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“Then why are we even doing this? Let’s abandon this plan and deal with Medrion, all of us. Stop him together so he can’t get to Heaven at all.”
“Medrion will butcher us no matter what we do,” Helena hissed, her pristine features darkening as the beacon dimmed. Instead of tall and statuesque, she gave the impression of a darkcreature with limbs that were too long and features that were lethally sharp.
I backed away from her reflexively. “So, you’ve just given up,” I ventured. “You’re going to leave us all here to die?”
Helena took a moment to compose herself once more, standing upright again and reasserting her resplendent aura. “We are not fighters, Sarakiel. Helena is a refuge. I had faith that we could defeat him, but our shield crumbled almost instantly, our angels are falling out of the sky—dead—and Medrion is going to arrive at any moment to finish off the rest of us.”
At that, I worried.
Medrion was ahead of me when I took flight, he should have been here first, but he wasn’t, and he should have caught up long ago. My heart tightened—Abaddon—he’d seen me fly off; he must have seen Medrion too… I had to assume he was still fighting Medrion off, buying us time for me to get to Heaven, because I didn’t want to think about the alternative.
He had no idea what I had just interrupted.
If he’d bought us time, we’d just wasted it arguing.
“Itshouldbe me who goes back to Heaven,” Helena continued, entirely unaware of the thoughts racing through my head. “And we are done with this conversation.” She turned to Micah, but Micah was looking at the floor. He seemed, not just disappointed, but broken. Shattered. He was pale, his hair falling over his eyes.
“Micah,” I begged, looking across at him. “You can’t.”
“If this is truly what you want to do,” he said, “I won’t stop you. But I think Sarakiel is right, weshouldfight him, and we will fight him. With or without you.”
Abaddon was out there, fighting Medrion on his own.
Azrael and the other angels were dealing with the defense of the entire bastion.
And here was Helena, stealing the hope right out from under all of them without a second thought. I didn’t care about myself; I wasn’t upset that I wasn’t going because of some disillusioned fantasy that I was the chosen one, but at least I was going to try. Even if it was a long shot, even if it didn’t work. I had to try, for all the angels down here.
I turned my head away from Helena, unable to look at her without feeling revulsion, and spotted the storm. It was on top of us now, and it no longer looked like an illusion.
Light flashed.
Sparks flew.
More screams.
Thunder and lightning… and monstrous shapes in the clouds. There was no doubt in my mind—the Wretched were out there, watching like carrion birds, waiting to move in when they thought the battle was over and there were meals to be had.
“Do it,” I heard Helena say. As she reached for Micah’s hand, I heard the whooshing of wind, the thumping of wings, and the shattering of glass behind us. Spinning around and whipping my Light blade into existence, I saw him, and all the blood drained from my face.
Medrion.
The archangel spread his wings, his Light sword held to the side. There was blood on his face, on his armor, on his hands. Though he was bathed in Light, the brightness around him only served to darken the features of his face and draw menacing shadows all over his body.
He tightened his grip on the pommel of his blazing sword and lowered his gaze at me. “Hello again, Sarakiel,” he simply said.
Rage tore through me.
Rage.
Screaming, I rushed toward him, my Light sword raised. I swiped at him, but Medrion parried the attack and sent me staggering off to the side. The strength of his parry, the force behind it, was enough to send a ripple of pain shooting through my arm, all the way to the shoulder.
That had been stupid.
Really, really stupid.
But if he was here, it only meant one thing; Abaddon was… gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
