'The resurrections.' El-i-miir felt her lip quivering. 'I've lost count of how many times I've died.'
'Seteal,' Ilgrin murmured as he approached. 'Let me talk to her. Would that be okay, El-i-miir? Could I speak with you in private?'
'Sure.' She wiped her nose. 'Of course,' she added as the two entered the sitting room.
'Listen,' Ilgrin whispered, placing a hand on her shoulder. 'I know that what you went through must have been traumatic.'
'To say the least.' El-i-miir dabbed at a tear.
'Well, I didn't stop loving you when I ordered you to leave Hel,' Ilgrin changed the topic. 'I loved you very much.'
El-i-miir cringed at his use of past tense. 'Loved?'
'Um . . . recent events have shown me that maybe a human and--'
'No no,' El-i-miir cut him off and backed away.
' . . . and a demon,' Ilgrin picked up where he'd left off, 'perhaps shouldn't be together.'
'Why are you saying this?' El-i-miir choked out. 'I just need a little time. I'll be okay. You don't need to do this.'
'It's more complicated than all that,' Ilgrin insisted. 'Whether you want to believe it or not, the gates of Hae'Evun are real and when we open them, what do you think is going to happen to me? I'll have to return to the world that my ancestors abandoned.'
'So that's it, is it?' El-i-miir stared hatefully through the doorway and into the kitchen where she could see Teah's wings floating beside her chair.
'Yes.'
'Rubbish,' El-i-miir shoved him in the chest. 'It's because of that bitch in there!'
'For the love of Maker, would you keep your voice down?'
'Do you love her?'
'This isn't about Teah.'
'I don't believe you,' El-i-miir hissed. 'You're a liar. Liar! I know, Ilgrin. I always know a lie.'
'All right,' Ilgrin snapped. 'I care about her, yes, but I loved my mother, too, and my father. Maybe even Seteal. But it's not the same kind of love as that which I shared with you. If you're so good at detecting the truth, you must believe that.'
'Don't let her get in there, Ilgrin.' El-i-miir poked the left side of his chest. 'Your heart is mine.'
'Don't you think I'm painfully aware of that?' The silt flushed blue, suddenly angry. He threw up his palms to reveal his recently acquired blisters and burns. 'I almost died resurrecting you, just like I almost died saving you from demons. I got shot when we were looking for Teah. I almost drowned. I was caught in the fires of Hel and I'm sure you've lost count of how many times you've died. Well, guess what? I've lost count of how many times I've had to resurrect you. And that's how I know . . .' Ilgrin's voice shuddered. 'That's how I knew Seteal's prophesy would come true that I'd die saving your life, because as long as we're together, I'll be there to protect you. That's why we will never work.'
'I don't understand,' El-i-miir sobbed.
'I'm tired.' Ilgrin lowered his face so that his dark blue hair fell forward. 'I'm tired of being scared. Every time you get into trouble, I have to wonder if it's my last day alive. Will it be this time that I die? Is this how I'll meet my end? It's driving me insane. The cost of loving you is just too much. You know how I know that? Because when I was in the river, my body having almost been torn apart, my head hit the bottom and I let go,' Ilgrin stressed the final words. 'Do you understand me? I gave up.'
'You nearly drowned?'
'I nearly drowned and Teah saved my life.' Ilgrin nodded slowly. 'When I hit the bottom I was grateful. Finally I wouldn't have to wonder anymore. I knew that if I was dying, you had to have been safe somewhere. So I gave up. And I'd be dead if it weren't for her.' He jabbed a finger toward the kitchen. 'Well, I refuse to waste another day fearing it'll be my last.'
'But I love you,' El-i-miir said, trying to restrain tears. 'Don't go.' She grabbed his arm, only to be dragged across the room with him. 'I love you.'
'Well, I don't love you,' Ilgrin barked, shaking free of El-i-miir's grip so fiercely that she hit floor. There she remained, her eyes filling with tears as she inwardly cursed her Elglair heritage.
She stifling a sob. 'You meant that. You really meant that.'
'Yes,' Ilgrin said slowly, seemingly unable to believe it himself. 'Apparently I did,' the demon murmured, leaving to resume his conversation with the others. He closed the door behind him, leaving El-i-miir to wallow in self-pity.
*
When Seteal heard the front door slam she took the opportunity to excuse herself from the table and made her way outside in time to see El-i-miir running away. She pursued her, having concerns that she might again be attacked by the pack of boys. Seteal found her outside of Narvon Wood sitting beneath a tree with her head down and her arms wrapped around her legs. 'Get up,' Seteal uttered.
'No,' came El-i-miir's muffled response. 'He said he doesn't love me.'
'Is that so?' Seteal replied tiredly. She wished her biggest problems could've been so small as those associated with romance.
'He meant it,' El-i-miir sobbed. 'I could tell.'
'Maybe he did.' Seteal sat down beside her. 'So win him back.'
'I shouldn't have to.' El-i-miir looked up, revealing a face wet with tears. 'He should still love me.'
'Maybe he does,' Seteal shrugged.
'I just told you--'
'--that he meant it,' Seteal finished for her. 'I know. So maybe he did mean it in the heat of the moment. I once told my father that I hated him. I was so angry that at the time I truly thought I meant it.' Seteal looked over at the graveyard with a heavy heart.
'Perhaps you're right.' El-i-miir sniffed, resting her head back against the tree. 'Seteal?'
'Yes.'
'You don't really believe in the gates of Hae'Evun, do you?'
'I might,' she replied apologetically.
'You know what the Tome says about girls like you, right?'
Seteal bit her lip. 'I do.'
'So you know if it's all true . . .' she trailed off.
'I know,' Seteal exhaled slowly. 'He hates me. I'm nothing holy.'
'Maybe you're supposed to change?' El-i-miir offered.
Seteal suitably burst out laughing. 'If only it were that simple. My whole life could've been a lot easier.'
'So, the black stone?' El-i-miir asked after a long while.
'That,' Seteal said slowly, 'I believe is something truly remarkable. I only wish I'd realised it earlier.'
'Do you think it could create an opening into Hae'Evun?'
'It was able to turn Seeol into a man . . .' Seteal rocked forward to make patterns in the dirt with her finger. 'Listen, El-i-miir, I'm not sure how much of the Tome is really true, but I can float. I can leave my body. These things are true. So I don't know if the Holy Tome got the details right, but I think it's got a point. If there is a way to open up the gates of Hae'Evun, why shouldn't we seize it? I know it sounds desperate, but the world is turning to torrid. Maybe we can get rid of these monsters once and for all.' Seteal slapped a hand over her mouth and got to her feet, immediately regretting what she'd said. 'I'm sorry.'
'No, it's okay,' El-i-miir choked out. 'He's the love of my life, but that's not worth losing the whole world for. I know that.' She got up to look Seteal in the eye. 'So tell me, what're you doing about it?'
'What do you mean?'
'If the key is so important,' El-i-miir pushed, 'why haven't you projected. As a spirit you could locate it in minutes and bring it back here. You can make things float, right? So when it comes to the fate of our world, why the torrid are you depending on an owl?'
Seteal pursed her lips. 'I'd rather not talk about it.'
'That's it?' El-i-miir shot her a distasteful expression. 'That's all you're going to give me? We're supposed to be friends.'
Seteal opened her mouth, but found she was quite unable to reveal the truth. 'Sorry.' She turned to go home.
'Wait.' El-i-miir grabbed her arm. 'You owe me an explanation.'
'I don't owe you anything, El-i-miir,' Seteal said accusingly.
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'And what's that supposed to mean?'
'Well, it's true,' Seteal replied. 'I don't owe you, or Ilgrin, or the rest of the world a Maker-damned thing. Just because I can do a few things that others can't, doesn't mean I should have to.'
'I cannot believe how selfish you are.' El-i-miir frowned disapprovingly and headed back toward Elmsville.
Seteal watched the woman make her way cautiously along the dirt road and into the distance. Thunder rumbled. The sky darkened to match Seteal's mood and as had happened so many times before, she vanished into the frozen reality of the knowing. A legion of no less than one thousand troops beat their wings on approach to Elmsville. Seteal put a hand over her mouth and took a few uncertain steps. She could stop them before they arrived. All she had to do was leave her body. She pushed against the Ways and felt the strings that bound her beginning to snap. Her ability to see became something other than what she saw simultaneously through her eyes. The canvas of the Ways exploded into existence before her, but she was reluctant to release the final hold on her body.
With a violent wave of nausea, Seteal felt, smelt, and tasted Parrowun's decaying flesh. She heard his screams from the past and felt his pain and fear as he'd died. She felt the pressure around her throat and the inability to breathe. She pulled at her body firmly, desperate to escape the horrors that the Ways forced upon her. Seteal stitched the canvas back around herself, even as new strands fell apart of their own volition.
'Let me stay,' Seteal cried, losing her grip on the physical world.
'Is that what you really want?' a serpentine voice hissed from somewhere beyond the canvas.
Grains of dirt trickled into the wooden crate buried behind Seteal's house. There Parrowun's body decomposed: his eyes sunken in, his lips eaten by worms, his skin becoming hard and green. Seteal could feel it all. 'I can't leave,' Seteal whispered as the Ways settled down around her. 'If I leave now, I'll never come back.'
Heb-bri-ew 3
10. Therefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, 'They do always err in their heart, and they have not truly known My Ways.'
11. So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter into My rest.'
12. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the Lord Maker.
2 Pe-t-er 2
21. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they had known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22. But it has happened unto them according to the true proverb: 'The dog turns to his own vomit,' and, 'the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.'
Scriptures of the Holy Tome
CHAPTER sixteen
the truth
The field was green, decorated by only one tree at its centre. It was there that the silt escort had left Jakob to complete his task. From such a vantage point, the town of Elmsville was a smear of white chimney puffs and slate-tiled rooftops in the quaint valley below. He knew what he should be doing. He should scurry down there with his hair in disarray making wild claims about small children being tortured in the southern parts of Narvon Wood. Or perhaps he could claim that he'd discovered a handful of dissonant silts that'd taken human women as sex slaves. That'd be sure enough to prick Ilgrin's overly righteous conscience. This was all his fault anyway, Jakob thought irritably. Noah would've killed him, so he'd had no choice, but Ilgrin . . . If he only would've let El-i-miir die, all of this could've been avoided.
Ilgrin was supposed to have been their saviour. Jakob had worked hard to put the rightful Devil on the throne and yet when it had finally been accomplished, the ungrateful wretch had just thrown it all away. And for what? The Elglair--the enemy.
Over the years Jakob had assassinated some thirty-eight people; the most recent having been his own father. That, too, he'd done for Ilgrin. He'd so badly wanted his father to be the last and yet here he was on the precipice of yet another murder. It'd never bothered him so much as it did now. But for his father, he'd never personally known any of his previous targets and certainly hadn't come to consider them as friends.
Jakob cast his eyes over his shoulder, expecting at any moment to hear that awful sound. A thousand sets of wings would tear the clouds to shreds as they made their way to slaughter the inhabitants of the miniscule town below. Ilgrin would suffer enough with a life ended during battle. Surely he didn't deserve the fate Noah had planned out for him. But what would happen to Jakob if he fail to deliver?
Rolling up his sleeve, Jakob stared disparagingly at his silt wing tattoo with loathing. It was a cruelty of life, having received it before he was old enough to know what it meant. It was unfair of his parents to have decided for him in whom he should put his faith. Now in his mid-twenties, surely it was time for Jakob to choose his own destiny. He rolled down the sleeve and turned around. Noah would find him, of course. He'd lost the affiliates, but that didn't mean there weren't other Elglair Sa'Tanists loyal to the cause. Jakob pushed back his blond hair and took a deep breath. It was time for him to start taking responsibility for his actions.
They could kill him if they wanted to, but he was done with taking people's lives.
*
'Ilgrin tells me angels are capable of controlling whisps,' Seteal said urgently, having corned Teah in the kitchen.
'Sometimes.' Teah looked at her sideways. 'They're not usually very cooperative, but sometimes we can manage to convince them to find a new target. They tend to be more agreeable if the trade-off appears to work in their favour.'
'What about the white ones?'
'Sieifts?' Teah raised her eyebrows. 'You don't need an angel for that. Most people can control them in some rudimentary way. They're docile enough and usually willing to perform any good deed asked of them. What is it with all the questions?'
'I need you to make one,' Seteal said quickly before she could change her mind.
'You're not suggesting . . . ?'
'You can use me,' Seteal insisted. 'I'll do it.'
'That's out of the question. You don't know what you're asking.' Teah frowned. 'It's pain unlike anything you could imagine, like being burned by a thousand fires and cut by a million blades all at once.'
'I don't care. We need that key and I have to do something.'
'And what are you planning exactly,' Teah narrowed her eyes. 'Even sieifts have their limitations.'
'You could ask it to bring us the key,' Seteal suggested.
'That would require that either the sieift or one of us knew where it was,' Teah replied. 'And besides that, I highly doubt you could find a sieift with enough intelligence to accomplish such a task.'
'All right.' Seteal looked about desperately. 'Well, we could ask it to help Seeol find it.'
Teah tapped her chin for a few seconds. 'That might work. At any rate, I'd have to convince the sieift that such an activity is a work of good. They're not interested in doing mundane chores, you know.'
'Then you'll do it?'
'You're the Spirit of Maker.' Teah flicked her hair over her shoulder and looked down into Seteal's eyes. 'I'll do whatever you ask, even if it is against my better judgement. But I must ask, why don't you just . . . project, I think Ilgrin called it?'
'I'm not able to leave my body for now,' Seteal said evasively.
'But couldn't you just float down to the borderlands and find it yourself?'
'I'm fast,' Seteal murmured. 'But I'm not that fast. This way is better.'
'Really?' Teah scrunched up her nose in disbelief. 'Leaving the world's salvation to an owl and a sieift is a better idea than doing it ourselves?'
'I will not leave,' Seteal stated with finality. 'Now, let's get this over with.'
'All right.' Teah followed Seteal upstairs and waited for her to lie down on the bed.
'You mustn't stop until you're certain you've created a sieift of infallible proportions.'
'I'm really not comfort
able with this,' Teah objected.
'Just do it,' Seteal demanded before clenching her teeth in anticipation of what was to come.
*
El-i-miir threw down the chopping board and started cutting the carrots into thin, circular pieces. She wasn't feeling particularly generous toward the household in general, but preparing supper would allow her to focus on something other than her sense of isolation.
'What're you doing?' Ilgrin asked from the doorway.
'What does it look like I'm--ouch,' El-i-miir cried out, having slipped and cut her finger. 'Now look what you've done.' She found a towel and put pressure on the wound.
'Listen,' Ilgrin started, his eyes on the ground. 'I came to apologise for what I said earlier.'
'What's done is done,' El-i-miir said bitterly and resumed chopping the vegetables. 'I'm too much of a burden to love. I understand. I'm surprised you didn't turn against me sooner.'
'No one has turned against you, El-i-miir,' Ilgrin said. 'I don't not love you.'
'You,' El-i-miir pointed the knife at him, 'are a very confusing man, Ilgrin Geld.'
'I know.' He replied. 'I know that.'
A scream fell through the floorboards from above. So horrific was the sound that it took El-i-miir a moment to recognise it as belonging to Seteal. She tried to get out of the kitchen, but Ilgrin moved to block her. 'Get out of the way!' she shouted as Seteal's scream intensified.
'She made me promise we wouldn't come up,' Ilgrin replied nervously.
'To torrid with that.' El-i-miir threw a fat lump of affiliation into Ilgrin's aura that sent him sprinting across the room. She ran up the stairs and barged through Seteal's door to find her writhing in agony. Teah hovered above her with outstretched hands. 'Seteal,' El-i-miir cried, before charging at the angel.