Giselle was sleeping in Brivaria’s bed with Trixie curled protectively around her. The golden sunchaser had taken a long time to fall asleep. The storm was relentless. The angel had slogged through the muddy savanna in the wake of the last major storm she’d endured. She hoped the city streets would fare a little better but was doubtful. The roads near the city center were stone but they hadn’t gotten the geomancers to come do the outer ones.

It was as she sat on the bed, running her fingers through Trixie’s fur that Brivaria heard something. No, she felt something. It was a presence that settled upon the room. It was one she knew and dearly missed. Surprise morphed into delight upon the angel’s face. Tears tugged at the corners of her eyes.

“Brivaria, are you there?” an old man’s voice asked.

“Balthazar, I am,” the winged girl whispered, just barely containing her own desire to shout his name. Her angelic overseer was contacting her after so many weeks. She’d lost contact with him after the fight in the Cervidian Woods east of Pemburne. Night after night she’d waited for this moment and now it was here. Her heart beat with joy.

“Brivaria girl, hold on. Don’t move. Stay right where you are,” the older angel spoke. She nodded her head even though there was no one to see it. Save for that little gesture, the angel was perfectly still. Whatever her mentor and friend was doing, she didn’t want to disrupt it.

“Okay, I think it’s stable. Oh Brivaria, we’d thought that we lost you. You had us all deeply worried. Are you okay? What happened?” Brivaria could feel that worry and concern through the magic he was using to talk to her. She wanted to hug the older angel, to resonate with him, and to go home all at once.

“I’ve… I’ve…” Brivaria was suddenly choked up. Where to begin? So much had happened in the last month. “I’ve missed you. I’m alive and in one piece but it’s been so hard.”

“I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through. When we lost your link, we feared the worst. I’ve had Xander checking for you nonstop. I knew you were out there. I didn’t want to believe otherwise. Do you know what happened? It was as if you ceased to exist. We only found you through faint traces of holy magic,” the angel explained.

Brivaria thought about how to answer. She’d never thought about how they were communicating with her until now. The winged girl knew, on some level, that what happened in the fight against the demon in Pemburne had culminated in this situation. It was too coincidental not to be related. This confirmed her unspoken fears and now she would have to face them.

“Balthazar, can you examine the area around me? Can you look for a demon or a source of corruption affinity magic?” she asked her oldest friend and mentor. There was a silence only repelled by the sound of Brivaria’s heart threatening to beat itself out of her stomach, where she’d used Flesh Sculpting to put it.

“Yes,” came the elder angel’s cautious reply. “There is something exuding corruption affinity magic but it’s not a demon. It’s… hm.” Balthazar’s words paused as he hummed thoughtfully. The old angel wasn’t a physical creature but a being of energy, as were all angels intrinsically, but the System’s translation was very generous in certain ways that sometimes surprised Brivaria. Normally it would have made her laugh but not now.

“That something is me. The source of holy magic is Trixie, the dog I’m with,” she said, biting her lip at what would come next.

“Oh. Hm. Let’s reorient this a little and try something. Xander, come here and make yourself useful!” Brivaria could hear Xander, the overseer’s young apprentice, in the background. She tried to smile at their antics.

A moment later she felt the magic try to attach to her but then wink out of existence. It was there one second then gone the next. It was as if she were watching a mana lamp flicker and go out. An awkward silence settled upon the room until she felt the presence of Balthazar’s communication magic once more.

“Well that didn’t work. Something about your signature is distorting our spells. If you weren’t telling us exactly where you are, we wouldn’t even be able to find you at all and we definitely can’t connect the transmission spell to you directly. I’m afraid we’ll have to communicate through your dog for the moment. I take it some things have changed on your end?” Balthazar asked curiously.

“A lot of them,” Brivaria said before launching into an explanation of the Infernal Seed, her new corruption and decay affinities, as well as her demonic passenger. A little voice inside her counseled against explaining everything. It cautioned her to hide her new nature. It warned her against doing exactly what she was doing. That little voice sounded a lot like Meia Stone who had advised her much the same what felt like ages ago. The angel didn’t want to hear it. This was Balthazar. She trusted him completely and always would. She would keep no secrets from him.

“That is downright horrifying. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to go through those things, Brivaria. I’m glad you’re safe.” The old angel paused and then spoke more delicately.

“I had an inkling something of the sort was happening. When you spoke so enthusiastically about taking that shapeshifting skill, I knew something was wrong. I knew then you weren’t behaving normally. I didn’t want to alarm you back then but now I see that my decisions at that moment were in error. I apologize to you.” Balthazar sounded so contrite, as though he had let her down.

“No, Balthazar. You did the best you could. I should have realized something was off then. We couldn’t have known what this thing was or what it was doing.”

“Now that we do,” Balthazar began, “I’m going to have Anriel start treating that thing more like a parasite than a magical sickness. Since we have a better understanding of its true nature, maybe we can find a way to remove it.”

“You’re not upset?” the winged girl asked hesitantly.

“No, Brivaria, of course I’m not upset. The demon has done something to you and that has changed you. I’m fully aware of that but you are still you. Nothing will ever change that. Whatever skills you take, whatever classes you take… none of it matters. We’re still going to find a way to get you home.” Brivaria had tears in her eyes as she heard the words. She blinked and they rolled down her cheeks.

“You have no idea how much I needed to hear that, how many nights I wondered and worried over this moment,” the angelic girl confessed.

“Never once have we blamed you for what happened nor given up on you. We’re not going to start now. Plus I do have some good news,” the overseer added.

“You do?” Brivaria needed some good news.

“Yes, the demon that attacked you is dead. Well, we believe it is. We were attempting to track it down as well as you. There was apparently a large battle which claimed its life. You did well putting it down on Zlithia. Probably weakened it enough to die a true death upon its return.” The overseer cheerfully talked about the demon’s death but Brivaria felt her insides tightening.

“That’s great. We don’t have to worry about this happening to anyone else,” the angel said with forced cheer, inexplicably fighting to keep her own tone enthusiastic.

“That’s the hope. It’s a great weight lifted off everyone’s shoulders. The countermeasures we were working on will still be completed just in case but the emergency is off and we can focus back on you,” Balthazar said with obvious delight.

The rest of the conversation was jovial but Brivaria didn’t feel it. By the time the old angel broke the connection, she felt hollow inside. She’d agreed to stay with Trixie and ensure they could contact her going forward. She’d agreed to other things but it had been impossible to focus on them. The sense of sorrow was confusing or, at least, it was until Akashic manifested.

The demoness appeared sitting on the foot of the bed. She resembled Brivaria’s battle form or, more accurately, Brivaria’s battle form resembled this manifestation of Akashic. Six arms to Brivaria’s two and bat-like wings to angel wings but the rest was the same—two normal legs with toes that ended in claws, forward curling horns, fingers that ended in razor-sharp claws, and a face that could convey emotions other than anger and scorn.

In fact, Akashic’s expression exuded despair and sorrow. The angel didn’t know that demons could cry and suspected it was something in their connection that made their mental bond something of a two-way street. For the first time since the incident, the demoness was truly sad and the raw power of those feelings were stronger than anything the angel had felt through their connection to this point.

“Akashic?” Brivaria asked, not sure what to say.

“I’m dead,” the demon girl said in a hollow voice.

“What? You’re here,” the angel replied with a gesture toward the seated demon.

“No. I am nothing. I am a copy, a shadow of the original, and nothing more. I have no body, no soul, and now that my true self is dead… no purpose.” Brivaria froze.

“I thought you were…” the angel began.

“A demon? Yes. I am or was. I remember creating myself. I remember fighting you in battle and your stupid face when you thought you were winning. I could have swatted you like a fly had that been the goal. Then I remember waking up inside you, stirring to life in this weak and feeble body under the control of a girl who had never had an original thought in her head,” the demoness sneered as she spoke. The angel winced but didn’t look away.

“You wanted to know what happens if you die. Well, now you know. I die too. I have no true self to return to, no hope of even being reclaimed by my true self. There is no point to anything now. My life is over and I wasn’t even there to see my own end. How pathetic.” The words turned inward the more the demon spoke and, by the end, she was simply muttering.

It could have been an act or an elaborate lie for sympathy. Demons were evil, manipulative creatures. As melodramatic as it was to say they lived to spread chaos and discontent, it was more true than not. The angel wouldn’t have put it past the demon save for the fact that the grief was real. It was so strong that, maybe for the first time, it was Brivaria’s turn to feel what Akashic felt.

Brivaria was tempted to reach out to the demoness and to offer comforting words yet she could not. What could the angel say? Akashic was an intruder, a parasite, a thing that had destroyed the angel’s old life and put her here. They weren’t friends or even allies except out of necessity.

Brivaria looked down at the bed, at the dog who was happily sleeping and blissfully unaware of everything around her. Trixie was the best thing that had ever happened to the winged girl. Every day with the happy golden was wonderful. The more Brivaria thought about it, the more true it was.

The real truth, the one she didn’t say aloud to anyone, was that Brivaria was happier right now than she’d ever been back in Heaven performing interventions. Every day was a new adventure and, while all-too-many of them involved people trying to kill her, she was having fun. She had new, exciting skills, got to see the world in a way she’d never seen before, and had friends she cared about. Akashic had been the worst thing to ever happen to Brivaria yet also the catalyst for all the rest. What could the angel say to that? The words came to her after some thought.

“I forgive you,” Brivaria said quietly, just barely audible over the wind, rain, and thunder hammering the inn.

“What?” the demoness asked, breaking out of her own silent, bubble of introspection.

“I forgive you. For doing what you did, for your true self doing what she did, for being the evil witch who stole my old life from me, and for all the rest I know you’re still hiding from me. If not for you, I’d be up in Heaven still performing interventions rotation after rotation forever. I’d have never met Trixie, Kseniya, Nyx, or had all the fun I’ve had. Nyx’s brother is alive and Giselle might get to live and see the world beyond her forest because of us.” Brivaria dragged her fingers through the dog’s golden fur while she spoke.

“What is this? Are you thanking me?” the demoness scoffed at the idea.

“No,” the angel replied firmly. “I’m not thanking you for what you did. You didn’t intend for any of these good things to come from your actions however I’m willing to acknowledge they did. I also know that we’re alive and continue to stay alive because you’ve been willing to help me.”

“And I should continue to do that, I assume? Despite knowing that your angelic friends will ultimately kill me?” the shadowy demon asked.

“Another day alive is better than the alternative. You’re the only Akashic left. Do you want to die a second time because an assassin drove his blade through my heart when you could have stopped it?” the winged girl asked her counterpart.

“I do not know how my true self died but I have to imagine it was a more fitting demise than to the blade of an idiot mortal. To die to such an insignificant creature would be an insult to my own memory so no, I do not want that,” the demon girl admitted.

“Then how about we keep going? You help me figure out these skills and powers. I do my best not to die. We worry about today and let our future selves worry about tomorrow,” Brivaria offered. A flash of lightning illuminated the room through the slits in the window shutters and then a peal of thunder shook the inn. Still, the angel stared at the demon and waited for an answer. Finally, it came.

“I suppose I have little choice. You would be dead within a week without me,” the demoness said through a fanged smile. “And if you keep having these very un-angelic ideas then we can make a proper demon of you yet.”

Brivaria glared at the other woman and Akashic only smiled wider. Somewhere along the way the sense of despair had ebbed. It hadn’t gone away completely and probably wouldn’t. That hollow feeling in her own heart would take time to fill but this was a start. Brivaria felt hopeful that things could get better.

So it was that she engaged Akashic in a discussion of what to do with her last skill point. The angel was very jealous of all those people who could hoard theirs for days to decide what to do with them or even her past self who only needed to follow a script for skill allocations. Decisions were difficult.

By morning, Brivaria was fairly certain she was going to pick Exotic Form Specialist as her level 36 skill. The angel had no desire to shapeshift into bizarre or unusual creatures but it would be a modest discount on the mana cost of many transformations. Her main source of hesitation was the fact that mana costs would naturally go down. It felt a little bad to pick a skill whose only effect would come naturally with time. Akashic fully agreed with the sentiment but it was Brivaria’s best option if she wanted a discount on the mana costs right now.

It was still raining and storming as the group went downstairs to eat breakfast. Giselle was introduced to Candice. Nyx was making a wide variety of hand signals and gestures to indicate Brivaria should stop talking when the angel mentioned Giselle was staying in their room. The winged girl bravely pressed ahead but Candice’s expression changed when Brivaria mentioned she didn’t sleep.

“You don’t sleep?” Candice asked with a bit of incredulity.

“No, I rest for four hours and that refills everything. The main reason I get a room is for Trixie to have somewhere warm and comfortable to sleep,” the angel explained. A wuff of agreement came from under the table as Trixie apparently heard her name mentioned.

“I suppose I don’t have a problem with that then. You were paying for a bed you weren’t even using before. I suppose there’s more of a difference between zephyri and angels than I thought,” the innkeeper admitted. It was obviously true to Brivaria but a lot of people in Velk didn’t know what an angel was let alone how they were different from any other winged Celian. She didn’t hold it against Candice.

“I get that a lot more than you’d think. A lot of people have heard of us vaguely or by name only with no real idea what we’re like,” the angel said with a polite shrug.

“I bet. I was just talking to a gentleman the other day about zephyri/angel conveniences. I want the Alcove to have nice things for non-human visitors. Granted most of those involve chairs that can support a tail or special furniture like the u-shaped chair Miss Kseniya enjoys so much. We were both wondering how you enjoyed your bed considering its size and that of your wings. I was guessing you were shrinking them but I suppose that also explains the mystery,” the innkeeper said with an amused smile. “Miss Giselle, do you need anything for your antlers?”

“Oh, um,” Giselle looked from Candice to Brivaria then back to Candice before replying. “No, I am good. I like very fluffy pillows.”

“Oh yes, I imagine you would. They keep your antlers off the bedding, don’t they?” Candice ventured.

“I suppose they do.” Giselle’s reply was only half true. Brivaria and Nyx shared a knowing smile. The little deer had curled up to sleep on the pillow itself. They would need to get Giselle into the habit of being in her iveskan form but, for now, this was fine. Things were fine.