Sarai, the Lady of Dawn
For the fraction of a second I hesitated, the sheer blasphemy of the scene rooting me in place. Neither Ezekiel nor Thanatos shared my bewilderment, their wings, pitch black torrents of power and icy, crystalline feathers, flared, the door behind me slammed shut and began to glow with transcendent runes, strong enough that even the fortified substance of the Silver City groaned and twisted under the pressure. Two pairs of maliciously glinting eyes, arctic blue and black, turned to me. In the dim light they seemed almost ablaze with suppressed strength, a translucently blue shimmer dancing in the depth of their gaze.
The taller one, Thanatos, glided away from the rack while Ezekiel stayed where he was, his slender fingers ripping through frail tissue with a grace that made the heinous movement look like a caress. Emaciated and tall, clad in a flowing, midnight blue robe, his long, white hair framing a hawkish, angular face, he appeared to me like an incarnation of death, a figure of nightmares that had finally gained substance to haunt us even in the midday sun. Ironic, considering who his companion was. Thanatos, worshipped as death in many a culture. While he gracefully approached me, blood and gore dripped from his fingers, a blood red trail left in his wake, the only thing that spoke of the brutality he was capable of. He was a beautiful creature, lean and toned, dignified and ethereal, a being whose immortality was truly visible.
“Sister,” his voice, a husky whisper that seemed to originate from everywhere at once, flowed over me. “Why have you come? Has Michael sent you?” Their posture, his inflection, the swelling tide of power within the room, their casual acceptance of the travesty of heaven they had made of themselves… I took his question for what it was, a threat to my existence. Either I’d bow and play along or I’d never leave this place again, at least not as myself. The tormented creatures behind and the smouldering insanity within them, manifested as crackling, blue motes of light, left no room for doubt. Unfortunately, even if I had been willing to close my eyes on what was going on, even if I had been able to deceive myself into further compliance, I wouldn’t have been able to turn away, the pulsing shackles of transcendent energy around my core, that bound me to the suffering phoenix, was tightening with every passing moment. I shrugged.
“Afraid not.” I bent my knees and allowed my presence to surge forth, a speck of gold and red in a storm of icy blue and inky darkness. The malevolent pressure I immediately felt when my aura struggled against theirs was akin to getting drowned in a vat of tar but I didn’t have many options, I’d either leave with Fenia or not at all. “Is it now my turn to be dragged to the chasm so the truths Lucifer was killed for will be forgotten long enough for you to accomplish whatever twisted goal you’re striving for?” Ezekiel chuckled, a cold and cruel sound like icy daggers.
“Oh my, such fire. No, sister, why ever would you say that? The deceiver is gone and he won’t return if we have our way. Is that wrong? I do admit, you’ve stumbled upon a scene that was never meant for your eyes, but we’ll do whatever we have to to ensure creation can prosper under our careful guidance. Why would you even want to oppose us? Because we’ve shown cruelty towards these mortals,” Thanatos gestured around the chamber, “I assume one of them is known to you? Don’t you think that’s hypocritical? How many lives have you taken? How many have suffered to sooth your burning thirst for vengeance? Only because you wade through mountains of ash that leave your hands clean you think you’re any different?” He raised his bloody hands and brushed them clean with a word.
“There. Now, sister, I don’t want to fight you, but I need your word, otherwise you won’t be allowed to leave. I want your word that you won’t rekindle the spark of dissent we thought snuffed out with Lucifer’s death. I can already see its flame within you, ever growing, even now. I can smell your conviction to take what you think is yours and run. Don’t. You won’t survive, neither of you. The morrow will see you stand with us, one way or the other.” While he spoke, his wings whipped through the air, a mesmerising dance that failed to charm me until the same blue light I saw reflected in his eyes appeared at the edges of the swirling mass of manifested darkness. The same sheen I had seen before, every time Lucifer had unfurled his wings.
“For someone who calls Lucifer deceiver, a spark of dissent, you seem awfully similar from where I’m standing. Imitation is the purest form of flattery, Thanatos. And I always thought you were too self absorbed to admire anyone. It sure seems like I was wrong.” His eyes narrowed in anger and the muscles in his cheeks worked, ready to spit his reply in my face, but I didn’t intend to wait. As soon as I saw that my words had managed to rile him up, I moved. Hot, glistening torrents of energy pulsed from my core, my wings turned into a maelstrom of light and flame and a streak of gold and red shot forward like a bullet form the barrel of a gun.
Thanatos’ wings, a maze of pitch black nightmares, parted around me like water. Death incarnate he might have been, but I was an immortal and I wouldn’t succumb, not while I was still needed. I had already failed once before, I wouldn’t fail again, I wouldn’t fail another… friend.
I was already pulling away from his presence, the last tendrils of his might curling away from my flames when I felt the chamber… hiccough. Everything seemed to slow down and become still, a frozen slice of a moment before time resumed its pace. When I stretched my presence to finally reach Fenia, my flames stuttered and petered out while rime spread across my body and forced me back into a corporeal form.
“Nine eyed trai…,” I cursed when a spear of hardened ice ripped through my torso and nailed me to the ground. Form the corner of my eye I saw black lightening with an unyielding core of blue race along the translucent shard that had impaled me. The moment it flowed into the wound and through my body, I felt my energy drain away. My mind became foggy while the weight of eternal nothingness crept through me, trying to snuff out my will to keep my life’s fire burning brightly in my chest. I was dazed, resistance and resolve a thing of the past, but I was the first phoenix, the undying flame and I didn’t need my will to burn away the ice.
Without my intervention, my core roared to life, sending tendrils of fire through my veins. The ice melted and the mutated darkness withered away while I transformed. My wings grew and became more substantial, ethereal flames and crackling power became feathers of gold and red, the fires of stars burning at their tips. My humanoid form disintegrated, replaced by a gargantuan bird with a golden beak. My song flowed through the chamber, a cleansing, soothing hymn, meant more for the tormented creatures in the cages than for me or my siblings.
A maelstrom of flames ignited around me setting the mortals ablaze, consuming their life so their soul might flee. All of them died instantly, turned into a powdery rain of ash that drifted through the chamber. All of them except for one. My flames couldn’t touch Fenia but the enchanted metal of her prison liquefied in a heartbeat and the spells that held her in place crumbled under the onslaught. Just when she rightened herself and her own flames surged forth to bolster my own, a wave of frozen darkness descended upon us and drove us to the ground.
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The weight of an entire universe seemed to crush me, my essence groaning and warping under the pressure. Cold nothingness encroached on me, my fire hissing in protest wherever it was smothered by the overwhelming tide. I had never expected to defeat them, all I had hoped for had been to snatch Fenia from their clutches and run as fast as my wings could carry me. But I had never dreamed of the pure, undiluted power that bore down on me that very instant.
There was no fight, I could as well have been a kid, throwing stones at two armoured knights. And now, they had had enough of my shenanigans. I was bodily whirled around, Thanatos hands piercing my sides while Ezekiel’s wings drowned me in a sea of ice. Their intent, their will spilled into me, searching for my core. A ravenous tide of pain pulsed through my limbs, my wings fluttering weakly while I struggled against their hold.
“You want to save her,” Ezekiel’s words slashed through the storm of darkness and ice like daggers of frozen glass. “Then watch her die and rest assured we’ll take great care with your next incarnation.” An arch of sizzling blue light manifested around me, almost like a summoning circle, and in the midst of the chaotic blizzard, Fenia’s silhouette appeared, halfway between her human and her original form. Thanatos held her at the throat, choking the life from her body, his wings wrapped around her, while Ezekiel pinned me down, his magic continuously battering against me.
He formed an hermetically sealed ring of runes around me, complex, transcendent sigils spelling subjugation and something else I couldn’t quite understand until Ezekiel’s eyes ignited with the distinct bluish fire I had come to associate with their madness. They were trying to infect me, to turn me into another crazed mockery of an angel while one of the few people I had bound myself to died before my eyes.
Never before had I felt so helpless. Desperation, anger… hatred, was this what had driven Lucifer to turn against his family? Had he simply had more foresight than the rest of us and had been unwilling to wait until he was caught like a bug in a jar with no way out? Lucifer… he had put his life on the line, had accepted that his actions might mean his destruction, the end of an eternal existence, and yet, he had refused to run, to hide or to bow. He had taken the only path that had been open to him… and I could still do the same.
A faint smile tugged on the corners of my mouth when I felt calm and acceptance spread through me. Maybe my life was coming to an end, but I wouldn’t waste my final moments. The acidic touch of Ezekiel’s essence drifted away, the waves of ice cold purpose unable to torment me anymore while everything blurred and vanished behind rising flames that swallowed my vision, only Fenia’s face remained defined and real. Her eyes found mine and she ceased her struggle, a peaceful expression spread across her features when she nodded, once.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered and I could have sworn I saw her smile when I tore down the walls my existence, my soul, my life had created around my core, returning it to its original, primordial state, unshackled and purposeless, beautiful and deadly, power incarnate, ready to consume the world.
My thoughts, my purpose, my very self went up in flames, a roaring firestorm of red and gold that first devoured who I was and then spread outwards, unhindered by the sigils that were tailored to me, for I wasn’t there anymore. My sense of self vanished first, drowned beneath the glistening storm, while Ezekiel’s and Thanatos’ magic dispersed in unbound fire, ravenous and unstoppable. The last thing I saw before oblivion claimed me was the panicked expression of my siblings as they fled from the wave of fiery death that surged towards them. But it wasn’t the end, at least not mine.
Somewhere in the darkness that was all around and within me, a tiny flame still burned, wavering and weak but real and full of life. It danced before me, something I could hold on to, something I could use to rally the last memories of my existence before they were forgotten and extinguished. It was a pretty thing, a speck of warmth that somehow reminded me of a life long past, a life that shouldn’t be there anymore, but alas, somehow it still clung on.
Curiosity and something much stronger I couldn’t name, hope maybe, filled me and from one second to the next, the flame expanded, the lightless void was suddenly illuminated as if a merciful sun had decided to banish the darkness. The dwindling embers, all that was left of me, came together, attracted by the expanding warmth and deep within me, sparks of fear, dread, wrath, sorrow and hope lit up. Fenia’s voice suddenly reached me, like the whispers of a forgotten memory:
“Open your eyes, Sarai. It’s not over, yet. Open your eyes and flee. For the both of us, for everyone who died in this hellish place, open your eyes and spread your wings!”
“I can’t,” I thought blearily, still caught between life and death, my strength gone.
“You have to. You promised to watch over me, you promised to keep me safe! It’s not too late, but you have to open your eyes and flee.”
“I…I… forgive me,” I didn’t have the strength, I didn’t have the will, the warmth around me made me drowsy and all I could think about was staying here. Even if I managed to wake up, there’d be nothing waiting for me but more battles, more suffering, more pain until I’d find my end in a pointless, hopeless struggle, just like Lucifer had.
“I won’t,” she said resolutely. “You’re not alone. I’m with you, now and forever. So open your eyes, get up and earn the peace that might await you in the end. I never thought the burning star that saved my life would turn out to be a coward. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to me, to us! Move Sarai! You’re not dead, yet. Get off your ass and fly!” I knew she was right, but I simply couldn’t. There wasn’t enough of me left, I might be hanging on, but in essence, I was already dead, dead and burned out, my core fractured, my soul incinerated. There was no hidden well of power left to be tapped, I had given it my all to escape the fate my siblings had had in store for me.
Except… while I was withering away, something, or rather someone wrapped herself around my core, pulled the shattered pieces together and made them whole again. Her fire was a part of me now and in contrast to my own, her flames were still burning brightly.
“Open your eyes,” she insisted again and while her energy coursed through my veins and reignited my own will to live, the surge of emotions that had taken hold of me intensified, a burning pit in the depths of my mind that finally gave me the strength to do what was necessary. Groaning, I forced my eyelids apart, my vision still oscillating between glaring flames and pitch black darkness, but slowly, gradually, flickering shapes appeared and I began comprehending what I saw.
The very structure of the Silver City had protected the room itself but aside from the white marble, which glowed in a bright, daring red, everything was gone. I was alone in a hellish world of flames and soot, the altar, the cages, the sigils my siblings had etched into the door, the door itself and even the remnants of Ezekiel’s transcendent ice were gone, reduced to ash and memories. I was alone, Fenia was gone, as were all the others.
As soon as I thought about her, about her suffering and the atrocities my brothers had committed, a searing pain tore through my heart. But it wasn’t the kind of pain I was used to, it wasn’t an enfeebling ache that gnawed at my strength, it was a different kind of fuel for my flames, something that made me stronger, that allowed me to continue, even though I had no strength left.
“One of the blessings of mortality.” Fenia’s voice wasn’t real as much as it felt like a memory inserted into my mind. “Now, use it and get us out of here. Or do you think your siblings won’t be back? I don’t know about you, but I could very much do without another painful reminder how powerful you immortals truly are.”