When Blood Runs Cold - Chapter 249

By late afternoon that same day, a small gathering of missmatched individuals await listlessly for the arrival of the news they so desperately want to hear.

From up on the hilltop, the view of my kingdom is a peculiar sight. A maze of forges and weaponries that have sprung up in the streets overnight. And the towns are now littered with wings and fangs that are barely lit by the golden flames cast by the angels that are bottles in the lamposts. But up here, the tinker and clash of hammers has become all but a distant throb of noise, drowned out by the whistle of the wind and the blustery motion of the leaves on the trees.

It is, oddly, serene.

“Look after Dawn, won’t you?” Ithuriel smiles warmly as he hands the small angel over to Lilyana. Allowing the half awake angel to nestle in between her arms, Lilyana gives a gracious nod to the tall angel warrior. It is a nice home she has made for herself, the new Queen of the angel’s: a large abode at the outskirts of Sezeria where she has made her temporary shelter for the flame. The last I heard was that they had it barred under layers of lock and silver and cold, unrelenting obsidian, so that they might keep the prying hands of vampires- or more precisely my brother, off. I even lent her some of the eternal marble my sources managed to scour up from the depths of a realm I haven’t visited in a long, long time.

Hell isn’t exactly a nice realm to visit, but when duty calls, it is hardly in my best interest to deny us the sources we already have at hand. A quick shadow shift down and I am sent right to the depths of that most loathsome cesspit of sinners and crooked mortal souls. Perhaps I will have to get to redesigning some of it at some point, if I am going to be making a habit of visiting. I am sure the hell hounds would appreciate the gesture, too.

But nevertheless, no matter how much I despise visiting, its resources have come in most handy. Especially for guarding the flame.

So far, it seems to be working, too.

“Of course I will look after her, Ithuriel,” Lilyana teases, waving him off with a dismissive gesture of her hand. Ithuriel purses his lips, but remains staunchly silent.

Glancing over the two from the shadow of towering birch, I give an inward sigh. However much Ithuriel would hate to admit it, having Lilyana as the new angel Queen in Serena’s place has certainly been jarring to him. The new positions, the orders… From having served Queen Serena for his entire life, this is a jump to say the least. Although for the most part it is a temporary measure, I can tell from the uncertainty in those two toned eyes that he isn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Seeing the shade of orange that flushes over Ithuriel’s hair, Lilyana adds:

“She is in good hands. Besides, Delina will help me take care of her,” she assures, diving inside the grand tent. She is then followed by a rustling motion from inside as she fishes around for something I cannot see. Ithuriel follows her in warily, his eyes trained on Dawn.

It would seem over the past few days he has become rather attached to the little angel, so much so that he almost cannot bear to see her go. Perhaps he does not like entertaining the idea that she might be returned to the unscrupulous hands of Igor, even if the council of the angels has been long since disbanded.

Kal, Fangorn and I all wait listlessly outside Lilyana’s tent: a grand, ruby gazebo like structure that is laden with wards that swim around the edges like shoals of fish, dancing in the wind. Lilyana hadn’t spared any precautions in ensuring the flame was well protected, enlisting the hands of vampires and angels alike (along with a few other stray Folk) to offer their services and keep it protected. So far, her plan could not be more flawless.

A few minutes pass us by as Ithuriel and Lilyana continue to converse lowly inside, their voices occasionally slipping through the cracks in the tent so that poor Kal- whose hearing is mortal and rather weak, manages to catch it.

“I swear, they have been in there for weeks,” Kal groans with an obvious exaggeration, earning him a round of exasperated, if not slightly humoured, sighs. Desperately, he bobs his head to peer inside, but the veils of the tent are too thick to make out anything. Finally, he relents. Crossing his arms over himself, he rolls his eyes.

“What are they even talking about?” he grumbles, pouting as a cold gust of wind rockets through the hilltop. Patting his back reassuringly, I let myself stand beside him.

“War talk, very boring,” I assure him, giving another hearty pat on his shoulder. Kal sniffs once.

“Right.”

Reclining back against the towering birch tree, Fangorn shuts his eyes, humming the song that was sung at the revelry last night.

“And here I thought you were the most patient one, Kal,” he says with a grumbling chuckle, the undersides of his mouth twitching upwards into a smile. Kal only makes a few airy gestures before settling back down into the grass beside me, swaying back and forth with a repetitive and languorous motion that he has been repeating for roughly fifteen minutes.

Rolling my eyes, I slip through the shadows once more, settling myself on the stump of a tree a few meters outside the tend. Resting my head between my laced fingers, I draw my legs up, reclining there for a while. Soon losing track of both the idle conversation inside and out of the tent, I find myself slipping off into privy thoughts of Serena, and how she might be faring.

In the days that have passed since her brief showing in my court room, there has been little word of her whereabouts or even what she is up to. My hell hounds have not returned or offered up any information since their first visit back, and the bond that Serena and I have shared is still little more than a whisper in the back of my mind.

Some nights I find myself wondering if I will ever feel it, feel  her,  again at all.

As for the rest of it… It would seem Azrael has decided to take a low profile in this case, a fact which (had I not been so livid about him taking my mate) I might have even commended him for. His movements have remained shrouded under the deception of laying low, and his plans have yet to make themself apparent. But however slippery my brother may be, there is one thing I can always rely on him to do.

Scheme.

There is, and always will be, something deeper to this mess that he has created for himself. After all, one does not steal an entire palace for the purpose of laying low. Sure he wants the soul, but his motives are never so straight tracked. Azrael is looking to do something else too, and it’s only a matter of time until I figure out what.

But such ponderous thoughts in the scheme of blood and war are bound to be whisked away, and so quickly I find myself drawn back to reality by a quick chirrup of my name.

“Hey Soren?” Comes Fangorn’s voice, rough like bark and yet entirely gentle. Rustling around, Fangorn steadies the large contraptions he has brought up with him, hoisting them into his grasp. My eyes latch on to this- the metal wings, enchanted by the forgers of Illysium. Elris finished them up only this morning, ordering us to bring them up to Lilyana on our next visit- though I have a sneaking feeling that Elris knew we would be going up to see her today. After all, today is the day we leave for the Dark Woods.

“What is it, Fangorn?” I breathe at last, giving a sideways glance to my companion who loiters beside me. His expression twists for a moment.

“Do you think they will know where the soul is? After all, Xavier never mentioned it in his time here. Could there be a chance…” he drops off for a moment, scanning his surroundings warily before whispering into his cupped hand:

“Could there be a chance that Elris is wrong?”

Silence for a moment. It would be wrong to say the same thoughts haven’t crossed my mind once or twice in the past few hours.

Most fortunately, a voice peeking out of the tent answers before I can even consider my convoluted answer.

“As if that could happen,” scoffs the lean figure who drifts down the incline towards us, silhouetted by the bright morning sun and the electrifying radiance of her aura. She tiptoes over the soft, dewy pads of grass, her warm brown skin fresh and glowing from the influence of the flame, instilling life into the very fabric of her being, like lightning being woven into her flesh.

Here she is. The new Queen of the Angels.