips as my anxious twitching grew more evident. I wasn’t liking this at all. I hadn’t expected the Citadel to be so overstimulating, and my friends weren’t helping.
“We should find the food stalls,” Isandra was saying. “I want a drumstick.”
“A drum what?” Vashari asked, crinkling his nose, and curling his lip at her.
Isandra didn’t skip a beat. She tossed her hair, lifting her chin at him.
“Clearly you need a proper education on culinary culture. Come on.”
She grabbed Vashari’s elbow, starting to fly away.
“I’m not understanding why we would go get food when we just ate!” Ellabeth huffed. “How are we not agreeing to go see the museums first?”
“No one wants to go get lost in some stuffy house of artifacts, Ellie,” Daelun grumbled.
“I know what you need.” Dakairi chuckled darkly, wrapping a wing around Ellabeth’s waist, beginning to tug her away. She swatted at him, which only made him laugh more as he pulled her tighter.
“Screw the museums. I want more shadowbolts,” Chen said, crossing his arms.
Ivyana rolled her eyes.
“Why is it always weapons with you? This is a happy time. You’re supposed to enjoy what makes you happy, Chen.”
“Having enough weapons to clear out a legion of carcasses is my happy place.”
“Are we seriously…”
The words trailed off as I tuned my friends out.
Gentle tendrils of shadow brushed down my spine, before lingering at my hips, squeezing my waist. I slid my gaze to Quazar.
When our eyes met, he nudged his head to the side, putting a finger to his lips.
I slipped my hand into his. He interlaced our fingers as he pulled us away while our friends kept arguing about what to do first.
“It’s like herding goats,” I said.
Quazar laughed.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked, thankful to be pulled away from the mayhem of our friends. The Citadel was organized chaos enough. Quazar looked at me, his eyes wistful.
“Nowhere in particular, my Starling. I just wanted to get you away before they made you combust. You have one dawn in the Citadel, I want it to be a good one.”
I smiled at him before turning my sights to the bustling city in the clouds.
In every direction were interconnected towers joined by glass bridges with gilded side rails.
Billowing plumes of cloud buoyed throughout the city, filling up pockets between buildings, fountains, parks, and endless city avenues.
I breathed in deeply, then exhaled in a long sigh, taking it all in. I put away the thoughts of Spirit Harvesters, Stareaters, the temple trials, the Blood Rites. Burning Kaelthos and Tharic Zamarien. This was a sliver of a chance to breathe, and I was going to take it.
The delicious scent of fried plantains, roasting meats, and gooey sweets filled my nostrils, flooding my senses. It made me think of times outside of temple life. It made me feel at home.
Manmi loved taking us to market. We’d buy food, shop until our wings burned and refused to fly us further, and our hearts were content.
Tears welled in my eyes as I thought about Manmi and all my beautiful memories of her.
Memories that seemed to exclude many truths of what she’d kept hidden from us all.
Hidden from me as she prepared me to follow in her footsteps.
Chronophim and Raephim angels raced past us. They were intermingled, bonding in friendship though they were of different angelic ranks. They laughed, as they flew throughout the towers rushing from one place to another. My throat bobbed.
“What’s wrong, Starling?”
“They look so…happy. So carefree.”
“Hmm,” Quazar said, pulling me to face him. He kept a hand at my waist, while pushing my hair out of my eyes with the other. A soft breeze twirled around us, chilling my shoulders in a soothing way.
“I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not hearing your hearts.” He poked at my chest, where the largest three of my seven hearts were beating. “What really ails you?”
“I envy their freedom. Their…life.”
I looked around. These angels weren’t in the Farasee Order. They were just the families and friends. They didn’t have to think about trials. About Disciples dying all around them. About having to shed their blood so the lives of innocents could be spared. My chin wobbled as I fought tears.
“Since my youngling cycles, I was trained for this. Every dawn had a new lesson. Every twinight had even more. I couldn’t eat certain things.
Go certain places. Do certain things. It’s like the Farasees say, ‘You’ve been given much.
So more will be required of you.’ But no one burning talks about when that more is beyond what you have to give.
When that more breaks you. Robs you of your reasons to smile.
Delays your desire to wake up and see a new dawn.
When that more threatens to break you. And when you are broken, it continues to break you still.
Because submission is not enough. Total surrender is just the beginning. ”
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
“I was raised to hate the Fallenspawn and to adore the temple. I was taught to believe the Farasees and to spare no mercy for traitorous Fallen. I was taught to live piously and do all I could to be righteous. Because the temple was true. The temple was right. The temple is our stairwell to the Infinite. But it’s all turned out to be a rotting sack of lies.
The image of the temple is a fantasy.” I lifted my palms to Quazar’s chest, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“You have proven to be my only reality, Quazar Valoryen. Outside of you, I just don’t know what is actually true. ”
Quazar pulled me in close, pressing his forehead to mine.
“Your love for your Manmi, your Papi, your siblings, Evanae…that is true.” He breathed huskily down our bond.
“Your feather-tight bond to Ellabeth is true. Your love, adoration, and pure worship of the Infinite is true. Your willingness to look beyond what is in front of you, is true. Your love for your friends, and your desire to do what’s right, no matter what it will cost you, is true.
You know what’s true, Starling. You live it out every dawn.
And I’ll burn in the Hèls before I let this temple break you.
Before I let it make you forget that you’re a burning star that shines bright enough to light an entire realm.
That you’re the storm that will shatter their glass walls.
The storm they never saw coming. The shooting star that will crash into their pious halls of lies, set them on fire, and watch them burn into endless ash. ”
I wrapped my arms, then my wings, around Quazar and wept against his chest. I felt heavy weights that had been stacking on top of my chest for months begin to fall off.
He held me tight, wrapping his wings on top of mine.
We floated in the air, not caring which angels passed us.
Noticed us. Made comments. We held each other as if there was nothing else in the world that mattered. Because really, nothing else did.
“Alright, no more tears,” he said, pulling away after a while. He wiped my tears away with a wing, grinning wide. “I’m about to stuff you with Ouanaviel akra, patties, and donuts.”
“I am a sucker for donuts.”
“You’re my Starling. Of course you love donuts. Come on.”
Fingers interlaced, we flew across the Citadel. I laughed watching younglings rush into fountains, only for the flow of water to overwhelm their small wings, tossing them straight into the bottom of the basin.
“Poor things.” I giggled.
Tendrils of shadow wrapped around my waist, brushing my sides lovingly.
“I can see you doing exactly that at their age. Even if you were told no.”
“Goodness, don’t you know me so well.” I laughed. “Usually Ezekiel or Hosea had to come and drag me out.”
Quazar scoffed.
“Stars. Little sisters are all the same.”
I turned my head to him.
“You had to drag Ivyana out of fountains?”
He rolled his eyes.
“First it was fountains.” He paused, grumbling, his eyes darkening. “Then it was male’s beds.”
I tossed my head back, bursting out laughing. Quazar didn’t think it was funny. Which only made me laugh even more. We flew across a glass bridge, curving along with the flow of angelic traffic.
There were many gods here. I frowned when I saw none of them were free. The gods wore shackles, as they were dragged around by the angels in front of them, their arms full of items that must have belonged to their angelic masters.
One goddess caught my eyes. Stars she looked so familiar. Her beautiful eyes were the lightest hazel. Her warm tawny skin nearly matched her brown robes made of chain links. The chains had gaps in them, enough to show her curvaceous figure beneath them.
Parts of her body was exposed in a way I was sure she didn’t like. She looked at me with profound pain in her eyes. I tilted my head trying to remember why she seemed so familiar. Then the goddess gave me a small, broken, but defiant smile. And it all clicked.
“Serafina?” I gasped.
Quazar stilled beside me. I wanted to fly to Serafina. I had so many questions. I hadn’t seen her since the dawn she dropped me off for inauguration. Now she was here. Since I’d last seen her she seemed…broken somehow. And it made me want to rage.
I nudged forward, but Quazar gripped my hand and squeezed it tight.
“Trust me. You don’t want to do that. Not here.”
“Ashiris, you’re a Disciple. You’re still alive! Thank the Infinite,” she whispered, as she floated by—though she had no wings of her own—following after the Seraphim she was shackled to. “I beg of you. You must Ascend,” she said so low, I thought I was hearing things.
Several of the gods beside her whipped their heads around when they heard what she’d said. They looked at me. When they saw my eyes, one of them said, “It is her. It is the Ashiris!”
Then they were pulled away by their angelic overseers and were gone.