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She lets out a sob. “Remiel,” she chokes, the name a surrender.
We crash together.
My arms wrap around her waist, lift her off the ground, and crush her against me until I can’t tell where my heartbeat ends and hers begins. Her arms lock around my neck, her fingers tangling in my hair and pulling me down. I bury my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling her. The scent clears the gray dust from my lungs and fills me with light.
And I kiss her.
Desperate. Messy. A kiss mixed with salt, blood, and overwhelming relief. I pour fifty years of silence, of longing, and of screaming into the void into her mouth. She drinks it down and gives me back her grief, her rage, and her undying hope.
The wolves howl around us, their heads thrown back in a song of pure primal joy that echoes in the void.
I hold her. My ruin. My salvation. And for the first time since I woke in that cold holding cell with a hole in my memory, I feel whole.
39. Remiel
I hold Cassia, and for a long suspended moment, the gray hellscape of Limbo ceases to exist. There is only the warmth of her skin, a transfusion of life I have been starving for.
The wolves press against our legs as a living wall of shadows and fur. One chuffs softly, a sound of contentment, while another leans his heavy head against my thigh and grounds me in the present. The silence of the realm feels less oppressive now, less like a vacuum and more like a pause or a breath held before the plunge.
“This is very touching,” Vyxia says as a serrated knife, shattering the fragile sanctuary. “Truly. But the tower is still eating Kael.”
Cassia stiffens in my arms, and the reality of our location crashes back in. We break apart, but she does not let go of my hand, her fingers interlacing with mine.
I turn to the others. Jareth stands with his sword lowered, his posture rigid with a soldier’s unease. Vyxia has her arms crossed, her violet eyes boring into the glowing white spire in the distance.
“He is fading,” Sera says as she approaches us. “I can feel the drain from here. Whatever is happening to him is accelerating.”
“Michael planned it,” I say, the words tasting of bile. “Not to kill him though.”
I look at her. She stands apart from the group, a solitary figure. Her eyes are fixed on the tower, and her hands flex at her sides as if she intends to tear the stones apart with her bare fingers.
“He put him in stasis?” she asks, her voice brittle and cracking. “To keep him out of the way? To silence him?”
“No.” I shake my head. “To keep Heaven alive.”
Jareth frowns, his brows furrowing. “What are you talking about? Kael sacrificed himself. They said his body could not contain the damage.”
“If Michael wanted us dead, we would be dead,” I say, my gaze drifting to the pulsing spire. The light radiating from it holds a core of deep ancient bronze, a heartbeat of molten metal. “However, he killed someone. Long ago. Before the war.” I look at Sera and see the question in her eyes. “And he failed.”
“You were the generals,” Vyxia says, though her confidence wavers.
“We were not merely generals,” I say, the confession burning my throat. “We are the sons of Hudvera.”
The name hits the air like a physical blow. Jareth takes a step back, his eyes widening. Vyxia’s jaw tightens as recognition flashes in her violet gaze.
“Hudvera?” Cassia whispers, the name tasting strange on her tongue. “The first mother?”
“Not merely the first mother. She was the mother of Heaven. My mother.” The words are scars on my soul. “To take the throne, Michael wanted her power. But primordial essences cannot be destroyed. They must go somewhere.” I point at the tower, where the bronze light pulses against its white cage. “And it did not go to Michael as he had hoped. It went to her sons.”
Sera turns to me, her face pale as the pieces fall into place. “You? And…?”
“Yes.” I nod. “And Kael. We hold the frequency of creation. Michael rules, but he does not power the realm. We do. We are the batteries. As long as we exist, Heaven stands. If we die, the realm collapses.”
The realization ripples through them.
“That is why he kept you,” Cassia says, squeezing my hand. “Why Lilith put Lucifer in stasis instead of killing him. She needed the primordial of Hell to keep her walls standing.”
I nod again. “Until they learn how to harvest that power.”
