Chapter 2: The Morning After: Part One
The first thing that my muzzy brain managed to latch onto, as I struggled my way out of sleep, was the fact that I really wanted something to eat.
It wasn’t that I was hungry, not really. In fact, I felt pretty comfortable where I was, all warm and relaxed. However, despite my contentment, I had an odd craving to munch on something. Half-awake I found myself thinking about eggs and bacon, marinated steaks and fried potatoes, fluffy rice and the sort of curry that burnt your mouth in the best possible way. I felt saliva gather in my mouth, and I idly licked my lips as I rose to full consciousness.
Then cruel reality hit me as my mind came fully awake. I remembered the price demanded by my new powers, namely the loss of any taste from food or drink, and felt the warm and relaxed contentment I’d been enjoying turn sour.
Blinking the sleep out of my eyes I groggily sat up, my wings unfurling and then catching on the arms of the armchair I was curled up on. It didn’t really hurt, but it was uncomfortable, and constricting. For a moment I tried to get up the normal physical way, struggling against the weight of my wings as I leaned forward to stand. There was a moment where I just struggled, unable to move forward, pinned by the weight of the wings I was still getting used to.
Then I remembered that I no longer just had muscles to work with.
It was a testament to how hard Joan and Hadriel had trained me that the magic came to me as easily as it did. I could feel it flow through me, a cool wash of power that was both comforting and refreshing. I felt it burn away the last of the sleep fog in my mind better than any coffee I’d ever tried. In the next moment, I wasn’t using muscles and weight to get to my feet, instead, I levitated out of the chair, my pinions folding into a more comfortable position behind me.
With that done I looked around and realized I wasn’t in my room and had been sleeping in an armchair, my wings folded over me like a blanket. It wasn’t hard to work out what had happened, not given how tired I’d felt the night before. I stretched, noticing that despite not having slept in a bed I didn’t feel stiff or cramped. In fact . . . I felt pretty good, the pain of my overworked magic channels all but completely gone. Looking at my hands I saw that the cuts and scuffs on my skin were faded, some small scabs being the only sign of the earlier bleeding.
A knock on the door interrupted my examination.
“Yes?”
The door opened, and Joan stepped through. She was wearing the under-suit that she wore under her armour, a sight I’d grown used to over the last few weeks. If she was wearing that then it meant there’d be training later, probably combat training. My musings were interrupted as she smiled at me, a warm and friendly smile.
“Ah, bon, it is good to see you are awake, Adam.” She nodded, leaning against the frame of the door as she looked at me. “I trust that you feel refreshed after a good night of rest?”
“Yeah,” I replied, feeling a bit self-conscious of the way I’d just drifted off the night before. “I feel loads better now.”
“Good. You should be aware that both our guests have already risen from their sleep. For the time being, they are content to allow you your recovery, but both of them will wish to speak with you soon.”
Oh yeah, the full recollection of the night before came crashing into full recollection with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop. Looking over to the side I could see the gifts Athena had given me still lying on the table where she’d displayed them. The armour, the helmet, the wallet, all of them just sat there, and a greedy possessive part of me wanted to grab them and stuff them into the magic bag that still hung from my current belt. Of course, it then hit me that I was currently sharing this house with two goddesses, literal ones!
“Okay . . .” I had to pause for a moment and wet my suddenly dry mouth. “Okay. Where do we go from here then?”
“To begin with,” Joan replied, stepping into the room and facing me. “I think it would be best if you let me know exactly what happened to you yesterday.”
“Ah.” Without really thinking about it I sat back down on the armchair, my wings spreading once more to accommodate me. “Yeah, there’s plenty to talk about there.”
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Emma hunkered down beside the broken tree stump that offered her cover and stared out at the edge of the Hallowed Sanctuary.
If she’d had any choice in the matter she wouldn’t have been here. If it had been up to her she’d have been on the other side of the country. But this was where Adam was, so this was where she had to be. And it just so happened that there were now two powerful goddesses there as well. And not just any goddesses either, these were two of the dangerous ones.
When she’d sensed them arriving Emma’s heart had practically been in her throat. It had been her worst-case scenario, assuming the deities were hostile of course, and she had immediately begun to make plans. However, she’d seen the gods being admitted into the Sanctuary without the need for force, and she sensed no conflict within it. To almost anyone else it would have been impossible to scry the insides of the Hallowed Sanctuary, but Emma knew the tiny flaws in the spell, the cracks she could slip tiny threads of magic through. It wasn’t enough to affect the mighty spell, but it let her have an idea of what was going on within it.
That was how she’d been able to learn the identities of the goddesses, and that knowledge was why she was in her current uncomfortable position.
Kali and Athena, it was not a combination of deities that Emma had been expecting to encounter, but it worried her. Both goddesses were dangerous but in different ways. Kali was power, violence and bloodthirst wrapped up in one barely contained package. The Hindu mythology contained many powerful deities and demons, but when it came to sheer violence and savage might Kali was in a class of her own. Athena was a more oblique danger. She knew the value of manipulation and was skilled in both statecraft and insight into the mortal mind. Emma needed to know why they were here, what they wanted with Adam, and how it might affect her own plans.
All of that brought her back to her current situation, namely hiding in the woods on the edge of the Sanctuary and trying to learn more about the situation within.
For her, it was a huge risk. Yes, her wards should keep her from being sensed by any of those within the spell, but there was always the chance that something could go wrong. If the likes of Joan or Hadriel sensed her . . . well, it wouldn’t be pretty, even under the best circumstances.
However, the need for knowledge drove her on. So, Emma maintained her crouch as she fed more of her meagre stores of magic into the threads she was pushing deeper into the Sanctuary. She had to be painstakingly slow, inching them in little by little to avoid any disruption that could be detected. Her efforts had yielded much information so far, the identity of the goddesses as well as the fact that Adam seemed to have grown in power.
She had also learnt something else, something that had shocked her since it should have been impossible. Still, her careful analysis had confirmed it to her and left no doubt.
The Hallowed Sanctuary, a spell that should have lasted for several more days and should still have been able to repel entire armies, was breaking down faster than it should have done. If her estimates were correct then it would only hold for one more day, two at the absolute most. And once it fell Adam and his allies would have no safe harbour to fall back to.
What made it even worse was that Emma was almost certain that neither the resurrected saint nor the warrior angel guarding him was aware of what was happening. The only reason that she knew about it was because of her magic so carefully interacting with the spell. To those monitoring it from inside this subtle degradation would be imperceptible. They’d be expecting more time to prepare for leaving the spell’s protection, and then it would break early upon them.
What was even worse was that Emma couldn’t understand why this was happening. She knew the spell had been perfectly cast, and she knew it had settled properly. When she’d slipped through it before she’d been able to confirm that it was every bit as strong as the mighty bulwarks that she’d seen in the past. She’d seen no hints of introduced corruption or some other spell working against it. There should be no reason for it to be breaking down as it was, and yet there it was, subtly falling apart.
To her that meant only one thing, sabotage. Somehow the spell had to have been flawed from the start, some kind of imperfection that gathered momentum as time went on. Such a change had to have been tiny, minuscule to the point where it could be slipped into the casting without any of the angels performing it noticing. The flaw couldn’t gain the power needed to bring the Sanctuary down early, but it was able to shave off a few short, but potentially critical, days off the spell’s duration.
The implications of such a sabotage had hit Emma almost like a physical blow. The ranks of the angels had no traitors amongst them, their very nature prohibited it. Those who would betray them immediately Fell, cast from the ranks of Heaven by the very act of choosing to make that betrayal. How could the sabotage be conducted then? Some sort of control the victim was unaware of? Blackmail of some sort? Some agent of hell actually infiltrating the High Heavens? Any one of them was a catastrophic possibility, but not one she could act upon.
Her principal concern had to be Adam! She had to let him know what she’d learned. That his protection was going to fail sooner than anticipated!
Unfortunately, breaking back into the Sanctuary to let him know that would be nigh suicidal until she had more information. That was what brought her back to her current situation, slowly infiltrating the Hallowed Sanctuary so that she could learn enough to get to the demigod without being killed in the process.
Patiently, carefully, she continued on.