Chapter 23

I’m standing in the middle of a demolition site.

The official story of my life says I was found in a burning, collapsed apartment building after a gas line explosion. The man who found me estimated my age at two, but since I was talking the orphanage said I was at least four. They ended up settling on three. That’s why I don’t know how old I am.

But when I once tried to investigate my origins, I found online photos of the demolished building.

This destruction scene looks nothing like it.

This wreckage is on a far grander scale, of a totally different place. It has the vibe of ancient ruins. Every pulverized wall and shattered column seems imbued with time and fables.

But the rubble all around me is still flaming, the very ground burning, melting. And the hacked corpses strewn all over are fresh.

Then I realize I’m covered in still-warm blood. None of it my own. The stench of charred skin and scorched flesh choke me up to my very pores, fill me with an uncontrollable revulsion—and hunger.

Hunger like I’ve never known, like I never imagined exists.

Then I see Godric soaring through the towering inferno besieging me. His heavenly broadsword blazes a swathe that cleaves the billowing barrier of fire and smoke between us.

Crying out, I reach desperate hands up to him. A ring of another kind of fire, as if from the heart of a white-hot star, forms around him. It starts to shrink, to darken, until it’s like the slit-pupil of a serpent. And I hear its eagerness, feel its yearning, its endless loneliness—and bottomless greed. It wants to gobble him up whole.

I cry out again, weeping with fright, and delight. His incredible wings, now sooty black among the flaming runes, snap wide with the force of solar storm, shattering the ring—and the rest of the world.

Then he dives towards me.

My mind fills with pleas.

Godric, yes, please. Come to me, my love.

As he swoops closer, I see his face, his savage beauty stamped with agitation and voracity.

In the last breath separating us, his eyes burst into emerald flames, before he plunges his sword into my heart.

“Wen, please!”

The world rocks urgently, and I wake up with a violent lurch.

My eyes don’t open. They’re already open. My vision was just turned—somewhere else. It now bursts back, filling with Sarah’s anxious face. She’s shaking me with all her strength.

“Oh, Angels Above, Wen, do you hear me?”

I try to nod. But I’m shaking. So hard, I couldn’t feel hers until she put her back into it and snatched me from the depths of this—this dream?

“Wen!”

Her eyes fill with tears and I finally find my voice. “I hear you—I’m fine…”

“You’re not fine! Your eyes were open, but you couldn’t see me, then your face twisted in such pain. You’re still trembling like a leaf!”

I force deep breaths to bring my quaking under control. But it’s so hard to leave that dream behind when it’s still trying to pull me back.

Shaking myself on purpose, I try to break its insidious influence, and stop the involuntary shudders. “I’m okay Sar…”

Her tears spill. “You’re clutching at your heart, Wen. You could have been injured during Azazel’s attack!”

My hands are clawed over my heart. The memory of Godric’s sword plunging through my ribs and piercing it is still slicing through me. Hell, it felt so real.

There’s no pain, though, and I’m scaring Sarah. She’s had enough upheavals for one day.

I force my hands down. “I’m not injured, just had a disturbing dream.”

“You always have pretty gruesome dreams and never react that way.” She heaves to her feet, yanking me up with her. “Let’s go to that Sanatorium, get you checked out!”

Rising unsteadily, I resist her pull. “Sar, I’m really okay. After everything that happened since I left home, followed by this Azazel dude scaring the crap out of us, and Astaroth putting me to sleep, I just zonked out.”

“Are you being a pain as usual and bottling it all up so you won’t upset me?”

I take her by the shoulders. “You can read me better than I read myself. What do you think?”

Suspicious eyes search my face before she exhales. “You’re telling the truth. This time.” She clutches my hand and drags me behind her. “Let’s get out of here anyway. Azazel may have another punishment for those who leave the auditorium last!”

Looking around, I find Astaroth gone, and the cadets crowding each other on their way to the exits.

I trudge after Sarah as we join their shuffling progress, still feeling that sword embedded in my chest. My stomach churns at the phantom sensations, at the vividness of the dream.

But it felt more than a dream. More like a—premonition?

But I’m not the one who has premonitions. If I did, I wouldn’t be here.

Another thing tells me it’s not one. What I called Godric. My love.

Hah. As if I’d ever call him that in this lifetime, or the next, if any exists.

Also if—or is it when?—Godric kills me, it won’t be in such a dramatic setting or fashion. The moment his dad and uncles tell him he can, he’ll probably vaporize me with a final glare of disgust.

So, not a premonition. Therefore no need, or use, worrying about it.

Yet it feels branded in my mind in high-definition detail. It’s still replaying like a video on a loop. One that involves all my senses.

Suddenly, nothing remains in my mind but seething fury.

The demoness, my so-called roommate, is standing at one of the exits, as if searching the departing crowd. Adding insult to the injury she inflicted on me, the moment she spots me, she waves enthusiastically. I snarl at her as my hand shoots to said injury.

I didn’t check it since we fled that dorm room, just dragged my bangs over it before we reached Jophiel Hall. I didn’t want anyone to stare at yet another brand by a demon.

Grimacing in advance at what I’ll feel, I frown. It doesn’t feel as bad as I imagined. So that healing side-effect of the Divining is still ongoing?

As I wonder if it may be permanent, and how incredible that would be, I’m compelled to look back. It’s then I see Lorcan. And Godric.

They’re in the deep shadows of the stage, seemingly having some serious discussion. Deadly serious, from Godric’s stance.

I don’t know what made me look that way, or how I can distinguish them from that far. Maybe it’s the MGS of this place, or the Magical Guidance System as I’m calling it, nudging me toward my target.

Not that I care how it happened. No looking a gift archangelspawn in the wings.

I pull at Sarah’s arm. “I’m going to talk to Lorcan, but I need to do it alone. Wait for me outside—please!”

Before she can protest, the exiting crowd sweeps her away. Thankful for their existence for the first time, I push against their current.

As I near the stage, I realize it’s higher than I am, with no steps. Seems there was no thought of diversity when it was built, or catering to the limitations of mere bipeds like me.

Oh well. At least they installed stairs where it really matters. I’ll just have a difficult, not to mention undignified climb…

Godric’s voice fills my head. I stumble to a halt, dismayed that he saw me prematurely—and is yelling at me.

But—he isn’t even looking my way. And his voice is actually a low, deadly purr.

Disoriented at feeling his voice inside my skull, entwining with my deepest dreads and urges, an abrasion and a caress, I resume walking unsteadily, working out theories.

Is it the acoustics? The others’ voices did come from all around.

Nah. I’m only hearing him. There are stretches of silence when I assume Lorcan answers. Acoustics would carry both men’s voices to me.

The other possibility is that his leash is working on auto, even without manifesting, letting me hear him remotely and…

My mind feels like it crashed into a wall. That of Godric’s last words.

He just said, “No one can know what happened in the Divining. I would gladly kill, anyone, to keep this contained forever.”