Dumbfounded, I stared at him. “You basically want to quarantine Heaven from Earth?”
“But here I am instead,” he said, as if that excused the fact that there were angels who basically wanted to wash their hands of their own freaking mess called Gabriel.
The only thing that could’ve distracted me from how utterly infuriating angels were was what he said next.
“Zayne was presented with many choices. He could go on to eternal peace. Reborn, he could remain in the Heavens to guard the gates. He could’ve chosen to train with our armies for the final battle that will come no matter what Gabriel accomplishes. He could’ve chosen to return to Earth at the right moment, the one where he would be needed most. But he chose to return to you, to fight beside you now and forever, even though we warned him that if he were to return now, he would Fall.” There was a short laugh that sounded like wind on the mountains. “Even if he hadn’t so vocally admitted what he wanted or if we hadn’t presented him with such choices, we knew he would’ve found a way to return to you.”
And wasn’t that what he’d promised me? That no matter what, he’d find his way back to me.
“So, he Fell, and a Fallen can only be stripped of their wings and grace once they are earthbound,” the Throne explained. “No angel with the power to do so will attempt such a thing in these times.” There was a pause. “Besides, we hoped that even as a Fallen, he would remain...useful to our cause. That he would retain who he was, in his heart, and be able to help defeat Gabriel. We warned him about the burn upon reentry.”
“What does that mean exactly? The burn upon reentry?”
“When he Fell, he lost his Glory, and was exposed to the worst of the human soul. Greed. Lust. Gluttony. Sloth. Pride—”
“Wrath. Envy. I get it,” I cut the Throne off, and if I hadn’t already faced down Gabriel and if my father wasn’t the archangel Michael, I might have been cowed by the look the Throne gave me. “He said something about feeling too much. It was like—I don’t know. He seemed to find things about me familiar, but what he was feeling was blocking him or something. He seemed to be able to sense the grace in me. He attacked.”
“That’s because when he Fell, he was not only witness to the sin of humanity, he was exposed to the anger and bitterness of those who Fell before him.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. I...I couldn’t even comprehend that, couldn’t even begin to understand what Zayne must be feeling.
“We warned him that the Fall could overload his senses and infect him, potentially erasing who he was, but he was willing to risk becoming something as vile and evil as any demon, for you.”
His words were a stab to the heart.
“When he saw you tonight, he sensed your grace. The purity even in your muddied blood called to him,” he said, and I couldn’t even work up the energy to be offended by the muddied blood part. “In his conflicted state and with the anger and bitterness of all that Fell before him, he most likely viewed you as one of the brethren who’d cast him from the Heavens. He will see the Wardens the same way. The longer he remains in such a state, the more likely he is to act upon the violence that is seeping into every pore. He will become a danger to not just you or the Wardens, but to humans—to innocents.” The Throne sighed. “A Fallen in possession of their grace is a very dangerous foe, no matter how clear their heart and mind is. We’d hoped he’d reenter unscathed. We were wrong. So here we are.”
Those four words were so final.
An unbearable weight pressed down on my chest. Silly me for believing that my heart had taken all the pain it could. I’d been wrong. It was still in there, breaking all over again. He’d given up everything to be with me, and in a horrific twist of fate it sounded like he’d become something that he would’ve loathed.
“Is there no hope, then?” I asked, my voice sounding small and tired. “He won’t become who he was before? Snap out of this?”
The Throne backed up, and the light around him slowly faded. “There is always hope if one has faith.”
Faith. I almost laughed right then, but if I laughed, I’d probably never stop. The young priest would have to call someone.
If the young priest was still here. He seemed to have vanished into thin air.
The Throne started to flicker out but solidified. “You have done well despite your shortcomings. Many did not believe you would survive your first battle with Gabriel.”
Wow. That made me feel so much better about everything.
“Your father believed in you, though.”
“He did?” Disbelief rang like a church bell in my voice.
I thought he smiled again, but with the fade of his glow, his features were blurry. “For that he has given you a gift.”
“A gift?” I asked warily. I didn’t want a gift. I wanted Zayne back—the Zayne I knew and loved. Not the deranged psycho who was out there doing God only knows what.
Doing things that would destroy every piece of Zayne, because he was good to the core.
“You’ve already been given the gift.” The angel reached out, brushing his fingers over my cheek. A jolt of electricity went through me, causing my grace to spark and the corners of my vision to turn white. “What is inside you is the gift. It is both grace and Glory, a power that is beyond what your mind can comprehend and yet a power owned by you. Use it to strike through the heart encased in chaos.”
I stared at him as understanding dawned. “The Sword of Michael.”
He stepped back, those eyes on his wings blinking in unison.
“You’re saying that I’m supposed to use the Sword of Michael against Zayne?” My voice pitched high. “Stab him in the heart with it? That would kill him!”
“Your grace can never harm what you cherish. It can only restore.”
Now that sounded like some Jedi nonsense. “And I’m just supposed to take your word for that?” I demanded. Once the grace was summoned, it destroyed. Demon. Human. Warden. Even angels. He expected me to believe that because I loved Zayne, the Sword of Michael wouldn’t harm him when it could slice through the skin of a Warden like it was nothing more than water? I’d cared about Misha, and my grace had ended his life.
“Do you not have any faith?”
I opened my mouth to respond.
“I already know this answer.” His wings flared, and all those eyes stared straight into me. “It was a rhetorical question, Trueborn. You, a child of one of the most powerful archangels, have always lacked faith.” The Throne smiled at me. “It is a good thing that neither God nor your father have ever lacked faith in you.”