I purse my lips.
That sneaky, clever little shadow. It could have easily just spoken my language, but no, it forced me to need a translator. Itwantedme to relay its message to someone.
Sighing, I give in to its conniving plans, reluctantly asking Azael for help. “If you had to translate?—”
“Bitterness comes.” He meets my eyes with an awful seriousness to him, but… That’s what it said? Really? Seems a bit anticlimactic when I already know the world is ending.
I raise an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
Azael pauses, and I count his blinks as his eyes wander around the room.
One.
He must be genuinely trying to understand the message.
Two.
No, he’s clearly crafting a lie to tell me.
Three.
Hell… I can’t read him if my life depended on it.
Finally, he answers, slowly and deliberately, in a low hypnotic voice that reverberates with certainty. “Bitterness is a translation error in the written prophecy. It’s not a literal sour plant like Wormwood. Bitterness is resentment, disappointment, disgust,rage... Pure, unbridled rage against the unfairness of everything. Rage against the world.”
He looks at me like he’s just now seeing me for the first time.
“Thatis what you became, Kae. You’re the Power of Bitterness.”
43
Ihave to fight for a moment to control the fear that grips me.
I’m certainly not the Morning Star, but why the hell would the Power of Bitterness choose me? I’ve never been particularly bitter about anything before… well, before the damn thing came into my life with all the apocalyptic nightmares.
Except, maybe, when my mom died.
I mean, yes, okay. Therewascertainly a lot of bitterness there. The whole thing with the insurance and the malpractice was basically why I decided to go into medicine in the first place, but… I got over that. I healed, moved on, and was determined to help people.
Plus, I’m just not an angry person in general! Jackie is, but not me. Maybe it was aiming for her and missed by a hair? Is that possible?
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I mumble to myself.
“Oh, it does. It makesperfectsense, whether or not you allow yourself to see it.” A quiet huff of a laugh comes from Azael as he shakes his head, peering into his wine glass. “Abaddon has made a grave error in making an enemy of you?—”
“Abaddon isn’t my enemy.” I stand up rapidly, knocking my chair to the ground in the process with a force I hadn’t intended. The Aether presses down on me so much, begging for an outlet, it’s almost painful. “Put me back where you found me.”
He doesn’t flinch at the sound of my falling chair, nor does he look too concerned. In fact, he looks amused by the idea. Propping one elbow on the arm of his chair, he leans his face into his hands, looking at me at a lazy angle. “And if I did? Where would you go from there?”
Home.
“That’s none of your goddamn business.” I press my hands down onto the table, leaning in to glare at him with every bit of a threat I canmuster. I don’t know how to make my eyes glow all menacingly like the archangels do, but if I did, I’d be doing it right now.
“It certainly is, considering you’re in my city.” A smile slithers over Azael’s face, and he breathes out a half-stop of a laugh. “You know, I’m not quite sure how to deal with you. Do you switch between alternate personalities? Is this Kae I’m speaking to, or Wormwood?”
“Kae. Always Kae. If anything, my shadow speaks to me. Not through me.”
“Interesting. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to have a Kesbeel in the back of my mind, and you wouldn’t think something like an Oath would manifest as a volatile being. But something angry, like Bitterness, inside a newborn immortal… It could prove to be catastrophic.”
