How was I supposed to ensure the safety of one of the nine families? Aurora had already protected the Aretes once, snatched them from the clutches of their rivals but that wouldn’t last. If they were to survive, the power I was striving to eradicated still flowing through their veins, sooner or later they would be hunted again. Be it angels or demons, someone would find them and try to to take their essence in a misguided attempt to rise above the rest.
I only saw two solutions: kill them all, which was hardly feasible. Ever since I had taken in a minuscule spark of the consciousness of another creature, I felt sick when I even contemplated genocide, a throughly inconvenient thing, morals, not to mention that I was hardly capable of killing my family. The second option wasn’t much more realistic. We would have to forget, forget that the power of angels and demons was combined in their blood, that their existence was a doorway to forces unknown before.
At least I had something close to an idea how I may go about it, but I couldn’t do it alone, I needed help and as much as I had fallen for Aurora, she wasn’t the one who might be able to make it possible. If what she had told me was true, there was only one being in existence I could turn to. Unfortunately, he had become a demon and I couldn’t just waltz into hell and make an appointment. Somehow I had to get my hands on Amazeroth, his new name, and convince him to share his visions with me. The second part wouldn’t be too much of a problem, I had always thought of myself as quite persuasive and if push came to shove, I would simply shake the truth from his transformed bones, but getting to him would be a challenge.
Alright, that was an understatement, it would be close to a suicide run… whatever it takes, she had said. Screw that girl. It hadn’t even been a full cycle yet and I was already wishing for the simpler days, when I had been able to do what I wanted. But that didn’t help much. For now I had to somehow get into hell, snatch a demon, and get out again, preferably without losing too much blood and especially my life on the way. You’re the only one who can do it, she had said. Argh!
Well, the longer I stood there, the harder it would become to move and as several wise men had said over the course of the centuries, when you fear something, just get it over with. At least I had a few tricks up my sleeve no one knew about, not yet anyways. It was time to find out how much my changed core could actually handle and if the energy I had been collecting, had been worth the effort. Just as well, stealth had never been my strong suit anyways.
I closed my eyes, soothing darkness covering the raging storms and rugged formations around me. I took a deep breath, the poisonous, overcharged air almost refreshing in my throat, and allowed my mind to expand, making sure nothing living was in my immediate vicinity. With an inaudible curse, I unfurled my wings and allowed the bluish flames that burned in my core to finally spread through my body. Let there be light! And there was.
Energy, more than I had imagined, more than I could comprehend, an infinite torrent of power pulsed from me. I turned into a silvery blue sun, illuminating the depths of the void like a falling star, the combined forces of angels and demons roared through my veins and an exhilarating sensation of endless possibilities took hold of me. The self doubts and insecurities I had picked up like a disease when I had united with Ancalagon’s child vanished behind a curtain of eternal light and for the first time in what felt like ages, I was myself again, unrestrained and free.
Success or failure, right or wrong, it didn’t matter anymore. There was only an ironclad purpose left in me, filling me with confidence and silencing the bugging voices of what I had come to learn was a conscience. Cold detachment overshadowed even the burning desire and the drive to protect, to make her happy, every time I thought about Aurora. I had a job to do and I wouldn’t be stopped. For the moment, I was again unshackled from the woes and worries of existence and I was eager to see what I could do. Time to go knocking on hell’s doors…
Cassandra Pendragon
I woke up shaking and covered in sweat. My muscles ached as if I had truly just fought my way through a legion of demons and my thoughts felt slow, distorted, as if they weren’t used to the shell they were confined to. Images form the past, an exploding, dark gate, severed limbs and fountains of blood still raced through my mind and for a few seconds I was tethering on the verge of the past and the present, slipping back and forth.
I tried to open my eyes, but the small movement felt nearly unmanageable and the longer I remained still, the more I realised that it wasn’t only my sight, even my other senses didn’t seem to work properly. My thundering heartbeat was the only thing I heard and when I breathed in, the expected myriad of smells didn’t reach me. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said I was sick. But that couldn’t be now, could it? I had never fallen ill before and I hadn’t exactly taken good care of myself. Quite the opposite, I had always treated my body like a currency, spending its integrity to accomplish my goals. Maybe it had finally caught up to me?
A quiet groan escaped me when I finally manage to push my eyelids apart, the dim light of an early morning singeing my retinas. I was in a plushly decorated room, comfortably placed in a huge, soft bed with several pillows and a fluffy blanket. An opulent, silver chandelier hung from the stucco covered ceiling and through the open window, I could glimpse tiled roofs. Aside from my bed, a table, laden with fruits, a carafe of water and an assortment of sweets, as well as a cupboard and several armchairs stood around, Ahri snoring quietly in one of them.
She rested her head in her hands, her shimmering hair covering her face like a curtain of liquid light. I tried to speak, but all I managed was a half strangled croak, even closer to a whimper if I was being honest. Damn it, that wasn’t what I had been expecting. I had been wounded before, more often then I cared to remember, but that wasn’t it. I wasn’t even in pain, not really, but I felt thoroughly drained, as if someone had stolen all my energy while I had been asleep.
Tentatively I reached for my core so I could get up or at least speak properly, but as soon as even a trickle of power raced through my meridians, a nagging pressure built in my veins which instantly reminded me of all the times I had suffered from an excessive use of my energies. Unwilling to risk the backlash, I grudgingly released my core and resigned myself to getting up the normal way: with a lot of effort and a few colourful curses. A good plan, in theory, but rather complicated in its application. All I managed with the first try was to roll around clumsily and push several pillows to the floor. At least my efforts hadn’t been completely in vain, since I managed to wake Ahri from her slumber.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She blinked the sleep from her eyes, their multicolour shine immediately narrowing in on me as I flopped on the bed like a stranded whale. A smile tugged on the corners of her mouth when she saw the predicament I was in and with a few quick steps she was at my side, helping me into a sitting position.
“Good morning, how are you feeling?” She asked, as she bowed down to kiss my forehead.
“Terrible,” I croaked after the second try, my voice hoarse, dry and broken, like that of a drunkard after closing hours. “What’s wrong with me?”
“In general or right now?”
“That’s not funny. I feel like a walking corpse… am I sick? Can we even become sick?”
“Yes and yes, even though you’re not suffering from the common cold, if that’s what you wanted to know. I didn’t fully understand it, but from what Mephisto told me, you’re now so far down the line that your body is starting to treat the remaining parts of your original form, the one you were born with, as a disease and it’s starting to fight it. Mortality as an illness, isn’t that poetic?”
“I can hardly breath and you’re quoting poems… wrongly? How am I deserving of this? You know what, don’t answer that. How long will I be stuck like this?”
“Not too long, a couple of days, maybe a week or two. It depends on how much of your original makeup you instinctively replicated when you formed that body of yours. Just be glad you already slept through the worst of it.”
“I can hardly imagine how it could be worse, I feel like a new born cub with a fever… how long have I been lying here anyways and what did I miss?”
“It was worse, you ruined several sheets when the discarded tissue pushed through your skin… not to mention that you were thrashing around in pain even while you were dreaming. As for how long you’ve been here, five days. I called Mephisto as soon as you passed out and we patched everyone up provisionally, enough that they wouldn’t bleed out on the spot. Luckily, Tom was more than eager to get on our good side after he had seen what you can do. He’s still very much set on becoming the next king of the back alleys and seems to think that being nice to us might prove useful in the long run. You’re in one of the houses the Mask used from time to time and we can stay here for as long as we like. Your family is downstairs and the dwarfs have arrived a few hours earlier. Guess who has been travelling with them as a stowaway.” I groaned.
“Is she alone or did she bring her two trusted sidekicks along?”
“All three of them are out and about, getting some herbs for the medicine your brother, Aspera and Astra still have to take. No need to get agitated,” she added and pushed me carefully back down, when she saw that I was struggling to get up again. “They’re all fine, Mephisto even managed to complete the ritual in time and save the elves. I took a vile of your blood and helped him out a bit. But while your mum, Viyara and Erya mostly needed some time to let their bodies recuperate, the other three are still pretty weak. For now, the best we can do is let them rest, not that you have much of a choice in the matter, considering that you’re the worst off.”
“Great,” I said while I dropped into the pillows. “Anything else I need to know?”
“A few things, but nothing pressing. Sooner or later we’ll have to decide what we want to do with the pirates who are still in the brig of the dwarven ship and whether or not we want to stay here for a while until you’re back to normal, but that can at least wait until tomorrow. So… what about you? What did you see?” She was looking at me curiously, her eyes glowing with that fascinating mix of red, green and blue.
“I… quite a lot actually, but there were several important pieces missing… I think I saw scenes from the first war, from the time when you bound yourself to the Aretes and how we came to be who we are… and what Mephisto meant when he said that the Mask awoke the Lightbringer. I… first, I want to know if you remember if there are any couples among the immortals, aside from us.” She wrinkled her forehead in away that immediately reminded me of my dreams and answered slowly:
“No… I don’t think so. There are allegiances, maybe even friendships but nothing more, at least as far as I know. Why?” I sighed.
“Because I don’t think there can be. It’s not meant to happen, we are… changed and we have been for the longest time. I don’t think we are full blooded angels, not by a long shot. I… I’m not too sure, like I said, there were parts that I couldn’t see, but here is what I understood. First of all, I think what we believe to be our history is mostly a lie, born from the truths we have forgotten and the small bits we remember. The conflict between angels and demons, the first war, and the war between the nine families, I think they’re one and the same, the latter was the climax of the former. The nine families… they were created as weapons and to cut a long story short, the powers of angels and demons flowed through their veins. Powers that were never meant to mix and when they did, they spawned something new, something corruptive… you know what I’m talking about. Back then, I decided to collect the pieces of that energy that were freed with every death. So far, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened, but after that…” I became quiet for a while and tried to bring the memories that were swirling through my mind into a resemblance of order.
“One of the families was created as an incarnation of freedom, did you know that? Supposedly made by one of my brothers using my own essence which he had stolen. When their patriarch laid dying, I paid him a visit, prepared to not only take in the energies that would be released upon his death but also a part of his consciousness. He declined and instead asked me to free one of his children, who had been taken into the Silver City and make sure she’d have a chance to live on, despite the atrocities our siblings had subjected her to while she was incarcerated. I was hesitant but I agreed and… well, I think you were supposed to guard them so I tried to lure you away.” A small smile tugged on the corners of my mouth.
“Which of course went over about as smoothly as you might imagine. You made me take you with me and I think, even though I haven’t seen that part, that we found two creatures far beyond redemption. We… I think we took in their essence, even though I neither know how you managed to survive the Corruption that should have spread through your core afterwards, nor why we simply didn’t whisk them away in the first place, I can only guess. But it doesn’t matter too much, either way. Their presence, the spark of mortality we absorbed, it changed us, it made us feel, it made us… fall in love. And then, well… history seems to repeat itself. The last thing I remember is me trying to break into hell to get to Amazeroth to ask for his help. It was him, his essence, the demons used to corrupt or transform the nine families and in doing so, they made the angel of valour become… I haven’t got the foggiest what he actually is, but the more I know of him, the more I’m starting to believe that he’s a mixture of transcendent and mortal strands, a being that holds power over the transcendent forces of angels and demons as well as a mortal disposition. Maybe that’s what allows him to glimpse and alter the future...”
She remained silent for a while, digesting what I had said while I simply cherished her presence, content with studying the interchanging colours in her eyes. I would never become tired of her passion, of her beauty. It felt unimaginable that it had taken something else for me to finally fall in love with her… which reminded me:
“When… you remember what happened when I faced the Mask… I think that was how I used to be before… how I was when I was just an immortal. It… I don’t want to become that, ever again. It scared the living hell out of me. I… I’m truly sorry for what I did.” She brushed my comment away with a wave of her hand and kissed me gently.
“I told you before, there’s no reason. Mephisto told me about the times he remembers when he has seen you in battle. If it keeps you alive and as long as you find your way back to me, I’ll be more than happy to deal with the occasional outburst. But what I don’t understand is this: if the Corruption has been around since the very beginning, since the first war, how come it has taken aeons to spread through the ranks of the immortals? Why are we now fighting a war that must have been going on for thousands, or millions of years? And why can none of us remember?”