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I hadn’t been able to help myself from spitting that harsh string of words, and I regretted them as soon as they came out. I sounded pathetic. Petty. That wasn’t the image I wanted to give him; it wasn’t the person I wanted to project.
“You talk of Kalmiya?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Medrion told me about the two of you.”
“The two of us? Medrion is a liar, and you know it better than anyone.”
“Maybe, but what he told me matched what I saw. You used me to get back to her.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Yes, you did. You sent Aithen and me to our deaths, a distraction for Medrion, so you could get your Kalmiya back. Admit it.”
“Sarakiel,” he said, approaching the cell wall.
I retreated. “Don’tget any closer.”
“Listen to me…” he paused. “Medrion lied to you. He knew he couldn’t break you physically because he had tried and failed before. So, he attacked you mentally instead, sowing doubt and hurting those closest to you.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know anything that happened. You arrived—conveniently—when you knew Medrion was busy!”
“That’s not…” he took a deep breath, then exhaled. “I should have told you sooner.”
“Told me what?”
The Tyrant gave me his eyes, and this time, they were soft, and warm. I had never seen that in him before. It was a stark, and sudden change that took me entirely by surprise. “I was there,” he said.
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
He lowered his head and let his horns rest on the cell bars “I was the Guardian posted at your cell when Medrion… arrested you.”
My eyes narrowed. My heart skipped, but I didn’t believe him; I couldn’t. I shook my head. “No, you weren’t.”
“I was. I swear it. I look different now, yes, but I’ve spent a long time here on Earth, fostering this new identity, reconciling with my old one. When I eventually recalled my last momentsin Heaven, how I had spent them with the Archangel’s wings between my hands, breaking them apart with every ounce of force I had in me… I fell deeper into the Tyrant, foolishly bringing me closer to the name I had tried so hard to distance myself from…Abaddon.”
“Abaddon…” I breathed. “That’s your name?”
“Guardian of the Third Choir, Second—and last—of His Name, Warden of the Word. I was a guard in the Chantry Building, in the dungeons. I was nobody, just another enforcer of God’s Word.”
I shook my head. “How can any of this be true?”
“It is. I watched Medrion break many angels before sending them to the pit, unable to interfere. A Guardian, whose instincts are to wholly protect those around him, I could only trust that those angels had done something truly awful against God to deserve it. I suffered in that place for a long time, until Gadriel came, and then you. I could not help her… I admit, I wasn’t strong enough to break God’s rules. But after I heard you speak, the way you looked at me… your pleas for help and talk of love. I could not stand idly by. I would not do it again.”
My heart was racing behind my chest, a jackhammer trying to break its way through my ribcage and make a hasty escape. This wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. How could he have been the angel watching over me in my cell? What were the chances? But then… how could he have known all these things? How could he have told the story of my last few moments spent in Heaven’s dungeons?
“If you’re lying to me…” I said, forcing the words through clenched teeth.
“I have no reason to lie to you, Sarakiel,” he said. “What you saw with Kalmiya… we were not lovers. We have never been lovers. But she is my oldest friend here on Earth.”
“Friend?”
“Yes. Is it so hard to believe I would have friends?”
“You call yourself the Tyrant. Tyrants don’t have friends.”
“I have a few, trusted friends, and Kalmiya is one of them. When I fell, starved, lost, and injured, she was the first angel I came across. Were it not for her, I would not be standing before you today. We helped each other survive—she helped me build the Bastion and create the Ebon Legion. I did not want to see her dead, especially as it was through my actions that she had been captured in the first place.”
I shook my head. “You spoke to me like I was nothing to you. You made mefeellike nothing.”
