The Armies of Heaven

by Jane Kindred

  She recoiled as he reached for her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Who touched you?” He held her face up to the sunlight to examine it.

  Love put her hand over his and tried to pull it away, but he grasped her face in both hands. She looked frightened, as if she thought he’d gone mad.

  “Was it the queen?” he demanded.

  “The queen?” Love let out an astonished laugh. He faltered and she pulled his hands down gently in hers. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that you’ve missed a great deal. Anazakia is the queen.”

  “Anazakia?” He searched her eyes in amazement. “Then the other one…?”

  “She’s gone,” said Love. “And so is Helga.”

  He realized she’d avoided his original question. And then he recalled something else he’d heard in his delirium: Zeus’s brother happened to Love. His heart ached as if he’d been stabbed.

  Kirill sat beside her on the bed and touched the faded bruises on her cheek. “This is more of what I’ve brought upon you. You suffer the wages of my sin.”

  “Kirill, no.” She grasped his hand. “You might as well say it’s Nazkia’s fault for having a baby, or my friend Knud’s fault for introducing me to her. You are not the author of other people’s actions.”

  “But he came to me,” Kirill insisted, pained. “That devil came to me and I let him in. And after everything, I abandoned you. I should have been with you instead of chasing after spirits, hurting more innocents, but I let you go back to the world alone to face his kin.”

  “Belphagor told you.” She looked ashamed, as if somehow this knowledge could diminish her in his eyes.

  “Mr. Belphagor knows where the blame lies. If it had not been for me—”

  “If it hadn’t been for you, Kirill, I would be dead, and Ola would be lost.” Love touched his lips with her soft fingers when he tried to disagree. “Don’t.” She shook her head. “Don’t do this anymore. Because of you, Ola is home and safe.”

  “But I was going to kill the boy,” he began.

  Love pressed her fingers more firmly against his lips and he forgot what he was going to say in the instant desire for her that overwhelmed him.

  “No, you weren’t. You would never have gone through with it, even full of firedust. I know you. You would have thrown yourself from that bridge before you would harm a child.”

  He recalled he’d been preparing to do just that.

  She spoke more quietly, her eyes grave. “What you did was save Ola and Azel from men who traffic in the innocence of children.”

  Kirill stared at her, shocked that she knew this, shocked to hear it said aloud.

  “While you were ill, you told Belphagor how you found them in that place, and how you were drugged. Nazkia had the sick bastards exiled to the eastern Empyrean where they can never hurt another child. She had to stop Belphagor from killing them. He doesn’t blame you for anything, Kirill—he wants to give you a damned medal. And I don’t blame you for anything either. If there’s a God, he put you on Solovetsky to save Ola and me.”

  He stared at her in amazement, not knowing what to say to this.

  In the next instant, however, she looked sad. “And I’m so grateful for you, Kirill.” Her hand dropped to her lap. “But I came here to tell you something.”

  His heart seemed to plunge into his stomach at her sorrowful tone.

  “I can’t go back home. I just can’t. I need to be here with Ola, with my family. I know you can’t bear it here, but I can’t go back with you. I’m sorry.”

  He almost laughed with joy and relief.

  “And I’m sorry I tempted you,” she added miserably.

  “Love,” he interrupted, kneeling down in front of her. “There is nothing for me there. There is nothing for me anywhere but where you are.”

  Love shook her head with tears in her eyes. “But I’ve taken you from God.”

  “Where is God if He is not in Heaven?” Echoing the words she’d once said to him, he reached up and touched her face as if he knelt before the Mother of God herself. “Where is God if He is not watching over the most precious of His children? I joined the brotherhood because I could not bear the abominations wicked men visited upon the innocent, and yet God did not hear even one of my prayers. Instead, the wicked came to me where I hid from the world and persuaded me it was God’s will that I harm the innocent. And in Heaven itself, the highest of angels have done the same.”

  He stroked a tear that fell upon her cheek. “If there is anything like God,” he whispered, “it is in your kiss. That is what I wish to pray to from now on.” Kirill rose onto his knees and drew Love’s face to his and kissed her, tasting the holy sacrament, and laid his head in her lap. “You are the divine,” he said. “You are my Love.”

  She bent and kissed his hair, quietly slipping the chotki into his pocket.

  §

  Azel didn’t care for traveling by Cherub. He’d done it once before, when they’d come to this same palace by the sea from the cold place. The dungeon of the keep at the Citadel of Gehenna, his mind interjected. Helga kept you in a dungeon. Just like this one. That was where he’d first begun to have memories that weren’t his, after Helga—

  “Shut up!” he shouted and then was horribly ill. He managed to get most of it into the oubliette. The rest he cleaned up with his shirt. Tempted to throw it in after his mess, but knowing Helga would likely punish him by making him go without supper, he folded it neatly and set it aside for the wash.

  Ola wasn’t here this time, and somehow the little room (dungeon) seemed unbearable, though it was no different from any other he’d lived in. The dark had never bothered him before. He’d asked Helga for a lamp before she closed him in and she’d called him spoiled and said he was putting on “airs.” He didn’t know what airs were, but he supposed he probably was spoiled. Like milk left out where it shouldn’t be, he’d gone bad.

  Nonsense. You should have a room upstairs, like Helga does. What is she hiding you from? Everyone’s already seen you.

  Azel pinched his arm spitefully. Though it hurt him, he figured it must hurt the other boy, too. The voice went silent.

  He’d fallen asleep sometime later and woke to the white-gold light of a Cherub on the stairs. “Come,” the Cherub ordered, the deep baritone of the ox dominant within the multiform voice. The man’s face supplanted the ox’s as Azel climbed the steps. “What happened to your clothes?”

  “I was sick,” said Azel.

  The Cherub snatched his arm with irritation and dragged him up the remaining steps, and Azel blinked in the light as he stumbled along behind the angel. It was midafternoon, though it had felt like midnight. He’d never given much thought to the time of day before and the realization that he couldn’t tell day from night in his room unnerved him. He’d only spent a few weeks in the daylight. Ola had spent her whole life in it. No wonder she’d cried in the oubliette.

  Pausing at the wardrobe in one of the rooms upstairs, the Cherub shoved a clean shirt at him; no Cherub valet for him anymore, it seemed. It was too big, but Azel put it on, buttoning one-handed as he trotted along behind the Cherub. Once again, he could smell the sea air flowing through the open breezeways of the palace. He wished he could go outside and see the ocean. A memory of standing on a pier with the pretty lady (Nenny) played in his head. “I dare you to jump in fully clothed,” she’d taunted with a grin. “Come on, I’ll race you.” She had run for the end of the pier and leapt, her fancy dress ballooning up around her as she hit the water like the canvas sides of a collapsible lifeboat.

  The Cherub stopped outside a sitting room, keeping Azel behind him, but Azel peered around him and saw the other Cherubim standing about Helga like guardians. She sat having tea with another pretty lady, only this one had shining silver hair and eyes, like the angels he’d met in Elysium—like the one the Cherub killed.

  “I must admit, you had even me fooled,” the pretty lady said. “I believed my poor, mad Kae had snapped u
nder the strain of his conflicted heart. It was a puzzle. I hadn’t expected him to take actions I’d not directed. Of course, you can never tell what darkness a man may be harboring. But that is unimportant now. I merely wish to confirm the boy’s existence if we’re to come to any sort of mutually beneficial arrangement.”

  “And what would you consider mutually beneficial?” Helga countered. “Your reign was not exactly a boon to the Fallen. Why should I assume we have any other common goal than the dissolution of the House of Arkhangel’sk?”

  “I am not even certain that goal is one of yours. Why keep the boy and further a dynasty you claim you want to destroy?”

  Helga gave her a patronizing smile. “Because the Host are a fickle lot who may charge forward full-thrust toward revolution one minute and then mourn their lost ideal the next. With Azel, they can maintain their imagined ideal while Heaven progresses around them. And since he is a most compliant boy, there is no danger of a return to Heaven’s former excesses.”

  The pretty lady fanned herself in the southern heat as the breeze from the shore grew momentarily still. “I understood he’d run away with the little Grand Duchess. That does not strike me as compliant.”

  “He did not run away,” Helga corrected stiffly. “He and his cousin were somehow stolen away in the night by a Russian monk.”

  The lady laughed aloud, to Helga’s obvious consternation. “Oh, they’re insidious!” she said with sympathy. “I have never met one who didn’t deserve a vicious flogging.” She leaned back against the chair as if the heat were draining her. “Well, I truly must see this boy. I have heard so much about him.”

  Helga gave her a sigh of resignation and turned toward the entrance, nodding to the Cherub who’d brought him.

  “His Supernal Highness the Grand Duke Azel Kaeyevich,” the Cherub announced, his demeanor changing abruptly as he pushed Azel gently forward into the sitting room.

  Helga stroked the locket at her breast. “Ah, here’s my boy.” She beamed at him with pride and Azel knew he wasn’t the boy she was proud of.

  “Hello, Azel.” The pretty lady leaned forward with a smile and held out her hand. “Come here and let me look at you.” Even her voice was pretty. When he approached her, she took his hand and turned him about. “What a fine boy you are. How would you like to live in a magnificent palace with rooms filled with sweets?”

  Helga threw her a wary look, her fingers poised on her locket.

  “I don’t much care for sweets,” he said.

  The lady laughed with delight. “What do you like?”

  Azel hesitated. No one had ever asked him what he liked before. He glanced at Helga and then replied with certainty, “Horses.”

  “Ah. Excellent choice. You shall have a stable full of horses. More horses than any boy has ever had.”

  “What are you doing?” Helga objected. “I haven’t filled his head with such nonsense. He must live frugally, without the excesses his predecessors have indulged in. The wealth of Heaven must belong to the people.”

  “Oh, who’s talking about Heaven, you tiresome woman? I intend to make Azel the prince of a much grander place.”

  “You shall do no such thing!” Helga leapt to her feet. “He is mine!”

  “Do you really think you can keep him in this world? Hiding him from the Tafsarim in the Garden Palace of Aden, while you plot to overthrow Heaven? Your Cherubim with their flaming swords may be able to hide the garden from ordinary angels, but as you see, they cannot hide it from me. What makes you think they can keep it hidden from the Aeons?”

  Helga fixed her with a look of fury and popped open the clasp on her locket. Light blazed out, brighter than the noonday sun. Azel covered his eyes with both hands, pressing them tight.

  The pretty lady laughed as if the light didn’t bother her. “You haven’t the slightest idea what you’re doing with that. Treating it like a simple charm you’ve cooked up in your cauldron. It has no effect on me. Put it away before you hurt yourself.”

  The locket snapped and the fiery blaze was shut away. “Azel,” Helga ordered, “come with me.”

  He stumbled blindly toward her and she grabbed his hand, but the lady moved more quickly and stepped between them and the door.

  “Normally,” said the lady, “I admire a woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. But there are two things even I would never do.” She snatched Azel from Helga’s grasp and pressed her hands harshly against his ears as if to keep him from hearing what she said next, but the boy in his head seemed to be able to hear from outside him. “Vivisect a pregnant woman to steal her baby,” the lady hissed, “and force a dead boy’s spirit into another child by feeding him putrescent flesh. You’re completely mad.”

  Azel wasn’t sure what all of the words meant, but they’d conjured terrible images. His stomach lurched and the other boy seemed to be weeping.

  The lady took her hands from Azel’s ears and smoothed his hair across his brow as Helga backed away.

  At a look from Helga, the Cherubim had drawn their swords, but the pretty lady outstretched her hand toward the angels, tendrils of lightning dripping from her fingers. As it struck the ground before the Cherubim, their fiery swords dwindled like a sheep’s bladder emptied of air. The lady curled her arm and flung it outward with a thunderous clap and the Cherubim disappeared.

  “What have you done with my Cherubim?” Helga looked stern, though her voice sounded frightened.

  “Your Cherubim?” the lady scoffed. “I have cast them into the Outer Darkness. They’re useless to me.”

  Helga clutched her locket, muttering something under her breath.

  “I’ve already told you the blossom has no effect on me. And it does not belong to you.” The lady held out her hand as if she expected Helga to give her the locket. She’d never do it. Azel knew Helga prized her locket above everything. But the chain about her neck snapped and the locket slipped from Helga’s fingers like butter and skittered across the floor to stop at the pretty lady’s feet.

  Helga shrieked and flew at her, grabbing for it, and then grabbing at Azel when the lady scooped the locket up. “You cannot have him! He’s my baby! He’s mine!”

  The pretty lady shoved her away and lifted Azel onto her hip as if he weighed nothing at all. “Would you like to stay here with Helga,” she asked with a dazzling smile, “or come ride horses?”

  “Horses,” he said without hesitation.

  Helga lunged for him again, but the lady raised her palm and Helga stopped in her tracks.

  “You heard the child.” She turned away, leaving Helga staring after him in shock as he watched her over the lady’s shoulder. “Despicable creature,” the pretty lady murmured. She made a twisting motion with her clenched fist behind her back and Helga clutched her chest, her eyes wide with fear, before dropping lifelessly to the ground.

  Dvadtsat Tretya: Polnoch

  from the annals of Her Supernal Majesty Anazakia Helisonovna Arkhangel’skaya, Queen of the Princedom of the Firmament of Shehaqim and of All the Heavens

  My train arrived in Pushkin on an early autumn afternoon. Only Lively and Belphagor knew I was here. Lively and I had shared a glamour that included our vocal essences, careful to prepare our antidotes ahead of time with our own untainted blood, and she’d gone in my stead to the ceremony in Iriy. Terrified at first of the enormity of her role, once she’d rehearsed it, she began to enjoy the game of it, even testing it out before we left by posing as me for an afternoon.

  By the time I left for Raqia, it had felt almost like the tricks my sisters and I had sometimes played on would-be suitors who mistook us for one another. There had been one awkward moment as I departed the palace on the pretext of visiting the apothecary, when Margarita suddenly grabbed me and gave me a passionate kiss. I hadn’t realized their relationship had progressed so far, and I blushed prettily for Lively’s sake, with no need for playacting.

  Traveling in relative anonymity, I hadn’t needed bodyguards or an entourage
of any kind, and it was a welcome change of pace from the strangeness of the past few weeks during which I’d barely had a private moment. I couldn’t quite believe I was queen and often had to be spoken to more than once before I realized I was the “Supernal Majesty” being addressed. I also couldn’t quite get the hang of the supernal “We.”

  The leaves were already turning brilliant orange and amber as I neared Alexander Park, and the air had the crisp and wistful feel to it I had only experienced in the world of Man. At Yulya Volfovna’s apartment, I stopped in to take the antidote that restored my true appearance. Misha had told his mother to expect me, and she’d laid out tea and biscuits while I prepared myself for what I’d come to do. More than anyone else, she managed to set my mind at ease that I’d made the right decision in my bargain with Aeval.

  It had been the hardest of my life, and I knew I might never be forgiven by those whose lives it affected. A queen must be strong, Kae had once told me, and he’d believed in my strength to make the hard decisions. I am sure, however, he had never imagined the decision I would make. He’d imagined me killing him, I knew; imagined imprisonment or banishment to a forgotten corner of Heaven—even hoped for these things—but that I would turn him over to the one who’d taken everything from him, who’d destroyed him and all he loved so utterly, he could never have dreamed.

  Near midnight, I kissed Yulya good-bye and walked to the hidden grove through which the Unseen World was entered to stand within the ring of mushrooms that marked the presence of the Unseen. The syla awaited me and they welcomed me in their usual enthusiastic fashion before ushering me to the place I’d been dreading: Polnochnoi Sud, The Midnight Court of Man’s transgressions.

  Beneath the black sapphire canopy of the court’s perpetual night sky and its abundance of unfamiliar stars, Aeval sprawled across the chaise longue on the daïs in a spectacular manner, and for a moment I was too stunned to move. Gone was the silvery Virtuous hair, the glittering pale eyes, the pearlescent skin she’d worn in Heaven. Gone were the elegant, snowy gowns littered with crushed crystal facets. In their place was a stunning mane of bluest black to match the sky—wild and wind-tossed—and piercing, deep blue eyes that flashed at me with the same sort of catlike luminescence Misha’s green ones possessed.