For a moment, the void around us vibrated and hummed with a peculiar, terrifying energy that made that memory pale in comparison. I tried to collect my atoms and tuck myself closer to Rumple’s chest. But that was where the strange sensations were originating.
After a while, Rumple spoke. “Gavriel is why you’re here? He condemned you to be unmade, and our best friend to…” His voice stopped, and I tried not to think about whether or not Mikhail was missing me.
Then I realized what he’d said:ourbest friend.
You really are Seraphiel. You were his best friend, and Mikhail’s, the one who left to go fix the imbalance in the Abyss…
Oh.
He hummed for a while, the tune almost a dirge. “Yes, little one. This is the Abyss.”
Oh no,I said, when I could think-speak again.Then all those High Angeli and Protectors who sacrificed themselves by walking into the Great Gate, they ended up in Hell? They sacrificed themselves for nothing?
Laughter spilled out across the void. “You are the only soul created whose first thought would be of others, of the ones who went before you. Concern for them, and not yourself. How did the Singer of Songs ever play such a perfect tune?”
I latched onto that thought, desperate to change the subject. If the sacrifice I’d made had been for nothing, if I’d left Mikhail, and Sunny, for no reason… that would break me entirely.The Singer of Songs. Sunny said that name. That’s the creator of the universe?
“The Great Goddess Herself. The Singer of Songs, the Maker of All Things, the Dreamer of Infinite Dreams,” he murmured, his hands moving around my form. Now that I thought about it, my atoms were sort of balling up. His song changed to one I knew, a love song with thousands of verses. He’d sung it to me a lot over the years.
So She’s real,I mused.Does She know what’s going on in Sanctuary? Does She have some sort of a plan?
I felt a tap on what could have been my nose. Or my butt. I wasn’t sure which end was up here in the Abyss.
“She does have a plan, Little Sacrifice. Just because you can’t perceive it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.” A tiny sparkle shot across the infinite void, like a delayed Roman candle. “How could you see it, anyway? You don’t even have eyeballs.”
I’m not a Little Sacrifice. I’m aGreatSacrifice, jerkwad,I thought, before the form he’d been smooshing together broke apart into atoms and quarks and all sorts of sub-atomic particles… and Rumple started all over again, his love song never stopping.
Chapter 2
Sunny
Fuckity fucking fucker of a clusterfuck!I was too out of breath to actually yell the curse words as I wrestled and rolled around on the floor right outside the Great Gate, but I felt them down to my soul. I could sense the freckles of smut trying to pop out on my nose in response anyway.
I didn’t care. I had much bigger problems than cleaning off freckles. Like how much trouble I was going to land in forinsubordination, aggression toward a superior, and probably ten other broken rules.
If anyone had told me a few months ago that I would attack the Head Protector of Sanctuary and try to steal the Celestial sword away from him, I would have called that a lie. With a name like Sunny, the Light of Truth, I knew when I was being deceived. But what was happening now was unbelievably, inconceivably true.
Everything had gone to shit. My best friend had just thrown herself into the Great Gate to save us all, without even a hint of warning. And there was no recovering the glittering soul that was Feather. She had been unmade.
Why had she done it? What had happened that was so terrible she saw sacrificing herself as the only answer? Why hadn’t she given me the chance to talk her out of it? My heart constricted, grief taking it in its fist and squeezing it relentlessly.
The whole area near the gate was filled with pain so excruciating, it felt like sandpaper rasping across my spirit. Mikhail, the Maker who was my father in more ways than anyone could have expected, was crumpled on the floor, whispering words of grief and loss in the High Angelic tongue. The other Protectors and Guides who’d come running had all collapsed, clutching their ears.
Except for the youngest of us, the ones High Angelus Mikhail had formed with his own soul material. We weren’t unaffected by his words, but they didn’t send us screaming to our knees… which was a fact I’d unpack later. When I wasn’t fighting for my life, and for another’s life as well.
Righteous, the haughty, arrogant Head Protector who had been my superior since I was created, was trying to cut his own wings off, and no one else seemed like they were going to stop him. Not even High Angelus Gavriel, the leader of Sanctuary, who was frozen, staring at the gate in horror and shock.
“Give… me… the sword…” I managed to say as we struggled. I had one hand on Righteous’s wrist, and one at the base of his wing. He’d already cut partway through the main joint at his shoulder, but I knew that would heal. His ichor and blood made it tricky to keep my hold on him, though. His other hand on my throat made it hard to talk as well, but I tried.
He was weaker than I thought he would be, and he kept saying something that made no sense.Till he?
“Until you what?” I screamed into his vacant golden eyes when his grip slipped again. “Until youwhat, Righteous?”
“She was Tili,” he rasped at last, his hand dropping away from my neck. I sucked in a huge breath. “Feather was Tili. She was the charge I failed in Italy.” He tore the sleeve of his robe away, and revealed a very old, almost scarred stain, in the shape of a long boot.
Italy?I blinked, trying to fit all the pieces of his revelation into what I knew. I hadn’t realized Righteous even had smut left after Feather had practically died trying to save him. “You knew her before?”
He released the sword’s handle, and I caught it before it fell, shoving it behind my back, out of his sight as much as possible. I was careful of my own wings, though; that sword was one of the very few artifacts that could damage a Protector, and the only thing we had that came from the Celestial Realm. Well, that I knew of. I wasn’t some sort of big shot here. In fact, I was one of the least powerful, least advanced souls in Sanctuary. Why was I in the center of this storm?
