Chapter Fifty-Nine
CHAPTER
FIFTY-NINE
“Sabriel.” The name fell from Yuri’s lips like a prayer.
A new form had taken shape where Severin had stood only moments ago, and Yuri couldn’t trust what he was seeing. Couldn’t make sense of the figure standing before him, so utterly familiar that every breath made him ache.
It was impossible. Some cruel illusion conjured to needle him.
And yet …
Light, those eyes.
He had seen them in nightmares as much as dreams—silver, bright with laughter and sharp with mischief. Only now, they were rimmed in a ghostly shade of blue.
This creature bore the face of the boy he had once known, but it had been honed into something unearthly.
His hair, long and white, fell wild past his shoulders.
His wings, too, had paled to resemble the heart of a flame, tinged in searing blues and white-hot light. They crackled as he moved, alive.
Yuri ached to reach out and touch them. To see if they burned.
He was taller than the Sabriel he remembered. Broader, and reeking with power. Veins of light pulsed beneath his skin like molten rivers, and the air warped with every breath, as if the world itself bent to avoid his touch.
Sabriel—his friend, his partner, his life’s biggest regret—stood before him. But he was no longer the boy Yuri had grown up with.
“Wrath,” Xadriel spat, but no—it couldn’t be. That name belonged to one of the Originals.
Not to the boy whose laugh could light up a cathedral and echo for days.
Not to Sabriel, who had always walked two steps ahead, grinning back at Yuri like the world was his for the taking.
He clutched Lori to his chest, lungs tight around his grief. He’d returned to that cottage as soon as he’d been able, praying for some trace of his friend’s survival. He’d found only the bones of two lovers, and had buried them in front of the cottage while tears streaked his face.
“Sabriel.” Even speaking the name aloud tore a piece off Yuri’s heart. “Is it truly you?”
“Don’t speak that name.” The demon’s lips curled back to bare long fangs. “Sabriel died long ago, killed by the person he trusted most.”
Yuri crumpled, his fingers curled around Lori’s arms. Aurelie had crouched beside them, her hand pressed firm on the young angel’s shoulder as she desperately tried to unravel Severin’s hold on him.
“Did you know?” Yuri rasped, turning on Xadriel. “Did you know he was alive?”
“He was Fallen.” Xadriel didn’t even blink. “Fallen don’t survive.”
But Sabriel had, and if the vespers’ home in the woods was any indicator, then so had others.
A dawning horror bloomed within him. For ages they had wondered how the Originals came to be. Now, with the ghost of his friend standing before him, he feared he had an answer.
Could all the Originals have once been angels?
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I need you to focus.” Aurelie’s voice cut through his spiraling. Her magic strained against Severin’s as Lori began to lose consciousness.
I failed him, Yuri thought, numb as he looked between Lori and the demon. I failed them both.
It wasn’t a confession, but a truth carved from bone.
He’d left Sabriel bleeding, wings torn, barely breathing. He’d obeyed his orders, and by doing so, had betrayed the one person he cared for above all else.
And look what it had done to him.
Look at what it had done to the world.
“Do you care for that angel?” Sabriel asked. Or was it Wrath now? Severin? Whatever his name, he tipped his head toward Lori like a predator scenting the wind. “Do you care for him the way you once claimed to care for me?”
“Sabriel—”
“Sabriel is dead.” The word struck like a blade. “Don’t make me say it again.”
Lori’s body began to seize. His skin was turning purple, bloodshot eyes searching frantically for help.
“Stop this,” Yuri begged. “Please, he doesn’t deserve this. He’s innocent.”
“And I wasn’t?” The miasma surrounding Severin had thickened, choking even the shape of him. “Did I deserve what you did to me, Yuriel? When you carved out my wings as I begged you to stop, did I deserve it?”
Lori’s wings sagged. His eyes had begun to glaze over.
“Of course you didn’t,” Yuri panted, barely able to breathe.
This was all his fault.
Sabriel. Wrath. Just how much pain had Yuri put him through?
“Severin.” Aurelie’s voice hit like a cold wind on a fevered night. “You have the chance to do something good. Don’t soil this day with more blood than what’s already been shed. Please, let the angel go.”
A flash of something akin to grief passed through his eyes. “No one’s innocent in this, Aurelie.” He spoke to her, though his eyes were on Yuri. “I lost everything. My home, my love, my faith. Even now, they take from me again and again. But sure, knightling, let’s give the angels another chance.”
Lori gasped, choking on the breath Severin suddenly returned to him. Yuri collapsed over him in relief.
“Can you hear me?” he asked, checking Lori’s face for color, for clarity in his gaze. The angel was dazed, chest still heaving. Yuri pressed a steadying hand to his shoulder. “Stay down and gather yourself. Keep out of his sight.”
All the while, Severin paid them no heed. He turned, eyes ablaze, on Xadriel.
“I have a cure,” he announced, voice carrying through the din. “I can turn any demon back into a human, and all it takes is the wings of a Fallen.”
Yuri’s world had tunneled in on Sabriel. Only then did he realize how many mortals were still stuck in this room, many of them mid-change, bones breaking and bodies writhing as the wine took hold.
“It’s true,” Yuri managed. “I saw the cure with my own eyes, as did the rest of this room before you arrived.”
Disgust twisted Xadriel’s jaw. His hand went to the hilt of his blade. “No doubt a demon’s deceit.”
“Are you so certain?” The blue ring of Wrath’s eyes burned with challenge.
“You claim that your goal is to protect and care for the weak. You seek to rid the world of demons and end this war, do you not? I can give you that power, Xadriel. I can hand it to you on a silver platter. All you have to do is prove that you’re a man of your word. ”
Xadriel lifted his chin with stubborn pride. “And how do I do that?”
“An angel has no need for six wings.” Severin’s smile was a ruthless blade. “Sacrifice one for those who are suffering. Say the word, and I’ll carve them myself and turn this entire room back into mortals.”
Xadriel’s grip shifted on his weapon. “I will not yield to you, demon.” There was a subtle flare of his nostrils as his gaze slid toward Severin’s blazing wings.
The demon’s smile never wavered. “Then all these people will turn.”
“Take mine.” The words were past Yuri’s lips so quickly that he surprised himself. “If it gets us a cure, then I have no need of them.”
“Silence, Yuriel,” the commander hissed. “Martyrdom solves nothing. There is no world in which we can take a demon at his word.”
Maybe it sounded noble. Maybe some even believed his hesitations.
But Yuri heard what was truly buried beneath those words.
Not conviction, but fear, hot and pulsing.
“I used to believe in you.” Severin’s voice rose over the growing murmur in the hall. “Despite my doubts, I believed we were doing good by the world until you stabbed Selyra through the heart. An innocent mortal, who we were sworn to protect above all else. And you killed her while she slept.”
Despite not having his full strength back since drinking the wine, Yuri felt Aurelie more acutely than he ever had. Her fury boiled, amplified by the Original she was bonded to and cloying like smoke in the back of his throat.
“You don’t want to help these people,” Severin sneered. “You want them to fear you. To worship you. So you invent impossible rules to convince them that who they are is wrong. That you can fix them, and that perfection exists if they bleed enough for it, isn’t that right?”
Severin’s wings snapped wide, white-blue fire spilling out in a violent flare.
“There’s only one true demon here, Xadriel, and it isn’t me.” He launched skyward, on the commander in less than a heartbeat. Twin daggers flashed in his hands as Xadriel met him midair, steel shrieking as their first collision sent a shock wave through the room.
Severin fought like fury given flesh, each strike as savage as it was magnificent. He snarled, teeth bared, and drove his shoulder into the commander with bone-cracking force.
As much as Yuri wanted to watch, there was no time.
On the ground, chaos reigned. The rest of the angels had turned on the Rhovarians, many of whom were mid-transformation.
Their screams twisted into snarls as bones broke, bodies bending into monstrous new shapes.
Those still human crawled under tables, huddled together in terror.
Yuri’s palm burned as he summoned his bow. Behind him, Varen scrambled for a weapon, his movements still jerky and uncoordinated from the transformation. Azriel was beside him, one arm bracing him while the other held a blade.
Aurelie stood before them, having claimed the sword of a fallen knight. She’d taken a defensive posture, scanning each and every twitch the angels made. Her shoulders shook all the while, her breathing too heavy.
“Aurelie?” came a worried, tinny voice.
Yuri turned to find Vex hovering at her side in concern. Aurelie was squinting, and his heart squeezed when he saw the red bleeding into her iris.
“We’ve bigger things to worry about than me.” She turned to Vex, drawing a shaky breath. “You’ve done so much for us, but there’s one more thing I need to ask of you. Go after Ilaria, please. I need you to find out where they’re going and whether she’s in trouble.”
The tiny vesper pressed against Aurelie’s cheek, wings drooping. “What about you?”
“I’ll be fine. Go, Vex, please. Find her.”
Vex’s tiny claws fretted at Aurelie’s shoulder until she finally forced herself away with an anxious trill.
“Be safe,” the vesper said, then vanished into the rafters not a second later.
“You too,” Aurelie whispered as she turned her attention back to the chaos.
The knights had formed a ragged line, Marcel with his blade at the ready.