Fallen to Grace

by A. J. Flowers

  Keeping in a quick and steady rhythm, Azrael climbed higher into the sky. She spread out her hands and delighted in the new rush of ecstasy. Gabriel had taught her a few things about flight, but it was nearly all theory and practiced moves on the ground. She hadn’t truly gotten to fly yet. But the sensation! It was freedom she’d always craved, the sense of absolute security and bliss. How Meretta would have loved it.

  A grin stretched across her face. She was not only free, but safe. What could reach me here? What evil could possibly find me in this beautiful nothingness, this place of joy that surged from my heart and gave my wings flight?

  For a short while, Azrael simply enjoyed the new sensations. She let the wind sing its new songs in her ears. On the surface, it was nearly as confined as she. But up here, away from the world and free, Azrael could truly hear its voice. It wove through her hair, sung through her feathers, and soared up with her higher and higher into the clouds.

  Curiosity soon made her gaze wander downwards, to places below that she’d never seen. The Manor was nothing but a rose petal with the Inner Sanctum making it glow amid the looming shadows. She searched the land and spotted a span of blue. She squinted at the rippling reflections and realized it was a sea.

  I’ve never seen the sea before. Amazing!

  Excited with her new find, Azrael’s wings folded against her back. A scream escaped her as she plummeted to the ground. She panicked and snapped out her wings to their full length. Azrael was jerked up and winced from the jolt. But soon the pain abated and she drifted into a smooth glide.

  Her descent was less than graceful, to say the least. Azrael alternated in death-gripping falls and zig-zagged glides. After a few cycles, she managed to make an awkward landing close to the water’s edge. She tripped onto the ground and went sprawling. Her hair flung in her face and her wings tingled from the expended effort. Finally calming her frantic heart, Azrael fell silent and listened to a sound she had never heard before, the lapping of waves.

  As the wind had sung stories of freedom in her ears, the water had a new story to tell. It was a rhythmic song, telling of the cycles of nature. The waves splashed against the shore playfully as sleepy birds dove into the water in the moonlight horizon for fish. It was miraculous. Azrael could never have imagined such beauty as this moonlit portrait. She took in a deep breath, marveling at the cool, salty air.

  Azrael gingerly sat in her new grassy domain, entranced by the scene. For a long while, she let her worries and cares sink away into the sounds of watery foam joining with the soils of the land. The air encircled her like a wonderful dream.

  It was an untold peace, until twigs crunched violently behind her.

  Azrael spun, but there was nothing there. Crouching low, Azrael studied a strange light in the night’s fog. It grew closer and closer, bobbing like a spirit. The mists parted, revealing a girl with brown curls. Azrael jumped to her feet with a gasp.

  Meretta?

  Azrael stepped forward, then sucked in a breath and hesitated. The girl was coming closer. She looked as if she was glowing, or did it just seem that way because of the moonlight? The girl was close enough for Azrael to see her face. She had no doubt who was standing before her, possible or not.

  “Meretta?” Azrael shouted.

  As if the phantom hadn’t realized someone was there, she started and looked at Azrael for a brief moment. Meretta smiled, and then turned and ran.

  “Meretta! Wait!” Azrael flung herself forward and tripped. Pulling herself up, she stumbled in desperation after the apparition.

  Azrael snapped her wings out and thrust herself into the air, panic aiding her untrained flight. Azrael couldn’t gain altitude, but she found a rhythm between flight and foot. She beat her wings with wide thrusts as she bounced across the grass, barely able to keep up with the running girl.

  “Meretta! It’s me!” A gust of wind caught her wing and she went flinging into Meretta. But Meretta vanished and Azrael went rolling into the ground. A sharp stone seared across her rib and Azrael cried out. Falling painfully on her back, Azrael clutched onto her side.

  Out of a cloud of mist a crouched silhouette formed. Still gasping for air, Azrael stood alert and watched the unmoving shadow. Oily feathers reflected the moonlight, revealing wide, dark bat wings rimmed with grimy feathers. Talons pierced the sky on the wing’s arches. Even at the tips, the feathers grew together and formed talons of their own. Azrael shivered with terror at the sight.

  Underneath those wings, a looming shadow squirmed and drew cold breaths, sucking life out of the very air. Faint laughter gurgled in the creature’s throat.

  Azrael had never seen a demon before, and she wasn’t sure what she had imagined, but it was nothing like this. It had lured her with Meretta’s ghost, and now she was trapped.

  Azrael shrunk her wings close to her body in horror as the stench of sulfur reached her nostrils. The creature approached, Dark oozed down its white legs, leaving steaming footprints in its path. Its face was hidden, but Azrael could feel it watching her with a crooked smile in the darkness.

  Slowly, it unfurled its wings; Azrael trembled as two red eyes appeared in the blackness. She’d expected green, but this was something beyond evil. A strange and disturbing contrast of death and life swirled underneath that gaze. Her skin was pale, as if she had been dead for far too long. Underneath the black unruly hair Azrael saw a creature of nightmares. A she-demon, with facial features of a goddess, and eyes filled with insanity. A gleaming gold tattoo on her forehead blazed, seeming out of place between her beady eyes. The demon wheezed in a giddy laugh at Azrael’s fear, revealing sharp fanged teeth and a slithering tongue. The demon crouched, naked, and without shame. Though sanity seemed to have been lost from her long ago, her head tilted in eerie recognition.

  “Alexandria?” she wheezed.

  Oh Divine... She thinks I’m Alexandria. Azrael crouched and trembled, too afraid to speak.

  Again the demon wheezed a laugh, her tongue licking happily on her blood-red lips. “Do you not remember me, Alexandria? Do you not remember what I did to you?” Suddenly she shrieked at the sky, fanning out her wings with a loud snap. Azrael cowered and fell back onto her feathers, hearing a slight crunch as some of the stems broke. “Do you come back for more? Was one death not satisfying enough?” the she-beast continued.

  Trembling on her broken feathers, Azrael whimpered from the fear in her heart and the pain rushing up her wings. The demon slinked toward her, clearly enjoying every moment of Azrael’s terror. She snapped out an arm and clasped her long slender fingers around Azrael’s ankle. Her ice cold skin made Azrael freeze with fear. With a pointed nail, she took her other hand and slowly slit a line up Azrael’s leg, bright red followed in its wake.

  Azrael watched as if she were a helpless observer inside her own body, no longer aware of the pain that began to throb.

  A strong burn ran up Azrael’s back without warning. As if she shared the sudden pain, the she-demon leapt away, watching Azrael with wide eyes. The pain intensified, and Azrael’s stone position was broken. Azrael fell forward, hearing more crunching from her feathers as she gasped for air. She spread her wings away from her back as far as they would reach. Still, the pain grew as Azrael gasped and groaned.

  The she-demon danced on bent legs, shaking her head. Azrael’s lips curved into an unbidden smile before she closed her eyes.

  The familiar Light of the heavens that had shone on her sleeping face countless nights in the Manor now beat against her eyelids. She clawed her fingernails into the soft soil and her spine flamed with a pain similar to that which she had only felt under the Hallowed’s needles. Waves of molten fire encircled her body.

  In the distance, war trumpets sounded above the clouds. Their long, solid tones brought reassurance to her trembling body.

  The she-demon hissed and sputtered. “What are you doing, little angel? What’s this trickery?” she screeched. She lunged as if to choke the life from Azrael right then and there, but w
as repelled as she hit an invisible barrier. She hissed, clawing at the ground, effectively spraying weeds and soil in all directions.

  Rising tones of approaching war-trumpets were now accentuated by male voices. They shouted in anger and cheered with might.

  “Remove your filthy claws from our Queen!”

  “Step away from the Queen!”

  “Be gone, wretched beast!”

  Queen? They couldn’t possibly mean me. Could they?

  Azrael opened her eyes as the last of her pain finally melted away. She was met with the frightened stare of the she-demon, red eyes seeming suddenly dull as Divine Light shone out of her own.

  Azrael flexed the muscles in her wings and found them healed. A warm and comforting sensation spread out from her Acceptance in pulses, like a steady heartbeat. Slowly, she felt a presence gather within herself. Memories that were not her own flooded her mind. Her mouth opened to speak... Yet, she had not commanded it to do so.

  “Nethara!” Azrael’s voice boomed with unfamiliar confidence.

  The she-demon recoiled within the safety of her own leathery wings with a frightened squeak.

  “You think you’re so cunning, so powerful to have slain the almighty Alexandria.” Azrael’s face, unbidden, formed a disappointed scowl. “Yet you came in secret. You came to me in the night with a blessing from your new Lord. The power that caused my death was not your own! You couldn’t even face me on a battlefield. You are a cowardly traitor!”

  Light flashed in strength as the intrusive presence within Azrael grew, staring down at the pitiful creature.

  Strong wingbeats carried angels on the wind.

  “Mehmet will punish you for this,” the she-demon spat. With an angry glare she placed both hands on her chest. Azrael flinched as the she-demon’s nails stabbed into her flesh with an audible snap. As dark blood oozed from her wounds, she thrust out her fingers, causing steaming droplets to spatter on the ground.

  “Until we meet again, little angel.” The she-demon cackled and her eyes turned black as she rolled them to the back of her head. A strange deep sound vibrated in her throat. The air shimmered and split. She was gone.

  A few moments too late, the army of angels landed with a disoriented pattern with no enemy in which to fight. They turned to Azrael for guidance.

  Azrael tried to speak, yet she was not in command of her body. Panic surged as she tried again and again to force her body to move, but it wouldn’t listen.

  A blue-eyed angel appeared in the distance, surging through the clouds.

  Gabriel.

  Spearing to the ground with wings flattened to his back, he snapped them out at the last possible moment. Landing, he approached Azrael with eyes wide. He kept a respectful distance, as if he didn’t believe what he saw. Crystal tears formed and glided down his flawless face.

  “Alexandria?” His voice shook as he said the name.

  Azrael’s own vision blurred as tears fell from her Divine-lit eyes. “Gabriel...my love. How I have missed you.” Her lips formed unfamiliar shapes as her voice spoke the Windborn tongue. She’d never learned such words, but she knew their meaning.

  Gabriel raced to her and they embraced each other in heart-aching passion. Or rather, Gabriel and Alexandria embraced each other. Whose feelings are these? Mine? Hers? Both? Azrael felt sorrow, and relief, and she felt her soul cry along with Alexandria’s.

  Carefully, Gabriel undid the tight embrace and gazed unblinking into her eyes, despite the blinding Light. “Alexandria. You can’t stay. You should never have come. You know this.” His hands shook as pain distorted his face as he ran his fingers through her hair. “I can’t do this again.”

  Like a puppet, Azrael’s head bobbed as Alexandria nodded with sympathy. “Allow me this, at least.”

  With parted lips, Azrael’s body leaned forward. Alexandria’s feelings of pain, love, and longing flooded into Azrael’s soul. And together, they kissed him. A kiss beyond expression, all the love they both had for him expressed itself in that kiss. Gabriel held onto Alexandria tight, or Azrael? She wasn’t sure as he kissed her back with such passion it made Azrael ache.

  Azrael’s voice whispered softly in his ear. “I love you.” The Light then faded away, along with the presence that had controlled Azrael’s body.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Hope

  IT was a frightening and disconnected moment after Alexandria had left Azrael’s body. Azrael remembered feeling dazed, confused, and panicked. Luckily, the trauma from the encounter with Nethara, and the possession itself, blessed her with the darkness of unconsciousness.

  Awakening in a new place, Azrael was welcomed by the moist air of dawn. She found herself alone inside a comfortable tent whose sides heaved with the wind. Smelling a new and strange aroma, she discovered a plate with food had been placed at her bedside. Her pallet was accustomed to the raw oats and healthy fruit offered every morning at the Manor. But today the plate was a hearty breakfast of meat and bread.

  She sat up, wincing as the skin on her back stung. Azrael had grown all too familiar with the cost of utilizing the Light.

  Pain thronged in her stomach and she licked her lips as she eyed the overflowing plate of food. She pulled it onto her lap and inspected it with prodding fingers. The meat had been cooked tender, and the bread was soft to the touch.

  Leaves rustled at the entrance. Gabriel’s cautious blue eyes peered at her as he poked his head inside the tent.

  “Oh, you’re awake.” He stepped inside as if he was afraid she might lash out at him. “I... hope that you aren’t... Well, that you aren’t angry.” He rubbed the back of his reddening neck.

  Azrael lowered her head and feigned interest in the food. I kissed him... Does he know it wasn’t just Alexandria...but also I who kissed him?

  “Don’t worry. I understand.” She hoped he couldn’t detect the quaver in her voice.

  He hesitated, as if unsure of what to do. Then he cleared his throat. “Alexandria’s power transcends her body, and she may be gone, but her spirit is not. I’m sorry I never told you. I didn’t expect she’d ever use you like that. I’m sorry.”

  He gracefully lowered himself to a Windborn-style chair at the foot of her bed.

  “We are safe, then?” Azrael questioned, letting the words linger. “The demon,” she pressed when he blinked at her, confused.

  He nodded, tufts of silver hair falling into his face. “You’ve been brought to the Forests of Zarathustra.”

  As if her ears popped and she was no longer deaf, she heard the tumult of a hundred men clinking weapons and exchanging soft chatter. She tensed, looking to Gabriel for assurance.

  “My allies were already on their way to escort us to Celestia when you’d disappeared. They’re here now, and they’ll protect you.”

  Azrael sighed with relief. She knew of the forests. It was a place of holy sanctuary that demons and evil couldn’t penetrate. But hadn’t the same been said of the Manor? Azrael shook her head. The forests would be safe. And if not, there was an army of angels between her and Nethara.

  Azrael’s wings ached and she stretched them carefully. As the large plumes brushed up against her shoulders, a flash of white caught her eye. Azrael reached over her shoulder to grasp onto the feathers, ignoring her body’s protests. The pale stems were like snowflakes, plush and delicate. With a gasp, she ran her hair through her fingers. The silvered strands glittered in her palm. Azrael’s vision blurred and she wondered at the implications of her midnight black now turned to white.

  Gabriel cleared his throat and nodded. “Yes, the Divine Material usage for...possession. It takes significant power to connect with another soul. It’s purified your body from past suffering.”

  Azrael wanted to reprimand him, remind him that purification from the Dark could never be complete. She was a hybrid, and forever would have a foot in both worlds.

  But even so, as she stared at the silver strands resting in her palm, she felt somehow cleansed.

&
nbsp; “Do you remember anything from last night?” he asked.

  Azrael let her hand fall to her lap, pushing her plate back onto the small bedside table. Memories of sulfur and talons gave no room for an appetite. “I remember you coming to save me.” She shot an angry glare up at him. “If you hadn’t let Hyanthia escape, if you hadn’t told me we’d be leaving for Celestia, I wouldn’t have gone after her like that.” She shook her head as tears stung her eyes. “Again, your actions fail me.”

  Gabriel grimaced, looking torn between guilt and misery. “I’m sorry, Azrael. I wanted to take you to Celestia before Uriel...” his words drifted into silence.

  Azrael pinched her lips together. “I haven’t heard you speak of him in quite a while.”

  Gabriel nodded gravely and wouldn’t meet her gaze. “He was wounded during your second Acceptance session. I had hoped he’d pull through but... That’s why I had to get you to Celestia as soon as possible. Without him, my word doesn’t hold as much weight with the Council as it once did.” His blue eyes locked onto hers. “You’re what we’ve waited for. For centuries... Eons... The Council cannot be allowed to ignore who and what you are.”

  Azrael wrung the furs wrapped around her legs. The news of Uriel’s death gave her both relief and guilt; relief that she’d never have to tell Gabriel of his romantic notions. Grief that one of her few allies was gone. “And what am I? What have you been waiting for?”

  He straightened. “You’re our Queen.”

  Without thinking, a nervous laugh burst from Azrael’s throat. “Queen? I don’t care about being the Queen of angels.” Her face hardened. “I want revenge for the deaths of Meretta and my true queen, Queen Ceres.” Rage mounted in her chest. “I fell from Celestia a long time ago. If you cared for me at all, you’d help me to achieve that instead of catapulting me into damn Celestial politics.” Azrael’s voice had gone shrill and she would have screamed, but a wave of fatigue crippled her and pushed her onto her forearms with a groan.