Page 1 of Light

Chapter 1

Gabriel

A cheer rose, setting Gabriel’s teeth grinding together. He didn’t begrudge them their happiness. In truth, he longed for his own contentment. That Uriel had found his mate after so long meant hope was not lost.

It also meant he was the last. The last of seventeen-thousand, seven hundred, seventy-seven siblings to find his analogous umbra. His other half. The piece of him which had been stolen several millennia ago.

He blinked in the bright glare surrounding him, so at odds with his mood. Alaxia was never devoid of light, a fact that grated on his nerves. The pearlescent glow refracting off every surface was enough to frequently drive him down to the mortal plane.

Another cheer sounded as trumpets blared.

Dina approached, clapping Gabriel’s shoulder. “I’d begun to lose faith we’d see the day dear Uriel found his soulmate,” she laughed.

Gabriel bit his tongue to stop the grinding he knew Dina would hear, even over the raucous crowd of celebratory seraphim.

Her gaze darted down to the fists balled at his sides, and her smile fell. “You will find your analogous umbra when Father deems it so, brother.”

He worked his tongue between sharp teeth, relishing the pain of each slice of flesh, saying nothing. He watched Uriel and his mate clasp hands, bowing their heads until they touched as they drank each other in, melding their souls into one.

A new ache cleaved through him, bringing hollowness with it. He felt the absence of that vital part of his being. Where a soul should have been, only a shadow of it existed—a fraction of what once was.

Had he never known what it was to be whole, he might not begrudge the humans. But once, his soul had sung with the rightness of being complete, and like a phantom limb, the loss haunted him. When it was ripped in two, it was torture like nothing he’d ever known. It was meant to be. It was a punishment, after all.

“Your other half is out there,” Dina tried again.

Gabriel narrowed his gaze on the faintly glowing circle just above her head. “What would you know of my suffering? You were one of the first.”

Dina’s white brow drew down over opalescent, swirling eyes. She glanced away, her gaze resting on Uriel and his Naphil, Henry. “Is the wait not worth the prize?”

Suddenly, the brightness and joy encircling him were too much. Gabriel spread his wings, forcing Dina to step back as he launched into the air, sailing over pearly gates to the edge of Alaxia’s border, and continued down, dropping to the Earthly plane.

Cream ankle-high boots solidified on his feet as they met the ground. His shoulders twitched, dissolving his wings into a white tailored overcoat, tight at the waist but loose as it fell down the backs of his calves.

He pulled a tan top hat down low over his brow and strolled confidently along the cobbled street, avoiding the gazes of the gentry as they passed.

It was not yet dark, but he would rather be here among the humans who had taken so much from him than up there amongst the revelers.

He was in a mood to kill something.

Stepping under a sign that read Bull and Butcher, he pulled his top hat from his head, tucking it under one arm. A man behind the bar, ruddy-faced and glowering, looked up from where he wiped a dirty rag over darkly stained wood.

“Club steak’s on to’nite, and ya buy a pint or yer out,” he called and resumed wiping down the counter.

Gabriel glanced around the room, finding it sufficiently packed. The Bull and Butcher was a central hub of gossip on the high street; the sooner he could be about his business this night, the better.

Settling onto a stool at the bar, he slid his hat into the empty chair beside him, giving a rosy-cheeked woman a look that might have sent others running. Her crimson-dipped smile faltered when their eyes met, and he let just a bit of the rage in his dark eyes show.

They were unusual for his kind. Where many of his siblings had eyes of silver or gold, his were nearly black. A portent of some dark future, he often thought, but Dina said it was the absence of light, stripped away when his soul had been wrenched in two. She speculated he’d lost more than the others. Why, only Father knew.

The woman stumbled into a man behind her, mumbling apologies as she made her hasty retreat. Better for her if she avoided him. Better for them all.

The barman set a pint of ale in front of Gabriel, but his attention was drawn to the pub door as it was jostled open. He tracked two men in uniform as they moved through the room, settling into chairs in a far dark corner.

These were just the sort of men Gabriel was looking for. Over the din, he tuned his ears to their voices, blocking out the boisterous patrons singing along to a bawdy tune.

“Three dead,” the first uniformed man said.

“Mart’s again?” the second man asked.

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