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“—are we?”
“Yes. What makes you think we aren’t?”
“Because when all of this is said and done,you’rethe one who goes back to Heaven.”
“We can only send one of us up there.”
“Why you? Why not me, or the Tyrant? Why do we have to stay here in the dirt and the filth while you get to go back home?”
The tension was really starting to rise, and all of a sudden, I knew I was in danger. Kalmiya’s shoulders were flexing, her muscles tensing, and her nostrils flaring. Though it was her speaking, strangely, I thought I could hear Medrion. It was like he was talking through her.
“I’m not going home and abandoning you all here,” I said. “I’m going back to try to bring usallhome.”
“How? Because you’re Lucifer’s chosen or something?”
What the hell have people been saying about me?
“That’s not true at all.”
“For once we agree. You’re not strong enough to be anyone’s chosen. You can’t handle being on this planet with the rest of us, so you’re cutting and running, leaving us to die in your pointless war against Medrion. I won’t do it. I won’t let you do that to us.”
I stood up, my chair scraping behind me. “I shouldn’t have come here,” I said.
“Damn right,” she said, kicking her chair out from behind her as she stood. The chair crashed into the nearby wall and fell to the floor in three pieces. “Why don’t you do us all a favor and get the hell out of here? Fly north, or south, or go wherever you want to go. Or better yet, fly east and find Medrion. Maybe you can save us all from getting butchered in this barrel we’re sitting in.”
“I’m going to leave, now,” I said.
“Yeah,run. That’s what I expected you to do anyway.”
I left the mess hall in a hurry, trying my best not to look like I was fleeing until I was out of Kalmiya’s line of sight. When I was sure she couldn’t see me, I picked up the pace, making my way out of the medical quarters and rushing out into the courtyard. I shut the door behind me and pressed my back against it, to keep it closed.
“What the fuck just happened?” I asked myself.
But I knew the answer to that question, and the answer made me feel cold inside. Deathly cold. The good spirits I had been in this morning were gone, erased, snuffed out in an instant. I should have been immensely angry at her, and I was, but there was something much more concerning about the whole thing. Medrion had gotten inside her head, and there was no way to know the extent of poison he had poured into her. He didn’t do things by accident; he was clever, cunning, and methodical. He had let her and several of her people leave the Ebon Legion’s bastion and come to Helena.
Why?
Not out of the goodness of his own heart, that much I knew.
I had to find Abaddon, or Azrael, or Helena.
I had to find someone and tell them what I feared.But what if I’m wrong? What if it is my fault?I froze mid-flight, my wings beating, holding me aloft in the same spot. How was I supposed to lead the charge if I couldn’t even tell if our own side had been infiltrated? And, if not, did that just mean they all hated me? Did they truly think I was going to abandon them?
It felt like Medrion had grabbed my heart and was squeezing it, breathless and panicked I let myself fall to the floor.
We couldn’t win this war.
Why had I thought we could win?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SARAKIEL
It was dusk when the news came; Medrion and his host had been spotted, and they were less than an hour away.
Suddenly, none of the training, drills or preparation felt. like enough, not once we got word of just how many angels Medrion had at his back. At least two dozen, each of them armed, armored, and probably just as good in a fight as the Tyrant.
It wasn’t just angels he was bringing with him, but the storm, too. The eastward horizon had looked bleak the last few days. Today it was grey and choked, and filled with crackling lightning that tore through the clouds to illuminate monstrous shapes within.
