Chapter 231: Stars to Earth

We coalesced out of my fire near the edge of my demesne, above an alpine meadow. Blanketed for the winter, it stretched along the saddleback of two rocky peaks, flanked by glaciers. Below the treeline, sleeping pines plunged into a shaded river valley where meters-long icicles glittered over frozen water.

No human tracks marred the snow, but the path of a snowshoe hare cut across, faded and windswept, far ahead of the predator that had followed.

We’d come to visit destruction upon this innocent, wild place, and my heart twisted further. Would I not even consider the tiny lives below me?

“Renna.” Sey shook my shoulder, and I glanced up.

My wife wore a shallow smile, flickering as the gusts from her wings blew my hair across my vision. Next to her, Shyll was straightening her dress, and Joisse looked desperately like she wanted to ask how I moved us. But there was a dark shadow behind her eyes that stayed her words. We weren’t here for idle chatter, and we hadn’t much time at all.

Under a cloudy sky, we gave short orders and dispersed. Sey and I would face Berethiel’s initial assault head-on. My daughter, unused to flight, would hide in the ravine’s shadow, ready with her “slingshot.”

And Shyll? Lillith’s daughter was somewhere, effectively hidden and far from the blast radius I fervently hoped.

“Are you ready?” I asked Seyari.

She turned to me and nodded, golden eyes hard. Her fury was coiled like a clock’s springs, practiced, ready, and deep. Revenge on Mordwell had represented an end to her old life of lies and abuse. This?

“He doesn’t deserve this,” Seyari hissed. “Even my claws are far too clean.”

I smiled coldly, showing every last sharp tooth. “Then let me take his head.”

“Did I say I didn’t want it?” Sey grinned wickedly.

“Your claws are too pretty for the blood of a bastard angel.”

“And you’re too pure to be saying such things.”

“A Sovereign demon?” I chuckled. “Pure?”

“Yes.” Both tones of her voice, for just the one word, rang in such harmony that my heart twinged.

And the sky exploded.

Were it not for my demesne, I’d never have dodged in time. Even still, the tip of my tail caught the edge of a beam of holy light as wide as a castle tower. For just a moment, I felt searing pain, then it was gone. My tail tip and the pain.

“I suppose you truly are ‘strong’ for a demon,” a discordant voice drawled from above.

Two-tone like Sey’s and uncomfortably familiar, it sent a shiver down my spine all the way to my regrowing tail tip.

“Sey!” I shouted through the fading blinding light.

“Renna!” she shouted back. Alive, good.

“Two demons? I suppose they’ll owe a second favor.” From between the clouds, a white-winged angel descended. He had the same golden eyes as Seyari, but his hair was pure white, flowing down past his shoulders.

A true angel, Berethiel didn’t show his age, just a toned physique under ornate, gilded robes of white and gold. Dhias’s symbol, taking his entire chest, literally glowed—it was even emblazoned into his aura of pure blinding light. The only thing that ruined the image was the ugly-looking sneer he’d contorted his face into.

Like he’d stepped in shit.

To my powers, his emotions were a void in space, unreadable and unknowable. But only an idiot couldn’t tell he was disgusted. It took all my years of “forcing myself to be nice to assholes for no benefit” experience to keep my anger focused.

Seyari soared above me. “Demon? Are you so certain?”

“You mock the form of an angel, worm.” Berethiel sneered, his eyes glowing. “I am not so…”

Seyari flicked her pinion feathers and grinned. “I prefer these wings to the ones you gave me.”

The angel narrowed his eyes. “One of mine, then. Corrupted. I did not think my blood could fall so low.” He veered closer, and I backed off out of the cloud of holy light surrounding him.

At the same time, I hid my nearly regrown tail tip. It wouldn’t do to show him the magic he thought to kill me with was no more effective than against his own kind. Not yet, anyway.

“Do you remember me?” Seyari asked innocently, as Berethiel descended closer.

The question seemed to catch the angel off guard, for just a fraction of a fraction of a moment.

“Because you’re right,” Seyari continued, wings spread wide. “I don’t believe you thought about me at all!”

I grabbed her ankle just as a wave of holy magic burst from peak to peak. We reappeared from crimson fire above the taller of the peaks. Below us, the meadow was scorched. The nearest moraine’s edge cleaved off with a boom that covered the sound of the next attack.

To my immense relief, above the crashing icicles in the ravine, I could see the burned edge of the attack’s radius, well away from my daughter waiting there.

“Such an annoyance to squash vermin in its nest.” His voice leapt across the distance like it wasn’t even there, neither a shout nor a hiss. And infuriatingly, not a hint of anger.

Fury burned in me. He of all people dares! My response was succinct; I roared and threw my axe at him. He dodged, of course, but that chance let me kick off the mountain and get closer, swooping under a barrage of holy lances from Sey.

I reformed my axe in my hands, choked down on the handle, and managed to clip one of Berethiel’s feathers as he twisted nimbly out of the way. Hatred didn’t shine in his eyes, but it was written on his face. I knew this sort of ego; I knew just what buttons to push.

“Dhias favors me, you know,” I said as I threw a lash of fire.

He parried with holy light and tossed a person-wide beam over my shoulder.

In response, I turned up the heat, his aura pushing me back easily even as Sey scored glancing hits with her magic.

Berethiel’s lips twisted. “Corruption of an angel does not favor equate.”

“So you are blind to your god’s pardons?” I feinted with fire and lunged with the axe, scoring a grazing hit and nearly losing an arm in the process.

Berethiel didn’t respond to the jab. Instead, he conjured a dozen spears of light behind him as he flapped away. All I’d managed to give him so far was a mild cut and a few burnt feathers, already restored. Sey, at least, had inflicted a few darker burn marks.

If he wasn’t about to throw more power around, I had an obligation to force his hand, then. The best way?

Remind him that this was my demesne, and that I could teleport.

He clearly expected me behind him when I disappeared into fire. I went to the front instead, arms swung into a tail-counterweighted blow. My axe bit into his shoulder as he wheeled, and my claws tore fire-scorched furrows on the backswing. Berethiel roared and summoned his own sword of holy light.

When he swung, I blocked. My weapon held, my strength nearly a fair match for his.

At the faint flicker of surprise in his eyes, I grinned savagely. The poor bastard had two arms too few. From my other hands, I dumped the strongest gout of fire I could into his chest, searing through his robes. Feathers caught from the splashing flames for a second before a pulse knocked me away, tumbling through the sky.

Berethiel snarled; he looked a lot more fitting without the symbol of the god he clearly didn’t follow.

I threw back lashes and gouts of crimson flame, darting closer. Every attack I was fast enough to dodge was another hit he had to regenerate. Every miss was another teleporting reposition. Seyari joined in as well, and we moved as two halves through our connection. For once in a fight, I got to play the role of the annoying, hyper-mobile opponent.

Unfortunately, Berethiel could very well play the role of the towering, resilient foe. Nothing we did seemed to stick, and his aura sapped away at mine, even reinforced by my demesne. Every hit I inflicted on him was matched by two, and I could feel bones setting a flesh knitting from the last dozen injuries. If I were particularly vulnerable to holy magic, I’d be ash right now.

We did our job, however, as Joisse and Shyll waited in the wings. But we were clearly losing the fight; my flight took out most of my own mana recovery, and Seyari didn’t have quite the reserves I did.

In short, we were only keeping this going until Berethiel decided to end it. Our job was to make sure he failed at that, one way or another. After another exchange, Sey and I shared a glance.

We split, and I dropped out of the way of yet another beam of holy light. This time, the beam didn’t stop, sweeping across the sky straight toward me. I teleported again, appearing behind Berethiel.

Not directly behind him—just enough to take his attention off Seyari who climbed into the swirling clouds above.

“Hmph.” He threw wide his hands, and the glowing aura around him shot outward, stronger than ever before.

My demesne burned against it, but still the holy magic washed over me, an aggressive tingling sensation. On his next attack, another massive beam of light, my next teleport was just a little bit slower. Not slow enough, it seemed, for the angel not to finally notice something was very very wrong with his foe.

“What trickery is this?” Berethiel boomed.

“I already told you the reason!” I shot back, carefully keeping my gaze away from the clouds I knew Seyari was moving through. “Do zealots never listen?”

“Your regeneration must simply be incredible, filth.”

I roared, the sound thrumming in my chest. “Your thick head’s what’s incredible!”

Berethiel gathered his hands together, wings swept wide and still behind him as he floated in place. “I will give you a swifter death than you deserve. Do not resist.”

“Right, because you haven’t tried to take me out in one shot already and failed miserably.” I readied myself, calling upon my magic to teleport away, try to block it, or both.

The moment he fired was the moment Sey struck. A town-square-wide beam of light, wreathed in glowing chains, shot toward me; a crimson-winged angel wreathed in retributive fire shot toward him.

I teleported; the beam took a right-angle turn, up toward the sky. I barely called forth a column of fire in time to block it. The force that slammed into my magic was comparable only to being swatted by the giant demon Mordwell had summoned.

Berethiel’s attack threw me up through the clouds, and I barely heard the moment he screamed. Chains, masterfully crafted, slipped past my clumsy defensive spell and wrapped my limbs. They burned and dug in even as my fire sputtered and flickered against the onslaught.

The beam filled my vision with blinding light, ten meters away. Then five. Then two, so close I could feel it burning my face. With a roar, I poured all of my magic into the beam, my wings flickering out as I shot through the clouds up into the stars. My demesne faded as I left its radius.

At one meter, I held the spell off for a moment, my only free limbs the two arms he’d not thought to make chains for. They burned and shook as blackness took the edges of my scorched vision. On my back, ice crystals formed even as my armor scorched away, skin crackling and tearing.

My mana, for the first time in ages, was about to run dry. Can they even stop this? Was I dead the moment Berethiel finished this spell?

The heat and height stole the air from my lungs and I braced for the end. Then something shifted.

Two meters; the heat lessened. Five meters; everything ached. Ten meters; I took a breath as the chains shattered. My own magic, cut loose, swept through the clouds as a beam of fire before I could rein it in, scorching a black line across a kilometer of unfamiliar wilderness.

I summoned my wings; they flickered and sputtered. Far from capable of regeneration, I could only see with one eye as the gorgeous night sky above me tipped down into magic-charged clouds. And I fell from the stars to earth.

***

Joisse slipped away from the crashing icicles and blinked away the stars in her vision. Up above, she could hear Mom Renna responding to Berethiel, but she couldn’t make out words. Every word the angel said, however, she could feel. Like Mom Sey’s voice—a lot like it, in fact—but wrong. Her Mom’s main tone, she was pretty sure she knew what one it was, was warm and earnest. There was nothing behind Berethiel’s words but cold indifference.

The young wrath demon climbed quietly to a vantage spot and dug in her claws, leaving two hands open as she readied her slingshot spell. From that first time with Aunt Kartania, she’d practiced and practiced. There was a cliff behind the castle covered in pin-sized to person-sized holes as evidence.

Joisse imagined herself as her character, overlaying Verrka’s voice on Berethiel as her friend played the part of their ultimate villain. No dice this time, just her own ability. It scared Joisse a little, and she had to take deep breaths to keep from shaking.

But her moms wanted her here! Truthfully, she was almost an adult, held back only by the circumstances of her death and second life. In a way, this would prove that. A death of innocence Kartania would say. Not that Joisse hadn’t lost that already. Were it not for her friends, she’d think herself a fraud.

And tonight, she was defending them, her family, and her very existence.

No way she’d miss. It’d ruin the plot. Joisse’s arms steadied, and she waited with held breath for the opening Mom Sey would give her.

***

Seyari saw her wife get blown away out of the corner of her eye. Only decades of training kept her blades on course. Not physical blades—they’d just shatter. Instead, she held twin blades of wind, fire, and holy light. Wing trimmers for an overinflated, womanizing pigeon.

Berethiel was focused entirely on his spell—one Seyari had heard about before. And one she desperately hoped took his full focus to maintain.

He jerked just as she reached him, but Sey moved to anticipate and her blades sliced through white feathers and into ageless flesh. Berethiel jerked, his spell sputtered, and the two of them tumbled through the air.

Somewhere in the middle, Seyari had started screaming. Holy magic burned at her despite her resistances, and she kicked away right as she felt her wings locking up. Berethiel tumbled once, fluttered, and glared at her with burning eyes, golden blood dripping to the scorched earth below.

He threw twin discs of light faster than Sey could react. She dodged the first, but the second clipped her wing, sending her tumbling. In the middle of a sneer, mouth open to taunt, Berethiel was enveloped in a beam not so unlike his own.

Joisse’s slingshot, however, had a distinct crimson hue to it, and the angel thudded into the mountainside hard enough to crack the nearby glacier. For a heart stopping moment, Seyari had thought they’d won. She even dared to take a look skyward in hope of finding Renna.

But before the avalanche had cleared, Berethiel roared.

“VERMIN!”

The mountain shook, and then it was gone. Fine chunks of rock blasted Seyari, and her injured wing crumpled mid-healing. Forced down, she dove toward the shelter of the ravine, crashing against the sides until she made it to shelter.

The reprieve didn’t last long. A blur of holy light sped down the channel, scorching icicles and trees and shattering rock even as the angel’s power flickered and sputtered. Seyari barely dodged out of the way, kicking off the side and speeding down the narrow passage after it.

This is it! He’s killable!

Ahead of her, Joisse screamed in pain.

***

I wondered if I’d land in snow or on jagged rock. If I could heal either of them in my state.

And then I heard my daughter scream.

I twisted, scorched skin tearing, and forced my wings of fire to obey. Black spots dotted my vision, half-focused and pulsing in time with my heart. Mana or no, I wouldn’t let Joisse die before me.

I aimed for the ravine, ahead of a crimson blur snaking through it. Seyari’s shots tore feathers from the bastard who held my daughter by the throat.

“Why!” Berethiel shouted, voice ragged. “Won’t you burn?”

My wings cut out; I used the last of my wind to push myself faster. I had just enough mana left to summon my axe; it was boiling hot in my hands. Blade down, tail as a rudder, I let gravity take me.

***

Seyari stretched her hand out, grasping at white pinions. “Joisse!”

“M-mom!” Joisse cried back, clawing at the hands that held her neck, blackening the skin as they choked the life from her.

Injured, mana depleted from countering Berethiel’s aura, Seyari’s fingers flicked a feather, then missed, falling further behind.

In the span of one blink, two things happened. The first: a small, lavender-skinned demon appeared in front of Berethiel, blades glinting. The second: a screaming red blur cleaved into Berethiel.

Seyari slammed into her daughter, grabbed on, and tumbled onto a narrow, tree-covered shelf. Snow rained down on them even as Shyll hovered above.

“Move!” the lust demon shouted.

Seyari got a better look at her. From just that brief instant of contact, Shyll’s arms were black to the elbow, fingers charred and locked around two gleaming, gold-dripping blades.

“Help your wife!”

Next to them, Joisse spluttered and coughed. “Go. I’ll be okay!”

Seyari squeezed Joisse’s hand and leapt from the cliff edge down toward Renna. What had been a steep valley had turned into a deep, deep rift, and she winged her way down, relying purely on decades of experience to fly, without magic, down through the rock.

Beams of holy light shot up past her, and the air filled with debris, but Seyari pushed on, just in time to see the pair hit the jagged bottom… angel first.

***

The landing jarred me awake. I couldn’t even feel two of my arms, and my axe shattered, dissolving to nothing. Under me, Berethiel was a beaten, bloody mess. My axe had cleaved his chest open, the halves of his heart struggling to stitch together before my eyes.

I curled one good hand into a fist and drove it into his chest, splattering golden blood across my body. And again. And again and again and again.

I didn’t notice his arms moving, the last spell forming. Not until Seyari’s foot flew past my vision. Twin beams of intense holy light drilled into the rock above, arcing as the angel’s broken arms flopped to his sides. The ravine walls shook.

Sey grabbed my arm mid-punch. I looked up into her blurry form trying to find her eyes. They must have been the burning gold I saw. Under me, I heard her boot come down. I heard the skull crack and the splatter of gore.

My angel of wrath shifted her grapple around my midsection and kicked off.

“Help…” she grunted.

I tried, but there was nothing left. Not a single drop of mana within me. The walls cracked, the stars above grew dim through the closing gap, and Sey flapped with all her might, little gusts of wind trying their best to aid her ascent.

Two hands grabbed my good ones. Another two grabbed Sey’s. The glow of Joisse’s wings turned the chasm crimson as she pushed upward. By her fire alone we ascended, even as my tail and legs braced the rocks apart and Sey’s wings folded with exhaustion.

With a last shout of effort, Joisse pulled us from the chasm as it collapsed, and the three of us flopped into the ashen ground. I tried to keep my eyes open, wary even in my state of all the times I’d passed out after a fight.

“It’s okay Mom,” Joisse said, her voice shaky as she held mine and Sey’s hands. “We won. You can rest for a bit.”

Before I’d finished my next breath, I was out cold.