Grounded ~Book Four of Winged~

The Temple

I open a door and find crumbling stairs leading down into a lit room. I shut the creaky wooden door and move on to the next. It's a bedroom. I check all the rest of the doors and they are all bedrooms that are the same as the last. I walk back into the main room were Beleth is dusting everything off and Eli and Belphegor are talking and pointing at the faded designs around the room. Dominic is cleaning up the broken glass from the floor under the skylight.

"We're going to have to do something about the skylight before it rains." Dominic comments to Beleth and Beleth looks at him before nodding. I step into the room and just look around still amazed by this place. Footsteps enter the building and everyone becomes alert, turning and looking. A guy in a suit steps into the room and Beleth nods at them.

"Nichelo, can you restore the light warding on the building?" Beleth questions lightly, but loud enough so the guy can hear him.

"Yes, but when I do so you guys will not be able to use any powers or abilities in the building. You'll almost be human except still immortal." Beleth nods, understanding. Nichelo nods and he turns and leaves. Beleth looks at me and tilts his head slightly.

"Why don't you pick a room? I can help you settle in." Eli and Dominic look at Beleth.

"Yeah, okay." I reply and just pick a room at the end of the hall closest to me. The hall that the staircase is in. Beleth carries suitcases of the clothes from my closet at his house into the room. There's no dresser or closet to put the clothes in, but there is a unstable small medium height wooden table. He sets the bags on the table and I look around the room. The bed is clearly extremely old with is a low to the ground wooden frame with a flat wooden board with some kind of layers of grass, hay, plants, and something that are completely dried out and worn away from who knows how many years. The floor is the same stone as the rest of the place. Everything is beyond dusty. I can see a very faded picture on the wall. There is a torch on the wall that lights the entire room.

"I have actual bedrolls and bedding for the bed. I don't expect you to sleep on this and when Zerachiel gets here I'm going to ask him to make you a stable bed frame since I know he was wood working experience with that boat I saw in your head that he made. If not... I'll make you one." He smiles down at me and I smile back lightly, looking around again. Beleth leaves the room and I go to the bed and start removing the dead plants. Beleth comes back shortly with some sort of padding for the bed and bedding and a pillow. He cleans off the bed some more before putting down the pad and then putting down a flat sheet and then a comforter to provide more padding and then he lays out another sheet and leaves a folded comforter at the foot of the bed.

"I don't think you'll need the comforter since it's so hot here, but just in case." I smile and he sits on the bed slowly and then lays down.

"What are you doing?" I question.

"Making sure this bed isn't going to collapse on you when you're trying to sleep." He replies and then gets up.

"Thanks." I smile and he walks up to me, searching my eyes. His hand slides onto my face slowly and I'm frozen in my place. I don't know what he is looking for or trying to learn. I feel myself released from my frozen state and when I blink, suddenly his lips are against mine. I pull away and he smiles.

"I know. I know. Etheriel." He removes his hand from my face.

"I miss Etheriel." I whisper and he tilts his head.

"He'll be here eventually. He's just busy." He gives a supportive smile and I struggle to give him a smile back. "Why don't you get some rest? Get off your feet at least and let the stab wounds heal more." I nod slowly and he smiles before leaving the room and shutting the door behind him. I turn and sit on the bed. When I lay down, I feel the soreness in my abdomen.

Etheriel

"What are you doing Zerach?" Azrael questions and I look over to where they are a few yards away. Zerach is sitting on the ground with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. His hands are resting flat on his thighs. He doesn't reply to Azrael. I continue to look around, trying to think.

"Stop." I look back at Zerach after hearing him say that. Azrael is poking his leg with his foot.

"What are you doing? This isn't the time to be meditating." Azrael continues to prod him with his foot. Zerach smacks the foot away.

"I'm figuring out a way to get us out." Zerach replies and Azrael accepts the answer and walks away, pacing around.

"How long is that going to take? You've been doing that for like half an hour." Zerach doesn't reply and after a while I turn back and watch a soul wander past.

Trinity

I look around and I am surrounded by snow. The sky is dark and for a second I think that I am in the Pits again except if I look closely around me, the edges of everything is blurry and unfocused. I'm dreaming. I don't feel the cold even though I am surrounded by snow.

"Trinity... Finally..." I turn around and Zerach is standing ten feet from me.

"Zerach? What is this?" My lips don't move, but I know that he somehow heard me because he glances around the landscape and he replies.

"A dreamscape I created in your mind so I could communicate with you." His lips don't move, but I hear what he is saying clearly.

"Is everyone okay?"