Excerpt
1
Azrael, Archangel of Death stared out the portals of High House with trepidation. His turn at the tribunal like his charge, Muriel had faced weeks ago. It was his responsibility and he would face it—no matter the outcome.
His charcoal wings twitched, reddish gold halo faded as he awaited the seraph's arrival. A moment he had dreaded since he had accepted Lucifer's first wager.
He brushed a thick lock of silver-black hair away from his face, dark grey eyes soft as he passed the portal overlooking High House's glistening spires and the tall trees towering above the distant walls of the Garden, where God's experiments first began. Traces of gardenia scent hung in the cool, fresh air.
Soon, he had to face the Maker and confess his transgressions. Before Lucifer did. He had broken the protocols and used a forbidden power.
It was his story to tell, not Lucifer's.
But first the seraph. Seraphina, one of the highest-ranking angels in the Heavens, had summoned him to High House. To discuss these wagers. And this feud with Archangel of Death, Samael, and his guard.
If she condemned Azrael, he would be reeducated—a fate no loyal angel deserved.
A reset of his memory and a reminder of his protocols. Wiping away connections, memories, and associations—anything that threatened his obedience. His keeping the protocols.
Like seraphim and archangels, angels of death were critical to the ethereal and physical worlds. Reeducation had been a desperate safety measure after Lucifer's war and fall from the Heavens.
The seraphim had to know another civil war was brewing. Lucifer had much more in mind when he proposed these wagers to Azrael. Regardless, war was coming. And some things within the realm of angels were worth fighting for, too.
One of them was Talia.
He might be the first archangel since Lucifer's fall to earn reeducation and its devastating effects. He'd delayed the completion of Muriel's reeducation, begun after Talia won Lucifer's first wager. Azrael sighed. When he had looped and rewound time to save Talia from a human death after her incredible sacrifice. To save another human's soul.
The whup, whup of wings behind him shook him out of his thoughts, his mouth going dry.
