The shadows tore at my wings and limbs as I put the last of my energy, and all of my effort, into doing what she had done. Attempting to save the ones I loved. It was odd. As I thought of her, the agony of the wounds I carried almost vanished, and I redoubled my efforts, speeding up though my wings felt leaden. She had suffered just as much, in her short time, and had faced the agony with a sad smile, a dirty joke. With courage.
I had to live up to my little one’s example now.
The still-closed doorway to the Flight Hall was just ahead, and I raced for it. I knew when I reached it, it would take a moment to undo the lock, and that was when I would be most vulnerable. I tightened my grip on the two Celestial swords and began moving them in an ancient pattern, one that pulled a strange harmony from the air as they moved, reinforcing their power.
The High Angelic word on the lock had changed, but the mechanism was still mine. Revel was right. It might have stood up to attacks from the void for a while, but at some point, the knots of power that held it together would have been unraveled. In fact, wisps of charcoal smoke were already slithering into the outermost strands of the weave, and I cursed internally as I realized how thoroughly the void had infiltrated my thoughts. My very being.
Maybe Feather had been right to be concerned about contagion when we’d made love. I had grown used to the weight of the corruption, but the higher I flew in Sanctuary, the heavier it felt. Hovering outside the door, I began to sing the lock open.
Well, more apart than open. I didn’t have time for finesse. The shadows had started massing together in even larger forms, and were pulling me toward the ground. The worst thing that could happen would be for me to get halfway through the lock-picking and leave the door wide.As long as I get inside quickly,I thought… right before I felt the weave give way under my song.
Unfortunately, it was at the same moment that the weight of the shadows became just too much for me to bear. I began to tumble from the sky, and even with both swords flashing at my sides, I knew my efforts would be futile. By the time I got back to the door, half of the Abyss could be on its way to Earth.
“Fuck!” I shouted.
A voice I hadn’t heard outside of my thoughts in far too long broke through my anguish, as I felt something grab hold of my waist, and I began to rise again. “Need a hand, brother?”
“Revel?” I shouted as wind whistled past my ears. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his arms—though they seemed thicker and stronger than even before—lifting me up, carrying me back to the Flight Hall. Not just stronger: harder, as if his angelic form had somehow calcified over the millennia. I glanced down at the arm around my center, and saw veins of pure, golden marble running through his ebony skin. “How did you—” I began, but Revel cut me off.
“Valor needs our help now.” I saw a smaller figure, glowing with a strange, almost eerie purple light, standing at the open door and using a small crystal knife to hold off the beasts that were trying to breach the Flight Hall. I knew the knife immediately; it was my transformed feather.
“Who?” I saw the answer in my mind as Revel used his energy to move faster, grabbing one of the Celestial swords from my hand and slicing through a beast on one side, then two more directly above us. Re-energized, I used the other to fend off the attacks from the opposite side.
In a heartbeat, we were next to Valor, and Revel was shoving me through the door. I caught another glimpse of him, and was shocked at the changes he’d weathered. Somehow, he had been able to separate himself from the gate but, possibly because of the haste he’d used in doing so, he’d not quite finished the job. His entire body was at least half golden marble, thick veins of it glowing along all his limbs. He was twice as tall and at least half again as wide as he had been when he’d accepted the task of guarding the way between the realms. His wings were enormous, the feathers glowing brightly as he hovered midair. Every time one of them slapped against a shadow, it exploded into a shower of gray dust. I could see his name song in every particle of his being, and it was no longer merely Revelation of Divine Mysteries. He was alsoGreat Conduit,Eternal Bridge, and… I blinked, wondering if I was reading this correctly.Guard of Precious, Perfect Devil, Little Glitter, First and Only of her Kind, Beloved by All Realms.
This had Feather’s fingerprints all over it. It had to have been her. The little imp had renamed him as thoroughly as she had the rest of us.
“Stop staring and give the young one your sword,” Revel shouted, in the middle of fighting the shadow creatures. I complied, throwing it back out the open door.
Valor—who I was only now beginning to understand had been the same Protector my little one had complained about—nodded and kept fighting, with the crystal blade in one hand and the sword in the other.
“Close the door, brother,” Revel yelled. “We’ll hold them off until you’ve sealed the Hall.”
I was so confused. How had Revel been released from the gate? Where had Valor come from? His soul seemed to be a mixture of High Angelus and shadow creature. But there was no time to press for answers. I had to seal the Hall.
I needed to make a final Great Sacrifice.
It was strange, how time stood still as I gathered my waning energy and sent up a prayer for the Maker of All to unmake me, and save the Earth. Motes of dust and glitter hung in the air, shining like distant stars. Light played across my face, glittering from Valor’s form, which I could see through the open door, and Revel’s, which I could not, though the battle he waged outside the Hall sent showers of bright golden and ebony sparks flying like fireworks across the vaulted ceiling of the realm.
My realm, my creation, was already turning to chalk. The glorious light that had infused it had gone out. Somehow, the power had been drained from it, and I was glad. It meant the Abyss would not have the feast it had anticipated. But the loss of the masterpiece I had spent so much of my life dreaming up, then forming and guiding, grieved me.
For some reason, a memory of Feather’s fragmented thoughts when I’d remade her in the Abyss flickered through my mind. I’d been rolling out her limbs, trying to remember the exact shapes of them, when she’d asked, “Does She love them, Rumple? The humans. Like Her own children?”
I had answered her honestly.“She loves every human on Earth as much as She loves me.”I knew it was true, and it was why I was willing to give my own life to protect those of every human child She had created.Thank you,I prayed as I opened my soul to be sacrificed.I am Your willing sacrifice. Use me to protect Your children.
I felt something brush my soul as I pressed my hands to the doors to shut them, and knew it was Her hands. But instead of accepting my sacrifice, I felt a wave of love and heard Her voice.
The sacrifice has already been made, my son.
I blinked, uncomprehending, and then saw what my Mother had meant. A shadow creature had come from behind Valor, itscharcoal gray body long and wickedly sharp, a spear of evil made real.
Half of it was still behind him. But the other half had plunged directly into him, and the tip of it gleamed with his blood, a strange purple and gold mixture, that sent up a cloud of sparks as it ate at the spear point.
“At last,” Valor said, his words muted but his expression beatific. “At last, I am free.” He tossed something through the opening. It skidded across the floor, while he reached out with both hands and slammed the doors shut in between us.
Though I couldn’t see what was happening, an enormous blast of power shook the Flight Hall, driving me to my knees, and I knew. The sacrifice had been made.
And I was still alive.
