Solace (Asteria Trilogy Book 1)

by Alaina Katherine

  He didn’t get up though, instead he struggled to lift his leg but it was clear he would never be able to put weight on it. He tried to sit up but his leg couldn’t even handle that small shift in weight. If only he could sit up, he could have flown away.

  Anger surged through me. I couldn’t just sit back and watch him die helplessly. Asteria must have agreed because I suddenly found myself crouched next to Raphael on the battlefield.

  “What are you doing here?” his voice was weak.

  I didn’t bother to respond, instead I placed my hands on top of his stomach and closed my eyes. When I reopened them I was back in The Archives and Uriel was yelling all sorts of choice words at me until he saw that I had brought Raphael with me.

  “How?” Uriel wondered.

  “I don’t know, but you need to help him!” I demanded. Raphael and I had arrived in the same position we had left the battle in.

  I stood up, leaving Uriel kneeling on the floor next to Raphael. I couldn’t just stay here. What type of person would I be if I just stood by and let others fight for me? What type of Goddess would just watch as people died for her? Not the type I was, that I was sure of. I had to get back there; I had to fight alongside my angels. It was the right thing to do.

  “I have to go. Fix him,” I said.

  “Sage!” I heard Uriel’s stern voice, but my body was already leaving Aether.

  I arrived right in the center of the battle and immediately took off running, which proved difficult in the beige robe I was in since it went down to my ankles. I ran behind a tree (I cursed Gabriel for being right about it being a good hiding spot), picked up a jagged rock, and used it to help me tear off the bottom of my robe so that it fell just at my knees. Thankfully, the sandals I currently wore were flat and wrapped many times around my calf, securing them on my feet.

  Taking a deep breath I plunged myself back into battle. Immediately in front of me was an angel being held against an Anakim’s chest. I went up behind the creature and kicked him square in the back. This caused him to release his hold on the angel and spin around to face me. It tilted its head in confusion as it realized I was human. The angel that I had freed took that moment to spear the Anakim through its torso. When the creature dropped to the ground I was face to face with the angel. He looked at me in confusion just as the Anakim had, except he knew I was the Goddess. I smiled at him quickly and was about to turn away to run when I was suddenly airborne.

  “Gabriel,” I hissed, pounding at his arms with my fists.

  He flew me in front of the church were they had ambushed the Anakim and set me on the ground but he kept a firm grip on my forearm.

  “What the hell are you doing here,” he said through clenched jaw.

  “I couldn’t just watch, Gabriel. You had to know that.”

  “I made it very clear that you were to stay out of this! There is no reason for you to fight,” he seethed.

  “There is every reason for me to fight! This is my battle and I cannot let angels fight when I am not even fighting myself.”

  “You are infuriating!” he roared. “Why couldn’t you just listen to me?”

  “You may be able to fight with me all you want, but you can’t fight with Asteria. She’s the one who brought me here. Even in your anger you must realize that there is no way I could have gotten here if it wasn’t her wish.”

  “Please go home.” His voice was softer now and his hazel eyes pleaded with me.

  “No. And if you bring me to Aether I will just show up back on the battlefield again. It’s a waste to even try that.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead for a moment. “The Goddess must want to punish me for something,” he muttered.

  “You know I can fight, you trained me.”

  Gabriel let out a series of curse words, some in languages I didn’t understand but their meaning was clear.

  “Fine,” he caved. “But you will stay with me the entire time!”

  “Fine,” I agreed.

  “And I swear if anything happens to you,” he let his sentence trail off.

  “Nothing will happen to me with you there. We both know you won’t allow it.”

  He looked like a broken man as get handed me his shield.

  “Did the attack on the church go well?” I asked as he gathered me into his arms to prepare to fly us back into battle.

  “Yes, we only lost one angel. No one else was even injured. You’re vision may have won us this battle.” And with that he took off.

  We landed in the middle of the chaos and Gabriel immediately folded his wings against his back and turned so that we were back to back. I kept up with his footwork to anticipate how we would maneuver ourselves in this position.

  He was furiously sweeping his sword, fending off all Anakim that approached us. Suddenly one appeared before me with a sword that must have belonged to an angel who died in battle, though the sword no longer held its flame. He brought the sword down on me but I blocked the blade with Gabriel’s shield. It was then that I realized that I had no weapon to defend myself with.

  Gabriel was going to kill me for being so stupid as to let that slip past me.

  The Anakim brought his sword down upon me again but in a flash there was something cold in my free hand and I raised it just in time for it to clash against the creature’s sword. I stared in wonder at the sword that was now clasped in my right hand. Just like the angels’ swords, it was on fire. Except my flame burned much brighter than any other and while the angels’ swords were the normal yellow orange color of a flame, mine was pure, sparkling gold. The Anakim I had been fighting screamed and shielded its eyes as it drew away from me.

  I advanced on the monster. Taking advantage of its discomfort at the light, I twisted my wrist so that the blade cut across the creature’s throat. I hadn’t cut its head off like most of the angels seemed to do but the cut was deep enough to be fatal. I noticed a few angels had turned their attention to me at the blaze of my sword, Azrael and Michael both stared with wide eyes at me. They couldn’t do that for long though because their attention was needed elsewhere.

  Gabriel and I stayed grounded, fighting back to back. I was surprised at the amount of Anakim that came towards me considering they all had the same reaction to the light as the first one had.

  At one point, the Anakim had managed to separate me and Gabriel. They had ganged up on Gabriel, out numbering him and forcing him away from me. Then one particularly large Anakim approached me. His teeth were bared and I could smell blood on his breath. He laughed as I raise my sword.

  “What a pathetic looking Goddess you are.” He turned his head sideways as if this would change the way I looked.

  “Looks can be deceiving,” I sneered.

  Without warning the creature leapt at me, startling me so that I dropped both my shield and my sword. As the sword hit the ground its flame went out. I threw my hands out in front of me and grabbed the creature by its shoulders. Together we fell to the ground, rolling numerous times in the process. My hair stuck to my face, making me wish that I had brought a hair tie with me. It ended up on top of me and its teeth were chomping inches from my face.

  “Do you know what I can do to little girls like you?” it hissed.

  A drop of its foul saliva fell onto my collar bone and I let out a scream as it burned straight through to my bone. It let out a high squeal in amusement at my pain.

  “Shall I do that again?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” and I spat some of my own saliva in its face. While mine didn’t have the acid effect that the creatures had, it did cause him to shrink slightly away from me, allowing me to ram my knee into its torso and I rolled out from underneath it and quickly got back on my feet.

  “That was not very nice.”

  “Neither are you, Sherlock.” I rolled my eyes.

  Unfortunately, my sword lay on the ground behind the Anakim. I tried not to look at it. I didn’t want the creature to see it there. He noticed my quick gl
ance though and grimaced as he backed up to it.

  “This is yours isn’t it?” He didn’t take his gaze off of me as he bent down to pick up my sword. When he touched my sword he let out a scream. I watched in amazement at the golden flames that spread up his arms and engulfed his entire body. He instantly dropped my sword, but the fire continued to burn his flesh. Within seconds he collapsed into ash.

  “Convenient,” I muttered as I picked up my sword. It instantly lit itself with my touch. I turned to an Anakim that had watched the show. “You want it?” I held out my sword and the creature took off running.

  By this point, the Anakim were severely outnumbered and I found Gabriel easily and took my place at his back. Not many creatures really tried to approach us anymore. In fact, they seemed to be trying to flee and angels began pairing up to chase after them.

  One particularly bold Anakim approached Gabriel and I as we were catching our breaths. I was the first to notice it and I swung my blade towards it but it skillfully leapt away. It jumped over both of our heads and landed behind us. The creature tried to grab my arm and its claws dug into my shoulder. I let out a scream and Gabriel instantly took flight tearing the creature off of me. He flew high into the air with the creature and dropped it. I heard a sickening sound of bones breaking as it crashed into the ground. Gabriel dived down after it though and began slicing the creatures flesh with his sword. I knew his intent. He wanted the creature to know the pain that it inflicted on others.

  “That’s enough, Gabriel,” I yelled out, my hand clinging to my bloody shoulder.

  Gabriel stopped, middle swing, his blade high in the air. He seemed to be fighting on internal conflict. I’m sure he wanted to continue his torture but he knew it would make him no better than the Anakim. He beheaded the creature and rejoined me. There were no Anakim left and angels were helping each other back up to Aether. Some even carried the dead bodies of their kind to bring home for a proper burial.

  “You are hurt,” Gabriel’s voice was pained.

  “I’m okay. Uriel can heal it I’m sure.”

  The burn on my color bone had stopped bleeding but my shoulder was still happily giving my blood away. Gabriel ripped off a piece of his robe to wrap around my shoulder.

  “You did really well,” he said as he worked on securing the cloth.

  “How could you allow her here?” Michael flew over and tackled Gabriel. “We had a promise!” he yelled while punching Gabriel’s face. It didn’t even look like Gabriel was fighting him off.

  “Michael, get off!” I ran over and began pulling his torso. He easily allowed me to guide him off of Gabriel. “He didn’t have a choice. I projected myself here.”

  “You’re hurt.” He gently touched my color bone.

  “Yes, yes. But so is everyone else. Some even died. I’m fine though.”

  “Those were some good hits,” Gabriel said rubbing his jaw as he got up.

  “I am sorry for attacking you but I’m sure you know why I did.”

  “Of course, I’d attack myself if I could, but there was no stopping her.”

  “You guys are ridiculous, can we please go home?” The loss of blood was starting to make me dizzy and I was also beginning to feel the death of those that had given their lives for me.

  Michael gathered me up in his arms and took me to Uriel. Apparently, all of the injured were taken to Uriel. Sandalphon and Sera were both helping him attend to the injured since neither of them had any major wounds.

  Uriel gave me a salve for my collarbone. That injury was likely to leave me with a nasty scar since the saliva had eaten away at my flesh so that it revealed bone. Though my shoulder bled a lot, all it needed was a few stitches and Uriel assured me it would be back to normal and function properly since no major muscles or ligaments had been severed. Uriel gave me an earful for joining the battle and apologized profusely to Gabriel for not doing a better job at protecting me. Gabriel and I both kept assuring him that there really wasn’t anything he could have done to prevent me from joining the battle just as Gabriel couldn’t help it either.

  Once I was all stitched up, I began placing my hands over Gabriel’s wounds.

  “You really don’t need to do that.”

  “Just stop. Let me take care of you for once,” I hissed.

  Michael, Gabriel and I were ushered out of The Archives to allow those more seriously injured to be treated. I didn’t even get a change to ask how Raphael was doing.

  “I could sleep for a week,” I complained as we walked the streets of Aether.

  “Well, I’m sure Metatron will call a meeting eventually, but until then you are free to sleep as much as you like.” Gabriel smiled.

  When we reached my doorstep Gabriel hugged me tight and Michael gave me a gentle kiss.

  “Goodnight, my Goddess,” Michael said before he and Gabriel turned to walk home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When I got home I stripped down and got a wash cloth to wipe off all the dirt, sweat and blood that currently covered my body. Once I felt sufficiently clean, I crawled into bed with Storm curled up against me. Sleep came easily and there were no nightmares or visions to interrupt it.

  “Sage!” Azrael exclaimed and I shot up in my bed. “Finally, I knocked on your door for like five minutes straight. I ended up just inviting myself in.”

  “What day is it?” I asked groggily.

  “It’s been two days since the start of the battle.”

  “Jeez, I slept for that long?”

  “We all did,” she huffed. “I hate sleeping that long, I feel like it’s time wasted.”

  “Did Metatron call for a meeting?”

  “You bet he did, which is why I rushed here as soon as I heard. No way was I letting you dress yourself after the past two disasters.”

  “What happened to your arm?” I noticed it was in a sling.

  “I got cocky with the last Anakim I killed. He ended up snapping my Radius. Uriel says it’ll reset though,” she explained with a wave of her non-slinged hand as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Now, you’re going to have to help me with your robe but you are to follow my instructions.”

  I winced as I got out of bed, my body felt like jelly after putting it through so much. I blamed my mother for never letting me take those self defense classes.

  After I took a real shower, Azrael had insisted I immediately put curlers in my hair. With her guidance we wrapped a soft gold, silky robe around me. It was a very shear material and Azrael had to double wrap the material in certain places until I was comfortable that I wasn’t revealing too much. By the end of the wrapping session my calves, shoulders, a small strip of my stomach and most of my back could be seen slightly through the material.

  “Now you match your sword.” Azrael smiled at her handy work. “Your hair is still wet though, so I’ll do makeup first.”

  “Is all this really necessary?” I sighed.

  “What type of question is that? We just worked our asses off and defeated the Anakim! Plus imagine Gabriel’s face when he sees you once I’m through.”

  “But Michael is my boyfriend,” I protested and Azrael just gave a small wink before getting to work on my face. She was right of course; I would get more excitement from Gabriel’s reaction than my own boyfriend’s. I knew what the right thing to do was but it didn’t make it any easier.

  “All done!” Azrael lilted thirty minutes later. She finally allowed me to look in a mirror. Since my dress was a little showy she had gone with more natural colors on my face and my hair fell in loose curls down my back, the darkness of my hair contrasting with the brightness of the dress. Azrael checked her watch before commenting that the boys should be at the conference hall already.

  Gabriel’s reaction to seeing me surely didn’t disappoint.

  “Sage,” he breathed my name as his eyes took in all the parts of me.

  I couldn’t fight the urge to hug him, and when I circled my arms around his neck he let out a breath that he had seemed to have he
ld in since the last time we saw each other.

  “I think this is the longest we have been apart,” I joked.

  “I knew you needed to recover, and if something was wrong I would have felt it,” was his answer.

  “Goddess,” I smiled at Michael’s voice behind me.

  I turned to face him and he bent down to bring me towards him. His intentions had been to kiss me, but I pressed my face into is neck so that we only embraced each other. There was an apparent look of confusion on his face when I pulled away.

  “We should go inside,” I suggested and quickly turned away.

  Metatron started the meeting by sharing the casualties of the battle. We had lost only a small chunk of our army but many had been injured. According to Uriel about fifty percent of the injuries were minor and about eighty five percent would make full recoveries. As Metatron congratulated everyone on a job well done I took count of who was present and noticed Raphael was not among us.

  “Where is Raphael?” I interrupted, getting out of my chair. Gabriel placed a hand on my arm to signal me to sit back down.

  “He is alive, Sage. His leg is not functional at the moment so he could not attend,” Metatron answered me coldly before returning back to his topic.

  I sat back down, relieved that Raphael was alive.

  “Have you visited him?” I whispered to Gabriel but he refused to speak and looked pointedly at Metatron.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know we aren’t supposed to speak when his highness is, but at least move your head.”

  Gabriel gave one slight nod to affirm that he had visited him.

  “We are all aware of the pact that we made decades ago with the fallen. We had agreed that the Anakim race could never be allowed to exist again. Clearly, they have broken that agreement and we cannot tolerate that. I believe the fallen have found a way to walk on Terra again, since they were able to produce the Anakim so quickly in such large numbers.”

  Metatron paused during his speech and looked around the room.

  “This means war.”

  Immediately there were murmurs going around the room. I don’t know why they were so surprised, wasn’t it obvious? Clearly the fallen were trying to start something, otherwise why would they have created the Anakim? I took this opportunity to stand up and redirect the attention.