The Creator had created all of Heaven’s original infrastructure with a single breath—its foundation, its atmosphere, its Library, and the homes for the original eighty-four angels—but He’d given the angels the task of adorning it further. That was their original purpose—to adorn Heaven in splendor!
When Luc was still in lessons, excess had been the standard; architects had focused on aesthetics as much as, if not more than, utility. Opulence had reigned supreme.
In the past aeon, however, the focus had shifted to practicality and expediency, despite Luc’s role on the Council. He was only one angel, after all, and beholden to the Council’s vote. He hadn’t even met the Creator as he’d once believed he would.
When Heaven was first created, the Creator had walked among the angels often. He’d set the original twelve governing angels in their places on the Council and had divided the rest of the original angels—the common angels—into twelve artisan guilds of six angels each. This later became the basis for the lower guild councils, which to this point in time still had six representatives from their respective disciplines.
At that time, when the angels had been much fewer in number, the Creator had met often with the Council and had even sat in on their meetings. But, of late, He had been largely absent from proceedings. Indeed, only Michael, Muriel, and Raziel remained from those who had spoken directly with Him. Council projects were still submitted for His approval, but the method of approval required no direct interaction with Him and, indeed, resulted in none.
“If you can’t decide, let’s ask the Creator then,” Luc demanded in the lingering silence.
“You need a majority vote for that,” Tenin reminded him. “We can’t just bother the Creator with any idea that comes along.”
“This isn’t justanyidea. This is?—”
“We don’tneedall of this space,” Raziel argued.
“Why not? If we can have it, why not? Does it matter that we don’t need it?”
“We don’t need whole other worlds,” Tenin contended. “We’re not that many, and our numbers are no longer increasing.”
“And yet, we neededthisspace!” Luc spat, gesturing to the finely detailed windows and the prismatic ceiling of the grand room.
“It serves a purpose,” Raziel noted gently.
“The ceiling mosaics serve a purpose?!”
“It was a different time.”
A few grunts of agreement resounded around the room.
Luc scoffed.
“I can’t believe you won’t even consider this,” he muttered, mostly to himself.
“Well, since it’s clear we’re not considering it, let’s move on to the next order of business. Protecting our borders, which I think weallagree is of utmost concern.” Michael unrolled his own blueprint on top of Luc’s, a crudely drawn diagram that showed the perfect square of Heaven’s borders and the current positions of the warriors’ posts.
“I haven’t finished speaking,” Luc bit out.
“Well, we’ve finished listening.” Michael turned to him. “While you were doodling childish fantasies yet again, some of us were dealing with the serious business of this Council. Now…do we have a problem, or shall we move on?”
“This could bring the Creator’s attention back to us. You know it could.”
“And if it does not?”
“If it does not, then at least it may hide His absence better.” Luc made his last-ditch attempt. “It may distract?—”
“Distract us from our very necessary labors to keep our world intact?” Michael’s eye twitched. Luc had poked at him now. “What the common angels need is order. Stability. Normalcy, notdistraction,” Michael admonished. “You would plunge them into chaos.” His fist came down on the table. Hard.
A few of the Council members shifted in their chairs. They wouldn’t meet Luc’s eyes, but they weren’t looking at Michael either. Arguments were common enough in these meetings. However, no one challenged Michael,the head of the Council, the final word of it, as often and as tirelessly as Luc did.
Cowards.
Luc sneered and spat, “What’s your issue, Michael? Too many borders for your warriors to handle?”
“I dare say there would be! More worlds mean more opportunities for the Void to encroach. And if you think that is a trivial matter, that only shows how young and foolish you are!”
Simmering with irritation, and no little humiliation, Luc glowered at Michael. He didn’t know why the older angel had let him onto the Council in the first place; he always did this. He always cut Luc’s projects off at the proposal stage, declaring them frivolous or childish or irrelevant to the important matters at hand. Luc had yet to win a unanimous vote on anything, despite having had several projects approved by the majority.
