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Rule #6: thrive in the shadows.
Never forget, dear one,
that the gods are long-dead,
and our only ally left in this broken world
is the darkness in which we hide.
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Tia’s Laws of Survival were the only reason Mori had survived all these years, centuries after most of her other sisters were burned at the stake. It was a code of shadows, of secrets and seclusion, but it kept the three of them alive.
And that was something Tia reminded her of constantly.
In the bitter cold whisper of the winter night, Mori leaned her back against an external wall of the tavern. Tia and Lottie stood beside her, all of them careful to keep to the shadows, and their eyes glazed over as they listened for signs of their mark. Muffled drinking songs rolled through a foggy window above, and Mori’s ear twitched as her enhanced senses honed in on the footsteps she had been following thus far. The man’s heavy boots thudded against the floorboards, and he cursed under his breath as a door closed.
The slurred bar songs faded, replaced by the man’s anxious pacing, until the door opened yet again. A lighter patter of footsteps entered this time, momentarily drowned out by a fresh chorus from the drunks hiccuping through an off-key harmony back in the main tavern, before the door once more clicked shut.
“Are you sure?” the woman asked, her voice muffled by the window’s glass panes. “It’ll only take a little longer to get you more food. You need it after all that ale, Sherriff.”
“Bah.” Mori could imagine him waving his meaty hand to dismiss the idea. “We need to come up with a plan. We need more soldiers. We need horses. Hunting dogs. We need—”
“First, tell me what happened,” the woman said curtly. “What attacked the homesteads? What was all that fire?”
The man’s heavy footsteps paused, and seconds later, a chair creaked under someone’s weight. “It’s an angel of death. Only six of my men came back alive with me.”
For a moment, it was painfully silent. The shatter of glass broke that brief spell of quiet, however, and the slosh of something wet running along the floorboards punctuated the woman’s quiet sobbing.
Mori, meanwhile, barely managed to stifle her impulsive gasp of joy. She glanced at Lottie, who grinned with breathless excitement. Only Tia remained stoic and still, listening intently without a shred of emotion on her face.
Apparently, the rumors were true. Mori’sheart skipped a bittersweet beat at the very thought. she closed her eyes against the confusing surge of both raw panic and overwhelming relief that followed, unsure of what to think now that the town’s sheriff had confirmed what she had, up until now, only dreamed of.
After all these years, one of her sisters was still alive. Ava was here, somewhere, in this town at the edge of the world.
“A demon,” the woman whispered, as though calling an angel by her true name would summon one from the grave. “Here? In our village?”
Ugh.
More hearsay and insults.
Mori grimaced in disgust at the slander, but she shouldn’t have been surprised this was so rampant up here. Mortals had never understood what angels truly were, and this far from most of the major kingdoms, these townsfolk were particularly superstitious.
“But why?” It was the woman who began to pace this time, and the light taps of her shoes against the wood wandered toward the far wall. “We kept all the gravesites far from the village. We constructed temples in the four corners of the town. We’ve done everything right, Sheriff! There aren’t even any mines left to draw one in!”
To stop herself from kicking in the door just to explain how stupid they both were, Mori rolled her eyes. She would never understand these humans and their superstitions. Honestly, she didn’t know where this utter nonsense even came from.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Angels of death didn’t care about gravesites—they were the ones filling the graves. Angels didn’t shy away from temples—once, ages ago, they were constructed in their honor instead of whatever fabricated idols these fools now worshiped. And the mines… well, truth be told, she didn’t have a clue why these idiots thought her kind liked gold. It made fine jewelry, sure, but it was otherwise useless.
For these bastards to call one of her sisters an “it,” however, ignited the hellfire in her blood.
Mori’s palms warmed with a sudden flash of heat from deep in her soul. Though the thick sleeves of her tunic hid most of her arms, the dark fabric couldn’t hide the shimmering lines flickering to life along her skin as her magic ignited. A deep need coiled in her gut, a primal ache for blood and murder, as she briefly lost control.
Though Tia didn’t otherwise move, her intense glare shifted toward Mori in silent warning.
Determined not to lose control, Mori gritted her teeth as her magic burned hotter. If she didn’t stop this, she would cloak—and these mortals would see firsthand why angels of death were so feared.
To calm the flood of rage, she curled her hand into a fist and let out a slow breath. She counted each second that passed, forcing air through her lungs in a steady surge and flow. The conversation in the tavern continued, nothing more than hums and muttering as she tuned everything else out, and she tried not to focus on the fact that she was probably missing important information.
Eventually, the sizzling ache to kill something faded. The white lines of her magic dissolved again into her skin, and the threat of losing control dissolved.
For now.
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If you find my story on any other site but Royal Road, please report it as stolen
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As before, she focused her enhanced senses on the duo talking in frightened whispers, and her brow twitched with effort as she honed in on them once again.
“... and we followed it to the north forest,” the sheriff continued, oblivious to the fresh spark of hatred his disrespect kindled within Mori. “We lost almost everyone while trying to kill it. The rest of them barely escaped with their lives.”
Oh, shit.
Mori swallowed hard. Angels could hold their own, sure, but even they had their limits. Over the centuries, their legend had grown to far exceed their actual abilities, and the mortals had long ago forgotten their true powers. That worked in an angel’s favor most of the time. On occasion, however, it meant facing down the sort of onslaught that no immortal—not even one forged from a goddess’s bones—could survive.
There was a good chance that Mori and her sisters were too late. Perhaps Ava had already lost control.
“That face…” The sheriff spoke as though haunted by the very memory, his voice distant and deep, and the lawman shuddered in fear. “Blue as a twilight sky, and covered in stars. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. Beautiful, perhaps, but terrifying.”
“What’s gotten into you?” the woman asked. “I’ve seen you slaughter a pack of snow wolves, and you once took on a full-grown troll. You’ve never—not once have you been—”
“— afraid?” he finished for her.
Though she didn’t reply, the silence was all the answer he—or Mori—needed.
“I thought I’d looked death in the eye before,” he continued in a grave and somber whisper. “I’ve gone to the brink and come home time and time again. But watching her slaughter my men broke something in me that I didn’t think could break. She… she grinned the whole time.” He swallowed hard, and the glass panes above rattled as his back slammed against the wall. “That damn angel’s smile got wider with every life she took.”
At that, Mori went utterly numb.
An angel only did that if she had succumbed to the rage within her.
The sheriff’s gravelly voice cracked as he continued. “The northern farms are nothing but cinders. She burned it all to ash.”
Mori’s stomach churned, and her brow furrowed as she tightly shut her eyes. Her ears rang. Her pulse thudded in her ear.
After everything they had sacrificed to get here as quickly as possible, it seemed like they were still too late.
Mori shoved the thought deep into the darkest part of her soul, refusing to acknowledge it had ever crossed her mind, but the fear didn’t fade. If Ava’s hellfire had taken over, then she was already losing herself to the bloodlust. It seemed as though she was further gone than Mori had realized, and they didn’t have much time to bring their sister back from the brink.
Because once an angel lost control—once she got her wings—she would be lost forever.
“We don’t have long,” Tia whispered. “Let’s go.”
She darted into the night, and Mori pushed off of the wall to follow. The three of them and their familiars all slid into the shadows with ease, disappearing into the night as rumors about them slowly seeped into the town. Mori followed Tia over the town’s thatched roofs and through its dark alleyways, never pausing for more than a second as they made their escape.
As long as they kept out of the light, they would be safe.
They finally had proof that Ava was, in fact, here. They even knew where to find her—deep in the northern forest beyond the town’s all-too-scaleable walls.
In a world of vampires and sirens, of shifter packs and dark fae, these mortals had built ramparts and superstitions to protect themselves. They thought they were safe with their silver bullets and wooden stakes, but they couldn’t have been more wrong.
And no army, however big, could save them from an angel on the warpath.