Something made a terrified cry when the light sliced into the room. Uriel stepped inside, fearing an animal or a child had gotten locked in the space, but as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he caught the outline of three forms with wings, each easilythe size of a seraph. He hesitated in the doorway, expecting an attack for a few seconds, though none came. The lack of light made it hard for him to define much about them, but the room stank of human waste and mortal depression, two things Uriel had vivid memories of encountering in his long life.
The weight of them draped the room like a beast ready to manifest itself. The hopeless cry muted for a half second before continuing from the one furthest to the left. Chains rattled.
Uriel took a step in their direction, but none of them moved. The one on the right side lay slumped like a broken doll cast in a web of half-darkness. Uriel manifested a ball of light to illuminate the space, burning his eyes with the intensity and gracing him with the horrors of three seraphim chained to the floor several meters apart. The one on the left made a startled noise, shifted in the chains as if he tried to get away, but remained firmly bound. The other two didn’t move.
“Are you hurt?” Uriel asked the one on the left, and chucked the ball of light up toward the ceiling to hover, then made his way to the chains. More magic encased the links to strengthen them.
“Who are you?” The one on the left asked in a tiny voice. Healer class, that one. Why was he here and not out helping the others?
“Uriel,” Uriel told him as he studied the chains for a section of weakness.
“There’s no opening,” a voice came from the seraph bound in the middle. “They will add you to the group for trying to help. If you’re lucky they won’t cut off your wings and leave you bleeding in the dark.”
Uriel glanced his way, finding his eyes open and clear, glowing a deep amber. His hair and skin touched with a bronze undertone. “You warrior class?”
“No classes anymore,” the middle one said. “Only those who assimilate and those who refuse are left to die.”
Assimilate what? Into humans? Seraphim weren’t humans, nor were they ever meant to be the same. Much as Morningstar’s first species, the seraphim were meant to learn, grow and celebrate the progression of their existence. Parallel, yet different.
“I am guardian class,” Uriel said. “My heart’s goal is to protect.”
“Then you’ve wound up in the wrong place,” the middle one said.
Uriel stared at him a few seconds longer, then grabbed the chains of the one on the left and snapped them apart, drinking down the magic. The newly free seraph made a startled noise, and the one in the center gasped.
“How did you do that?”
The freed seraph scrambled to his feet, shaking off the chains and spreading his wings, moving them to stretch. He was dirty and bloody, but didn’t look injured. Uriel wasn’t much of a healer himself, and found himself wishing for someone in particular as a face crossed his memory again. The headache returned with a brutal throb to his left temple. He winced.
“Can you free Silas?” The seraph asked.
“It’s okay, Mason. Fly. Get away. Find a safe space,” the bound seraph in the center said.
“There is no safe space in this world,” Mason said, his hands clenched in fists and pressed against his chest. “Everything istoo much.”
“They bound you because you were overwhelmed?” Uriel asked.
“Because I refuse to stay. I belong to the celestial world. Why can’t I be there?” Mason demanded.
Uriel grabbed the edge of Silas’s chains and drained the magic from them too, then snapped them open. They slithered away with a loud clinking. His stomach roiled. The extra magic making him dizzy. He’d always taken it with ease. Now he trembled with the need to vomit again.
Silas slowly freed himself and stretched, wary of Uriel.
Uriel took a step toward the third, the mess of wings confusing him. Why wasn’t that one moving at all.
“He’s dead,” Silas said. “Was the first. They cut off his wings and let him bleed to death. Threw the wings on top of him to mock that he couldn’t heal it.”
Uriel stared at the seraph, his heart pounding, gut churning. The idea of mortality not new, but startling. He reached for one of the fallen wings, fingertips carefully brushing the edge fearing he’d hurt the seraph, but the wing slipped to the side, falling free. The seraph lay unmoving, beginning to rot in death, blood staining the remains in a dozen places with a nasty brown ooze.
The scent of feces intensified the closer he got. The seraph’s bowels had been spilled.Meant to be mortal, similar to humans, Uriel recalled and understood they’d let this seraph die a slow and brutal death. New to mortality, pain, emotion, he would have suffered as few others could.
“Who did this?” Uriel whispered, fighting to keep his stomach from adding to the mess of the poor tortured seraph.
Noise came from outside. Footsteps and voices.
Silas grabbed Mason. “We have to go. They are coming.” He looked around in panic. “We have to get out.”
Uriel’s gaze flitted to the doorway as he caught the movement of several humans. One a doctor who avoided him while he sat in the main part of the recovery space.
