“Tell us,” I demanded, knowing I owed more respect to the Choir Leader, the most exalted of all the Celestials. But I couldn’t find it in me to stand on ceremony. Not with Feather taking ragged, shallow breaths in my arms, whimpering as if in agony.
“I must confess, I have examined your thoughts,” Imriel said with a wry smile. “Newcomers to this realm are loud. Though your thoughts are quieter than most due to your maturity, Mikhail, those like young Righteous and even Feather… every stray wondering is like a drumbeat, a trumpet call. You all believe she was created as a sort of mistake. Part of anotherConstruct. Arabella, the one Gavriel erroneously believed to be his soulmate.”
I couldn’t breathe. “Erroneously? How do you mean?”
“Many centuries ago, the Singer spoke to me in a dream. Her son Revel had answered a call to serve as a living bridge between realms.” He hesitated. “It was a task only one of my siblings could even attempt, and the First Children were asked not to reveal his presence there before his work was complete, and he was returned to this realm. We kept that secret, until it became clear he was in dire need of rescue.”
“Revel. The gate.” I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. “He was…”
“My youngest brother. He had to alter his physical form, and it meant he would be weakened while he transformed. Even afterward, he would be exposed, at the very edge of the Abyss, and if they knew precisely what he was, who he was… Well, to protect him, we told no one.” I stroked Feather’s hair gently as he went on.
“The Great Dreamer knew Revel needed to be brought home. But by then Seraphiel, Her first child, was trapped in the Abyss, his plight as dire as Revel’s. Seraphiel couldn’t help. She sent a dream, with Her solution: a task for my youngest Celestial sister, another of the First Children.” His face twisted with fleeting sorrow, then relaxed as he stared at my sweet soul. “She looked very like your small mate. We called her our beautiful one.”
My blood froze in my chest. “Arabella. The Beautiful One. That was the name I gave the Construct that was to become Gavriel’s mate. I used the naming chime and all my power to draw it out of her material…”
“Arabella was not my sister’s name. It was Thysia.”
I was stunned. Horrified.I made an error in naming?
“No, Mikhail.” Imriel’s hand on my arm calmed me instantly, his energy flowing through me like a cool stream. “Let me finish.With the Abyss so powerful, and the bridge between our realms inactive?—”
Righteous interrupted. “The bridge? You mean the Great Gate?”
Imriel folded his sweeping white wings around himself. “Revel was never meant to be a gate as you think of them. And if he was, remember, gates open and close. When that function ceases, then they become a wall. And walls are not nearly as useful to the Maker as Her other creations.”
He cleared his throat, looking slightly alarmed that he had to do so to continue speaking. Precious had definitely done something with that marshmallow. “The one you knew as Arabella could not cross via the bridge, your Great Gate. So the only way to enter Sanctuary without damaging it irreparably, and exposing Revel to the Abyss, was to send her through the Well of Souls, a journey that takes decades. But she entered the Well at the same time that you began to sing out for Gavriel’s mate.”
His features were a study in sorrow and pity. I knew what he was going to say before the words emerged, and guilt ran through me like poison. “Feather was the one meant for Gavriel. Not Arabella—I mean, Thysia. I pulled out the material for the wrong Construct. I made a grave error, and compounded it by later stealing my best friend’s soulmate away from him.”
Imriel was already shaking his head. “No. I asked the Singer to help me see how this came about. In the Well, both souls mixed: Feather’s and Arabella’s—who was named Thysia, or Glorious Sacrifice, when she was in this realm. Like twins, joined in the womb, for a while. Their material blended together.”
Righteous gasped softly. “You saidallthe realms. Feather isn’t just made of the normal High Angelic material from the Well. She also carries the shadowed parts from her remaking in the Abyss, and if part of her was made from Celestial matter?—”
“Yes.” Imriel smiled. “She is my Celestial sister, after a fashion. She could be counted as the youngest of the First Children.”
Righteous laughed out loud. “She’s Revel’s sister? That’s the best news I’ve had all day. She liked the look of that gate a bit too much, if you ask me.” He smirked. “Guess that makes me your brother-in-law, Imriel.”
“Oh Goddess, forgive me for being attracted to my brother,” Feather rasped from my arms. “I promise I will never read another stepbrother romance again, just don’t strike me down.”
I lifted her head gently. “My love, don’t talk. Don’t move.”
She whispered, “But the gate is my brother. I’m going to be thrown back into the Abyss forever for lusting after arelative,Growly. He gave metaco tingles.” She sucked in a breath so sharply, it had to hurt. “Oh, sweet bread-and-butter pickles,twobrothers. There’s a special part of the Abyss for me, I know it.” Her green eyes snapped open, and she grinned weakly at the Choir Leader. “Sorry about the chocolate massage thoughts. I would never fondue my own brother.”
Imriel winked at my mate. “We’re not quite that closely related. And I appreciated the thought.” Then he leered—fucking leered!—at my mate. Righteous and I moved in between them, until the fancy prick laughed so loud the clouds began to dissipate around us.
Feather wrapped her hands around my forearm. “He’s creepy. I take it back. He’s not hot at all. He’s my brother, though, so I have to love him.”
“Platonically,” Righteous agreed.
“Very much so,” she said with a shiver.
“Not that kind of brother,” Imriel interjected. “Not actually related, in that sense.”
She ignored him. “Now, I heard the last bit about being part Celestial. So I really am a Great Sacrifice.” She gave a half-hearted fist pump. “Not a Little Sacrifice at all. I told him so. I told himsomany times.” I knew who she meant, and for a moment I wanted to remind her that Rafe was Imriel’s older brother, but if she didn’t think of it, I wouldn’t mention it. She went on, “The feather in my chest, though, my birthmark. Where did it come from?”
Imriel shrugged. “It was there all along. It’s literally a part of you. But it’s Gavriel’s feather. Sacrifice, you’re more than Gavriel’s soulmate. Your soul and his arefused.”
A revelation flowed through my thoughts. “Rafe had a feather of Gavriel’s in the Abyss.” All eyes landed on me. “We gave a feather to each other before he left for the void. Gav and I gave Rafe one apiece. He gave us each one of his.”
