Avi Marie's Arc

Chapter 13 of 30

The gate stayed shut, but not for long. Avi Marie heard wings above the wall. Her superior had stepped out of sight, and now she knew why. He was calling for help. White shapes dropped from the towers and landed on the stone. Loyal angels, wearing his colors, drawing blades. She held the metal plate to her chest and counted six of them. She could not fight six and force the truth from him too. Her horse's light held, but the odds did not. Then the ground shook. Malphas came up the cut stair first, quick on his hooves, his red eyes bright under his hood. He had refused to lead her into a trap once, and he had killed the beast when it mattered. Now he planted himself at her horse's flank. "Six," he said, counting the same as she had. "Too many." A shadow poured up behind him. Shadowmaw Grim spread across the cobblestones, teeth long and white, eyes red. He was meant to guard the upper world. He had left his post. "They're afraid," he said, flat. "I can smell it." He lifted his head toward the angels on the wall. The nearest one stepped back. Azrael landed last, white robes bright against the black keep. He trusted no one, and he watched everyone. He drew his blade and looked at the six defenders. "They think he's worth dying for," he said. "He isn't." The angels charged. Malphas drove low and knocked two off their feet. Shadowmaw flowed among them, and where his shadow touched, they froze and ran. Two dropped their swords and fled through the gate arch. Azrael met the largest one blade to blade and cut him down in three strokes. Avi Marie rode into the gap, her horse's light scattering the last two. In moments the wall was clear. The keep's defenders were dead or gone. Her superior stood alone in the courtyard now. No angels left to shield him. He looked at the plate in her hand, then at the shadow hound and the goat and the white-robed angel around her. He knew he had lost the wall. "Read it," Avi Marie said. She held the plate so the torchlight caught the letters. His own order. His own hand. "Blind the angel. Erase her memory. You wrote it. You watched my mortal die and said nothing." He did not deny it. His silence had cut her once. Now it was proof. "You have the plate," he said. "You still don't have why." "Then you'll tell me," she said. Malphas closed one path. Shadowmaw closed the other. Azrael stood at the gate. Her superior had nowhere to run and no one to call. The wall was hers. But he still held the one thing she came for. He knew the reason her mortal had to die, and he had not yet said it.