I wept and bled onto the white marble floor for what felt like an hour, tears of grief and thankfulness pouring from me. Then slowly, I rose and retrieved what Valor had thrown to me.
My knife. The feather I’d given to Gavriel or Mikhail, so long ago. I was too weak to use my song to melt it down into an energy source, and too tainted in any case, for it to do much good. The corruption I still carried within me was a part of my very soul now. The only way I could save myself would be to start over.
In the darkened Hall, I turned the small shining knife over in my hands. With the last of Sanctuary’s light failing, the only glow came from the blade and the portal a few yards away, where Earth spun and danced like a beautiful marble, thousands of wingbeats away.
I knew what came next, and I was grateful there was a chance that I might survive. I closed my eyes, remembering a meal long ago, back when Mikhail had been an Apprentice and had asked me to explain the ways souls could be purified.
“The gate in the Maker Hall is only large enough for a Novice. And the currents of energy carry the Novices to wherewe direct them. But the Flight Hall, Rafe,” he growled, staring at the stacked cheese cubes on the table between us like they had done him some great injustice. I sent a burst of power into the pile, transforming the cheese into chocolates. “Show-off.” He smirked and dropped two into his mouth, then talked around them. “If it’s like you say, and a Protector chooses to travel there for an earthly life?—”
“Or a High Angelus,” I interrupted, sitting back, happy at the casual way Mikhail was speaking to me. It had been far too long since I’d had a friend who would challenge me, question me. Since Imriel, in fact. “Any one of us could try to ascend that way.”
“Foolish fucking choice,” he grumbled. “I’ve been to Earth enough times to see how difficult it would be to live a truly blameless life.”
“Oh, I bet I could do it,” I argued, chewing on a handful of chocolate as I pondered if that were actually true.
“Hell, Rafe, you can’t manage to get through a long weekend of arguing musical theory with Aristoxenus without collecting smut on your—” He broke off with a wink, and we both laughed as the same lewd image flashed in our memories. “The worst part would be cutting off the wings,” he said, more seriously. “Losing those would change you forever.”
“No, friend,” I corrected gently. “The worst part would be losing your name. Your identity.”
“Shit, yeah,” he said after a moment. “But why would you have to?”
I leaned back on my chair, balancing on two legs, then on one. “Well, imagine a High Angelus being born on Earth and living as a human does, regardless of whether or not they lived a blameless life. Consider the repercussions of allowing Celestial energy into the human gene pool, or Celestial power into the balance.”
“I’m not sure the Earth doesn’t need some Celestial energy right now, Rafe. The balance is troubling me these days.” He took a long drink of his wine. “So if someone did decide to go that way, spell it out. They’d lose their wings, their name, their identity, their memories. They’d live a blameless life, never once doing so much as a single instance of intentional harm to another human, or to the Earth. Then what? Do they go to the Celestial Realm? The Fields of Joy? Or beyond, wherever ascended human souls go? Since the Angelus would become human. They wouldn’t be destined for the same home we have now, would they?”
“If I knew that, I’d be the Singer, not the song, friend,” I said. “But who knows? Maybe someday I’ll find out.”
I’d bitten the inside of my cheek at that very moment, when the familiar electric prickling that came over me whenever I spoke prophecy raced over my skin. It hadn’t been a strong feeling, though. As if a decision had to be made for that prophecy to stand.
I wandered to the edge of the portal and hung my legs over the edge, considering. The elements were all in place. I had a knife to sever my wings, if I chose to, but nothing else. Nothing left in this realm.
I might be able to stay alive in this form for another few millennia. I might even heal, eventually, with enough song. And then I could break free and find my way to the Celestial Realm, and rejoin Feather and my friends. I would retain all those memories, and I would know her when I saw her again.
That was all that kept me from stepping off the edge now: the knowledge that I would also be sacrificing my love for her. It was the most terrifying decision I’d made in a long time. Almost as scary as the one to enter the Abyss.
The scary thing…I laughed, and the sound echoed through the Hall. I had found my answer. I stood, and set the bladeat the base of my wing, repeating Feather’s mantra as I made the last sacrifice I ever would as Seraphiel, First of the Celestial Children, Bringer of Hope to the Hopeless, known as Rumple, Teacher and First Love of Feather, the Beautiful Sacrifice.
After this moment, none of who I had been would exist.
“The scary thing is almost always the right thing,” I whispered as I let one wing fall to the marble floor, then the other, and stepped through the portal with my eyes closed.
As I began to fall, and my body burned away, I heard a song from what felt like a great distance, but was also tethered in my soul.Come back to me, my first, perfect love. Follow this song. Follow our love.
If only I could. “Farewell, be well, my little sacrifice,” I sang back, just as the filament of song was lost, the fragile thread that had connected me with that distant singer snapping.
And then I forgot who that sacrifice was. Forgot that I had ever loved, or lived before. Forgot how to sing.
Like a feather, all I had once been fell to Earth and was obliterated, erased. Lost.
Seraphiel ceased to exist.
Chapter 33
Feather
Iwasn’t sure how long Gavriel flew. His wings of light never faded, and his hold on me never slackened. He sang the entire time, and I listened, trying to remember the melodies and lyrics. I knew some of them, but many I could tell were his own compositions.
It made the helplessness I felt less onerous. And I could sense his joy at traveling to the Celestial Realm. But after what felt likedays of flying, I could also feel his frustration and despair. And hear it in his songs.
