Chapter 2
GABE
I couldn’t seem to get my feet to move at first. The battlefield was still chaotic with wyvern wings cutting through the smoke above and some soldiers scattering in confusion, but all I could see were the two figures walking toward us.
My parents.
For years, I’d told myself they were gone to me. That the night I vanished, the night Noah smuggled me out of Alfemir, was the last time I would ever even think of them without pain gnawing at my chest. But here they were. Flesh and blood.
My heart stuttered, unsure how to feel, or how to act around them. After all, they went all these years thinking I was dead.
My mother’s dark hair was whipped wild by the wind, her uniform still pristine despite the blood staining the ground around us.
Her expression was taut with the cool detachment of an Archangel, but I knew that mask—I’d grown up with it.
My father, by contrast, looked shaken, grief and shock etched into every line of his face.
“Gabriel?” My father’s voice broke in a way that it hadn’t in all the years I lived with him. His eyes searched me as if I were some phantom, on the cusp of fading if he blinked. “How? This isn’t possible. We buried you. We mourned you.”
My throat closed tight. The urge to go to them, to let them hold me the way they had when I was small and scared, slammed into me so hard my chest ached. For a moment I wanted to let myself believe it…that I could fall into their arms and pretend I’d never been without them in the first place.
But then my gaze flicked over my shoulder to Kieran, swaying on her feet, Steele’s steady hand at her back. My eyes settled on the faint scar at her throat and my stomach knotted. She was nearly ripped from me—because of what she was, because of the secrets we weren’t allowed to speak in Alfemir.
Proof that we weren’t safe to be who we were.
Glancing back to my mother, it hit me hard…
she was an Archangel, just like Kieran’s father.
She wore the same robes, bore the same white wings as the ones who tried to erase people like Kieran and me from existence.
She was a part of the first triad, the lowest tier of the much larger problem in history.
She was complicit, but had she realized whose will she truly served?
That instinct to embrace my parents soured as an over abundance of caution poured through me. Yes, they were my parents. But my family wasn’t just them now—it was Kieran, Steele, Ronan, Bash, even Niz. My mother could very well be our enemy.
So I forced my legs to move, one heavy step at a time, until I stood just a few feet away. They looked at me like I was a miracle and a ghost all at once.
“I know,” I rasped, my voice rougher than I intended. “You thought I was dead, but I’m right here.”
My father’s throat worked like he wanted to say more, but it was my mother who stepped closer first. Her gaze raked over me as if she was trying to memorize every detail, her lips parting with disbelief.
“We buried a coffin,” she whispered, her hand lifting a fraction before faltering, as if she was afraid I’d vanish if she touched me. “We stood at your funeral, Gabriel. How is this possible?”
The words clawed down my spine. Funeral. They’d mourned me like I was gone forever, while I had been hiding in the shadows of the Rebellion, carrying the truth alone.
I swallowed hard, dragging in a steady breath that felt like glass scraping my lungs. “Because if I hadn’t disappeared, you really would’ve been burying me.”
Shock covered her face, but I kept going before the hesitation could catch me.
“I don’t have a normal affinity,” I said quietly, forcing the truth into the open for the first time to them.
“I was told during testing that if I didn’t fall, I’d be killed for what I am.
Noah, a previous Text Keeper, helped me get out before they carried through with it.
That night…I had no choice but to vanish. ”
Their silence pressed heavily around me, my father frozen, my mother’s brows knitting.
“You should have come to us,” she whispered, her composure cracking enough to let warmth break through her Archangel duty.
For a moment, I saw the mother who used to kneel at my bedside and sing to me when the nightmares came. Her voice trembled, softer now. “We would have figured it out together, Gabriel. You could have told me.”
I shook my head hard, my jaw aching with the force of how hard I clenched it.
“No. I couldn’t. Not with what I saw every day in Alfemir.
Not when I found out Archangels were deciding who was allowed to live and who wasn’t because of their powers.
” My voice cracked as I gestured back toward Kieran.
“Look at her. Her own father just slit her throat because of what she is in front of everyone. How could I risk it being the same with you?”
The silence that followed was worse than shouting. My mother’s eyes widened as she finally looked beyond me to Kieran.
Her throat bobbed as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, her breath catching on a sound halfway between a gasp and a sob. “How could any parent want to kill their child?” she choked, shaking her head like the thought itself burned. “It’s unthinkable.”
The words tore at me, because as much as I wanted to believe them, part of me still remembered the cold distance she’d been forced to wear in public—the Archangel mask she’d carried into every room.
I wanted to believe this was her truth, that the woman in front of me was only my mother now and not an Archangel foe…
but the battlefield between us made it hard to trust anything.
I froze as the tears rolled down her cheeks in earnest. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my mother cry, if ever. Early in my teens, she had been promoted to Archangel, and from then on she had always been stone, wrapped tightly in duty and pride, the mask never slipping.
But here and now, the shimmer of tears made her look less like an Archangel and more like the woman who brushed dirt from my scraped knees when I was learning to fly and fell countless times. The woman who once kissed my forehead and told me I was her greatest joy.
My chest clenched hard, torn in two directions. The son in me wanted to close the distance, to let her hold me and pretend the world around us didn’t exist. But the man I’d become—the one who belonged to Kieran and the family I’d found in the Rebellion—remembered exactly what Alfemir had cost us.
I clenched my fists at my sides, the urge to reach for her warring with the instinct to protect the only family I could truly trust now. Movement in my periphery dragged me back to reality.
Kieran.
She was incredibly pale, her legs still unsteady, but she pushed past Steele’s steadying hand and closed the distance between us.
Every instinct in me screamed to go to her, to catch her before she fell, but I forced myself still.
If she needed this moment—to stand on her own, to face my parents—it wasn’t my place to take it from her.
Her hazel eyes lifted to my parents, calm despite the exhaustion dragging at her frame. “Hello, it’s been awhile since we’ve seen each other,” she said simply, her voice roughened from the wound that should have killed her.
My mother’s gaze fell to Kieran’s throat, at the still-fresh scar, and something shifted in her expression. Reverence, maybe. Or awe.
“What’s next?” my mother asked her quietly, like the answer belonged to Kieran alone.
Kieran blinked, surprise flickering across her features the same way I felt inside. She swayed slightly, but her voice didn’t falter. “Why are you asking me?”
My mother didn’t hesitate as she wiped her fallen tears and brought back a bit of the steel composure I was used to. “Because you stared death in the face and still chose to speak your truth—to try to save us all. That kind of courage deserves to be followed.”
A small gasp left Kieran and I swallowed hard.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Not because I was hurt by her words not being directed at me, but because I recognized the weight behind them.
It filled me with something else entirely.
Pride. Relief. Gratitude that she saw the woman who meant everything to me and valued her with the same reverence I did.
It reminded me that the love I’d once known from her wasn’t gone, just buried beneath years of duty and the mask she had to wear. And maybe, just maybe, there was still room to believe she could stand with us now. This wasn’t the time to focus on what’s next, however. Kieran needed time to rest.
She looked like she might crumble under the weight of people looking to her for guidance right now, so before she could even attempt an answer, I stepped in, grounding us all.
“We regroup first,” I said firmly, my arm brushing against Kieran’s. “Then we figure out the next step together.”
Her eyes flicked up to me, soft relief threading through the weariness in her gaze.
The moment didn’t last.
Two soldiers that had turned on Alfemir’s hierarchy broke through the silent crowd and came straight for my mother, weapons raised as if she were no different from the other Archangels pinned in the dirt.
Instinct surged hot in my veins. I shifted in front of her before I even thought about it, my body braced to take them apart piece by piece if they touched her. “Back off,” I snapped, my voice sharp enough to cut. “She’s not your prisoner.”
The soldiers hesitated, one glancing at me like he wanted to argue but not quite brave enough to face me head-on.
Before the tension could spiral further, Kieran’s voice cut through the smoke, steady and commanding. “Wait.”
She moved to my side, her steps slow but sure, her gaze locking on my mother’s. “She stays with us.”
The soldiers looked uncertain, but Kieran didn’t waver. “Instead of locking her away, I want her to give us names. The Archangels we can trust, and the ones we can’t. She knows who’s too far gone and who might stand with us.”
My mother’s breath hitched. Her eyes softened as she turned toward Kieran, something like awe flickering there again. “You would trust me with that?”
Kieran’s chin lifted, her scar catching the last light of the fires burning around us. “We don’t have the luxury of throwing everyone into the same cage. We need to know who we can count on, to add numbers to our side so we can truly secure Alfemir.”
For a long moment, my mother just looked at her before she nodded, her voice soft. “You have my word. I’ll make you that list.”
She hesitated, tears gathering again as her gaze darted between Kieran and me. “And…I’m sorry. We didn’t all know the truth of the past. I’m sorry for my blindness, for letting this rot go on as long as it has. But I swear to you, I’ll do whatever it takes to help you now.”
Something loosened in my chest at her words. For the first time since this battle began, I felt the faintest trace of hope that maybe not every Archangel was our enemy.
When I looked at Kieran, pale and trembling at my side, I knew she was done holding herself upright out of sheer willpower. Her hand brushed my arm, the smallest touch, but it nearly undid me. “Gabe,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, “take me home.”
The words pierced through me, her intention landing heavily. She didn’t mean the Rebellion’s camp. She meant her house here in Alfemir. The one I’d followed her to that fateful night in the archives.
“Of course, Little Star,” I murmured, my arm sliding around her waist to steady her.
Before I could lift her into my arms, Steele and Bastian appeared, both streaked with blood and sweat.
“We need to head down to the Rebellion camp,” Steele said, his tone sharp with command but his eyes lingering on Kieran like he didn’t want to leave her. “Bastian needs to put the blood barrier in place, and Amelia needs an update on what went down here tonight.”
“Don’t miss me too much,” Bash quipped, his usual grin tempered, softer as he stepped close.
He caught Kieran’s chin in his hand, pressing a hard, possessive kiss to her lips before pulling back with a smirk that didn’t quite hide the tension in his gaze.
“Don’t go dying again, Darling. It’s terrible for my nerves. ”
A tinkering laugh fell from Kieran’s lips and it was like magic all in and of itself, forcing smiles to our own faces. The second didn’t last long, though, the moment quickly broken by the coughs that shook her body.
Steele followed, his movements deliberate as he bent and pressed a lingering kiss to her temple, his hand cupping the back of her head. “Rest, Princess. We’ll be back soon.”
I tightened my hold on her as they pulled away, my chest burning with the need to keep her shielded from all the eyes still lingering on us like they wanted to demand more answers than we had to give.
“Let’s get you home,” I whispered, lifting her gently against me.
All of them could wait. For the moment, safety blanketed Alfemir, and that would have to be enough for the angels for now.
Her head dropped against my shoulder, her breath warm against my neck. For the first time since coming back to life, she let herself lean into me fully, her weight a trust I’d die before betraying.
As I carried her away from the carnage, I swore I’d never let anything come close to taking her from us again.