Page 1 of Mortal Heart

RONAN

Ronan,the fallen archangel once known as Remiel, the Thunder of God, held himself still by sheer force of will as Michael cut into his flesh without sympathy or emotion. If he moved and a cut went wrong, Michael would heal him and start over. He’d be damned if he’d give the archangel of archangels the satisfaction of prolonging his torment.

The words Michael sliced into the skin over Ronan’s ribcage recorded the three phases of his trial, written in the language of angels. Each cut pulsed with angelic magic. The cuts would never fully heal. For all his days, he wouldn’t be able to escape the reminder of his failures as an archangelanda man—as if his bound wings and mortal body weren’t punishment enough.

Anger and hate, bitter as poison and heavy as lead, settled in Ronan’s stomach. The white-hot glare of celestial power glinting on Michael’s bladed wings hurt his eyes, but he refused to close them or pass out to spare himself pain. He was certainly many things, but a coward wasn’t one of them.

Finally, after what felt like a century, Michael finished carving and loomed silently over Ronan’s prone and bloody body, his sword at his side. The archangel of archangels and the man stared at each other, neither willing to look away or even blink.

Before Michael could command him to rise, Ronan managed to get to his hands and knees. A hundred years of imprisonment and torment had taken a brutal toll. His hands slipped in his own blood. The words in his side burned mercilessly. His angelic sword hung heavy on his back. He’d never noticed its weight before, but now it seemed a burden of a thousand pounds.

“This is your sentence,” Michael said very formally. His voice came from all directions, like hundreds of voices speaking all at once. That was how angelic voices sounded to mortals. After eons of speaking in the angelic language, Ronan doubted he’d ever become accustomed to the near-deafening noise.

“You will live a mortal life among the true humans, in a body as close to human as we can make you,” Michael continued. “You may not take your own life, either by action or inaction. You may not use your wings or your celestial sword, under penalty of eternal damnation. Once your mortal life ends, you will be judged once more. If you have lived a righteous life in accordance with our laws, you may regain your angelic form. If not, I will cast your soul into Nothingness. Do you understand these rules as I have listed them?”

“Yes.” It was the first word Ronan had spoken in a very long time. Blood bubbled up and ran down his chin. His entire body hurt. Other than the words Michael had cut into him, he had no sense of where one pain ended and another began. Still, he’d had quite enough of Michael towering over him.

With a Herculean effort, Ronan staggered to his feet. He was tall, but Michael was taller, even without spreading his razor-edged wings…which he did as soon as Ronan rose, just to make a point, Ronan thought.

“Always you are prideful.” Michael’s voice remained toneless, though Ronan saw anger in his glacier-blue eyes. “You believe yourself to be as great and mighty as the greatest of us and able to break angelic law whenever it suits you. You believe you are right, when we, in all our eternal wisdom, are wrong.”

“I’m not delusional. I never thought myself as mighty as you.” Ronan wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “And I never broke angelic law without good reason.”

“There are no good reasons to break angelic law.”

“I wanted to spare my sister Freya from great suffering.”

“You were granted neither the power nor the right to spare anyone from suffering.” Michael remained implacable. “Nor did I grant you leave to wield your celestial sword in any battle outside my command. You have always known these laws and the consequences of breaking them.”

Ronan clenched his fists. He could have reminded Michael that if he hadn’t raised his sword against the Titan Typhon in the Underworld, Typhon and the goddess Ammit, Devourer of Hearts, would have killed him and his companions. Then they would have ascended to the human world to slaughter thousands—or millions—but that argument would fall as much on deaf ears today as it ever had before. Michael did not care about Ronan’s motives and never would. Angelic law could not be broken. Full stop.

“I don’t apologize for raising my sword against Typhon,” Ronan said, straightening with difficulty. “Nor do I apologize for trying to save Freya’s daughter.”

“And so you suffer.”

“I can never fully atone for the hurt I caused Freya by promising and then failing to prevent her daughter’s death. No punishment you can conceive can heal her pain.” Ronan gestured at the words cut into his side. “Not even this.”

“Perhaps not.” Michael gave him a grave nod and fluttered his bladed wings. “But you broke angelic law without remorse. Justice was called for, and justice was done.”

Ronan gave him a bloody, bitter half-smile. “Was it?”

As he’d expected, his tormentor ignored his question. “Where do you wish to be taken to begin your sentence?” Michael asked.

Of all the worlds and realms Ronan knew, there was only one place hecouldgo now, and only one person he could trust to care for him until his mortal body healed.

“The same place I was when you took me away for my torment and trial,” he said. “The home of my sister-in-arms, Alice Worth.”

With one precise movement, Michael used his sword to cut through the boundary between the realm of the angels and the human world. “Then go to her. This realm is now closed to you.”

It’s been closed to me for a very, very long time, Ronan thought.

Before he had a chance to tell Michael that—not that it would have mattered anyway—the floor gave way beneath Ronan’s feet, and he was gone.

1

RONAN

One MonthLater

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