A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck

by Jade Brieanne

  We don’t treat humans like this! We don’t!

  The next scene, however, would stick in his mind until his body and soul submitted to The Nothingness.

  Pure white light poured from Jin, bright and blinding, filling the dome until it was impossible to see. A bird’s cry was heard, clear and sharp, and then there was silence. When the light faded, a pillar of the blackest salt Key had ever seen stood in the place where Jin Amaris had once laid. There was no blood, no carnage. Just salt. The pillar of Jin was nude. A Phoenix was on her shoulder, a spear in one hand, and Aria’s blade was at her feet. The long, feathered tail of the Phoenix wrapped around her body, shielding her.

  Nobody knew what to do. So everyone did what they knew how to do.

  Ahn was arrested. It wasn’t a hard thing to do. His knees hit the ground and the red water stained his white pants as he surrendered.

  The eldest of The Above wasn’t the only person arrested that night. Aiden had been taken into custody as well but it was more precautionary than criminal. Aiden’s reaction, while very understandable, was dangerous, deadly, and full of unfettered rage and grief. Things were tense enough as it was without a human attacking an angel. It was for his own good. It sounded cliché, but Key had, somewhere along the way, made Aiden a priority as well. Sort of. He still thought, no, knew the man was a liability. That knowledge didn’t stop him from caring.

  Jon's reaction to the hue and cry was pacified, slow, and careful, like…well, Key didn't know. He’d never known Jon for levelheadedness in the middle of chaos. Despite his inaction, he'd been taken to a similar holding cell. Key guessed it was because Jon was a human, a human friend of the man losing his absolute mind in anger and grief and confusion and Caeli wasn’t all that good with dealing with the responsibility of emotions they caused.

  Key gnashed his teeth. The entire night had been a disaster!

  If he were them, he would hate the very sight of angels. Jon tolerated them only for a greater good, a good Key wasn’t sure he still believed in. Everyone had been drawn in whether by chance or by fate. Everyone prescribe to the madness, fought for a solution and tried their hardest to control the pandemonium.

  Everyone was putting their all on the line to correct the mistake.

  The mistake Ahn caused.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Timnath-Heres Hall Dungeons

  Elysian, Caelian Realm

  Two weeks before Team Fox’s departure from Caeli

  “I’ve never been down here before.” Key took a seat at a tall-backed armchair they pulled out for visitations. “You would think this was a luxury apartment rather than a holding cell.”

  Ahn smiled, saccharine sweet and false. “It’s a trick, you see. I have the power to leave this place any time I chose but something in their very small brains thinks that if they surround me with opulence I’m supposed to want to stay. Because I’m this paradigm of justice and goodness and whatever drivel is written on those scrolls,” he knocked a few that cluttered the desk to the ground, “I’m supposed to want to stay.” Ahn scoffed. “I never planned on leaving in the first place.”

  “They may execute you,” Key speculated.

  Ahn rolled his eyes. “They are not going to execute me.”

  “They should,” Key returned.

  “You think so?” Ahn tilted his head and leaned forward, his elbows kissing the hard gold surface of his prison desk. “I never figured you for emotional.”

  Key’s breath escaped between his lips, shaky, and the temptation to launch himself from the chair, break through the glass barrier and punch Ahn right in his contemptuous face was damn near irrepressible. “So you consider my wish to see you pay for your crimes emotional? I see.”

  “And foolish. Nearsighted. Negligent and not to mention irresponsible.”

  Key did stand this time, the fury streaming him from tangible and violently drenched in his spirit essence. Power poured from him like water from a tap. His spiritual pressure lashed out, like prickly, throned limbs, reaching for the walls, the floor, the molecules in the air, anything to clamp down on. It weighed the air down, and Key could feel it, feel the hair that wasn’t dancing in the draft of his power, plastering to his scalp.

  “She was mine! She belonged to me! My responsibility! My mission! You knew from the start, you knew what you were planning to do and you sent us down there anyway!”

  Ahn tsked. “There is that temper.” Ahn tilted his head to the other side, resting it against his fist. “Listen to what you are saying. Me, my, mine. Tell me Kithlish, are you more upset that Jin Amaris is sealed away in a pillar of salt or that you were lied to? Is this about you, your mission, or that woman’s life?”

  Key’s spirit pressure fluctuated, licking against the glass wall separating him from Ahn. “You’re not going to get me with that reverse psychology bullshit. If you want me to pick, I pick all of the above!” His words came with another burst of power, and quite frankly, Key didn’t realize he was this angry. His spirit mass pressed against the glass until it splintered at the middle, creating a complicated spider web of cracks fingering their way towards the edge.

  Ahn looked at him like Key was being an annoying puppy, nipping at his ankles. “Power down, Kithlish. You can’t kill me. The only thing you’re doing is pissing yourself off. And think, if you break this glass, how are we going to continue our little talk, hmm?”

  The silence stretched long between them until Key reined his powers in with a loud curse. The pressure in the room lifted and the cracks in the glass began to mend themselves until the glass separator was whole again.

  “This is why I chose you, Kithlish. Parker is an indecisive, morally deluded goody-two-shoes who wanted to involve the Army of The Fallen for Creator’s sake, and Seff has a stick up his ass about us not using Seraphim. Bon Baji believes in you, but because she’s soft on you, not because of a real assessment of your power. Me? I knew you would succeed. You are the embodiment of each and every last one of us. You are almost a perfect leader, Kithlish. I knew you would bring Aria home.”

  “Her–name–is–Jin,” Key gritted out between his teeth.

  Ahn laughed. “There’s that highly unnecessary emotion! This calls for logic, not your feelings, kit. Let me ask you this, Kithlish. How much longer do you think that’s going to be the truth?”

  Key blinked. “What?”

  “How much longer do you think Jin is going to be Jin? Why do you think I had her brought back here? Why do you think I ran her through with Aria’s sword? Go a step further, kit. Why do you think I went through so much to keep her alive?”

  “Speak clearly, you old fool,” Key bit out.

  “Aria was always my goal. The others always thought, always said ‘One day...when we know more, when we know enough.’ Me? “One day” was some far off imaginary bullshit date that would never come. Parade Jin around as the holder of Aria’s soul, maybe one day teach her how to fight, hoping that Aria would seep through, take over, who the hell knows! But we don’t have time for one day. We never have, not since the day Aria died. We have time for right now. It’s always been right now. We have to act before those who want to destroy us come for us.”

  “The Eleven.”

  “Yes,” Ahn said. “They wouldn’t have come for Jin’s life if they weren’t planning to fulfill their threat.”

  Key remembered the threat. He would never forget it. They taught it in his lessons and buried it in Caelilore and made him recite it at year-end assessments. It was Ayesha’s curse, a threat that had bubbled up through her dying madness, as if a storm calmed long enough to allow it passage before its winds swept her back up and away.

  The eyes of our blood do see, the ears of our blood do hear and the mouth of our blood do speak. You all will come to rue the cruelty dealt to my family!

  “I have faith in you, kit. Wait before you decide to be my judge, jury, and executioner.” Ahn paused and a smile crawled across his lips. “One way or another, you’ll get the answers…maybe ev
en the solutions you are looking for.” Ahn laughed. “If I live long enough to give them to you…”

  Key knew what Ahn wanted. He wanted his cousin back, he wanted the strongest warrior Caeli had ever seen…he wanted his weapon. The reason was noble–the survival of Caeli. Key had to admit, if he had no connection or any affection for Jin, Ahn’s plan would have been acceptable. Even genius! He would have looked the other way, shelved his morals, douse his righteous fury. He was an agent of Caeli, a General, and Ahn was his High Commander. It was their duty to protect Caeli.

  But it was also their duty to protect humans. Jin was a human

  “How long has it been since you last saw Aiden?” Key asked Jon, leaning against the windowsill, his arms tucked across his chest.

  “Again, we left the bar around five-six, maybe? Sun was still in the sky. He took a cab, saying he was going to drop some paperwork off. They never reported his arrival and he never showed up at his apartment.”

  “We can do another sweep. It shouldn’t take us long to comb the city again. We’ll increase the radius this time, try the old neighborhood he and Jin first moved to if he’s having dreams,” Tahir suggested.

  “It’s worth a shot, Key. Better than waiting here,” Rooke tried.

  “Yeah. That might be best.” His hand rubbed his chin, now dusted with fuzzy hair. There’s no telling if Song’s method would work. His phone rang and he looked down, watching as “Foxy Song” came up on the display. “I’ve been wrong before,” he murmured. Key put her on speakerphone and placed the device on the table. “Tell me something good.”

  “Well I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news and then we have some complicated news. I’ll give you the good first. We found your lost duck.”

  Everyone in the room breathed a sigh of collective relief. Key leaned closer to the phone. “Where is he?”

  “That’s the bad news.”

  “Well, you didn’t say dead duck, so I’m not sure how bad the news can get,” Rooke said from his position on the back of the couch.

  “For your mission? It might have been better if he was dead.”

  Jon balked and sputtered, angry and began to reach for the phone. Key was faster and snatched it away. He placed a hand on Jon’s thigh and squeezed. Just once. Friendly-like, he supposed. “She doesn’t mean that,” he mouthed. “What do you mean, Song?”

  “Here’s your bad news and here’s your complicated news. The Eleven had him. They were trying to get him to remember Jin Amaris on the off chance he’d try to get back to Caeli by any means possible. Anyone with knowledge of souls knows that any emotional connection to a subject before or during a demarcation event could endanger the procedure. Both Jin and Aria could be lost. For them, of course, that’s a good thing. Not sure how they planned on getting him back to Caeli to begin with but I don’t question The Eleven’s methods, just their intentions.”

  “Through us,” Key sniffed. Because we are foolish enough to take him there if he demanded us to.”

  “I’m guessing it didn’t work,” Rooke offered.

  “Correct. They failed., To make your matters complicated, there is the issue of who is bringing your lost little ducky to you.”

  Key’s brows furrowed. “You mean it isn’t one of your people?”

  Song made a strange noise in the back of her throat. “He’s an old friend so to speak.”

  “Who is it?” Jon exclaimed, his face hard with anger and annoyance. “I don’t have time to sit around while you freaks reminisce! I need to get my friend back!”

  “He sounds fun,” Song deadpanned.

  “Life of the party,” Tahir grumbled. “But he’s right. Who are we dealing with?”

  “The person who has Aiden is…” she paused. “His name is George Elder. It’s his earthly name, the one he picked up after he signed the Treaty of Mercy.”

  Tahir and Rooke’s eyes darted to Key, their eyes mirroring the same uncertainty he felt. The Treaty of Mercy? Key ran through all of the people he knew who’d signed and defected to Earth. The list was very short.

  Song continued. “He is…the son of Seraphim angels, Aw'rad'eyv and Jibra'il Tsu. He is the Ewe and the holder of the Treaty of Mercy that grants him sole access to Caeli.”

  The phone almost slipped through Key’s fingers but he squeezed his hand and caught it. “W–what did you just say? Who?”

  “Shemhazi no Semjâzâ.” Song sighed. “The one the angels cried for.”

  Silence.

  Everyone’s brains caught up to what Song said and everyone rushed to speak, their voices layering over one another in a cacophony of confusion and outrage. Key got it together the quickest and held his hand over the receiver and stared at his two Captains until they settled down.

  “You’re telling me,” Tahir tried, slowly, like if she said it slow, it would turn into a falsehood. A ridiculous one. “That Shemhazi…the Shemhazi…has Aiden?”

  “Is that a bad thing?” Jon asked. He looked around the room, bewildered. “Who the hell is Shazam?”

  “Shemhazi and you don’t want to know,” Rooke answered.

  “I don’t understand. How is he even involved? How do The Eleven even know to begin with? How do they know any of this?” Tahir asked. “No one but us on this realm should know of Jin’s demarcation event.”

  “The obvious answer is a mole, one who has access to interrealm communications and I have no way of helping you find out who that is either,” Song answered. “Not while I’m here. The one thing I do know is that this mole is connected to The Eleven, not George. Your mole is powerful and resides in Caeli. Until they are discovered, consider all of your communications with whoever above breached.”

  “Great,” Tahir muttered. “Just great.” She sat back on the sofa and rubbed her hands over her face tiredly. “We’ve got The Eleven on one side and a rebel war overlord on the other.”

  Key plopped down in a chair and stared at the door. The Eleven know. They know everything. He huffed. He wished for once that someone would roll two sixes so they could be done with that stupid number.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Temple of Tambour;

  Lower Levels

  Elysian, Caelian Realm

  Elle looked at the hard pinkish gold rock cradled in her hand. The weight of it felt familiar, coarse and prickly. She rolled it around in her palm for a few moments before she closed her fingers around it and squeezed, crushing the rock in her hand. The jagged edges of the rock dug into the soft skin of her palm. Elle winced but she continued to squeeze.

  When she opened her hand, her palm was bleeding but she’d accomplished her goal. The rock was now a pink-gold powder, drifting up into the air, swirling around her and the room. Elle tipped her head back and inhaled some of it, allowing the dust to settle into her lungs.

  It was called Wanderlust–a drug The Fallen had listed as class gold illegal because of how addictive it was, but laws didn’t stop people from seeking the high it gave. Elle was one of those people although she wasn’t addicted; she didn’t even use it half the time. She only used it when she needed it.

  As the effects of the drug seeped into her bloodstream, Elle felt the familiar delirium that came with taking it. She felt her lashes fluttering against her cheeks, felt how her skin flushed and her pupils dilated. Now under its effects, Elle could see everything, even in the darkness of the underground room. Visions swam in front of her. One was of an elephant. She was riding on top of it, swaying with her mother’s elegance as they traveled through New Delhi, the streets littered with her mother’s people who gazed up at her like she was the sun.

  Behind her, a figured stepped out of the darkness of the room and draped a thick cloak over her shoulder. Wanderlust heated the skin then cooled it. The air in the caverns below The Temple of Tambour was cool and damp. Elle figured the person didn’t want her to get sick. She was part-human after all. Elle faintly felt fingers in her short-cropped wavy hair and warm breath on her neck.

  “This Ose inq
uires if you are ready, Elle?”

  Elle nodded, her eyes swimming. She hated when Ose asked her that. Being ready or not wasn’t a matter of choice. Once Wanderlust set in there was no stopping it.

  “If Elle is ready, then this Ose is ready,” the figure said, their voice gravely and garbled, like it flowed through rocks. Ose began to sing a hymn, one as old as Caeli itself. Elle wandered about their voice, wandered about Ose as a person. It was impossible to tell if Ose was a man or a woman. Maybe they were both, maybe they were neither. She’d never seen their face or any part of them. It seemed purposeful, but considering what Ose did, it was also logical. They wore an opaque covering that was part mask, part headdress. The mask covered their face and the headdress was black horns that curled around their head and rested on their shoulders. They wore a cloak that swept the floor and black gloves that covered their hands.

  Elle couldn’t remember when they met. Ose was a known person in Caeli, famous for being mysterious and all-knowing. It was their job to be mysterious and all-knowing. They were the head of SEKRÈ, an intelligence gathering organization that worked for both humans and angels alike. It didn’t change the fact that she didn’t remember being introduced to Ose. One day they were strangers, and then the next, they weren’t. Something familiar about them resonated deep within Elle and she felt she could trust them. And it turned out she was right. Ose was the only person, in all of Caeli, who had given her access to her mother.

  Pythia Del Dantò.

  Elle was the youngest member of the illustrious, powerful, and influential Dantò family, the pride and joy of the Elizi clan. Her mother was the former Chief Maiden of Tambour, her grandmother, the Divine Matriarch and Great Mother of Caeli. Her aunts and uncles all held extremely powerful positions in Caeli and soon Elle would too.