Earthquakes every day

The mountains spit ash for the first time in generations

How can we ignore the connection?

The Stormmother approaches, and the land of faith quakes!

  Alisandra the self-appointed detective swept into the evidence warehouse and past the constable lieutenant’s desk without pausing. “I am here for the Den heresies.”

  Beyond reception, claustrophobic, rotting rows of shelves groaned under years’ worth of confiscated goods and rotting papers. Opaque windows admitted a muted, orange light, and two listless boys worked a small mountain of materials to be processed.

  If Lumia fell into the sea, the angel imagined this sad lot sorting parcels amongst the fish.

  The lieutenant leaped around his desk and chased after Alisandra. “Good Lady, there is no access to evidence without signed permission!”

  She flicked the relevant paperwork over her shoulder. Such permissions were easy enough to purchase.

  I do not have time for fools. Not while Lumia rattles and Lace remains afoot.

  Even an idiot could guess that the two problems were connected. The problem was how!

  Behind her, the constable plucked the papers from the floor, scowled, and muttered, “Shouldn’t she be at the Conclave with the rest of–”

  “The rotten lot?” Alisandra finished.

  He stiffened. “O-of course not! But today is the first appearance of–”

  “That new Keeper. Yes, I’m aware.”

  A sullen flame flickered in the man’s eyes, but he swallowed his rebellion. “…the Den papers are only partially filed.”

  “That is fine. I won’t be long.”

  While Oliver handled the matter of chasing Lace by foot, Alisandra meant to learn how the last Redeemer thought. That secret would not come from the Mishkan library or public records. She could suspect that Lace engineered the quakes all she wanted, but the witch still required the means to assault Aure’s very Works…

  She took a seat on a teetering stool, waited for the slack-jawed boys to dump the mad notes from burlap sacks onto the table, and chewed her lip.

  The pile of parchment grew alarmingly high.

  When the last sack was spilled, the air felt warmer, as though a pile of runes and secrets drew the ire of an ancient, slumbering eye. An awareness slow to rouse and implacable as tides…

  “Will you require anything else, good Lady?” the constable demanded, breaking her train of thought.

  Alisandra shook her head. The air was no warmer than expected in this fetid warehouse. She needed to stop daydreaming. “No, you are dismissed.”

  Focusing on the task at hand, she plucked the first note from the pile and began to follow the path Donovan carved years before.

  The tale began with a god.

  Aure, lord of fire, was a craftsman in life. Before Blooming, he studied metallurgy and alchemy. Last of the elemental gods to emerge, he witnessed firsthand the horror of war wrought by Tempest, Verdant, and Peak.

  Did he foresee his own part in the fires of war? she wondered. Did he feel the lure of his aspect in the slaughter of hapless men and recoil in disgust? Is that why he fled?

  Yet Aure cared for his homeland, and he left them many gifts before he departed. First and foremost, he quelled the fury of the land; he forged the Isle of Peace.

  Alisandra would have accomplished the feat through the usual means. Reinforce the mantle and redirect the pressure into safe outlets. A feat of engineering rather than magic, this would be achievable through any number of mechanisms. She had always assumed that the pipes in the basement of the Cathedral of Fire were part of that system, quietly redirecting geothermal energy somewhere less volatile. He could even syphon some of that energy to fuel the durability of the Cathedral itself in a manner not far off from Thea’s liquid metal.

  Still, he was an angel, and he aspired to Works.

  He would have witnessed the stagnant brand across Alice Mishkan’s soul, seen the ruin that would bring, and strove to learn from that mistake. Geothermal venting could not build peace. Instead, Aure built his Work from the faith of man. A brand by another name, perhaps; a linked chain of service to endure the ages.

  This Work would require a focal point within human reach.

  Here the story broke, lost in crumbling scrolls, and no Redeemer had been foolish enough to expound on their end game in writing. Yet the signs were there:

  Diagrams of the Conclave and Cathedral of Fire.

  Detailed records of eruptions, exhaustive beyond the needs of any modern geologist.

  Sketches and pictures of the symbols worn by Auren priests in high office and ceremony.

  A charter of the rights and responsibilities of the city managers in Lumia and Mel.

  Underneath a particular sinecure, a dent in the paper as though a thoughtful writer underlined the words with a dry pen.

  By living chain, by faith unbroken, fury would become peace in the heart and soul of the Keeper of the Flame.

  Thus would that insufferable church come to serve a greater purpose.

  Alisandra dropped the papers, her gut burning like the mountains. Then she rose from the table, found the constable lieutenant and his dull-witted boys at the front desk, and demanded a radio.

  At her command, they flipped the channel to the news.

  The broadcaster dutifully announced, “…and the crowds outside the Conclave continue to swell as anxiety over the smoke rises by the day. The church has yet to offer a definitive statement. Is it proper that today’s Conclave focus on the impending arrival of the Azure delegation in this time of…”

  “All they care for is Lynne,” she muttered to herself. “Idiots!”

  The constable glowered at her. As far as he was concerned, she disparaged her reeking peers from two feet deep in a bog.

  I don’t suppose he’d be willing to help me storm the Conclave, then.

  She dropped a gold note on the table to ease his mood and drove home at top speed.

  On the doorstep to her manor, she found Oliver. He hunched on the stoop like a lonely dog, his head in his hands. At the crunch of her tires, he jumped to his feet in relief.

  “Oh, thank heaven!” he shouted. “We need to go!”

  She opened the passenger door. “You found Lace?”

  “Yeah. Caught a glimpse of her delegation leaving the Cathedral of Fire a few hours ago.”

  Alisandra squeezed her eyes shut, though she could not deny what came next. “And she wore robes of red?”

  “Oh, icy hells! You knew?”

  “Only just now.”

  Oliver shook his head. “She’s the damned Keeper of the Flames, Alisandra! The Keeper!” His voice quavered as he muttered, “I’ve spent weeks canvassing every whore house and back alley in the city, and she was sipping tea with her heels kicked up on an oak desk! How could Tura just give it away?”

  Alisandra led him into the mansion. “Because no one remembers what the position means. A sinecure for doddering fools…”

  He trailed after. “And it actually means…?”

  “Earthquakes and fire and fury,” she replied, opening a broom closet. Opening the false wall behind the mop buckets.

  Beyond gleamed assault rifles, ammunition belts, grenades, bayonets, swords…

  Oliver whistled.

  Though I would prefer the Hand of God in this case.

  Alisandra pulled down an assault rifle. “Have you ever shot anything like this?”

  “My grandfather trained me in the longbow!”

  She replaced it on the rack and pulled down a hunting rifle. “This, then.”

  He stared at the gun for a long moment. “…to the Conclave?”

  “Yes.”

  Oliver paled, his loyalties warring across his face.

  “You don’t need to come,” she offered, almost tender. “This is my burden. The doom I should have foreseen.”

  Father would have foreseen it. Sebastian would have foreseen it. Yet they chase after figments and leave mortal men to suffer… Some tiny, treacherous part of her spoke in Mirielle’s voice. Because men live and men die. What difference does that fate make to angels on high?

  The Inventor accepted the hunting rifle and nodded somberly.

  No, she rejected. They care. I know they care.

  But Mirielle’s taunting voice whispered on. Then where are they now?

  Snarling to herself, Alisandra spun to arm herself as well.

  To the Conclave, then, and what must follow.

  No matter who stood in their way.

***

  Charlotte “Lace” Broadleaf surveyed the Conclave from her dais like a queen on high. She smiled to herself, a woman contented, and tapped her staff of office against her calf. Like all Keepers, she wore robes of burning red. Today, however, she took the liberty of modifying her attire.

  She had cut the robes to leave her clavicle bare, and the blackened scars of her brand stood stark against her pale skin for all to see. Let them follow the ravaged channels from chin to shoulder; let them read the holy words still legible from where the metal passed judgement on a child.

  Did she not honor the words?

  They exhorted her to seek purity.

  She did.

  The assembly stared. Oh, how they stared.

  She especially enjoyed the strained faces of those who once enjoyed her Dreamer’s Den. She had been their little party fling; their secret on the side; their diversion for the idly amused. Now they were only here because she had spared them the invitation to the massacre.

  Because she wanted to have them watch on the day of fate.

  The Inquisitors hissed in their corners, but what could they do? She was the Keeper of the Flame, and the appointment to that position came with ritual absolution. After all, the Keeper needed to be pure.

  How unfortunate that no one seemed to remember why such ceremony surrounded the ceremonial dotage of old priests.

  Even as she preened, the church schemed and whispered. There would be some pretext to cast her down. They would find some sin for their case, present it before deacons who quietly agreed, and see this strumpet stripped bare.

  They scheme for next week, and the fire arrives today.

  Swishing her skirt, she called, “Have all assembled?”

  A nervous altar boy raced to her dais and bowed. “No further Houses remain to be seated this day, Keeper.”

  Approximately a third of the Houses remained absent, their excuses thin mutterings of planting season and inclement weather.

  This will have to do, she lamented. I will not suffer Donovan’s fate. I will move faster than petty gods.

  “Very good,” she purred. “Let us begin.”

  As the altar boys called the Conclave to order, Lace mounted the pulpit and surveyed her audience.

  Most of the nobles lounged, trading whispers of gossip about this branded interloper.

  She wondered if her brand would burn with hatred if it could feel anything at all.

  “I am Charlotte Broadleaf,” she began, eschewing the prayer to Aure. Her fire was closer to home. “As you might guess from my name, my parents were immigrants. They were born in the Verdant, and they came to Ruhum seeking shelter from the storm.”

  The nobles stilled, tolerating her speech the same as any Keeper’s indulgence.

  Like lambs to the slaughter.

  “They were branded heretics for what they knew. Animal husbandry. It is a crime here, isn’t it? When I was a child, I kept elemental beasts for pets, and for that…”

  Charlotte tapped her brand.

  “I was eight when Aure’s fire kissed me.”

  Still they endured in silence. They were untouchable. She could rant, rave and tear her clothes. When she finished, they would review the performance over wine.

  She let the staff of the Keeper clatter to the floor. From her robes, she drew forth the stolen chisel of Aure. It thrummed in her fingers and strained her arms, a weight grown by each passing day. Then she drew forth a small, ruddy pebble, stained and sanctified by blood. Finally, she withdrew the black scale that hummed with such useful power.

  “Like many girls, my first sacrifice was too young,” she said. “Ah, but what would you know of that? What would you know of selling your bodies for bread? Of waiting to see whether a brand would turn septic or merely render one crippled for life?”

  Her voice began to sizzle, and a tremor shivered through the Conclave floor.

  “You claim to worship before flame, but what would you know of fire?”

  The witch cupped the black scale between her hands and reached deep inside herself. To a smoldering flicker of hate now joined by a deeper, resonant power.

  The shivering ground rumbled deeper.

  She released the scale like a butterfly, and it floated skyward like a hopeful star.

  It drew their stares, their admiration, and their pitiful dreams upwards.

  “Dream with me, my Conclave. Dream with me of fire and endings.”

  In the west, the mountains began to roar.

  Outside, the ground buckled.

***

  As Alisandra and Oliver sped into Mel, they spied an odd discoloration in the sky. Not the thickening smoke that hid the peaks to the west but a flock of fiery red that swirled and seethed in the sky above the Conclave.

  Just past the first intersection, the earthquakes returned. The highway cracked, the trees shuddered, and the buildings of crowded Mel shed a hail of shingles onto the sidewalks in a furious hail.

  Alisandra hardly slowed, swerving between debris and wagons at speed.

  Oliver clung to the dashboard, swearing. It was the perfect vantage to recognize the cloud above Mel.

  Every phoenix in Ruhum not clutching now fled to the skies above the Conclave. A great flock of them whipped through the air in a panic, screaming warnings to the world below.

  “Could there be so many in the whole nation?” he whispered. In pious, reserved Ruhum? “They must be a thousand strong…”

  A ravenous crack in the earth split open, and an entire block of House-owned shops began a ponderous slide into the depression.

  “Hells! Alisandra, we have to help!”

  “We have to stop the witch!” she snarled back. “Look to the west!”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  To the peaks, shrouded in black fog. Yet from the center of the haze, a strange orange light flickered and gleamed, trickling down the slopes in thin filaments.

  Thin at this distance. Up close those flows would swallow a village whole.

  “She’s going to burn us all…”

  The Inventor would have expected the throngs to flee to the Conclave for safety. As they skidded around the tight corner, though, he understood why the crowds fled away.

  Rivers of lava surrounded the Conclave like a moat, and the air itself lit the nearby buildings on fire. The Conclave itself remained utterly unscathed, golden and impervious, but no man could hope to bridge the open flames to find its safety.

  Alisandra, of course, aimed for the cracked lip of the road and floored it.

  Her car shot across the gap, and the cabin became very uncomfortably warm in even the brief moment flying above the bubbling rock.

  Then they slammed across the golden steps and rammed into the pedestal of a lion statue. Balloons exploded from the panel to catch Oliver by the face before he brained himself on the dash, and the car shuddered to a stop.

  Above them, the throng of phoenix continued to scream warnings, but none swept to clear the flames or cool the lava.

  “That’s not right,” the Inventor slurred, fumbling against the pillows. “They should drive it back…”

  Alisandra drew her knife and stabbed his airbags. “Born of fire, they will not defy its return. We kill Lace, or they will brood in the ashes of Ruhum.”

  They stumbled free of the car, fetched their weapons from the trunk, and mounted the steps. Alisandra marched forth like a warrior queen, her sword held low and ready; Oliver followed, his knuckles white on the rifle.

  A desolate atrium greeted them, personal effects abandoned where they fell. Refugee suitcases crowded the wings, and reporter cameras clustered by the closed Conclave door.

  The great dome of Aure no longer shone with honeyed light. It merely reflected the overcast sky and the shadows of a thousand hawks.

  “Where is everyone?” Oliver whispered.

  Alisandra leaned against the Conclave door and listened. After a moment, she beckoned him over.

  He leaned against the door. Through the thick wood, he heard the chatter of a young woman quite pleased with herself.

  “Second floor,” Alisandra muttered. “Church balcony.”

  Together, they backed from the door and hurried to the stairs. Every dozen feet, Alisandra paused to listen for footsteps, but the Conclave remained as silent as a mausoleum. The rustle of phoenix wings echoed like hissing thunder, and the world beyond the golden sanctuary rumbled, but no one barred their way or begged for help.

  When they reached the church balcony, he understood why.

  The priests, choir boys, deacons, and Inquisitors stood at attention, staring in mute wonder at the stage below. They rocked back and forth like wheat in the wind, faces slack with ecstasy.

  The black scale floated in the middle of the Conclave, vibrating with the force of its demand.

Rapture.

Worship.

Let there be no other stars in the sky

No other light

  Oliver jerked backwards, shaking his head.

  Alisandra clasped him on the shoulder, crouching behind the balustrade.

  After a moment, he gathered himself. That damned thing won’t ensnare me this time.

  It tugged at the edges of his mind like an undertow, but he heeded his own music now.

  The woman on the dais continued to ramble happily to an audience of dolls. She prattled, her words slurred and tumbling, too low to carry across the pews. The red robes of the Keeper swished behind her, the heavy hood cloaking her face.

  Beside Oliver, one of the priests grinned like a newly married groom while weeping in pain.

  “No more!” hissed the Inventor. “No longer will we bow for these trinkets of higher beings!”

  He steadied his courage, checked his grip, and swung upright to shoot Lace.

  As he trained the sights, the woman swung both arms wide in jubilation.

  Both arms.

  Oliver swore, ducking down. “That’s not Lace!” he hissed.

  “Oh, dear,” echoed the Redeemer from her hidden vantage. “Oliver, was one brush with death insufficient? The firebird will not save you this time.”

  Alisandra searched the hall, tensed to spring. “We’ve been looking for you, Charlotte!”

  “And you have found me, Alisandra Mishkan.” Charlotte laughed. “The weather is wonderful, is it not?”

  Another tremor rocked the Conclave.

  “Can you see her?” Alisandra asked quietly.

  “No,” Oliver muttered, casting about. “Too many echoes.”

  “Oh, but I can see you,” Charlotte replied gaily. “I can feel your disbelief burning atop the marble tiles. You are like a tick burrowed in my flesh, and I feel you fester. Let’s burn the rot out, shall we?”

  At her laugh, the enchanted nobles and visitors of the Conclave shifted as one to stare at the balcony where the duo hid. The feet of mindless slaves began to tromp.

  “Perhaps a moan or two?” orchestrated the Keeper of the Flame.

  Obediently, the priests and altar boys of the balcony began to moan like dying men. Their voices rose and fell theatrically, and they stretched grasping hands.

  “Wonderful!” Charlotte laughed. “Perhaps after this I’ll march a few Houses into the moat and watch them sizzle.”

  Alisandra swore. “That black scale is the key. Try to find where she is hiding!”

  “Wait, what?!”

  With no further direction, the angel leaped over the balustrade to the pews twenty feet below. She landed in a crash of wood amongst the pews.

  “I’ve never been in this wing before!” Oliver objected. Swearing, the Inventor broke from hiding and ran for the stairs.

  A score of enchanted dolls followed.

  More reached for Alisandra, but she rolled from the debris and slipped between their hands with a fighter’s grace. When they grew too close, she struck them open-palmed with just enough force to drive them away. Eyes fixed on the black scale, she carved her way towards the stage.

  As she drew closer the air began to vibrate, but false songs did not so easily appeal to an angel.

  A Light so gaudy and a promise so thin. If mortal minds fall prey so easily to such cheap lies, then I will break its hold!

  The woman in the Keeper’s robes met her at the edge of the stage, brandishing a dagger.

  Alisandra snatched her by the wrist and flipped the woman over a shoulder with a twist of the hips. The woman hit the stage heavy, exhaling with a pained grunt. Before she could rise, Alisandra flung the dagger into the far corner of the Conclave and twisted the woman’s voluminous robes into a tangle.

  “Stay put!” she ordered.

  Though she would not admit it, Alisandra’s blood sang. This was what she trained for! By honeyed word or sharpened blade, she would meet every threat! She would stand among the predators and prove herself their equal!

  She turned her attention to the scale. Coiling, she surged, reaching for the artifact on high.

  A ward flared, and a fireball exploded around the scale. The flames licked at her fingers like a blacksmith’s forge.

  Yet even as her fingers smoked, Alisandra grasped the scale.

  Grasped and witnessed.

Ponderous and pitted, the Shadow floated through the depths between stars.

Patient as the Gate

Old as Eden

And Hungry

  She fell to the stage and stumbled, clutching the black scale in her burnt hand. It was cold like a knife, sucking at her blood like a tick!

Lumia howls

Titans war

Is this what will be or what has been?

  Of course it burns, she thought distantly, but was she thinking of Lace’s enchantment or the scale?

A shadow squirmed in her fingers like an egg ripe to hatch.

Awareness grew in the shadows of her mind.

The Shadow shuddered.

An eyelid twitched…

  In the moment when that awareness brushed against her own, a spark of Light shot from Alisandra into the distant sky. Like lightning bridging two metal rods, the signal arced across the dark gulf in a single moment, and she was known.

Angel…

  There lurked awareness and anticipation in equal measure in that one word.

  Charlotte would bring ruin to this world. She would make it a beacon to all the dark, hungry creatures of the depths.

  How easily the young angel uttered the word monster, but now she felt it in her bones.

  Revolted, shivering, she brought Light and Will together to crush that scale between her palms.

  But that would not erase the signal sent forth for all to hear…

  “Foolish witch!” she hissed, flinging the shards away. “Do you have any idea what you call?!”

  The fragments melted into black smears where they fell.

  “Even angels are drawn to Light,” Charlotte replied happily, her voice near.

  There had been no footsteps upon the stage.

  Alisandra whirled, seeking. In one moment, she absorbed two things:

  First, Charlotte’s familiar boots glowed, runes of levitation carved into the sole.

  Second, she considered for the first time the wide, fluttering tapestries that floated behind the Conclave stage – fabric thick enough to mask even a grown woman.

  Then the chisel of Aure, empowered by a stone born of blood, sang through the air to fill her vision.

***

  In the halls of Eleos, the Archangel Gabriel warred once more with an old foe. This one was a dark stalker, many mouthed, the lingering dread of a woken nightmare; it reached for him with the visage of Alice and the anguish of Alisandra, flinging the foolish ties to others in his face.

  A thunderbolt cracked the heavens, connecting minds across the vastness of space. Beckoning all that was hungry to find a world of plenty.

Angel…

  The stalker sensed his distraction and rushed forward with a hundred wide mouths.

  Gabriel wove Light between his fingers and threw it forward. The shield swelled, filling the station’s hallway, and slammed the stalker into the bulkhead thirty feet away.

  Curse me for a fool! I have sought the wrong darkness!

  “My apologies,” he told the furious creature. “We will have to cut this session short.”

  Therapy would have to wait. He abandoned the pretense of Eleos as a place for walking. In turn, the moon station around him evaporated into dew. Beating his wings, he shot through the rune of mercy without movement, banked on the need of a father, and flew with all haste for the places where distance had meaning.

  Ruhum was not prepared for the hungry, cruel creatures beyond its star. What did they know of tyranny? The darkness would come, and he would not leave his daughter to face it alone!

***

  Oliver ran without a plan. How was he to find Charlotte in a Conclave he barely knew while chased by the zombie masses of priests and altar boys?! He swerved at random junctures, hoping to evade pursuit in the labyrinth of offices and hallways.

  The older priests could not keep pace, and his pursuit dwindled to a handful of altar boys and a woman in a rich blue gown.

  He glanced back in surprise. “Angela Cecille?!”

  Expressionless, the Cecille sister charged after him at terrifying speed.

  He sucked in a breath of air and redoubled his speed. His legs quivered and his gut burned. Apparently, months of desk work with Inventions softened him at last! Juking to the right and then diving to the left, he fooled no one.

  Angela breathed down his neck, her face red with exertion but her eyes blank as glass.

  Then an explosion rocked the Conclave.

  Oliver stumbled over, cracked his knees on the tiles, and lost his grip on the rifle. It clattered down the nearby stairs, and he clung helplessly to the railing as the tremors continued.

  Behind him, the alter boys collapsed, and Angela staggered like a reeling drunk.

  Though Oliver could not explain why, he felt a keen loss rise in his throat. He mourned without understanding, his heart understanding what his mind had no evidence to yet grasp.

  “I saw…” Angela whispered. “I saw…”

  “Lies and false promises,” Oliver wheezed. “The false Light she used to kill everyone at the Dreamer’s Den. Tried to use to kill me. Just breathe.”

  “A witch’s spell…?” Her eyes fixated on the Inventor. “Were you part of this?!”

  “I was too late,” he admitted. “But repeated exposure to the Light…”

  To a soft demon’s lullaby…

  “The lies stop working.”

  Angela sneered.

  A gay and bubbling laughter interrupted them both. The laughter preceded the witch down the hallway as she skipped like a giddy child.

  “Oliver,” sang Lace. “Oh, Oliver. I know you’re there. You don’t believe anymore…you have given yourself over to that angelic harlot… I can feel you inside my Conclave.”

  Oliver and Angela locked eyes.

  Grudges and questions would have to wait.

  “The rifle,” he whispered, pointing after his weapon. “I can’t surprise her.”

  Not if she could feel his every step.

  Here was hoping Angela Cecille was pious.

  The Cecille nodded, darting out of sight, and Oliver hauled himself upright to face the Redeemer.

  She swished around the corner, playing with the hem of her cut Keeper’s robes. She broke into a smile at the sight of him. “Oh, Oliver. You missed it! I killed her, Oliver. I killed your angel.”

  He froze, all gambits forgotten.

  “The fires rise, my dear, and warm my breast.” Lace stopped a dozen paces away and pressed her hands to her heart. In one, she still held the bloodied chisel of Aure – and the blood gleamed with Light. “How wonderful to share the pain! We’re finally a family. The fire will brand us all.”

  She can’t be dead, he thought dumbly. She’s an angel! She can’t be dead!

  “Bow to me, Oliver. Beg on hands and knees, and I will let you live to witness the ashes. I admit that I was quite cross at your little betrayal, but I am feeling magnanimous.”

  Ears ringing and hands shaking, he slowly knelt. If it gave Angela another second, he would lick her bloody boots.

  “Oh, what a good pup. Your last owner not even cool and you already grovel. Is it so hard, Oliver?”

  She passed the stairwell, chisel close at hand in case the boy decided on bravery.

  Two steps past the steps, she heard the sound of a rifle cocking, whirled, and raised her weapon.

  As such, the bullet caught her square in the chest.

  Charlotte “Lace” Broadleaf tumbled to the tiles like one of her dolls. Her free hand groped to her breast and felt the blood flowing with the beat of her heart, and she managed a weak laugh.

  “Of course,” she rasped, fixing her gaze on Angela. “The Inquisitor at the last.”

  Angela reloaded the rifle, the motion far too smooth and practiced for a genteel hostess, and waited for Lace to move again.

  But the Redeemer could not manage better final words, and she slumped in a growing pool of blood.

  “Did she have any accomplices?” the Inquisitor demanded. Gone were all pretenses of the polite, high-class socialite. Now spoke the woman who brought people terror in the night.

  “None that live,” Oliver breathed.

  “I have questions for you.” Angela now regarded the rifle, machined to specifications even Novia would envy.

  “Go to hell,” he dared her.

  Oliver shoved past the Inquisitor and hurried down the stairs.

  She can’t be dead. She can’t be dead…

***

  “Stay with me, Alisandra!”

  Oliver?

  “Stay with me!”

  His voice broke, a sob bitten back.

  She could feel his shoulder blades under her. He carried her like a wounded comrade, staggering over the jumble of unconscious House nobles in the Conclave.

  She tasted blood, and her eyes would not focus. She was wounded, something shattered in her skull.

  But shouldn’t she heal?

  Wasn’t she made of Light?

  “Focus on my voice!”

  Everything was made of Light, really, and all the motes drifted away sooner or later…

  “We’ll get you to Sebastian! You just have to stay with me!”

  Sebastian was gone to his quest. She felt the journey calling.

  “Just a bit longer!”

  This is not my first dying, she realized in wonder.

  The cycle repeated like the Harvest dance. Swing her partner, round and round…

  Motes of Light drifting apart, her sense of self stretching like particles of dust in the wind. There was somewhere she needed to be.

  A Song in welcome beyond the Gate.

  Why couldn’t she hear the Song-path forward?

  “Alisandra, you are stronger than this! Remember when I hit you with the car? You laughed! You just laughed!”

  There was grief in his trembling voice. A lover’s grief, finally unmasked by desperate need.

  “You’re not going to let a couple of carpentry tools take you down, Alisandra! You can’t!”

  She clutched words together amongst her scattering thoughts.

  “Sorry, Oliver…”

  The center could not hold.

  “Alisandra?!” His voice echoed from far away.

  I’m sorry, Oliver. This is how the Harvest dance ends.

  She fell and scattered.

  Head over heels through darkness and dirt. A cavern, vast as the distance between lovers, where gemstones of heart-catching, pure color glittered in every direction. Tumbling, she reached for them.

  For a moment the gems were stars amidst galaxies.

  Then they were notes in a Song.

  Father. I’m sorry. Why did I think I could possibly keep up with you?

  This was the path; her soul remembered the tumble, the fall, the way.

  The gemstones grew dim with distance, and the roar of air slowly faded into a thick silence. Still she fell. In the gap between thoughts, a deeper Song began to hum.

  Far removed from the noise of blood, bone and breath, there were notes which intertwined like wildflowers; notes which vibrated from the very base of the cavern to the highest sky; notes that led the sun upon its route and gravity through its fall.

  Free of the chatter of living, she heard the Chorus at last. Drumbeats that held the rhythm of time; gentle notes that cajoled forth bounty; subtle tones that cut near from far…

  Foundations upon which all might rest.

  An ancient Song to welcome the weak and the lost. A road to the end of darkness.

  With that thought, she hit the ground in a tangle of limbs. There she laid, weak and weary, at the very base of the cavern where thought and memory travelled to embrace their end.

  Almost home.

  The Chorus sang without rest through the airless dark. They held the notes of worship as only angels could – breathless and eternal.

  Groaning, Alisandra shoved to her feet. She ached for home – for golden light, old companions, and the taste of foods without earthly names. Ambrosia and repose shared with friends from lifetimes past.

  The terror of birth stands like a sentinel against our return. Tempting, ever tempting, to remain in the Light. It is so cold in the world below the Gate…

  She rose at the edge of a grand promenade. The Chorus lined the path, a procession of marble figures lit by their own inner Light. Water and flame, bone and gold, proudly naked and grand as dreams. Here, they served with all that they were.

  Alisandra approached the nearest in quiet awe. By martyr’s blood we yet stand. By service pure we may know firm ground.

  The angel loomed, a ripple of feathers and fire trapped in quiet stone. Dead and undying. Frozen yet dancing. The wings slipped in the corner of her eyes, movement only in the blinking. As she focused, a single note in the Song grew.

  Does it hurt? the young angel wanted to ask, but she could not break the holy silence with such childish words. Who was she to disturb their slumber?

  She swallowed softly and found a better question. “Where did you find your strength?”

  The angel in stone sang gentle breeze and blowing gale. The rippling wings harbored storms and snows.

  “You would consign yourself for weather?” the young angel marveled.

  Without moving, wings parted. At the center of the angel, there glowed an orb. A planet, verdant and ripe.

  “For a world?”

  Each wing cradled another, a thousand thousand gardens grown.

  Alisandra understood, and she gasped at the audacity. “For all worlds!”

  For the very conception of worlds; for the vast sky littered with new homes, far and wide, safely removed from ancient Eden’s fall.

  Gingerly, Alisandra pressed her fingers to the stone. “Do…do you know my father?”

  The angel remained stone, dead and distant. Perhaps the question was unworthy.

  “If you see him, please tell him that I’m sorry.”

  The young angel swallowed her grief. Mourning was for those who remained, and she was nearly home.

  Witnessed by the Chorus, she marched the promenade. Angels stronger than her held vigil here. They served even now, their shoulders to bear the world in death undying until the Gate opened.

  They offered neither judgement nor solace, and the Song washed over her.

  After a thousand steps, she felt her destination. The angels who served here were ancient and hoary things, forms little more than abstract dances of color and concept teasing at the edge of mind. How long had such beings held their watch...?

  Between one step and the next, she found the Black Gate at the end of life.

  Two twisted pillars of stark white bone.

  A rune carved in simple script: Eternity.

  Black within black, void carved through all things.

  The Gate expanded and unfolded, stretching to the heights of the cavern and devouring the promenade.

  “Time to go home.”

  She left her fear behind. It would only hurt at first.

  The Gate encompassed sight and mind, the final pain before glory.

  Alisandra bowed her head, approaching as the pilgrim.

  Will I meet Mother?

  One step, then another, braced for the shock to come. The burning flame that scoured sin away, leaving the soul ready to return to paradise. Much might be lost in a life poorly lived, but always the core returned to tell the greater whole what was learned like an eager child after a day at the park…

  What will remain of Alisandra? Of this me?

  Then would be the moment of surrender and a feeling like being lifted by loving hands…

  Another step, hesitant.

  Should the way be this far?

  To meet those who awaited her beyond…

  Head bowed, Alisandra Mishkan smacked headfirst into the Black Gate, a barrier beyond her ken.

  For a moment her entire world rang with the sour vibration of rejection.

  For Light and ease denied.

  “What…?”

  She pressed her hand against the Gate, a cold so sharp that its shadow could kill a man. It burned like fire, but she leaned forward and shoved regardless.

  The Gate remained unmoved.

  “What is this? My head was split, my body broken. Open the way!”

  Behind her, the Chorus Sang on in blithe service.

  She pounded against the Gate. “Open the way home!”

You will be needed before the end.

  No one spoke, but she heard.

You who dreamed of darkness and answered our call.

How will you shine?

  A cold and uncomfortable reality dawned on Alisandra. A truth to embrace or flee.

  Something terrifying in scope and span, enough to drive Mirielle from the Mishkan name.

  No Guardian forbid this angel access to her garden, her heart realm, her power. No Foundation would tear the knowledge of holy words from her lips or blanket her memories from lives once lived. No Song would demand her march to the Gate and the respite beyond.

  For she was whole.

  All Alisandra Mishkan was stood here before the Gate. A single being. A single soul.

  Nothing reserved.

  A home surrendered.

  For Eternity.

  Words her father spoke to another echoed for her ears: There was never any guarantee that we would win. Merely that we would endure.

  The Gate remained.

  This then was Reverie: the wanderings of the dead without dying; the slumber of those who only dreamed of unobtainable Light; the meandering of homeless shades.

  Alisandra turned to the promenade and let her gaze drift to the sky. Pinpricks of life glimmered a lifetime’s journey above. Or below. Even as she watched, they fell here and there like meteorites. They abandoned the solid world above and raced gleeful, joyous, for the Gate at which she stood.

  They whisked past her and into the Gate without a sound.

  I will never be called for by name.

  “Now what?” she asked, small and lost.

  The Chorus Sang on.

  The answer waited as she shook in despair. Eyes squeezed, fists clenched, bent forward in mourning for her own reprieve.

When no living man remembers the greatest legends of this time, not in name nor myth nor fairy tale, you will have grasped the first grain in the hourglass that is eternity.

  When she opened her eyes, the promenade was gone, and only the wind through the trees filled her ears.

  A path of flowers in Spring gleamed before her, and a butterfly waited atop the edge of a wooden wagon.

  “I will never see her,” Alisandra whispered. “My mother is beyond my reach.”

  How could her Father smile when he too bore this knowledge?!

  “We have chosen divergent paths.”

  The butterfly regarded her patiently.

  “I have signed the bill, sight unseen.” She shuddered. “What can be worth this price?”

  Her vaunted strength had been bought at too steep a cost.

  I cannot accept this.

  Alisandra approached the wagon.

  “We journey.”