“Yes.” Though the Deity was not there, his voice echoed through the enclosure. “All you must do is choose.”
“How can you do this to me? How can you ask me to choose between the only two people I have ever loved? And for someone else’s sin! Are you really so cruel?”
“Cruel? What you have not yet learned is that the deaths you cause hurt me in ways you will never understand, and I’m glad that you will not. Such a burden you would not be able to bear. So, am I cruel for giving you a choice rather than leaving you with nothing?”
Yes, he wanted to scream. But he knew it was a lie. “I’m sorry,” he said. “So sorry. Take me instead. I willingly give my life for theirs.”
“Were I to do that, the two people you so love would know nothing but torment. They would fight for the rest of eternity.”
His shoulders slumped, all that was left of his hope withering, dying. How could he do this thing?
His Deity continued, “You think I know nothing of love, but the truth is, you are only just discovering what love really is. Your brother will gladly take all that you’ve learned and destroy you with it. He will bring great harm to your men. The men you took responsibility for. The men who need you now more than ever. And yet I offer him to you, knowing how much I will lose if you accept.”
Zacharel’s mouth opened, closed. He was caught up in a storm, every emotion he’d ever suppressed surging up to drown him.
Still the Deity was not done. “You want to speak with your brother, I know. You want to ask him why he did these things. You want to beg his forgiveness for what you did to him and for what he suffered. You want to hear him lash out at you, to rant and rail, and give you what you believe you deserve. You want closure. You want him to have the life he once deserved.”
“Yes.” I want to hug him. I want to fly beside him and watch his features light. I want to hear him laugh with joy rather than cruelty.
“You can have all of that. Simply take what is in the urn and place it inside Hadrenial’s body. Eventually, he will heal from his wounds, yes, even the beheading, and you will have all that you desire. Though it will take time, he will be restored to the man he used to be, before he became the demon Unforgiveness.”
The urn appeared at Zacharel’s side. “And if I do that, what will happen to Annabelle?”
“Her spirit will journey on.”
So be it. Two bodies, motionless before him, spilling over him. Chilling with every second that passed. His beautiful Annabelle, the only pleasure he had ever known. His brother, the man he had betrayed and now owed. He saw his men, still outside the circle, still banging at walls they couldn’t see.
They wanted to help him.
They couldn’t help him.
He reached inside the urn, the liquid warm, swirling up to greet him. He lifted his arm to the light. Life and death, resting in his palm right now.
He twisted to face the bodies. Whatever happened, he knew the Deity would not allow him to choose and then miraculously bring the other to life, as well. Sacrifice was sacrifice, and like Koldo’s hair, it would mean nothing if it was easily replaced. Besides, what was in the urn was enough to save one, but not two.
“I have made my decision.” And it had not really been a decision so much as saying goodbye to someone he loved. Zacharel placed his hand over Annabelle’s heart. Something else he’d learned since meeting her: you could not allow guilt and shame to make your choices for you. Only love should drive a man, and he loved this woman like no other.
Annabelle was a part of him, his future, and if he must live, he knew he could not do so without her.
The liquid spilled over her, soon absorbing into her skin…her soul…her spirit. Color washed over her too-pale skin, and her wounds began to heal, her flesh to weave together.
“I’m sorry, Hadrenial,” he whispered. He’d said those same words before, so many times, countless times. He’d hurt then as he hurt now. He didn’t care what his brother had become. He loved Hadrenial still, and always would.
Too, he would always remember the boy Hadrenial had been. Would never forget the bond they had shared.
“What will happen to him?” he asked the Deity.
“You will be pleased to know a part of him will live on through your Annabelle. Not through the piece of his demon self, for that piece has died, but through the essence of his love. And because you mixed something of yourself in there, she will be bound to you, now and always, your life for hers. She need only give you a piece of herself to complete the joining and stop the spread of your spiritual death.”
“Thank you,” he found himself saying. “For this chance with her, I thank you.”
“She was always meant to be yours. The question I needed answered was whether or not you could appreciate the gift.”
“I can. I do.”
“I know.”
Breathing deeply, Annabelle jerked upright. As she patted her neck, her chest, perhaps searching for her fatal injury, her gaze searched the room. “What happened?” she croaked. “Why am I alive?”
“I had a choice, and I chose you. I will always choose you.”
“Zacharel?” Tears welling in her eyes, she threw herself into his arms. “I have the worst news! I fought your brother. He was alive. I… He… I’m so sorry. I killed him. There was no other way, and—”
“I know.” He pulled back and righted her robe, shielding her breasts from view, then crushed her back into his chest. She clutched at him, and she cried, and all the while he shook. How close he’d come to losing her…how much he’d now gained. He cared not for who saw him in this weak moment.
“Oh, Zacharel. I have so much to tell you.”
“There’s nothing I do not already know, love. Unforgiveness is, was, my brother.”
Her breath was a trembling rasp as she disengaged from his embrace to frown at him. “How did you know that?”
“I was forced to watch the fight. I tried to reach you, would have done anything to reach you. I am sorry I did not.” He cupped her cheeks, so glad to feel the warmth flooding them. “I’m so very sorry for all you were forced to endure.”
“Don’t you dare go into a shame spiral. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“At least try to hold a grudge.” He placed a soft kiss on her lips. “You’ll make me feel better.”
The kindest of smiles flashed up at him. “I think that’s the first lie you’ve ever told. So, uh, how am I healed?”
“I gave you the love my brother once carried.”
The smile slowly faded. “Your greatest treasure. You shouldn’t have—”
“You are my greatest treasure, Annabelle. Never doubt that.”
Her eyes filled with another stream of tears. “How can you say that? I helped kill him.”
He wiped away a tear with the pad of his thumb. “No matter what happened, I killed him, then and now. Never doubt that, either.” He would never have the closure he craved, but that was okay. That was life. He had Annabelle, and that was all that mattered. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. And thank you. You’re my treasure, too.”
“Good, because you now have a choice to make. You may meld to me, merging your life span with mine.”
A gleam of hope in those blue—no, blue no longer, he realized. Watery eyes of gold peered up at him, a shade more precious than any he’d ever seen. “Or?”
“Or nothing. That is your only choice.”
She pressed a kiss into his lips, as soft and gentle as his had been. “I thought you said you knew how to bargain, but right now I’m just too happy to instruct you on the proper way. You’ve got yourself a wife. Or a consort. Or a mate. Or whatever you want to call me!”
“You have been my wife since the beginning, I think. That very first day, you taught me how to feel. You saw me at my worst, and helped make me better. What we do next will be a much stronger bond.”
Cheers erupted around them, and he turned. His entire army now filled the room. Thane and Koldo must have summoned the rest of his men.
Thane dropped to his knee, head bowed.
Koldo did the same.
Bjorn and Xerxes, too, then Axel, and then, one by one, the others joined, until the twenty members of his army were showing their respect.
Zacharel pushed to his feet and helped Annabelle to hers. She pressed into his side, her head resting on his shoulder.
“Don’t you dare think about busting on Koldo,” she said. “He might have tricked me into…uh, I mean, he saved the day. And he and the troublesome trio saved Jamila, I think.”
Part of him wanted to throttle the man for daring to place Annabelle in such a dangerous position, but the other part of him recognized the desperate bid for victory. “Is this true?”
Koldo nodded, remained silent.
“He saved another angel, too, I think,” Annabelle added.
The warrior did not nod this time, nor did he maintain his silence. “She is no one else’s concern. I will see to her.”
Something about his tone…a hardness, a coldness Zacharel had once possessed. Like him, like Hadrenial, Koldo would end up on a path to destruction if he wasn’t careful.
His gaze swept over the sea of angelic bodies, white-and-gold wings, hair a kaleidoscope of colors, from the blackest of jets to the lightest of snows. All of these warriors were as he had once been. Adrift, lost. They needed a leader.
More of a leader than he had been.
From this moment on, he would be that leader. With Annabelle at his side, he could be anything, do anything.
“Rise,” he said, and they obeyed. “We are not like other armies, and so I will no longer treat you as such. We teeter on the edge of banishment, and I will allow none of you to fall. You are mine. Changes are coming, and I hope that you like them, but I won’t be bothered if you do not.”
Silence.
“You have all sensed the war brewing in the heavens. The greatest war we’ve ever known—and we’ve known plenty. When it will finally break, I’m not sure. I only know what has been whispered. The Deity’s angels will be fighting the Titans and Greeks—more and more have escaped from their immortal prison. All of this will happen despite the fact that a new queen sits on the Titan throne and she is on our side. Or maybe because she is on our side.