She caressed the beveled lettering of the book on her lap, the edges silken against the pad of her fingers. “Please, I would like to hear it.”
Zev relented with another heavy sigh and stared off into the fire. “Gamor was a small unremarkable city, but Celestials would visit often due to the short flight from Hilos. Humans were in awe of them for their beauty was unrivaled. They never fell ill and lived for centuries. Humans believed the God of Urn sent these sacred beings to defend them from demons that once roamed the Mortal Realm.”
Dyna straightened in her seat. Demons?
“They healed humans on the brink of death from fatal wounds and sickness with mere drops of their divine blood.”
She glanced at Cassiel’s hand, recalling how the wound had so seamlessly healed. The ability to self-mend was incredible and much more advanced than anything she could do.
“And their feathers? They hold magic too, don’t they?” The black plume she had found must have pertained to the Prince. Its power had blended with her Essence, giving her strength she hadn’t developed herself.
Zev nodded. “Their feathers carry innate magic capable of heightening the most delicate spells. People traveled to Azure from all corners of the world as word of Celestial power spread. They came seeking miracles for themselves, and to find a cure for their dying loved ones, or for the magic they could gain.
“Most traveled to Gamor knowing Celestials congregated there, and it brought commerce to their economy. The Lords of Gamor saw an opportunity in this. They convinced High King Rael, the ruler of Hilos during that time, to form an exclusive trade deal with the Azure Kingdom and to sell only in their city. It didn’t take much to convince him. The Celestials gave their blood out of compassion and kindness but as the city grew in size and wealth, the humans grew in their greed.” Zev paused and Dyna stilled, sensing the tale had reached its dark turn.
Quiet sadness gathered in his next words. “Once humans killed the first Celestial for blood, King Rael ended the trades. But the Lords refused to surrender the source of their riches. They employed poachers to hunt them. And so, The Decimation of the Celestials began.”
A coldness crept over her. Dyna glanced down at the book on her lap, heavy dread weighing on her again. She opened the cover and turned the frail, yellow pages full of faded script until she came upon a section of ink illustrations. Each one displayed the horror that had taken place in Gamor. Celestials trapped in nets, bound by their hands and legs, and some screaming in pain as humans sawed off their wings.
Her vision blurred with each turn of the page. A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed on the illustration of a Celestial hanging by his feet from a tree branch, blood pouring out of his jugular into a barrel beneath him. This was why the Watchers wanted to kill her, and why Prince Malakel detested the sight of her.
Humans had murdered them.
The next illustrations that followed were of Celestial women with child. They were kept in small cages, sobbing with their hands outstretched through the bars begging. Men pinned them down to tear the newborns from their arms. But these babies didn’t have wings. Written beneath the frame in thick, harsh letters was the word HALF-BREEDS.
“Dyna.” Zev stopped her from turning another page, but she yanked her hand back. She needed to see what her people had done.
The next picture was so horrible, her stomach heaved as bile surged to the back of her throat. Zev slammed the book shut, taking it away. She closed her eyes, but it didn’t erase the image burned in her mind.
Dyna covered her mouth, afraid she would scream, or sob, or do both at what had been done to those children. Her stomach churned with bitter grief.
“They took our females to sire Celestials of their own,” King Yoel said softly. “Most of them did not survive.”
“Your Majesty, please. She need not learn this,” Zev pleaded.
But the High King continued despite her horror. “They bled many of the younglings dry before realizing they couldn’t heal. Their blood was useless. Not because they were half-breeds, but because Celestials don’t develop divine blood until their wings sprout at three-years-of-age. That is where our power centers. Without our wings, we are essentially human.”
Dyna’s vision blurred. How many had died for greed? Why had it reached such a wretched point?
She must have spoken aloud because King Yoel answered, “The Decimation went on for many years for we feared perhaps this was the will ofElyon.”
“Ehl-youn?” she repeated the foreign word.
“You call him the God of Urn. To us, he isElyon, the maker of The Seven Gates that each soul passes through at their beginning and their end.”
A ripple of goosebumps prickled along her flesh to hear the God of Urn’s true name
“We do not live in the Mortal Realm out of our own volition,” he said. “Our ancestors were the Seraphim, but they were also the Forsaken. He cast them out of Heaven’s Gate and they fell into this world in the First Age to serve a penance. As their descendants, it was our purpose to aid humans in hopes it would one day redeem us so we may return to Heaven’s Gate.
“Elyonhad forged us weapons of divine fire meant to cut down demons while protecting his making. Taking a human life would go against his order and eternally damn our souls. Therefore, when humans hunted us, we did not fight back. We hid.”
King Yoel sighed and looked out the window to his kingdom, seeing something she could not see. “Humans reveled in their wickedness and greed. The Decimation spread to the Four Celestial Realms and King Rael left Hilos to aid them. In his absence, his wife, Queen Sapphira, met with the Lords of Gamor to beg for peace. She believed words of reason would turn them from their ways.” Sorrow flooded his gaze as an overflowed stream after a storm. “She was wrong.”
Dyna held her breath.
King Yoel linked his hands together and leaned his forehead against them. “Our blood gave them wealth and power. Invincibility. That was something they would never surrender. King Rael was thousands of miles away when he experienced every depravity the Lords unleashed upon his wife. Felt every torture and violation. Her screams echoed in his mind.”
Dyna’s heart sank within her chest, through the many floors of the castle and into the earth, falling.
