“You wanna talk to the guy who put a magical hit out on me?” Hyun half-shouts.

I wince at the volume. “One: not magic. Two: yes.”

Hyun responds to my suggestion the same way that I would imagine him reacting to me suddenly declaring myself God and demanding worship: with incredulity and shouting. Thankfully, Sa-do is far more reasonable, or, at the very least, more willing to accept my judgement and reasoning. Age does have its virtue in this case -- namely the virtue of wisdom. Famine also made a point of taking hold of Hyun’s shoulder and momentarily preventing his ability to speak, or do much of anything other than desperately need food.

Famine then wastes no time skipping wildly through my quarters, examining as many nooks and crannies as she can find; there are many given how I chose my own private sanctuary to present itself. I, meanwhile, glean as much as I can from Hyun and Sa-do before leaving them so that I may find a place to do the unthinkable: let an archangel within my doors.

I think on what happened: I remember only Sa-do arriving moments after War’s departure -- or had it been minutes? I cannot be certain. I was too focused upon the physical pain. How long it had been since I felt that lancing sensation pierce through me, only to eventually fade into a dull, pressing ache, and soon, too, to nothing at all. To become but a memory.

All that shall remain are scars. Scars upon my own skin, scars upon my mount’s hide. I am sorry, Silver -- I felt your scream as if it had ripped from my own throat and flown away to Heaven on wings of anguish.

And after the pain, there was only silence and the carved angels overhead. But there was no one else there, the only thing distinguishing it from long ago memory. But as I closed my eyes, that was the vision that greeted my eyes. And when I opened them again, I saw not Gabriel, not my first War, but Famine’s wide, dark eyes, my name on her lips.

Oh, Famine...why would you fear for Death?

Hyun only remembers War attacking him in the innermost sanctum before something “brighter than the fucking sun exploded” before his eyes with enough force to send him flying back; that must have been when he hit his head. He is lucky, I tell him, that it was Gabriel and not Michael who arrived before we could remove him from the innermost sanctum.

Sometimes I wonder if humanity does not deserve an apocalypse.

Sa-do filled in the remaining gaps. He had found me -- as I recall -- and I managed to give him the name of my assailant: War.

“It wasn’t a difficult leap to figure this was about Hyun,” Sa-do continued.

By the time he arrived at the inner sanctum, Ramiel was already present -- that explains the bright light Hyun experienced. Although…

“How could Ramiel have known to arrive at so...fortuitous a moment?”

“Probably because I called him,” Sa-do had winced as he tapped gingerly around the swollen part of his temple. “I’m fine, really,” he said to Hyun’s dark look and angry mutterings.

“You’re lucky War’s not here to hear you,” Conquest had arched a brow at Hyun. “He’d take you up on those threats.

“He already has, thanks,” Hyun spat, grinding his teeth.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Quiet,” I demanded, ceasing an altercation before it developed any further. Conquest had not moved, but the air around them shimmered dangerously. They were on edge, as we all are even still; the sting of War’s betrayal is worse than any swordpoint, and of all of us, Conquest would easily feel that most acutely. They were, after all, the closest with our youngest Horseman. I could offer no words of sympathy, no words of empathy, for they would assuage nothing.

I learned long ago that sympathy is not so much for the benefit of the recipient as for the person who gives it.

And I have felt this misery, the sharp ache of betrayal before. I have long-since learned to carry on.

“You called Ramiel?” I had asked Sa-do.

“No offense to you all,” Sa-do grimaced, “but he’s the first person I thought to call when it came to Hyun being in trouble from someone straight out of holy scripture.”

“If you don’t trust us after all--”

“It was instinct,” Sa-do held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, one born from millennia of human pacifist behaviour: no quarrel.

Nolo contendere. That is...

“I didn’t and don’t mean to offend you all...but I’ve known Rami’el longer than I have you, so, yes,” he had sighed, “I instinctively called for his aid.”

“And so he answered,” I had replied, “Hyun was incapacitated, and then…”

“Ramiel engaged War while I checked on Hyun. War made a retreat -- or, maybe, he was luring Ramiel out, I can’t say for sure.”

Curse that child of a Horseman.

“That is how Ramiel left the innermost sanctum,” Conquest had sighed. “War, you bloody fool.”

“Invitation,” I had said to Hyun’s confused look. “War opened the door for the purpose of allowing Ramiel to follow, and so he did,” I sigh. “Because War threatened what was his.”

“Yeah, but how’d you get that, if War and Ramiel ran off?” Hyun had nodded at Sa-do’s now-tended head wound.

“Because I followed them,” Sa-do had replied.

“That was foolish,” I said.

Sa-do had laughed, shaking his head, “Perhaps. But I did it. And, I paid for my decision: your friend cracked the butt of his sword against my skull right before he disappeared.”

“And Ramiel didn’t stay to check on you?” Hyun had asked, looking affronted on behalf of his mentor.

“He probably chased after War,” Conquest had snorted, “if his reputation is anything like I’ve heard.”

“They did already have reason to quarrel,” I had pinched the bridge of my nose, picturing their first duel back on Earth.

Yet that image of Sa-do: hands raised in a display not of confrontation, nor even admission of guilt, had crept in on every memory.

There might yet be a way…

So I walked until their voices faded to a background murmur. I look out now across my private garden, and were my feet to continue a steady pace, I know where they would lead. I can see the crooked arch of the staff peeking at the top edge of the portrait at the centre. The deepest part of myself, wherein I find the most quiet and solitude.

Having the others here feels a strange intrusion -- equal parts unwelcome and, yet, familiar. My doors have not opened in so long a time. Perhaps too long a time. Perhaps, perhaps. So many potentialities, so many moments of “if” or “perhaps” -- and yet what are they but the past?

So I would have thought before all of this: I would have dismissed the past as past and not dwelled upon it. I had thought that the right course of action because I believed myself strong in that way, but now I realize that I was afraid. For if I open myself up to my own memories, I would be diving headfirst into a sea of sorrow. My past is only pain; even the happiness is tinged in sadness.

And now too, it is shrouded in the cloak of one question: who am I?

I take a deep breath, and close my eyes as I whisper the name of the Messenger.

“Gabriel.”