Hey, how is everyone?
Today was probably the most stressful day I had this year, I swear I was running on adrenaline for 6 hours straight. Glad to have this weekend free to unwind! Also, is it just me or are the last two chapters not loading properly?
"Rest, now," Edvardiel murmured.
As tired as Issa was, she wasn't about to make him carry her all the way back to Eden. He was probably exhausted himself.
"I can walk," she said sleepily, and then she smiled. "My angel."
Edvardiel went very still.
The sun was blinding, making the world blur before Issa's half-healed eyes. "Is something wrong?"
Slowly, his lips soft like butterflies, Edvardiel kissed her eyelids, one after the other.
She giggled. "Oh stop. That tickles."
"I wish I could've healed your eyes," he murmured.
Issa waved a hand. "Don't worry, I can manage." She'd spent many nights like this whenever she'd gouged out Lilith's invasive orbs. "Hell's gates were more important. We'll fix my eyes once your glory recovers."
He went still again.
Issa gave him a playful poke. "Edvardiel? Really, it doesn't bother me that much."
He hesitated, and when he spoke, his voice shook slightly. "There must be some way to get the Edenium out of your blood. So you can heal yourself."
An unpleasant feeling crept into Issa's stomach.
Her angel would never tell her something like that. Not unless…
She reached for his face. "Edvardiel? Is something wrong with your glory?"
Edvardiel enveloped her hand with his warm one, and slowly guided her hand down to his neck.
"If you could see me now, Issa, you wouldn't call me your angel."
His skin felt rough. Hard. Wrong.
"It wasn't this bad yesterday," he admitted. "It wasn't this bad an hour ago."
She used her other hand too. The entirety of his neck and his shoulders were covered in… scales. When she straightened to look through her blurry eyes, they glinted a familiar, spine-chilling silver.
There were few moments in Issa's life when she could not reconcile her mind with reality.
The first time was when Lilith had chained her to Hell.
The second time was when she'd dug Yassper's disfigured face from beneath the shards of cathedral glass.
Issa felt the hard ridges once more. And again. No matter how she touched them, how she looked at them, these were demon scales.
She swallowed and ran her hands through them again, as though they would vanish like a fever dream if she did.
She'd closed the gates.
She'd broken the threads.
The Apocalypse was supposed to be over. They were supposed to be safe.
"Issa?" Edvardiel covered her hands with his.
His voice felt like it was coming from miles away.
Something inside her felt as though it had died as her mind grappled with this new, horrifying truth.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It isn't… I meant to keep my promise. I misjudged. I thought I had enough glory." There was fear in his voice—not fear for himself, but fear for her. Fear for her peace of mind.
Of course.
He'd always been far better at caring for her than she was for him. Selflessness was a thankless art and Edvardiel had mastered it. Of course he'd noticed her pain and she'd not noticed his.
She'd failed her angel.
"That last thread was you," she choked out. "That last—"
"I was the one who pulled you out," he said. "It's not your fault."
She couldn't believe that even now, he was trying to protect her.
Her head swum.
I must not cry.
I must stay calm.
I must save him.
Bile rose in her throat and she thought she was going to be violently sick.
Then all at once, her ocean came roaring in like a storm, sweeping away all of her human fears.
She took a deep, ragged breath. And another.
I take away their favourite toy.
Slowly, the pieces snapped together.
She had to go back to Hell.
She had to cut his thread. She needed to find someone with glory.
Issa's mind cleared.
"Lilith's wanted you from the very beginning," she said finally, her voice emerging with a deadened calm. That was why his thread had been thicker than the others. Why Lilith had trapped him in the void. "She was never going to let you go."
Issa didn't move or try to get off her angel's arms. From the way he'd wanted to carry her to Eden to the way his hold now tightened around her, she instinctively understood that he needed to feel that his world wasn't falling apart.
And for him to feel that, she couldn't be falling apart.
She circled her arms around his neck and nuzzled the hardness.
"We won't let her win."
Even if she had to drag a seraph from Heaven itself to break the thread for her.
Without warning, her wings burst open and tightened around them in a chokehold.
Issa felt Edvardiel's surprised exhale.
The damn things were hot, stuffy, and smelled like seawater.
She spat out some salty golden feathers and tried her best to pry them apart—without much success. "Sorry."
Despite everything, Edvardiel chuckled. He didn't try to push her wings away even though he must've been inhaling feathers. He held her body even closer to his, his voice oddly emotional. "Do you know that wings never lie?"
"Makes sense," Issa managed to say. The things on her back seemed to have a mind of their own.
He touched his forehead to hers. "You love me," he said, his voice soft.
Issa's chest constricted.
He'd never questioned her feelings before.
"Edvardiel, of course I…" she began, and then pursed her lips, trying to force some semblance of normalcy back into their nightmarish reality. "Well, you aren't that useless after all, seraph."
Her wings wrapped around them more tightly, rendering it almost impossible to talk.
Edvardiel didn't laugh. Instead, he pressed his cheek to hers, his voice muffled by her feathers. "Issa. If I ask you something, would you answer honestly?"
A dozen unpleasant scenarios played out in Issa's mind.
Her stomach clenched. "What?"
His lips were at her ear. "Honest answers only. Did you or did you not pray for me when you dragged me to that church?"
It took her several seconds to realise that he was pulling her leg.
She leaned in and bit his ear.
He nearly dropped her, but she clung to him—all four limbs and two wings. "You'd better pray for yourself at this rate," she threatened.
Despite everything, he chuckled, trying half-heartedly to shake her off him. "My little lion has fangs."
She bit him again and they tumbled onto the sand, laughing and panting.
Issa pushed herself up, the angel dress slithering around her body like moonlight as she knelt over him, her hands finding his face.
"I need an honest answer too, my angel," she said softly, her thumb stroking his cheek. "My beautiful angel. Where are we?" Their beach couldn't be anywhere close to Eden's Garden. She tilted his face up and tried her hardest to see. "Did you or did you not follow me to Hell?"
Edvardiel's resigned sigh told her all she needed to know.
"Jacob woke up while you were opening the portal," he admitted. "He told me how to do it." Then almost defiantly, he said, "I would do it again. When I realised you'd left… When I realised where you'd gone…" He shook his head. "How could you just—"
She silenced him with a kiss. "I know. I'm sorry." Another kiss. "I was an idiot." She kissed him again, her tongue tangling with his. She kissed him until she felt the tension leave his body. "You saved my life and you saved the world. Now let me save you, Edvardiel," she pleaded. "Tell me, where on Earth are we?"
She needed to break his thread. She needed to fix her eyes.
She needed to find Lucifer—
The power of Life heals better than any glory.
Issa paused, and then summoned the whispering power to her palms. Unlike the last few times, Life answered her call instantly, as though it had decided she was worthy. No whispering, no green glow. It was simply there.
She raised her hands to her eyes.
Light flooded her vision as the world came into sharp focus. She saw her angel clearly—his hair blazing fire-red in the sun, his expression soft with adoration. Except his lovely hair was falling out in chunks and the glory in his eyes was dying. His face was stained with deep, demon blue that looked like horrific bruises. They'd spread to his chin, down to his clavicles and his shoulders.
His remaining wing drooped at his side, shrivelled like a dried leaf.
Issa's stomach dropped.
She stared at the sands, at the human parts of his skin, and chewed the insides of her lip, willing herself to calm down.
Edvardiel didn't realise that she could see him. "We're an ocean away from the Garden," he murmured, his gaze faraway, fixed onto the sea beyond. He covered her hands with his, and she saw that his fingernails had turned a dark, bruised blue—the beginnings of claws. "I don't… I notice my mind has been coming and going. That's why I have to tell you everything now."
"Coming and going?" Issa barely managed to steady her voice.
"I wanted to take us home and I was sure… I was so sure it was nearby. And then I remembered." His hands tightened around hers and he looked afraid, truly afraid for the first time since she knew him. "I hear her," he said quietly. "And when I do, I don't see or hear anything else."
Edvardiel wasn't turning into an Acolyte.
No—he had too much angel in him. He was turning into an actual demon.
"I would do it all again," he repeated, and his mottled face was resolute. "I don't regret any of this. But I would regret it if—"
Issa gripped his arms. "Edvardiel, I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
His eyes shone. "I know. That's why I want you to know that I love you. And that I would never hurt you. If I ever try… if I ever… you know that's not me anymore."
She should've known.
She should've realised that, despite everything, he was afraid of hurting her more than anything.
She pressed her lips together, clinging tightly to her ocean. "No offense, seraph, but I don't think you're in any condition to hurt me."
Tenderly, he brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "It's almost like you can see me."
The way he said it seemed to suggest that he hoped she couldn't.
She caressed his face. "I'd love you no matter what." She kissed him again. "You'll always be my angel."
His hold tightened around her and he didn't let her go for a long, long time.
Issa let him, blood pounding so hard in her ears that she felt dizzy. She summoned Life, willing it to heal him. But he had too much Heaven in him, not enough Earth. Life shied away, passing through the demon blue without touching it.
"Issa. Do you think Edenium would work?" Edvardiel murmured, his voice drowsy. His head grew heavy on her shoulder. "If I drank it like you did…"
She steadied him with her arms, her heart hammering when she saw the blue spreading before her very eyes.
"Edenium is poison," she said. She was only half seraph and she could still feel the aching weight in her bones. Edvardiel was three-quarters seraph and he'd also drunk some of Lucifer's Essence.
Her thoughts raced back to that last thread, regret burning through her veins.
"But maybe we can buy some time with it," she said. Except that meant they had to get to Eden first. Time they didn't have.
Edvardiel didn't answer.
"Edvardiel?"
Issa sat up, ramrod straight.
His eyes were closed.
Her heart squeezed at the sight of him covered with Hell's bruises, scales, and more soft hair coming off on her very hands. Her ocean grew colder, washing everything away until only steely determination remained.
Lucifer had told her to meet him near the void—the mouth to Hell. It meant he was near it. It meant she could open a portal to meet him there.
She hoped against hope that he'd kept some of his glory to save his son.
"Lucifer," she summoned, cradling her angel in her arms. "Come with me to Hell. Now."
