Staying by the window, cold mist blew against my face. But when no one barged through my door, and no alarms sounded, I decided to make my move. I slipped on my boots. Then I wrapped my soturion cloak around my shoulders, folding the excess material around my head as I fashioned a hood. A regular belt held the cloak in place.
Then I crawled up onto the sill, swung my legs through, took a deep breath, and jumped. The rain hit my face, pouring harder as I stood up from the landing, my legs wobbling from the impact. There were no torches on the mountain’s edge tonight. And no soturi standing guard.
Now that the indigo shard had been removed, and he’d taken back the key, I guessed my father felt it was of little importance to guard.
But I could see its outline clearly. See the white stone shining in the moonlight, see the rain rolling off its sculpted feathers.
My chest tightened, my heart pounding with each step I took, a reminder that she was there, that I’d left her there. And if I didn’t do something now, we’d be doing this again.
Thunder rumbled, lightning striking in the distance. For a moment, the white seraphim glowed, its wings appearing to lift and flutter. Just like in my dreams. My nightmares.
And then she stilled as I slid through the mud, coming to stand before her. The backs of my eyes burned, my chest heavy.
The rain pattered down and I took a deep breath, reaching out a hand, my palm sliding across her stone beak. Nothing happened. I closed my eyes, pressing my foreheadagainst the stone. My heart began to pound, my dreams, my memories suddenly fresh in my head. Carrying Asherah up the mountain. Building the tomb. Sealing it shut. Seeing Mercurial in his falcon head sneaking up on me. The grief, the sorrow piercing my soul.
A gust of wind blew.
Rakame.
Asherah’s voice. Just as it had been in my memories. In my dreams.
I stared into the lifeless eyes of the seraphim.
My knees gave out.
“Shiviel,” I screamed. “You betrayer.”
“You should have known,” he said, his eyes darkening. “I betrayed Moriel. Betrayed my God, my Arkturion. My king. Why would I afford you any less courtesy? You, who put us here. You, who could not keep your damn hands to yourself. You, who caused the Council to betray and forsake us.”
I gritted my teeth, staring past him. The indigo shard—Moriel’s shard—lay in the temple ruins where we fought. It was just out of reach behind Shiviel. And though he didn’t touch it, it gave him the edge over me. Made it impossible to fight back. Not that it kept me from trying. Not that anything would keep me from fighting for her, fighting to protect her.
“You have taken the indigo now. But for how long can you hold it against his armies? He can still defeat you,” I spat. “He has the other shards.”
“He does not have all of them,” Shiviel roared. “He does not have mine!”
My hands shook as I tried to hold onto my sword, as I prayed to anyone who would still listen to help me keep up my strength. I wanted to call on kashonim. To call on that thread that linked Asherah’s mortal body to mine. That linked her power. Her strength. Her life.
But I wouldn’t risk it. I wouldn’t risk her. If I died here—died so she could live—I could accept that. I would embrace it.
Still, I struggled. My hands had been burned again. I bore the scars across my flesh from holding the Valalumir in my hands. Of the fires that ravaged my skin when I fell, a thief grasping pure light. Shiviel had delighted in my torture, in burning anew the hands that had once touched Asherah, that had touched a Goddess. The hands that caused us all to fall. Only by the grace of the green shard, my own crystal, did I heal, did I survive at all.
But I was weakening. I didn’t have much time left.
“We can take him down,” I said again, more as a distraction than anything else. “We could do it. Together.”
Shiviel laughed. “You cannot lie to me.”
I raged forward, my sword cleaving the air. Cleaving through the brutalizing energy of his aura. But Shiviel easily sidestepped the blow, his blade piercing forward.
I sidestepped, barely escaping his blow. He clucked his tongue, turning the hilt in his hand, the steel gleaming in the fires that surrounded us.
“Too slow, Auriel. Always too slow,” he growled. “Are you prepared to fall again? When I’m through with you, you’re not going back to Heaven. I’m sending you to hell.”
“You forsworn bastard,” I groaned. “I’ll see you there first.”
Regripping my blade, I fought past the way it slipped through my sweaty hands. I could do this. I had to do this. I used all I had left to straighten my body. To stand tall. Then my eyes widened at the sight I wasn’t sure I’d see again. Asherah watched from behind a stone column, her red hair gleaming in the torchlight. Her eyes lit with her own fire, her stave drawn.
She’d come. She’d found me.
