Page 3 of A Lost Light

“Mortals have strange ideas about life and death. They draw strange lines that don't actually exist. It's only wise to consider all angles of any situation. To be prepared.” He shrugged. “Beings die. Every day. Everymoment. Life is not permanent. But… that doesn't mean you have to be the one who takes their life.”

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. This was all too much. I wanted to help Elijah, yes. But I was afraid I was losing my moral compass entirely, if I was thinking more like a wraith than a witch.

“We aren't going to murder anyone, Sunny,” I said,hopingthat was mostly the wraith talking. “So just calm down.”

Dyre blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, they were both violet, without a hint of wraith blackness. “I understand,” he said leaning down to press a kiss to my forehead. Then he pulled back enough to look me in the eyes again, cupping my cheeks in both hands. “But I also understand Sunny's perspective.” He brushed a kiss across my lips, a bare whisper of a touch, before staring into my eyes again. “If I was in your place, and if it was you trapped as a ghostly version of yourself yearning to live again, I would do everything in my power. I would kill to bring you back to my side. Gladly and without remorse.”

He kissed me again then, hard and fierce, as if he would drive his point home, when words couldn't manage to convey the depth of what he was saying. I kissed him back, gripping his upper arms and biting his bottom lip in retaliation when he finally pulled away. His eyes met mine once more, one black and one violet, both filled with raw determination and understanding.

“You're not a bad person. You're not a monster for thinking you might do anything to save the person you love,” they whispered. “Or, if you are a monster, then you are not alone. I've long ago stopped believing in heaven and hell, and I know things areneverblack and white. Do what you think is right. What Elijah wishes. But whatever you choose, know at leastIwill never judge you for it.”

The he straightened and strode out of the room, his back ramrod straight and his long red braid swinging with his confident stride. The unshakable confidence of an all-powerful immortal being living inside an all-powerful witch who could level a city, then raise its dead.

“Goddess,” I whispered to myself, as I rested my head in my hands and let out a heavy sigh. “I wish I had half that man's balls.”

Bis chirped a string of laughter, startling me, since I had completely overlooked the fact that he was still there, picking at a little plate of seeds and fruit Niamh had left out for him. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Glad you find my spiral into moral decayamusing.”

He just waved a paw at me and stuffed a raisin in his mouth, his cheeks bulging as he spoke. “You're afraid of turning into them. Your ancestors,” he said, swallowing his mouthful before giving me a serious skunk-rat-hedgehog look. “But you're not. You could never be like them, Andy. Even if youdiddo something awful like take a life, it wouldn't be for fun, or out of curiosity, or….” He waved his little paws, “because you were bored, or something.”

Sitting back, on his hind legs, he blinked up at me with his shiny black eyes. “You won't hurt anyone, if you can help it. I know you won't. But you might have to, someday. And it still won't make you like them. They never killed to protect. They never agonized over their decisions. They never did those awfulthings they did out of love, or because they thought they were making a sacrifice for the greater good. They simply wanted all the power they could gather, by any means necessary, so they could lord it over everyone else. I think you need to remember that.”

I huffed and ran a hand through my hair, not sure whether to laugh or cry. “Are you sureI'mthe parent here? I think you disperse lectures and wisdom far more often than I do.”

He waved me away and picked up a peanut. “Kids can be wise too. Sometimes wiser than their parents.” And he followed that up with a distinctly old man sort of look. “Another thing to keep in mind when you're worrying about your family.”

I rolled my eyes. But he wasn't wrong.

Iwaswiser than my parents. Or at least, I was a hell of a lot more grounded in reality and morals. Dyre's confession had roused something inside me, something deep and feral. He was right. I would do any number of bad things in the name of love. But Bis was right, too. I wasn't selfish. If the time came when I had to hurt someone, it would be for better reasons than my ancestors.

I wasn't naive. I knew things were likely to get violent and dangerous with the SA and the cultists hounding us. There was a very high likelihood that people would die. Maybe by my hand. But Elijah was right. I wouldn't go out and rob someone of their life for my own selfish reasons.

I took a deep breath and tried to focus on more important matters. “What should I wear to really piss off the angels when we go knocking on their door?” I asked my furry son.

He shook his head. “Momma, you might not be a killer yourself. But I think you might have a death wish.”

I burst out laughing. He wasn't wrong.

Chapter 2

Elijah

Once upon a time, I was a blind young man who fully believed all the rhetoric and lies my people told about our race. Even the lies that we told each other. The ones propagated by the high chorus of elders.

I had only started to become aware of the deception shortly before my untimely death in the Planus realm. I grew up like any angel, thinking we were the superior creatures in all the realms. That we were the shining example that others should strive to emulate. That we were pure, and just, and always right, divinely guided, though the divine in this case was not the robed man in the sky as many Planus religions believed.

I had barely reached adulthood before I started to see the cracks in our society's lies. While the majority of angels truly believed, on some level, that they had a duty to uphold the ideals we strove to enforce in other realms, to continue the glamor that clouded judgement and made others think our heavenly judgement was something to follow without question… there were many who knew better.

I saw the hypocrisy. The signs of our impurity. The double standards in what we saidothers should do, and what we did ourselves here in our own realm, behind closed doors or within the safety of our choir. I stumbled upon sensuality and lust by accident, then shamed myself for feeling the feelings those states invoked. I heard impure words, and no one was struck down. I saw how not everyone in the angelic realm followed their own tenants… and once I was dead, I saw and understood even more, sent on spying missions for the Lovell witches who owned my specter.

It was all a grand scheme to place angels above the humans of Planus, and even some sects on in Magea, so the angels could draw energy and power from them. It was about power, influence, and ego. And those things, my people had in excess.

They employed all sorts of measures to maintain their mystery and allure, and one of the most effective tools was to remain aloof and cut off from those they controlled. Access to the realm was strictly controlled, portals were only available in certain locations, and permission to visit the angelic realm was doled out with extreme rarity and caution. Though of course, our higher choir members could access Planus and Magea any time they wished, in order to continue to inspire and awe the lesser beings there.

The last time we all set foot in the angelic realm, Andy had been given permission to enter because she was working for the Supernatural Alliance on a mission that the angels deemed at least somewhat important. Now, we had no invitation, and no guarantee that we would even be able to make it to our destination, let alone obtain the nullifier and make our way back home.

My people could be… well, stubborn was only half of it. They could bepricks. In fact, the members of the high chorusenjoyedbeing pricks, just for the sake of being pricks. It was quite likelythat we were all going to end up blasted back to the pocket world, or sent through a portal into the void between worlds. And yet, here was Andy, her shoulders thrown back, spine straight, and lips pressed together in concentration as she tore a portal open and broke into angelus using nothing but raw power and determination.

When the spitting, hissing, barely stable portal sprang to life, she turned to the rest of us with a manic gleam in her dove gray eyes. She was wearing faded jeans with herb stains on them, along with a t-shirt that had seen better days and had the wordshag mother take the wheelscrawled across it in direct challenge to the patriarchal religious ideology that the angels liked to encourage. Bis clung to her shoulder with his tiny backpack in place, and he nodded as she spoke, as if he seconded her words.

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