One could not bear to look upon an angel, and could not but do so. It was the beneficence of the sun made manifest, but like the sun it was terrible in proximity, a burning away of non-essentials that left the spirit naked. We were not meant for intimacy with such power. God, one perceived with the abruptness of a gasp, held Himself at a remove to enable us to embrace Him at all. But I was here in a hall steeped in the history of grief and treachery, holding the limp body of someone whose blood was so innocent it had been seen from the firmament, and drawn down this luminary.

RISE

Had the command been leveled at me, I would have obeyed. But it was not. Against my arm, Almond turned her head. Her lashes fluttered, parted just enough to reveal lavender eyes, their pupils dwindled in the face of that light to mere pricks. Her mouth parted around lips gone sticky with blood. Pliant even in death, she answered, but what stepped forward was not her body, but her immaculate soul, a thing shaped only barely like the creature I cradled to my breast. My eyes spilled at the sight of her, knowing that her death was irrevocable, and that she was as beautiful in truth as she had seemed while living.

The angel did not float before her, because that would have implied air, and weight. It existed outside such earthly things. It appeared illuminated on the face of the world: neither male nor female, but with a face of supernal symmetry, beyond any description that might have implied attractiveness. It was glorious, and terrifying, and its wings were a halo of light with nothing in common with anything as mundane as a feather. And this creature looked upon Almond’s soul and did not turn away.

CHOOSE

YOUR LIFE

OR YOUR MASTER’S

From behind I saw Almond straighten, her soul retaining for just a while longer the memory of carnality, the need to square shoulders and make answer.

“I… I don’t understand,” she whispered.

CHOOSE

“But that isn’t a choice at all,” she said. She looked over her shoulder at me, and the light of the angel shone through her face. “My master. Always.”

The angel vanished. Almond’s soul dissipated in a whorl of sparkles, and once again I was holding her body as around us everyone resumed their interrupted movement. I thought Powlett died to Chester’s sword. I thought the genets were crowding closer. I lost all of that, because as I gasped out my desperate negation, the curse binding my blood unraveled with the quickness of a fall. My heart beat three times, a triple-thump, too quick, and power flooded in its wake, a bright and riotous flood, like joy unlooked for. The world embraced me again, gave me to know that I had been standing outside it, holding myself apart, and that this obtained no longer and it welcomed me home… and I felt that welcome spreading through me and the royal gifts to all the elves, felt the magnitude of Almond’s dying gift, and I sobbed into her hair, smelled the sweetness of her fur a final time.

Chester’s hand on my shoulder brought me from my paroxysms, barely. I looked up through my tears, saw the incredulity in his eyes.

“Morgan,” he said, low. “Was it just you, or….”

“It’s all of us,” I whispered. “I have it all, now, the Prince’s power to compel and the magic that is an elf’s birthright. And Chester, I cannot bring her back…!”

I expected commiseration. But Chester gripped my shoulder and said, “No, you can’t, or you would render her sacrifice meaningless. She made this choice out of love for you, and that choice freed a race. Your duty now is to be worthy of it.”

“I can’t,” I said, stricken.

“Then your duty is to strive for that goal, and to be as clement with yourself for failing as you would have been with her.”

Almond had never failed in anything. Could not have. But he was right: she would have forgiven me any offense. I cleared my throat and nodded. “Powlett and Roland?”

“Dead. And the sight of the angel has struck the rest of them dumb. Do you think, perhaps… has it delayed the demon’s harvest?”

“I doubt it.” The power in me roiled, begged egress. “But I don’t think we’ll be fleeing now. Take them up to the surface. I’ll follow.”

“Morgan—”

“I’ll be swift,” I promised. “Hold no fear, Chester. I am less vulnerable now than I was when I could not die.”

Studying me, he nodded slowly. “Yes. I can feel it on you now like a sun.” And then he turned and called the humans to him, and as reluctant as they were to follow they did not want to stay underground with the bodies of their fellows.

They left me with the genets, and the hall with its starburst design inlaid on the floor, twice baptized now in guiltless blood. Hearing the approach of small, familiar feet, I said, “Do you suppose I should raze it? If I tumble the ceiling, there will be no excavating it again.”

Kelu’s voice was subdued. “I don’t think she would have wanted that.”

I looked up at her.

“She would have said…” Kelu trailed off, laced her fingers in front of her belly. “She would have said that everyone and everything deserved a chance at redemption.”

“Even us, who failed her so badly?”

Kelu shook her head. “Chester was right. The angel gave her a choice and she made it. We shouldn’t take that away from her, no matter how unworthy we feel.”

“And do you feel unworthy?” I gathered Almond’s body and rose.

“Even now you still ask stupid questions,” Kelu said, and I was surprised to hear tears in her voice. “Stop doing that. She did… she did an amazing thing. She was a genet, and an angel came to her.”

“Yes,” I said softly. “She was an amazing person.”

Kelu studied me for so long I wondered at it. Then she said, “You look ready. You going to go fix all this now?”

“Yes,” I said, and did not question my certitude. With Almond’s body in my arms, I set off for the stairs, and all the genets followed.

My mind was busy all the way up the stairs. I had seen an angel, and my soul was still reverberating with the shock of it, and with the liberation that had come close on its heels. But I was not so far gone that I could not see the puzzle pieces fitting together. Chester himself had said it: she made a choice. Kelu had reiterated it. Some of the pain of witness had involved the brutal implacability of the angel’s existence, because it had seemed to make everything so simple. And yet, that simplicity had not devolved to the rejection of volition. In the end, the angel had made everything patently clear: one path, or the other.

Choose.

It must have been that way with Marne as well. The angel had not spread those wings and obliterated the enemies of the battlefield, though seeing one I could not doubt its capacity to do so. The angel must have given Marne a choice, and that choice had involved his sacrifice. To save… who? Us? The elves?

And then there was Winifred. She had gone offering a trade, her life for things set right. Humanity would have it that she’d been given a mission, but what if she too had been given a choice between paths? What had the angel asked her, and what had she answered, to bring us to this point in history?

Now Almond. A simple choice, perhaps to reflect the narrowness of her life experience. Herself, or the beloved other. And she had chosen, inevitably, and this had unlocked a potential she would never have anticipated was contingent upon her more personal decision.

It was implied in the angel, somehow, in its existence. It was a clarifier of choices, so that we could respond with the free will endowed us by our Creator. Which suggested that the demon was all that opposed it. The angel set itself apart from us, was designed almost to force that separation, so that we might be free to make that choice.

Demons needed a host.

I knew then, what I had to do.

There was no encompassing the world into which I entered. I held sorrow in my arms, beheld hopelessness in the sky, and faced the grace of a long-sought liberation. The elves were free; we were doomed; and God was in His Heaven, waiting. I was cognizant only of a numbness, and had nothing left to shed either for joy or grief. There was only the task before us.

I sought my own and found them at the southern end of Vigil, staring out over the field where hundreds of thousands of revenants were now on the march, such as their uncoordinated advance could be called a march. Rose was standing some ways apart from Eyre and Carrington; my classmates had formed another group beside the professors, with Amhric at their edge. I drew abreast of Ivy and my brother, both of whom made room for me before recognizing my burden. And then Ivy’s eyes widened. She reached for the genet and I shook my head.

“Gone,” I said.

Standing behind her, Amhric said, “Is she the one responsible for the gift?”

“She is.”

He was standing next to Ivy; shoulder to shoulder, he was just a touch shorter than she was, and looked much the same as he always had but… more present, somehow. His fingers, when he brushed their backs against my jaw, conveyed a quality I could not name but recognized for its mortality. We were living in the present moment, knowing that those moments would one day run their course, and that imbued all our acts no matter how minor with a sincerity that had been absent. “You have seen only her sacrifice,” Amhric said. “See what she bought with it. Look, my brother, at our people.”

To tear my gaze from the fight advancing on us was difficult, because, I sensed, I wanted to dwell in my own sorrow. To look instead on the elves…

They no longer shone with that febrile glitter, nor did they seem drawn on the face of the world—a quality they’d shared with the angel because the angel did not belong to this world either. They looked like people with whom one could share a life, and at the sight my hands tensed around my burden. Did Ivy now see me as something less supernal? Someone with whom she could share a life, and die with when we were called home?

“So,” Amhric said, quiet. “We are whole.”

“But that won’t help us much,” Rose said from beyond him. “The elves are puissant… far beyond the humans right now, and perhaps they will always be. But we remain too few for the force ranged against us now.”

“What she’s not saying,” Guy added, “is that there’s no way we’re going to survive. The moment we leave the city, that entire army is going to lunge for us. We might outrun the first few ranks, but that’s about as far as we’ll get before the rest of them tear into us.”

“There’s a chance,” Radburn said. “If they act the way they did before, they’ll try for the shortest distance between us, and that will put them at the base of this cliff which can only be surmounted by the road leading up to the gate.”

“We should be so lucky,” Chester said from behind me. “I doubt we will be.”

“So do I,” I said. “Which means we need to attempt the decisive win.”

I had all their attention now, and their skepticism.

“That being?” Rose asked.

“We banish the demon,” I said. “Your scriptures say without the demon the dead are powerless.”

“Just like that,” Radburn said, unconvinced. “We just waltz up to that—” Pointing now at the distant figure that seemed to draw all the darkness from the sky like the point of a tornado, “—and sprinkle some holy water on it?”

“Holy water doesn’t banish demons,” Rose said.

“What does?” Eyre asked.

“Choice,” I said. “Choice banishes demons.”

Rose’s expression had hardened. “Choice brings demons as well, my lord.”

She had misunderstood me, and I was too tired to explain. “You will have to trust me.”

Radburn’s arms folded. “No, pray, tell us how you’re going to accomplish this.”

“Let us guess. You’re going to dash out there and challenge the demon to single combat,” Guy said.

Since this was very close to what I was planning to do, I said nothing.

“Fine,” Ivy said. “We’re coming with you.”

“Are you mad?” I said.

“We’re asking the same question about you at this very moment,” Radburn said. “For God’s sake, Morgan. How the hell were you even going to get there?”

“I thought the drake—”

“Can fly us as well,” Radburn said. “And then we can form a perimeter around the thing and keep the dead off your back while you commit whatever ridiculous feat of heroics you’re planning.”

“I can’t—” I began.

“You will,” Ivy said. “You will because you would not dare leave us behind. We came to help you, Morgan. We came to share this peril with you. Don’t you relegate us to the parapets while you take the entirety of this on yourself!”

Past their faces, I saw Eyre cock an eyebrow at me. Even recalling his lecture, I wavered. In my arms I already carried proof of the price those dear to me might pay if we failed, and the chances of failure if we ventured into the center of the field to confront the demon directly were frankly astronomical. The last thing I wanted was to know I’d endangered my friends. Wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it the path of a demon to take the choice away from them?

I glanced at Chester. “Have you nothing to say to this?”

Chester smiled. “Of course not. They’re right.”

“But not all of you,” I said. “The drake will not carry an entire army.”

“I’m coming,” Ivy said. “I’m more use than any of you.” She grinned. “No offense.”

“Having seen you at work, none taken,” Radburn said. “I’m also coming.”

Chester nodded. “So am I, and Guy as well, if I read him right.”

“And we should bring an elf,” Ivy said.

“Kemses,” Amhric said. To me, in the Gift, “To him I can entrust your safety.”

“Because you will not go,” I said, and this was command, and also plea.

“No,” he said. “I would distract you. Would I not?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Then I will stay.”

“We’ll stay too,” Carrington said. “And we’ll keep an eye on him for you. Him the king, I mean.”

Eyre was leaning a little against her, and at her words smiled a little with quirked brow. “Shall we?”

“Oh, come off it, John. Give me some credit for recognizing truth once it becomes incontrovertible.”

“And you,” I said to Rose. “Must remain as well, or there will be no one to command the city.”

She met my eyes for so long I thought she would object, but at last she said, “I know. I will send Kemses to you, with the drake.”

“Thank you.”

She nodded. And bowed. “Good luck, my lord. Our hopes go with you.”

“Thank you,” I said again, and as she left I reflected on how difficult it must be to have prepared all your life for a fight you had to cede to someone else. If I succeeded, we would survive and all of this would be over; if I failed, it would be up to her to take the field against a manifested demon and all the dead he could raise from graveyards all over the continent. There was no winning that war, even with her million knights.

The drake came quickly, hopping up to join us and curling a protective tail around the entirety of our number; in its wake came a cluster of genets and two of the Church’s knights, who took my burden from me despite the pain it cost me to let it pass into their hands. Seeing Almond’s body disposed in other arms made her death real in a way I’d been able to avoid while holding her, and only the obvious respect and ceremony with which the delegation received her gave me the strength to watch them bear her away.

Kemses came last, and with him was Tchanu, the darkling blood-flag head of Nudain. How different they looked divested of their curses, and yet how much more themselves!

“My liege,” he said. “We answer your need at the behest of the priestess. I brought Tchanu, for you will need another woman for your defense.”

“Thank you,” I said. “The drake is ready. All of you, if you would.”

I left my friends to begin clambering aboard so that I could approach those who remained. Eyre first, whose look I misliked; his complexion had a wan cast still, though he presented a staunch enough demeanor. I hesitated, and into that hesitation he stepped and embraced me.

“My student,” he said. “You will find us here when you return victorious.”

“Your confidence in me is both inspiring and appalling,” I said, smiling.

“Only because it is not misplaced. Don’t fear. We’ll see the back of this yet, and go home again to tell the tale.”

“I so trust,” I said. “Keep yourself in one piece, sir.” I glanced at Carrington. “And you as well.”

She smiled, a lopsided curve of her mouth that hinted at what Eyre saw in her. “Thank you.”

My brother, then. This time he took both my hands in his. “Marshal your strength, and warn your friends to do so as well,” he said. “It is in my heart that they will need me too much here for me to watch your back as well.”

“I know,” I said. “Don’t overextend yourself. Amhric—”

When I paused, he smiled and said, “Shall I hush you? Would it make it easier?”

“Yes,” I said, and “No.”

So rather than press me to speak, he cupped my face and bent it so that he could kiss my brow, both of my closed eyes, my mouth, and finally, my palms. “Clear thoughts,” he said. “Clear sight. Kind words. Right acts. Go with God, brother mine, and come home safely to us.”

“I shall,” I whispered, and found the words as I hugged him. “And I love you.”

“And I you. Go, Morgan.”

I ran to mount and stopped at the slim figure waiting there, arms crossed and ears flattened.

“I’m coming,” Kelu said.

How little I wanted to see her die to violence and cruelty when her short life had been so brutal already. It was plain she expected me to deny her request and was girding for an argument, so when I replied, “Up, then, we’re low on time,” she froze, mouth agape.

“Come on,” Ivy said, reaching down for her arm. “Up!”

With a leap, Kelu gained the back of the drake and scrabbled until she was between Ivy and Chester. I followed her, and as I settled the genet said past Ivy’s shoulder, “I thought you’d say ‘no’.”

“One of you should be there with us at the end,” I said. “You were the first genet ever made. It’s meet you should come.” I looked back at my entourage. “Save your strength and fight as smartly as you can. We’ll be too far behind the lines for any aid to reach us.”

Their nods of assent were enough. I touched my hand to the drake’s neck and then we were aloft.

Our flight through the uncanny dark was eerily unlike our previous one. The air was dry and empty and when it brushed our skins it left a rash of horripilation behind. The host beneath us was strangely clear to our sight despite the darkness, as if some ghastly inner illumination was emitted from its members… and it was because of this glow that we discerned the worst of those differences. Previously the dead had pressed toward us by way of the shortest distance, even if that distance presented insurmountable obstacles. This time, only part of the army marched toward the southern cliffs of Vigil. The remainder of them poured toward the slope leading to the broken gates on the western side... as if they had been directed by a malevolent power.

They were doomed, if we did not save them.

 The demon awaited us at the end of the field. As we closed with it I strove to see where the shadow extending from the sky ended and Sedetnet began, and failed. My eyes reported nothing but a maelstrom that I somehow sensed was equal parts visible darkness and the bitter anguish of a man who had been too long in the suffering. That would be how the demon had found ingress into the soul of a prince: through Sihret’s loneliness, and the sense that he had been wronged.

But I too had been long in the suffering, and known the bitterness of anguish. That would be my ingress into the soul of a brother, for Sihret had been my twin on that field so long ago; had in fact recognized me, for why else would he have troubled himself with a single elf, no matter how cleverly disguised? He’d known me before I’d known myself. He would engage me, I was certain of it.

The drake glided in a long curve around the demon, intending to set down on the softly furrowed hills beyond Threnody-Calling-Forward, to place us safely behind the enemy’s lines. It was angling for that landing when it was snatched from the air and thrown down, and all of us would have died there had not Kemses and Tchanu been with us. They had mastered magic generations before we were born, and if they had been barred from its use for too long they still had the reflexes. Kemses wrapped the air around us as we jerked off the drake’s back, and though the false wind battered us he managed to set us down. What few injuries we saw Tchanu sealed with a quickness, for we’d fallen close enough to the dead to attract their attention.

“Go, my prince!” Kemses said. When I hesitated, he said, “Go!”

I ran, then, toward the column of darkness.