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“No. Answer the question.” To my right, Kalen stoppedprotesting against his bindings. “It is very clear that I came here to take the Light, and that I will kill you for it. Two things I’m sure you would hate to see happen. So I will ask again.Whyam I still alive?”
For a split second, Melany showed her shock. The next second her head fell back in a raucous laughter, but it was all wrong. Her long black hair slipped from her shoulders too slowly, and her mouth opened with the pace of a yawn, not a roar.
Confused, I frowned, but that too, happened too slowly. My body fought against the heavy weight of the air like I was moving against a strong wind. In the corner of my eye, a purple robe flashed quickly, unaffected. I turned and found Gabriel walking towards me, weakly, but in the right frame of time.
“Hello, Gwynore,” his voice sang in a lower octave than usual, the full brunt of his power soaking each syllable.
“Gabriel?” I gasped at the way my lips moved, smoothly despite the slowing of everything around us. Gabriel’s gaze met mine. He was protecting me. Concealing the moment we were captured in, somewhere in a portal of the Astral Plane.
“What is going on?” I panicked, any mettle I’d managed in my nerves was completely gone.
“We don’t have long,” he said. “Listen to me, carefully.” The King took my hand in his, and I noted the dampness of his skin. The Time Sage was nervous.
“There is something she isn’t saying,” I said. “She should have killed me by now.”
“That is not what she wants.” Gabriel paused, turning my hand face up in his, his tanned fingers tracing the map of my palms. “Haven’t you ever wondered how the Light faction has been kept from her rule after all of these years? Why Kalen had to be shadowed to become her minion?”
No, actually. That question had never occurred to me. When you are flung into a new world, knowing none of its rules orcustoms, and someone tells you about the evil goddess ruling it all, you hardly question the evil goddess’ motives. So no, I hadn’t wondered why she never used that power she stole, though now it was the only thought rattling through my leprose brain. Then I realized. “The Light is not hers to wield?”
Gabriel’s signature smirk crept back onto his face. “No, it is not.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
In the corner, Melany’s eyes were tracking over to us, minutes behind, but almost upon the moment in time we were stuck in. Gabriel felt it, the chasm between here and there narrowing in on us. With a sudden jerk, he pulled me to him, his eyes glittering with power.
“Gwynore, you are not just a Guardian.”
The room around our portal was beginning to dim, darkness crawling out from the deepest part of the atmosphere, pouring into every corner of the room from nowhere at all.
“Did you hear me?” His voice became frantic as we slipped further down the plane, aligning the here with the now. “You are so much worse,” he said, and I drew back, wrenching my hand from his. “You are so muchmore.”
What could that even mean? These gods-damned Sages and their parables.
Before I could ask, darkness moved out from Melany’s palm to meet us, to meet Gabriel. Swirls of black night wrapped around the Time Sage’s neck and then his eyes, taking his vision as it ripped around.
Claws of smoke ravaged him as he screamed. It was unfathomable.
To hear a god scream like a lame horse with a broken leg. It went on and on until the sound was a whisper on the winds of Shadow, and then that sound went on and on until there was nothing. Nothing coming from the Sage at all.
At the same moment Gabriel quieted, Time surged forward, catching itself. The Shadow released him, snaking its way back into its master’s fingertips. From her corner, Melany shook with anger, stalking towards where Gabriel lay still on the floor. Kicking at his side with her sandaled foot, she growled at him, “Did you learn nothing from our last fight, brother?”
Gabriel moaned, rolling over onto his back. Ione gasped. The whole room joined in on her horror. Even Dario rose from his seat on the dais steps to get a better look at the damage his sister had done.
Deep slashes rimmed with blood and Shadow were torn across his eyes, the red color seeping onto his face. The Time Sage looked up at the skylight, staring at nothing in particular. His milk-white eyes flitted around. His chin thrust out as he raised his head and let the tip of his long nose scour the air above him.
Pecking.
A crow at the window.
“I can’t...” he gasped, the words dying out on his tongue. “Oh, Mother,” he cried, and crystal tears mixed in with the bloody mess on his cheeks. “I can’t see.”
Abdiel ran to Gabrielwith a ferocity I’d never yet seen in my life.The Time sage cried as he felt his lover place a broad hand flat onto the side of his face, wrapping his fingers around the back of Gabriel’s neck. The warrior shouted, “I’m here,” then lifted his King to his chest, careful of the fresh wounds that scourged his face.
“Diel,” Gabriel whispered. “Diel..” He gasped.
“I know,” was the warrior’s only reply. “I know. I’m here.”
In the corner, Owen stood as still as stone, his face twisted with rage and confusion and worry. His violet eyes flicked between Melany and Gabriel and then Abdiel and Melany, gauging with that trained intensity the threat that lay ahead of us all. One hand had already moved to the hilt of his sword, the other gripping the sheath on his belt.
