Heirs of Empire

“You didn’t cause this. It was our fault for laying impious hands upon you.” He hung his head. “It was my fault, not yours, My Lady.”

“No it wasn’t!” she said so sharply he looked up, dismayed by her anger. Her single eye bored into him, and she shook her head fiercely. “Don’t ever think that, Stomald! You did what your Church had taught you to do, and—” She paused again, biting her lip, then nodded to herself. “And there’s more happening here than you know even yet,” she added with quiet bitterness.

Stomald blinked at her, touched to the heart once more by her readiness to forgive the man who’d almost burned her alive, yet confused by her words. She was an angel, with an angel’s ability to know things no mortal could, yet her voice suggested she’d meant more than that. Perplexity filled him, and he reached for the first thing that crossed his mind.

“You care deeply for Lord Sean, don’t you, My Lady?” he asked, and could have bitten off his tongue in the instant. The question cut too close to his own forbidden longings, and he waited for her anger, but she only nodded.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I care for them all, but especially for Sean.”

“I see,” he said, and the dagger turning in his heart betrayed him. He heard the pain in his own voice and tried to turn and flee, but her fingers tightened about his, stronger than steel yet gentle, trapping him without harming him, and against his will, his gaze met hers.

“Stomald, I—” she said, then shook her head and said something else. She spoke to herself, in her own language, the one she spoke to the Angel Sandy and their champions. Stomald couldn’t understand her words, but he recognized a curious finality, an edge of decision, and his heart hammered as she drew him over to a stool. He sat upon it at her gesture, uncomfortable, as always, at sitting in her presence, and she drew a deep, deep breath.

“I do care for Sean, very much,” she told him. “He’s my brother.”

“Your—?” Stomald gaped at her, trying to understand, but his mind refused to work. He’d speculated, dreamed, hoped, yet he’d never quite dared believe. Lord Sean was mortal, however he might have been touched by God, yet if he was her brother, if mortal blood could mingle with the angels’, then—

“It’s time you knew the truth,” she said quietly.

“The … the truth?” he repeated, and she nodded.

“There’s a reason Sandy and I have tried to insist that you not treat us as angels, Stomald. You see, we aren’t.”

“Aren’t?” he parroted numbly. “Aren’t … aren’t what, My Lady?”

“Angels.” She sighed, and her expression shocked him. She was staring at him, her remaining eye soft, as if she feared his reaction, but he could only stare back. Not angels? That was … it was preposterous! Of course they were angels! That was why he’d preached their message to his people and the reason Mother Church had loosed Holy War upon them! They had to be angels!

“But—” The word came out hoarse and shaking, and he wrapped his arms about himself as if against a freezing wind. “But you are angels. The miracles you’ve worked to save us, your raiment—the things we’ve all seen Lord Sean and Lord Tamman do at your bidding—!”

“Aren’t miracles at all,” she said in that same soft voice, as if pleading for his understanding. “They’re—oh, how can I make you understand?” She turned away, folding her arms below her breasts, and her spine was ramrod stiff. “We … can do many things you can’t,” she said finally, “but we’re mortal, Stomald. All of us. We simply have tools, skills, you don’t, yet if you had those tools, you could do anything you’ve seen us do and more.”

“You’re … mortal?” he whispered, and even through the whirlwind confusion uprooting all his certainty, he felt a sudden, soaring joy.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Forgive me, please. I … I never meant to deceive you, never meant—” She broke off, shoulders shaking, and his heart twisted as he realized she was weeping. “We never wanted any of this to happen, Stomald.” Her lovely voice was choked and thick. “We only … we only wanted to get home, and then I ran into Tibold, and he shot me and brought me back to Cragsend, and somehow it all—”

She shook her head fiercely, and turned back to face him.

“Please, Stomald. Please believe we never, ever, meant to hurt anyone. Not you, not your people, not even the I

“Get home?” Stomald rose from the stool and crossed to stand directly before her, staring into her tear-streaked face, and she nodded. “Home … where?” he asked hesitantly.

“Out there.” She pointed at the sky invisible beyond the roof of the tent, and for just an instant sheer horror filled the priest. The stars! She was from the stars, and the Writ said only the demons who had cast Man from the firmament—

Sick panic choked him. Had he done the very thing the I

But then, as quickly as it had come, the terror passed, for it was madness. Whatever else she might be, the Angel Harry—or whoever she truly was—was no demon. He’d seen too much of her pain among the wounded and dying, too much gentleness and compassion, to believe that. And the Writ itself said no demon, greater or lesser, could speak the Holy Tongue, yet she spoke it to him every day! All his life, Stomald had been taught the inviolability of the Writ, but now he faced a truth almost more terrifying than the possibility that she might actually be a demon, for if she came from the stars, the Writ said she must be a demon, and yet the Writ also proved she couldn’t be one.

He felt the cornerstone of his life turning under his feet like wet, treacherous sand, and fear washed through him. But even as that fear sought to suck him under, he clung to his faith in her. Angel or no, he trusted her. More than trusted, he admitted to himself. He loved her.

“Tell me,” he begged, and she stepped forward. She rested her hands on his shoulders and gazed into his face, and he felt his fear ease as her fingers squeezed gently.

“I will. I’ll tell you everything. Some of it will be hard to understand, maybe even impossible—at first, at least—but I swear it’s true, Stomald. Will you trust me enough to believe me?”

“Of course,” he said simply, and the absolute certainty in his tone was distantly surprising even to him.

“Thank you,” she said softly, then drew a deep breath. “The first thing you have to understand,” she said more briskly, “is what happened—not just here on Pardal, but out there, as well—” her head jerked at the tent roof once more “sixteen thousand of your years ago.”

It took hours. Stomald lost count of how many times he had to stop her for fuller explanation, and his brain spun at the tale she told him. It was madness, impossible, anathema to everything he’d ever been taught … and he believed every word. He had no choice, and a raging sense of wonder mingled with shock and the agonizing destruction of so much certainty.

“ … so that’s the size of it, Stomald,” she said finally. They sat on facing stools, and the candles had burned low in the lanterns set about the tent. “We never meant to harm anyone, never meant to deceive anyone. We tried to tell you Sandy and I weren’t angels, but none of you seemed able to believe it, and if we’d insisted and shattered your cohesion when the Church was determined to kill you all because of something we’d started—” She shrugged unhappily, and he nodded slowly.

“Yes, I can see that.” He rubbed his thighs, then licked his lips and managed a strained smile. “I always wondered why you and the An—why you and Sandy insisted that we not call you ‘angel’ when we spoke to you.”