They weren’t gentle. They weren’t considerate. He was spat on, punched, shoved, and his arms were wrenched needlessly. If he hadn’t shimmered his wings intangible, he was certain they would have torn out his feathers. He was insulted and yelled and screamed at, and the flight back to Emphoria was the longest and most miserable time of his life.
Through it all, he said not a word. What good would it do to plea? To beg? He would only be laughed at, jeered at. They’d already made up their minds. There would be no changing them.
His fate was sealed.
It was almost a relief to be tossed into a cell and left alone. He huddled on the bed and bent his knees to his chest. He wrapped his arms around them and buried his face. He wept in fear, in pain, in despair. He used to be loved and respected. They used to be his friends. Now they were strangers. All of them. After looking at Asagoroth and demons for so long, angels appeared foreign and strange.
He wasn’t in the cell for long when the door creaked open. He tightened his grip on himself and scrunched into a smaller ball.
Someone stepped in. The door creaked shut.
“The prisoner is granted one request.”
Roland glanced up. Commander Mykial stared at him, expression stony. Roland swallowed hard and cleared his throat.
“I want to see Gabryl.”
Mykial narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips in a thin line.
“That is my request.” He paused. “I’m not sorry for my choices, Mykial. I was happy. I’m only sorry that none of you can understand.”
Mykial said nothing. He spun on his heel and left. Roland wasn’t sure if Mykial would follow through with the request or not. Even if he did, Gabryl might not want to see him. He had to hope that their past counted for something and that at least Gabryl’s curiosity would compel him to visit.
A considerable, lonely, terrifying time past before his cell door creaked open once more.
“Ro.”
Roland jerked his head up. “Gabryl. You came.”
“By the cosmos!” Gabryl sat on the bed and tugged Roland into his arms, squeezing him painfully. “Of course I came! Mykial couldn’t keep me away. It’s so good to see you, my friend. To hold you. By the cosmos, what happened to you?”
Roland gasped and clung to Gabryl. His friend. Perhaps his only angel friend left, but for how long?
“I heard others say…. Light, I can’t bring myself to repeat it. Tell me the truth, please.”
“I love him,” he whispered.
“Pardon?”
Roland lifted his head and looked Gabryl dead in the eye. He repeated his words slowly.
Gabryl gaped, blinking rapidly. “You l-love a… a… a monster?”
Roland sat up and pulled out of Gabryl’s embrace. “I love Asagoroth. He is a dragon, not a monster. And he’s mine. And I was happy. And now I’m going to die for it.” His voice cracked, and he bowed his head, shuddering as tears rained down his face. “By the Light, I’m going to die because I love him.”
Silence fell, only broken by Roland’s hiccupping sobs.
“All right,” Gabryl said.
Roland looked up. “What?”
With a grim and determined look, Gabryl grabbed Roland’s hand. “If he won your love, then he’s not a monster.”
Roland swallowed his last sob and stared at Gabryl in wonder.
Gabryl grimaced. “I don’t like it, but this isn’t about me. I can’t…. Light, I can’t save you. I can’t stop this insanity. But I have to do something. To give you something. Anything.”
Roland squeezed Gabryl’s hand in return. “A spell. I need a spell.”
“What kind?” he asked instantly.
Roland quickly told him what he’d said to Bune. “I know Asagoroth will be victorious. I know it in my heart and my gut. He’s not just fighting for himself, but for me. He loves me, Gabby. Perhaps obsessively, with plenty of possession, and I have to hope that the possibility of me returning to him will stop him from burning all the realms to ash.”
Gabryl paled.
“Teach me a spell that guarantees that I will be reborn. That all of me will be reborn into a single angel, not scattered among several.”
Gabryl chewed on his lower lip for a moment and looked away. Roland knew that was his thinking face and forced himself to stay silent. What felt like an age passed before Gabryl nodded and looked back.
“Hold your intentions in your mind. Think of every particular thing you want the next you to be. But also to know. Do you want the next you to have your memories? Memories are power but also a burden. He might be chosen as a soldier or another profession not conducive to having a dragon for a mate.”
“As if there is such a profession.”
Gabryl looked grim.
Roland clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, thinking. Did he want to be an artist again? It certainly helped him to see Asagoroth in a different light than any other angel. But did he want that angel to have his memories? They would affect what he was chosen as.
Or perhaps…?
Roland popped his eyes open. He remembered Omael and the other unchosens. They had no place in angelic society. They weren’t wanted.
Angels didn’t want Roland.
“I have it,” he said.
“Good. I will tell you the words. Don’t say them until they take you out of here. The spell will build as pressure inside your head. If you hold it for too long, it will disperse painfully. It’s usually meant for angels on their deathbed, right before they breathe their last. It will release when you take your final breath.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
Gabryl shook his head, his face twisted in misery, unshed tears shimmering. “Don’t thank me.”
Roland kissed the back of Gabryl’s hands. “I already have. Not taking it back.”
Gabryl blew out a breath and kissed his cheek. Then Gabryl spoke the words. They were in Old Enochian, the most ancient and oldest known form of their language. He listened intently, forming the words with his mouth but not giving sound to them, not yet. Thankfully it was a short phrase and had a rhyming pattern to it, easy to remember.
A guard banged on the door to his cell, telling them their time was up.
“Not yet!” Gabryl snapped and continued to help Roland memorize.
When Roland nodded to indicate he had it, Gabryl stood and left without another word, his movements stiff and tense. The door creaked shut, and Roland closed his eyes, sitting silently and waiting, dreaming of the next life he would live.
“Trust me, Asa,” he whispered. “We will be together again.”
There he stood. In front of the angels. In front of the executioner. Once Commander Mykial finished reading his charges, he led him forward to the ruby block. Mykial shoved him to his knees and then pushed his head down until it lay over the ruby.
Roland had seen his sister. She stood off to the right end of the stage, next to the high chancellor, her expression blank, her eyes stony. By not one flicker did she show any recognition or regret or compassion. She listened to the crimes impassively, already disconnected from him.
She would make a fine high chancellor herself one day.
Roland closed his eyes when he felt the blade of the axe whistle slightly through the air as the executioner lifted it. Then the deadly whisper as it descended echoed with the hushed breaths of the thousands watching.
He let out his last breath and, with it, the spell. And his hope.
“Legions of demons at every gate, at every city,” Mykial spat as he returned to Gabryl’s side. It was only a day after the purification—a fancy word for murder—and it seemed the entire Lower Realm had vomited up every demon in existence. Perhaps it had.
Gabryl watched the sky darken in the east, and his stomach was clenched tightly in anger and guilt. An intelligent darkness was gathering in the far distance, with howling winds, scything violet lightning, and booming thunder threatening to devour them. His lips thinned, and his knuckles popped as he clenched his hands into fists.
He felt Mykial turn beside him as he, too, noticed the unnatural storm heading their way. They exchanged a look.
“The purification will be the end of us,” Gabryl whispered.
Mykial grimaced. “You’re lucky you didn’t join his fate. If anyone else had heard what you said about uniting with….” He shuddered, unable to say the word.
“Uniting with demons seems a better fate than being burned to ash by a force of nature,” Gabryl said, anger seething.
Mykial glared at him, but his expression faltered when he saw the onslaught devouring the distance to Emphoria.
“Call Lucifr, Uryal, and Rafyel. I will have the high chancellor evacuate the city.”
“And go where, with demons at every gate? Nothing will stop him. We just killed his one reason not to devour us.”
Mykial scowled before flying off.
Seeing his own death approach from the east, Gabryl would, nonetheless, protect all those he could. The more angels to survive, the more likely Roland would be reborn to divert Asagoroth’s wrath.
All he had was hope, and he clung to it by his fingernails.
“Come back to us, Roland,” he whispered as he flew away to follow his brother’s orders. “Come back and save us all from our own stupidity.”
The storm would arrive. And so would their fates.