Airel: The Discovering (Airel Saga Book Two)

Chapter X

THE SUN BLAZED OVERHEAD, warming the forest glade unseasonably. Kreios could feel his strength returning slowly. His heart stuttered in his chest and he cocked an ear to the disturbance: a scream. His body stiff and wooden, stubborn, he nevertheless jumped to his feet and began to run toward the cliffs.

He reached out but could not find Airel. He sprinted, forcing his body to wake up, straining it.

He arrived at the top of the cliff in time to see Michael toppling over its edge. Kim was there, standing still, dazed and in shock. Kreios was at her side quickly. He laid her down on the earth before she could hurt herself.

He then noticed the Bloodstone nearby. It was shining in a constant, piercing crimson light that called to him like the fondest memories of his childhood. He did not dare touch it. There were more important things—he would not lose another fair young princess in his family line.

He rushed to the precipice, looking down. Beneath him were Michael and James. The demon was struggling as if injured, and Michael was sinking quickly. He was injured as well. But Airel?

Water was a difficult element. It posed a singular set of challenges for one like Kreios. Flight through the air was effortless, second nature. Moving in water slowed everything, made difficult what would be easy in the air; it was like thousands of grasping hands pulled against whatever course of action was decided upon. And drowning was a mortal risk, especially for an angel.

He searched again in his mind for Airel, and could not find her. He cursed what his eyes beheld: two of the Brotherhood. And though they were far below, struggling and thrashing in the water, quite possibly even at that moment moving toward their eternal damnation as the jaws of hell opened wide to receive them, Kreios could not justify simply watching the boy die. He could not separate himself from this chain of events.

Michael was beginning to sink beneath the surface. He doesn’t have much longer. Kreios leaped into the air, and far from giving himself over to mere gravity, he shot on a bullet’s trajectory into the water; his body stretched out, punching a hole in the surface at impact that yielded the smallest splash.

He was deep before his momentum was checked. There was blood, and the fume of cursed demonic detritus filled his nostrils even here. He looked, and in the distant darkness, a chance ray of sunlight played off the dark brown hair of his Airel, the last in the line of his heirs. No. He moved quickly to her side and looked into her face; he feared it was too late. He took her anyway, pushing hard off the muddy bottom, carrying as much speed and momentum as possible in the molasses, aiming directly for Michael, who was now sinking toward them. Too late for both of them.

Kreios did not slow as he intercepted the boy. He simply ran into him, gaining speed skyward, a limp body hanging over each shoulder, and when he broke the surface of the water, it erupted upward, outward, droplets and mist, Kreios flying right out of the center of it.

When he had reached the edge of the cliff, he dropped the body of the boy with contempt, allowing him to land clumsily in the dirt. To his shock, Michael rolled and coughed, sputtering, gasping. Kreios landed gently at the lookout point where the whole drama had unfolded and laid Airel on the ground alongside Kim, whose eyes were closed. He looked from one to the other. Michael was nearby, coughing up blood and water.

Airel was limp, her mangled heart not beating. Kreios began CPR.

Michael dragged himself over to her side, leaving a blood trail behind him in the dirt. “Airel. Is she dead? Will she be okay?” His voice cracked. Kreios filled Airel’s lungs with air, not looking at him.

The boy was beside himself, crying with big, long sobs that wracked his pitiful body. “This is all my fault. I killed her; I betrayed her. Oh, God, please help her, I can’t live without her; please, please.” He groaned and fell next to her, his wet arm draping over her lifeless body. He did not move, his breathing shallow.

Kreios stopped his CPR, seeing at last that it was no use.

He looked at the boy Michael. He pushed him over onto his back. “Let me help you, Michael … hold still.” Kreios wanted nothing to do with the boy. But he knew what he was about to do was what Airel would have wanted.

Michael was almost gone.

Kreios retrieved the blazing red stone from where he had left it, and against a great pulling and tearing at his will, brought it to the boy, resisting the caressing whisperings of blasphemy that were flowing from its core. “Receive your accursed burden,” he said, softly, sadly, as he touched it to the boy’s skin, then tossed it away. The wounds closed up, leaving many red scars—not healed, but repaired. Michael’s eyes snapped open; he gasped and screamed and pushed away from Kreios.

He looked down at the marks of his wounds in horror as he realized what the angel had done—had damned him to a life of bitter emptiness, shame, and regret. “I don’t want to live. Why did you heal me? Why did you do that?” He broke into long, fitful sobs. He collapsed onto Airel’s body, sobbing, saying again and again, “I’m sorry,” into her ear.

Kreios stood and turned from him. The burden of pain that had been laid upon his back over many thousands of years was indeed heavy. Tears filled the blackness of his vision as he walked away from every good thing, back toward the forest.

He sat alone at its edge and faced the scene of destruction, and the tears came once again.

Airel was his blood. His daughter. Kreios roared softly as the worst of his fears became realized. Now he had lost her, too. It was a fitting gall that they had been driven, all of them, inexorably to this sad and shattering end. He could not see her anymore. He did not remember her face. He was unable to recall anything of joy. Kreios buried his head in his hands and wept: for Airel, for Eriel, and for his wife. All he could see was the grave, yawning wide and consuming all his loves.

***

MICHAEL STOOD, FINALLY. FAR too late. Eyes marred by grief, he gathered to him the broken body of his only love. He looked to Kreios, who did not acknowledge him. Wordlessly, he passed him by and started on the path back to the house, holding Airel in his arms. Life and purpose dropped away from his soul, leaving him naked, in exposure to the wicked ravages of the world. He welcomed them. He looked on what he had done with emptiness.

***

KREIOS WAS ALONE. AGAIN.

He stood and walked to the edge of the cliff, looking out over calm water. Everything had been erased—his whole life was not real. What had he done? He felt bound to loss. Every choice that was made under the sun, no matter how perfect and good when birthed in the confines of the heart, was destined only for an inevitable end and death. Joy was fleeting, and after thousands of years, time sped by far too quickly. The years had become seconds, and the hands of the clock, that malicious machine, were relentless, devoid of any mercy. The water was glass once again. It had no memory; it showed nothing.

He thought of Airel. In a very short time, she could have been, could have done, so much. The taste was vile and unspeakably bitter. He had been so foolish to hope that hope would bud and bloom into peace once he had made an end of the Seer.

His poor, wretched, wicked brother had chosen a far different path, one that had burned with fire and fury and the self. Kreios had dared to believe that he would be filled with relief at the end of the Seer. But the cup from which he now drank was nothing like what he had expected.

Light flowed outward from his body on feathery strands, waving in the breeze. He slowly became lighter, the earth releasing him from its hold, and he took to the air, gentle as the breath of his newborn baby girl so very many years ago.

He spread his arms and raised his head, rising up above the trees. He gathered his resolve as he gathered speed, launching himself into the sky, flying straight up, leaving thunderclap behind.

For the first time in thousands of years, Kreios felt a deep insatiable hunger for one thing: vengeance. There were enemies to vanquish. The Brotherhood was leaderless. There were many to kill. Michael would be the last.

***

THE SOUND OF THUNDER scattered a few birds. Michael stopped along the path through the woods and looked up to see Kreios, a streak of light, headed west.

***

KIM’S BODY LAY SILENT, her breathing rapid, the shock claiming ownership over her. Beside her, by a tuft of grass, the Bloodstone lay blazing red, whispering. Alone, abandoned, left. In an instant she awoke, startled. She looked. Red.