I’ll make sure they get out, brother. If you go seal the last exit, I’ll ensure your loved ones get free of this realm.Revel’s tone was somber, but strangely optimistic. He had something up his sleeve. Or column.
Do I want to ask how you’ll do that?Rumple stood with one hand on the gate and parried a series of fast blows from a shadow that had snuck past Gavriel’s guard.
No. But Gavriel’s failing. Tell your beloved goodbye, and get clear. This is going to get messy.
Thank you, Revel.
The little energy I’d had to send my thoughts to Revel was being sapped as hopelessness attacked me again. Rumple’s feather burned hotter than ever, and I fought to remain conscious for these last moments. I didn’t want to witness my first love going to his death, but I also wouldn’t miss a single instant of seeing him. Being with him. If this was all I got, I’d take it.
I felt a blood-soaked hand cup my cheek, and dredged up a memory, hoping he could see it. From four hundred years before, I recalled the moment when I saw that my sister Dina was dead on the straw-covered stable floor, and brought it to the forefront of my mind. Replayed my fierce denial that the one I loved so dearly was gone forever. My desolation. And then I showed him how I’d felt, time after time, when he had soothed and comforted me in between my lives. How much he’d meant to me when I had no one else. Not even a name.
He had been all that mattered, the only source of love and joy I’d known for so long. All I’d ever needed. And he was leaving me.
I would stay if I could. But I knew it would come to this, my love. If I didn’t protect you now, with all I am, how could I live with myself? How could I breathe another breath, think another thought, without wishing I had done more? Tried harder. Loved you more fully.
My heart wanted to reach out and throttle him.What happened to all the “never give up hope” bullship? What about finding possibilities? What about miracles?I yelled soundlessly in my mind.
He pressed one last kiss to my forehead and rose, sword in hand, to take his place fighting at Gavriel’s side. Fighting, and singing.
The duet was so glorious that for a moment the shadows all seemed to waver, as if they were being unmade, or at least immobilized. I could tell Rumple was sharing his plan as they leaned on each other, Gavriel grasping Rumple by the back of his neck and pulling him in for a quick embrace, and Rumple holding tightly to Gavriel’s forearm. In the space of another heartbeat, Gavriel pressed the second sword into Rumple’s other hand and took the crystal knife.
Then Rumple took a deep breath and sang out a series of notes that did something to plaster the shadows to the ground and the walls, as if they had become leaves, and a strong wind was blowing them away. A path made, he ran through it and leaped into the air, trailing blood and ichor behind him as he vaulted away from us.
Almost all the shadows followed him, zipping as fast as he was flying to the distant rooftop, wrapping themselves around him as he fled to the highest peaks of the realm and vanished from view. The few that were left surged toward Gavriel, but he drew strength from Sanctuary and defended us, slicing them into gray ribbons that fluttered to the ground. The rest of the shadows retreated into the hallways. I suspected they were planning something, but for now, we were safe.
“Revel,” Gavriel panted, pressing a hand to his side and turning to face the gate. “We need you to let us out. What sacrifice can we make?”
Feather’s got that covered,Revel replied.
Gavriel spat out one word, colored with fury. “No!”
Revel sighed.Honestly, you and Seraphiel both underestimate my little sister so often, I’m not sure why she isn’t constantly slapping the shit out of you. She has a Celestialkey. It’s got enough energy to get her through the Celestial gate, so it will be plenty to get both of you through me.
“But then she won’t be able to enter the Celestial Realm,” Gavriel murmured. “She’ll never be able to go home.”
What is home anyway, Gavriel Lightbearer?Revel’s question didn’t sound like an idle one.Is it where you’ve spent the most time? Is it where you were born? Or is it the place where all those you love gather around you, and the music of their company keeps you afloat? Where is your home?
“Right here.” Gavriel leaned to pick me up, cradling me in front of him. “I’m home right now.”
Yes. And I heard the name songs of her other mates. They love her just as much. She is their home, and the Mother of All is love itself. I have to believe it will all work out somehow.
“Can you open now?” Gavriel asked. Weariness and sorrow suffused his voice, and knew it mirrored my own. We had lost Rumple. We were losing the realm. There was no way this ending could be seen as “everything working out.”
Yes, but I’ll need your help, Revel answered.When I do open, and I form the bridge of energy to take you across… Gavriel, the most malevolent segment of the Abyss is inside Sanctuary. When it feels the connection, knows the pathway exists directly to the goal it desires more than anything else, it will return here as fast as a shadow can move.
“Shit,” Gavriel said. “We would be leading the Abyss straight to the door of the Celestial Realm.”
Exactly. I cannot let it cross over with you. And it will; you’re not strong enough to stop it, and I am weaker now than I’ve been in a thousand years.
“Can you hold it back? Fight it?”
No, not in this form. You were a musician who became a warrior. I was once a Celestial Child, but I’ve been nothing but a conduit for so long. They will easily use me to reach our home,and destroy it.Revel was correct; if we led the Abyss creatures to the Celestial Realm, who knew what might happen then.
Revel sighed.Gavriel,you’ll need to convince Sanctuary to unmake itself.
I had felt cold before, but now a billowing fire of anger arose in me. Sanctuary was almost as sentient as Revel had been, and was a lot stronger. It wasn’t right to ask it to do this… How would it even do such a thing? I tuned into Revel and Gavriel’s heated conversation about that very topic.
“Were you tainted by the Abyss in your years as a gate, Revel? You can’t expect me to ask Sanctuary to agree to, what? Self-immolation?”
