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Itseemedlike Medrion had somehow wrangled the Wretched into his service, but it had to be an illusion. Not only were there no horns sounding in the distance, but the Wretched served no masters. All they wanted to do was consume the Light that sustained their existences.
Light they could not produce themselves.
If there were any Wretched following him, it was because they were opportunistic vultures who could sense an impendingbuffet. Strangely, though, the Wretched would be the least of our problems today.
Especially if my fears were founded.
I had wrestled with the thought of telling Abaddon about my confrontation with Kalmiya, and how worried I was that someone—likely she—was going to try sabotage our defenses from the inside. That someone was just going to open the door and let Medrion come sailing through.
In the end, I had decided not to tell him.
I hadn’t told anyone.
With so little time to prepare, I had decided it was better to keep morale high than to begin a witch hunt to root out anyone who may be sympathetic to Medrion’s cause. It was probably also part of Medrion’s plan, to hurt our spirits before he arrived.
I, instead, would be vigilant.
I would watch for any signs of trouble.
I would snuff that trouble out before it was too late.
I was fortunate that Azrael had assigned her to my unit and not Abaddon’s with the rest of the Ebon Legion. Though he protested, Helena was insistent that his units Trumpet be one of her own, and Azrael agreed.
Trumpets were the only angels who could communicate at long distances—almost telepathically— with each other, each unit would have their own to relay important messages across the bastion and between the commanders.
Having Helena’s own Trumpet with Abaddon’s Legion made her feel more at ease about him and his angels running around the bastion armed. In all honestly it made me feel better too; after my conversation with Kalmiya it was feeling less likely that the survivors had escaped by luck.
They could all be traitors lying in wait. None of them concerned me as much as Kalmiya though, as she was theonly one who could secretly be in contact with Medrion’s own Trumpet.
Whilst we prepared our units, Micah and Helena were preparing the ritual space and sigils required to send me up to Heaven to free Lucifer and restart the Sacred Machinery. The decision on who to send had taken hours but in the end, I had been the acceptable choice; the happy middle ground, trusted by both Helena and Abaddon, and considered capable enough to have a shot at making this happen.
How in the hell I was going to do that with the weight of our collective fates on my shoulders, I didn’t know.
But first we had to stop Medrion.
All of this would be for nothing if he got to Lucifer first. I donned my armor, the armor of Helena—a rose-tinted breastplate with shoulder pauldrons, gauntlets, and leg guards—and headed out onto the bastion’s main courtyard.
There, standing in formation, was an array of angels; most wearing similar armor to mine, a few wearing the black and silver of the Ebon Legion. Each looked ready to fight, but as I landed on the battlement, joining Azrael, Abaddon, and Micah, I found them all looking up at me as if they were expecting me to speak.
By the expectant look on Abaddon’s face, he did, too.
Helena, seeing her angels assembled beneath her, descended from her balcony and joined me on the battlement. She was resplendent, a vision of angelic Light. Like everyone else, was wearing armor and wielding a shield emblazoned with the sigil of her faction—a beacon of bright light atop a dark tower.
“They are waiting for you,” she said as she landed by my side.
“Me? I’m not their leader, you should be the one to speak.”
Helena smiled, kind and gracious, but I could see the fear behind her eyes; she had no more idea of what to say to themthan I had. “If we survive to see Heaven again, it will be because of you, not me. You should speak.”
Nodding, I took a deep breath in, exhaled, and turned to look at the angels gathered underneath me. Among them was Kalmiya, who seemed to be standing at the back of our unit, a little separated from the other angels. Swallowing, I cleared my throat.
“We are about to face a deadly foe,” I shouted, my voice carrying across the courtyard on the back of the evening breeze. “Our scouts count at least two dozen of them, with the Archangel Medrion leading the vanguard. He comes here today for one reason, and one reason alone; the archangel wishes to return to Heaven.”
I paused, allowing my words to sink in, then continued. “Medrion is not going there to open the gates to you. His plans are purely selfish, and under no circumstances can we allow him to succeed. We are here to make sure hedoes notsucceed!”
A small flurry of whispers broke out before quickly dying down again. I glanced toward Kalmiya, almost hoping for some reaction to confirm my suspicions of her, but she gave me none.
“Medrion is powerful, his angels trained to kill other angels without mercy... but there are more of us than there are of them. We have this bastion, we have our shield, and we have our beacon! This will not be an easy fight, but we must fight it to secure our future.”
