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“A head start?”

“You just confessed to a dark enchantment and a vampire lord’s death,” he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. “You are a fugitive of the highest order. The watchers are already gathering. They will be here within the hour to collect you and bring you to the tribunal for your execution.”

Panic flared in my chest. “You said… You said I could save him.”

“You did,” Malakar said calmly, “…save him. But you did not save yourself.”

He raised his hand again, and light gathered in his palm, brighter this time. He would not let me run. He was going to take me in himself.

“I cannot let a creature like you roam free,” he said. “It would be…messy.”

The betrayal sparked something I had tasted in Remiel’s essence, but it was now inside me. Something ancient.

Heat rose in my chest, a deep, resonant thrum of bronze and gold. It felt like the sun was waking up inside my ribs. It wasn’t my power. It was his.

Malakar fired a beam of pure white judgment across the room.

I didn’t dodge. I didn’t shield with shadows. But I screamed.

And that scream carried power.

A wave of force—a wall of solid bronze—exploded from my body. It slammed into his light and shattered it, throwing the archangel backward. He hit the stone pillar with a bone-shattering crack and slid to the floor, gasping for breath.

He looked up at me, his eyes wide with genuine fear. “How…how are you doing this?”

I had no answer. I looked at my hands. They were glowing but not with infernal fire. It was a strange, heavy light that felt like the weight of a star.

“I am leaving,” I said, my distorted voice layered with a power too immense for my throat.

I then turned and ran, bursting through the chapel doors and into the cold Prague night.

33. Remiel

Memory.

When my last word was spoken, the book snapped shut with a sound like a coffin lid closing. The keeper then stood and said it was done.

“Wait,” I rasped, reaching out. “Will I remember this?”

“No,” it said and stepped back into the shadows. “But the archive will.”

It vanished, and the cell door dissolved into mist.

Two guards, wearing no faces and only helms of blank silver, entered. They hauled me to my feet and dragged me out of my cell. We traveled down the long echoing corridor toward the tribunal hall. The light grew brighter with every step until it was blinding.

Consciousness returned not as a sunrise but as a sterile glare. I was on my knees before I knew it. The floor beneath me was white marble, polished to a mirror sheen that reflected a distorted, broken version of my face. The air tasted of absolute, terrifying purity. There was no dust there. No shadows. No mercy. I recognized this chill. This was the Celestial Tribunal Hall, where judgments were handed down with the weight of collapsing stars.

But the room felt wrong. Empty. The six high seats that usually loomed over the accused were vacant—save for two.

Michael sat in the center. He did not wear his armor for war. He wore robes of white silk embroidered with threads of gold that seemed to pulse with a living light. His face was serene, a carved mask, but his eyes held a weariness that was older than the stones of this hall.

To his right sat Malakar, the archangel of judgment. He looked even less composed. His robes were stained with gray mud, which was a stark violation of this pristine space. He looked down at me with a mixture of pity and revulsion while wiping his hands on a cloth as if trying to scrub away an invisible stain.

“Rise, Remiel,” Michael said, his voice a resonant hum that vibrated in my teeth. “Or do you prefer to crawl?”

I tried to stand. But my body felt heavy and leaden, as if the gravity here worked differently than before. I managed to push myself to my feet, swaying slightly. My hands were empty. My blade was gone.

I looked around for the other representatives. Lucifer. Calithra. Yet the seats were empty.