Here's an early update since I have a free evening to myself. My fiancé is away on a trip with his parents. I can't take holidays yet since it's my second month, but I'm happy to have survived my first month! Been pretty tiring but I've been learning a lot. A cool colleague even taught me how to make balloon bunnies using medical gloves for kids this week, haha. Mine looked more like a mutated bunny that would make kids cry lol but I'm sure I'll get better with practice! Take care guys and enjoy the chapter x
Issa could no longer feel her angel.
The puppet strings binding her to Hell—the strings binding her to her Keeper—were now completely broken. For the first time in a hundred years, she stood untethered, and the weight of that freedom left her disoriented.
Sweat clung to her dress as she worked feverishly on the gates. Vines crept inch by inch, the power of Life dulled in the realm of Death. The other half of Hell's door was a crushing weight that pressed against the insides of her skull, threatening to break her. Each agonizing second stretched her nerves with worry for Edvardiel. This was taking too long.
"Edvardiel," she panted. "Are you all right?"
His answer was dry. You do realise that you're the one in Hell? His voice grew clearer by the second, almost as though he were closing the distance between them with willpower alone. What's going on? What are you doing?
"Trying to cover the gap…" Her voice wavered. "Edvardiel, Heaven's door is missing. Michael… he's supposed to be holding it but I don't know why—" Anger flared within her, hot and bitter. She forced it down—she didn't have the time to be angry. "I'm trying to make a second door."
How's that going?
"I'm almost—" The vines shrivelled to ash beneath her fingers. Her stomach lurched. "Fuck. Fuck!"
The ruins of her painstaking work crumbled at her feet.
Issa? Edvardiel's voice sharpened. Issa, talk to me.
"I'm fine," she said, trying not to cry. "But the gates—"
Then leave it. Come back and we'll–
"I'm so close, Edvardiel."
A beat of silence.
All right, he said finally, his tone steady. What's wrong with the second door?
There was no second door, that was the fucking problem. The twisted remnants mocked her, proof of her failure. Her hands shook and her body felt uncomfortably hot, as though the Edenium were burning through her veins. A faint sensation tingled between her shoulder blades, an itching warmth that she barely registered as she gritted her teeth against Hell's oppressive force.
Issa took a deep, steadying breath and clung to Eden's words: You crossed the void without glory—that's proof of your strength.
She was strong enough. She was ready.
She bent down, sweat trickling down her brow and swept aside the ashes of her dead vines. The threads pulsed faintly beneath the ashes and Issa realised what was wrong. "The threads," she whispered. "Lilith's threads—the ones controlling the Acolytes. I can see them in Hell. They destroyed the door I tried to make."
Issa had no idea if Edvardiel even understood what she was talking about.
But then his answer came, fast and incredulous.
If you can see them, does that mean you can break them?
Issa was dumbfounded. Could she?
"I… I can try."
She reached out with a glowing green palm and gingerly touched the blue threads. They felt cold and unyielding, pulsing with each Acolyte's heartbeat. Thick with Lilith's power of death, they smothered her spark of Life.
Issa's strength faltered. Her power recoiled. The threads rejected it entirely.
"I can't," she gasped.
Yes, you can, Edvardiel urged. His voice shifted, low and steely. Use my glory.
Heat surged towards her and her body struggled to accept the offered strength.
My glory is yours, Issa. Take it. Please.
"How do I—"
Here.
His glory retreated, becoming less intense. Muted warmth flickered at the edge of her senses, hovering near her like an offered hand. Hesitantly, she approached it, allowing it to trickle into her being. No wonder she'd struggled—accepting his power meant opening herself up. It meant being vulnerable.
Issa gasped as sudden strength filled her veins.
Her angel's power was fierce, a force of pure will that seared through Hell's darkness. Her fingers steadied. The threads glowed the same icy blue, but now they frayed beneath her touch. Glory burned and unravelled them.
Issa gritted her teeth, every muscle straining. She poured Edvardiel's radiance into the threads, willing them to break. Sparks erupted as they writhed and twisted, their glow flickering. She pressed harder.
One thread snapped.
A discordant screech echoed through Hell and speckles of blue hissed where they landed on her hands, biting into her flesh like acid.
Issa bit her lip but continued. "It's working," she told Edvardiel, her voice weak with relief. "It's working!"
I knew you could do it.
Not me, she wanted to tell him. You.
But she was pouring all her concentration into the threads.
She broke another thread. And another. Each time, a horrible shriek filled the air, like a violin string snapping. Soon the chorus of breaking threads were like fingernails against a chalkboard. They bled a luminous blue which splattered everywhere—her hands, her eyes, her angel dress. At first, Issa did her best to avoid the burning droplets, but soon there was no time.
There were thousands and thousands of threads and only one of her.
"Edvardiel," she said, her voice hoarse. "Promise me that you'll tell me when you're reaching your limits."
He didn't hesitate. I will if you promise to leave Hell when I tell you.
"I promise," she bit out.
Her vision blurred, the world dissolving into a haze of crimson and sapphire. Blue splattered across her skin, and the acrid sting became a dull ache she could no longer distinguish from the fiery pain coursing through her. The two remaining feathers in her mindscape—the same ones that Lucifer had used to suppress her power and her memories—began to crack beneath the strain, fractures spreading like the roots of a tree.
But there was no time to dwell on the pain.
Issa, Edvardiel's voice broke through the haze, strained. You have to open a portal.
"Edvardiel?" Fear clawed up her throat.
I'm still fine, he assured her. I can hold on for a few more minutes, but I need you to open a portal so you can leave if my glory runs out.
Issa's chest tightened, but she did as he said, her stiff, raw fingers moving in a frenzied pattern. A cool breeze from Earth tugged at her hair from the thin opening. The air carried the familiar, nostalgic scent of the sea. She inhaled deeply, savouring the promise of escape, but there was no time to linger.
The threads snapped faster and faster under her desperate efforts. Her hands shook, bloodied from the work, her fingers now dangerously numb.
And then—
The last thread.
It gleamed brighter than the others, encased in a shell of shimmering blue, woven within other threads that felt as though they were made of iron. Issa hacked at it with everything she had, but her strength was gone.
Issa, I can't hold on much longer.
Her heart raced. She struck the thread again. And again. Her body screamed in protest. The thread frayed but refused to break.
Issa turned her attention to the gap instead, ignoring the stubborn thread for now. She willed her ivies to surge across the opening, tendrils reaching to seal it. Her legs wobbled beneath her, and black spots danced across her vision.
The burden of Hell's gates was too much. It felt as though her entire being was breaking in two.
Her hands shook. She couldn't do it. She couldn't—
Strong arms wrapped around her, warm and steady.
Half-blinded amidst the pain, the numbness, and all the poisons, Issa didn't know if this was real or a hallucination.
"I've got you," her angel murmured, his voice soft but unyielding. "I've got you, Issa."
Three simple words. And just like that, her frantic heartbeat began to calm.
His large hands covered hers, steadying her trembling grip. Glory surged through her, warm and comforting. Her raw, bloody hands began to mend. Her vines crackled with lightning, golden streaks racing through Hell's darkness. In a powerful burst of growth, the gaps ceased to exist and Hell's gates were whole once more.
Except for that single thread.
She tried to reach for it but Edvardiel's arms tightened around her.
"Enough! You've done enough."
He yanked her backwards, pulling her through the portal.
"No!" Issa cried. One lonely Acolyte. One last slave to Hell.
"Sorry," she gasped, as the wind roared in her ears, the silent dustiness of Hell morphing into the cool bite of Earth's breeze. "Sorry, sorry, sorry…"
They tumbled onto the warm sand.
Issa's body convulsed, agony rippling through every nerve. Her eyes burned in the earthly breeze. She clutched her head, sobbing.
"It's over," Edvardiel said firmly, cradling her against his chest. "You did it. You closed the gates."
She couldn't see anything.
Edvardiel's hands pressed tenderly against either side of her cheek, grounding her and healing her eyes. "You're safe, Issa. It's over."
But the pain was getting worse.
Her head felt as though it were about to split open.
She was back in her mindscape, watching as the two remaining feathers stopped spinning completely.
Jagged cracks zigzagged through them and they trembled, frozen in midair. Then before Issa's eyes, they shattered in a burst of golden light.
A fiery pain blazed through her, as though Hell's acid was scalding her body from the inside out. Something was fighting to claw out of her and it was ripping its way out through her back.
She screamed.
Her pain tolerance was high but her back felt like it was being burnt by Hellfire.
"Issa," Edvardiel's voice was laced with uncharacteristic panic. "What's wrong?"
"My back," she croaked. "My back…"
Something warm and sticky gushed down her body.
Blood.
Edvardiel's expression darkened. "Let me see." Gently, he rolled her over so that she was lying on her stomach across his lap. He tried to extricate her angel dress from the bloody mess and she barely managed to muffle her cry of pain. He stilled and she clenched her fists, eyes watering.
"What's happening to me?" she asked fearfully. It felt like Hell itself had gotten under her skin and torn through her back. Was it the blue poison that had spilled onto her hands? Was it going to hurt her angel too?
She tried to pull away but Edvardiel rested a hand on her lower back.
"I've got you," he said gently.
"I don't want you to get hurt—"
"You're the one who just got out of Hell," Edvardiel said, an edge to his voice. "Let me help you."
"But—"
"Please shut up," he said unexpectedly.
That made her blink.
Her half-healed eyes could barely make out his expression, but a fiery glow flickered where his eyes should be. "Just let me help you, all right?"
Swallowing hard, she nodded. "Okay. But do it fast."
Her angel drew a breath and caught one edge of her dress. In one swift motion, he tore it off.
The pain was so blinding she almost blacked out.
"Fuck," she sobbed. "Tell me you got it off."
His voice was odd. "You don't want me to do that."
Her back pulsed, the pain dulling to a strange, tingling sensation.
She turned her head and squinted through her blurred vision.
Something was protruding from her back. Something pink and fleshy and glistening with slime and blood.
She stared in horror. "What…" Her voice broke. She stared at the corpse-like appendages, bile rising in her throat. "What the fuck is that thing?"
Edvardiel covered her hands with his.
"Issa, you're all right. It's—"
"What's happening to me?"
A muscle tensed in Edvardiel's jaw. "I know it doesn't look like it right now," he said, his voice maddeningly calm. "But the things on your back… They're your wings."