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AZRAEL had been sleeping soundly with the ever-present warmth gifted by the Light from Manor Saffron’s walls. But when comforting warmth transformed into frigid cold, she was shocked from her sleep. Her eyes burst open, and she expected her inner Light to shine through the darkness, but she could see nothing. It reminded her of her nightmares, and she would have thought she’d returned if it hadn’t been for her frantically pounding heart. She was certainly alive, and she wasn’t dreaming.
Yet like a dream, she was completely paralyzed. She tried to move, but a cold weight poured over her body like a waterfall made of black shadows. It rushed past her ears and felt alive, sentient, and terrifying.
Azrael’s breath came in quick gasps as the cold slowly invaded her body. Her fingers went numb and a rolling nausea climbed in her chest. Azrael tried to cry out, to scream, to shout, to do something, but every sound was absorbed by the blackened void. Finally, Azrael went stiff with terror.
But Azrael hadn’t survived her nightmares by behaving like a frightened child. She remembered what the Queen had sacrificed to keep her alive, how hard Meretta had worked, and how much Gabriel believed in her. In an instant she’d reached that place beyond that held the Light and it lit her soul on fire. Azrael gasped in metallic air as the world exploded into being again.
Light poured from her like a fountain, scourging the air and hissing the blackness away. Something was causing this. Azrael felt the raw stab of emotion as it raged against her onslaught. It felt like an echo of a Windborn. Its horrifying screech cried out in anguish at her onslaught, but Azrael’s blurred vision couldn’t find the creature. She sucked in mouthfuls of air as if she’d been drowning as Light continued to pour out of her in massive, pulsing waves.
The void was solid and slick, and broke against Azrael’s Light. Her screams finally reached her ears as the blackness shattered like a mirror. Everywhere Azrael swept her gaze left a steaming trail of dark soot and grime as blackness broke and hissed into dust.
Azrael tumbled from her bed and fell to her knees with a painful jolt. All color had been drained from the marble that had once been gold and alive, but was now like a husk, grey and sapped of life.
She crawled on hands and knees, searching for Meretta and praying that the creature hadn’t gotten to her first. Through the deafening cracks of the void the creature’s body flashed, a slithering tail, a dark blackened scale, and then it was gone. Its nails screeched against marble as it ran, but it stopped just when it was out of sight, letting Azrael take in the full red-tinted gaze of its hatred before it retreated with a blistering screech.
“Help!” Meretta screamed. Her voice seemed to echo in the room and became lost in the cracks of void.
“Meretta!” Azrael cried, but there was no response.
Azrael tried to keep herself from hyperventilating as the Light reacted to her fear. The gate within her burst open and a tingling ran through the patterns where her Acceptance ignited. Azrael gleamed like a beacon until the entire room filled with scorching brightness. The last of the black fog retreated, heaving like a dying creature. Finally, Azrael spotted Meretta trembling on the floor and she scrambled to her side.
Meretta! Azrael tried to say, but no words came. Azrael’s jaw was locked by terror. She grabbed onto Meretta’s robe and her friend uncurled at the touch.
Meretta tried to blink her eyes open, but Azrael couldn’t contain her Light. Meretta gave one weak cry of anguish before she went limp and her head lolled back in Azrael’s arms.
The door burst open and Azrael shot her gaze like an arrow, sending a maidservant reeling until she slammed hard against the wall. She clutched at her eyes as if they burned before she went limp as well.
Azrael whimpered helplessly as she turned back to Meretta and had no power to stop her skin turning pink as small cuts formed, as if an invisible knife was slitting her skin. But Azrael knew it was no knife, this was her, and she couldn’t stop it. She was about to set Meretta aside and run from the room, but fear kept her frozen. What if the creature wasn’t really gone? What if this was the only way to keep her safe?
Tears sizzled in Azrael’s eyes as she opened her mouth in a mute cry. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to pull herself together. Azrael’s sense of time wavered as she tried to slow the thundering of her heart. And when she looked upon Meretta again, bright crimson blood had soaked through her silk robes. Trapped in horror, Azrael hummed an old lullaby, one sung by angels who were lost and couldn’t get home. She rocked back and forth with Meretta slumped in her arms and lost touch with reality. She couldn’t register the voices when hands pulled at her and tried to take away the treasure in her grasp. Azrael cried out and clung onto Meretta even harder. She couldn’t let them have her. They didn’t belong here.
Azrael was shocked back into reality when the Queen slapped her hard across the face. What shocked her wasn’t the force of the blow, not her magic or her demands, but being struck by her Queen. Azrael blinked helplessly.
“Please,” the Queen said, her words finally within the realm of comprehension. “Let the Healers take Meretta. She can be saved.”
Sense seeped into her like the cold void, but this time she let it in. She released her grip on Meretta’s slick robes and whimpered as they took her away, blood sweeping the ground in their wake.
But what caught her breath wasn’t the loss of blood, but the fact that Meretta’s dark locks had turned white as snow, only finding color where blood seeped into her hairline.
Azrael’s vision went blurry as she wept. What have I done?
The Queen forced Azrael to her feet. “Follow me.”
Numbly, Azrael allowed the Queen to lead her away, stumbling under her tight grasp like an unruly child. She didn’t resist when she was shoved into a velvety chair.
“Azrael,” the Queen whispered, her voice taut like a string. “Look at me.” The Queen’s magic invaded her mind and sought the remnants of her lucidity, piecing them back together like a broken cup. She shivered and widened her eyes. “What—” Only one word came out before her sobs rolled through her throat.
The Queen shushed her and stroked her hair, and Azrael collapsed into her arms. She let the sobs take over and clutched the Queen as if letting go meant dying, as if she couldn’t trust herself to keep anyone she loved safe.
“Meretta’s going to be all right, you hear me?” the Queen said. “I’ve seen Light overdose, and those who are strong in spirit can survive it. I don’t know anyone stronger than Meretta, other than you.”
Azrael peeled away from the Queen and sniffled. Her nose felt like it had grown three times its normal size and a headache had begun to pound. The Queen brushed a hand over Azrael’s cheek before gathering a blanket and a cup of water.
Azrael took the cup with trembling hands as the Queen draped the blanket over her legs. After a sip, she realized her fingers were stained with Meretta’s blood. Just like when the hybrid child had been killed, she dipped the blanket into the water and began to wipe her hands clean. This time, Meretta couldn’t do it for her. She had to fix her own failures now.
“Tell me what you saw,” the Queen said softly as Azrael worked. She was ruining perfectly good Charmeuse silk, but the Queen was either too blind to notice, or too kind to care.
“Darkness,” Azrael offered. “A creature.”
The Queen’s eyes narrowed. “What did the darkness feel like?”
She shivered as she tried to put the feeling into words. “Like, I was drowning.” Fresh tears streamed down Azrael’s face and she searched the Queen’s cloudy eyes for answers. “What did I do to Meretta?”
The Queen’s eyes burned like dim coals, restraining Azrael from the Light even now. “You’ve saved her, sweet girl. Mehmet has made his move.”
Azrael’s eyes went wide. “What?”
The Queen stilled Azrael’s hands, not seeming to care if the blood stained her own porcelain skin. “That Darkness would have devoured any life in that room, and that creature was there to make sure of it.”
“What if it comes back?” Azrael’s voice came out panicked and Light threatened to burst from her soul at any moment.
The Queen pushed her magic deeper until it barely contained Azrael’s fears. “Someone let it in, but you cast it out. I promise, we’ll get to the bottom of this.” The Queen shook Azrael by the shoulders. “I promise, you will get through this.”
Azrael forced herself to calm down as she noticed the strain creasing the Queen’s brow. Sweat had begun to bead across her forehead and she’d never once seen the Queen perspire in any form. Azrael forced herself to give a tight nod. “I understand.”
The Queen glanced to the doorway and Azrael started, but saw only a solemn Healer waiting silently to be acknowledged. Her lively green robes were splotched with dark smears of blood and bile rose in Azrael’s throat.
“The Hallowed has reviewed the advisor’s condition, and informs she will survive, however her hair will remain bleached,” said the Healer.
Azrael cringed at her unspoken words, and resented the Healer’s snide tone. Meretta wouldn’t fetch quite the price she once boasted for Manor Saffron. She resisted lurching for the Healer and strangling her to death right there. Meretta would never be a slave to anyone, not while she had any say in the matter.
The Queen nodded as if she hadn’t caught the meaning of the Healer’s words. “Thank you. Please send for me if there are any changes in Meretta’s condition.”
The Healer nodded back and quietly left the room.
Azrael glanced at the Queen. “May I stay with her?”
Folding her hands in her lap, the Queen’s shoulders eased as Azrael’s Light finally receded. “You must prepare to complete your Acceptance, I fear. He could strike again, and I don’t want to give him the chance. If the demons have breached the Manor, there’s no time to lose.” A fierceness took over her features and the Queen straightened. “You’re meant for something great, something greater than I ever could have hoped for. Whatever it is, I’ll die before Mehmet stops you from fulfilling your fate.”
Azrael nearly burst out the whole truth right there. This was all her fault! She’d made a deal with a demon. She’d allowed evil to cross holy boundaries. The only traitor here was herself.
“It’s my fault Meretta is—” Azrael began and her voice cracked.
“No,” the Queen snapped. “This is not your fault, understand? This is Mehmet’s doing.” Her glance shifted to the doorway once again. “Gabriel will be here soon.”
Azrael wished she could sense the angel like the Queen could, and didn’t want to speculate why the Queen had magic she didn’t. Azrael felt nothing until he rushed into the room, wild-eyed and with stiff wings that grated against the wide arches of the doorway. He relaxed when his blue gaze met Azrael’s. “You’re okay.”
The Queen swept to her feet. “We have things under control. Tell us what you know from your end.”
Gabriel’s wings pressed to his back and he eased into the room. “I was in Celestia when they sensed a Dark Soul being brought into the Manor. A demon must be working with someone on the inside, and whoever they are, they brought the orb in only a few hours ago.”
The Queen nodded. “Based on Azrael’s description, that sounds accurate. She experienced a portal being opened and an underling demon being brought through. She was able to break the ward and send the creature back to Mhakdar, but Meretta was in the room when it happened.”
Gabriel visibly whitened. “Is she...?”
The Queen offered a tight smile and folded her hands. “She’ll be fine.”
Gabriel looked back to Azrael and narrowed his eyes, approaching carefully as if she were a deer.
Azrael squirmed in her seat. “What? Why’re you looking at me like that?”
Gabriel brought his thumb to her chin and turned her face. “Not a single mark on you. That means you’ve not only used one ability I’ve never taught you, but two.”
“What do you mean?”
His hand fell to his side and his robes rippled. “You closed a portal, and you protected yourself from Light overdose.”
Azrael’s gaze shot to her feet. She was able to protect herself, but not Meretta?
Queen Ceres glided to the doorway. “Gabriel, stay with her. Don’t let her out of your sight. I’m going to find our traitor.” Her lips creased into a thin line as Gabriel gave her a nod, and then she was gone.
Alone with the angel, Azrael felt strangely unprotected and vulnerable. Even though he was an angel, majestic and towering with his perfect form over her like a god, he had no power over the Light. He couldn’t keep her from hurting herself or others, or even him.
As her thoughts of guilt and doubt overwhelmed her, she brought her knees to her chest and strained to keep the tears in.
“Hey, Azrael, it’s going to be all right.”
Azrael’s lower lip trembled and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I’m scared,” she admitted. “Has Mehmet ever gotten inside the Manor?”
Hurt wound through his face like a sickness, and Azrael closed her green eye so she couldn’t see it. “Yes, before Alexandria was alive. We had many more warriors then, and when she Turned there was an uprising. We lost a great number during that time, and the Manor’s Inner Sanctum was fortified with Divine Material after...” his words drifted. “The only way he can get in now is with an orb, a Dark Soul, a powerful source of magic that can open a portal to Mhakdar.” His gaze found hers again and pride sparked in the air. “But you’ve destroyed it. Once the Queen finds the traitor, it won’t happen again.”
Thoughts plagued her with the hundreds of possibilities. What if there was no traitor? What if this was all her fault? She’d made a deal with a demon, she’d broken her own orb and made a pact that had led her to become Queen. What if this had been enough to open a portal? What if, in all reality, the Dark Soul was hers?
“Stop it,” Gabriel said. “You’re blaming yourself. Don’t do that. This isn’t your fault.”
“I...” she began. “I have to tell you something.”
Gabriel crouched so that they were eye-level. “You can tell me anything.”
She swallowed. “What if I did something...wrong? What if, this really is my fault?”
His white brows pushed together. “What did you do?”
She forced herself to watch his face. She had to know his true reaction, not the façade he gave the world. She had to look into his eyes and know what the truth would mean to him. “I’m a hybrid, Gabriel. I had a demon orb, and I used it before I became Princess.” She shivered. “What if...”
Gabriel shocked her by releasing a short laugh. “You think I didn’t know?”
Her eyes bulged. “What?”
His smile lit up his face. “How else could a hybrid become Queen?” His hand reached out until it found hers. She didn’t pull away. “Sometimes it takes a little bad to do the right thing.”
She didn’t know what to say, but even if he approved, it didn’t change anything. “The Dark Soul,” she began.
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t work like that. It’s a different magic. What you used was a tether between you and the demon that fed on you as an infant. The magic to open a portal is entirely different. There’s a traitor in Manor Saffron, and I assure you, it isn’t you.”
Silence engulfed them for a long time. Sharing the truth should have shattered her world, but instead it made her feel sane again. Gabriel wasn’t like the other angels, and for the first time, she started to wonder why. His eyes were blue, while theirs were purple. He was always distant, but seemed to relate to her, be proud of the things she could do with her moral compass. Did that mean, in a strange way, he was a hybrid too? Not touched by a demon as an infant, but grown to have a soul that understood both good and evil?
The revelation would be something Meretta would love to analyze, and incessantly tease Azrael as their fated “meant-to-be.”
“Can we see Meretta, you think?” she asked.
Gabriel’s hand tightened on hers. “Are you sure?”
Azrael nodded. “The Queen said I’ll have to undergo my Acceptance soon. I want to see her before I do.”
Gabriel nodded. “Then let’s go.”
Azrael kept her eyes on his feathers as she trailed behind him. It calmed her to see the natural way they swished against one another, creating a rippling wave of white like a cape. Almost in a trance, she bumped into him when they arrived at the Healing Ward.
Gabriel guided her to the doorway. “I’ll be right here. Go on in.”
Seeing the tight space offered by the corridors, Azrael saw why he didn’t wish to go in. She curled her shoulders inward as she shuffled her way through alone. A Healer holding a bloodied cloth dripping in a wooden bowl of water nodded to a curtain, and Azrael slipped inside. She let her eyes adjust to the dim room. Only the upper portion of the walls had Divine Material, and each was engraved by a Windborn rune, prayers to the Divine for peace and healing.
Azrael could hardly identify Meretta, a form completely wrapped in bandages with perfectly white hair blotched with pink. Azrael held in tears as she approached the bedside and hovered her fingers over Meretta’s lips. Soft breath kissed her fingertips and Azrael relaxed.
Blood had already begun to seep through the bandages and the Healers had washed what blood they could out of her hair. But to see it so starkly white made her look like a ghost. Azrael couldn’t resist and gently pulled one of Meretta’s eyelids open, revealing a thin layer of gold film. With a startled squeak she jerked away.
“I’m so sorry,” Azrael whispered and clutched her arms around herself. “Please, forgive me.”
Meretta would have shushed her, assured her none of this was her fault. But she was too far gone to do anything but softly breathe. Azrael had to take what comfort she could that her friend was still alive.
Hot tears came anyway, and Azrael ran out of the room, frantically tearing through the curtains until she found Gabriel again and crumpled into his chest.
He shushed her and wrapped his wings around them as if by instinct. “She’ll be back to her old self in a few days. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He forced her to look at him. “You saved her life.”
“Is there anything I can do? What if the traitor strikes again?” Azrael shivered.
Gabriel thought for a moment. Azrael thought he might say the Queen would take care of it, that she had nothing to worry about. But as he looked into her eyes she willed him not to say anything of the sort. Heat ran up her spine and she didn’t care if she used her magic. She needed to do something.
“I have an idea,” he said, and began down the hallway.
Azrael shoved the guilt deep into her chest. She’d used her magic on Gabriel, forced him to do something he’d never do. But if it would keep Meretta safe...
Azrael slowly closed her blue eye.
When they’d arrived at the gardens Gabriel paused, looking momentarily confused.
“You had an idea,” Azrael reminded him. She pushed her will stronger, ignoring the twinges of pain that ran down her back.
His eyes went out of focus as he spoke. “Yes, that’s right.” He looked down at his feet, then up at her. “You’re a hybrid. That means you not only have access to the Light, but the Dark as well. You could find our traitor before they can help the demon again.”
Azrael straightened. “How?”
“Hindsight. You can speak to the land,” he said as his palms flayed out. “You can see what it’s seen. The traitor would have gone through the gardens. Ask the land when it felt darkness. Ask it when it felt something profound, a change, a shift, a soul that didn’t belong.”
Azrael looked around the gardens, seeing only the familiar fountains and perfectly trimmed foliage. “How?”
“You’ve lived here all your life. You know the energies of this land. Use your Light, and the Dark, use it to find the tendrils of time that are the memories of the land.”
Azrael crouched to the ground, let her fingers run through the wavy blades of grass. She closed her eyes and willed her Light to come forth. Heat sparked under her fingertips and when the darkness opened its eyes with interest, she didn’t curl away from it this time. She brought it in, mingled it with the Light until she felt a commune and opened her eyes. The gardens teemed with silver strands. She reached out to them and they twisted from her touch. She laughed and it seemed to enjoy her merriment, dodging and flickering until it calmed and allowed her to graze it like the snout of a stallion. The moment her hand touched it, a blinding wave of heat scourged her body and she would have screamed, except she couldn’t.
She had no body with which to scream.
The winds took her away, not to another place, but another time. Day and night blinked in a blur and the gardens teemed with people and seasons. The whirlwind of change spun around her until she felt she would be consumed, but then it finally slowed.
With a crack of thunder it came to a halt. She was still in the gardens, but the foliage had grown wild, not so pristine and trimmed. A girl leaned against a tree and stared through Azrael. The sun illuminated her midnight locks and made her khol-rimmed eyes look so bright, one green and one blue. With a pang of shock, Azrael realized this was Alexandria.
Alexandria turned and a breathtaking tattoo running up her back lit like the morning sun, swirling with blinding waves of living Light. It was more incredible than the Queen’s, and even her own. The winds of time rippled and made the girl disintegrate into a thousand pieces. Azrael reached out, crying for her to come back.
Then she saw Gabriel, but he wasn’t the same. His eyes were purple, just as all the other angels she’d ever seen. He wore golden robes and his wings glittered with jewels. He looked through her and she turned, only to see Alexandria again. But this time, she had wings.
Alexandria smiled, love filling her face and making her far more beautiful than she already was. A thin silver gown ran over her curves and she flexed her wings, sending sparks of light that were repelled from silver strands wound through starkly dark feathers.
Azrael finally understood why all renditions of Alexandria had been so dark, so shadowed and grey. Her wings were as black as her hair, a sharp contrast to Gabriel’s purity.
With a gasp Azrael realized they were not alone. A horde of Windborn and angels surrounded the pair, silent and expectant. It was only when Alexandria swept past her and into Gabriel’s arms did she realize what this was. He leaned and placed a kiss on Alexandria’s lips, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as their wings curled in on one another.
Azrael couldn’t watch as they exchanged rings.
Her heart broke and thunder cracked across the ages of time. Her soul was trying to return to her own body, but her pain and jealousy made it hard to care. Light seared against her soul and she knew she’d stayed too long. Another moment, and it could take her for good.
It towered, threatening and powerful. It didn’t need to intimidate her, it’d already won.
It was the Dark that taunted her back into action. It called her names, said she was weak and a pathetic second-choice. Alexandria was everything she couldn’t be.
Azrael didn’t like that it was anger that made her tear against the Light, to prove it wrong along with the Dark. Chaos swirled as she lashed out in rage. She found the thin tether back to her body and grabbed onto it with all her strength. She pulled and tugged, ignoring the Light that bit at her skin, the Dark that wrapped around her ankles.
When she’d made it back into her own body, black dots spread across her vision and a deafening crack made her double over and vomit blood onto the grass.
She tried to jerk away when Gabriel reached for her. “No,” she said and then coughed violently as she clutched her side.
“What did you see? How far back did you go? It shouldn’t have—”
She met his gaze, not hiding the pain and ferocity that burned in her chest. “She had black wings.”
Gabriel went stiff. “You couldn’t have... That’s too far.” Awe and shock streaked across his face, quickly followed by remorse. “Azrael, that was three thousand years ago.”
For a moment, Azrael was struck silent. She knew Alexandria had been generations of Queens ago, but she’d never considered what that’d meant.
“Come,” he said gently as he offered his arm. “Let’s get you to the Healing Ward. I never should have gotten you to try...” his voice drifted and he pinched his lips closed. His features went hard and Azrael knew he never would have put her in such risk. He knew it too, and it stung the way he looked at her now. He knew what she’d done.
Azrael didn’t apologize for forcing him to give her a way to help Meretta. But even now, she’d failed. Her great power could do nothing other than think of herself, her own wants and desires, her own curiosity. Instead of finding the traitor, she’d uncovered Gabriel’s dark secrets. He’d loved Alexandria, and it had changed him, as well as gotten her killed.
Azrael resisted him as he tugged her to the garden’s doors. “Did you love her?” she demanded. She’d been through so much, already failed. She needed to know at least that.
Gabriel turned from her with a grimace. “It was a long time ago.” He looked back to her somberly. “Who didn’t love her then?”
#
THERE’D been good reason Gabriel never would have offered to help her find lost threads of time. She could feel the toll the magic had taken on her and felt ridiculous for taking on that kind of risk, especially without a completed Acceptance. She’d almost lost herself to celestial powers, and all over petty jealousy of a three-thousand-year-old dead Queen.
Recovery in a stifling room away from Queen Ceres with nothing but a pounding headache seemed like an appropriate punishment. Using the Dark was a first, and the aftermath was entirely opposite than the Light. With the Light, it took no toll other than the moment, the effort to close the gates within her soul, and perhaps a nasty blister over her skin that was bound with Divine Material. But the Dark was a part of her, and it had been allowed to spread. Sickness filled her and made her nauseous, sending pounding headaches until she pressed her thumbs against her eyes with the strain and tasted sour bile in the back of her throat.
“Can’t you give her something for the pain?” Gabriel’s voice thundered in Azrael’s brain. He was arguing again with a Healer, even though Azrael had said a hundred times she didn’t want help from anyone. She’d done this to herself, and she’d pay the price.
“As I’ve told you before, we’ve used the most of the salve on other patients. There’s only one bottle left.”
“This is your future Queen,” Gabriel sneered. “I don’t care if it’s the last bottle on Terra. Give it to her, and I don’t care if she fights it. Just do it. She needs to complete her Acceptance, and she can’t do that while she’s like this.”
Gabriel hadn’t said the full truth. Azrael knew that he’d meant she couldn’t endure a trial of Light while infected with the Dark.
When trained hands massaged salve into the tight knots of her neck, she didn’t fight it. Rosemary and Thyme masked its putrid scent, and she forced herself to relax. The wave of her nausea eased and the thunder of her headache retreated to a dull throb.
“What is that stuff?” Azrael murmured.
“Unicorn tears, m’lady.”
Azrael didn’t ask if that was a joke.
“They’re called Healers for a reason,” Gabriel said with a wry smile.
Azrael returned a smile, but couldn’t look at him longer than a second before the images came flooding back. His foreign, violet eyes and his lips touching Alexandria’s. The way she’d looked at him, such unadulterated joy. What had happened after that day? Did he still love her, even after three thousand years?
Guilt tugged at her heart. She shouldn’t be worrying about Gabriel’s past. Meretta’s future was what was really important. Even now, she was still in bed, all because she’d failed to protect her. She deserved better.
“Well, since we’re here, do you think it’d be okay to check on Meretta?” Azrael asked.
Gabriel hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose that’d be all right, as long as you keep to bed rest soon. Do you feel up to moving around? Don’t let the salve give you a false sense of health.”
“Yes. I just want to check on her.”
He rose, picking up his thin-backed chair and leaning it against himself. “Come along then, you can sit in my chair so that the Healers won’t fuss at me for letting you exert yourself.”
Walking around the corner to Meretta’s room, Gabriel sighed before squeezing through the narrow halls. It was even more difficult as he dragged the chair behind him, his wings bent awkwardly, nearly grazing the ceiling. But finally Gabriel situated himself and placed the chair next to Meretta’s bed. Motioning for Azrael to sit, he remained standing within arm’s reach.
Azrael sat gingerly, but the back of the chair grazed her tender skin. Even through the thin robes it felt like hot coals. She hissed and lurched forward, nearly oversetting the unbalanced chair. Meretta’s eyes flickered at the noise.
“Meretta?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
Relief flooded her when Meretta’s eyes fluttered open and the golden film had nearly vanished.
Meretta squinted as if she couldn’t quite make Azrael out. “Why’s it so bright in here?” she murmured.
“It’s the effects of overexposure to Light,” Gabriel supplied.
Her gaze flicked to him nervously, and she relaxed when he rustled his wings. “What happened?”
Azrael felt the tears pricking at the edges of her eyes and tried to hold them back. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Azrael saved your life,” Gabriel interrupted. “Mehmet tried to kill you both.”
Meretta’s eyes fluttered and she arched her neck stiffly. “You saved us.”
Azrael shook her head. “I hurt you.”
Meretta gave a small laugh. “No, you saved me.” She held her arms wide.
Azrael waved her hands. “Oh no no, I don’t want to hurt you, Meretta. You’re wounded.”
She wobbled her arms awkwardly. “Oh nonsense, I’m fine. Hug me, my sister.”
The brimming tears rolled down her cheeks. Azrael gave in and hugged Meretta as gently as she could.
After a few shaky breaths, Azrael released the embrace. “You’ll be back on your feet before you know it!” She squeezed Meretta’s hand. “You’ll see. And then you can help me talk to Mita, just like you wanted. It’ll be great. I’m sure we’ll all turn out to be best of friends. You always know how to bring people together.”
Meretta smiled. “That sounds wonderful. I can’t wait.” Her words faltered as her eyes drooped.
“I think it’s time to let her sleep,” Gabriel whispered.
Azrael patted Meretta’s hand one last time. “Goodbye, Meretta,” she whispered.
A glimmer of a smile lit Meretta’s plump lips, and Azrael could just barely make out her farewell before her chest slowed to the rise and fall of sleep.
Azrael looked to Gabriel as they retreated to her own room. “Thanks for letting me see her. She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?” Azrael dared to hope that Meretta would make it through this. They both would.
Gabriel chuckled. “Yes, she’ll be fine. Like I’ve been saying, you did the right thing.”
Finally, Azrael’s guilt melted away. Ignoring the stings and throbs, she laid down in her own bed with a sigh. It was as if an enormous weight had been lifted from her chest.
Gabriel placed his chair next to the bed. “I’ll stay with you until Queen Ceres returns. She might be a while, so try to get some rest. You’ll be safe, I promise.”
Azrael snuggled into the herb-scented sheets and her own eyelids drooped. “Thank you, Gabriel,” she whispered before drifting off to sleep.