Avi Marie's Arc

Chapter 17 of 30

The horse carried Avi Marie into a floor of pale cloud. There was no ground, only white light in every direction. Behind her, the sealed rift was gone. Azrael flew close, watching the empty sky. They had climbed to escape the guardians. Now the guardians came to finish it. Three shapes broke from the light. They wore white like Azrael, but larger, with wings that beat without sound. The first raised a hand. Avi Marie felt the tug at her eyes again, the same tug from the night her mortal died. Her sight blurred. She gripped the horse's mane and the glow around it steadied her. "They mean to blind you," Azrael said. "Then take the writ." He drew level with her. "We can't outfly them. They know this place. We don't." Avi Marie forced her eyes open against the pressure. In the far cloud she saw a broken shape. A stone statue drifted in the light, an armored angel warrior. It clutched a scepter topped with a bright crystal, the same kind of crystal that had trapped the hollow weapon at the shrine. Cracks split the statue's chest. Its wings had crumbled at the edges. "There," she said. "The crystal. It bound the weapon before. It can bind them." Azrael saw it and understood. "You'd have to hold it steady while they charge." "Then keep them off me." She drove the horse toward the statue. Azrael turned back and met the first guardian head-on. Wings struck wings. The clash rolled through the cloud like thunder. Avi Marie did not look back. She reached the statue and wrapped both hands around the scepter's shaft. The crystal woke under her grip. Light poured out, cold and white and blinding. The two remaining guardians flew into it before they could turn. The crystal caught them the way it had caught the hollow weapon. Their wings locked. Their mouths opened with no sound. The light pulled them in and closed, and the cloud fell silent. One guardian remained, the one Azrael fought. It broke away from him and dove at Avi Marie. She swung the scepter around. The crystal flared. The guardian threw up its arm, and the light took that too, folding it into the stone until nothing moved. The pressure at her eyes lifted. Her sight cleared. The three who had hunted her were gone, sealed in crystal like insects in glass. Azrael landed on a shelf of cloud beside her, breathing hard. Blood ran from his shoulder. "They won't send more soon," he said. "There's no one left between us and the ones who gave the order." Avi Marie lowered the scepter but did not let go. The guardians had blocked her path. Now the path was open, and empty, leading straight up into the light where the true masters waited. "Then we finish the climb," she said. She mounted the horse and turned it toward the pale height above.