“Stel, are you ready for this?” my dad asked in a gentle voice.
I looked up at him and consequently at the stretching battleground above. A new confidence began to build inside of me. I wouldn’t let them win. Not Aliah. Not the traitor. Not Seven. Not the Darkness. Not even the Council if they stepped in front of me. And especially not my soulless Counterpart.
“Yes.” I lit the Light that begged to be set free, giving them the signal to go.
We took off into the upper stratosphere before really letting go of our speed and Light. It was seconds before we burst through the mesosphere, then the thermosphere and beyond.
Space.
If I had possessed the ability to breathe right then, I would have sucked in a huge, excited breath. But this far into my Star form, I no longer needed or wanted to breathe. Which was a good thing since that required oxygen and I was now deep within an oxygen-less environment.
I burned with the heat of the surface of the sun and I had never felt more alive. We flew through this vast, endless space at light speed and I felt utterly at home and invigorated.
I had never given my powers this much freedom. I had been born for Earth, but my body had been created for this. And, god, this felt good.
When I imagined this trip before we left, I worried that I would have trouble keeping up with my parents or that I would lose them. I didn’t know why, but I had all these nightmares of me, lost in space, wandering around for all of eternity.
I shouldn’t have worried about that, because obviously, my parents were not going to let us get separated. But also because, once I was out and about in the middle of the Milky Way, I realized I knew where I was going. There must be some innate Star GPS that I happened to be born with. I knew exactly how to get to the Lower Realm and I knew the direction to go in order to return to Earth.
On planet, if I thought about going to the Lower Realm, the most specific I could navigate was up. But now that I was up, my sense of direction became a lot more specific.
It took some time, and three separate worm holes, but eventually we slowed down and entered the atmosphere of the Lower Realm, which was the bottom most level of heaven.
Weird.
I was now in an annex of Heaven. And not dead. Although, it wasn’t like that was possible. Not even the other Realms were accessible from this particular one. I couldn’t just keep flying and enter the Middle Realms or even Heaven itself. They were all real places, like this one, but they weren’t exactly stacked on top of each other. And those places required invitations and special escorts. I couldn’t exactly go ring the doorbell for the Archangels and expect someone to come to the door.
My parents had explained the Lower Realm to me over the last couple months, in expectation of this night. I had this rough idea in my head of all their pieced together descriptions.
Nothing my finite brain put together even came close.
The Lower Realm was… incredible.
And silent. Not a sound greeted our arrival other than our landing.
As my feet touched down on solid ground I felt speechless and awestruck trying to take everything in. My heart picked up pace again and I vaguely worried about long term damage to my cardiac region after this night was over. Between Seth, the flight here and now this… I just couldn’t wrap my head around any of it.
This was a planet of sorts, but only the size of a large city on Earth, not anything like the huge world I had just come from. We landed on a sort of runway for Star and Angel traffic. It was made out of a stone that I had never seen or touched before. A muted white that appeared smooth and rough at the same time. I could feel the solid texture beneath my boots as if it had its own heartbeat that pulsed and pounded against my feet. Grass, or a grassy type landscape spread out from the wide stone pathway in a pale orange. The blades were long and wispy and they swayed one way or the other when a warm breeze blew over us. Trees dotted the landscape in every direction. Their trunks were thick and smooth, the color of an ashy white. They led up to thick tops with pink leaves that spread out in stretching reaches but cast no shadow over the orange grass. The air smelled of those fragrant leaves and I inhaled the scent I had never experienced before. There were no flowers here, just the orange grass and the pink trees.
Buildings lined the walk as we moved into the heart of the realm. They were constructed of a sandy colored stone that sparkled in the light- light that seemed to come only from the center building. I glimpsed Stars and Warriors as they moved around in the structures. The windows were all open and the balmy breeze continued to float around me. It had an intensity about it that let me know it was designed for a purpose. I seriously doubted the Lower Realm dealt with weather like I knew, so the breeze was probably a constant here.
We followed the road to the center of town, to the one huge building that towered over everything. I concluded that this was the capitol, the place where the Elders met and the Council resided. This was where our meeting would be.
From what my parents had told me before, I knew there was also a training ground somewhere beyond this building. This was where all of the Stars and Warriors were born and trained before they joined the army. This was where I would have been born and raised had I not been stationed on Earth.
In a way, walking by these houses that held peers I would never know and soldiers I would never fight with, felt like peeking at an alternate reality. I could easily imagine living with my parents in one of those sandstone structures. I could see myself spending time in an arena that I had yet to see and learning all of the techniques and skills that would help me protect the galaxies from a legion of Darkness.
I could imagine it, but I didn’t like it.
This life wasn’t mine. I felt like an intruder walking these streets- an incredibly noisy, clunky intruder.
And I felt homesick already. Not in the sense that I missed Earth so much I couldn’t leave it for a second without being a baby about it. But more like, I belonged on Earth. That planet was my charge and I shouldn’t have left it because I would never forgive myself if something happened to it while I was gone.
And suddenly, this far away from the Milky Way and my planet, I felt like every possible, cataclysmic catastrophe was going to happen to it while I was gone. Nuclear warfare, a zombie apocalypse, whatever happened in that movie The Day After Tomorrow when everything froze and there were those crazy wolves… I felt like it was all going to happen and I would go home to a planet literally on fire.
It was like my child and I had left it alone with an irresponsible babysitter that was going to drop it on its head.
Oh, gosh. I needed this to be over soon.
And all the while those thoughts were flipping through my anxious brain, I had to be on the lookout for an assassin.
Just freaking, great.
“Calm down, Starling,” Jupiter barked. “I can feel your nerves. It won’t be good to face the Council so worked up. They want to see you prepared to protect Earth, not sweating bullets and jumping at imaginary ghosts.”
“Aren’t you worried about Earth? It feels wrong for all of us to be here.”
He looked at me and sympathy flashed across his wrinkled face. He seemed different here than he did on earth. His dull red eyes had brightened significantly. They seemed liquefied in this misty light; their depths swirling around and around like a mercury-filled whirlpool. His skin had taken on a tanner tone too and his white hair brightened to a blinding shade.
He shook his head at me as if he understood and said, “We won’t be gone long.”
Okay, I wasn’t alone. I took comfort in our shared concern and knew Jupiter would keep this as short and sweet as possible. He was good at shutting things down.
It helped that he had no regard for any other living being.
My mother slowed down to walk next to me. Her skin glowed constantly here, and looking down at my own, I saw that mine did as well. The atmosphere seemed to draw our Light out and feed off us. It should have felt intrusive
and wrong, but it didn’t. The Light that lit this planet seemed to be connected to mine and I accepted that because I couldn’t question it.
I was warmer than usual, too. And it felt amazing. I burned from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and it was heaven.
The white stone pathway turned into a golden plaza. We stepped onto the shimmering surface and a jolt of electricity zipped through me. I looked up at The Seat, the courthouse shaped building where the Council met and felt the energy emanate from the building itself.
The Seat had walls made from the same white stone of the pathway and raised three stories high. Gilded metal work layered the surface and created an intricate pattern that laced every side. Golden pillars stood at the top of a set of long golden stairs and created a coliseum kind of architectural style. A fountain sat in the middle of the plaza, made from more white stone and gold. Mossy green water flowed out of the spouts of two gigantic creatures that I could not name. They were animals of some kind but not anything that was born to Earth. They had the feet of a horse, the body of an eagle and the head of a lion. Their wings stretched out to their full length and their heads were tilted proudly upwards. Their bodies faced in opposite directions but nestled next to each other. The fountain around them was big enough to accommodate their bulking frames and allow for the water to shoot out of their mouths and still land inside the pool. The water looked disgustingly unappetizing, but instinctively I knew it would be the most refreshing drink I ever tasted.
I decided not to test that theory.
Angels milled about the plaza and the stairs. Everyone seemed to watch us curiously, but nobody approached yet. I saw a few of them smile familiarly at my parents, but when they turned their attention to me, curiosity would spark in their gazes and something like fear.
Was I so terrifying?
Or were they just afraid of what it meant for me to be here.
I had to admit, I didn’t like it either. It should be exciting for me to meet more beings like myself. I had wanted to know this world my entire life. I had always imagined what it would be like to have been raised here, to have benefited from their intense but expert training.
But now that I was here, I just missed Seth even more. He was the only one that could relate to being set apart from this, to living every day on Earth and training with Jupiter.
Not one of these Angels knew anything but this realm and the section of space they would be relegated to patrolling.
We took the stairs and entered an enclosed courtyard with a smaller fountain positioned in the middle. This one was of actual animals I recognized. A lion curled up in the center of the pool with an innocent lamb tucked into his side. The water shot in streams from the edge of the pool inward. The water was still the mossy green color, but it was lit from the bottom and made a very pretty effect in the white tiled open space.
The ceiling was made entirely of glass and long, thin windows spaced out evenly along the walls. Hallways branched off in every direction with golden doors lining each corridor, except directly in front of us. Across the lobby stood a set of doors in a textured gold. Huge leaf-like handles spread across the front and the frame was inlaid with a very delicate golden vine. I would bet anything that was where we were headed.
“Ready for this?” my mom whispered with a secret smile twisting her lips. Her contacts were out and her bright gold eyes seemed to match the doors and gilded accents perfectly.
I winced. “No.”
Her small smile grew into a wide grin. “You don’t owe these people anything, Stella. They can no more take your position than they can give up one of theirs. They just want to speak with you and maybe solve some mysteries. The sooner we start, the sooner we can go home.”
I felt better with that. And it helped that she referred to Earth as our home. It had always been mine but I knew my parents’ own homesickness was for the skies. They had defended a galaxy before. My mother had been a Sun and my father had stood faithfully at her side. Earth was a prison to them, one they endured for me. But they weren’t bitter or resentful. They would do whatever they needed to for me.
We walked around the fountain and waited for my dad to open the huge doors. Blinding light spilled out initially and I blinked against the brightness that hurt even my eyes. My mom took my elbow and guided me as I tried to adjust to the pure, raw, intensity of Light.
And that’s what it was.
This was Light at its most basic, at its most primal. This was the purest form of Light. There was nothing obstructing or muting the force of it. It was just… Light. And it was like nothing I had experienced before.
Even my own form could not compete with this kind of force.
Finally, my eyes corrected so I could take in this new place. Rows of benches filled the space between the doors we stood at and the line of chairs facing us at the head of the room. The benches were made out of the white stone and built into the ground. Golden pillars lined every wall and created a corridor that bordered the room. And ahead of me, in the front of the room, stood a line of intricately designed golden chairs. They weren’t quite large enough to be considered thrones, but more like antiquish looking high back chairs with ornately formed arms and legs. They were solid gold, however, and I couldn’t distinguish if there were cushions on the seats because they were all occupied by members of the Council.
The Light that first blinded me filtered from a place behind them. I wasn’t exactly sure how to describe it other than to call it a pit. Directly behind the platform that the Council sat on, the ground dropped off into an indeterminate place. The Light shot out from there and touched every place in this room and beyond.
Now that I could see, I found the Light oddly comforting. While the Council stared at me with cold, white-eyed stares and bored disinterest, the Light seemed to pulse with acceptance and hope. I let myself relax into that and ignore the iciness coming from the Elders dressed in white robes that matched their white-orbed eyes.
My dad and mom walked beside me and led me to the front of the room. Jupiter trailed behind us. I could feel his aggression and defensiveness. Apparently he didn’t find the Light as comforting as I did.
The aisle to the front sloped downwards so that when we were finally upfront we stood several feet beneath the platform. From this vantage, the Council appeared extra-large as they glared down at us.
There were twelve of them, a mixture of men and women. I recognized Celeste, Raphael and Ari from their visit last summer. I smiled at them but they didn’t offer me anything, not even a head nod.
Psht.
“Starling,” Celeste called from the center of the panel. “Thank you for joining us.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” I answered.
“Do you understand why you are here?” an elderly Warrior asked in a gruff tone. His hair was as white as Jupiter’s and his wrinkles just as prominent. Apparently he didn’t plan on introducing himself.
“To talk about Earth?” I guessed while my parents went still with tension. I glanced over at my mom hoping to catch her eye but she was intently focused on the man speaking.
The white-haired man grunted an impatient sound and shook his head. With ringing clarity he announced, “No, to relieve you from your post.”
Chapter Four
“Wait, what?” That was my genius response to the declaration that I was being fired.
My parents exploded with their opinions at the same time. “You don’t have the authority to do that!” my mother shouted.
“On what grounds have you based your decision?” my father growled.
They both burned hot next to me. I could feel their Light through the strength of mine, which basically meant they were about to go postal.
“It is not your concern!” someone yelled down the line.
Someone else shouted, “You will abide by our decisions! We have spoken, so be it.”
Jupiter pushed through my dad and me and stomped toward them. “Where is the Archangel that carried t
his message to you? Bring him forth and let him speak the words!”
The Council quieted immediately. They shifted uneasily in their chairs and that gave me hope.
“Where is the Archangel?” Jupiter snarled at them. “Where is the Angel that delivered this edict?”
“No other Angel brought the decree,” Ari spoke up after long moments of tense silence. “We have come to the conclusion ourselves.”
Jupiter scoffed at that and my parents relaxed some. “And what are the grounds of this conclusion?” my dad asked, sounding very smug.
“Her Counterpart,” Raphael continued in his melodic voice. His dark skin stood out in a beautiful shade of midnight against the pure white robes he wore. “He’s Fallen now. We have the proof. We have seen it. And yet she does not fulfill her duty. He roams your planet with havoc and mayhem on his fingertips and she allows this. She lets him live.”
“He is Fallen,” Celeste repeated. “She must kill him.”
“She hasn’t had the opportunity,” Jupiter scoffed. “Aliah is also allowed to roam free, and his small army of Fallen with him. Yet you have not asked her to single-handedly take out their entire force. She is not even in possession of her full powers but you would take her from the planet for reasons that are out of her control.”
More uncomfortable shifting. Damn, Jupiter was good.
Finally, a woman with skin so pale it was almost translucent and hair the color of the trees outside, spoke, “Our concern is not for the army in this day. If given time to mature, to come into her full powers, we have no doubt that she would pursue Aliah and his Fallen. We do not have faith that the same will be true for her Counterpart.”
“You don’t think I will kill him? No matter how much time passes. That’s what you’re saying.”
Several of them nodded.
“He’s bonded to you. He always has been. We cannot expect you to take his life.” Celeste’s white, glowing eyes seemed to sympathize with me. “We all have a Counterpart in which we can relate. Stella, you are not being punished. You are welcome to choose your position in any of the galaxies, but we have to put Earth first. We have to put the safety of the planet first.”