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“Hello, Ariel”.
I freeze to the spot at the familiar melodic voice behind me. The fresh scent of lily of the valley knocks the air out of me, sending my heart into overdrive.
She's here! She’s here!
On stiff legs, I turn around and stumble, taking two frightened steps back at the sight of a glorious warrior of God in front of me.
The pictures of angels like her were drawn by every generation since the dawn of time and on each one, these soldiers of God were as magnificent as the one before me.
Her pure white, large wings are spread wide behind her back. The sun, seeping through the limitless sky above, reflects and twinkles off her polished, silver armour. Her blonde hair shines like a halo around her head.
A calm and pleasant smile plays on her lips, failing to touch the glacial depths of her calculating eyes focused on me. She leisurely twirls two short thin swords by her sides as she takes two more deceivingly relaxed soft steps towards me. She is light on her feet and comfortable in her armour, silent and lethal with her weapons.
I was lucky to escape her once, and her eyes tell me that it was the last time. Killers like her do not make mistakes and certainly not twice.
That’s it! “Final destination, dear passengers, please remember your belongings”.
I look into the beautiful bright eyes of a beautiful angel and, with sharp clarity, realise that only one of us will walk out of here alive, and right now I would not bet that it will be me.
She takes another step towards me, matching mine backwards. She is not the school student I remember. The angel in front of me has nothing in common with my classmate apart from the voice and this disturbing spring flowers scent.
“I like your wings, darling. You look good”, she dishes out pleasantries in her soft, melodic voice, as if she is not here to kill me.
I don’t answer, hypnotised by the light catching off the twirling swords in her hands. These swords are made of the liquid fire, the one from the science class. The silver colour of the blades changes, shifting. These are the swords of the liquid fire from my dreams.
Her upper body and arms are sealed in sparkling armour. Her breastplate, pauldrons and gorget are covered in an intricate, intertwined design with a picture of the sun carved deeply at the centre of her breastplate. Exquisite, thin chain mail gloves hide her delicate hands. A poppy red tunic with heavy silvery embroidery pokes from under her armour like a mini skirt, matching the tight trousers over her legs. She looks stunning, magnificent, glorious!
“Listen, Ariel, it’s just business”, she says, “nothing personal, I promise, no hard feelings. I need to think about my reputation here and, unfortunately for you, I have to finish my job. I know that you are innocent in all of it, I understand, so how about I make it clean and fast? I’ll make it as painless as possible. The way I will do it, you won’t feel a thing. But only if you don’t do anything stupid”, she warns as she lowers her voice on the last sentence. I can hear the detached and steely notes of a cold blooded killer in it now.
“You run from me and I promise I shall make you pay. Then I will make it so long and painful for you that it will be hours before your body loses consciousness, allowing you to die slowly.”
I take a careful step backwards and she takes one towards me. We keep progressing down the hall like that, under the accompaniment of her speech. My eyes dart around, bouncing off of the empty walls. I glance behind me, nothing! Nobody is around and there’s no weapon I can see or think of.
My eyes shoot up to the wide open sky above us.
I can take off right now! Fly off, away from her!
“That’s so sad”, she snaps and I bring my eyes back to her, “when you try to give someone a chance and they still screw up.”
Her eyes narrow to slits as she glares at me and any resemblance of a smile that she wore before disintegrated.
“I said no funny business. I warned you, but you didn’t listen.” Her body leans forward slightly, taking another wide step forward, ready to launch herself at me, and I still don’t know what to do, spinning my head around, desperately seeking heavenly intervention.
“Sad”, she purrs at me and it sounds final, like the signal to herself, and the next second she jumps up, airborne, and I can’t help but follow her graceful movement with my eyes as she shoots her wings wide open mid-air, and the next second dives at me, completing the graceful and lethal trajectory.
I turn and try to run, but I’m too clumsy and too slow. She slams into me, sending me flying sideways. Again. Lately I’ve been feeling like a punching bag. Not that it’s different from before this mess began.
That thought makes me angry.
My best friend Rage is wide awake, skipping impatiently inside her boxing ring and cracking her knuckles. Today she put on a Lucha Libre mask and black tutu. She is ready for a fight without rules, and ready to fight until our death.
I spin, as fast as I can, just a second before Mia lands her weight on top of me, knocking the air out of my lungs. Now I’m facing her, my wings pinned under me. With lightning speed, she raises her thin sword above me, ready to plunge it in, but before she has the chance to do so, my hand shoots out, seizing her wrist in my tight grip.
Surprise registers on her face when I stop the descent of her weapon.
But I’m surprised just as much as she is. And before she can shake off the grip or the shock, I throw a punch with my right hand.
My fist connects with her temple, rocking her above me, and her eyes open wider in surprise.
I’m equal to her in strength. I am no longer a weak and powerless human, and she is no longer stronger than me. And I can see that she had not factored that in, so I push an advantage making a second connection with her jaw.
“Nice”, she gurgles through the blood in her mouth, which is now trickling out, droplets of it landing on my chest. My grubby sweatshirt is now totally ruined.
“I like a good match”, Mia smiles, stretching her broken lips. Her bloodied smile looks creepy on the backdrop of her blonde curls and angelic face. “Where is the interest in slaughtering a sheep?”
And before she finishes the last word, she whips her left hand with the sword at me, slicing the air in its wake, as I throw my arm in to protect myself. The sword cuts deep at the back of my arm, and I swear I can hear the blade scraping at my ulna bone. I scream. I roar.
A distant rumble answers me. The vibration of the ground under me rises up the castle walls, increasing and soon the building starts to shake, swaying. I can hear voices scream in the distance.
Confusion freezes Mia for just a second but it’s a second long enough for me to buck her off me, simultaneously twisting her wrist in my grip away from my chest, driving it up towards Mia’s neck. The realisation of what I’m planning catches up with her and she twists, sliding off me sideways.
The blade willingly cuts deep into her shoulder and she screams, releasing her grip on the handle, leaving the sword embedded in her body and as she rolls off of me. I close my hand around its hilt, yanking it out of her and Mia screams again as the blade twists inside her on the way out.
Both bleeding and in pain, we roll in opposite directions. Now, both of us have a weapon.
Mia is up before me, as I groan in pain on the floor, pushing myself up with my left hand. My wings shoot out open. With the distance created between us, maybe I should try to fly away.
I thrust the hand with the knife in front of me, as I open my wings wide, bend my knees and launch myself up. My wings know what to do better than I. Their powerful pushes raise me up, into the sky, away from the ground and the hall where Mia still stands, watching me.
But my gloating smile dies as I watch Mia, raising her hand with the sword, and with a practiced move, flings it in the air. The tip of the blade lands into her open palm.
With a calculated look, she lifts her arm again and the next second her sword spins, cutting through the air, flying towards me with incredible speed.
My brain is sluggish, mesmerised by the acrobatic sword and when I eventually shake off the stupor and wake up to danger, my wings are far too slow.
Suddenly a solid body appears in front of me, obstructing my vision. The recognisable scent of undergrowth and moss pinches my nose. Surprise, pleasure, anger, hate are non-stop changing emotions inside me.
“Argh!” The pained bellow in Sam’s voice rings in the air and then his body, carried by his glorious wings, dives away from me, towards Mia. I only see the black threaded soles of his boots and the folded white wings behind his back.
And then they collide.
A tangled mess of two bodies crash into the wall, vibrating the castle which only now has settled. Cracks burst from the point of the impact along the wall, snaking between the stones in the floor.
Sam’s wide back obstructs my view of Mia. Her kicks and punches rock and shake Sam’s body, as her elegant hand thrusts from under him, grabs hold of Sam’s jacket and with a last punch, she flies in perfect salto from under him, using his body as leverage to push herself up, throwing Sam into the wall, head first.
Ouch! I almost feel sorry for him, but not enough to rescue that cheating bastard!
She is on her feet behind him. A whip is now in her hand, maybe even the one that she flexed in the science class. I wonder where she hid it before, maybe her armour has secret pockets?
He unsteadily rises, shaking off her earlier strike.
With a graceful and practiced move, she sends the whip toward Sam’s unprotected back. The fiery tail of the whip cuts at Sam, slicing deep through his left wing, through his jacket and bites into his skin.
Sam’s bellow bounces off the walls, echoing in my head. The strike sends him back on all fours, the blood flows freely out of his wing and back, rapidly turning his snow white feathers mottled red.
But he is stubborn and he pushes himself up. Mia’s small sword is clutched in his hand.
I don’t know who I should bet on in this match. Is my preference for my assassin to win and to kill that cheating lying bastard, or for him to win and to kill an assassin, but leaving me to kick his ass later?
Another strike of the whip flies towards Sam. This time it cleaves a corner of Sam’s wing, leaving it to hang, swinging lifelessly by a thread of the skin and muscle. His wing is no longer white, covered in free-flowing blood.
Sam’s agonising roar vibrates the walls, tearing at me, and this second my mind is made up and I’m sure I will regret it later, but now I can’t stop myself. As I adjust my grip on the sword in my hand, I dive in, with all the speed I can get out my wings, towards Mia.
My shadow grows on the wall, expanding on and around Sam and just before I reach Mia, she turns to me, flicking her whip towards me.
But now I’m as fast as her whip. She showed me her tricks, now I’ll try them myself.
Just as the whip is about to connect with me, I tuck my chin in and kick my right leg up, sending my body into a somersault towards her. Thank you mum, for three terms of gymnastics lessons when I was nine. My wings are folded tight around my body, giving me the perfect speed and trajectory.
The whip catches the side of my shoe, pulling it off, but doesn’t hurt or stop me. With a thud I land in front of her, my wings burst open to ease the landing. Her dead whip strings on the floor.
“Enough!” I yell. “Mia, please. Don’t make me choose which one of us will live today because I’ll always choose myself. I don’t have any problem with you. Just walk away and promise me never to come back”, I shout as I hold the sword an arm’s length away from her.
I never killed anyone and I don’t think that I could do it. Right now I’m not protecting her, I’m protecting myself.
“I told you before, Uriel”, she answers, stretching her lips in a creepy bloodied smile. “My reputation is at stake here and I always finish the job.”
With that, she lunges herself at me.
On instinct, I thrust my arm with the sword towards her.
It surprises me when the sword is not stopped by anything hard. Its travel is only slowed, continuing now into something soft and warm. My hand, holding the hilt, brushes the wet warmth, and my surprise and realisation mirroring Mia’s.
I let go of the hilt and Mia’s body, no longer supported, collapses next to my feet, as aghast, I take two steps back.
The quiet settles in the hall, the rumbles and vibrations are long settled, and only my panting and Sam’s pained wheezing break the silence.
I kneel next to him as he pushes himself to sit up against the wall. But his wing must be hurting him too much as he twists, leaning his side into it.
“What are you doing here?” I demand, looking into his gorgeous face. My hurt and anger are back with a vengeance.
His piercing blue eyes are on me and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips.
“I missed you. Thought that you might get yourself into trouble, and it seems I was right”, he grunts, pushing through the pain.
“Quit the crap!” I snap. “I heard you! You practically saluted and clicked your heels at Baza when he told you to get my sister! You can’t deny that. I saw you!” And now I yell, surprising myself. “Don’t you dare lie to me! I hate you! You’re full of crap! Just like everyone else”, and before I can stop myself, I hit him.
My fist connects with his jaw. His head bangs against the wall and rolls back.
“Zu ku Izi”, he hums through clutched teeth, glaring at me. “I guess I deserve it, but can we please stop with the physical violence?”
He spits blood, returning his gaze to me.
“I would’ve never brought your sister to Baza. You have to trust me on that, Ariel. If I had declined his order, he would have found someone else to carry it out and I would have lost my position in protecting you and your sister. I planned to find her and hide her among your kind with my little brother in tow. He hasn’t pledged his alliance to Baza yet, so his essence will be obstructed from Baza’s view. But then you disappeared...” He wipes the corner of his mouth with his finger.
“I would never have hurt you, Ariel. I love you”, he whispers, gazing at me. My heart stops, then jumps up, starting to beat like a butterfly caught in a net. Liquid warmth and happiness spread through my veins.
He loves me! He loves me!
A stupid girly giggle threatens to burst out and I have to fight with myself to stop the smile, taking over my face, and with my arms, yearning to wrap around him.
Maybe he’s telling the truth? It’s possible, right? Oh, god, how much I wish it was the truth...
The heavy shuffle of footsteps echoes down the hall, growing closer. I dart to Sam, scooping Mia’s sword out of his hand, ready to fight off more assassins.
Rafe’s slim frame, sealed in his earlier black tactical gear, comes into a view, freezing at the sight of me and Sam.
I don’t know what’s going through his head, as he steadily sweeps his gaze over my hand, squeezing the hilt of Mia’s sword, Sam, and his cut wing. His gaze then jumps behind me, taking in Mia’s body. But it’s not me, who he addresses first.
“What are you doing here, Samael?” he hisses at Sam. Now I notice the black, curved meat cleaver in his hand.
“Doing your job, by the looks of it”, Sam spits at him as the pissing contest begins.
“How did you manage to get into Uras?” Rafe demands, swinging the cleaver slightly by his side, but I can see the pain he is in as sweat beads on his forehead.
“Why don’t you ask your trustful Chamuel?” Sam barks at Rafe. “And that’s how she got in here.” He jerks his head towards Mia’s body.
A fierce light starts behind Rafe’s eyes, and his jaw sets as he mumbles profanities.
“Yeah, that’s right. He has probably made a deal with Mik’hael, and Ariel is as good as dead staying in here”, Sam confirms.
“It’s a good thing she is not staying then”, Rafe barks.
It’s amazing how these two, both injured and in pain, still manage to find the energy to bite at each other.
“Okay”, I call out, raising my hands up. “Will you two quit?” I glare at each one in turn.
The light catches in the sword’s blade in my hand, blinding me for a second. I should take the sword with me. I would have loved to have had a shower, but that will have to wait now. I had probably better take Mia’s other sword with me as well. I turn around to Mia’s lifeless body behind me.
She lies on her back, spread like a starfish, staring with surprised unseeing eyes into the vast, bright sky above. Blood pools under her.
I try to force myself towards her, but my body refuses to obey me. Guilt, fear, sickness are wrapped around the absolute shock and the sharp realisation that I’ve just killed someone.
“I had to do it! I had to do it!” I mumble over and over, whispering to her, and the rocking begins.
“Ariel.”
I jolt as someone’s arms wrap around me. Rafe holds me tight, stopping my rocking.
“It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault”, he murmurs into my ear. “You had to do what you needed to survive. If you hadn’t done it, you’d be dead now.”
I clamp my hand over my mouth, shoving at his arms and when he finally lets go, I run down the hall. But I don’t manage to go far before I fold in half, vomiting the remnants of my last meal I had in the cave. I heave, over and over.
After a while, not even bile comes up. I realise that it’s been a while since I’d last eaten, but I’m not even hungry anymore, and surprising myself, I start to weep, the quiet and sad sound of a lost and hurt puppy.
I lean on the wall, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.
Why me? Why me?! All I ever wanted was a normal life. And now I’m an angel, hunted, on the run, expected to sacrifice myself. And now I’m a killer as well.
Can you still be yourself if you are no longer you?
“Ariel”, Sam’s scent wraps around me and a second later, I’m wrapped in his warm and strong arms. The warmth from his body pushes away the panic from my head and the chill from my body. He turns me around, carefully tucking my head under his chin, gently stroking my hair. I relax, feeling content next to him. Maybe even happy.
“Ariel, please don’t cry. It hurts me seeing you like that”, he hushes above me. “Remember when I called you “Mermaid” for the first time?” He smiles against my hair. “You were so fierce, a small girl with big glasses in the school hall, and at that exact moment, I knew that I liked you. You landed in my arms when I needed you the most. You made me laugh, and you were so loyal to your sister, so strong and you are just as fierce and strong now. I know that you’ll be fine. You will have to be fine, for me, for your sister. You have to come through it and I’ll be here for you. Always. No matter how far I am, I’ll be looking out for you. I will protect you by any means I have.”
The rhythmic strokes calm my heart, soothing me.
“I’d offer you to sell my soul to the devil for you, but Baza already has it.” His sad chuckle is like a knife in my heart. “Don’t repeat my mistake, Ariel. The easy route or the revengeful one is never going to lead to happiness. I know it better than anyone else. You have to go with Rafe now and you have to survive, by any means you have. You hear me?” His soft hands lift my chin. His gaze is warm and intense, and I want to stay like that, next to him, forever.
“Can’t you come with me?” I whisper.
“No”, he says softly. “Baza owns my essence and with fibril attached to it, he will pull me back wherever I may go. But I’ll keep you safe from a distance, however I can. Like your personal guardian angel”, he smiles at his joke, but sadness hangs heavily in his eyes.
Rafe’s heavy steps shuffle behind my back.
“You keep her safe”, he barks to Rafe, over my head. “Anything I can do to help you, find a way to let me know. And for An’s sake, find an essence somewhere and heal yourself. What use are you to her like that?”
Sam leans his head back to me.
“I love you”, he murmurs, and his warm and soft lips are on mine. His lips, his scent, his warmth encase me. My hands are in his hair, tugging him closer to me. I don’t want to let him go. His hands and arms are tight around me and I feel that I belong and am happy for the first time in a very long while.
He gives a delicate stroke to my face with his warm hand, but he pulls it back too soon.
“Off you go! You need to go now, Ariel”, he commands.
“Rafe, take her and go. And remember”, he jabs his finger at Rafe’s chest, “I hold you responsible for her safeguarding.”
“I don’t need a warning from an ibnatum”, Rafe spits at Sam. “Some of us keep their loyalties no matter the cost.”
“You”, Sam hisses back at Rafe in a warning and I think he is about to jump at Rafe’s throat, but instead he just stays there for a few more seconds as they glare at each other before Sam turns back to me.
He shoves Mia’s little swords’ hilts into my hands and I automatically close my fingers over them.
“I love you”, he whispers into my lips one last time. His lips brush over mine, but he pulls away, then nudging me towards Rafe.
“Go!”