Chapter 50

Oblivious to my state, or uncaring, the burning angel starts circling me.

Even in his reduced size, and his tranquil pace, his footfalls reverberate in my marrow. I swear I hear the ashes wailing under his every step.

“I will never call you anything else, Uri.” His flames flicker higher as he stops at my back. I can feel his breath, a different kind of fire, caressing my hair and nape. My every instinct shrieks. His ponderous timbre abrades my every organ, scrapes my every bone. “And to think I almost didn’t watch you during the Trials. Even though you were the only one who intrigued me among the candidates this cycle.”

“Do-Do you mean…there are others?” I wheeze, almost at the point of begging him to face me again. Not seeing him, but feeling him bearing down on me is a new kind of horror.

“There were. They are gone now.”

My heart kicks so hard, I’m the one who stumbles around to face him.

Knowing thousands were led to their death in this monster’s quest to find me is one thing. It’s another that they might be people I know.

Bile fills me up to my eyes as he continues his musing. “I no longer wanted to waste a moment of my eternity on this futility. But watching you fight, and interact with your Unitas, especially how you came up with that ingenious solution to preserve them in mere seconds—that was more than worth the millennia of disappointment.”

Mere seconds? This means he couldn’t detect the halted-time ages I spent debating and strategizing with Godric in our Mindscape. I have that precious encounter, and my connection with Godric itself, to myself.

He’s not omniscient. Not even in his realm.

I still watch him closely, but his stance and vibe don’t change. He’s not reading my mind. And I’m certain he would if he could. Which means he’s also not all-powerful.

The relief, that he can’t invade my mind, that I’m not fully vulnerable and exposed to him, is knee-melting.

“Yeah, well, glad I entertained you,” I choke. “On that note, it was really, uh—something, meeting you in the—fiery flesh. But I’m really wiped out after surviving your Cavum—something, and I need to get back to my friends…”

“Ah, your Unitas. I thought them disposable once you entered my realm. But then that first test…” He stops, shakes his head, as if deciding not to say anything that would answer my earlier question about it. “They proved useful then. But after they played their part, and tided you over to the Cavum Nigrum, your surprises began.The moment I manifested it, it should have torn them apart like wrapping paper…” His nails elongate and curve like a great feline’s as he mimes a shredding movement. “…exposing the incomparable gift that you are. But when you preserved them, and I saw your unique amalgam, I subjected them to a closer examination. My findings made me view the Prophetia in a new light. They may prove worthy of being the satellites of the Renatus. As such, I will have use for them, after all.”

Protectiveness hurtles within me like a meteor shower, its white-hot shrapnel lodging in my fingertips. My mind blanks with the same viciousness that assailed me when I attacked Azazel.

And I see it, even through his senses-numbing blaze. His Angel Essence. And his Energy.

My palms itch and burn as my power rushes to the surface, howling for them, demanding I feed it, that I eviscerate him and bathe in his ichor…

What am I thinking? Feeling? That appalling hunger, that maniacal savagery—they’re not mine. I hope. And even if they are, I can’t take on that—that deity.

You just took on a black hole.

That voice has a point, wherever it’s coming from. But he’s more than an inexorable phenomenon. It sounds like he’s the guy who created it. And he’s cunning, and obsessed with it. No matter how powerful I may be, even without the void, I’m flesh and blood. One swipe of these talons, or a flare of that fire, and I’m a mangled, smoldering corpse.

Even if he seems to need me, and wouldn’t hurt me unless forced to, and I can use any initial reluctance to incapacitate him, I can’t do it. I need him intact and cooperative so I can get to Sarah and the others, to free them and send them back.

I struggle to suppress my aggression, to sound neutral. “You do send those who pass your Trials back through the Imperium Gate, right?”

He nods. “I automated the process for those who don’t concern me.”

“So you’ll send us back now?”

I said us, even knowing he’s not letting me go. No harm in haggling, even if it’s pointless.

He shakes his fiery head with an exhalation. “I already tried, and it’s why you’re here. I could teleport only you, and only back here.”

My heart stops—then it bursts out clanging like a tower bell. “Y-you meant to send me back with them?”

He nods, and my every conviction shatter, my mind scrabbling to construct new ones.

So he’s been looking for me for thousands of years, and now he’s found me, he’s letting me go? What does this mean? I misread the situation? I’m not damned to an eternity in this realm?

Shut up, Wen. He meant to send you back. Don’t wonder why. Take the win.

I try, until the rest of his words hit me, and I exclaim, “You’re telling me you can’t end the test you created?”

“I created it, but in all the millennia, it never played out. There’s no precedent here.”

“Yeah, I’m unprecedented this way,” I mumble, fresh dread creeping up my nerves. “But this might explain why your usual way didn’t work. If you try another…”

“There is no other way.”

“I can’t accept that! I won’t. If you can create a black hole, you can find some other transportation method. I can’t remain trapped here with you!”

“It would destroy my plans if you do.”

Okay. Now I know why he doesn’t want to keep me. He has plans for me elsewhere. Which somehow sounds more ominous than a worse-than-death fate.

Out loud, I say, “Glad we’re on the same page. So keep trying, will you?”

His talons retract as he fists his hands, as if in equal frustration. “I always surmised that once the Renatus came through the Cavum Nigrum, the automation would take hold, would send them back. But you have more surprises within you that nullified the Gate’s function. It’s why I had to reveal myself to you prematurely. You needed to know the situation, so you can help me send you back to the Academy, where I need you to be.”

My galloping heart hiccups. “If you mean me alone, forget it. I’m going nowhere without my Unitas.”

“I indicated keeping your Unitas intact is to my advantage. But whatever you have preserving them will surrender them to only you. So, retrieving them, restoring them to life, and to their destined path—is all up to you.”

“How the hell do I do that?”

That smile is back, and more detectable. This time, it’s one of—delight?

Then he simply says, “You must trust me.”

What I do is burst out in braying cackles.

Tears of hysteria and helplessness run down my trembling face as I snort and splutter. “Trust you? The celestial voyeur who’s been stalking me? The boogeyman in a realm of nightmares of his own making? Who feeds pet black holes thousands of lives, in search of a—what? A PA? A spy?”

“A soulmate.”

The word penetrates my chest like an armor-piercing bullet.

The way he said it, that it was him who said it—it unearthed a yearning I didn’t know I had, in the same moment it tarnished it, destroyed it.

I feel robbed, violated. I want to weep with the loss, rage at the defilement. I want to inflict an equal and permanent damage on him.

This time when I see myself eviscerating him, it’s all me.

“How dare you!” I screech so violently I feel my vocal cords tearing. “You insane piece of celestial shit! I don’t care who you think I am, or who the hell you think you are...”

The rest of my tirade is smothered in a hacking fit.

Blazing brighter, he finally says, “I am Samael.”

Smothering my coughing, before I start spraying out bits of bloody lung, I rasp, “As if that means anything.”

“It will. Mean everything. Eventually. Until then, I forgive your overwrought outbursts. I understand I am too much for you to bear at the moment. Mortality is a truly unfortunate state.”

“You think that’s why I almost burst a cerebral vessel yelling at you? Dude, you’re out of touch. No surprise, with you living like a hermit crab in this macabre wasteland.”

His flames burst higher, making me jump back with a yelp.

He could have reduced me to ashes, like the remains beneath his statue’s feet. And those I’m ankle-deep in. But he only singed me, showing me he’d resort to corporeal reprimands to keep me in line if need be.

I maddened him enough to overcome his indulgence. Great strategy.

Too late to take it back, though. He’ll know I’m placating him.

Not that I want to take it back. I’m barely suppressing the suicidal urge to attack him.

His flames diminish again as he sighs. “Enough of this nonsense, Uri. We must get you back as swiftly as possible.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “I know why I’m in a hurry. Why are you?”

He ignores me as he intones, “Visualize your Unitas, and the plane where you preserve them. Once you do, contain them. Then visualize a place to return to. Unlike the Imperium Gate that returns cadets where they entered it, you will determine your destination. Pick it carefully, lock on it utterly, so it would become a magnet that would draw you in across the realms. Otherwise, you risk being lost in between.”

I skewer him with a scowl. “Be more ominous, why don’t you?”

“I am merely stressing the importance of visualizing a place with the utmost emotional resonance to you. It needs to be where you found contentment, worth, purpose. Where the aches of your soul abated.”

“Such common criteria.” I cough a mirthless laugh. “I just need to pick a place from the dozens that answer them. Easy peasy.”

A hint of a smile peeks through the flames again. It only stokes my banked terror. “The choice is the hard part. The execution will be easy. You’ll have access to the greatest fount of power in existence. My own Energy.”

“Such modesty.”

“That was certainly never one of my vices. Neither was it yours. Not with powers on par with mine. Together we can do anything.”

A burst of recollection chokes me again. What Godric said to me, what he tried to do, and failed. Because of him. He foiled Godric’s efforts to transfer his Energy to me.

He must have been able to, only because Godric’s Energy was diluted by the barrier of realms. I refuse to believe this Samael is more powerful that he is.

But what if he is? What if he knows it was him trying to help me? I don’t want Godric on his radar…

No. He doesn’t know, like he couldn’t detect our Mindscape interlude. He was only stopping me from drawing on any outside power. He couldn’t pollute the results of his precious test. I had to survive it on my own.

But I would have anyway. Stopping Godric’s Energy transfer would have only killed the others, if I hadn’t drawn on theirs. I still don’t know if that saved them, or doomed them to a coma for the rest of their lives.

And it’s all because of him!

Now he seems eager for me to release them from the void, what he failed to do.

What if I only hand him our whole Unitas to enslave? I know a slave master when I see one. And this guy? I can see him presiding over realms-full of thralls…

Suddenly, I can no longer see him, or this cavern, and everything blinks out…