15. WEN

“Welcome back, cadets. Congratulations on passing the Imperium Trials, and unlocking the full potential of your Graces.”

I wince as Jophiel’s Heavenly voice blankets the vast space in a shockwave of harmony and benevolence.

Though I don’t buy the latter for a second, I sigh in spite of myself. Sarah has no such qualms as she vibrates beside me with delight, like a corn kernel about to pop.

No wonder, since it’s her lady crush who just popped up on that stage. The unicorn in the archangelic stable. The estrogen oasis in their desert of testosterone. The only XX Carrier in the Heavenly Head Honcho Club. The Sista Among the Celestial Mistas.

Yeah. I’ve been doodling names for her since said singular manifestation of power and beauty rounded us First Years up, to deliver the last of today’s mandatory classes.

I’ve attended those with Sarah all day, assuming they’ll still be mine even after my fate is decided by the Grace Development Congress—as dictated by Godric’s vision, of course.

I’m still buzzing with that relief, and that the Amulet Ceremony didn’t end in disaster—even when it started with one. Godric’s predictions of doom, if the anomaly within me was discovered, hadn’t come to pass.

At least, not yet.

Beyond Jinny’s branding, and whatever I did to that fallen, nothing more happened. Between Astaroth of all beings, enforcing Celestial bureaucracy of all things, and Godric’s Lord of the Wen schtick, the situation has been contained. For now.

I’ll take any respite I can get.

Right now, what matters is that he wouldn’t let them take me from him, or mess with me in any other way. Yeah, it’s great, having a “Godawful Galoot” in my corner. Phenomenal, really. Even if he might be doing it only to serve the archangel’s purpose, or whatever else he wants with me.

His motives notwithstanding, I only care about being with him every single day, embroiled in the torture and bliss of his transformation, of our duel …

Pressure on my hand brings me back to the moment. Sarah is almost crushing it again in her excitement to see Jophiel again.

The first time we saw her was also here, in her namesake Hall’s main auditorium. Where Azazel first terrorized us. Yeah, being here is another oppressive deja vu, but on Jophiel’s account too. And not only because she singled us out afterwards to probe Sarah, and ended up giving her a seizure. According to her, she did it for Gabriel, who sought her counsel in deciphering Sarah.

But my beef with her goes beyond this personal incident. She might have a history of guiding humanity’s best in the arts and knowledge, but this could all be angelshit. She sure doesn’t seem to give even that about us. Like all our professors today, she’s behaving as if they didn’t send us unprepared into the unknown, to face untold horrors. Or that many of us returned injured or mutilated. And some didn’t return at all.

Yeah, she’d fooled even me for a while, had me thinking she was mostly benign. Seems it’s a human failing, needing to believe in the goodness of Celestials. This human ain’t falling for their crap ever again.

From the rapt expressions all around me, even on Jinny’s face, Jophiel’s crap is still as effective as ever on everyone else.

She starts descending from the stage, taking her influence right into the herd of adoring sheep, intensifying it a hundredfold. It affected me the first time. It only infuriates me now.

“But the Trials are about more than the Activation of your Graces,” Jophiel says, her serene voice riveting an overpowering melody. “As cadets and future soldiers of Heaven, you are all brothers and sisters in arms?—”

A snort echoes all around, cutting her off. “Really? Even those from the other races?”

Every head in the auditorium turns to me. Expressions range from stupefied to scandalized.

Yeah. I can’t believe I said that out loud either.

Jophiel turns, her ankle-length ebony hair undulating as her gaze targets my general direction. “Only the Nephilim and the Angel-Graced who successfully complete their education and training are required to enlist. Should anyone else from the other Supernatural races wish to, their applications are considered on an individual basis.”

“You mean shifters, vampires and fae and everything in between can actually end up in the Army of Heaven?” I wince as the glares intensify around me, but it’s beyond me not to ask. “Can demons?”

“Will you shut up already?” Aela’s hiss reaches me from two seats down the row.

“Don’t shut up, Nothingkins.” Jinny chuckles from Sarah’s other side. “I wanna hear this.”

“Actually, me too.” That comes from behind me. I’m positive the dark lyrical notes belong to Niala, the Night Court fae princess who sits at our breakfast table.

Jophiel documents our hushed interaction before her head inclines in a sweep of majesty. “If they meet the criteria, and their desire to enlist is considered worthwhile.”

“How worthwhile could it be, if they’d be basically betraying their own races?”

Gah. I really must shut up. I can feel every minority cadet’s visual skewers riddling me. Each has been drafted to serve the Armistice Accords’ clause of diversity within the Supernatural Academies. If Jinny is any indication, a good percentage must hate being here.

And not only have I reminded them of their enforced and precarious position in this arrangement, I’ve condemned them wholesale if they one day decide to join the Celestial side. I’ve basically accused every non-Celestial who works here of racial treason. Which shouldn’t be a thing.

But no matter what should be, whatever anyone pretends, racial conflict is a thing. It’s been dividing the world since the dawn of time, and is behind every strife and war in history. It’s what brought the Apocalypse to our doors, and wiped out one eighth of our population. In this Afterworld, it remains what fuels the ongoing cold war. What, according to Godric, will one day ignite into all-out hostilities again.

Not speaking of a malignancy doesn’t make it go away. It only festers and grows out of control beneath the surface.

“We hold freedom of choice above all else,” Jophiel says, in that eternal diplomacy of hers. “Everyone is entitled to form their own convictions and allegiances.”

I barely hold back another snort. “Does this freedom of choice and entitlement extend to the Nephilim and Angel-Graced? Can they refuse enlisting? And did any of them ever enlist in the Army of Hell?”

“I am not privy to such information.”

“How come? Aren’t you the Archangel of Knowledge itself?”

Her violet eyes brighten, becoming two beacons of impossible power and beauty.

Uh-oh. I might have provoked her into shedding her unflappable facade, and melting my lips shut.

I’m starting to wonder if I can heal from a Celestial zap, or if my so-called Null powers could absorb it, when her eyes dim and she shakes her head. “That’s what I’ve been called, even when I can’t be that. No knowledge is unlimited, and is in itself a nuanced state. In any case, it’s never about the accumulation of irrelevant details.”

I try to stop the scoff, and fail. “You consider a nephilim or an angel-graced joining the demons irrelevant?”

She nods. “Individual choices ultimately are, in the general scheme of existence.”

Yeah, sure. Because individual choices never started wars and changed the course of history before. Or maybe she considers each of us too insignificant to have any significant impact.

Since that still doesn’t answer my question, I try again. “You mean you would let Celestial beings, or even Celestial-adjacent, join the enemy?”

“We are no longer enemies, Cadet White. This exchange program was created to reinforce and nurture the new status quo. What has reached a turning point with the admission of so many Angel-Graced and Demon-Blighted humans to the Academies for the first time in history. As I have previously mentioned, it’s why I’m here on earth for the first time in eons.”

Yeah. And I’m not buying her announced motives. Though popular opinion paints her as a true angel, like the ones we used to believe in, this godly being is far more than she projects. Even without the latest red flag of disregarding our ordeals, she always says so much, but reveals nothing. All we got from her so far are platitudes and prevarications.

She moves, ending our back and forth, and I shoot my hand up in the air.

Jinny snickers, Aela growls, Sarah groans and everyone else grumbles.

Jophiel stops, her endless patience trained on me.

“If we are no longer enemies, then why are all the Academies military in nature?”

She inclines her head. “Armies have other functions apart from waging war. Sustained research and development in all fields is a major one. Another is defense and deterrence for the maintenance of a peaceful coexistence.”

She either comes up with all this politically-correct garbage on the fly, or she had millennia to rehearse it. I’d cut off my own arm if any of that, especially peace, is on the list of reasons Heaven and Hell are expanding their armies.

Before I dig myself a deeper hole calling angelshit, she turns her gaze away to the rest of the auditorium. “As I’m not one of your generals, I’m ill-suited to discuss the role of armies in the Afterworld. Which brings me back to my earlier point about the Trials.”

Okay. She let me have my fun, but I can tell if I interrupt her again, there will be consequences. Probably from her horde of worshippers.

Jophiel resumes her ascent between the rows. “Passing the Imperium Trials have always been one of the most important milestones in our cadets’ lives. They herald maturation into their full potential, and begin forging each Unitas into the lifelong comrades they are meant to be. There will be further trials during your years within the Academy, but Imperium will always remain a turning point in your lives, and a vital rite of passage.”

Someone in the back bursts out clapping. Another joins, then another. Suddenly, the whole auditorium is a thunderstorm of applause.

Seriously? What’s so great about that flowery speech? She didn’t even mention those who didn’t pass the Trials. The twelve Unitas who didn’t return. The sixty cadets who died.

They seem forgotten already. Worse than forgotten. Dismissed. As if they never mattered, or even existed.

Did the Academy contact their families, offer explanations and condolences, or do none of us warrant even that?

I bet they didn’t, and we don’t. We all forfeited every right, along with our lives, when we were conscripted to this Sinister Academy.

Freedom of choice my ass.

A hot spear twists in my empty-again stomach with the thought that those who died won’t be mourned. The pain is worse than when I first remembered why they died.

I’m the only one who knows why they did. I assume the Faculty knows nothing about Lucifer’s plans.

I don’t know either, apart from the fact that he created the Trials to search for his Renatus, his Reborn. Which he now believes is me.

If my memories are correct, every year his acolytes pinpointed his candidates. This year, I was one of thirteen. The others all died, right along with their Unitas. He said he’d killed thousands since the Imperium Trials began ages ago, would have killed millions more, to find me. The one who would pass his black hole test.

What he wants with me, what exactly happened during our meeting and how he helped me get us back to the Academy, I don’t remember.

But he’s the so-called Devil, so it’s expected that he’d snuff as many lives as needed for his purposes. It’s another matter entirely for the Academy, led by his brothers, the supposed Good Guys. To not mention those who died in their vicious culling game, let alone honor them is appalling. If that’s not evil, I don’t know what is.

Seems I’m the only one who thinks that. Like I did when Azazel was squishing Jinny. Or when the Amulet was branding her. Everyone seems to accept the ruthless mandates we live by. Honor or fairness or justice aren’t concepts that apply here.

“You will continue your basic training and academics, but your curriculums will diversify, each according to the specific Graces the Ceremony revealed.” Jophiel pauses, making me feel she’s meeting every gaze trained on her. “I will continue your education in the basics of Angel Grace, but for a select few, I will personally oversee your Grace Development.”

Gasps crackle throughout the auditorium like a forest fire. They’re followed by the explosive drone of a million wasps.

Everyone is beside themselves at the possibility of being among those Jophiel would favor. From the rapture on some faces, they consider it would be a literal blessing.

Jophiel passes our row, her gaze seeking out our Unitas. Foreboding shivers through every hair root, even before it lingers on me, then Sarah.

I still hope she’s singling us out because we had personal interaction. Or because I harassed her. That hope shatters when she nods at us, one at a time, leaving us in no doubt.

She has picked us. We’re getting her “blessing.”

Whether we like it or not.

It’s obvious I’m the only one who doesn’t like it. Sarah is almost bursting with delighted disbelief. Aela can barely sit still or contain her pride. Cara is buzzing with an uncertain elation. Even Jinny seems intrigued. She must be wondering how an archangel can help develop her demonic Blights. On the whole, they’re eager for what they must consider a massive privilege. I guess it is.

Not to me. Apart from being wary of that slippery powerhouse, I don’t want anyone developing my powers if their name isn’t Godric.

There’s also the fact that I don’t have Graces. I apparently eat them.

“A list of the cadets I’ll be working with will be forthcoming,” Jophiel says as she turns back. “Until then, may Heaven smile on your endeavors and guide your efforts as you come into your powers, and forge your destiny.”

The moment she floats onto the stage, without one feather of her great wings moving, her light intensifies, washing out everything.

When existence fades back into being, the auditorium remains mute for long moments. Yeah, she has entrances and exits, not to mention enslaving the crowds, down to a Heavenly art.

Then the silence shatters in a storm of voices raised in stunned excitement as everyone rises to leave.

As we exit the auditorium, I get the stink eye from many. I can pick Jophiel’s worshippers among them by their zealot demeanor. Those have a sickly smile when they’re in preaching mode, and a manic gleam in their eyes when their faith or its object is contested. I add each to the list of possible future attackers.

By the time I head out to meet Godric at “the usual place,” I’m nauseous with anticipation. Even if he’s reverted to his Godawful self, and it feels like a rewind to our earliest times.

I hope it was a show for everyone’s benefit. It’s probably taboo for him to initiate a relationship with a subordinate. I just hope he’s back to his bedeviling, domineering persona when we’re alone. I miss it so much my heart hurts.

Whether he’ll be the Godawful who leashed me, and almost killed me as he shaped me into the weapon he needs, or the Godric who would have surrendered his very Energy to get me back, and kissed me and changed me forever, remains to be seen. I’ll take anything as long as he won’t be the one who impaled me through the heart, or burned me to ashes.

One thing’s for sure. Whatever he decides to be when I join him in our dungeon, when we resume our training, I’m not letting him drag us back to square one.

To hell with my inexperience and insecurities. I want that incomparable pain, and it’s time I took matters into my own Essence-siphoning hands.

Godric the Great, you better beware.

I’m coming for you.