His dark eyes flicked to Lucifer, slumped over on all fours and still struggling to push himself up. But the King of Hell had given all that he had available and was clearly in agony. He looked across the field to theFallen still locked inside Lucifer’s bubbles even after Foster’s had dissipated.
Remiel shrieked and slammed her fists on the barrier, Raguel right beside her. The redhead looked traumatized and hurt, hands pressed flat to the barrier as he watched Ezekiel with an expression of clear, pained betrayal. Gloriana sat dazed on the ground, looking away from the fight in the direction her brother had run, anxiety and fear written all over her delicate features.
Balthazar hunkered down in a crouch at her side, eyes fixed determinedly on the ground as if he couldn’t bear to watch. Judas had his face buried in his hands, hunched over.
Uriel turned slightly, watching Jehovah as he watched the fight. Watching the way his eyes gleamed with delight as Ezekiel landed a hit that sent Michael sprawling to the ground, his already damaged wing bending awkwardly beneath him. Theblond screamed, a primal sound that broke the ever-thinning resolve that kept Uriel where he stood. Before he realized it, he was moving.
He sprinted across the grass, ignoring Jehovah’s enraged and indignant shout, ignoring Ezekiel’s look of shock and dismay, ignoring his own subconscious screaming at him that this was a mistake, a reckless decision, a terrible idea. He dropped and slid the last few feet of his sprint to wrap his arms around Ezekiel’s knees and bring him down hard.
“Uriel you fool!” Ezekiel hissed, but there was no stopping now.
“Which of us is the fool, Zeke?” Uriel brought up his knee, planting it firmly on Ezekiel’s chest and pressing his forearm to the other man’s throat. “The one who acts against the grain, or who knowingly betrays his conscience?”
A grunt, eyes blazing furiously, as Ezekiel kicked his legs and thrashed in Uriel’s hold.
“Uriel!” Jehovah snapped, voice rising and deepening as he spoke. “What in the name of Heaven are youdoing?!”
“What is right, Jehovah,” he replied, voice unwavering despite his inability to look at the fury he could feel bearing down on him.
“You my believe that to be so.” Jehovah stalked towards him and caught the back of Uriel’s armor in his grip, yanking back hard to force the angel to look up into his eyes. Behind him, Ithiel balked at the sight, seemingly torn between scampering after the King or bolting in the opposite direction. “But you are fallible, which explains how you have becomeconfused. However, I am only willing to forgive you so far.”
Uriel swallowed, his throat flexing as Jehovah’s grip pulled taut and the edge of Uriel’s breastplate bit into his neck. This was the God of the Old Testament—the God who flooded the earth when he decided humans were not to his liking, whocommanded a young man to murder his brother as a test of faith. The God that smote the Tower of Babel for daring to encroach on the Heavens.
Uriel’s scarred wing gave an unconscious twitch at the memory of the stray bolt that had clipped him, of falling from the sky with his wing nearly torn free, and of how Jehovah had not even spared a glance to watch him plummet toward his death.
He strained against Jehovah’s grip to catch Michael in the corner of his vision. Michael had been the one to save him that day, to dive for him through a storm of arrows from below and sweep him into an alcove of the nearby mountain. Dark brown locked on stormy silver as their gazes met, and for a moment Uriel was a fledgling again, sweating and cursing on a rocky cavern floor while his wing was reattached through a hasty combination of magic and battlefield medicine.
Michael blinked slowly, scanning his face, and found something there that made him wince. Uriel looked across at theFallenand met Remi’s fiercely burning gaze, with Rag at her side looking somber and resolved. Judas’s eyes were open now and watching ravenously to see what would happen. Gloriana stared brokenly off, but Balthazar nodded with something like approval. He had seen exactly what Michael had.Soit was decided, before Uriel even realized he had come to a decision.
“Then it is a very good thing,” he croaked, “that I do not seek your forgiveness. I no longer require your good will.”
Jehovah went very still. “This is not a jesting matter, Uriel.”
“Indeed, it is not.”
A breeze swept the clearing, the only sound the whisper of wind against charred weeds.
“So,this is the end of you as my faithful warrior.” His tone was now almost wistful, and Jehovah relaxed his hand and released the other man. “Allow Ezekiel to rise, please.”
“I don’t trust him to leave Mags alone.”
“Ezekiel will not lay another hand on her.”
Uriel paused, then relaxed his hold on the other angel, rising and allowing him to stand. Mags watched Ezekiel warily from her position on the grass, like a wounded animal tracking a predator. He ducked his pale head to avoid her judging eyes.
“You understand the choice you’re making?” Jehovah’s voice was surprisingly gentle, and he watched Uriel’s face carefully as he spoke. “You are forfeiting your right to enter my kingdom henceforth. You are electing to strip your privileges and wings, forever to be known as one of the Fallen.”
“Unless you’re one of us, you don’t get to use that name!” Remi sneered.“It’s ours!”
Jehovah shot her a withering glance and Rag clapped a broad hand over her mouth, wincing.
“I understand, Jehovah, but I cannot continue to serve you in good conscience. Our ideals are no longer aligned.”
For once, Jehovah seemed to wear his age plainly. The lines around his eyes seemed to deepen, forehead and laugh lines creasing as he frowned. He suddenly seemed every bit as ancient as he was. “I appreciate your honesty. As you have done me no personal wrong, I cannot find reason to deny your free will.”
A commotion came from behind them as Glory unleashed a shriek that could have woken the dead. Following her horrified gaze, Luce could see Jophiel emerge from acopseof trees, coming back around the edge of the demolished property with his armor dismantled and his hand fisted tightly to his side. Golden ichor spilled between his fingers as he stumbled toward Jehovah.
“My King,” he gasped, falling to his knees before the other man. “I have failed you. The child evaded me.”
