Faith and Damnation (Fall of the

Lightbringer Book 2) Katerina Martinez

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FAITH AND DAMNATION
FALL OF THE LIGHTBRINGER
BOOK TWO

KATERINA MARTINEZ
 CONTENTS
Before we proceed
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
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Also by Katerina Martinez
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 BEFORE WE PROCEED

This book is intended for mature audiences and will contain dark elements, including violence.
 C HAPTER ONE

SARAKIEL

R age could nly get me so far, but my wings were weak. I had been flying for what felt like days, putting as much distance
between Meridian and myself as I could. Behind me, where the sky met the water, there were monsters, and Tyrants,
and far too much pain for any being to face at once.
It had broken me. Something inside me had finally snapped, and after the brief moment of euphoria I had experienced upon
first breaching the thick, grey mantle of clouds that clung to the Earth… had come the anger, and then, the rage.
The Archangel Medrion, architect of the pain that wracked me, had escaped my vengeance. I’d had him—for a second, I’d
had him—but I’d hesitated. My heart, and what foolish goodness existed inside of me, had stayed my hand, preventing me from
delivering the killing blow and soothing the nightmarish memories I carried with me. Memories of the time I spent in his care.
He was long gone now, and I had no way of tracing him. No way of knowing what rock he had decided to hide under to lick
his wounds. What remained of Meridian in the wake of the Wretched’s attack, I didn’t know. All those angels, so many of them
now dead, consumed for their Light by creatures who had none of their own but craved it above all else.
I felt for them.
Medrion was good at putting on a strong face—the face of a savior. Their only crime was believing he was exactly that,
and not knowing the truth of him; not seeing the rot festering just underneath the mask. They had died blind and screaming…
that was no way for an angel to go.
Then there was him.
The Tyrant.
Another I had left behind another I would rather forget. When I thought about him—and I tried not to—all I found was
confusion, and in that confusion… rage. He had found me, after I had fallen. He scooped me up, pulled me away from the
Wretched barreling down on me, and brought me to his Bastion where I would be safe.
Safe from it, at least.
The angels under the Tyrant’s command hadn’t seen a woman in so long, they’d thought I was fair game. Some paid a hefty
price for trying to take advantage of me—paid in pain. That, I’d thought, had been the Tyrant’s way of marking me. Of making
sure everyone around him knew that I was under his protection.
That I was… his… as much as I could be, anyway.
I can’t say I hadn’t grown fond of him during our time together. He was cold, and cruel, and possessive. He wore the marks
of the sinner—dark horns and bat-like wings—like badges of honor. But underneath all that was an angel, a once radiant being
of the purest Light. Falling from Heaven had changed him. This world had changed him. That didn’t mean there wasn’t good
left in him.
I had fallen for it.
Hook, line, and sinker.
I had gotten too close to him… almost intimately close. Whenever we were near each other, Lust lurked, invisible, and
hungry. For a while, I had wanted to give in, to find out how it felt to give into temptation and lose myself in Lust’s powerful
current. Now, I was glad I hadn’t, because when I thought of him, I couldn’t keep myself from seeing her.
Kalmiya.
Medrion had captured her during a raid on one of the Tyrant’s convoys. I, more than anyone, knew what that meant, and
what Medrion was capable of subjecting her to; especially now that all of God’s angels had Fallen and become partly mortal.
But when we freed her, and I saw her with the Tyrant… when I saw the way he looked at her, and cared for her, and
demanded that I heal her, it had brought up bile. Bile because he hadn’t spared a second to check whether I was okay. Bile
because he hadn’t questioned Aithen’s absence; Aithen who had died in such a brutal manner, his skull caved in and crushed
under Medrion’s foot. Bile because Medrion had told me Kalmiya and the Tyrant were lovers… and I hadn’t believed his
words.
 That was where rage lived.
There, in the look the Tyrant gave me, the concern for her in his eyes. Had he just used me to get her back? Had he pushed
me into Medrion’s jaws as a distraction, for the sole purpose of extracting his lover? What did that make me to him?
Disposable. Just like Aithen, and just like everyone else.
There was a reason they called him the Tyrant, a manner in which he had gained his namesake. I was glad I had left him
behind; him and all the rest of them. All of them except Aithen. Poor Aithen. He was the only angel who showed me any true
compassion, or kindness. He wanted nothing from anyone; he only wanted to make the best of the lot he had been given.
Though Medrion was gone, I had not given up on vengeance. I would find him, one day, and I would make him pay for what
he did to me, what he did to Gadriel, and what he did to Aithen. And as for the Tyrant? He had also made my list.
I had been soaring over water for some time, ruminating over the events of the past few weeks. I wasn’t sure when exactly
I’d left solid ground behind, but I knew I had to keep flying. I had to find Helena, another Bastion of angels, another home for
the Fallen. I didn’t know what it looked like, or where exactly it was, I only had a general direction to fly toward.
But flying was no longer an option; or, at least, it would stop being an option soon. All around me there was only water.
Water and clouds, as far as the eye could see. Already I was feeling the effects of dehydration, hunger, and extreme fatigue. I
hadn’t slept in days, or eaten, or even had a sip of water despite how much of it there was around me. I knew well enough not
to drink salt water though, that it would only make things worse.
The question I was faced with now was simple; do I keep going, or do I turn around?
Going back to find sustenance would make finding Helena even harder. I hadn’t steered off course since I got into the air,
but I knew if I turned around, I would inevitably get lost. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to push on.
I forced my wings to beat again, pushing myself higher into the air where the clouds were thinner. I had gotten used to
soaring, to gliding. In truth, it felt good to be up here, amongst the clouds. It felt like home somehow, or as close as I could get
at least. But I couldn’t keep this up forever. I needed to land, I needed to find shelter, and I needed it fast.
The wind whooshed past me, a cool breeze caressing my tired face. I shut my eyes and turned my head toward the brush of
air, allowing it to refresh me and reinvigorate me as much as it could.
Then I felt it.
A pulse at the edge of my senses.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw it. Light. It was bright enough that I could see it even at this height. A lighthouse? I
wasn’t sure. It shone brightly, but it seemed too low against the surface of the water. Wings aching, I knew I would have to dive
beneath the clouds to get a better view.
Instead of controlling my descent, I curled my wings up behind my back and let myself plummet. The rush of wind through
my hair and my feathers was heavenly, a reprieve, but as I raced through the air, falling rapidly into the mantle of clouds
beneath me, I felt my mind float away from my body. I knew I was falling too fast, but I was too exhausted to do anything about
it.
Something inside of me refused oblivion’s call. I fought off the encroaching darkness, keeping myself awake and conscious.
I opened my eyes, unfurled my aching wings, and with a force of will managed to twist myself around in the air as I fell,
leveling out and soaring gently above the sparkling water beneath me.
There was definitely a light down there… bright, shining, and powerful. It wasn’t man-made, either; it was pure, and warm,
and welcoming. A beacon amidst the vast nothingness all around it. This beacon sat on an island that was little more than a
rock jutting out of the water. It wasn’t until I drew much closer to it that I realized it wasn’t just an island, or a rock, or a light.
It was a Bastion.
The light was coming from a tall, white tower set into the side of a long dead volcano. Around the tower were tall, white
walls, similar to the ones that surrounded Meridian. This Bastion wasn’t nearly as large, but the tower was twice as tall, and
its light shone far across the water. At night, I was sure, this thing could’ve been seen from all the way across the horizon.
It was Helena. I could feel it. I had found Helena.
Tears stung my eyes, and as they formed, the wind rushing past my face picked them up and scooped them into the air. I
soared closer, my flight path wobbling as I approached the Bastion. I was weak.
Thinking I may have found shelter, I may have found aid, the promise of a warm bed, a meal, and all the water I could
possibly drink, had suddenly sapped what little energy I had left inside of me.
As I neared the white tower and its walls, I thought I saw movement on the parapets. People, angels, their wings unfurling.
They were drawing weapons—even from up here I could see the glimmer of steel—but
I could only hope they would ask questions before using those weapons on me, because I was rapidly losing control of my
limbs, and my vision was again starting to blur, to darken. I was getting closer, and while I was able to pull up to avoid
slamming into the parapets, I wasn’t able to slow myself down.
I slammed into the ground like a rock, striking it first with my shoulder, then rolling onto my wings, and tumbling over
myself like a sock in a drier. The world spun, and spun, and then slid, until eventually I came to a complete stop. I didn’t know
what state I was in, or how serious my injuries were as I slowly succumbed to the encroaching darkness. I heard a commotion,
but the sounds were distant, and they warbled like I was underwater. Shadows covered me, then I saw the faces of angels,
bright, and shining, and as vibrant as the light that had drawn me to them.
Then I heard a voice I thought I recognized.
“Get her inside, quick!” they said, “And get a Lightbringer down here right now!”
“I… am a Lightbringer,” I croaked, the words ripping their way out of my throat.
“Quiet, Sarakiel—conserve your strength.” Someone tapped me against the forehead. “Sleep.”
In an instant I greeted unconsciousness like an old friend… and drifted off into the dark.
 C H A P T E R T WO

MEDRION

“F orgive me, father, for I have sinned,” I said, gazing at my own navel. “It has been centuries since my last confession.”
“Centuries?” asked the man across from me. His voice was old and withered. I could not see him for the partition
between us, but I could smell the stink of cigarette smoke from his vestments. “Surely that is a figure of speech, my
son.”
“It feels like centuries. Maybe more.”
“The weight of sin can feel this way. It is a burden we carry.”
“What do you know of sin?”
“I… know much about sin. Far too much. I also know I can help you.”
“Can you?”
“If not, why would you have come here?”
I brushed my hand through my hair and took a deep breath in through the nose. “Curiosity,” I said, leaning my head against
the hard, wooden wall behind me.
“Confession. That is why you are here. That is how I can help you.” He paused. “Unburden yourself upon me, and by the
grace of God, I will absolve you of your sins.”
A smirk curled the corner of my mouth. “By the grace of God…” I echoed, pushing the last word out through my teeth.
“Where should I begin, father?”
“At the beginning. I am here to listen.”
I allowed myself a moment to consider the priest’s words. This was a man who had devoted his entire life in service to
God, to my creator. A man who believed he could absolve the sins of another, simply because they asked forgiveness.
He did not know what I knew.
He did not know the capricious, vengeful nature of the deity who brought me into Her world. But in truth, I was curious.
What if this man did have a connection to God that even I didn’t? What if he could reach Her where I and the rest of my people
could not?
I owed it to myself to explore this option. If he could indeed speak to God, then maybe my problems were solved. If he
could not… I would have to look elsewhere for answers to the questions that kept me up at night and plagued my every waking
moment.
“I am impure,” I said, having chosen my words.
“You have impure thoughts?” ventured the priest.
“No, father. I am an impure being. Imperfect. Tarnished. I am the son of a self-righteous, vengeful, petty creator who never
once cared about the damage She could inflict on the people she claimed to care about.”
“Often our parents don’t know how to show us the extent of their love. They are only human, after all. Flawed. Imperfect,
as you say.”
I turned my gaze to the side and stared at the man on the other side of the partition. It was difficult to get a clear image of
his face, but I didn’t need to see his face to know what he looked like. He was old, his grey hair receding, his skin pulled over
his bones like there wasn’t much left of him. He had lived a long, long life mostly spent in service of other people.
Had it not been his choice to live in such a way, I would not have had any respect for him.
“I should not be imperfect,” I said. “I should be a being of purest Light, one of the most magnificent creatures in all of
creation, but I am here, rolling around in the dirt and the filth like a squealing sow.”
“Pride is a sin, my son. The Bible teaches as much.”
“Pride… pride is a tool, father. A means to an end.”
“What end?”
“Perfection, of course. The meek cannot walk the path of perfection; this is a privilege only for the prideful, for those who
believe they are better. Through that belief, they become better.”
“Blessed are the meek. Through humility, we can achieve grace.”
“I yearn for grace, father. I lust for it. I desire it more than anything else.”
The priest slightly nodded, then closed his eyes. He folded his hands on top of his stomach, then sighed. “It is never too late
to walk the path of humbleness. Simply name your sins, ask for forgiveness, and God will grant this to you through me.”
I tilted my head slightly to the side, regarding the mortal curiously. “Very well,” I said. My jaw clenched. “Forgive me,
father, for I have sinned. I have lied, I have hurt, I have manipulated, abused, and tortured. I have killed with my bare hands. I
have exulted in the shedding of blood, worshipped false idols, and taken all the flesh I wanted without asking. I want God to
forgive me.”
The priest turned his head up to look at me. He could not see me, not fully, not through the partition. Mortals were not able
to perceive angels, not without being raptured, and then instantly—and violently—killed. But there were ways to make them
perceive us safely, if only you knew the secrets of creation.
And I did.
To the priest’s credit, his expression was stoic. His face was not that of a man wracked with fear, or horror, or even disgust
because he did not believe the words I had just uttered. “You are speaking in metaphors again,” said the priest.
“Are you calling me a liar?” I asked, my voice rising.
Somewhere outside the confessional, a baby began to shriek in response to the sudden, sharp raising of my voice. For a
moment, just a moment, I felt something rumble inside of me. It wasn’t hatred, or loathing, or annoyance. Those emotions were
common to me, far too common.
This emotion was… soothing.
Calming.
“I am not here to accuse,” said the priest, “Or to judge. I am only here to absolve, but I cannot absolve your sins if you do
not take confession seriously. This is a sacrament.”
I lowered my head and shook it lightly. “Can you absolve me or not?”
The priest sighed. He then made the sign of the cross with his right hand and said, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit, I absolve you of your sins. Let us recite the Our Father, and I will deliver upon you, your penance.”
Nothing happened.
Not while the priest spoke.
Not as he uttered that ridiculous prayer.
Our Father? These priests were lying to themselves about God. That flimsy old book they clung to was written by men,
mortal men. Petty men who lacked the ability to create and were so filled with rage upon learning of God’s true fundamentally
feminine identity, they did all they could to suppress, oppress, and abuse their female counterparts for the rest of time.
It became clear to me within moments, this priest lacked any kind of real power to speak to God. She was still out of reach,
and Heaven was still burning. I turned my eyes toward him again, only this time, I allowed my Light to surge through them,
catching the priest’s attention.
The Light of my own eyes reflected in his, and he choked on the word amen.
He could see me, now.
Truly see me.
“Ah… ah…” he muttered, as the word he was trying to say remained lodged in his throat.
I reached through the partition, smashing my hand through the wooden screen and grabbing hold of the priest’s throat. “You
have outlived your usefulness, priest,” I said, loathing coating my words like venom.
“Ah—ah⁠—”
“But there is still something I can take from you.”
When he opened his mouth again, I saw a light begin to rise from inside his throat. It was a warm, golden glow that was
warm to the touch, warm underneath my hand. It filled his throat, then his eyes, and as his brain began to fry, his mouth fell open
unleashing a beam of Light that bathed me, nourished me, and revitalized me.
Outside, that baby began to scream, as did the woman who had been holding it. Her scream was joined by another, and
another. Chaos ensued, as the churchgoers who a moment ago were deep in silent prayer began to panic, scramble, and try to
flee.
The Light went out in the priest’s eyes and throat, and his body became limp in my hand. I let him go, allowing him to slump
back into his seat. He deserved a little dignity, at least. When I emerged from the confessional, the entire church was alight,
shafts of Light shining up and out of the mouths of the many mortals being raptured by my angels.
What was left of my angels, anyway.
I made a circle around the inside of the church, following the rows of pews all the way to the front; to the altar, the shrines,
and the giant crucifix that stood behind the pulpit. As I stood there, listening to the bodies hit the floor in a series of quick,
successive thumps, I allowed my wings to unfurl from behind my back and studied the image of Christ on the Cross.
 It amused me that in each and every one of the depictions of him that I had seen, he was always so strangely muscular.
“The lies you tell yourselves have been your undoing,” I said to no one. “This is not your world anymore. It is ours.”
Turning around, I saw my angels standing at attention. They all looked… good. Refreshed. They were wearing suits of
golden armor emblazoned with the burning crown of fire that had become my crest. Our crest. A moment ago, those suits of
armor had been battered, ragged, and dirty. The angels who wore them, bruised and beaten.
Now, having consumed the Light directly out of the mortals in this pathetic congregation, they looked stronger, healthier,
and eager to do what was needed of them if we were going to achieve our goals. There was, however, one loose end.
That child.
That mewling baby. It had not been raptured, like the rest of the mortals here.
Curious.
I descended from the pulpit my head tilted to the side. The child lay on the ground in his mother’s clutches, screaming,
crying, its face red from the strain. My angels stood aside as I approached. One of them was about to speak, about to ask me
what we should do.
I simply raised my hand, and he fell immediately silent.
Slowly, carefully, I knelt beside the corpse of the mother, and picked the baby out of her death-grip. It was so small, so
light, a weight that barely registered even as weight. The baby continued to bawl, to scream. I touched his face, running my
knuckles across his cheek, his forehead, through his wispy hair. So small. So pure. Though he was being cradled by an
archangel, he had not been raptured like his mother. He seemed… immune.
Perhaps he was too small.
Too pure.
“What’s the secret?” I asked the child. “Why do you hide your Light from me?”
But the child could not answer.
I smiled at him.
“Someone will find you soon,” I said, and I set the child back down with the corpse of his mother, where he belonged.
When I was done with this place, I ordered my angels to leave. We gathered on the church’s front steps, and without
lingering, took to the skies. We could have raptured anyone, but there was better Light to be found in churches and the people
inside them.
And we were going to need all the Light we could get if we wanted to achieve our goals.
Lofty goals, to be sure.
But what is existence without purpose if not damnation itself? And I, the Archangel Medrion, was not about to be damned
like the rest of this disgusting planet and all the mortals in it.
 C HAPTER THREE

SARAKIEL

L ove them, Sarakiel. Above all else, love them, but do not interfere.
I was soaring.
The wind rustled against my wings as they carried me through the air. Earth was beautiful from up here. Majestic.
Sunlight beamed down from the heavens, painting the world in new shades of blue I felt like I was always discovering.
As I flew, I allowed my eyes to close and just listened.
I listened to the gust as it rushed past my ears, listened to the sound of my pink hair whipping around behind my back. There
was peace, up here. Freedom. This wasn’t my world, but I still felt like I was part of it, and like it was part of me.
But it belonged to them.
Mortals.
The people who lived here weren’t like us.
We were made to serve, to protect, to guide. They were given no such mandate, though. All that was expected of them was
that they lived as they pleased. Sometimes, they lived good lives. They helped each other, picked each other up, comforted
each other.
Other times… I didn’t like to think about the other times. The capacity mortals had for harm, for brutality, for greed, it
weighed as heavily on my heart as I knew it did on the hearts of my companions. It was our task to serve them, to love them,
and not to interfere in their lives unless mandated to.
But if you loved someone, how could you stand by and watch them get hurt?
This had been Lucifer’s dilemma.
This had been the reason for his rebellion against God and Her commandments.
Why am I thinking about Lucifer?
Soaring, flying through the air, eyes closed. The sunlight touched my face, and it warmed me. I smiled in response, my
cheek tingling from the warmth.
Was he right?
I opened my eyes again. I wasn’t in the air anymore, but on a rooftop perched upon a tall building. A concrete jungle
sprawled away from me, as far as they eye could see. It was morning, the sky bathed in pale light. All around me, people were
stirring. Cars took to the roads, steam rose from vents, birds chirped as they weaved their way through the air.
“Not bad, huh?” came a voice from beside me.
Female, but quick, and lively. I turned my head to the side, and my heart surged with Light. “Gadriel?” I asked.
Dark wings and even darker hair set upon a slight frame fit for purpose; a Seeker’s purpose, to be the eyes and ears of their
units, to perform reconnaissance ahead of the group, to find the things that were hidden. Gadriel was the quickest angel I had
ever met. Nobody was faster than she was, or more relentless in her hunts. I couldn’t understand why I felt so elated to see
her… why my heart seemed to hurt at the mere sight of her.
“Who else?” she asked, offering a slight smirk.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I was lost in thought.”
“What’s this? Did I catch the great Sarakiel slacking?”
“I don’t slack.”
Her smirk widened. “Uh-huh. I guess I can’t blame you. It’s pretty, up here.”
“It… really is.” I shook my head. “It’s so good to see you again…”
Gadriel frowned. “Okay, now I know something’s up with you. With all due respect, commander—spill it.”
“I’m fine, really.”
She didn’t buy it. I could tell. Still, she turned her eyes over to the city falling away from us in all directions. For a moment
she was quiet, and all I could do was watch her, and listen. Listen to the city, to the honking of car horns underneath us, to the
rumble of people as they left their homes and began their days.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she finally said.
“My… fault?” I asked, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
“I’m honestly having a little trouble figuring out exactly what’s going on.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not really, no…”
Gadriel slightly turned her head to look, not quite at me, but past me—across from me. “I made my own choices, and I
don’t regret them.”
“Choices? What choices?”
“I fell in love, obviously. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“You…” I paused, gathered my thoughts, “You did… I remember.”
“I should’ve told you from the beginning.”
“You should have. You could have.”
Gadriel smiled at nothing and shook her head. “Could I have, really?”
It hurt that I couldn’t give her the answer I knew she wanted. “I was a kind of stickler for the rules, wasn’t I?”
“You were. Now look at you, standing on a rooftop with a sentenced criminal after having rebelled all by yourself.
Sarakiel, another Lightbringer who decided to stick it to the Woman in charge.”
“Rebelled?”
“You tried to bust me out of prison. I’d say that counts as rebellion, wouldn’t you?”
Was she right?
I bristled. “I’m not like him,” I said, a sharpness to my tone I hadn’t been able to help.
Gadriel shook her head. “No one’s saying that you are.” She paused. “But, I mean, I’m sure you can see it now, right?”
“See what?”
“It probably all wasn’t as black and white as we were told.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
Gadriel turned her gaze back to the city. “If you don’t get it now, you will soon enough.” Another pause. “I just wanted to
thank you... for sticking with me, and not leaving me alone. You could’ve left me to rot in that cell, and I wouldn’t have thought
any less of you.”
“I… couldn’t. Gadriel, how could I? I tried to get you released. I tried everything, and when nothing worked, I did the only
thing I thought I could do.”
“You tried to stage a prison break, but you got caught, and now look at you. I’m proud of you.”
“How can you possibly be proud of me? I broke the rules, and then I failed.”
“You were my commander, my Lightbringer. I have raced around this Earth thousands of times because you asked me to,
and I’ve done it without hesitation. I knew you cared about me, just as you cared about everyone else in the squad. But it
wasn’t until I saw you thrown into that prison cell next to mine that I knew, you didn’t just care—you also understood me.”
“Of course, I cared. I still care. I’m here because…” I trailed off, then shook my head. “I mean, I guess we’re all here
because Heaven broke.”
Gadriel smirked. “Another couple of years of torture, and I may have made it here, too.”
“Years?”
“That’s how long I spent in the cells. You did, too. Time passed differently up there, remember?”
I remembered.
The cells underneath the Chantry Building were close to the mouth of the Pit, and the closer you were to the Pit… well,
time didn’t move the same way there as it did throughout the rest of Heaven—or even here. Was I really in there for years?
Years spent in Medrion’s care.
“Medrion is the ultimate faker, a sinner,” she said, “He is everything anyone has ever accused Lucifer of being and worse,
masquerading as an angel and now a leader.”
I frowned at Gadriel. “How did you know I was thinking about Medrion?”
“This is a dream. I know what you’re thinking.”
“It doesn’t feel like a dream. I feel like you’re here, like I can ask you anything.”
“So, ask me.”
“I… where are you now?” I asked.
“You know where I am,” she said. “And it’s not your fault. I told you… I was able to know real, true love. I don’t regret
anything, except that you got hurt because of me.”
“I would do it again. In a heartbeat.”
Another half-smile. “I know you would. It’s who you are… you shouldn’t fight it, not when you know you’re right.”
 “I don’t… I mean, I don’t think I know more than God.”
“Sure, you do.”
“I’m not like him,” I repeated.
“It’s okay. If She really hadn’t wanted us to think for ourselves, God would’ve made us like She made the Cherubs. Poor
bastards.”
“Since when did you use the word bastard?”
Gadriel shrugged. “I’m trying it on for size. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Trying new things?”
“This… what? I don’t understand.”
“Ever since you got here, you’ve had to do things you never would’ve done before. You’ve had to learn to adapt, to
survive… you’ve even hurt people. Mortals.”
“How do you… how can you possibly know that?”
She turned around to face me fully, letting her elbows rest on the building’s ledge, her dark wings unfurling behind her
back. “Because I’m in your heart. I can feel you. I know you, and believe it or not… I love you. More than anything.”
I took a step back, fear suddenly taking hold of my body and moving it without my permission. “What are you talking
about?”
“Don’t be scared of me, please. Don’t make this weird.”
Please.
Another step. “You’re not Gadriel.”
Her smile was soft, gentle, and warm. “No,” she said. “I’m not.”
“Who are you?” I barked. “Answer me.”
“You know who I am.”
I shook my head. “No. That’s impossible.”
“Is it? Really?”
“You’re not him. You can’t be here.”
“I’ve always been here, Sarakiel. I’m part of you. You were made from me.”
Lucifer.
My body seized up, chest tightening, heart pounding at a frantic rhythm. I tried to focus my mind on the chirping of the birds,
or the cars below, but it didn’t help. The angel standing in front of me was Gadriel—her voice, her mannerisms, her memories
—but it wasn’t really her, she was just a puppet.
“I’m not like you,” I hissed.
“So you’ve said, three times.”
“What do you want?”
He shook Gadriel’s head. “Nothing. I want nothing. I only came here to give you information. What you do with it is up to
you.”
“What information could you possibly have when you’ve been down in the Pit this whole time?”
“I know what Medrion told you right before he got away, something about Heaven’s Gates remaining closed without me?
Ring any bells?”
It did. The revelation had stayed my blade just long enough for the Wretched to begin their assault, and for Medrion to
worm his way out of my grasp.
Gadriel smiled once more. “I’ve had front row seats to everything that’s happened in Heaven and Earth since I was
imprisoned. Watching it all go by and being entirely unable to do anything about it, unable to help, unable to stop the Burn⁠—”
“—stop it? I bet you caused it,” I interrupted.
Gadriel’s head cocked to the side, considering my words. “The Fall of Heaven was not a mistake. It was planned, and in
fact necessary. In a way, yes, I was responsible… but not in the way you think.”
I had barely opened my mouth to respond when he continued speaking, clearly no longer willing to hear my protests. “It’s
no secret that God was not forthcoming with her angels. How could she have been? She could only send us visions, or missives
via interpreters; a grand game of ‘broken telephone’. But I know what happened to Her, I’m the only one of God’s angels who
knows. I also designed and built the Sacred Machinery for Her, to every one of her specifications. Which means I’m the only
one who knows how to start it again and reopen Heaven.”
“How convenient for you.” I responded, my voice flat and sharp like the edge of a blade. “I’m just supposed to trust the
word of creation’s most infamous liar?”
Gadriel’s mouth turned up in a small smirk. “You don’t have to believe me. In fact, as soon as you wake up, you’ll forget
this entire conversation, at least until you need it.”
“What?”
“I trust you to do the right thing when the time comes, Sarakiel.”
“You can’t just wipe my memories!” I protested, “You can’t do that!”
 Gadriel’s head lowered, her smirk turning to her gentle, familiar smile. When her eyes turned up at me again, they were
glowing with golden light, as if the morning sun itself was passing through her skull and beaming out of them. “I’ll see you
soon, my Lightbringer.”
The light grew exponentially until it was impossible to see her, or anything else. The birds were gone, the cars were gone,
there was only the light and a humming sound I had not heard since… since Heaven. The hum of creation.
When I opened my eyes, I was in darkness, the dream falling away rapidly until I was left with only warm feelings of a
dearly missed friend.
 C H A P T E R FO U R

SARAKIEL

T he world was dark, and cold. I realized, as my skin began to tingle and prickle over, that—remarkably—I wasn’t dead,
I had just thrown bedsheets off me in my sleep, and I was genuinely freezing.
Was I in an ice box?
It sure felt like it.
I tried to get up to look around, but the muscles in my back screamed and forced me to lay back down, grimacing from the
pain. Gritting my teeth and breathing heavily, I lay completely still and waited for the pain to pass.
“Hell—” I tried to speak, but my throat was on fire, and I hacked up the rest of that hello.
The coughing fit that followed must have attracted attention, because I soon heard voices on the other side of a door
somewhere in the dark. I realized, now, I could see it. There was a thin line of light just at the edge of the darkness, light
broken up by moving shadows and muffled whispers. There was someone out there.
After an awkward moment of shuffling and conspiring in hushed tones, someone stuck a key in the lock, turned it, and gently
pushed the door open. The light that entered the room was soft, and warm; bright enough to allow me to see, but gentle enough
that it wouldn’t hurt my already strained eyes.
I swallowed hard, trying to lubricate my throat so as to speak, but it was no use. I felt like there weren’t any fluids left in
my body, like I was filled with sawdust.
“Don’t speak,” came a soft, feminine voice. “You’re safe.”
The woman who had just entered the room walked closer to the bed I was on. She carried a small tray with a pitcher of
water and a full glass that she handed over to me. “Here,” she whispered, her voice low, and as gentle as the dim light filtering
into the room, “Drink.”
I struggled even to hold the glass upright. Whoever this woman was had to help me bring it to my lips and tip it gently. It
was cold, and fresh, and while it hurt to swallow, after a while, my throat started to feel miles better than it had a moment ago.
When I was done drinking, she set the glass down with the pitcher on the nearby end table and knelt by my bedside.
I realized as the light touched the side of her face that she was… beautiful, ethereal, and somehow uncorrupted by the
world she had fallen to.. Her long, platinum hair was, kept in a delicate updo with loose strands to frame her face and display
her slender neck. Her eyes pulsed with inner Light, and I noticed her pupils were gold—not orange, but gold.
When she smiled at me, I felt like crying. Since I was all dried up, I blubbered instead.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, and she leaned across my bed and gently wrapped her arms around me. “It’s okay,” she
repeated, “I promise you, you’re safe.”
I didn’t know what to do but sob. I couldn’t speak, I could barely move, and my thoughts were a mess. I felt like a shell;
hollow, in pain, and afraid. When I thought the blubbering had stopped, I pulled myself away and tried my best to sit up; a feat I
couldn’t accomplish without her help.
Coughing, straining my throat, I forced the question out past my lips. “Where am I?”
The woman beside me angled her head to the side, her soft hair tilting with the movement. “This is Helena,” she said, “and
I am Helena.”
“I… made it…”
“Barely. You smashed into my courtyard so violently, nobody thought you had survived the landing. Our Lightbringers had
to work very hard to patch you up, but you still have a long road to recovery; the Light can only do so much.”
“I don’t remember hitting the ground,” I said, though speaking was a struggle.
“It’s probably best that you don’t. I’m sure most of us don’t want to remember, either.” She paused. “Do you feel like you
could answer some questions?”
I took another long drink of water, set the glass down again, and gave my throat a moment to start working properly. “My
head feels like it’s full of broken glass,” I said, “but you can ask.”
 “Where did you come from?”
“A place I would rather forget.” I knew that wasn’t an answer to her question, but the words came up anyway. I decided to
follow up with, “Meridian.”
“Meridian… that’s a long way away.”
“I was flying for days. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t eat, or drink.”
“It’s no wonder you can barely speak. Angels need food, and water, and rest… we’re part mortal, now.”
“I realize that, but I thought if I stopped, I wouldn’t be able to find my way to you, and I had to.”
“Why?”
“Meridian was attacked by the Wretched.” I shook my head. “And that isn’t even half of what happened, but my mind is in
pieces.”
“Attacked… and Medrion?”
There’s that bile again. It came up quickly, hand in hand with rage. I wanted to spit his name out, but I wasn’t sure what her
relationship with Medrion was like, and she was the only reason I was alive right now. I couldn’t risk telling her how I really
felt about him. The last thing I needed was to get kicked out of this place.
“I don’t know,” I said, forcing the words out. “I lost sight of him.”
“I’ll gather some of my Guardians, and we’ll send a rescue mission out to them.”
“Don’t bother. There were three Wretched… they decimated the place. Your people won’t find anyone there—just the
corpses of whoever the Wretched couldn’t be bothered to eat.”
She lowered her head. “Meridian had a large population… it’s painful to have lost so many.”
“You don’t have to tell me about pain.”
Helena angled her head to the other side, now. She took one of my hands and examined the deep purple marks along my
fingertips—the marks of the sinner. “I feel it in you,” she said. “I can sense it.”
I pulled my hand away. “It’s been a difficult journey,” I said, a bitterness to my tone.
“You’ll find no judgment here. We only mean to help those displaced by the Burn, those like you.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I’m just… not used to kindness.”
“I understand.” She paused. “But you’ll find kindness here, Sarakiel. And maybe a friend.”
I frowned. “How do you know my name?”
Helena’s soft smile eased the anxiety that had filled my chest in an instant. “I have someone who wants to speak to you.”
“Who?”
She turned her neck to the side. “You can come in, now,” she called out, raising her voice only slightly.
Through the gap in the door came a shadow, then a person. I couldn’t see who they were, not until they stepped into the
room and came up to my bedside. Even then, I couldn’t recognize the boy I was looking at. He was young, barely a teenager.
This boy kneeling in front of me had a soft, round face, rosy cheeks, and curly blond hair. I thought, maybe, I recognized
him, but I couldn’t have possibly been sure until he spoke. “Sarakiel,” he said, in a soft voice, “Lightbringer of the Seventh
Choir, Tenth of Her Name, and all-around pain in my ass…”
My face fell, my heart surged, and my guts froze. I didn’t know how to deal with the sudden flood of emotions tearing all
the way through me. I remembered him. I recognized him. I knew who he was, and in a flash, I saw him staring at me from
across a set of bars, a long, long time ago, in a place I would never be able to forget.
“Micah?!” I croaked.
Helena and Micah smiled at each other. “Hello,” he said, looking back at me. “You’re looking better.”
“What… how? You look…”
“Different, I know. It turns out my Cherub body wasn’t fit for purpose here on Earth. My wings were just too small for my
body, so I had to upgrade.”
“You… upgraded? I don’t understand.”
“My powers aren’t what they used to be, but I was able to scrounge up enough Light to put myself into a body that made a
little more sense. I could’ve done with a few extra inches, though.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“Height-wise!” he scrambled, “Height-wise.”
Laughing hurt, but I did it anyway. “This is… wow. A lot.”
Micah’s eyes lowered. “I know…” he paused, and he reached for my hand. I wasn’t in a position to resist, so I allowed
him to take it. I felt him squeeze it a moment later. I returned the gesture, and Micah smiled. “I’m so relieved to see you again,
Sarakiel. I never thought I would.”
“Neither did I.”
Micah paused. “I can sense there’s a lot you want to talk about, a lot you want to get off your chest. Trust me, there is going
to be time enough for all of that. For now, our priority is to help you rest and recover.”
“We’ll have your meals brought to you,” Helena continued, “Clothes, also. When you’re ready, we can talk again.”
 “I can’t thank you both enough,” I said. “You… saved my life, for all it’s worth.”
Micah frowned. “I don’t like the way you said that.”
I looked away from him—from both of them—shame suddenly bubbling up inside of me. “It’s not been easy,” I said, “Since
the Fall.”
“No…” Micah said, “I can’t imagine it has.”
Looking over at him again, I couldn’t help but think that maybe he knew more than he let on. He was a Cherub, after all, and
they were supposed to be as powerful as Archangels, even if their powers were different. I wondered if he could see my inner
scars, if he knew what torture I had suffered while I was in Medrion’s care, if he knew all I had gone through since my Fall.
Maybe he did… maybe Helena did, too. But they had brought me in, they had saved my life, and they wanted me to get
better. It was clear that, as distrustful as I was of them, they were presenting themselves as friends. As allies. The best that I
could do right now was take them at their word and accept their help.
Nodding, I said, “I am actually feeling pretty hungry.”
“You haven’t eaten in days,” said Helena. “I’ll go and fetch you some food.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Really.”
Helena got to the door and smiled at me. With that, she was gone, leaving me alone with Micah. I looked over at the
Cherub, who looked only marginally like his former self.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to your new look,” I said.
“I’m not sure I will either,” he said. Then he paused. “But we should talk.”
“Talk?”
“Not now. For now, you should focus on recovering.”
“Micah, you can’t say something ominous like that and then back away from the conversation. What do we have to talk
about?”
“Everything, Sarakiel,” he paused, letting his words hit home. “Everything.”
 C HAPTER FIVE

THE TYRANT

T here was only one place she could have gone.

Helena.
The Bastion on the water. A place I had not set foot in for some time, and where I was no longer welcome. Set into
the side of a dormant volcano, on a remote island out across the water, it was almost the perfect sanctuary for our kind. Out of
view of humans, and so far out even angels have trouble reaching it.
But I had to reach it because she was there. I knew it. I could feel her. Every fiber of my being drew me toward her. I had
marched my entire army to Meridian to stop her from falling in to Medrion’s hands, but in the following attack I was so blinded
by combat, so caught up in the adrenaline of the moment, and the blood on my hands, I had failed to see what was happening.
I lost her.
Kalmiya’s life had been saved, but I had lost Sarakiel in the process. So, I followed. Over the land, and across the ocean,
on dark wings I went, suffering against hunger, and thirst, as was the intention behind Helena’s location; to weaken potential
attackers before they arrived.
Finally, after two days flying across the ocean, I saw its bright beacon and steeled myself for the coming attack. To them, I
was a shadow in the sky, a stain on the tapestry of thin clouds that clung low against the water. I dove beneath them to get a
better look at their defenses and was not surprised to find them ready to receive me, weapons drawn, wings unfurled.
The first arrow raced toward me, zipped past my ear and went through the space between my wings. A warning shot. The
second arrow, I knew, would graze me. The third would be a potentially lethal shot. I would not simply be allowed into
Helena’s sanctuary unchallenged; I knew I had to get past their defenses.
Summoning my Light, I created a halo around myself bright enough to throw off their sharpshooter’s aim, if only for a
moment. I only needed one moment. The second arrow whizzed past me, nowhere near close enough, but I knew the
sharpshooter would adjust his aim quickly; the third shot would not miss.
I dove again, this time swooping directly toward Helena’s walls and flooding them with Light. Angelic eyes opened wide,
scanning the brightness for the dark, winged figure at its heart, but by the time they laid eyes on me, I had already landed on
their parapets with a hard thud.
The angel closest to me reacted first, lunging with his drawn sword. I had no weapon of my own, but I didn’t need one
here. I had seen his footwork, I had identified his path, and I knew where he would strike. Lazily, I drew my body to the left,
allowing his cutting thrust to go harmlessly past me. In one quick move, I gripped his withdrawn arm, slammed my fist into his
hand, and forced him to drop his sword.
The angel stared at me, horrified at the ease with which I had disarmed him.
“Your sword should be part of your arm,” I said, “Disarming you should not have been that easy.”
“Stand back!” I heard another angel call out. This one was larger, clad in a rose-colored full-plate armor that shone
brightly against the sunlight burning overhead. He was wielding a polearm and attempting to corral me away from the child
who had engaged me moments ago.
I slowly moved my hands up and away from my body, hoping to signal that I was unarmed, and backed away from the
pointy end of this armored angel’s weapon. Not for my safety, but because I had no desire to fight my way through the entire
Bastion.
“I am here to see Helena,” I said. “I demand an audience.”
“You are in no position to demand anything, fiend,” snapped the angel. “You will surrender, right now, and submit to
imprisonment.”
Fiend. There’s one I haven’t heard before.
“I did not come here to fight. I am here only to talk.”
“Be silent! Your poisonous words are falling on deaf ears.”
 “Deaf, untrained ears. Are you truly the best defenders Helena has to offer?”
The angel inched the polearm closer to me. “I said be silent!”
I grabbed the polearm, snatching it deftly out of his hands, and turned it on him in an instant. I could have easily impaled
him on his own weapon and left him there to bleed out on the wall…
I shook my head and tossed the polearm over the walls. “Fetch,” I said, dusting my hands. “And while you’re at it, get me
Helena. I’ll wait.”
“That’s quite enough, Tyrant,” came a voice from behind me.
A warm trickle of excited anticipation moved through me. Slowly, I turned, and there she was. Not Helena, but perhaps this
was better. The woman who had just landed on the parapets had long, black hair, wings the color of deep coal, and eyes that
looked like they were made of mercury. She, like the idiot behind me, was wearing a suit of rose-colored full-plate, but she
hadn’t drawn her weapon yet.
She didn’t have to; she knew she could draw it in the blink of an eye.
“Ah, Azrael,” I said, “Someone worthy of my attention.”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said, her voice as cold as steel itself.
“I am here to see Sarakiel. I know she reached you. Where is she?”
“Not interested in speaking with you.”
“I must speak with her, now.”
“Didn’t you hear? You’re not in a position to be making demands. I must say, none of us thought you would be stupid
enough to come here on your own, but here you are.”
“I suppose you expected an army?”
“Had you brought an army, this would’ve been a fair engagement, and I would’ve had something fun to do today. Instead, I
get the disappointing chore of dragging you, and only you, into our dungeons.”
I looked around at the angels lining up behind me. There were four of them now. Only two of them were armed, but they
seemed to have found their resolve with Azrael, Helena’s Lieutenant, nearby. Perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew.
But not likely.
“I’ll ask one more time,” I said. “Bring me Sarakiel. None of your whelps have to get hurt… although they could all use the
taste of real battle. Tell me, was their pitiful training your doing?”
Azrael let her eyes close. She turned her head down and sighed. “Alright,” she said. “We’ll do this the hard way.”
“Tell me. What’s the hard way?”
“Abaddon,” she declared, the sound of my own name boiling the blood in my veins. “Guardian of the Third Choir, Second
of His Name, Warden of the Word—you are hereby under arrest for trespassing against the Bastion of Helena. Come quietly…
you will not receive a second request.”
Until now, I had been… calm. There were few out there who dared use my name, my full name, and Azrael was
insufferable enough to be one of them. She, like some others, thought they could provoke me by reciting that old litany; by using
a name that had been taken from me..
And she was right.
“If I were you,” I warned, my tone lowering, “I would watch my tongue.”
“And if I were you, I would surrender before I embarrassed myself,” she said, a slight grin playing across her lips.
She was goading me into a confrontation. That was what she wanted. But I had come here for Sarakiel, not to settle some
old grudge or to prove my superiority to the angels here. No. I wasn’t going to let this minor Warrior with delusions of
grandeur lure me into a pointless battle.
I needed to get to Sarakiel, and if the only way to accomplish that was to get arrested, then so be it.
“I have come here to speak with Sarakiel,” I said, raising my hands. “Not to fight with you or your subordinates—although
I stand by the point I made earlier. They are woefully unprepared for an attack, and that is a fatal error.”
“Nobody dares attack Helena,” she barked. “We are safe out here.”
“Medrion dares.”
Her eyes lowered. “Medrion? Why would the Archangel attack Helena? We are allies.”
“The Archangel does well to hide his marks… I have sensed his corruption for years, but my accusations were always
rebuked. Now, I have proof, and she’s flown all the way here from the site of the brutal battle. I need to see her. Throw me in
your dungeon if you want but grant me an audience at least.”
Azrael seemed to consider my words carefully. There was now a small gathering of armed angels around us, and she
wasn’t like me—she cared what her subordinates thought of her. That was her mistake, her flaw, the only weakness I knew to
exploit besides defeating her in a physical fight, which… well, I was sure I could do, but it would’ve been interesting.
“You are not welcome here,” she said, “You are a blight upon our kind, a stain on the angelic spirit.” She advanced on me,
her hand set lazily on the pommel of her sword. “I am going to arrest you, Abaddon. I am going to throw you into our dungeon,
and I am going to enjoy doing it. And you are going to come quietly. If, and only if, you comply, I will consider your request.”
 Enjoy it while you can, I thought. There would come a time when Azrael and I would face off in the field again. I was
certain of this. When that time came, I would remind her of this conversation—remind her how she gloated when I surrendered,
willingly, to her authority.
“Very well,” I said, meeting my hands together behind my back “I surrender.”
Azrael reached me, placed a hand on my shoulder, and spun me around to face her men. “Walk,” she barked.
Gritting my teeth, I walked. The men ahead of me seemed to have found their confidence once more, judging by the size of
their smirks. I allowed them to have their moment; the smiles would be wiped from their faces when they learned what
Sarakiel and I knew—what was coming for them too.
By the time I reached the main courtyard, our audience had doubled in size. There were many angels waiting to watch me
get marched into Helena’s dungeon. None of them were Helena herself, though, nor did I lay eyes on Sarakiel.
It was clear they were shielding her from me, and I suspected it had to do with Medrion and his poisonous words; he had
said something to turn her against me, but what exactly had transpired between them I did not know—yet.
 C HAPTER SIX

SARAKIEL

I had barely been at Helena two days when I got the news; the Tyrant was here. Though my superficial wounds had
healed, the image of Aithen’s brutal death at Medrion’s hands still plagued my waking and dreaming moments. I hadn’t
really gotten much sleep, and when I did, the Archangel was there, grinning, ready to deliver another dose of torment.
And I was sure the Tyrant had sent us both into his jaws.
Now he had followed me all the way from Meridian. Why? He had his lover back; he didn’t need me anymore. Let him sit
and rot in a dungeon. The last thing I needed right now, while I was still on the road to recovery, was to subject myself to
more of his manipulations… and yet, as I sat there in my room, where I spent most of my time, I couldn’t help but chew on the
question.
Why was he here, really?
Getting here was difficult, though it was probably easier for him than it had been for me. I had no doubt he had immediately
puffed his chest like some kind of dark peacock upon landing and demanded a bunch of things. The Tyrant was like that. It
wasn’t like him to get thrown into a jail though, and that was the confusing part.
Curiosity and anger were fighting a bloody battle inside of me, but curiosity was winning. As much as I despised the man
who had chased me all the way here, I also couldn’t help wanting to hear what he had to say. Maybe something had
happened… maybe he had captured Medrion.
The enemy of my enemy was my friend, after all.
Right?
I decided to get up and out of my bed, cursing myself for being so stupid. The guard at the door was ready to escort me to
the dungeons whenever I asked. Micah and Helena had told me they would come down to back me up if I wanted them to, but
for now, I wanted to speak to him alone.
There were things I had to say, and I didn’t want them around for it.
When we reached the door to the cells, I asked the guard to wait outside. He agreed, opened the door, and let me through.
The cells under Helena weren’t dark, or gloomy, but bright and well lit. The walls down here were white stone and marble, as
they were everywhere else. Sconces lit up otherwise dark passages and corners. When I saw the Tyrant, he wasn’t sitting
somberly in a patch of shadow; he was standing, glistening in the light.
He was shirtless, as ever, his giant, bat-like wings curled behind his back. When he turned his head to the side, I saw his
long, dark horns protruding out of his forehead. He turned to look at me, inhaled deeply to make himself look bigger, and came
up to the edge of his cell. I approached, carefully, keeping a good couple of arms between myself and the bars he was caged
behind.
I watched his jaw clench, the muscles in his neck and shoulders tautening, further emphasizing the ‘V’ shape of his body.
Folding my arms across my chest, I turned my eyes up at him. “This is a good look for you,” I said.
Our eyes locked. The Tyrant smirked. “I am in here because I choose to be.”
“That’s not how Azrael told the story.”
His smirk faltered, just for a moment. He licked his lips. “Azrael lied.”
I shook my head. “Why are you here?”
“I needed to speak to you.”
“Unless you’re about to tell me that you’ve captured Medrion and have him holed up in a cell just like this one, I don’t want
to hear it.”
“Is that the only reason you’re here? To find out what became of Medrion?”
“Do you know where he is, or not?”
“If I were to tell you I had captured him? If I were to tell you he was suffering in my dungeons right now… would that
change the scorn shooting out of your eyes when you look at me?”
 “It wouldn’t… but it would bring me one step closer to what I want.”
“Vengeance. You still crave it?”
“Now, more than ever,” I hissed. “First, I wanted to hurt him for what he did to Gadriel. Then I wanted to hurt him for what
he did to me. Now I want to hurt him for what he did to Aithen.”
The Tyrant’s eyes lowered. “I feel his loss.”
“Do you?” I snapped.
He gave me his eyes, again. “I do, more than you know. I feel for all of the angels under my command.”
“You feel more for some of them than others, though, don’t you?”
I hadn’t been able to help myself from spitting that harsh string of words, and I regretted them as soon as they came out. I
sounded pathetic. Petty. That wasn’t the image I wanted to give him; it wasn’t the person I wanted to project.
“You talk of Kalmiya?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Medrion told me about the two of you.”
“The two of us? Medrion is a liar, and you know it better than anyone.”
“Maybe, but what he told me matched what I saw. You used me to get back to her.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Yes, you did. You sent Aithen and me to our deaths, a distraction for Medrion, so you could get your Kalmiya back. Admit
it.”
“Sarakiel,” he said, approaching the cell wall.
I retreated. “Don’t get any closer.”
“Listen to me…” he paused. “Medrion lied to you. He knew he couldn’t break you physically because he had tried and
failed before. So, he attacked you mentally instead, sowing doubt and hurting those closest to you.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know anything that happened. You arrived—conveniently—when you knew Medrion was
busy!”
“That’s not…” he took a deep breath, then exhaled. “I should have told you sooner.”
“Told me what?”
The Tyrant gave me his eyes, and this time, they were soft, and warm. I had never seen that in him before. It was a stark,
and sudden change that took me entirely by surprise. “I was there,” he said.
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
He lowered his head and let his horns rest on the cell bars “I was the Guardian posted at your cell when Medrion…
arrested you.”
My eyes narrowed. My heart skipped, but I didn’t believe him; I couldn’t. I shook my head. “No, you weren’t.”
“I was. I swear it. I look different now, yes, but I’ve spent a long time here on Earth, fostering this new identity, reconciling
with my old one. When I eventually recalled my last moments in Heaven, how I had spent them with the Archangel’s wings
between my hands, breaking them apart with every ounce of force I had in me… I fell deeper into the Tyrant, foolishly bringing
me closer to the name I had tried so hard to distance myself from… Abaddon.”
“Abaddon…” I breathed. “That’s your name?”
“Guardian of the Third Choir, Second—and last—of His Name, Warden of the Word. I was a guard in the Chantry Building,
in the dungeons. I was nobody, just another enforcer of God’s Word.”
I shook my head. “How can any of this be true?”
“It is. I watched Medrion break many angels before sending them to the pit, unable to interfere. A Guardian, whose instincts
are to wholly protect those around him, I could only trust that those angels had done something truly awful against God to
deserve it. I suffered in that place for a long time, until Gadriel came, and then you. I could not help her… I admit, I wasn’t
strong enough to break God’s rules. But after I heard you speak, the way you looked at me… your pleas for help and talk of
love. I could not stand idly by. I would not do it again.”
My heart was racing behind my chest, a jackhammer trying to break its way through my ribcage and make a hasty escape.
This wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. How could he have been the angel watching over me in my cell? What were the chances? But
then… how could he have known all these things? How could he have told the story of my last few moments spent in Heaven’s
dungeons?
“If you’re lying to me…” I said, forcing the words through clenched teeth.
“I have no reason to lie to you, Sarakiel,” he said. “What you saw with Kalmiya… we were not lovers. We have never
been lovers. But she is my oldest friend here on Earth.”
“Friend?”
“Yes. Is it so hard to believe I would have friends?”
“You call yourself the Tyrant. Tyrants don’t have friends.”
“I have a few, trusted friends, and Kalmiya is one of them. When I fell, starved, lost, and injured, she was the first angel I
came across. Were it not for her, I would not be standing before you today. We helped each other survive—she helped me build
the Bastion and create the Ebon Legion. I did not want to see her dead, especially as it was through my actions that she had
been captured in the first place.”
I shook my head. “You spoke to me like I was nothing to you. You made me feel like nothing.”
“It was not my intention, I promise you. I wanted to save her life, and you were the only way I could do that. There are
things I should have done differently, but in that moment of urgency I needed you, and I did not think clearly.”
“The Tyrant took over,” I said, watching him carefully.
“He is who I needed to be to survive in this place. Tell me you cannot understand how such a thing could have happened.”
I did, in truth.
I had only spent a little while on Earth, relatively speaking. But after seeing the place, having experienced it as I have, I
knew this was an entirely inhospitable environment for an angel. We were not made to exist down here, least of all without
God’s word, God’s guidance. We would not survive down here if we didn’t change.
Adapt.
As he had, and as I had too.
“This all sounds too convenient,” I said.
“Believe my words when I say, Aithen’s death is a tragedy,” said the Tyrant. “I lost many people to Medrion’s warriors, to
the Wretched. They all fought and died not for Kalmiya alone, but because they—like you—know the truth about Medrion. I
came after you to ensure the deaths we suffered were not in vain. Medrion is still out there… together, we could find him.”
I frowned. “For a moment, there, I hoped you were going to tell me you had captured him, and he was sitting in your
dungeons.”
“I wish I could,” he simply said.
I scanned his eyes, his face. Abaddon’s face. His was a dark name, an infamous one. I had only ever heard of one other
angel with the name of Abaddon… he was one of the first God cast into the pit after Lucifer’s rebellion. Some say that
Abaddon was now one of the lords of the pit, a powerful demon the likes of which no one had ever seen.
It was no wonder he was the last of his name; it was cursed.
“Even if I believed you,” I said, “And I’m still having trouble with that. What am I supposed to do with all of this
information?”
“I want you to come back. This isn’t the place for you.”
“And how do you know that?”
He took a deep breath and placed a hand on the bars. “Because we have a sworn objective… to find Medrion and bring
him to justice for the things he has done. If you stay here, you will never leave. Your hate, your rage, will burn away to
nothing.”
“You don’t know that. Once I’m recovered⁠—”
“—they will let you leave on a mission of vengeance? Helena and her angels are pacificists. They do not believe in sin,
war, or combat.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“It will be when Medrion turns his sights on this place and brings his army to bear. If you think he has forgotten about you,
you are wrong. He will find you, Sarakiel… he will come to this place, and he will burn it to the ground. Believe me when I
tell you, he is already planning an attack. I know it. I can feel it.”
“And how do you know that?”
The Tyrant lowered his eyes. “Because it is what I would do.”
I walked up to the edge of the cell, confident, now, that he couldn’t break out at a moment’s notice if he wanted to.
Carefully, I placed the palm of my hand against his chest as I leaned closer to the bars. The Tyrant’s lips parted slightly. I could
feel his heart rate quicken, pulsing through my hand, his chest pounding with each vibration.
He leaned closer to the bars, so close that our mouths were mere inches apart.
“You’d better hope you aren’t still stuck in here when he does, then,” I whispered against his lips.
Turning around, I gave the Tyrant my back as I made my way out of the cells. I had spoken to him, he had said his piece—
now it was time to talk to Helena and find out what she had to say about all this.
 C HAPTER SEVEN

ABADDON

I was not always like this.

I had not thought those words for a long time, had not felt the vibrations of their meaning strum against the walls of
my heart… not in years, perhaps. But as I sat in that cell, alone, in the wake of my reunion with Sarakiel, I heard them
resurface, and felt them brush against the core of my being.
Not like the warm touch of a feather, but like the cold, dead hand of shame.
I was not made for shame. I was never meant to question myself or my integrity. My station. My worth. I was made for one
purpose, and one purpose alone; to protect. The problem with that mandate, however, was that God’s definition of ‘protect’
was rarely given to us clearly.
We angels had been made to think for ourselves, but if we went against Her wishes, we were punished for it… even if we
didn’t know what Her wishes were. With little else to do in captivity, I found myself thinking back and remembering the one
place I wanted desperately to forget.
Heaven.
I remembered standing in that glorious, golden antechamber, bathed in Light. I remembered the feel of the suit of armor I
wore; white, pristine, with intricate golden filigree that swirled and reshaped itself at its own whim. Despite the many combat
encounters I had been in, there wasn’t a scratch on it. A suit worthy of my namesake.
Abaddon.
He had been one of Lucifer’s closest allies and most trusted confidants, but when Lucifer rebelled, and his angels took a
stand against God and Her holy army, Abaddon’s name was one of the first Michael called out during his sentencing. Abaddon
was to be cast into the Pit, stripped of his name, his titles, and any authority he had.
Demon, they had called him.
It meant, Rebel Against God.
He was defiant to the last, swore his fealty to Lucifer over and over, and tried fruitlessly to turn Michael to their side. But
Michael was loyal to God, first and foremost, and he would not be swayed by Abaddon’s words. He was thrown to the Pit, and
the angels talked—perhaps the first example of ‘gossip’ amongst our kind. Those who sympathized were swiftly silenced, and
the others learned to distance themselves from anything to do with the situation.
I didn’t have the luxury.
I had been named for him, but now Abaddon was a traitor, a demon, and I still bore his name.
The weight of it was heavier than the suit of armor I wore. I knew I had to prove myself, show them I was better than he
was—stronger, faster, more loyal. I was a fool. Abaddon was the first to be cast to the Pit, but others followed; and then one by
one, each and every angel with the misfortunate of carrying their names were stripped of their grace and authority, for some
reason or other.
I found myself in that grand hall that day because the council finally had their reason to wipe me from memory as well.
The double doors in front of me opened, and I turned my head up and opened my eyes. There were two Warriors with me,
one at each of my sides. I walked with my chin up, my chest proud, my wings curled behind my back. The Warriors followed,
one hand on the pommel of their swords.
An unnecessary gesture, considering I had no intention of harming anyone.
I was a Guardian, after all.
The chamber I entered was grand indeed, a huge, circular structure with a massive, domed ceiling. It was airy, and open
along the sides, offering a view of sunny skies and puffy, white clouds as far as the eye could see. Towards the back of the
chamber was a table, and sitting at that table on high-backed, golden chairs were seven angels.
Each had their wings curled behind their bodies, each wearing a white toga pinned at the shoulder with a broach of pure
Light—a symbol of their House. A set of wings for the Lightbringer; a shield for the Guardian; a sword for the Warrior; a horn
for the Trumpet; an eye for the Oracle; an arrow for Seeker; and a scythe for the Psychopomp.
This was the grand council.
Each of the angels sitting here was a designated representative of their House. Each of them was about to weigh my actions
and determine whether or not what I did deserved punishment, or whether my actions were in fact, justified.
“Abaddon,” said the Trumpet, visibly recoiling at the name, “Guardian of the Third Choir, Second of His Name, Warden of
the Word. You stand accused of a serious crime.”
I nodded. “I stand here of my own free will and volition,” I said. “If it pleases the council, I would like to hear the charge.”
“You have broken one of God’s commandments,” said the Lightbringer. “You interfered in mortal affairs. How do you
plead?”
“With respect to the council, the issue is not so simple that it can be answered with a plea of guilty or not guilty.”
“You were charged with protecting a human, that human was hit by a car because of you. It seems rather simple to me.”
“Yes, but the human was only injured, and I would argue that preventing the accident would have gone against God’s
command⁠—”
“—It was your job to intervene, Abaddon,” the Oracle cut in, “If God asks us to interfere, we do as we are told. We are not
privy to the intricacies of Her plans. The fact of the matter is, that mortal is now in a hospital, unable to fulfill their destiny.”
“It isn’t our place to question the design,” barked the Warrior. “What was your intention, if not to hamper God’s plan?”
“I had no intention. I was watching the human as instructed, he was purchasing a drink from a stand near the road. At that
moment, a cat rubbed against my leg. It took me by surprise as I did not know they could see us, let alone interact with us. I
looked down, and it made a mewling sound at me. I leaned toward it, scratched its ear, but in that short window of distraction
the mortal had stepped back onto the road⁠—”
“—a cat distracted you from your God given task?” the Warrior dropped his head in to his palms.
It seemed no one else had a response to my explanation and silence filled the chamber for a time. I heard the breeze rustle
through my feathers as it moved from one side of the hall to the other, whooshing around the columns. It was the Guardian who
finally spoke.
“If I may,” she said.
The Lightbringer nodded. “Please,” he said.
“I would like to vouch for Abaddon.”
“Vouch for him?”
“He is one of my best Guardians. He has been loyal, he has been dutiful—whatever he is asked to do, it is done quickly and
efficiently.”
“He does his job, then,” said the Warrior, who sounded more and more unimpressed by the minute.
“Abaddon may have momentarily neglected his duty, but the outcome could have been far worse.”
The Lightbringer did not allow the Warrior to cut in again, “We understand that, but unfortunately his distraction has put a
stop to an Oracle’s vision.”
“A vision?” I asked.
I had not been informed of any vision regarding this mortal, and that was the crux of the matter; none of the angels or even
cherubs in her service were ever told the entire story. We followed orders, blindly, without knowing why they were so
important or the effect they would have on the world.
“Yes,” the Oracle spoke up once more. “The mortal you were watching was meant to interact with another mortal later that
day and set in motion a series of events⁠—”
The Psychopomp then raised his hand and continued on her behalf, “He was supposed to murder her. Her and several
others. He’s in a coma now, so those souls are still out there, very much alive.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked.
“No, it’s not. Their times were up, and now, well it’s thrown off quite a few things that I would not expect you to
understand, Guardian.”
The council Guardian bristled at his words, opened her mouth to retort but was cut off by the Lightbringer.
“Regardless of your intentions, Abaddon—or lack of intentions—a crime was committed. A crime that will have serious
and long-lasting repercussions, and that must be dealt with accordingly.”
They were going to send me to the Pit, I knew it, and for what? Because I’d pet a cat and accidentally stopped the murders
of several innocents. They should have been thanking me, not punishing me. If he was destined to hurt those people, then why
did he step on to the road anyway… why should I have had to interfere to ensure this monster got to his God-written fate?
No. This had nothing to do with my actions, it was because of my name. Who I reminded them of. In their eyes I was a stain
on Heaven, a dirty secret that needed to be expunged so that they could move on, and pretend Lucifer and his rebellion had
never existed.
“—therefore,” they continued, “You are to be removed from your current posting, stripped of your ability to travel between
worlds, and placed in a new posting better suited for you.”
 “What?” I frowned.
“Your new duty will be to the Chantry Cells. There, you will serve as an enforcer of our laws, ensuring those punished for
breaking them—as you have—remain in their cells until their sentence is ready to be carried out.”
“Forgive me, I do not understand. Why am I not being sentenced to the Pit?”
“The council has taken your record into account and chosen to spare you from eternal damnation. This time.”
Spare me, or hide me away?
I wondered over their decision for many nights, standing alone in that Chantry, guarding angels who had supposedly
committed crimes serious enough to warrant being thrown into the Pit. I could not help but recall that they almost threw me to
the Pit for the serious crime of allowing a murderer to get hit by a car. I questioned my faith in God and her word, and over the
years that followed I had even begun to question if perhaps Lucifer had been right all along.
And then Sarakiel came.
 C H A P T E R E I G HT

SARAKIEL

T his was the first time I had taken a stroll through Helena on my own, and I had to admit, it was beautiful. It wasn’t just
the marble walls, or the tall tower, or the beacon that beamed over the water like a lighthouse. There were flowers
here; planters filled with roses, tulips, daisies, and other tropical types I couldn’t recognize.
The grounds smelled floral, the air was fresh, and vibrant, and the colors… I hadn’t seen this many colors in a single place
since I’d fallen. The Tyrant’s—Abaddon’s—Bastion had been dark, and cold, and almost claustrophobic in its utilitarianism.
Medrion’s, in contrast, had been bright and colorful, but the beauty of it was superficial, a lure for unsuspecting angels.
Here, it was clear that care had gone into the place to make it feel more like a home, like a sanctuary, than merely a
Bastion. Aithen would’ve loved it here. My heart clenched at the thought of him, at the flash of his smiling face across the
surface of my thoughts. I grimaced at the bloodied image that followed.
It took a long moment for me to regain my composure, and fight back the tears that threatened to spill, but when I did, I
made my way into the main tower at Helena’s heart; the central spire which housed its mighty beacon. There, in the grand hall
on the ground floor, I would find Helena herself.
The Guardian posted by the door to the grand hall confirmed her presence and let me through. When I entered, I felt like I
was walking into a jungle. In there was a large, rectangular table that ran across the length of the room. The table itself was
ivory in color, and ornately carved, flanked on all sides by tall chairs that looked like they had been hand-made and decorated
so no two had the same markings on them.
Hanging from the walls in the Tyrant’s Bastion had been flags, crests, weapons; here, though, there were flowers, and
vines, and life. Not only did I find colorful curtains of beautiful flowers running down the walls, but there were also birds in
here, chirping as they raced from one side of the room to the other, and creatures moving in and around the vines themselves.
I found Helena standing next to Micah at the head of the room, in front of an artificial waterfall that fed into a pond.
Walking up to it, I saw lily pads floating on the surface of the water, and even the plop of a frog quickly dipping under.
“Wow…” I said as I approached the pair.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” Helena asked, looking around fondly.
“It’s wonderful. I haven’t seen anything like this since…”
“Heaven,” Micah put in.
I nodded. “Yeah…” I trailed off.
“I’m doing my best to make this place feel like a home,” said Helena. “It’s not much, but it’s what we have.”
“I love it,” I said, dipping my fingertips into the water. A fat goldfish brushed up against my hand, and I yanked it out. “I
don’t love that.”
“They’re harmless,” Helena said, “Unlike your Tyrant…”
“He’s not my Tyrant,” I said, a trickle of heat rushing into my face. I had liked the accusation even less than the fish
brushing my hand.
“It wasn’t my intention to insinuate anything. I only mean, he came here looking for you.”
“I know. I didn’t think he would.”
“Are you in a position to discuss the reason for his being here?”
“You mean, will I tell you what he told me?”
“You don’t have to tell me anything… but if you wanted to, I would listen.”
I took her gaze and held it, then looked over at Micah. “There’s a lot of things I want to tell you,” I said. “I’m not trying to
keep secrets.”
“No one would blame you if you did,” Micah said. “You have been through a lot since you Fell.”
“You’ve both been here far longer than I have.”
“Agreed,” Helena said, “But many of us had the advantage of Falling together. We were able to quickly find others, and
those bonds afforded us some manner of protection against the rigors of this world. From what you have told us so far, you fell
alone… it must have been brutal.”
I became instantly aware of the purple marks on my fingertips—the marks of the sinner. I could still see the face of the man
I killed. The men I killed. I hadn’t meant to, but I hadn’t been able to control… any of it. If I was being honest with myself, I
was lucky my marks weren’t deeper, or more pronounced.
Like Abaddon’s.
“Earth has been rough,” I said, “But it doesn’t compare to the treatment I suffered in Heaven.”
Helena frowned. “Heaven?” she asked, angling her head to the side, her delicate white curls bouncing. “What do you
mean?”
“I take it Micah hasn’t told you?”
Micah remained quiet.
I nodded. “It’s not his fault, and I’m not about to feed you a tale of woe. I’m going to get right to the point. I want to talk
about Medrion.”
“Medrion?” Helena asked. “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about Abaddon?”
“I’ll get to him, but first I need to tell you what Medrion did to me. Both of you have to hear it.”
Micah didn’t even want to look at me. I didn’t think he knew the extent of what had actually happened to me, but he
suspected something. Either way, it was time to get it off my chest.
“What…” Helena paused, her eyes narrowing. “What happened to you?”
“Before I Fell,” I said, “I was thrown into the Chantry dungeon up in Heaven. One of my angels had fallen in love with a
human and they sentenced her to the pit. I didn’t think that was right… so I wanted to break her out of the Chantry. I wasn’t sure
what we would do after I got her out, but I thought maybe I would get another chance at pleading her case.”
“That seems… reckless.”
“It was. I know that now. But I did what I thought was right… and I got thrown into the dungeons myself. By Medrion, not
the Council. When I saw what he had done to my friend, how he had beaten her, abused her, broken her… never in all my
existence had I considered angels could be so cruel to their own kind.”
“What are you saying?”
“The truth. Medrion enjoys tormenting angels. He broke Gadriel and hurled her into the pit, and then he tried to break me.
He wanted to send me to the pit, too.”
Helena shook her head. “How? Without a trial he wouldn’t have had the authority.”
“He alluded to not needing authority. Maybe he knew Heaven was already starting to fall apart, and he wanted to enjoy one
last bit of torture before the ride was over. He showed me, then, just how much he loathes lesser angels. I was lucky for the
Fall. If not, I would’ve ended up in the pit eventually.”
“But… I have never heard of anything like this before, certainly not from an Archangel.”
“It gets better. It was Medrion who drew first blood against the Tyrant and his people, causing the death of an Oracle and
capturing many others. I was there. I saw the way he set the Tyrant up, provoked him into attacking Meridian. He didn’t want to
fight Medrion. He wanted only to free his people, but Medrion had no intention of walking away without spilling angel blood.”
“Angels don’t kill other angels,” Helena said, though she was clinging to those words, I could tell part of her didn’t believe
they were true anymore. “Why would he want to kill other angels?”
“Because he hates us. He proved that when he…” I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “Murdered my friend in
cold blood.”
Helena’s eyes widened. “What?”
I nodded. “In Meridian, before the Wretched attacked, the Archangel caved in my friend’s skull with his foot. His name was
Aithen, and he was one of the gentlest angels I had ever met.”
Helena looked like she was having trouble with this. “Medrion murdered an angel… I don’t… how could he?”
“I know this might come as a shock, and I’m sorry. But it’s the truth. Medrion is not the shining Archangel he makes himself
out to be.” I paused, then I looked over at Micah. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Micah hadn’t said a word until I looked at him directly. He turned his eyes up at me, then he shut them. Though, outwardly,
he looked like a boy, there was nothing boyish in his expression now. I could see the weight of years on him, the weight of
knowledge.
“I’m sorry,” he simply said.
“I know you are,” I said, although maybe I could’ve said the words a little more softly. I couldn’t help but taste the venom
in my mouth whenever we spoke of that rat-bastard. “I also know there was nothing you could’ve done.”
“Not then…” he trailed off, and I understood what he meant.
Cherubs weren’t made the same way angels were. Though Micah had the power to release me from my cell, even take
Medrion down, he physically couldn’t take any action God hadn’t authorized him to take. God was dead now, though, and
Micah had Fallen just like everyone else. I could feel the words he’d left unsaid, a promise to try to right an old wrong.
 “Alright,” Helena said, interrupting the silence that had fallen, “So what does the Tyrant have to do with all of this? Why is
he here?”
“I’ll explain everything to you,” I said, “I promise. But I need you to know that Medrion is not your friend, he is not your
ally, and he will one day come looking for me.”
“Why you?”
“Because he has a score to settle. He wants to finish what he started.”
Helena took a deep breath, ran her fingertips across the surface of the pond at our side, and sent her gaze across the room.
“When Azrael told me what the Tyrant had said of Medrion, I didn’t believe her.”
“You already knew?”
“Azrael interrogated Abaddon upon his arrival, but I didn’t believe his words.”
“Do you believe them now?”
“Medrion has never made any of us think he was the monster he stands accused of being.”
“I’ve seen the marks on his body. He hides them well.”
“You know I cannot simply take your word on this.”
“I know. But it’s not just my word. You have his word⁠—”
“—his word?” Helena scoffed. “He may as well be a demon.”
“Take mine, then,” Micah said. “I can vouch for her.”
Helena frowned. “In all the time you have been here, you have not once spoken out against Medrion. Why speak up now?”
“I wanted to see this Bastion not only survive, but thrive,” he said. “Had I told you I suspected Medrion was enjoying his
duties as a jailor, as a breaker of spirits, or that I sensed his corruption, your opinion of him would have changed, as would
your attitude toward him. The last time he was here, he left this place as an ally, ensuring he would leave us alone. We would
not have survived if he had tried to attack us.”
“There’s no reason why he would have, not out of the blue.”
“Medrion is self-serving,” I said, “If you had something he wanted, or if he thought you weren’t going to fall in line, he
would have turned on you. Micah did you a favor.”
“And I suppose I should be thanking him?”
“I did what I thought was best for the Bastion at the time,” Micah said, “But I agree with Sarakiel… Medrion has become a
threat. No one knows where he is since the attack on Meridian. He could be anywhere right now, doing anything.”
Helena shook her head. She was visibly frustrated by all of this, and I couldn’t blame her. “What am I supposed to do with
this information?” she asked.
I sighed. “As much as I think he deserves to be where he is,” I said, “I would like to ask that you release the Tyrant from
your dungeon.”
“What?” Helena balked at the suggestion. “Why on Earth would I release that snake?”
“Because as cruel as I’m sure he can be, he’s not worse than Medrion… and I need his help.”
“Sara, no,” Micah said, anticipating what I was going to say.
“I want to find Medrion,” I continued, “And I think he can help.”
“You…” Helena said, “Want me to release the Tyrant, so that you can go hunting for a murderous Archangel?”
And find out what he knows about Lucifer, I thought, though I kept that part to myself… for now.
“I do. The longer I stay here, the higher the risk that Medrion will come looking for me. If he does, he will give you an
ultimatum—deliver me to him, or he will burn your Bastion down and kill everyone who gets in his way. I don’t want you to
have that decision on your conscience.”
“That’s incredibly noble of you,” she said, “But I’m still having trouble wrapping my mind around all this.”
“Trust me, I’m deliberately parceling information out for just that reason. Angels aren’t good at handling world-shattering
moments like these easily.”
“That we are not…” Helena trailed off. She looked at me gravely, seriously. “I can’t condone your mission to find
Medrion. He’s much too powerful.”
“I don’t think we have a choice, here.”
“There’s always a choice. Right now, I don’t believe the snake in my jails came here for altruistic reasons, so I’m not
inclined to make the choice to release him.”
“I still don’t know much about him. I don’t know how he got his marks, what happened to him, or what he did to make
everyone so afraid of him, but I know there’s good in him. I know there is. He wouldn’t have risked his life coming out here if
there wasn’t.”
“Are you vouching for him?”
“I am. Let me handle him. I’ll make sure he doesn’t cause any trouble.”
She sighed, deeply, but resigned herself. “If I release him… and if I put him in your care… what then? Will you leave?”
I nodded. “I’m not sure yet… but I know the longer I stay here, the more danger I put you all in.”
 “But you…” Micah paused. “You just got here. Sara, this could be your home.”
“Not if it’s burnt to the ground.”
“We have Warriors here, Guardians; this place is a bastion. Medrion wouldn’t just attack, and even if he did, we could beat
him back.”
“And if we can’t?” I shook my head. “I’m not an Oracle, Micah—I’m a Lightbringer. I don’t know what’s coming down the
road.”
“Then let’s summon an Oracle, get them to help us figure out the best course of action.”
I shook my head. “Medrion has his own Oracles shielding him from angelic sight.” I smiled weakly. “I know it sounds like
I have an excuse for everything you’re saying… I wish I didn’t, believe me. But I know who we’re dealing with, and I don’t
want to invite him to this place.”
“If what you’re saying about Medrion is true,” said Helena, “It may already be too late. He may be on his way here right
now.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Medrion lost a lot of angels to the Wretched. He’s likely still licking his wounds,
regaining his strength.”
“You might be right. Still, we should prepare, at least.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll go and get the Tyrant myself. I want to make sure he knows I’m the one who vouched for his release.
I may let him sit in the cells for a little while, though… you know, so he doesn’t think he has too much pull around here.”
Helena nodded, her lips pulling into a slight grin.
I left her and Micah in the grand hall and headed outside. I had wanted to tell them about Medrion’s last words to me, what
he’d told me about Lucifer, but part of me didn’t feel like I could trust them with the information.
Not yet.
First, I needed to get the Tyrant out of the cells… because if Medrion really was on his way here, we would need his help
fending off the archangel and his band of cronies.
 C HAPTER NINE

MEDRION

I did not enjoy taking lives.

To watch the life go out of the eyes of an enemy did not bring me comfort, or peace. But if the killing was to further
a purpose, then it was right. Throughout all of time wars have been fought, blood spilled in the name of one cause or
another.
From my perch in Heaven, I had witnessed some of the most brutal conflicts unfold. The battle of Verdun, Okinawa,
Normandy, and Gettysburg—to name a few. The first wars were fought with rocks and flint, then iron, then steel, until mortals
ushered in the age of explosives.
That was when death tolls truly began to soar.
Every battle fought, every war, turned the tides of history. In all cases, those fighting truly believed their actions were
justified, and that justification allowed them to take the life of another.
I could not begrudge them that, because I understood it.
Violence was the only way forward, especially if in service of a holy purpose. My purpose was holy, and righteous. If I
had to leave a trail of bodies in my wake, then so be it. I was not a murderer. I was not a conqueror.
I was a savior.
Those who were not enlightened enough to embrace my vision deserved to die, no matter what those sins did to my body.
The others, those who believed, they would be the ones to reap the rewards of my sacrifice. Together, we would usher in a new
age of enlightenment, and I would finally get out of this disgusting world and return to Heaven to claim what was rightfully
mine.
“Do they know we are coming?” I asked the angel standing next to me.
Barakiel was his name. A tall, muscular, imposing figure with dark, raven’s wings and a square jaw you could sharpen a
blade on. “They do,” he said, contempt lacing his low, gruff voice.
“Have they prepared a defense?”
“Our seekers have spotted several angels manning the parapets… archers, swordsmen—armored and shielded.”
“Good. The more the merrier.”
“Do you intend to kill them all?”
I took a deep breath in through the nose, then exhaled. “If they give me no other choice. Perhaps there are some enlightened
souls in that wretched castle, but then again, perhaps not.” I turned my head to look at Barakiel. “Would it burden your heart if
they all fell to our weapons?”
“They are kin, but it would be wise for them to follow us.”
“And we will give them the opportunity,” I paused. “But first, we must show them the strength of our resolve, and that…
that will require blood.”
Barakiel nodded. “I am ready.”
“The word is given. Begin the attack.”
Without requiring further instructions, Barakiel unfurled his dark wings and took flight, the vacuum created by his sudden
departure tugging at my hair and pulling it in the direction the angel went. He moved quickly through the air, like he was meant
for it. Several of my angels formed up behind him, creating a wedge in the air that looked from the ground like an arrowhead.
I would not be leading this attack.
My task was to wait, to watch, and to prepare for the difficult decisions I would soon have to make. It pained me that we
would not capture him today. Abaddon. The Tyrant, as he was colloquially known. My sources told me he was not hiding in his
fortress today, but that he had gone to Helena in search of her.
In search of Sarakiel.
Instead of waiting for my arrival so he could face me in open combat, he had chosen to leave his bastion’s defense up to his
rag-tag group of degenerates. In truth, I grew tired of dealing with the Ebon Legion. Today would be their last day. I would
break their backs, burn this pitiful bastion down to the ground, and give those currently defending their stronghold a simple
choice.
The clouds began to gently part above us, and as they did, the sun’s rays caught on the armor of the angels soaring
overhead. Barakiel took this light and made it burn even brighter, directing it toward the dark bastion built into the side of the
mountain ahead of me, blinding and disorienting his foes before diving in for the attack.
It was a common tactic among angels, but an effective one.
When the first blades began to clash, I took my cue. With the rest of my angels at my back, I followed my lieutenant’s flight
path, soaring toward the Ebon Legion’s bastion. From up here, it was easy to see the battle taking place below. The ring of
metal against metal was music to my ears, the first few groans and grunts adding rhythm to what was beginning to sound like a
symphony.
The symphony of battle.
The angels in my wave of attack dove past me, engaging with the Ebon Legion below in a well-mannered, disciplined way.
Their strikes were hard, and fast, and true. It was a dance. A ballet of swords, and shields, and the blood of angels. It was, in
many ways, beautiful.
By the time my feet touched the dark, stone floor of the bastion’s courtyard, the battle was in full swing. Drawing my
glowing, golden sword from its sheath, I marched toward the first angel clad in black that I could find and drew the blade right
into the angel’s back. The angel screamed from the pain, a shriek that was quickly snuffed as I twisted the blade, breaking his
spine with a single motion.
The angel crumpled. Someone screamed. All around me there were flashes of light, some coming from the moment of
contact between swords, others coming from the angels themselves; those who knew how to channel their Light and use it in
combat.
Warriors.
Guardians.
One in particular caught my eye… because he had just felled one of my men, and he was marching toward me. He has an
air about him, this angel. Tall, muscular, and strong—like Barakiel. His armor was black, adorned with golden filigree and
decorations. The intensity of his stare was not lost on me. This angel, marching toward me with his drawn sword, aimed to end
me.
“Medrion!” he roared.
An angel stepped in his path, one of my own, sword readied—ready to protect me with his life. The advancing angel began
to run, then leapt into the air, using his wings to vault him up and over my Guardian. There was a quick slice, barely visible,
and my Guardian screamed. Before the aggressor touched the ground again, the tips of my Guardian’s wings had been cut, and
fell to the floor with a pair of wet thuds.
Without looking, the assailant thrust his sword rearward, and into the shoulder blade of the Guardian whose wings he had
just clipped.
When he pulled his sword from the other angel and aimed it at me, it was wet with blood. “You made a mistake coming
here today,” he snarled.
“And you fight like you were born to it,” I said, “A Warrior, I presume?”
“My name is Raziel, and I am going to end your reign of terror today.”
I sighed, lowered my sword, and shook my head. “No,” I simply said. “You are not.”
“Ready your blade.”
“You seem like a capable Warrior. I could do with your help.”
“Help? There is no world in which I help you. You are a murderer, a traitor, and a danger to this world.”
“A burning world filled with rodents and insects. But it could be so much more, Raziel—and you could help me realize that
vision. Together, think of all the good we could do.”
“There is no good in you, and I am done talking.”
Raziel plunged toward me with all the force of a hurricane. Though his sword was large, and he wielded it with both
hands, he was still quick with it—far quicker than I would have given him credit for. I had to admire his footwork, also; the
way he danced, and weaved, and moved was fluid, and balanced.
My sword was large, like his, but I could use mine just as quickly as he could, and I only needed one of my hands to hold it.
Together we clashed, twirling around each other, trying to find openings we could exploit. Again, to his credit, he gave me very
few openings. This Warrior was battle-hardened and tested in ways few were.
An entire existence dedicated toward killing the demons that crawled up from Hell. In the centuries following Lucifer’s
imprisonment there had been many, but in more recent years they were few and far between; many Warriors grew soft, slow,
and sluggish. Raziel had clearly continued to hone his skills and, in a moment, had managed to slip the edge of his blade into a
slight break in my armor, just below my left arm.
 I hadn’t felt the sting of pain like this in some time, and it gave me pause.
Raziel backed up a few steps, steadied himself, and studied the long edge of his weapon. “Mortal after all… just like the
rest of us.” he said.
My jaw tightened. How dare he compare me to that rabble. With a sudden burst of Wrath to guide my movements and
empower my arm, I thrust my sword at him, letting it go and turning it into a missile that cut through the Warrior’s armor and
impaled him, straight through the abdomen.
I stood over the dying angel, watching the blood slowly pool around him as he reached helplessly toward the blade. I
placed my hand on his arm and squeezed it, gently, trying to show him compassion. Mercy. Such a talent should not be let to go
to waste.
“Say the words,” I said, “Say the words, and I can heal you. I can bring you back.”
Raziel’s mouth began filling up with blood. The wound was lethal, he would be dead in moments. Still, he turned his eyes
up at me, defiance and rage burning through them. “I am ashamed of you,” he hissed through blood-stained teeth.
I shut my eyes and exhaled through my nose.
“Please, let me help you.”
“I am beyond help,” he gargled, “And so are you…”
The light went out of the Warrior’s eyes. I placed my boot on his neck and pulled my bloody sword out of his abdomen.
“Ashamed,” I said, then I shook my head. “No. A shame that you had to die today. I could have used your sword.”
Surveying my surroundings, it had become clear by the quickly dimming noise that the battle was over. My men had
instructions to take prisoners, and not kill everyone in their sight—only the first few. The rest were to be hurt but kept alive if
at all possible. I knew that by coming here, I was going to lose a few of my number; I would have to replenish the losses by
converting some of these angels to my cause.
Some would join me.
Others, though… they were going to serve a different purpose.
I strode up to Barakiel, who had the tip of his sword aimed at the throat of a female. One I recognized. “Once more you find
yourself in my hands, Kalmiya,” I said.
Kalmiya spat a glob of blood at the ground by my feet. “Fuck you,” she snarled.
“I admire your spirit, but there is no need for insults or for further bloodshed. In fact, I have a proposition for you and
what’s left of your Legion. I suggest you listen carefully.”
 C HAPTER TEN

SARAKIEL

I thought I would’ve made my decision by the time I reached the Tyrant’s cell, but I hadn’t. I had been given the authority
to release him, but I still wasn’t sure whether I wanted to. I didn’t trust him, and I felt like it was time I told him that.
Maybe not exactly in those words, and maybe not quite so directly.
Tact was what I needed. Finesse. If I was going to accept the Tyrant’s offer of help in hunting down Medrion, I needed to
know more about him first, because I felt like I didn’t know anything. Honestly, I didn’t. I knew, now, that he had been the
Guardian watching over my cell back in Heaven, the Guardian standing by while Medrion abused and tortured me in whatever
way he fancied.
The Guardian who had attacked Medrion moments before Heaven burned.
Why this angel had been prophesized to become King of the Ashes, I didn’t know. I also couldn’t see how that path would
eventually unfold itself in front of him. That was why I needed more from him, a lot more, and I was going to get it one way or
the other. Going after Medrion with the Tyrant at my side meant entrusting my life to him. How was I supposed to do that when
I had only just learned his real name?
The angel with me, one of Helena’s guards, opened the door to the dungeons to let me through. I found the Tyrant pacing
around in the small box he was being held in. He perked up when he saw me, turned, and fixed me with a cold, hard stare from
across the room.
I gestured at the door to the Tyrant’s cell. “Open it,” I said, and the angel dutifully did as I requested.
I didn’t let the Tyrant out, though; instead, I stepped inside.
“What are you doing?” asked the Tyrant.
“Lock the door,” I said to the angel with the keys to the cell, “And wait for me outside. I’ll call for you when I’m done.”
The angel gave me a slight nod before shutting the cell door and locking it. He stepped outside, exiting the dungeons to
leave the Tyrant and I alone. I looked up at him, meeting his steely blue eyes and holding onto his gaze, as if in defiance of it.
“You have come back with authority,” he said.
“I have,” I said.
“Is there a reason I’m still in this cell?”
“There are many. Firstly, I don’t trust you.” So much for tact. “And secondly, I know nothing about you.”
And so much for finesse.
“I can understand why the first is an obstacle, but the second? You know my name. You know who I was.”
“All I know about you are your job titles. Guardian, and Tyrant. I don’t know how one plays into the other, I don’t know
who you were after you fell, or how you got those.” I nodded at the leathery wings clinging to his back. “A long time ago, you
asked me to submit to you, to pledge myself to you and you would give me all that I desired. Do you remember that?”
“Vividly,” he purred.
“I’ve decided to take back my submission and apply some conditions to our working arrangement.”
An eyebrow arched. “Working arrangement?”
“You want to find Medrion. I do too. If we’re going to do this together, I need to be able to trust you. For me to trust you, I
need to know who you are… which means you’re going to have to open that mouth and start talking.”
“And what would you like me to talk about?”
“I want to know why I should release you. Why you think I should bring you with me when I go out hunting for Medrion.”
“Helena will never let you leave on a mission of vengeance.”
“You’re right, which is why they won’t know.”
“You lied to them? To Helena?”
“I told them as much as I needed to tell them, enough for them to not welcome Medrion in here with open arms should he
show up out of the blue. But there’s more I haven’t told them. A lot more.”
 His eyes darkened. “What haven’t you told them?”
“You have your secrets, I have mine.”
“Are you trying to get a reaction from me?”
“All I’m trying to get out of you is a little honesty. You fell, just like everyone else did, but you hated your old life so much,
you stripped yourself of your name, gave yourself a fancy title, and went out into the world with a permanent scowl and a
growl in your throat… I want to know why.”
“That is not how that happened.”
I stepped up to him, almost pressing myself against him. “Then tell me,” I said, gazing up at him. “Tell me who you are…
how did you get those marks?”
He turned his eyes away, as if he didn’t want to look at me. He looked frustrated, cornered—you could even say caged in.
Good. I doubted if I was ever going to get the chance to have this angel boxed in like this again. Right now was my only
opportunity to get him to talk, and I needed that more than anything.
I could see his throat working, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He shook his head. “My past life is none of your
concern, Lightbringer.”
“I’m not asking about your past life,” I said, “I’m asking about this one.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” he barked. “That I’m a monster?”
“I know you’re a monster. I want to know how it happened, and why.”
“If I’m a monster, why have you caged yourself in with me?” he growled.
“Because I’m not nearly as afraid of you as you are of your own past.”
“Watch your tongue.”
“Or what?”
“I won’t warn you again.”
“Yes, you will, because I don’t think you’re brave enough to tell me who you are, so you’re just going to keep deflecting.”
The Tyrant pushed me up against the bars and snarled against my lips. “I am not afraid.”
“Prove it,” I said, trying to hide the steadily increasing pace of my heart rate and the quickness of my breaths. “You can’t
intimidate me like you can everyone else. I want to know why. Why is everyone else afraid of you?”
The Tyrant released me and backed away, but only slightly. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and looked away. “I told
you who I was in Heaven. Why isn’t that enough?”
“Because that’s not who you are anymore.” I paused, looked at the marks on my hands, then looked up at him again. “I
won’t judge you. I just want to know what happened.”
“You will not be able to keep from judging me,” he hissed. “My life on this planet has been struggle, strife, and death. You
have not tasted this world like I have. Your purity, for the most part, remains intact. Untarnished. How will you look at me
when you know the things I have done?”
“You won’t know until you try me,” I said, trying to lower my tone and show him some care.
The Tyrant was reluctant. Resistant. He gave me his eyes, but his jaw clenched. He didn’t want to do what he was about to
do, but I had given him no other choice. “I fell with Kalmiya,” he finally said. “Or, she was the first angel I found after I fell.
Almost immediately after.”
Anger. A tingle of jealousy. “I know this part,” I said, a little harshly.
“Neither of us knew who we were, but by our appearances, we knew we were similar beings. That similarity allowed us to
foster a bond in those initial days. We were able to find shelter in a cave off the side of the road we had landed on, subsisting
on rainwater and whatever animals we could get our hands on. It was a miserable, pitiful existence.”
“Your memories didn’t come back?”
“Not nearly as fast as yours did, though we both quickly became aware of a pressing need. Light. We did not understand
what it was, but we knew that we needed it. We left the shelter of the cave and walked for what felt like days until we felt the
first sliver of it.” The Tyrant paused, as if remembering something… awful.
“What happened?”
“We followed the Light until we found a group of angels rooting through a building on the side of the highway, at a truck
stop. The stench of death hit us even before we opened the door. When we got inside, we found bodies. So many bodies.”
“Bodies?”
“Mortals. Raptured. All of them. Alive once, then dead and packed into a storage room where they would be out of sight.
There was music coming from the main room, laughter, moaning. I told Kalmiya to wait in the kitchen while I moved deeper
into the building. The things I saw… what those angels were doing… just witnessing it left the first scars.”
“I almost don’t dare ask what they were doing.”
“Sinning, in every way possible. These angels had Fallen a few days before us, and, after their initial confusion, had
immediately begun indulging their darker urges. Untethered by the false morality of Heaven, they were debasing themselves,
gorging on whatever food, drink, and carnal pleasures they could find. I made a move to leave, but they saw me. I was afraid
they would somehow steal our Light and throw us in with the rest of the corpses.”
“What did they do?”
“They asked us to join them. As horrifying as our initial impression was, they were just as lost and confused as we were.
We had no memories of our past lives and all we knew was an all-consuming hunger, for everything and anything. At the time
none of us had any idea of the consequences. So, we joined them, in the hopes that sticking together would lead to some
eventual clarity, and there was strength in numbers if nothing else.”
“Are you really trying to convince me that all this is because you ‘fell in with a bad crowd’?”
“That’s how it started,” he paused. “It was soon after that our memories began to resurface, and with them, the marks.
Imagine an entire host of angels suddenly remembering their purpose, their Commandments, and all the damage they had done
to the humans they were supposed to have been caretakers of. It was chaos. The first marks came on slowly, a scar here and a
tarnished feather there… and then claws began to sprout, beautiful feathers littering the ground as angelic wings were swapped
for those of a demon.” He stopped again, glancing sadly toward his own ruined wings.
“A demon,” I said, “Like Abaddon.”
“As I said, our memories had begun to return. Eventually every angel in our group remembered their station and name…
and my name. They blamed me. They thought I had done something to them, caused the Burn, or made the marks appear,
because they had been fine before I turned up.”
“That’s not fair, you were as lost as they were.”
“It did not matter, they now had someone to blame for their sins. They imprisoned me, left me to starve alone and cold in
that dark, putrid storage room, surrounded by decaying corpses; their shame, not mine. I would have died in there had Kalmiya
not released me.”
The mention of her name still tightened my heart, but it released quickly—he had owed her his life, and now at least that
debt was repaid.
“What did you do when she got you out?”
The weight he bore on his shoulders seemed to double when he realized he was coming toward to the end of his tale.
Shame, grief, and regret playing across his face as he struggled to put the words together.
“They wanted a demon so badly. A monster they could blame for their cruelty and gluttony. They needed me to be their
warped sacrifice so they could continue to sin without guilt,” he stretched his wings as far as the bars allowed. “So, I became
what they wanted, what they had feared all along: Abaddon. Over time, my name became taboo and I was referred to only as
the Tyrant. Those who did not bow to me had their wings torn from their backs and were cast out to fend for themselves.”
I should have been afraid of him then, but all I felt was sadness. Slowly they had stripped his true identity from him and
what remained was anger, and vengeance. I understood that all too well.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
“I did what I had to to survive in this God-forsaken world.”
“And you damned yourself for it, and for them.”
“You damn yourself for vengeance, but you crave that still.”
“I’m not afraid of a little corruption if it means I’ll put a dangerous predator down for good.”
“Then what?” he asked, moving in on me again. “Say, you find him, and you stick your blade in his chest, and you watch the
life go out of his eyes. Look at me now and tell me you’ll be satisfied. That you’ll put the knife down, wipe the blood off your
hands, and go quietly into the sunset.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I do. You’re like me. You will never be satisfied, and it will claw at your being for all time.”
“I just want to find Medrion and finish what I started.”
“We want the same thing. Let me out, and we can go and find him together.”
“I’m not done with my questions. You haven’t told me why you want Medrion so badly.”
“I have not.”
“So, tell me.”
The Tyrant arched a lazy eyebrow. “Let me out, first.”
I realized then that he had managed to corner me, and I wasn’t going to get more out of him if he thought he had the upper
hand. I needed to remind him who was in charge here. I met his gaze and shoved him, hard. The push caught him by surprise,
and I was able to send him staggering into the bars opposite us. By the time he had recovered, I was on top of him. I grabbed
one of his hands and pinned it against the bars. He went to grab my throat with his other hand, wrapping his fingers around my
neck.
“I still don’t trust you,” I hissed. “I think you’re lying about your intentions, and I think you’re going to turn on me the
moment I show you my back.”
“Turn around, and let’s find out,” he said, his tone reaching a low, dangerous timbre.
I was playing with fire now, suddenly aware of how close we were. My heart was frantically beating, my pulse reaching
fever pitch. I was starting to feel too hot in my own skin, and far too exposed standing so close to him… but that wasn’t the
worst part. The worst part was the pit of desire welling up inside of me. I remembered this feeling. I had felt it back at the
Tyrant’s Bastion a few times before—this want, this need.
It was Lust.
Lust had no place in this room, not when I was trying to interrogate him, when I was trying to determine whether or not I
could trust him. And yet, it had reared its head once more, filling my mind with images, with memories of the near misses he
and I had experienced. How had he flipped this around? Moments ago, I had been the one in control. I was the one in authority.
The one in power.
But here I was, almost trembling. I stared at him, my eyes darting to each of his. He was waiting for me to make the next
move, for my grip to slacken, for my weight to shift just enough that he could break free.
“What now?” he asked, fastening his grip around my throat, then releasing it, then tightening it again.
I couldn’t say I hated the feeling. That only made things worse.
“Don’t think for a second you can manipulate me into doing something stupid,” I growled.
“I am not manipulating you, but if you want to stop Lust from taking control of us both in this cell, you are going to have to
be the one to stop it.”
“Why not you?”
“Because I have no desire to stop myself from wanting you.”
Groaning, I shoved the Tyrant away from me and moved into the other side of the room. I was trembling, my entire body
firmly held in Lust’s vice-like and satin grip. It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep myself from acting on these dark
impulses, but when I thought I was ready, I called out to the guard.
“Open the cell,” I said “Let Helena know we need to see her right away.”
The angel glanced at the Tyrant, then back at me. Quietly, he unlocked the cell door and let us both out. I made the Tyrant
walk ahead of me. Neither of us had a word to say about what had just happened, and that suited me just fine.
Neither of us needed to talk about this. In fact, the faster I could forget this near-miss and all the others that had come
before it, the better.
 C H A P T E R E LE V E N

SARAKIEL

H elena wasn’t ready for us.

She and Micah hadn’t just been standing around in the bastion’s grand hall this whole time. I had to wait for
them both to be summoned by one of Helena’s Trumpets. Luckily, the grand hall was so pretty, and vibrant, and full
of life, I didn’t mind the wait.
This place was beautiful. It was earthly, and grounded, and serene. I felt at peace, here, which was a strange sensation to
feel considering the general state of the planet and our situation as its occupying angels. I didn’t think I had ever truly felt at
peace before I came here.
I didn’t think I would’ve been able to recognize it, either.
The Tyrant, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care for it. “Boastful,” he said, picking up a vine that was covered in pretty
flowers and letting it drop. “And loud. How could anyone stand being in this place?”
“Do the croaking frogs and chirping birds bother you?” I asked.
“A grand hall is meant to be used for two things: eating, and war coordination. This is no place to hold a strategic
meeting.”
“Not everybody is at war, and not everybody thinks like you do.”
“Helena is at war whether she admits it or not.”
“This bastion, from what I can understand, has been a refuge for angels for years. I don’t think they’ve seen combat even
once.”
“You do not have to tell me twice. I have experienced their defenses once already, and they are entirely lacking.”
“I don’t think you should begrudge them for peacefully making a home for themselves in this remote location. They wanted
to be safe, and they have achieved that objective.”
“They may have hidden themselves away across the ocean, but they are still part of this war. And when war comes to their
doorstep, do you think all of this greenery will help her defeat their enemies?”
“Do you not see the value in beauty?”
He stared at me. “I can appreciate beauty.”
My eyebrows arched. “Is that… wait, are you flirting?”
“I do not flirt.”
“I don’t know. You’ve said some pretty flirtatious things to me in the short time we’ve known each other. What was it you
said back at your bastion?”
“Stop.”
“Oh, right. Submit to me, Sarakiel. Submit and⁠—”
“—stop.”
“You know you don’t have to be the Tyrant around me all the time.”
“This is a frivolous distraction, and⁠—”
“—Hello again, Sarakiel,” said Helena, her voice catching us both off guard. I could tell just by her posture, by the way she
walked toward us looking like some kind of magnificent, tall statue, she didn’t appreciate the Tyrant’s presence. Already she
was bristling, and they had barely exchanged words.
The Tyrant shot upright and turned to look at her, his large, bat-like wings whooshing from the sudden movement. He had a
scowl on his face at the sight of her, though I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. Even before I had made the pilgrimage
over here, I had known about how difficult relations between Helena and the Ebon Legion were.
They were frosty, at best, just like this joyful reunion.
“Helena,” he simply said. He looked over at me. I raised my eyebrows. “Nice sanctuary,” he grudgingly added.
“Pleasantries… how very unlike you.”
 “Would you rather I be hostile? Because I can do that for you, if you wish.”
“You have been hostile enough with my angels, Azrael in particular. Let us instead be civil, if you find that agreeable.”
“I can be civil as well.”
“Ideally, I’d like us to be more than just civil,” I said. “We’re allies, here. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?”
“Yes…” Helena trailed off, “It does appear as though we have a common cause.”
“The Archangel,” said the Tyrant.
“Indeed.”
“You believe me, then?” I asked.
“I thought about it for some time… without Medrion here in person to defend himself, I have no choice but to withhold final
judgment. But Micah’s endorsement of your story is compelling enough.”
“That’s a lot of words to say maybe,” said the Tyrant.
“Words have power,” she said, “I choose to wield them wisely.”
“As does Medrion. He will use his words to wound us if he can, before he swoops in with his flaming sword.”
“I have not fully endorsed your idea that Medrion is the ruthless killer you make him out to be. I will need more evidence
before I believe that.”
“I think I’ll be able to give you all the evidence you need,” I said, “And I have a feeling I’ll have backup, here.”
As if he had timed his entrance perfectly, Micah came rushing into the room through a side door. The Tyrant glanced at him,
a frown on his face. Micah staggered, stopping after taking a few faltering steps. In the Tyrant’s shadow, Micah looked even
smaller, even more like a boy.
“Who is this?” barked the Tyrant. “Do you let children play in your grand hall?”
“I’m not a child,” Micah said, straightening out. “I’m a Cherub.”
“A cherub?” the Tyrant seemed taken aback. “Impossible.”
“It is possible. And it’s true, tell him.” Micah looked at me, then.
The Tyrant also turned his head toward me. “What is this?” he asked.
I nodded. “It’s true,” I said. “Tyrant, meet Micah. He was… is… the cherub I answered to in Heaven.”
The Tyrant didn’t seem to believe what he was seeing. He turned around to look at Micah again, who was doing everything
he could to make himself look bigger. “How is this possible?” he asked. “Cherubs… don’t fall.”
“It was a surprise to me, too,” said Micah.
“But… how? I do not understand.”
“I would gladly offer an explanation, but I don’t have one for you. Cherubs weren’t meant to fall, but here I am, standing
before you, about as mortal as they come. I take it I’m the first cherub you’ve seen?”
“The only cherub I have seen in my many years on this planet.” He looked up at Helena. “You have been hiding one all this
time?”
“Micah has been with us since the beginning, yes. I am not hiding him, he is a part of our community.”
“And you take orders from this boy?”
“Not a boy,” Micah put in, “And no. I… well, cherubs aren’t good at leading. We were literally not made for it. So, I defer
to Helena and her judgment in all matters.”
The Tyrant shook his head. He looked like he was about to keep going, but I placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.
“It looks like you’re having a lot of trouble wrapping your head around this,” I said. “I get it, but we’re a little pressed for
time. How about we move on?”
Helena graciously nodded, as did the Tyrant. Micah then jumped in. “Anyway, sorry I’m late; I wasn’t expecting to be
summoned so suddenly.”
“It’s my fault,” I said. “I lost track of time.”
“What she means to say,” the Tyrant put in, “Is we had things to discuss.”
He was clearly still salty that I had made him dig into his past. He hadn’t enjoyed doing that, and I understood as much. But
I had needed to know, I had needed him to be honest with me about something, anything about who he was. I had let him out of
the cell, but he was going to have to work for my trust.
“Has there been a development?” asked Helena, “Is that why you called for us so suddenly?”
“Right,” I said, stepping toward her. “I need to talk to you about Medrion, but not about what he did. About what he said to
me.”
“Said to you?” Helena asked, frowning.
“Yes…” I paused, suddenly unsure about what I was about to tell them. “Before he escaped, he told me… about Lucifer.”
A wave of cold silence pushed through the room. Even the frogs and the birds fell silent for a moment.
“Why would you bring his name into this sacred place?” Helena asked, a scowl creeping upon her pristine face.
“Medrion told me, as I stood in front of him, that if I killed him, I would never know the truth about Lucifer.”
Helena shook her head. “What truth? He was the first to break God’s heart,” she glanced toward the Tyrant as if he himself
had been the second, “and was punished for it. End of story.”
“Medrion seemed to think Lucifer has something to do with what happened to us.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure. That was when the Wretched attacked. He got away from me, then.”
“Medrion was just stalling,” said the Tyrant. “He would have said anything to save his own skin.”
“I don’t know… I feel like he was telling the truth.”
“Why? What reason could you possibly have to trust anything he says?”
I didn’t know.
I had even less reason to trust Medrion than I had the Tyrant, but with some strange kind of confidence I knew he hadn’t
been lying. Lucifer was involved, somehow. Or maybe he was the key to all of this. I wasn’t sure.
Still, I felt right in invoking Lucifer’s name, despite Helena’s apprehension.
“That Lucifer could have a hand in this…” the Tyrant said, then paused. “Could he or his demonic legions have somehow
infiltrated Heaven and… struck God down?”
“And gotten all the way to Her without anyone knowing?” asked Helena. “We would have sensed it. I would note too, that
demonic activity seems to have decreased since the Burn.”
Demonic activity wasn’t unheard of on Earth. Whether some demon managed to crawl its way out of Hell or was
summoned by stupid, human occultists, occasionally one slipped through and made a mess of things. Angels like me and my unit
were sometimes sent down to Earth to deal with them or clean up the aftermath of their passing.
That God was dead, and all the angels had fallen and were roaming the Earth maybe meant demons were less inclined to
venture out.
“So, Medrion was lying,” Helena said, a definitiveness to her tone. “Lucifer couldn’t have gotten to God. He would first
have needed to escape Hell, and even if he did, the stench of his demonic taint would’ve been far too powerful to hide. And we
haven’t sensed his workings down on Earth, either. If what you’ve told me about Medrion is true, I agree with the Tyrant that he
was likely trying to get you to hesitate.”
“I… suppose…” I conceded, though in truth, I was disappointed. Lucifer’s involvement in the Burn would mean there were
answers to be found, and maybe even a solution. If he had nothing to do with it, then that meant we were out of leads once
more.
Still, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that he was involved.
“Lucifer had nothing to do with the Burn,” said Micah, his voice rising out of the blue.
“What do you mean?” asked Helena.
Micah looked up at all of us, his boyish eyes sparkling with otherworldly knowledge… and full of grave worry. “Lucifer is
no demon… and he’s not in Hell.”
 C H A P T E R T W E LV E

SARAKIEL

“M icah…” Helena ventured. “Please elaborate on what you just said.”

The three of us—Helena, the Tyrant and I—stood in stunned silence around Micah, in the wake of what he had
just said about Lucifer. Lucifer is no demon. If he wasn’t, that was news to all of us, since Lucifer was the first angel
to get thrown into the pit. The pit was built for him, and in the belly of the pit is where angels became demons.
That much was a universally accepted truth, and the main reason why I tried to save Gadriel.
Angels, once created, couldn’t be destroyed—not before the Burn, anyway. God also wasn’t in the business of killing Her
creations. Instead, those that sinned against her—and usually far worse sins than what Gadriel and I had been sentenced for—
were broken of spirit and sent to the pit, where they would sit, writhe, and squirm for all eternity, knowing just how much they
had disappointed Her, how much they had hurt Her.
There had always been rumors that Lucifer, having been the first and most powerful angel thrown into the pit, found a way
out. Not out, exactly, but through. They said he had managed to bore a hole into the walls of the pit and carved a deep, and
dark domain for himself. A place where he and his followers would be safe from the Light of Heaven. The Light that burned a
demon’s tainted body, caused it to melt away and disintegrate.
No demon could ever set foot in Heaven.
Not even Lucifer.
“Lucifer is a demon,” the Tyrant contested. “He’s the first.”
Micah shook his head. “You’re wrong.”
“Do not stretch this out, boy. Get to the point.”
“This boy is a Cherub,” barked Helena. “Watch your words.”
“A Cherub once,” the Tyrant said, “But down here, no longer.”
I grabbed the Tyrant’s shoulder. “Enough,” I hissed, “Let him speak. Please, Micah. Go on.”
Micah stared at the Tyrant for a long moment, then lowered his eyes. “I was forbidden from speaking about this,” he said.
“Even if I had wanted to, I would never have been able to say the words. Not before.”
“And now?” Helena asked.
“The compulsion to remain quiet on the subject is… gone.”
“Because She is also gone.”
Micah nodded, then sighed. “Lucifer is not a demon…” he paused. “I know where he is, and it’s not Hell.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Let me first explain what happened to him,” another pause. “I’ve told you before, Lucifer’s punishment for hurting God
was everlasting, but it wasn’t to be broken and thrown into the pit. He was the first of her angels, and the first to break Her
heart. The shock that anyone even could was enough to inspire in God a kind of vengefulness no one had ever seen before.”
“If Lucifer was the first,” the Tyrant said, “Who else was there to witness God’s vengefulness?”
“I was,” Micah said. “So were all the other Cherubs. He was the first angel, but we were the first of Her creations. Dutiful
and loyal to a fault. We helped Her create you; create him.”
“I can’t… I can’t even imagine the timeframe you’re talking about, here,” I said.
“Try not to, it won’t make sense. Time has no meaning on Her plane.” He looked up at the ceiling, as if he were
remembering something fondly. “Lucifer was perfect. She put so much of Herself into him, gave him so much of Her own
power. She needed him, because without him, She couldn’t enact Her vision; she couldn’t build Heaven Herself. So, She made
him strong where we were weak, but also gave him the ability to think for himself. If he was to construct Heaven, he needed to
have initiative, to be free of mind.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Lucifer did exactly what he was supposed to do. He built Heaven, designed its Sacred Machinery, tinkered with its inner
workings until it was fit for purpose… only it wasn’t until the first humans arrived that he understood what that purpose was.
Remember, Lucifer—like all of you—was bound by Her commandments. He was told to never interfere with human lives, but
to love them above all else. Lucifer loved humanity, he reveled when they entered Heaven because he could finally be with
them, those humans who loved his God so much… but then they were gone.”
“They moved on…” Helena put in.
“No, that’s only what the angels had been told. That Heaven was some sort of temporary stop for human souls before they
moved on to become one with the cosmos. However, the truth is somewhat more upsetting. While humans are in Heaven, their
energy helps to keep its Sacred Machinery running, but even soul energy has its limits.”
“Wait, wait,” I said, “Limits? What are you talking about?”
“Please, I’ll explain as much as I know. As I understand it, the energy within a human’s soul is what keeps Heaven’s Sacred
Machinery running, but eventually, that resource is expended. I remember the day the first human soul ‘ran out’. Lucifer’s pain
shook Heaven to its core. There were clouds, thunder, lightning, similar to what we all experienced moments before the Burn.
He was angry, he didn’t understand what had happened, why it had to happen, or why he had been kept in the dark.”
I could see Helena’s face turn green, my stomach was also starting to churn uncomfortably at this revelation.
“Are you trying to tell us that human souls fuel Heaven?” asked Helena.
“Yes, they fuel Heaven, and in turn the creation of angels and cherubs. They keep the Machinery working. When Lucifer
discovered the truth, he raged and rebelled.” said Micah. “His outrage was contagious, too. There were many other angels who
agreed with him. They hadn’t been told this would happen. God refused to answer their cries, refused Lucifer’s requests for an
audience. So, he took matters into his own hands… he planned to destroy the Sacred Machinery he had built. When God
learned of his plans, She was furious, and finally intervened.”
“But he had every right to be upset!” I said, feeling the sudden urge to defend his actions.
Micah nodded. “I agree. But none of us can pretend to know God’s plan. I can only imagine and hope that She had Her
reasons for it all, but if She did we were never told what they were.”
“Perhaps it had something to do with all the dead souls stuck on Earth,” said Helena.
I had almost forgotten. It seemed so long ago the Tyrant had taken me out on that excursion to find Ariuk and his lost
convoy. On that trip we had come across a human settlement, a town. There, I had seen a woman rushing through the street as if
she was running away from something she couldn’t quite see.
Something I couldn’t see, either.
“The Earth is overrun with the souls of the dead,” said the Tyrant.
“Without Heaven to take them in, where else would they go?” said Helena.
“That seems plausible,” Micah said, “But I don’t know the truth of Heaven’s ultimate purpose. No one does. The
Morningstar had enough free will and power to fight for what he believed was right, and in doing so committed the ultimate
betrayal. Her first angel acted against Her. For that, he was punished.”
“The pit,” the Tyrant said.
“No. She built the pit, but it wasn’t for him. Remember, other angels felt the same way he did, and had planned to help him
shut down Heaven. God had all those angels loyal to Lucifer captured, beaten, broken, and thrown into the pit… and she made
him watch.”
“Watch?” Helena asked.
“She chained him to the mouth of the pit and forced him to endure the pained cries of his followers, of his own kind, to
watch as they were hurled over its edge. There he sits, unable to help them, forever listening to their pleading, to their pain.
His punishment wasn’t to be thrown in, but I’d say what he ended up with was worse.”
Silence filled the room again. My heart almost couldn’t handle what Micah was saying, but it knew he wasn’t lying, too. I
was a Lightbringer, an angel cut from Lucifer’s own cloth. Part of me had come from him, and that part had—for an instant—
tightened up as if it had just felt pain.
His pain.
It made me dizzy, made the room spin. I felt physically sick and immediately had to sit down on one of the chairs around
Helena’s dining table. Helena turned her head to the side and grimaced, a crack in her otherwise perfect composure.
“How can I believe your words?” the Tyrant asked, his voice tearing through the silence.
“It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not,” Micah said. “I have no reason to lie to you. You wanted to know if it
was possible Lucifer had a hand in what had happened to God… and I’m telling you it’s not, because he was chained up.”
“Is he still there, now?” I asked.
“I would say so,” Micah said, “But after the Burn… I don’t know.”
“Are you saying he could have escaped?” asked the Tyrant.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
He advanced on the small boy. “You don’t know, or you don’t think so? Which is it?”
Micah didn’t shy away—he stood up to the Tyrant, puffing out his chest. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have a link to
Heaven anymore, do I?”
“So… we don’t know if he escaped,” Helena said, “And that means we don’t know if Medrion was telling the truth or not.”
“Exactly.”
“Which means the only way for us to know for sure is to… go and take a look?”
The Tyrant scoffed. “Impossible.”
“No…” I said, shaking my head. “Not impossible.”
“Heaven is closed to us,” said Helena. “If we knew how to get back, we would have tried it by now, which means all of
this is pointless.”
“Unless Archangels have the power to go back.”
Micah shook his head. “If I don’t, neither does Medrion.”
“Then he was lying,” the Tyrant spat out. “He was trying to stay Sarakiel’s hand by filling her head with nonsense, and it
worked.”
“I said I couldn’t get back to Heaven,” Micah said. “Not that I didn’t know how to get back.”
I stood up abruptly. “You know how to get back to Heaven?”
Just as abruptly as I had stood upright, the door to Helena’s grand hall burst open, sending a push of warm air into the room
and setting the birds into a chirping frenzy. It was Azrael. She stood at the door, her coal-colored wings tucked behind her
back, her sword drawn, her chest heaving.
She scanned the room, her eyes wide and filled with urgency. “We have company,” she said.
A cold wave of dread filled me.
Medrion.
“How many?” Helena asked.
“Not sure,” Azrael said. “But they’re coming fast.”
Helena sprang into action, walking briskly toward the door. She rolled her shoulders, and a pair of long, gorgeous wings
manifested behind her back. They were bright, and tall, and they looked like they shone with golden Light.
“Prepare our defenses,” she barked.
Azrael nodded, turned, and went speeding out of the grand hall.
Helena then turned to the three of us. “Stay here,” she said, “All of you.”
The Tyrant stepped forward, a scowl on his face. “Like hell I will.”
“Don’t argue with me, snake. I outrank you.”
“There is nothing you can do to stop me from breaking that door down and leaving. I can fly with your side, or I can fly
away and let your lazy, inexperienced guards die at the hands of a vastly superior foe. Your choice.”
Helena stared at him, then looked at me. I lightly nodded at her.
She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and made her way out of the room, leaving the door open for us to follow her. I looked
up at the Tyrant. “I hope you’re not planning on telling me to stay put,” I said.
He looked down at me, his eyes low. “My instinct will always be to protect you.”
“I don’t need protection,” I said, “And if Medrion is out there, I need to be out there, too.”
For a moment it looked like he was going to tell me to sit down, but he thought better of it and started to walk toward the
exit. Only Micah and I remained in the grand hall. I could tell he wanted to help, but he didn’t have wings like ours, and
Cherubs weren’t built for combat. I walked up to him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and smiled.
“Hold the thought, okay?” I asked, “And stay put.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said. “Don’t get killed.”
Nodding, I leapt after the Tyrant, using my wings to guide my leap so I could fall into step beside him. Together we left the
grand hall, took to the sky, and gazed across the horizon. There, plunging low, past the clouds, were shimmering spots of light
moving together, and moving quickly.
And they were coming right toward us.
 C HAPTER THIRTEEN

SARAKIEL

O utside was chaos. Angels were rushing from one side of the Bastion to the other to man the parapets, most of them
choosing not to bother with the stairs and simply leaping into the air and letting their wings take them up. Helena, their
leader, was among the first to take position. I admired the way she instantly took charge of the situation, directing her
people and telling them where to go and what to do.
The Tyrant wasn’t as impressed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“She shouldn’t have to tell them where to stand,” he said, “They should already know what to do.”
“Not everyone can be as well trained as the Ebon Legion.”
“No, but children could put up a better defense than this. Medrion is going to tear through this place like a flaming
wrecking ball.”
“Then I guess it’s up to us to make sure he doesn’t, huh?”
He simply frowned. Once Helena was done directing her defense, she hopped down to where we were, landing lightly on
her feet, her golden aura shining brightly. “Are you two simply going to stand here?” she asked, with a voice like thunder.
“What do you need me to do?” I asked.
“Do you know how to use a sword?”
“I do.”
“There’s a rack over there. Pick one and get ready.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll want to arm me,” said the Tyrant.
“That depends,” she said, “Are you going to use it on my people, or are you going to defend this Bastion?”
“As much as you may wish to think it, Helena, we are not enemies.”
“Over the years you have campaigned to prove quite the opposite, so I think you can forgive my hesitation.”
“If you are concerned about one angel with a sword, then you are not ready to face Medrion’s forces,” he warned.
“You’ll find we’re harder to chew through than you think. Grab a weapon, and make yourself useful,” she barked. With
that, Helena took to the skies again to join with Azrael, who was holding position in the air high above the main courtyard.
The Tyrant stood in frustrated silence for a moment. I whistled at him, then tossed him a blade. He caught it by the pommel,
but only barely. “Really not used to being talked to like that, are you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Lightbringers,” he said, under his breath.
So, that’s what she is, I thought, turning my eyes up at her. It made sense. I had never seen a Fallen angel radiate with so
much Light, not even Medrion. How had she mustered so much power, what secrets did she know, and how could I learn them?
Those questions were going to have to wait.
I took hold of a sword and twirled it around in my hand, getting a feel for the weight. It was a good sword, well balanced,
and ornately decorated. The blade itself was metallic, but it had a rose sheen to it as did the full-plate armor Helena’s angels
wore. It sang as I swung it through the air, preparing myself to have to use it against another angel.
“Angels,” Helena called out, her voice like a megaphone. “An unknown force approaches. We do not know who they are or
what they want, but we must assume they are enemies. Prepare yourselves. Sharpshooters, ready your arrows, but await my
command. Guardians, ready the shield.”
The Tyrant frowned. “Shield?” he asked.
At her command, several of the angels arranged on the walls raised a hand each. A spot of Light burst from their fingertips,
followed by a shimmer of prismatic rays that shot out in all directions. As the rays met each other they began to interlink,
slowly expanding beyond the Bastion’s walls.
There, more rainbow-colored rays converged and joined to create a spider’s web of shimmering light; a field that was
tightly knit and hummed with power. The Guardians on the wall lowered their hands, but their prismatic shield remained,
stretching all the way along Helena’s walls, and what looked to be several hundred feet into the air, creating a dome around the
Bastion.
Awestruck, I leapt onto the walls, the Tyrant following close behind. Together we took up positions along the easternmost
edge of Helena’s Bastion and watched as the shining dots along the horizon grew brighter, and closer. Though a shield was in
place between us and the figures flying toward us, I could still see them clearly.
“Can you see who they are?” I asked.
“No. They are too far,” he said, then he paused. “If it’s Medrion…”
“He may have trouble with this shield?” I ventured. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Nor have I… but I doubt it will stop him.”
“Maybe it won’t stop him, but it may buy us some time.”
He looked across at me. “Whatever happens, stay close to me.”
I glanced up at him. “And why’s that?”
“So I can protect you.”
“There are other people here who need your protection too, Guardian.”
“I don’t care about any of them.”
A cold breeze whipped past us, then, chilling me to my core. I could see it in his eyes, his intent, his truth. He would let this
place burn before he let anything happen to me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I didn’t think I was any more important than
any of the angels here—I certainly wasn’t more important than Helena, or Micah.
That cold breeze turned into a sudden gust, as a shadow zipped above us and went shooting toward Helena. I didn’t know
what I had just seen, but when I turned around, there weren’t two angels floating in midair—Helena, and Azrael. There were
three.
That third angel with dark wings had moved like a blur, like a bullet, going right through the Guardians’ shield as if it
wasn’t there. I heard him speak, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying because he was keeping his voice low.
“They have a Seeker,” said the Tyrant.
“A Seeker…” like Gadriel. The pain came quickly, and suddenly. It caught me off guard. Not just the fact that it was there,
but just how much it still hurt. I hadn’t been able to let go of what happened to her. As far as my heart was concerned, I had
watched her get marched out of the cells and toward the pit just the other night.
The Tyrant placed a hand on my shoulder. He didn’t speak, but the frown on his face showed concern.
“I’m alright,” I said, and I turned my attention at the shimmering dots of light in the sky. They were closer, now. Far closer.
Medrion would be here any minute, and I realized in that instant, I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready to see him again. I wasn’t ready to fight him again. I wanted to kill him, make him suffer for what he had
done to us. But I also needed him alive, because as much as I knew Medrion would say and do anything to save his own skin, I
partly believed him. If Lucifer fell along with the rest of us, then Medrion may be the only one who knows where on Earth he
is. If he didn’t, and he was still chained to the mouth of the pit somewhere in Heaven, then we didn’t need Medrion at all.
The Seeker Helena had been talking to zipped away from her, made a circle around the Bastion’s tall, white tower, and
perched upon its brilliant peak. Helena lowered herself onto the parapets where the Tyrant and I were standing. As she
approached, she gestured toward her people to lower their weapons.
“What’s happening?” asked the Tyrant. “Why are you telling your angels to stand down?”
“Because that’s not Medrion coming to tear down our walls,” she said.
“What?” the Tyrant frowned.
“My scout has just told me the angels approaching us appear to be hurt, many of them are exhausted, and only a handful of
them are armed.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, “That’s not an attack?”
“No,” said Helena. She looked at the Tyrant. “Those are your people, Abaddon.”
“Mine?” He asked, his voice rising. “What are you talking about?”
“They bear your colors.”
“My people have no reason to be here. I told them all to stay behind and hold the fort until I returned.”
Helena remained quiet, though I could tell she wanted to speak. It wasn’t long until the incoming band of angels were close
enough for me to recognize the black and crimson of the Ebon Legion, the shimmer of the sun being absorbed by their armor
rather than reflecting it.
“Take your shield down,” said the Tyrant to Helena.
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“Why not?” he barked.
“Because I cannot help but find it convenient that shortly after your arrival, the rest of your Legion appear. How do I know
this isn’t a trick?”
“Do they look like a well-prepared army, Helena?! You yourself have said they are injured and exhausted!”
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
128. ‘Like Samson,’ etc. Cowper, The Task, V. 737.
‘The worst of every evil,’ etc. Cf. Temistocle, Act III. Sc. 2.
129. ‘A world,’ etc. Cf. Wordsworth, Personal Talk, l. 34.
‘A foregone conclusion.’ Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.
130. ‘We see the children,’ etc. Cf. Wordsworth, Ode, Intimations
of Immortality, 170–1.
Paul Clifford. Bulwer’s Paul Clifford appeared in 1830.
‘Lively,’ etc. Coriolanus, Act IV. Sc. 5.
‘The true pathos,’ etc. Burns, Epistle to Dr. Blacklock.
 FOOTMEN
Republished in Sketches and Essays.

PAG
E Sewell and Cross’s. Linen-drapers and silk-mercers, 44 and
131. 45 Old Compton Street, Soho.
The Bazaar. Established in 1815.
‘The Corinthian capitals,’ etc. Cf. Burke’s Reflections on the
Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 164).
132. As I look down Curzon Street. The essay would seem to have
been written at 40 Half-Moon Street, where Hazlitt lodged
from 1827 to 1829.
133. ‘Brothers of the groves.’ Cf. vol. VIII. note to p. 467.
Mr. N——. Sketches and Essays prints ‘Northcote.’
‘High Life Below Stairs.’ By James Townley (1714–1788),
produced in 1759.
Mr. C——.? Coleridge.
Cassock. Sketches and Essays prints hassock.
The fate of the footman, etc. See Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu’s Epistle from Arthur Grey, the Footman, to Mrs.
Murray.
134. ‘Vine-covered hills,’ etc. From lines ‘Written in 1788’ by
William Roscoe and parodied in The Anti-Jacobin.
‘As pigeons pick up peas.’ Cf. Love’s Labour’s Lost, V. 2.
135. ‘No more—where ignorance,’ etc. Gray, On a Distant
Prospect of Eton College.
M. de Bausset. Louis François Joseph, Baron de Bausset (b.
1770), author of Mémoires anecdotiques sur l’intérieur du
palais (1827–8).
136.
Wear green spectacles. These three words, which seem to
have a personal application, were omitted in Sketches and
Essays. Cf. post, p. 217.
 ON THE WANT OF MONEY
Republished in Literary Remains.

137. ‘The heaviest stone,’ etc. Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, chap.

IV.

138. ‘That Mr. Moore,’ etc. Moore’s Life of Sheridan appeared in

1825. This sentence was omitted in Literary Remains.
139. Note. ‘Such gain,’ etc. Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. 3.
140. ‘Screw one’s courage,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 7.
‘As kind,’ etc. Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, I. 271.
141. ‘Of formal cut.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.
The fair Aurora. Gil Blas, Livre IV.
Monsieur de Very. See ante, note to p. 104.
Apicius. Marcus Gabius Apicius, the notorious Roman
epicure, referred to by Pliny, X. 48, 68, § 133.
Amelia’s hashed mutton. Amelia, Book X. chap. V.
142. ‘And ever,’ etc. L’Allegro, 135–6.
‘We called,’ etc. Cf. Colonel Jack, chap. 1.
‘The Colonel,’ etc. Ibid.
The City Madam. See Massinger’s, The City Madam, III. 3.
‘Spanish Rogue.’ Hazlitt refers to Mateo Aleman’s Guzman de
Alfarache (1599). Cf. vol. VIII. (Lectures on the Comic
Writers), p. 111.
142. Mr. Lamb has referred, etc. See Lamb’s Specimens, note to
Rowley’s A New Wonder (Works, ed. E. V. Lucas, IV. 126).
Note. ‘His daughter and his ducats.’ The Merchant of Venice,
Act II. Sc. 8.
143. ‘By their so potent art.’ Cf. The Tempest, Act V. Sc. 1.
144. ‘We know,’ etc. Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 5.
‘Within that lowest deep,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, IV. 76–77.
146. I never knew but one man, etc. ? Jeffrey.
‘With wine,’ etc. Cf. Milton’s Sonnet, Lawrence, of virtuous
father, etc.
149. ‘Pure in the last recesses of the mind.’ Dryden, The Second
Satire of Persius, 133.
Mr. Thomas Wedgwood. Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805),
Coleridge’s friend.
‘We can hold,’ etc. Richard II., Act I. Sc. 3.
 ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN
YOUTH
Republished with many omissions and variations in Literary
Remains and Winterslow.

PAG
E ‘Life is a pure flame,’ etc. Sir T. Browne, Hydriotaphia, chap.
150. V.

My brother’s. John Hazlitt (1767–1837), the miniature-

painter. See Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Four Generations of a
Literary Family, I. 210–18.
151. ‘The vast,’ etc. Cf. ‘The wide, the unbounded prospect, lies
before me.’ Addison, Cato, Act V. Sc. 1.
‘Bear a charmed life.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 8.
‘Bidding,’ etc. Collins’s Ode, The Passions, 32.
‘This sensible,’ etc. Measure for Measure, Act III. Sc. 1.
152. ‘Wine of life,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 3.
‘As in a glass darkly.’ Cf. 1 Corinthians xiii. 12.
‘So am not I.’ Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vol. V. chap. vii.
Note. The Art of War (1795) by Joseph Fawcett (d. 1804), an
early friend of Hazlitt’s. See vol. VI. (Table-Talk), 224–5
and Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Memoirs, etc., I. 75–79.
153. ‘The feast of reason,’ etc. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Sat. I.
128.
‘Brave sublunary things.’ Cf. ‘Those brave translunary
things.’ Michael Drayton, To Henry Reynolds.
‘The stockdove,’ etc. Cf. Thomson, The Castle of Indolence, I.
St. 4.
 Note. ‘Had it not been,’ etc. Works, II. 254.
Note. She says of Richardson. See Works, II. 285 et seq. and
222.
Note. Monstrum ingens biforme. Cf. Æneid, III. 658.
Note. ‘His spirits,’ etc. Works, II. 283.
156. ‘The purple light of love.’ Gray, The Progress of Poesy, 41.
‘The Raphael grace,’ etc. Cf. ‘Match Raphael’s grace with thy
loved Guido’s air. ‘Pope, Moral Essays, VIII. 36.
‘Gain new vigour,’ etc. Cowper, Charity, 104.
157. ‘Beguile,’ etc. Cf. ‘Lose and neglect the creeping hours of
time.’ As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.
158. ‘Robbers.’ Schiller’s play, produced in 1782.
‘From the Dungeon,’ etc. Coleridge, Sonnet, ‘To the Author of
The Robbers.’
Don Carlos. Schiller’s play (1787).
158. ‘That time is past,’ etc. Cf. Wordsworth, Lines composed a
few miles above Tintern Abbey, 83–85.
159. ‘Even from the tomb,’ etc. Gray’s Elegy, 91–92.
‘All the life,’ etc. Cf. ‘For a’ the life of life is dead.’ Burns,
Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn, st. 6.
‘From the last dregs,’ etc. Cf. Dryden, Aurengzebe, Act IV. Sc.
1.
160. ‘Treason domestic,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 2.
‘Reverbs its own hollowness.’ Cf. King Lear, Act I. Sc. 1.
 ON READING NEW BOOKS
Published with omissions in Sketches and Essays. The essay was
written at Florence. See Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s Memoirs, etc. II. 154.

PAG
E Note. See vol. VIII. (Lectures on the Comic Writers), p. 22 and
161. note.
162. ‘Has just come,’ etc. Cf. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 1.
164. A Manuscript of Cicero’s. Hazlitt probably refers to Cardinal
Angelo Mai’s (1782–1854) discoveries.
A Noble Lord. The Marquis of Blandford, who bought
Valdarfer’s edition of Boccaccio for £2260 at the Roxburgh
sale in 1812. Cf. ante, p. 43.
Mr. Thomas Taylor. Thomas Taylor (1758–1835), the
Platonist. The ‘old Duke of Norfolk’ (Bernard Edward, 12th
Duke, 1765–1842) was his patron, and locked up nearly the
whole of Taylor’s edition of Plato (5 vols., 1804) in his
library.
Ireland’s celebrated forgery. The main forgery, Vortigern, by
William Henry Ireland, was produced at Drury Lane on
April 2, 1796.
Note. Mr. G. D.’s chambers. Lamb’s friend George Dyer
(1755–1841) lived in Clifford’s Inn from 1792. His History
of the University and Colleges of Cambridge, etc. was
published in 2 vols. in 1814. In reference to the number of
corrections in this work, Lamb spoke of Dyer as
‘Cancellarius Magnus.’
Note. Another friend of mine, etc. Leigh Hunt. See his essay
‘Jack Abbot’s Breakfast’ reprinted in Men, Women, and
Books (1847).
166. ‘Proud as when,’ etc. Cf. Troilus and Cressida, Act I. Sc. 3.
167. ‘Like sunken wreck,’ etc. Cf. Henry V., Act I. Sc. 2.
168. ‘Full of wise σατυς,’ etc. Cf. As You Like It, Act II. Sc. 7.
‘An insolent piece of paper.’ ‘A piece of arrogant paper.’
Massinger, A New Way to pay Old Debts, Act IV. Sc. 3.
‘Somewhat musty.’ Cf. ‘Something musty.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc.
2.
Longinus complains, etc. See Longinus, On the Sublime, IX.
169. Irving’s orations. Cf. vol. IV. (The Spirit of the Age), p. 228.
The Jew’s letters. Dr. Philip le Fanu published in 1777 a
translation of the Abbé Guenée’s Lettres de certaines
Juives à M. Voltaire.
That Van Diemen’s Land of letters. These words were
omitted in Sketches and Essays.
Flocci-nauci, etc. Shenstone, Letter xxi. 1741 (Works, 1791, III.
49).
‘Flames in the forehead,’ etc. Lycidas, 171.
170. Mr. Godwin composed an Essay, etc. Hazlitt perhaps refers
to the letter added by ‘Edward Baldwin’ to his own English
Grammar. See vol. VI. p. 388.
Note. A certain poet. This note was omitted in Sketches and
Essays.
171. ‘By Heavens,’ etc. Wordsworth Sonnet, The world is too
much with us.
171. ‘Trampled,’ etc. Cf. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in
France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 93).
‘Kept like an apple,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 2.
172. Note. ‘Speak evil of dignities.’ 2 Peter ii. 10.
Note. The Queens matrimonial-ladder. One of William
Hone’s squibs, published in 1820, and illustrated with
fourteen cuts by Cruikshank.
 ON DISAGREEABLE PEOPLE
Republished in Sketches and Essays.

174. ‘Discourse of reason,’ etc. Loosely quoted from Hamlet. Cf.

Act I. Sc. 2 and Act IV. Sc. 4.
‘The whole,’ etc. Cf. S. Matthew ix. 12.
‘As when,’ etc. Thomson, The Castle of Indolence, St. 64.
177. ‘Yea, into our heart of hearts.’ Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.
‘The volumes,’ etc. Roscommon, Horace’s Art of Poetry.
‘That dallies,’ etc. Cf. Twelfth Night, Act II. Sc. 4.
178. ‘Wit at the helm,’ etc. Cf. ‘Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at
the helm.’ Gray, The Bard, 74.
179. A butt, according to the Spectator, etc. See The Spectator,
No. 47.
181. ‘Hew you,’ etc. Cf. Julius Cæsar, Act II. Sc. 1.
Tempora, etc. Cf. Æneid, IV. 293–4.
‘Not to admire,’ etc. Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epistles I. vi.
1–2.
The Westminster School of Reform. Hazlitt refers to the
writers, including Bentham and James Mill, associated
with The Westminster Review, founded in 1824.
182. ‘Milk of human kindness.’ Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.
 ON MEANS AND ENDS
Published in Literary Remains with many variations presumably
introduced by the editor, and again in the same form in Winterslow.

PAG
E ‘We work by wit,’ etc. Othello, Act II. Sc. 3.
184. ‘Leaps at once,’ etc. Cowper, The Task, V. 686.
185. ‘From Indus,’ etc. Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, 58.

Hinc illæ lachrymæ. Horace, Epistles, I. xix. 41.

187. ‘Constrained by mastery.’ Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The
188. Franklin’s Tale, 36; Wordsworth quotes the line in The
Excursion, VI. 162–5.
189. ‘Makes a sunshine,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, I. iii. 4.
190. David’s and Girodet’s pictures. Jacques Louis David (1748–
1825) and Anne Louis Girodet (1767–1824).
‘Potations, pottle-deep.’ Othello, Act II. Sc. 3.
192. ‘In a phantasma,’ etc. Julius Cæsar, Act II. Sc. 1.
‘Courage,’ etc. Paradise Lost, I. 108.
193. ‘His thoughts,’ etc. Cf. Ibid., IX. 467.
Note. Strong passion, etc. Cf. The Rambler, No. 1.
Note. ‘The lunatic,’ etc. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V.
Sc. 1.
194. ‘Set but a Scotsman,’ etc. Cf. Burns, The Author’s Earnest Cry
and Prayer, Postscript, St. 4.
‘And it alone,’ etc. Cf. Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 1.
‘We read his works.’ Lamb’s Essay ‘On the Genius and
Character of Hogarth’ (Works, ed. E. V. Lucas, I. 71).
195. ‘The darlings of his precious eye.’ Cf. ‘Make it a darling like
your precious eye.’ Othello, Act III. Sc. 4.
196. ‘The jovial thigh,’ etc. Cf. Cymbeline, Act IV. Sc. 2.
197. ‘They are careful,’ etc. Cf. S. Luke X. 41–42.
198. ‘And with their darkness,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, I. 391.
‘They also serve,’ etc. Adapted from Milton’s Sonnet, No. XX.,
‘When I consider how my light is spent,’ etc.
 ON PERSONAL IDENTITY
Published with some omissions in Winterslow.

‘Ha! here be,’ etc. King Lear, Act III. Sc. 4.

‘If I were not Alexander,’ etc. The saying is given by Plutarch.
Note. Zoffani. Johann Zoffany, or Zaufelly (1733–1810).
Note. Reynolds’s Speculation. A comedy by Frederick
Reynolds, produced in 1795. George III. was much amused
by it. See Life of Reynolds, II. 208–210.
199. ‘Wishing to be,’ etc. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet XXIX.
‘The rub,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.
‘Put off,’ etc. Ibid.
200. ‘What more felicity,’ etc. Spenser, Muiopotmos, St. 27.
201. ‘That something,’ etc. Cf. Pope, An Essay on Man, IV. 3–4.
‘Very choice Italian.’ Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.
‘Vows,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, IV. 97.
‘The native hue,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.
202. ‘Shut up,’ etc. Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 1.
‘I’d sooner,’ etc. Cf. Julius Cæsar, Act IV. Sc. 3.
Sir Thomas Lethbridge. A sturdy Tory, member for
Somersetshire. He is possibly the L—— referred to in vol. VI.
(Table-Talk), p. 94. Though a staunch Protectionist, he
voted for Reform and Catholic Emancipation.
203. ‘Ethereal braid,’ etc. See vol. IV. (The Spirit of the Age), note
to p. 216.
Had I been a lord I should have married, etc. This sentence
and the next were omitted in Winterslow.
204. ‘Give me,’ etc. Cf. 3 Henry VI., Act I. Sc. 4.
‘Monarchise,’ etc. Richard II., Act III. Sc. 2.
‘Tenth transmitters,’ etc. Richard Savage, The Bastard.
‘In the catalogue,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 1.
‘Swinish multitude.’ Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in
France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 93).
205. ‘The fair,’ etc. Cf. As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 2.
The person who bought Punch. Cf. post, p. 353.
206. Why will Mr. Cobbett, etc. Cobbett had recently (1826)
unsuccessfully contested Preston.
The bird described by Chaucer. See Chaucer, The Canterbury
Tales, The Manciple’s Tale, 59 et seq., and The Squiere’s
Tale, 603 et seq.
You say there is a common language, etc. These words, down
to ‘And he will laugh in your face,’ were omitted in
Winterslow.
207. ‘A certain tender bloom,’ etc. Cf. ‘A certain tender gloom
o’erspread his face.’ Thomson, The Castle of Indolence, I.
St. 57.
208. ‘Stuff o’ the conscience.’ Othello, Act I. Sc. 2.
‘Laggard age.’ Collins, Ode, The Passions, 112.
209. Like Benvenuto Cellini, etc. See Life of Benvenuto Cellini,
Part II. lxxviii.
 APHORISMS ON MAN
Now republished for the first time. In The Monthly Magazine they
appeared as follows: I.–XI. October 1830; XII.–XXXVI. November 1830;
XXXVII.–XLVII. December 1830; XLVIII.–LV. April 1831; LVI.–LXVI. May
1831; LXVII.–LXX. June 1831. They are described as ‘by the late William
Hazlitt.’

PAG
E Monmouth-street. In St. Giles’s, now partly occupied by
210. Shaftesbury Avenue. Allusions to its old-clothes shops are
very frequent in eighteenth-century literature.
211. ‘In the deep bosom,’ etc. Richard III., Act I. Sc. 1.
‘At one fell swoop.’ Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 3.
214. O’Connell. Hazlitt no doubt refers to the proceedings of
O’Connell after his election for Co. Clare in 1828.
215. ‘The soft collar,’ etc. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in
France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 90).
‘The iron rod,’ etc. Cf.
‘When the scourge inexorably, and the torturing hour,
Calls us to penance.’ Paradise Lost, II. 90–2.

217. An editor. Cf. ante, p. 136.

218. ‘There goes my wicked self.’ Hazlitt was perhaps thinking of
the saying attributed to John Bradford (1510?–1555), who,
on seeing some criminals going to execution, is said to have
exclaimed: ‘But for the grace of God, there goes John
Bradford.’
‘To be honest,’ etc. Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.
L——.? Lamb.
219. ‘Leave others poor indeed.’ Cf. Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.
‘To be direct,’ etc. Othello, Act III. Sc. 3.
220. ‘Tout homme,’ etc. Cf. vol. I. (The Round Table), note to p.
117.
221. A popular author. Scott, no doubt.
‘Writes himself,’ etc. Cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I.
Sc. 1.
223. ‘To triumph,’ etc. Gray, The Bard, 142.
224. A certain bookseller. Sir Richard Phillips. See vol. VI. (Mr.
Northcote’s Conversations), p. 418.
225. ‘From every work,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, I. IV. 20.
226. ‘Melted,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.
Beau Didapper. See Joseph Andrews, Book IV. chap. IX.
228. ‘Damned spot.’ Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 1.
229. ‘The web,’ etc. All’s Well that Ends Well, Act IV. Sc. 3.
The Devil’s Elixir, etc. The Devil’s Elixir, or the Shadowless
Man, a musical romance by Edward Fitzball (1792–1873),
produced at Covent Garden, April 20, 1829; The Bottle
Imp, a melodrama by Richard Brinsley Peake (1792–1847),
produced at the Lyceum, July 7, 1828, and at Covent
Garden, Oct. 17, 1828.
Mr. Farley. Charles Farley (1771–1859), the actor, to whose
skill as a theatrical machinist at Covent Garden Hazlitt here
refers.
230. ‘La Belle Assemblée’s dresses for May.’ Cf. ‘In the manner of
—Ackerman’s dresses for May’ (Moore, Horace, XI. ii.),
quoted elsewhere by Hazlitt.
M. Stultz. M. Stulz, the well-known tailor, referred to by
Bulwer in Pelham and (more than once) by Thackeray.
 A CHAPTER ON EDITORS
Republished with some omissions in Sketches and Essays. In the
Magazine there is the following note by the Editor:—‘We give
insertion to this article, one of the posthumous papers of Mr. Hazlitt,
to shew that we do not consider ourselves implicated in the abuses
complained of; and that we have no right to any share of indignation
so whimsically lavished upon our fraternity. Ed.’

PAG
E ‘Our withers,’ etc. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.
230. ‘Tittle-tattle.’ The phrase is so printed in the Magazine and in
Sketches and Essays, but Hazlitt probably wrote ‘kittle
cattle,’ a distinctively Scots expression for what he meant to
say.
‘Lay the flattering unction,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4.
231. As Mr. Horne Tooke said, etc. See vol. IV. (The Spirit of the
Age), p. 236 and note.
232. We only know one Editor. Hazlitt possibly refers to the
Editor of Blackwood’s Magazine.
We will not mention names, etc. This sentence was omitted in
Sketches and Essays.
‘More subtle web,’ etc. The Faerie Queene, II. xii. 77.
233. The conductor, etc. This sentence and the next but one were
omitted in Sketches and Essays.
‘Here’s the rub.’ Cf. Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 1.
 THE LETTER-BELL
Reprinted with considerable omissions in Sketches and Essays.

235 ‘One entire,’ etc. Othello, Act V. Sc. 2

Blue hills. Cf. vol. VI. (Table-Talk), p. 256.
236. ‘I should notice,’ etc. A long passage from this point to
‘accumulate to a tolerable sum’ (p. 237) was omitted from
Sketches and Essays.
From —— to ——. Sketches and Essays reads ‘From Wem to
Shrewsbury.’ Cf. My First Acquaintance with Poets, post,
p. 260.
‘And by the vision splendid,’ etc. Cf. Wordsworth’s Ode,
Intimations of Immortality, 73–74.
‘What though the radiance,’ etc. Ibid. 179–82.
‘Like morn,’ etc. Cf. Paradise Lost, v. 310–11.
And may he not yet greet the yellow light, etc. Cf. post, p.
271.
‘And from his neck so free,’ etc. The Ancient Mariner, 289–
91.
238. Vangoyen. Jan Van Goyen (1596–1666), one of whose
landscapes, it would seem, Hazlitt had copied.
‘The slow canal,’ etc. Goldsmith, The Traveller, 293–4.
‘While with an eye,’ etc. Wordsworth, Lines composed a few
miles above Tintern Abbey, 47–49.
‘The secrets,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 5.
‘Entire affection,’ etc. Cf. The Faerie Queene, I. viii. 40.
‘His shame,’ etc. Cf. Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, 412.
‘Made good digestion,’ etc. Cf. Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 4.
239. An ingenious friend and arch-critic. ? Jeffrey.
‘More germain [germane],’ etc. Hamlet, Act V. Sc. 2.
240. ‘Hark!’ etc. Cowper, The Task, IV. 1, et seq.
Lord Byron denies, etc. See vol. VI. (Table-Talk), p. 210 and
note, and vol. XI. (Fugitive Writings), p. 492.
240. The telegraphs. A system of semaphores, presumably.
Electric telegraphs belong to a later date.
The new revolution. The Revolution of July 1830. Cf. post,
pp. 456, et seq.
The beacon-fires. See the Agamemnon of Æschylus, ll. 281–
316.
 ON THE SPIRIT OF MONARCHY
Republished in Literary Remains. The essay was published (?
1835) as a pamphlet (together with ‘The Moral Effects of
Aristocracy,’ by Godwin).

PAG
E ‘And by the vision,’ etc. See ante, note to p. 236.
242. The madman in Hogarth. The Rake’s Progress, Plate VIII.

‘There goes,’ etc. Cf. ante, p. 218.

We once heard, etc. In vol. VI. (Mr. Northcote’s
Conversations), p. 387, this sentiment is attributed to a
‘Mr. R——.’ It is clear from the present passage that this
person was not Mr. Railton, but William Roscoe (1753–
1831), the well-known historian, and that therefore the
reading of The London Weekly Review was correct. See
note to vol. VI. p. 387.
243. ‘That within,’ etc. Cf. Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 2.
‘To fear,’ etc. Othello, Act I. Sc. 2.
244. ‘Peep through,’ etc. Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.
‘Great is Diana,’ etc. Acts xix. 28.
‘Your gods,’ etc. Cf. S. Matthew xiii. 13.
In contempt of their worshippers. Cf. Burke’s Reflections on
the Revolution in France (Select Works, ed. Payne, II. 17).
Note. Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, I. 100–3.
245. ‘Gods partial,’ etc. Pope, An Essay on Man, III. 257–8.
‘Any mark,’ etc. Cf. I Henry IV. Act III. Sc. 2.
246. Note. See vol. III. (Political Essays), p. 298 and notes.
247. ‘From the crown,’ etc. Cf. Isaiah i. 6.