Those Left Behind
Reporting home hadn't been as hard as Inias had imagined. He was fairly certain that Hester's death hadn't hit him yet. It couldn't have. He would have thought that losing his sister would have immobilized him. He remembered the long nights after Rachel had died—having to console Hester, all the while unable to come to terms with it himself. And now Hester was gone too. The only clutch-mates he had left were Ion and Sirael.
The only comforting thought he could muster was that wherever Hester was, she was with Rachel again. Because no matter how he and Ion had tried to comfort her, she'd lost her mate, and there was no healing an angel of that wound.
Now, on the way back to the Prophet's home, Inias could feel the beginnings of grief, but it was still numbed by shock; enough so that he didn't pay any mind to the tiny haunting feeling that something wasn't right. He landed with a flutter of wings on the front step. It was late. The stars—those that were visible through the city's light pollution—were sparkling. The air was chill but the humidity of the day still lingered. Bats chittered overhead, silhouetted for a brief second against the orange street light. Inias reached out to knock only to have the door swing open at the contact. He froze. He wouldn't have considered himself an expert on humanity, but he knew enough to know that at this hour, the door should have been closed, not to mention securely locked.
The house was silent inside, despite all the lights being on, and there was an unnatural stillness to the air. On instinct, Inias dropped his blade into his hand. Braced for a fight, he stepped past the threshold of the house.
The smell hit him first; a choking foetor like some dark, rancid cavern thick with rotting things. It sent a spike of fear through him. He could name a few things that had that kind of smell and he didn't want to have to face any of them. Not alone. He crept down the hall toward where the lights from the kitchen were streaming across the floor. He held his wings arched; ready for flight. The smell was stronger nearer to the doorway and for a moment Inias was truly afraid of what he was going to find.
He'd been expecting a fight but the fight had long ago passed. It didn't look like there'd been much of one to begin with. There was no sign of either Kevin or his mother and the silence hung above him like a headman's axe. He looked to the far wall and slumped, lowering his blade as grief hit him again. He was alone. No humans, no Leviathans... just the bodies.
Ra'amiel and Satqiel lay where they'd fallen; blood and black slime smeared down the wall behind them. Rivulets of the same viscous mixture flowed from their nostrils, mouths, ears, and eyes, and gathered in a dark pool around their empty vessels. The wounds in their stomachs looked as if something had reached inside them and shredded bone and sinew.
Inias swallowed and knelt, blinking away the sting developing behind his vessel's eyes. His chest grew tight as he reached out to close his brothers' eyelids, trying to ignore the horror on Ra'amiel's face and the agony on Satqiel's. He took Satqiel's left hand, placed it in Ra'amiel's, and bowed his head.
I should have been here...
For a moment Inias grieved in silence, the air still and cold and reeking of Leviathan. Deep down, he knew that his presence here would have made little difference. He would have simply died alongside his lieutenants. But he still felt as if he'd somehow condemned them by leaving them. He'd assumed—foolishly—that they would be safe. How dangerous could it be to guard a Prophet?
In the quiet of the empty house, the rustle of displaced air sounded like a whirlwind. Lucky, since it was Inias' only warning. He dodged aside a split second before an inky black, crab-like talon came down, embedding itself in the floor where he'd been. He raised his blade and turned to face his attacker, useless a gesture as it was. The claw dissolved and reshaped, flowing back to the figure in the doorway; a woman of unremarkable height, dark brown eyes and darker brown hair. Her face twisted into a predatory smile as she took him in.
"And there I was thinkin' it was carrion for dinner tonight," she sneered, flashing a mouthful of jagged teeth. "I'm in luck. Angels are so much better when they're fresh."
She lunged and Inias launched himself sideways, a quick twist keeping his wings out of her grasp, but landing him on his back. He rolled behind the kitchen island, millennia of battle instinct kicking in despite his every fibre screaming at him to flee. He was on his feet again when the Leviathan rounded the counter, slashing her arm off at the elbow when she grabbed a handful of wing.
She hissed, a too-wide smile splitting her stolen face. "Well aren't you a feisty one..." Her other hand seized his wrist, her mouth gaping open, bifurcated tongue rolling. Inias didn't hesitate; he dropped his blade into his waiting free hand and stabbed it up through the Leviathan's lower jaw, twisting away from her. The blade tore free sideways, spilling black ichor onto the wood floor.
He took some comfort hearing genuine pain in her howl. He backed toward the doorway, ready to flee, and saw the second Leviathan mere fractions of a second before he was wrenched off his feet by his wings and thrown headlong into the cabinetry.
He needed to get up, he knew that. He had to be on his feet now. But his head was spinning and he couldn't get his vessel to do more than stare—dazed—at the ceiling. His instincts were screaming at him—an echo in Hester's voice: Get up. Get up, Inias. Move! Override the vessel's nervous system and get up off your ass! Now!
The two Leviathans were leering down at him; hungry. He had nowhere to run. He was about to close his eyes and accept his fate when the sound of wings filled the kitchen. The Leviathans heard it too and rounded on the fresh meat.
"Inias!"
He broke from his daze at the sound of Avartiel's voice, blinking and rolling stiffly onto his side. From his vantage on the floor he could see the backs of the Leviathans and the tensed frames of three brothers who'd come to his aide. Avartiel was flanked by two angels Inias didn't know well, but whose names he knew to be Threniel and Xathanael.
"Go, brother," Avartiel ordered, not taking his eyes off the Leviathans. "The garrison is waiting. Go."
Inias scrambled unsteadily to his feet, joining his brethren's loose v-formation. Xathanael nodded, his and Threniel's wings flexing.
"There's nowhere you can hide, little birds," the lead Leviathan hissed. "We'll follow you—hunt you—wherever you go. And when we find you, we'll feast." Her forked tongue darted out to wet her lips. "We'll flay you alive, spit-roast you, fight over your cracklings and toss your wishbones to our young. We'll chain you up and eat you slowly, deep-fry your fledglings, chew your viscera while you're still kicking." The Leviathan flashed a disturbing smile. "So run if you must. It won't make any difference."
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The Leviathan's words still rang in Inias' ears hours later, even as he issued orders and dictated strategy over what looked less like a running battle and more like a slaughter. They'd downed one, perhaps two Leviathans while losing dozens, if not hundreds, of their own kind. Threniel was dead, Xathanael wounded, most likely mortally. The garrison had long since splintered. Groups had been separated and fled; the main bulk getting smaller and smaller. They couldn't send healers out anymore because they were inevitably ambushed.
Their every manuever had failed—the avalanche, the fire, the sulphur pits, the nuclear reactors. Inias was out of options. He'd never been much of a leader. It wasn't what he was made for. There'd always been someone else giving the orders; Raphael, Rachel, Castiel, Hester. He'd never known an enemy that the Host couldn't crush with the ease of hatchlings at play. Creatures like the Leviathans had been no more than nest-tales. Without any of the archangels here there was nothing they could do.
"Tell everyone to retreat."
The lieutenants at his side looked at him as if he'd blasphemed.
"Inias... We can't..."
"We have no choice."
Stricken faces were all Inias saw. These were the troops who had faced down an archangel in the name of humanity and free will. And now that they had the freedom to choose their only choices were to abandon humanity or to die like an animal. It should never have come to this...
They'd just started to send out the order—some of them relieved, others ashamed—when the ground beneath them erupted. Gelatinous blackness burst from the earth; screams and hoots and gibbers loud enough to rupture his vessel's eardrums left Inias dazed. Dirt and rock and black ichor rained down around him, boulders the size of trains landing close enough to make the ground jump beneath his feet. Tendrils and arthropod legs stabbed at the earth. Half a tree sailed toward him and as he tumbled away he caught a glimpse of Caniel as the other angel was dragged into a gaping maw. Blood splashed his cheek as another mouth—this one closer—bit another angel in half. He spotted Inuriel a split second before something ripped him off his feet and dragged him, screaming, into the trees. Massive black shapes thrashed and swirled overhead, parting and reforming and obscuring the sky like a flying oil slick.
Something grabbed at Inias' ankle and he slashed wildly, howling like some Viking berserker. He could hear angels calling over their tenuous connection, begging for orders, calling for help. Eyes—too many eyes—opened around him. When had it gotten so dark? A jaw like some monstrous prehistoric shark—teeth as long as fishing trawlers—yawned open above him. The earth was slick with blood and feathers and torn scraps of flesh and Inias couldn't take it anymore.
The jaw snapped shut, but he was gone; his panicked flight not taking him in any particular direction. Just somewhere far from there... and far from home.
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The Empyrean was a flurry of panicked activity. Battered angels stumbled through the dimensional walls, their vessels missing limbs, extremities, vital organs, trailing human and angelic blood. Nothing the healers couldn't fix, but horrible nonetheless. And for every one who returned, several dozen were dead. Samandriel darted through the crowd, squeezing between groups of fussing siblings and grieving mates, little bursts of flight taking him closer to the gates. No one paid him any mind.
He felt rather out of place amongst the soldiers—the cries of grief and pain, the shouted orders and the stumbling reports. He paused next to the shimmering non-Euclidean gatehouse, letting the sibling who'd been chasing him catch up.
"What is going on?" Chloriel tucked tawny wings close to her body, purple eyes studying Samandriel as he glanced around. He raised himself up to his full height, scanning the crowd of vesseled and bare angels in search of familiar grey eyes and chocolate plumage.
"I don't know... That's what I'm trying to figure out." He couldn't help the fear in his voice. Whatever had happened had not been peaceful.
Three soldiers and a cherub crashed through the gate, scattering those who'd been waiting there. A smear of blood stained the crystal floor behind them and it was easy to see whose it was. One of the soldiers was lying very still; his vessel's flesh a funny shade of grey that human skin wasn't supposed to be. Blood was gushing from a savage rend in his stomach. The cherub was similarly mangled, though his wound appeared to be healing. The second soldier seemed torn between helping the injured cherub and comforting his bleeding partner. It was the third soldier that caught Samandriel's eye.
"Avartiel!" He scrambled forward, compressing his body down so that he didn't tower over the vesseled angel. "Avartiel! What happened?"
Avartiel's face was spattered with dirt and blood, some of it his own. His hand was shaking when he reached out to squeeze Samandriel's shoulder. "Evacuation orders. The garrison is being withdrawn. The Leviathan are slaughtering us. Any angel they find..." The soldier's usual stoicism faltered. "Word has spread but it's chaos down there."
Samandriel swallowed, an involuntary chill going through him. His voice trembled. "Where's Inias?"
"I don't know." Avartiel looked profoundly sorry. "He issued the order, but I was far from him... He's most likely overseeing the withdrawal. I'm sure he'll be here soon."
Samandriel nodded. "Thank you."
Avartiel ruffled Samandriel's hair before following in the wake of the departing healers. Another group staggered in on his heels, but Inias wasn't among them. Nor was he among those who followed after.
Chloriel curled a wing over Samandriel's back. "I can wait with you if you like."
"You don't have to..." He began but trailed off at the look on Chloriel's face.
"Don't make it sound like such a chore." Her eyes were imploring. "I know you well enough to know you don't want to be alone right now."
Samandriel smiled, bumping heads with his sister and leaning against her slightly larger frame. "I'm just worried, that's all. I'll be fine when he gets here."
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Samandriel lost count of how many times he repeated those words over the next few hours; how many times he shrugged off the growing worry in his gut. Groups of survivors piled in less and less frequently, with fewer in tow, and with worse injuries. Sometimes they dragged in bodies—empty vessels that they'd refused to leave behind.
The hours wore on; waits between groups reached forty minutes or so. The hustle and bustle of earlier had dulled to murmurs. Few remained on vigil. Eventually Chloriel had to leave to begin her duties in the Garden and Samandriel was left alone. The Empyrean was quiet by then. Most of the angels waiting had either left with their injured mates and siblings, or had received news and gone to grieve privately. He was one of only four remaining when the next round of evacuees came stumbling in. Two evacuees and two bodies.
Samandriel could only stare in horror. The two empty vessels—mangled and mutilated as they were—had once been Ra'amiel and Satqiel. Inias' lieutenants. He'd been with them when all hell broke loose. If they were dead...
He tried to ask about Inias, but the soldiers and healers were too busy to talk to a gardener. Especially one as low on the rung as he was. They hurried into the Citadel and Samandriel was left completely alone.
Evening deepened to night, two more survivors scrambling in about half an hour apart; alone and shell-shocked. Neither so much as acknowledged Samandriel before hobbling into the city. He waited in silence; the stars wheeling overhead; icy cold settling in around him. The moon swung slowly into view, a few stray meteorites pinging off the crystal walls of the gatehouse. Three long, lonely hours passed.
He knew it had been too long. Those who were coming home already had. There was no one else. He tried to deny it but he knew.
The tears started almost without him noticing. He was perched on the threshold of Heaven's gate, gazing down at the twinkling lights of the planet below. He huddled, shivering, into the smallest ball he could make of himself. In the still air every sob was amplified. Even the softest sound had an echo.
This was what his siblings had feared when he'd first fallen for Inias. That one day Samandriel would be widowed. It was the risk in taking a soldier as a mate. One that he'd never really given any thought to. He'd never imagined that anything would happen to Inias; never thought that his mate would one day go on a mission and not come back. He hadn't even said goodbye that morning. He'd already been at work in the Garden and... and now it was too late. Lost as he was in reminisces—in that little ache that had started in the back of his chest—Samandriel didn't hear the soft tread of the other angel until he was settling down next to him.
"I'm so sorry, Sam," Ion whispered, draping a warm wing over Samandriel's shoulders.
All he could do was sob harder, collapsing against Ion's grey and green feathers. Nothing felt real, and yet, at the same time it all felt too real. Part of him still expected Inias to come racing in, or to be waiting in their roost. There would have been some mix up, some mistake and he would be in the healers' hall. Just resting.
"Please tell me he's alive..." Samandriel whimpered, nuzzling his face into Ion's collar.
"I wish I could." There was grief in his voice, though it was controlled and muted. "I do. But... They hit without warning and they went straight for the command post... I'm sorry, Sam... There was nothing left." A broken sort of noise escaped the smaller angel and Ion pulled him closer, leaning his head on Samandriel's. "Believe me, I know it hurts." Ion's voice broke and Samandriel felt tears drip down onto his feathers. "He was my brother... and I couldn't help him. But I know that his only concern would be your safety. He died to protect us; to protect our home. We should be proud of him."
Samandriel sniffed. "I don't want to be proud of him... I want him here. I want him to be alive."
There was a long, shivering silence before Ion replied. "So do I."
They remained there, at the edge of Heaven, for another hour, watching the universe spin overhead. They didn't say much, just a few laments followed by reassurances. With his eyes shut, Samandriel could almost pretend it was Inias holding him; he could almost imagine that this whole Leviathan business had just been a bad dream. But it wasn't Inias and it wasn't a dream. Life as he had known it for two hundred million years was over.
After a while Ion stretched; a shaky, exhausted motion. "Where do you want to roost tonight?" He straightened up, meeting Samandriel's eyes. "You can stay with Dumah and I."
He wanted to go back to his roost and curl amongst the linens that probably still carried Inias' scent, even though he knew it would just make it harder. He wanted so badly to grasp those last remnants of his mate and never let go. But he knew now was not a time to be alone.
He took a few steadying breaths. "I should go back to the Garden... Return to my siblings."
Ion gave a sad smile. "You know, when you two were first mated, Inias cornered me and Hester and made us promise to look after you if anything ever happened to him."
"He did?"
"He always worried about letting you down. Always." Ion slumped, his shoulders drooping, his wings dragging on the crystal floor. In the wan light of the moon, his feathers appeared washed out and milky; their green and grey becoming pallid jade and white. "Of course, Hester's gone now..."
"You don't have to take care of me, Ion." Samandriel wriggled free of the other angel's wing so that he could properly look at him.
"Yes. I do." Ion met his gaze. "I promised him. And I will keep my word."
Samandriel gave Ion a reassuring nudge. He didn't know whether it was better or worse knowing that he wasn't the only one grieving. His emotions were a jumbled wreck in his mind and he was having a hard time distinguishing positive emotions from negative ones. Everything was drowned in a haze of sadness. A creeping loneliness that he knew would only get worse.
"You could fly me there," Samandriel suggested, seeing Ion's reluctance to leave.
Ion nudged him back, stretching his wings. "I thought you didn't want me taking care of you?" Having teased a reluctant smile out of the young angel, he nodded in the direction of the Citadel's pearlescent gates. "Come on. Let's get you home."
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Returning to the gardeners' roost after so many years was strange. It felt wrong, but at the same time it was like coming home. It had been a very long time since he had seen the preternaturally large ginkgoes with their tangled, moss-draped boughs. The grove towered above the rest of Eden; high as mountains and affording limitless views in every direction. Canopy, steppe, sea, and plains were laid out below; the walls between regions visible as spidery grey lines. Only clouds obstructed the vista; the tallest cumulous passing, mist-like, through the branches.
This was where Samandriel had grown up. Mere days after his birth he had been chosen for the gardeners' caste and had been delivered to the grove and into Joshua's care. He'd spent his childhood watching plants grow; watching animals live, breed, and die. For the longest time he'd thought that all of Heaven was like Eden—an endless sea of misted green threaded with cerulean rivers and alive with the calling of birds and dinosaurs and the buzzing of insects. Its waters teeming with fish and crustaceans and swimming reptiles. It wasn't until he'd learned to fly that he saw the Citadel and the Empyrean. He was familiar with a majority of Heaven now, but the Garden would always be home.
They sailed in through moonlit sheets of rain. The enormous trees were swaying in the wind as Samandriel and Ion landed. The leaves whistled and rattled in the gusts, adding to the rush of rain on the canopy above them. The sound was so familiar, so comforting, that Samandriel often wondered how he'd ever slept without it. The roost he'd shared with Inias had been on the edge of Eden's wall, but it had not been a tree, merely a den carved into one of the innumerable selenite towers which sprouted from Heaven's floor like the innards of some monstrous geode. At first he'd loathed the cold, lifeless crystal, but he'd soon learned to hear the low, thrumming song at its core. Now he would have given anything to have cause to return. That roost held so many of his memories, so much of his life. Now it would lie empty and gather nothing but dust.
Samandriel's eyes stung with fresh tears as he touched down on the mossy carpet at the main crux of the tree. He shook them away, not wanting Ion to see. The crux was empty; the open, flattish space silent and soggy in the light of bioluminescent orchids and barnacles. The communal bathing pool was overflowing with rainwater.
"Where is everyone?" Ion asked, glancing around and up at the impenetrably dark foliage.
"We don't post watchmen in the Garden. There are no dangers here." Samandriel splashed water over his feathers, bitterly lamenting that Inias hadn't been born a gardener. "My brethren will be resting or asleep in their roosts." He nodded up at the expanse of branches. Somewhere up there, huddled in threes or fours or fives, were his siblings. And, somewhere among them, the angel who had been the closest thing to an actual father that Samandriel had ever had.
Ion was silent for a good long while; perched awkwardly between waving barnacles and one of the larger bromeliads, whose chirping frogs appeared to unnerve him. Inias had been like that once. So used to spartan conditions that lush, vibrant, noisy old nature unsettled him. He'd grown out of it, but Ion... Ion didn't have a gardener for a mate.
"What should I do? I don't want to leave you here alone..."
"I assure you, Ion, he won't be alone."
Ion jumped and Samandriel smiled to himself. Joshua had a habit of appearing without warning. It usually frightened the fledglings but they got used to it. The elder angel fluttered down the mushroom-covered branch to Samandriel's left, joining him at the pool. In the dark his plumage very nearly vanished against the trunk. He was slow on his wings tonight, beyond his usual pretence of age. He looked tired, world-weary. Samandriel would have asked, but his superior's attention was on Ion.
"I suppose I should welcome you to our humble abode." Joshua gestured around at the rain-drenched grove. "Eden's gardeners are always happy for visitors from other castes."
Ion bowed his head in respect, though Samandriel knew enough about the politics of Heaven to know that one of Naomi's flock had no need to bow to a lowly gardener. "I don't want to burden you." Ion swallowed, glancing at Samandriel. "I should return to my roost... I simply wanted to make sure Samandriel had somewhere to go."
Joshua turned his head. "You would be no burden. But I imagine your mate is waiting for you."
"Thank you, Ion," Samandriel added, his voice hoarser than he'd anticipated.
Ion nodded. "If you need anything..." He didn't need to finish the statement. His eyes said enough.
"I know."
With a final bow of his head, Ion spread his wings and dropped from the tree. Within seconds he had vanished into the curtain of rain.
Silence reigned for a moment, Joshua circling the pool, plucking overgrown filaments of moss and tossing them out of the tree. Samandriel shifted, somewhat uncomfortable. He knew Joshua would want to know what had brought him back to Eden's grove, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. Just the thought of it made his insides twist and turn.
Joshua broke the quiet for him. "Come. Sit with me." He held out a wing, beckoning Samandriel toward one of the wider branches. Wordlessly, he followed.
He felt like a child again, scrambling up the twisting path behind Joshua's larger, bulkier form. He'd taken this route many times in his youth. Joshua had always liked to do his teaching from somewhere with a view, and this particular cluster of branches had become their classroom. It was also where they went when private conversation was needed.
By force of habit, he paused toward the center of the roughly ovular space, silent as Joshua settled on the edge, looking out over the downpour. The moon was beginning to disappear behind the clouds despite its prominent place in the sky; larger than when viewed from the earth. The glow had gone muddy and the forest below darker.
"Come on, Sam. Don't be hiding over there," Joshua called, lifting a wing the way he used to when he was sheltering the fledglings. Samandriel hesitantly joined him and they perched in silence for a long time. Samandriel found himself clenching his jaw in an effort to keep his emotions in check. He was still in that twilight zone where he could pretend it was all a dream so long as he didn't talk about it. Part of him wanted to stay there.
"Holding it in isn't good for the system, son," Joshua said, his voice lowered. "Let it go."
As if the words had been some command, some spell, the tears came again. Not in wracking sobs as they had when he'd sat with Ion, but in silent streams down his cheeks. He shivered and Joshua pulled him closer.
"I know it hurts. Believe me, I know." Something indefinable crept into his voice. Something jagged and brittle. "And it's worst in the beginning. When everything reminds you of them. Your roost still smells like them. You still expect them to come soaring in, sorry about being late."
Samandriel gazed up at Joshua and through his tears he fancied he could see a phantom of the same grief mirrored in the other angel's eyes.
"You lost your mate too... Didn't you?"
Joshua nodded, his eyes closing for a brief moment. He took a steadying breath. "I did. Long before you were even created; during Lucifer's rebellion." His expression softened as he paused, turning almost wistful. "She was called Ariel and she was a healer. The most beautiful angel in the flock. More beautiful even than Lucifer. We were together from the beginning...
"When our Father told us His plan to create humanity, and that we were to love them more than Him, Ariel... She couldn't understand. We had been told to love our Father; to obey and respect Him. We didn't understand how we were supposed to love these new creatures more.
"Lucifer began a protest; a peaceful one, at that. All he asked was that we not be asked to love the humans more than our own family. That we be given a choice as to whether we were obliged to serve humanity. Many of his legion followed him. There were gardeners, healers, scribes, children. They all camped within the Garden, refused to leave, but otherwise minded their own business."
Joshua stopped, swallowing, and continued. "I tried to convince Ariel to leave. To come home. But she had a will of steel. The last time we spoke, she told me that there was no use having free will if you never used it."
"What happened to her?"
Joshua grimaced, as if an old wound had reopened. "Our Father didn't take kindly to Lucifer's rebellion and He ordered the Host to kill all those who sat in opposition to His word.
"They came without warning. There was never an option to leave; to repent. Soldiers swarmed the crowd and slaughtered everyone they found. I watched righteous angels slit the throats of cherubs, tear apart gardeners, round up fledglings and spear them to death.
"I will never call Lucifer 'evil', because I watched him spend every ounce of his strength putting himself between his followers and the brothers sent to murder them. He fought until he collapsed. He may be mad now, but there's no evil in him. There never was. Just hurt.
"Ariel fought like a warrior. I saw her on the battlefield... She tore through her attackers—not killing, just maiming. She's the one who gave Virgil that scar. She was like a lioness, all tawny gold and fury. But there's only so long a healer can hold out against soldiers.
"I was watching when Zachariah swooped down and... It was over in a second. I didn't even realize what had happened. Then her grace was burning out and he was tearing a spear out of her back. He even looked proud of himself."
Samandriel gulped and shivered. "I'm sorry, Joshua..."
"Don't fret, son. It was a long time ago. I've had millennia to get used to the pain. And I did. As you will, one day." Joshua actually looked his age as he spoke; actually looked like one who'd seen geologic ages pass.
"How did you keep going?"
Joshua squeezed Samandriel tight against him. "You mean 'how did I not skewer myself on my own sting?'... To tell you the truth I thought about it. Would have done it too, if it weren't for Michael. I guess he knew how I was feeling, having just lost Lucifer. What kept us going was knowing that our mates wouldn't have wanted us offing ourselves. Just as Inias would not want you wasting away."
Samandriel lowered his eyes furtively. "I wasn't going to... do anything stupid."
"But you were thinking about it." Joshua rested his head on Samandriel's. "All angels who lose their mates do. It's my job to make sure those thoughts stay thoughts and not actions."
The younger angel sighed, shivering and leaning on Joshua's shoulder. He felt small and cold. There was an aching emptiness in his chest; a void as if something integral had been torn out. Something was gone. There was a warm, luminous, happy part of him that had been extinguished somewhere on the planet below.
Joshua shifted, dewdrops of tears falling from his feathers. "Come on. Let's get you into your old roost. A night's sleep'll do you good."
The smell of waterlogged jungle drifted up from the landscape below as Joshua led Samandriel back down the branch. Whispered assurances and comforts were drowned out by the whooping cries of some night-flying pterosaurs and the distant bellow of a Hadrosaur in rut.
He didn't know what he was going to do now. All the plans he and Inias had shared were gone. They'd never even had children. And now they never would.
As if he could read his mind, Joshua spoke. "You can unravel all those worries in the morning. But tonight, you let 'em go and relax." He clambered up another massive bough—this one leading up into the heart of the tree. "I wish it were under better circumstances, but nevertheless... Welcome home, Sam."
Samandriel took one last look at the softly glowing curve of the earth—the tiniest crescent showing over the horizon—before following Joshua up into the canopy. It wasn't the homecoming he'd imagined. There was a pain settling in his chest, and for the first time, immortality began to feel like a burden.
"Goodbye, Inias."