Twilight of the Gods
Chapter 21: The Hidden Self

“I would never hurt someone like that,” Uriel said. “I could never rip someone’s wings off.”

“I’m only telling you what I remember,” Ezra said. “It is your choice whether or not you want to believe it.”

After he went to Ezra’s room fully armed with the intent of killing him, he left confused. Dealing with the revelation that Ezra had once been an angel didn’t make things easier so Uriel had returned to seek more answers. Instead, he was running into more questions.

“Why did I rip your wings off? Somebody else could have done it,” he said.

“Because you were the new favorite,” Ezra answered. “Because you were the one that punished everyone. You are the Angel of Repentance and Sword of Vengeance, after all.”

Uriel looked at his hands, trying to imagine them covered in angels’ blood. Unable to conjure up the image, he looks back at Ezra.

“What did you do to deserve that kind of punishment?”

Rage flickers in Ezra’s eyes, lighting them up in twin blue fires. The emotion is suppressed in an instant and his cool gaze returns.

“I started a rebellion,” he said. “I gathered a few angels and demanded that the Gods let us live our own lives. Because of my insolence, all of those angels and I lost our wings at your hands.”

Uriel was at a loss for words. He was tempted to apologize, but he didn’t remember doing any of the things Ezra said. It didn’t feel enough to say sorry for something like that. Besides, he didn’t think Ezra wanted an apology.

Trying to change the subject, he asked, “You were the favorite?”

“Yes,” Ezra said, smirking. “I was Anhel’s favorite angel for many years. We were Blood Bound, just as you are connected to your God.”

He tries to imagine Ezra serving someone other than himself. It was strange to picture a selfless, loving version of the fallen angel. “Did you like being the favorite?”

“I was content for a while,” he responded. “The Blood Bond can feel intimate and euphoric. And it was nice being placed above all the other angels. But I wanted something more. I wanted to be a God.”

That sounded more like the Ezra he knew. “You can’t ascend into Godhood,” Uriel said. “Most Gods were born, not made.”

“I know that,” he replied. “Daeva and Haydn are exceptions. They can be Gods because of possession.”

One crucial thing didn’t make sense to Uriel about Ezra’s story. “How could you want Godhood? You were an angel. You didn’t have free will.”

Ezra shrugged. “Maybe the Gods made me wrong.”

Uriel doubted that. Anhel and Odi would never accidentally give their celestial servants free will. There was also one other thing that didn’t add up. Ezra had blue eyes, unlike most angels. Even the fallen ones still kept their gold eyes as a reminder of their former holiness.

“You got what you wanted,” Uriel said. “You’re not exactly a God, but you’re just as powerful if not more so.”

Ezra only answers with a smile. “I’m Elysian. That is infinitely better than being a God. But there is one thing I miss from being an angel.”

“And what’s that?” For some reason, Uriel had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer.

“The taste of ichor. There is nothing more delicious than Gods’ blood. The high is incredible. The bonded angels would get one cup a day of that stuff. You would know better than me, of course. But that truly is the only thing I miss about being a servant,” he said.

Uriel gulped, his throat suddenly feeling dry. “One cup a day seems excessive.”

“Actually, it was stingy. The Gods were enormous giants back then, with plenty of blood to spare. If they wanted, the bonded angels could be drinking gallons of that stuff and –”

Ezra stops talking, noticing the expression on Uriel’s face. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know blood made you so squeamish.”

On the contrary, Uriel wasn’t feeling disgusted. No, the emotion that was thrumming through his veins was hunger. He knew precisely what Ezra was talking about when he spoke of drinking ichor.

He had tried to ignore the feeling before while tending to Daeva’s wounds, to clamp down on the aching need for her blood. But time and time again, whenever she bled, he always wanted a taste. And no matter how much he drank, it was never enough.

He was certain that if he didn’t love her, he would’ve feasted on her blood with reckless abandon.

“Drinking ichor isn’t meant for pleasure,” Uriel finally said, composing himself. “It’s only meant to strengthen the Blood Bond.”

“But it still tastes good,” Ezra said. “Lighten up, will you? I’ll have my devotees prepare some food for us. All this talk of Gods’ blood has made me hungry.”

The devotees bring in a few sandwiches, setting the food before the men. They quickly disappear after being summoned, giving them privacy.

Uriel bites into the bread, chewing the food carefully. After talking about ichor, the taste of the sandwich paled drastically. The combination of the lettuce, meat, tomato, and sauce inside the bread was painfully bland. He does his best to make a show of enjoying the meal, taking big bites. Eventually, he ends up swallowing more than chewing his food so he wouldn’t have to taste it. A keen observer would note that he didn’t eat more than he had to, strategically picking up half the sandwiches on the plate.

Ezra takes his time eating, savoring the food. He deliberately chews slowly, watching Uriel as he does so. His gaze makes the angel’s skin crawl, but he doesn’t show his discomfort. He knew what Ezra was trying to do. Every gesture was a game to him. He was trying to make Uriel feel as if he were beneath him. He was the gentleman and Uriel was the barbarian. He had delicate table manners and Uriel didn’t. The comparisons could go on forever.

“You haven’t been alive for very long, have you?” Ezra dabs the corners of his mouth, finally finishing his portion of the food.

How did he know that? “No,” Uriel said. “I was resurrected when my God gave me her blood.” Ezra already knew about the properties of ichor. There was no point in lying about how Daeva brought him back to life. He was eternally grateful to her for it even as he lived with the guilt of being the only surviving angel.

“I’m surprised your body was intact enough for that,” Ezra mused. “Although I can’t say it’s shocking that you had to be the only survivor.”

Uriel narrowed his eyes into thin gold slits. “What do you mean by that?”

“You were Anhel’s favorite,” Ezra said. “Of all the angels, he would’ve taken the most care to protect you. But I suppose he didn’t fully succeed in that.”

The angel could feel his gaze run over his metal appendages. “I don’t need to be fully flesh to serve my God. My devotion is enough.”

“Spoken like a true favorite,” the Elysian said. “Don’t you think there’s more to life than serving your God? Don’t you want to make your own decisions, carve out an existence of your own?”

No, Uriel thought. There is no existence without her. She is my life. Just as she resurrected me, I would happily return to the grave if she asked me to.

Knowing that Ezra probably couldn’t comprehend such emotions, he chose not to voice those thoughts. Instead, he said, “I don’t desire such things, not as you do.”

Ezra raised an eyebrow, simultaneously curious and baffled. “But you have free will. You can want things just as I do. Why can’t you want a life of your own?”

Uriel offers a simple shrug. If Ezra knew how to love, such things wouldn’t be a mystery to him.

“It’s because you don’t know what life is like outside of servitude,” Ezra said triumphantly, blue eyes gleaming. “You don’t know what freedom is like. You may have the ability to do as you please, but you don’t know how to.”

It’s not servitude, he thought. She sees me as an equal. The things she feels for me are not the things you would feel for someone lesser than you.

And he knew that with absolute certainty because the one thing he remembered from his past life was the way Anhel felt about Odi. He remembered the rush of emotions, the unwavering loyalty, and the ever-burning passion that God felt for his lover even in spite of the endless infidelity. That was what Daeva felt toward him.

“I know how to do as I please,” he said. “I just choose to live life differently than you do. That difference isn’t a crime.”

Ezra shook his head. “It may not be a crime, but it is a waste of free will.”

Uriel smiles despite his remark. “I’m living as I want to. Isn’t that the best use of free will?”

“It would be,” Ezra agreed, “if you knew how to want things beyond what you already had. That striving, that endless desire, is the most exhilarating thing about being alive.”

“But was it worth the death of our brethren? I’m the only angel alive because of your desires,” Uriel said.

Ezra fell silent, unsure of what to say for the first time in their conversation. His lips move, forming words, but no sound comes out. It was as if there was a glitch in his brain that prevented him from properly speaking.

“I shouldn’t be the last one standing,” Uriel continued. “Angels aren’t supposed to die. But all that’s left of everyone else is a pile of ashes. Your desire killed everyone.”

Ezra’s face reddened. “It’s not a crime to wish for my people to have the gift that I do. Every angel deserved to make their own choices.”

“That wasn’t for you to decide,” Uriel spat. “Sure, they all deserved to make their own choices. But more than anything, they deserved to live. Yet you had to play God and shape their fates. You simply had to make your wish and gain control of a Board. Aren’t you ashamed of what you’ve done?”

Ezra’s jaw clenched. For a moment, Uriel was sure that he was going to yell at him or launch into another lecture about how to properly use free will. Instead, his face relaxes, settling into a neutral expression.

“No,” he said. “I’m not ashamed. You’re still alive which means I did the right thing.”

Uriel glared at him. “Don’t use my life as an excuse for your crimes. Your wish was far from the right thing.”

“If you saw the universe in its enormity as I did, you wouldn’t think that. Some people need to make the difficult decisions to create a better future,” Ezra said. “You will learn this the longer you exercise your free will.”

Uriel looks at him in disbelief. “You call this a better future? You’re the only one who gained anything from it. You’ve got power and all the worshippers that anyone could ever want. The rest of us are lying dead in our graves.”

“Wrong,” Ezra said. “You’re alive, no thanks to me. But you’re so shortsighted that you can’t see the bigger picture.”

“Shut up,” Uriel said. “The ‘bigger picture’ doesn’t change the fact that you’re a murderer. And I don’t owe a single second of my life to you.”

Ezra’s left eye twitches in an effort to restrain his emotions. “Your God is a murderer. How am I any different from her?”

“You made her kill those people,” he seethed. “You and the rest of the Elysians wouldn’t leave her alone. You sent people after her to the ends of the Mortal Realm knowing what would happen.”

“Because she’s a danger to the Mortal Realm,” Ezra said. “Everyone is safe if she’s contained in Otherworld. You can’t deny that she’s a monster. You’ve seen her kill. I bet you even helped her hurt those people.”

Uriel flinched at his last sentence. Ezra was right as much as he hated to admit it. But he wasn’t going to give the Elysian the satisfaction of hearing that from his lips.

“She just wanted to live a normal life,” he said. “You couldn’t even let her have that.”

Ezra stared at him impassively. “Daeva is a God. There is no such thing as a normal life for her. But there can be such a thing for you.”

Uriel wanted to laugh at his statement. There was no life for him without her. And in the brief time he had been alive since his reincarnation, things were hardly normal.

But he was happy. Simply being at her side was enough in this life.

“I can’t live a normal life as the only angel alive,” he said. “It’s just not possible.”

Ezra paused thoughtfully. “Do you ever wonder how you got your metal body parts? Do you ask yourself why they never rust as other metal things do?”

Uriel looks down at his silver arm, observing the way it catches the lamplight. His metal body parts served him so well that sometimes he didn’t notice that they weren’t flesh. He always knew that they were remarkable. The old people in the Mortal Realm didn’t have prosthetics like his.

He flexes his metal fingers, hearing them pop as he moves their gears. “Sometimes,” he said, answering Ezra’s questions. “They’re very useful.”

“They’re made of the finest enchanted Ylivian metal. They could last you an eternity, if you live that long,” he said.

“Sounds expensive,” Uriel observed.

“They were,” Ezra said. “But I thought it was worth it to bring back the rest of the angels.”

Uriel stops moving his metal arm. He looks at his prosthetic and makes eye contact with Ezra. Generosity was not in the Elysian’s nature.

“Do you want something from me? In exchange for this,” he said, gesturing to his body.

“No,” Ezra said. “The fact that you’re alive and breathing is already more than enough. I was lucky to replace your body still somewhat intact. I cannot say the same for the others.”

“Others?” Uriel assumed that the rest of the angels had turned to ashes.

“Others,” he repeated. “Some of them were favorites, much like yourself, with protection spells that reduced the effects of the fire. A few were near bodies of water during the event. And a small minority were fallen angels, just like me, so my wish had no effect on them.”

Uriel sat there, stunned. He wasn’t the only angel left. Some of them had survived. But that was impossible. Ezra had to be lying.

“You shouldn’t give me false hope like that,” he said. “You can’t lie to cover up what you did.”

“I’m not lying,” Ezra protested. “There are others. But I plan to bring back all of them.”

“I don’t trust you,” Uriel said. “People like you don’t do things selflessly.”

The Elysian nodded. “That’s smart. I wouldn’t trust me either, which is why I will be removing your Binding Chains. You won’t be bound to Otherworld anymore. You’d be free to leave.”

Before Uriel could blink, Ezra reaches into his neck, pulling out the chains. He shatters the enchanted metal with a single tug, scattering the links across the floor.

“You can leave,” Ezra said. “Or you can stay and serve your God for eternity. But there’s a third option. You could join me. You could help me atone for my worst sin and bring back our people.”

Before Uriel could respond, a bell rings in the distance.

Nyx had arrived, requiring the presence of all Gods and Elysians. The angel’s decision would have to wait till another day.