by Eve Langlais
“Quiet!” The slap of his open palm rocked her face. It stung. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth where her cheek was cut on a tooth.
“Quiet, or what? You’ll torture me? Been there. Done that. Even have the t-shirt.” The sassy Earth reply slipped easily past her lips.
His expression tightened. “If I wasn’t expected to present you—”
“You’d pay someone else to do it. You truly are a horrible person.” It hurt to say it. Especially because she couldn’t forget all the good things he’d done. But to stand back and mock her. Make a lie of the life she’d had?
It hit her then with a clarity that stole her breath.
He had been toying with her since the moment he laid eyes on her, starting with him flouting laws to make her his ward. A king who usually ruled by the letter of the law.
What of Marduk’s invitation to the Ifrit? Then the way she somehow kept getting thrown in Desmond’s path. “You wanted this to happen. You did this on purpose to have me meet him.”
“Do you truly think I’d purposefully bring about the end of times?” Marduk smiled, the slyness in it startling and revealing all at once.
Erela’s heart hurt and raged in equal measure. Especially once she grasped the perfidy behind her being made Forsaken.
Abducting her had never been Mammon’s plan. He was merely a tool. Lisandra had goaded him into acting.
But her sister wasn’t truly to blame.
The king was. A ruler who’d ignored his true blood children. Who, knowing of the so-called prophecy, had played Erela her entire life. Raised her and waited, bided his time like a spider in his web until she’d matured enough to fulfill the old words on a castle wall.
“Why would you want to end the world?” she asked.
“It won’t end because I will save it. Save us from those evil Ifrits. The time has come to put an end to those demon-loving bastards.”
“You want a war.”
“I want…” He paused, a cold smile on his lips, an even chillier glint in his eyes. “It all. And you are about to help me launch a plan a lifetime in the making. One that begins when I take over the tribunal. Time to go.”
If she’d hoped she might get a chance to escape, he dispelled it, clamping portable cuffs around her wrists that dampened her ability to do magic. He kept her legs shackled close together, forcing her to shuffle.
The cell she was kept prisoner in proved to be hidden in the same wing of the old castle she’d arrived in. A fact she realized when he took her back to the portal room.
“Which kingdom does the tribunal hold its meetings in?”
“None,” the king replied, crowding her into the small space. “We go to a neutral place. A place that exists in the clouds with no land, no allegiance.” He held onto her firmly in the middle of the etched circle. “We mustn’t be late.” He drew the hood over his head, concealing his features. But he couldn’t hide the darkness of his heart.
The air whooshed out, and Erela’s lips parted as, just for a second, for the tiniest of moments, she felt something.
A flare of awareness. Then it was gone.
They emerged on a dais, the inlaid silver pattern sunk into the stone with only one symbol. The flower for Babylonia. A path led from the raised platform, a narrow thing reaching into the distance, stretching past stone columns shrouded in mist. Wisps of fogs tickled the edge of the dais, hiding their surroundings, a familiar place until one recalled that the Netherlands didn’t have structures.
Her mind stuttered as she saw something else in front of her.
…there is no ceiling over me. Merely an old arch, the sky peeking between the stone ribs. Turning my head, I can see more crumbling rock. Blocks of it no longer tightly sealed, tendrils of mist seeping in the cracks.
Where am I?
Who am I?
I panic and start to rise, only to feel cool fingers on my forehead and a voice whispering. “Forget. Sleep.”
Erela stumbled as Marduk dragged her down the steps, snapping her free from the recollection.
What was the place in that memory?
“Move,” the king ordered, and yet she couldn’t move quickly, not with the chains tethering her legs keeping her paces short.
Her hands were bound in front of her. A prisoner being brought for judgment. Shame threatened to bow her head, but pride kept it high. She’d done nothing wrong, and she planned to tell her side.
As they trod the pathway towards the pillars, the tips shrouded in that swirling fog Erela noticed something. For one, the air refreshed. The throbbing in her leg from the knife wound, given a few days before, ebbed. Her fatigue and weariness faded. Strength returned to her limbs even if the magic didn’t.
She strode between the columns without needing to be yanked.
Entering a large space, she counted ten robed figures, already seated. Eleven once Marduk joined them, his hood pulled taut over his face. There were two empty seats, one identical to the eleven in use, and another larger throne that sat evenly splitting the seats.
Odd how that spot kept drawing the eye.
“I’m glad you’re all here—” Erela began. “I need to tell you—”
“Silence.” The word whipped across the space and stole her voice. Literally. She tried to talk, and nothing emerged.
This didn’t bode well. A second command was uttered from a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere at once, feminine and yet deep. Resonant and rich. “Kneel in the presence of your betters.”
Erela mouthed “what betters?” as an invisible hand shoved her down, and she slammed hard with her knees. She didn’t wince. She’d suffered worse.
Since she wasn’t to be given a voice, Erela observed. Noted the old stone floor under her knees, smoothed by the passage of time. The king claimed this place of meeting hung in the clouds. More likely, it sat high in some mountains. She found it interesting that there were thirteen seats and yet only twelve sets of columns. Each had a symbol etched in the keystone at the top suspended between the graceful pillars.
Babylonia, the path they’d emerged from, was a flower. A wave for Atlantis. The Valkyrie had a wing, and she found it interesting to note that Kyla chose to leave her hood down, revealing her features—sans glasses—and looking annoyed. Also of interest was the thicker mist behind her. A fog that appeared to hang in one spot.
The Ha’el pillars bore a flame, and she wondered at the hunched figure that came through its door. Had a replacement been chosen already? It wasn’t Desmond, unfortunately, not with his gangly height.
While the Ha’el lord made his way to his seat, she took note of the other symbols. The dwarves with an axe. The gnomm with a mushroom. All of them here ready to pass judgment, varying in size and height, all but Kyla cloaked head to toe.
All the better to judge without facing their victim.
The members went still as that same disembodied voice announced, “You may begin.”
No surprise, the Babylonian figure stood to give the first speech.
“Tribunal of the thirteen realms, I called you here today because of the egregious crimes of one recently forsaken.”
“Can you even spell egregious?” taunted one of the hooded beings.
Marduk paused but didn’t look around. Erela wanted to smile because she knew it was the king being insulted, and he didn’t handle being mocked well.
“The Forsaken One is charged with actively resisting the terms of her punishment and, most heinous of all, murder of one of our own.”
“According to evidence, a lizard killed Mustafa.” The hunched Ha’el figure spoke in a croaky voice.
“A lizard might have performed the deed but only because she was present. It was her fault.” The finger in her direction was entirely overkill.
“I assume you’re going to blame her for what happened on Earth, too?” Kyla remarked.
“Those incidents are directly related to her.”
“But not her fault,” Kyla retorted. “She was abi
ding the terms of her punishment until someone chose to attack her.”
“Even if we ignore that, that doesn’t excuse her infiltration into the Babylonian kingdom, and her attempt to murder the king,” Marduk continued with his fabrication.
Lie! Erela’s eyes screamed it even if her voice couldn’t.
A murmur rose among the hooded ones.
“What are you proposing we do?” A tall, hooded figure stood, the cloak liquid silk over its shape. “The reasons to forsake her before were flimsy at best, and now I have cause to question that judgment.”
“She broke the rules.” Another robed figure rose to retort.
“She fell in love. Hardly a crime.”
“The laws forbid it lest the prophecy come to pass.”
Another who made mention of old words.
“Are we really going to put stock in something written before any of us were born?” Kyla retorted. “I for one am evolved enough to think that it’s time we stop following stupid laws created by people who passed away generations ago.”
A short figure stood and said in a voice quite gruff, “We agree.”
“We didn’t come here to debate or remake our laws but to pass judgment. The Forsaken One broke the terms of her banishment by returning to the kingdom she betrayed. The penalty is death.”
“I think the price is too high, and rule that we revisit the Forsaken issue,” Kyla declared.
“I second that motion,” added the figure with the almost watery fluidity to their cloak.
“You want to let her live, then fine. She can live out her years in our dungeon,” the king snapped. “Let’s have a vote, shall we? All in favor of handing over the Forsaken One.” Five hands plus that asking lifted. “Against?” he growled.
Six more hands.
A tie.
Which was bad. So bad. In the case of a missing chair…Erela remembered enough of her lessons to know what would happen next.
“As the bringer of the question, I will vote for the absentee—”
“The thirteenth seat will cast its own vote.” A figure suddenly appeared in the empty seat, and dead silence filled the chamber.
Possibly because the thirteenth person arrived without a hood and wore a blinding white robe.
Maybe because she had platinum hair like Erela. And the same blazing purple eyes.
But most of all, it might have been because of the big, fluffy, white wings, and the halo of magic above her head that struck them all dumb.
It was the Ha’el representative that said what they were all thinking. “It’s a fucking angel.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Erela stared in wonder at the angel who had saved her. Divine intervention. She couldn’t help but sag in relief.
“Angels aren’t real,” growled the king. He shoved back the hood of his robe. “It’s a trick. Something she planned to escape punishment.” He jabbed a thick finger in Erela’s direction.
“Not real?” The laughter was contagious. And mocking. “Really, Marduk. I think you’ve lied quite enough. Sit down.” The angel didn’t even have to point, the king was slammed into a seat. The angel spread her hands, the deep sleeves of her white robe hanging gossamer-thin. She glowed with an inner light. “Children of the realms, my name is Raphaella. I am the voice that guides you when you are lost. The sanity that prevails. The maker of laws. Here to ensure you return to the righteous path.”
“Hold on a second. Are you saying angels made the laws?” The Ha’el member stood and pushed back the hood of his robe, and disappointment filled Erela when she saw that it wasn’t Desmond. Here she’d hoped he’d come.
But how could he?
Why would he?
“We did.” Raphaella beamed at them. “You’re welcome.”
“How come we’ve never seen you before?” Kyla asked, the only one not blown away with awe.
The angel lifted her gaze and held open her arms, looking much like a statue that Logan called the Madonna, seen in that temple on Earth. “Eons ago, with rules in place to promote harmony, we chose to withdraw.”
“Why did you return?” the king asked.
Those bright purple eyes turned on him. “Because rules are being broken. Bent. Corruption has tainted the tribunal.”
“Perhaps it’s time the laws changed.” Again, Kyla was the one to confront.
“The laws serve a purpose. Guiding the less enlightened onto a righteous path.”
“How is telling us who we can love guiding us?”
Erela thanked the fact that Kyla asked the questions burning the tip of her own tongue.
The angel kept the beatific expression. The mother looking fondly on her child. “The rules are clear. No fornication between the realms. It is for your own good.”
“Shouldn’t that be our choice?”
“We are not here to debate, child.” Raphaella strove to silence Kyla. “We are here because the rules have been broken.”
“Erela was already Forsaken.”
“And banished to a place where she could start over. Alone. Atoning for her shame. Yet she chose to ignore the terms of her punishment and return. The penalty for that is death.”
It shouldn’t have surprised Erela, and yet her shoulders slumped.
“Death? But she’s one of you.” Kyla sounded puzzled. “Aren’t you here to save her?”
“Save the Nephilim, the most forbidden mating of all?” The tinkling laughter was all the more chilling for its pleasantness. “I am here to rectify a mistake. That—” A finger jabbed in Erela’s direction. “Is an abomination. Whoever birthed this child was soft. I won’t make the same mistake.”
“Who are her parents?” Kyla continued to question. “Why is the child being punished and not the mother or father?”
“You dare to question me?” Raphaella sounded surprised.
“Who are you to dictate the terms of this tribunal? We all have an equal voice.”
The laughter held much disdain. “Oh, dear child. Whoever taught you that? The final say has always been ours.”
“You’ve never been here before.”
“Haven’t I?” Who knew an angel could appear sly? “Who do you think spoke to you? Told you what to do? Did you really think there was some special magic that combined your wishes and spat out a decision?” The sneer took nothing away from her beauty. “The tribunal was never meant to serve you but to serve the angels and our greater purpose. A purpose you are working against. But I’ll deal with your transgressions in a moment.” Raphaella waved her hand, and Kyla froze.
Literally in place. A statue with no voice. Leaving everyone else staring in shock.
“Where were we?” the angel pretended. “Ah, yes. The Forsaken One who continues to contravene our laws. The sentence for that is death. And further to this, all half-breeds shall be immediately condemned. Trade and travel between the realms suspended.”
“All trade?” One of the figures against Erela sputtered. “But we need—”
“Silence.” The angel didn’t point, but the arguing figure went still. “If the Forsaken will bow her head,” Raphaella ordered, and Erela couldn’t resist the invisible hand shoving her head down. “You, the dwarf with the axe under his robe. I require your services.”
The squat figure shoved back his cowl. Bushy brows, long beard, yet a short-cropped head of hair. “I don’t think so. I didn’t sign up to be no executioner.”
“Do you defy me? He who transgresses in bringing a weapon when it is forbidden. Act as ordered, and I will forgive your trespass.”
“Like fuck. You don’t command me.”
The angel arched a brow, and the dwarf never had a chance. The robe he wore sank as the body within vanished. The clang of his axe the only noise in the room.
“Would anyone else like to say something about my decision to execute the Forsaken One?” Raphaella turned her gaze on them all. None raised a protest except for one.
“Over my dead fucking body,” said Desmond from behind her.
/>
Chapter Twenty-Four
“How kind of you to present yourself for punishment.” The angel didn’t appear at all surprised by Desmond’s appearance.
“There will be no punishing today. Erela and I are leaving.” He helped Erela to her feet, anger simmering at the sight of the manacles binding her ankles.
“No one is leaving until we are done.” The angel lifted her hand and, having seen the result thus far, Desmond knew he’d run out of time. But standing in front of Erela, at least she knew he’d come for her. Hoped she took comfort in that knowledge. Wished he could do something because he’d known from the moment Raphaella arrived that they were in trouble.
Deep, deep trouble.
Unlike the others on the tribunal who gazed in awe at the angel, blinded by her beauty, ignoring the cold ugliness inside, Desmond was not fooled. Because who but an ugly race would condemn a child for being born.
Desmond had been biding his time, having slipped through the portal wearing a spell of invisibility, knowing all eyes would be on the robed figure making its way slowly to the last chair. Elk acted the part of decoy.
In silence and subterfuge, Desmond worked his way around the semi-circle of judgment until he stood behind Erela. A farce, he was beginning to realize.
The rules put in place weren’t to protect the many realms, but the angels who thought themselves superior.
And yet he knew for a fact that they were flawed. Something his father had said to him during his last visit finally made sense.
“I found something interesting.” His father pointed to a dusty book.
As if the past could help the present. “I don’t care about some ancient history,” Desmond retorted. “I’m just here to let you know that I am going to challenge the tribunal.”
“Before you go. Read this.” His father shoved the tome at him, and he might have ignored him except… “It talks of those with the purple eyes.”
But now wasn’t the time for that reflection. Desmond drew his sword and held it in front of him.
“Your blade won’t protect you.” Raphaella flicked her hand, and he could almost see the magic being flung at him.