Kayla let her breath leave her as she was enveloped by darkness. She wanted all her confusion to trickle down into the void, but she realized she wasn’t completely adrift. A suffocating warmth felt like cotton against her eyes, her mouth; it tangled her hair and caught the backs of her arms. She could feel the fire inside her chest leap, then plummet down below her stomach, and she knew this black abyss was the comfort of his arms. Last time she felt closeness like this, she was sure something else significant occurred as well. Her hands burned.
The scraping of purple stones along her back was a familiar sensation by now. He was still so close to her, but she couldn’t make out the boundaries of his body. She heard his voice, but it was images that reached her. There was a red flower, spreading its four petals, and her thighs clenched in recognition of the heat it generated. She felt exposed. Stars were falling and people were afraid. But something emerged from those extinguished blazes…beautiful, mysterious, tragic. The Heavens fused with all that was profane below, and now there were new lights to move across the surface of the Earth. There were those that fell to their knees and offered what poor gifts they could, and the Stars, so like gods, found splendor in the fragility of Creation and accepted the touch of urgency and the taint of death. This joining of the divine and the mundane resulted in offspring: new creatures that glowed brighter and burned faster than any before them. These Nephilim were hunted, and it was necessary for them to seek isolation, to hide their brilliance from an avenging God, mad in His death throes, and swarms of humans, wild with the terror of autonomy.
The flower’s red petals were turning inward, as the plant began to consume itself. Kayla tried to open her eyes to the present reality, to escape memories that were not her own, but that heat still churned below, and it dragged her back down into its core. That fire wasn’t limitless, however. Nothing was. Even the sun could be quenched again, and last time that happened, the world exploded.
At least that’s what we were all told.
Kayla felt her heavy limbs twitch. She couldn’t distinguish the exact moment when her thoughts broke from Sebastian’s and Jeremy forced his way through.
We didn’t see an Eclipse, and if we did, we had no memory of it. We were guiltless, innocent, and never given a chance. Humans didn’t do this. He did.
She couldn’t catch her breath. The stars she saw this time only appeared in brief, blinding moments of pain. No one mourned the loss of the trees or lamented over the barren ground, but there were machines that would never move again, and that was enough reason for Jeremy’s stars to return, quickly and without warning. There was nothing beautiful in this new world until that child’s eyes recognized him.
Cool, clean air flooded her lungs. Humanity didn’t have to be brutal, senseless. With Kit, he wasn’t alone. Kayla’s muscles began to loosen, but this new atmosphere of peace was threatened by another image, looming right outside her range of vision. A sense of dread began to settle with the knowledge that no man could escape his beginnings. Original sin wasn’t dealt out equally, and that girl couldn’t lift his portion. But she tried.
A burst of white light cleared everything away. Not even the red flower remained. Sebastian’s spirit stirred restlessly within Kayla, grasping at the last image she received. Soon, she could feel him regretfully abandoning his curiosity about what caused that explosion, but as she began to open her eyes to cypress trees and ivory marble, the world went dark again beneath the choking strength of his grip.
“I thought he told you not to trust the voices in your head.” Although she couldn’t see Sebastian, his breath warmed the side of her face. Kayla struggled to swallow a wave of guilt. “This is real. I’m here. I am only doing this because you desire it.” A flower with six orange petals reached out for her. “You are Nephilim. You want to ascend, but you need a solid place for your steps to land. You have been separated from your legacy for too long, and this is the only way, now. I’m going to continue to open the gates of energy in you that have been forced closed.” The fire between her legs was thrust into her lower abdomen. “You’ll experience our collective memories as this happens. When I’m done, you’ll have your ‘undefiled knowledge.’ You’ll be clean, light, and ready to see the connection between the next change and all that has come before. Then the last hours of this era will truly mean something…”
The flaming petals swelled and his voice drifted away. The warmth that radiated out from within her hips drew his presence closer, and she could feel the weight of his chest against hers for a moment before it passed through the boundaries of her body, and his energy trickled down to meet the ball of light below. A dull ache squeezed her heart, but it wasn’t any familiar sense of hopeless longing. This new pressure opened up her lungs and awakened her sluggish blood. Her nerves tingled and her hands were alive with pulsing sparks. Kayla breathed deeply, to take in as much of Sebastian’s sensations as she could, but there seemed to be no limit to the amount of air she was now capable of filling herself with. Lost in his vision, she let his feet lead her towards the object of his fascination, gasping with pleasure at the electric jolts that coursed through her arms. He was aware of these feelings, they were his after all, but for Sebastian there was no mystery to this agitated bliss. He was merely being drawn to the light of another Star.
Sebastian’s steps quickened, moving curiously over uneven ground, but Kayla didn’t notice the environment he navigated through. There was no place, only his body — her body — and even that was just a vessel for this fervor, this need to join again with something that was theirs all along. Kayla’s sight began to clear, revealing a pair of wide eyes, and the heat that was building within her hips was suddenly released, setting her entire body on fire. Those eyes, so familiar, met hers, and it was recognition that softened their fear-rounded gaze and loosened the tight mouth below. Sebastian reached for the Angel in the tree, and Kayla let her senses dissolve into the serenity of the flames within. The world was nearly dark again, but she could see Kiera’s mouth bare its teeth and open in a silent scream. She felt Sebastian’s limbs respond, and although he didn’t let the vulgar creatures he struck down steal his focus from the Nephil, Kayla couldn’t ignore their energy. She didn’t notice the presence of those humans before, but now she choked and shivered, cringing away from their desperate and brutal imaginings, grotesquely fragmented in their crippled subconscious. She clung to Sebastian’s strength as he silenced their vicious thoughts and the rocks stopped flying. Kayla felt the Nephil’s touch, and there was peace in her fire, as it flowed in tranquil billows from one conduit to another.
She sighed, allowing the orange petals to return. Love was recognition and it was without pain. This was her natural state. She let the ball of light between her hips expand with a deep inhalation.
This isn’t your peace.
Kayla coughed spasmodically in an effort to exhale. “No…” Why was Jeremy’s voice still within her? Why couldn’t she sever this connection?
That’s not what you want. You meant what you said in that tower. I understand that now. And I…I didn’t know until now what all that pain meant. Yeah, there was pain, but there was recognition too. Don’t tell me you didn’t see me…
The stars were falling, but Jeremy held on to her admission of love. It’s what he wanted. She said the words, but it would never have to be tested, so it couldn’t wither or be destroyed. The world would end — his world would end — and those words were the trumpets to herald the coming darkness. It’s what he wanted.
Why did it even matter? He asked that of himself so many times since he first saw her frightened face peering up at him. She had tried then to hide her innocent eyes beneath the forced pull of resolute brows. Why did it matter that she was beautiful, that when he touched her, he forgot all those that called him Saros? She didn’t have a past. She didn’t see tidal waves and famine in him. Every stretch of desert or swamp didn’t move her to mourn what once was. Za’in would give her past back to her, and here he was, caug
ht in a futile battle with his own helplessness.
Kayla couldn’t will her throat to complete the motion of swallowing. In a few dizzying moments, she traveled across the wastelands again, but this time, inside Jeremy. This wasn’t the harmony of Angelic love, spiraling cleanly from one vessel to another, leaving nothing behind beside intensified warmth and understanding. Human passion was fragmented and it didn’t wind in predictable patterns. It led her through endless nights in the desert, when his skin was whipped raw from the wind and sand…through ruins where Za’in echoed so loudly, he couldn’t remember his own voice. Through the filth of cities, and the desire to be able to just bleed again… She was there with him now, but she was there then too. Every mercy and every sin he committed was in her name. There was no hope for the future, only the eternal desire for her gaze, her touch, her words.
Her tears burst forth so suddenly that they seemed to have jagged edges. She and Jeremy both were holding on to a hurt that could be healed so simply. Why did she ever do anything but tell him honestly, tell him everything, as many times as he needed to hear it? The light, the flowers, none of it mattered. She’d break through and free him from beneath the mountain, from beneath the weight of eighteen years after the end of the world. “Jeremy, I—”
Exploding sparks of light blinded Kayla as the air was forcefully taken out of her. A yellow flower with ten petals appeared, but she didn’t have the energy to tear it away, as she struggled to breathe the sting out of the tender area above her navel.
“Have you learned nothing?” Sebastian spat. “Even you have the ability to read the intentions of those humans that attacked your mother. What do you think would have happened to her if I didn’t Intercede? Have you forgotten the outcome of the last time you gave into that human, Saros? You barely survived, and now you’ve been tethered to his darkness as he sucks your vitality. The Nephilim are the divine, plagued with the taint of human weakness. Nothing is more dangerous. It’s necessary for us to cultivate our higher essence, and to eliminate the base impulses that threaten from within.”
Kayla could feel her tears evaporating from her feverish skin. There was nothing she could do. She had one foot in the material world, but the other had already begun to transform. As a human, how could she ever overpower Sebastian? And as an Angel, her will was the whim of a higher power. She felt his hands high on her stomach.
“You’d do well not to resist me. If we don’t move quickly, you’ll burn up before we’ve finished.”
Kayla winced as the sphere of light expanded, pressing out against her ribs and skin. She experienced his impatience as a sudden barrage of emotions, devoid of words and simple in imagery. She tried to step back, to separate from him, but she faltered, unsure of which memories she should discard. Maybe all these were hers, and she was just discovering them again. The thought patterns seemed foreign at first, but perhaps they were the structure that came before her fears and desires pulled her adrift.
The sky was very clear. The vibrancy of the blue hue was without variation, and staring at it too long hurt her eyes. She was dying. They all were. There was a time when the idea of extinguishing was noble and romantic, but now it was just another indignity she didn’t have the patience to endure. Not anymore. It wasn’t an accident that she was here, and it wasn’t a punishment. This world was her inheritance. It wasn’t made properly, but that was no reason to surrender it to her murderers.
How could something so weak bring her to this? This shouldn’t be her last look. She groaned, reaching out for the Intercessor shard that lay motionless, a few feet away. It wasn’t hers, but she wouldn’t let those creatures take what was left of her kind and use it to fuel their superstitions. This was forbidden, but soon there would be no one left to condemn her. She took the sharp end, once a gleaming white, and dragged it along her inner arm, from her armpit to her elbow. C-r-o-o-d-z-i. This was her vow. The second beginning of things.
She watched the red lines of Angelic script expand before her blood completely obscured the form and meaning of the word. The second beginning of things. Her intentions pooled in her upturned palm. Reverence for God, regard for Man, even her devotion to her brothers brought her here. The only way to survive, to find a real life, was to swear her only allegiance to her own will. She stirred the blood cupped in her hands with the Intercessor shard. The second beginning…
The pain in her palm caused the light within her to fluctuate wildly. Deeper. She didn’t cry out. Push it in deeper. She clenched her teeth, tightening her throat against a wave of nausea. Her Intercessor stirred, involuntarily lurching outward, but the shard met its forward thrust, sliding between the layers of bone like a slick needle. The moment of pain before her entire left side went numb continued to throb in her memory. She closed her eyes. They were coming. Her muscles loosened, allowing her head to swim up into that piercing blue sky, even as her heart beat heavily into the earth. They were coming back, to take what they could. When they returned, she would show them divine retribution. This time she would have the chance she was never given, because of course, this time she created the opportunity herself.
The yellow petals were small and fragile, defenseless even in this mild breeze.
She woke to a vibrating pressure opening thousands of tiny wounds in her chest. Her eyes fluttered open, her fists clenching. This couldn’t be avoided. She fixed her stare on the scars across his arm as he marked her body. Those symbols were familiar, but she couldn’t decipher them.
“I haven’t done one of these in a long time. There hasn’t been a need.”
She started at the sound of Sebastian’s voice, but only felt an uneasy intimacy when she heard Jeremy’s words issue from her mouth. “I’m…grateful, sir.”
“You’re not the first Saros child I’ve encountered.”
“I know, Lord Za’in.” Her eyes moved over her skin, and she attempted to identify these features as belonging to Jeremy or herself, but her awareness kept slipping to other places. The vibration. The sigils. The fear.
“You’ve survived me. And I have plans for you.”
She tried again to read Za’in’s scars, but she could only think of that other boy’s face. That dead soldier who brought her here. “Is this punishment then? For killing him, I mean.”
“He was a Malak, and you’ll do more than replace him. I wouldn’t consider that a punishment, but an opportunity.”
His name was Nathaniel. She remembered that, at least. She didn’t know him, but still she experienced a cold twinge in some imagined hollow beneath her breastbone. Her defeated opponent was intelligent, powerful, but he didn’t matter either, not even to his Lord. “How come that Malak knew about me?”
Sebastian pressed down harder with his needle. “It’s sometimes very useful how these marks affect humans so differently…”
She didn’t like the strange way he used that word. “So this tattoo made him psychic?”
“He was assigned to do what he was able.”
“But I can’t do that, so—”
“The Malak might be dead, but he’s still in service to me. Your abilities will be different, but your fate is the same. You’re now a part of something greater than yourself.”
She closed her eyes. She remembered giving in then. It wasn’t comfortable, but she was the one that lived, not the Malak Nathaniel. And this way, she could take care of Kit. That was part of the deal. But soon she could feel Za’in trying to find his way inside, and she discovered that the others felt it too, but they were unable to resist. They told her that no one could escape it. It was a part of taking the mark, or any other Mods. It’s not like they didn’t have their benefits. She found that now her body could effortlessly perform once strenuous tasks, her reflexes were instant and her heightened strength gave her a very solid sense of freedom. The new joy she found in movement almost made her forget. But she didn’t want to share it with Za’in. The others said there was one man that couldn’t be reached into, one man that kept his free will and his
soul… Michael Steelryn. If he could do it, she’d find a way to keep Za’in out too. The fire in her stomach burned hotter with the pressure of constant vigilance.
The world went black, and her arms jerked in an attempt to find her bearings. A green flower began to appear and she tried to turn from it, to let the darkness return, but the heat rose high into her chest and she was confronted with a six-pointed star nestled between the petals.
“Kayla.”
“Yes, it’s me…” She moaned, dropping her head.
“I apologize,” Sebastian murmured. “It was unfair to give you my experiences without a veil to separate you, without a ledge for you to step back on. It obscured your identity just long enough for him to take advantage and split you further from yourself. Kayla, come back. But allow me to continue. Your potential, your Angelic nature…even your fragile human consciousness depends on the completion of our journey here.”
Kayla’s eyes scanned the blackness that surrounded her, but there was no escape. Her limbs were heavy and weak, as all of her vitality joined the fire rushing around her heart. She thought of Jeremy, but she couldn’t even gather a sense of betrayal to fuel her. Sighing, she collapsed into the center of the flower as she was enveloped by its petals.
“I wasn’t as cruel to my soldiers as he made it appear.” Sebastian’s voice gently stroked her threadbare nerves. “Michael understood the urgency of our cause and didn’t take personally the sometimes harsh realities of this path.” He paused, but still his whisper faintly wavered. “He was my first Arch.”
Kayla raised her head suddenly, moved by the restrained emotion that weighed down his last five words. She searched for his face, his eyes, but he wasn’t there. Instead, there were banyan trees and crisp air, her feet crunching over dead grass and hardy weeds. Michael was sitting in the clearing behind the church, leaning against an abandoned concrete tube. His head was thrown back, eyes closed, and his young face was pinched with frustration. As she approached, she could see nearly a dozen discarded books surrounding him, in various states of use and mutilation.
Dominion of the Star (Descendants of the Fallen Book 1) Page 35
