That did not encourage me.
“Where is the traitor?” I demanded. “When you visited before, you told me that you would name a traitor. Where is he?”
Ari broke into a wide grin and winked at me. I looked at the rest of the Council while they fumbled around for an answer. Nobody seemed in a hurry to volunteer information.
“Where is he?” I asked again. “Or she?”
Celeste cleared her throat and answered, “We have thus far been unable to name any one member of the Council.”
“Because you’re all evil,” Jupiter laughed.
“No,” the white-haired man argued. “Because the traitor is experienced in his deceit, because he’s covered his tracks and knows better than to let us find him.” He met my eyes and added, “Or her.”
“Obviously you have failed at your task.” On the outside I sounded confident and that was a good thing because on the inside I was trembling to my very core. These people wanted to take Earth away from me. They wanted Seth dead.
And they were disappointed that I hadn’t killed him yet.
Jupiter was right. They were all evil.
“That’s not a fair comparison-”
My mom cut Raphael off with outraged disbelief, “Isn’t it? You expect my daughter to kill her Counterpart without instructing her to do so. You expect her to go after someone far superior with his blade, someone stronger, faster, more capable in every single way before she’s inherited her fullness of power? And yet you cannot name a traitor that is costing us lives on a daily basis, that killed the Protector of Earth and that actively seeks to end my daughter’s life? Please explain to me how we cannot make this comparison.”
Gasps and cries of outrage went up from the Council as many of them jumped to their feet. They started arguing all at once until my dad stepped forward and held up his hand for silence.
Surprisingly, they listened.
“Has the Warrior killed anyone?” his tone was simple but demanding. I was in awe of how he commanded these people so easily. They were the Elders. They were in charge of him. Yet he quieted them with a look, and forced answers out of them with just a question.
“No,” Celeste finally relented. “No, but he’s come close.”
My dad cleared his throat and explained the truth of our situation. “Seth has not become Fallen.” His statement was immediately followed by shouts of disagreement. He held up his hand once more and they softened but didn’t obtain silence like before. They were a little worked up by this point, though. “He has done something worse. He sold his soul to Aliah for the price of Stella’s protection. Until she turns eighteen, the Fallen have agreed to back off the attempts of her life. She is to be left alone for another year while Seth walks with the Fallen and Aliah keeps his soul.” A slow rumble of conversation took hold of the Council; my dad spoke louder so they could all hear. “At the end of the contract, when my daughter comes into the fullness of her powers, Stella will no longer be protected by contract, but Seth’s soul will be returned to him. When you have observed his acts of… misconduct, it has not been by his choice but by his obligation to the soul-contract.”
“What kind of soul contract?” someone shouted over all the other voices.
My dad let out a weary sigh and admitted, “Third-party.”
Silence.
Finally, they settled into silence.
“Who advised him to do this?” Raphael asked in a defeated voice.
My dad looked at me and I knew it was my turn to speak. “No one,” I told them. “He did this on his own, without speaking to any of us. We didn’t learn about the contract until after it was signed.”
“And who is the third-party?” Celeste asked in a more humbled voice.
“Jude Michaels,” I admitted.
“Who is Jude Michaels?” the white-haired man asked.
“The child that was stolen,” my mother jumped in.
Another collective gasp. “How could you know that?” Ari demanded. “That was years ago.”
“Nine years,” my dad supplied. “But he wore the tattoos. The two swords. Stella and Jupiter witnessed them.”
“Honor and Verity?” Ari asked in disbelief.
“Yes,” Jupiter confirmed. He pointed to the place on the base of his neck, just to the left of the hollow of his throat.
“That’s a different discussion,” Celeste bit out. “That the child has been found is… is remarkable. But our purpose is to decide the Starling’s fate. Nothing else.”
“And the fate of her Counterpart,” the white-haired man threw in. “He should be put to death. Send a legion down there. Two legions. He cannot be allowed to live without a soul for a moment longer. We’ve played around with this for too long and now look! This is worse than we could have ever imagined.”
“Why?” I begged them desperately. “Why is he more dangerous without a soul than as Fallen.”
The white-haired man looked at me with obvious annoyance. “Because! Because Fallen are still tied to a soul whether they want to admit it or not. Even the Fallen have remnants of a moral code they used to live by. They have no choice but to answer to it occasionally. We see the worst of them, but they have limits. The Fallen on your planet work slowly in plots and schemes. They don’t set out to destroy all of mankind, they seek to enslave it. They want the planet as it is. Especially this planet because it is the last. But a soulless Warrior would not be accountable to anything or anyone. He would not remember his morals or code of ethics. He would not try to keep the planet whole or protect some fragment of humanity. He will only destroy because he now knows only destruction. He will only hurt because he now knows only pain. He has nothing left to bind him to anything but chaos and despair. A Fallen can walk down the street without touching anyone. They can blend into society and avoid lashing out with the worst of life’s evil. They save it for a purpose, for a scheme. Your Counterpart cannot. He will be worse than all of them. And he will not have a reason to wait.”
“Until his soul is returned to him,” another older woman put in. “And then can you imagine? Can you imagine the madness to follow?”
My stomach dropped to my toes and melted through the floor. No. No.
The older woman continued, “And tell me Starling, what do we do with mad Warriors? Do we have a place for them? Is there an institution that can hold them? How would a Warrior who lost his mind to the Darkness but restored his soul only to live with the consequences of all those evil actions cope with that kind of mental state?”
I swayed sharply and my dad caught me around my shoulders. “You don’t know that will happen to him. He has not killed yet and he’s been without a soul for months.”
“It is a mercy to kill him now,” Raphael put in sadly. “It is grace that you give him, not punishment.”
“You don’t know that,” I rasped through a throat coated with thick emotion. “You don’t know what will happen to him. It’s only a year away. He’s done well so far. There are times that he is completely lucid.”
“And the other times he wants to cut your throat,” Ari butted in. “You should not spend time with him, Starling. He will want to hurt you above all others.”
I knew that, but I wouldn’t admit that to them. I wondered how Ari knew that though. Had he been watching us? Was he the one that found the evidence against Seth?
“You understand that you are the source of his greatest pain?” Celeste asked in a rough demand. “You are the one that he will associate with all of his suffering and confusion.”
“Yes!” I shouted at her. “Yes, I know that!”
“I think our decision is clearer than ever,” the white-haired man said. “You have to step down. You cannot go on with such a deadly threat looming overhead.”
I opened my mouth to argue but Jupiter jumped in front of my parents and pointed at the older man. “Step down? You said step down.”
My dad moved forward to stand side-by-side with Jupiter and added, “You have no authority to remove h
er so you hoped to forcefully convince her to step down.”
The Council had the decency to stay silent.
My mom didn’t. “You called us up here to suggest that she step down from her post? You called us away from Earth to suggest Stella step down because you don’t think she can handle her planet?”
Celeste jumped to her feet and walked to the edge of the platform. “You understand the importance of Earth. We cannot afford mistakes, Celina. We cannot tolerate any missteps. You must understand that.”
“Then you must understand that Stella will do anything to protect that planet, including killing her Counterpart, including killing every last Fallen that steps foot on that planet. You have not seen what she is capable of because we do not know what she is capable of yet. How dare you take her from her post for this insignificant discussion!”
“How dare you speak to us this way!” the white-haired man shouted. “You come to our Seat and disrespect us like this! We might not have authority over her but you and your Warrior answer to us!”
Ari raced to stand next to Celeste with his arms outstretched in a pacifying gesture, “Please, calm down everyone. No matter what our purpose was for bringing you here, it was not our intention to quarrel with you. We need to take into account this new information and rationally come to the right conclusion.”
“The right conclusion is to leave my daughter to the destiny she was born to fulfill.” My dad took another threatening step forward and glared at them. “The right conclusion is to leave us to our posts on Earth and not interfere unless you have something relevant to say. It’s evident that your Council is falling to pieces. Find the traitor and bring us your concerns again.”
“What does that mean?” Raphael jumped up, his entire body aglow with initiative and his white-orbed eyes piercing in their intensity.
“It means that until the Council names a traitor, I do not trust you, nor do I recognize your authority. And unless you would like me to take this to higher powers, I suggest you deal with your own mess before sticking your fingers into ours.”
That sufficiently culled them. Most of them stumbled back to their seats with grumbling submission. Woot! Go dad. And mom! And even Jupiter.
I felt like I needed to say something before we stormed out of here. “You don’t know Seth,” I told them. “You don’t know his strength of spirit or indomitable will. You do not understand that he is doing this for me and because he’s choosing to protect me, he’s protecting Earth. You can tell me that he will go crazy and that he will succumb to the Darkness, but I know him. I see him. Him! Not just the monster he’s slowly becoming. When I have no other choice, I will kill him. But until then, I will live with the hope that he holds onto his sanity and his nature. I trusted him before he lost his soul and I will continue to trust that he can be that person again until I know for certain that he cannot.”
And that was all I had to say.
I spun around and stomped toward the exit. My parents followed and Jupiter pulled up the rear. I tried not to be obvious about my hurry to get out of here, but I rushed through the golden doors with evident relief. I walked over to the fountain and rested my hands on the cool stone ledge of the pool. Staring into the depths of the murky green water, I could see my watery reflection as it rippled on the surface. I looked wild in the water. My Light burned bright and my blue eyes seemed to dance in the wavy surface.
“I cannot believe they dragged us up here for this,” my mother hissed when she came to a stop next to me. “I’m so sorry, Stella. When they summoned us, I expected… I had no idea it was as bad as it is. They are imploding and they don’t seem able to see their coming destruction.”
“What happens if the Council falls?” Some of my anger had faded with the space that I put between them and me and reality started to sink in.
“We all fall.” Ari’s voice rang out through the empty arboretum.
I twisted around and propped my butt against the cool stone. My mom mimicked my stance only added in crossed arms and a furious expression.
Ari raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. He was naturally happy looking with wild auburn hair and wide dimples. He seemed legitimately sincere in his approach but I knew better than to trust any of these guys. They had no grip on reality.
At least not on my reality.
It might be easy to sit up here and make decisions that affected entire galaxies, but from where I stood on-planet and with my life so incredibly wrapped up in everything, I didn’t get it.
“Who had you decided would replace me?”
“We hadn’t yet,” Ari admitted.
My parents gasped outrageously at that. But it was Jupiter who spoke first. “You decided to pull her from planet and yet hadn’t determined a replacement?”
Ari seemed to blush under that kind of criticism but he still said, “Obviously we can agree the traitor is still at work amongst the Council.”
“Obviously,” my mother snorted. “The traitor should be your first priority, not Stella. Earth is safe for now but you are not.”
“I can see that now.” Ari’s chin dropped to his chest and he tugged at his tussled hair with two hands. “I don’t think we realized how deep this treachery ran until tonight.”
“Then maybe our trip hasn’t been a total waste,” my dad conceded. “Ari, if the Council falls there is no mouthpiece between the Upper Realms and the army. It would take one day for the entire universe to collapse under the strain of an empowered Darkness. Imagine the magnitude of their authority if they controlled space. Imagine what would happen to us. The Council cannot fall.”
“I know this better than anyone, Micah.” Ari lifted his head and met my father’s eyes. “What the Council refuses to tell you is that the Darkness has infiltrated this realm deeper than anyone has realized. A child went missing again, yet they refuse to search for him because they are afraid their weakness will be found out.”
Ari’s voice dropped to a whisper and my parents and Jupiter instinctively moved closer to hear the details.
“How old?” Jupiter asked.
“Eight,” Ari confirmed. “He was a Warrior, training to fight in the southeast battalion.”
My dad cupped his chin with his hand and said, “A Warrior from here? Or an Archangel.”
“From here. Pair that with the bizarre decision to pull Stella from Earth while we have yet to decide on a replacement… You know how long we take to decide anything, Micah. Could you imagine the interim time Earth would face? And they have not even started the interrogations yet for the trial. We have no leads, no hunches and no courage to speak them even if we had them. We spend our days paranoid, arguing and in constant turmoil.”
“Why are you telling us this?” my mother asked. She seemed to reluctantly trust Ari, but I could see the doubt flicker in her gold eyes.
“Because you should know. You should know not to trust us, or to rely on us. I hate to do this to you, but you are on your own. I cannot offer you help when I cannot trust the help I send.” His lips pressed together in a grim line and his shoulders sagged. “I cannot remember a time in which the Council has been so utterly unreliable without even the hope of restoration.”
“But nothing has come from the Upper Realms?” my dad glanced nervously at the golden doors but we remained alone.
“Not a word,” Ari confirmed. “But I am beginning to wonder if our messages are not being intercepted by the very same traitor.”
“What about Stella? Who’s idea was it to pull her?”
He gave us a wobbly smile. “Raphael’s. After what we witnessed during our visit, he thought you would do better elsewhere.”
“Have you considered that he is the traitor?” I asked. That made sense to me. Someone so willing to sabotage Earth had to be inherently evil in some way.
“I’ve considered that everyone could be the traitor, Starling, including myself.”
We laughed at his semi-joke, but I had to wonder if that was true. Was it possible for t
he Darkness to influence so strongly that the Angel wasn’t even aware of his transgressions?
Seemed highly unlikely, but something had to be figured out.
And soon.
“We will return to the planet now,” my dad announced. “Send word if anything else changes.”
“I will,” Ari agreed quickly. “I might come visit you if I have to. I’m not sure I would trust the message to arrive untainted.”
My dad clapped him on the shoulder. “Do what you must, Brother, but above all stay safe.”
“And you as well, my friend.” Ari gave us all another weak smile and turned back to rejoin the Council.
“Won’t they assume he was out here with us?” I asked my parents as soon as the doors closed behind him.
Jupiter barked out a laugh. “Who do you think sent him out here? Ari was sent to smooth things over with us.”
“Well, he did that.” I looked back at the doors and wondered about Ari. He seemed sincere enough that I didn’t doubt he had not only smoothed things over with us but made allies out of us.
“Let’s go home,” my mom begged.
“Yes, please!”
My dad smiled at me and pulled me into a quick hug. “Stella, they were idiots to try to take you away from Earth. You’re one of the best things that ever happened to that planet.”
“I know,” I grinned into his chest.
I felt his mood shift and his hold tighten when he said, “But they might not be wrong about Seth, Sweetpea. You’re going to have to be discerning when it comes to him. He might go as crazy as they say. He might become a serious threat even before that. I know you love him, Stella, but he could destroy you and the entire planet if you’re not careful.”
I nodded against him but couldn’t form the words to answer him. He seemed to sense that and so he didn’t press for a response. We left the Lower Realm immediately after that.
I spent the flight back to Earth in pensive silence. I tried to enjoy every moment of light speed and moving through worm holes because I knew it would never happen again, not after that wasted trip. I had been right to be worried. That had to have been the traitor’s idea, and so instead of relishing in stretching my powers to their absolute max, I spent the entire trip wrapped up in knots about Seth and about Earth.