My tongue, made for supplication, rasped a reply: “Yes, Lord. I have grieved for her all the days of my existence, and all the days to come, if it please You.”
The light in the chamber reddened; I heard the other Thrones shift their wings, the Song trembling in the high registers.
“She was mortal,” the Creator said, “and yet she loved as only the divine are meant to love. She gave herself up for her child. Tell Me, Seraphael—what have you done with the days that I gave you?”
Every cell, every shadow of me, tried to shrink from the inquiry, but there was no refuge. I saw the life I’d lived: kept her safe from what darkness I could, and even then—forsaken her in her most desperate hour. I saw the times I had hovered at the edge of Earth’s sky, aching to descend, to wrap her in feather and fire and sing her to rest. But Heaven has its laws, even for the architects of war.
I did what Laurel asked of me. I stayed away.
For an instant, the light dimmed, and the marble sea stilled beneath my cheek.
“Her soul is with Me now,” the Creator said. The mercy in that simple phrase nearly undid the last of me.
Trembling, I dared to lift my head. The chamber was alive with starlight, every angelic courtier a silhouette of radiance, but none could match the sun at the center. I tried to speak, but my voice caught on a jagged edge: “Thank You, Lord. Thank You.”
A gentle murmur, the laughter of nebulae, rippled through the room. “You are not done, Archon,” the Creator said, and for the first time since I’d been called to judgment, I allowed myself to hope.
“Rise,” said the Voice. I obeyed, though my legs would have buckled if the will of Heaven hadn’t stitched me upright. My wings flared reflexively, arching over the marble like cathedral vaults. The chamber grew brighter, then focused—a spear of light aimed straight through my heart.
The Creator spoke, now as thunder: “Your daughter walks the Earth. Her soul is pure. Despite her inheritance—despite the blood that binds her to the old magic—she is of Me. She will wield great power, and there are those who will covet it. There are those who will kill for it.”
At this, I nearly staggered. Not for fear—no, I’d stood against the armies of Hell and never once faltered—but for the knowledge that I had made her, and now the universe would turn itself inside out to test her.
“She is like the sunshine,” I whispered, hoping her light might anchor her to safety. “She has found the wolf, and they are mated. But her kind will not let her live.”
A long pause, measured in the heartbeats of dead suns. Then: “That is not your punishment,” said the Creator, the Voice gentling until it was only the warmth of a mother’s hand on afevered brow. “That is your charge. You will guide her. You will protect her. She will live for centuries, and you will not let her become the monster the Wyrdmother dreams of.”
Every lesson I’d learned in eons of warfare dissolved in the purity of that command. I, who had annihilated cities, now found my purpose reduced and distilled to the protection of a single spark—a daughter.
The shame of it, the joy of it, the terror—my wings trembled, and I threw myself to my knees, wings splayed to expose my throat, my heart, everything. “I beg Your forgiveness,” I said, my voice ripped raw. “I beg for the mercy I could not give to Laurel. I beg for the wisdom to serve Your will through Aspen.”
The Creator’s light, for the first time, grew so gentle it almost hurt. Grace spilled through the throne room, slick and golden, and I felt it settle on my feathers, my hair, my tongue. “You are forgiven,” said the Voice. “You are Mine.”
I wanted to dwell there, in that golden moment, until the last heat-death of the cosmos. But the Voice was urgent, pushing me forward: “Go now. Return to the world. Your daughter and her mate have need of you. The night gathers.”
I looked up, and the stars above the throne burned with the cold blue of high winter. Every angel in attendance bent their heads, not to the Creator, but to me. I felt their love, their envy, their warning: The world would not thank me for what I was about to do. But that no longer mattered.
“Thank You, Lord,” I whispered, and with that, I rose on wings of light and cracked the marble world apart.
Falling from Heaven is nothing like the old poets claim. There is no tumbling, no burning, no loss of station or beauty. To fall is to descend with purpose, every feather a blade of destiny. Therush of stars against your skin, the hiss of air in your lungs, the sudden pressure of time wrapping around your bones—this is how the Watchers once entered Eden, how the Morningstar himself once swept across the dawn.
I let myself become matter, sensation, desire. I shaped myself into a form that could walk the Earth, could touch her hand, could bleed if need be.
I landed, not in a crater or in fire, but in the narrow shadow between two heartbeats. The world around me came into focus: the scent of pine and damp moss, the prickle of winter air against my face, the distant pulse of Aspen’s soul like a bell calling me home. I was not surprised to find that I ached for her, not as a lover, but as a father. Every memory I’d denied myself surged in—her infant wail, her first word, the tentative touch of her tiny hand against my own, all the joy and fear that makes a life worth having.
I knew at once where she was. And I knew, even before the wind changed, that something dark was moving toward her. Wolves were easy; witches, I had learned to respect. But there were other things in the dark, things that whispered the old names, things that remembered what angels once were, and hated us for it.
I flared my wings, invisible to mortal eyes, but enough to clear the space around me of every shadow. I raised my hands and blessed the ground, the air, the night itself, calling forth every vestige of Heaven I was permitted to wield.
The Watchers had long ago learned that the only way to fight the darkness was with a darkness of your own. But I was not a Watcher, not anymore. I would fight for her as myself, Seraphael, the last of the Thrones, and I would damn the cost.
I stepped forward. The world bent before me, ready to be remade.
It was time to save my daughter.
Chapter 26
Aspen
