Avi Marie's Arc

Chapter 18 of 30

The three trapped guardians hung in crystal behind them. Avi Marie rode her glowing horse toward the pale height, the crystal scepter still tight in her hand. Azrael flew beside her, blood drying on his shoulder. Ahead, a great cathedral rose out of the cloud. Its spires cut into the light. The masters who ordered her mortal's death waited somewhere inside. Azrael slowed. He stared back at the frozen guardians. "Someone will find them," he said. "Guards missing. Crystal in the open. When they see it, they'll move the object." He looked at her. "They'll hide it where you'll never reach it." Avi Marie understood. Azrael had hunted the power-shifting object for himself long before he ever helped her. He had watched it hollow out someone he loved. He knew how the higher angels thought. If they hid the object now, her proof of the transfer would vanish, and the reason her mortal died would stay buried. "Then we move first," she said. "Before they notice." They flew hard for the cathedral doors. The doors stood open. Inside, the floor was more cloud, and light poured through tall windows with no color. At the far end sat a plain stone altar. On it rested a small object wrapped in white cloth. No guards. No angels. Only the object, left as if the masters trusted the sealed passage below to keep intruders out. Avi Marie dismounted and crossed the floor. Her boots made no sound. She reached the altar and lifted the cloth. Beneath it lay a smooth gray stone, plain as a river rock, humming under her fingers. "Don't touch it bare," Azrael said sharp. He caught her wrist before her skin met it. "That's how it takes you." She pulled her hand back. "This is what he saw. My mortal. This is what they killed him to hide." Her voice shook. "It's real. It's here." Azrael wrapped the stone in the white cloth and pressed it into her hands. "Then take it and go. Now." A sound rolled through the cathedral. Far off, a horn. Then another, closer. Somewhere in the light, wings began to beat. "They found the guardians," Azrael said. He drew back toward the doors, watching the empty height above. "They know we're here." Avi Marie held the wrapped stone against her chest. She had it now, the object itself, the thing at the center of every death. No angel could deny the transfer while she carried its proof. But the horns kept sounding, and the beating wings grew louder, and the sealed passage below meant there was no quiet way out. She mounted the horse. "We have what we came for," she said. "Now they'll come for it." Azrael nodded once. "All of them." She turned the horse toward the doors, the object in her arms, and rode out to meet whatever the higher angels sent next.