It reminds me of the mortal toddlers begging for sugar, especially when she flings herself onto the ground in a huff.
“Sister?”I mumble.The Severed Moth flutters around her head, darting in quick jabs this way and that as if it can’t decide whether to explore or attack.
The crowned moth trembles beneath my cloak.At least it lives and breathes.
Thank the gods they survived.If we’d lost them, we’d be powerless as well as fallen.
“It didn’t work,” Interitus barks at me.
“What didn’t?”My words finally find purchase in my throat and sound coherent.
“I thought we would fall to the mortal realm.”
I cough out a croaky laugh.“The bridge leads to the underworld.What made you think we’d cross?”Surely she isn’t that naive?
“Because, you idiot, we’re angels.Not demons.I figured we’d be able to penetrate straight through.”
“Not without wings or the ability to cut through the realm’s fabric.And I’ve never tried.”
Her expression simmers like the froth and bubble of broiled meat.
“Then I’ll just have to find another way,” she snaps and hauls herself up, her fists balled and bloody.Her claret is a deeper shade than mine.Closer to that of mortal red than my pearlescent colour, though hers still glitters like all angels.
I turn away from the splatters she drips on the floor.Interitus’s blood has decayed.As if the cells want to destroy themselves and bleed inside her veins, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Fitting, I think.Even her blood is out for destruction.
Will her hunger for destruction end up destroying her?The thought makes my throat ache.Yes, I resent what she has done and everything she has taken from me.But she is still my sister, my twin, even.I will forgive her this sin because as much as I despise her in this moment, I don’t want to see her dead.
I lie on my back, gazing up.Thick, shrouding cloud fills the space between two cliffs.It hides both the bridge and the Celestial Realm from the underworld.
It’s at this moment a tear leaks out.I’ll never bear witness to the Celestial City again.No towering glass buildings or blue skies or reflective towers that I call home.Interitus has taken it all from us, and for what?A misguided belief she was going to land in the mortal realm?Surely there is more to this façade.
The more I strain to see up to the heavens, the more the weight of reality hits me.
We can never go home.
“Are you happy now?Did you get what you wanted?”I say, my voice, for once, full of the spite I’m riddled with.
That makes her halt and turn on her heel, eyes narrowed to knives and blades and serrated feathers.How easily she expresses the hatred I’m trying to bury.
I might love her.
But she broke us.
Perhaps there is no coming back from this.
She folds her arms before beginning.“No.But the underworld is just another obstacle in my way.I will do this, sister.We must remake our world into one where we’re all truly free.You’ll see.”
I shake my head and pull myself to standing.My legs are weak, my wings worse.Every muscle in my body trembles as I clutch a reddish boulder to steady myself.Gods, I need a moment before I can chase after her.
“Destroying everything is not the way to make a new world,” I say.
She sneers, all lips and razors for teeth.“It’s a shame the knock to your head hasn’t resulted in any more sense.Destroying our system and starting again is theonlyway to make a new world.You cannot build perfection on broken foundations.”
“It doesn’t mean you can create a new one on its bones either.”
She falters before her mouth pinches.“How foolish you are.A clean slate is the only way for true creativity to prosper.For us to be able to design a new system of free will.”
