“The first?” I asked skeptically. She took the tray from me and held out both hands for me to grab. She was surprisingly strong, or maybe I was surprisingly weak as she pulled me from the bed with ease. She looped an arm around my waist as the world did a quick barrel roll. I put an arm around her shoulders, and she slowly carried me back out to a living room and into another room. The other room was darkened, save for a handful of candles at the other end of the room. The room was too dark for me to even see the walls. Laying in a heap on the ground before these candles was what looked like a person.
I looked at Eleanor beside me and she released me gently and gestured for me to go forward and see the figure, so I went silently. I felt if I made too loud a sound, the figure would stir and wake, something I didn’t want to do, not because I was scared, but rather because I would have felt bad for waking them. I got the vibe of age and wisdom, as if this was a person who had lived a very long life, and they were finally resting at the end of it. They didn’t deserve to be roused by some concussed stranger, but here I was, beseeching their wisdom because they finally had all the answers right in front of me. I was a little giddy with excitement. All of the horror I experienced in my dreams and here in waking life was now finally going to see a resolve. Or that’s what I had convinced myself of unconsciously.
“This is Grand Mod Agatha,” Eleanor said, suddenly appearing beside me.
“Grand Mod?” I asked, slowly descending to my knees before the crumpled heap. “Yes. If you are a true Azelian, Azazel herself will appear to you someway somehow.
She’s different for literally everyone, and that’s how we know she exists. That’s how we know she sees each of us for who we are,” Eleanor said, reminiscing fondly. “So we all have a connection to Azazel someway somehow, but sometimes it’s too much for one of us or not enough at all for most of us. It’s really interesting, really. In any little sect of us, there’s always one who’s more sensitive to her presence, so they become the Grand Mod, which is short for Moderator.”
She gestured to the heap on the floor and continued, “The Moderator has a special relationship with each of us and regulates our connection to Azazel.”
“What? How? That sounds kind of . . . hivish,” I said with a slight cringe, my view of them faltering slightly. Eleanor laughed and said, “Do you know much about the Chronicles of Azazel?”
“Well, no. Not at all, really,” I said blankly, the title having never appeared in my life ever.
“The story that most people know about Azazel is the Wing of Azazel,” the heap chimed in a surprisingly strong voice. They stretched out beneath the covers, revealing two long, pale legs and two long, pale arms. The heap sat up, and underneath was a young woman with short hair. It was brown and cut in a bob, and her eyes were green. She had a splash of light brown freckles across her peachy skin. She sat back and yawned, continued, “Azazel is famous for having a single wing. It’s her signature thing. She has that wing because she fought in a great war against hell thousands of years ago. Her other wing is supposedly hiding somewhere on Earth, and there have been a bunch of random crusades to find the wing, but no one has ever found it.”
“So Azazel is real? For certain?” I interjected, still studying the young woman. She gave me a quick once over, but was evidently unimpressed by my mark, which I was almost offended at. She was lanky and had a sour look on her face. She couldn’t have been any older than her mid-twenties, and I recalled Eleanor saying how the Grand Mod was the one who felt the connection the strongest. I didn’t know what I had expected fully, but it certainly wasn’t this seemingly dour woman.
“You should know that better than anyone else. Yes, she actually exists. God actually exists, the devil actually exists, demons actually exist. It’s because of people like Azazel that you, me, and the rest of the world are actually safe.”
“How?”
“Eleanor, who did you bring to me? You know I don’t like to have to spit the story to outsiders,” the woman said with a quiet scorn.
“Come on, Aggy. Look, she has the mark,” Eleanor said, gesturing to my face. “And I’m sure if you look at her back, she’ll have the wing.”
“Everyone is a nobody until they show me something worth making them a someone. You know that, Eleanor,” she said back snidely.
“Aggy, I know you can feel it, too. There’s something about Amor,” Eleanor said encouragingly. The Grand Mod, Agatha, looked at me with a suspicious look, said, “Don’t say anything else. You wanted to know about Azazel, I know about Azazel.
“Thousands of years ago, Azazel fought a war with Hell. She was at the front lines with her twin, Azrael. There are six angels of destruction, and Abaddon is at the very top of that hierarchy. Azazel and Azrael are right beneath him, and they’re known as the Twins, then there’s the triplets: Sol, Selin, and Aio. All six of them were the first to plunge into war against Hell, but the only ones who came back were Abaddon and Azrael. The triplets had been cast to the abyss of earth and are lying dormant, hidden somewhere. Azazel had sacrificed herself to save Azrael and was struck by the Lance of Astaroth, but she didn’t die. She lost her wing and fell into a deep ravine. A tribe of men hiding from the war found her and nursed her back to health, and to show her gratitude, she showed them weaponry.
Agatha’s eyes shone with a dangerous glint, and it was then that I realized, after my eyes adjusted, that every single wall was covered in weapons. There were axes, knives, spears, war hammers, bows and weapons of all sorts against every wall. “But, this was a strong transgression against God, because although the intention was good, to make life easier for man, it would eventually lead to almost every kind of death man brought onto man. She was exiled from heaven and from her twin, and she’s been wandering the world ever since trying to find her missing wing in hopes that she might be able to fly back home.”
“Why does she think her wing is on earth?” I asked, once Madison had finished.
“No one knows. That’s the one part of the story no one has been able to figure out. The oldest members figure it might just be too complicated to understand or maybe there’s something we’re missing from the story, but no one knows why she’s searching,” Eleanor answered.
“I mean, I know why,” Agatha said with a yawn. Eleanor didn’t react, so Agatha went on, “I’m a seer of sorts. All Grand Mods are, so we know the truth about everything with Azazel, but we also know Azazel follows God, and His Way is mysterious. Even if Azazel herself were to come demanding an answer about herself, I wouldn’t tell her. I couldn’t.”
“So, you know but you can’t tell,” I said slowly, looking back to the weapons that lined the walls. A few different types of guns glinted in the candle light. It didn’t seem like there was a particular order to the weapon set up, just whatever would fit where.
“Yep,” she responded shortly, falling back against the blankets.
“Okay,” I said slowly, “What about this wing then? Why do people want it?”
“It’s the wing of an angel,” she said pointedly. “What more could you want?”
“I mean, I guess,” I shrugged. Agatha sighed dramatically after seeing that her answer wasn’t really answering my question. She said, “Normal stuff. Immortality, you can fly, if you have her wing you can wield literally any weapon you want since she’s the first Maiden of Arms. Whatever you pick up, you’ll have complete mastery over.”
“Maiden of Arms?” I asked curiously.
“Yes, she’s the Maiden of Arms. The Mother of Arms, technically.”
“That, that doesn’t answer my question,” I said slowly.
“You didn’t have a question to answer,” she snapped. I made a face and sat back on my arms, looking up at the grandest of the weapons in the room. Mounted on the wall behind her with an evident space around it, there was a white spear. There was nothing distinguishing about it besides its lack of feature. It was a plain white shaft sharpened at either end to a dangerous point. Agatha followed my eyes with her own and knocked on the wall behind her, said, “This? That’s Glasia IX.”
“Glasia IX?” I asked curiously, my eyes not leaving the weapon.
“Yep. That’s how we know that Azazel existed. This was passed down through this sect for centuries. It’s what crowns a Grand Mod as a Grand Mod.”
“What, she gave it to you or something?” I asked a skeptically.
“No, she made it for us. True Azelian sects each have a sacred weapon crafted by Azazel herself.”
“What? How? That can’t be possible,” I scoffed, my rationalization overtaking my spirituality. My need to understand overcame my will to believe.
Agatha looked at me sharply, then back at Eleanor behind me. They exchanged some type of look of which I could only see Agatha’s end. She looked infuriated, and I almost felt intimidated. Eleanor reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, began, “Amor, come on
now—”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Agatha cut in, holding up a hand to silence her. “It’s understandable. If you don’t think it was actually crafted by Azazel, why don’t you touch it then?”
“Aggy, hold on,” Eleanor protested firmly.
“No, let her touch it. If she’s really Azazel’s chosen one, then she should have complete control over Glasia IX. If she’s not, then you know what we have to do,” she said, sitting back up and crossing her arms, looking at me with a serious look.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly going dry, and I asked, “What happens if I’m not this chosen one?”
“You’ll freeze to death,” Agatha responded bluntly, her gaze unwavering. “Slowly and painfully. And we will have no choice but to watch.”
“Well,” I breathed. I glanced at the spear and then back at her, and she said, “But if you’re the real deal, you shouldn’t have to worry about dying.”
I looked back at the spear again, and she said before I could think of anything, “Are you real?”
“I’d like to think so,” I said absently, gazing at Glasia IX. Something stirred within me the longer I stared at it, my attention somehow getting sucked into its gravity.
“Touch it,” she said, but in my head, it sounded like she said, “Remember.”
I stared at it a moment longer, feeling something bubble from deep within. I had a quick flashback of the man in the cave and the hole in the ground that separated us. There was something about the spear that had a faint glow reminiscent to the one of that hole, and without really thinking, I stood and walked to the wall, still staring at the white weapon. Slowly, I reached up, and I brushed my fingertips across its smooth surface. I was surprised to feel that it was cool to the touch, as if pulled straight from the artic. Behind me, Eleanor and Agatha were both quietly surprised. I could feel it in the air. Cautiously, I closed my hand around it.
I lifted it from its place on the wall, and I was even more surprised to see how light it felt in my hands. Not necessarily light, but balanced. It felt incredibly balanced, and I gazed at the weapon a moment longer before my head suddenly snapped back. I was suddenly spiraling backward and down very, very fast. It was dizzying and completely out of control before I slammed back into my body without warning, but it wasn’t my body. My skin felt slightly off, somehow tighter on my body? No; it was that my body felt younger somehow, but I knew was a much, much older.
The weight of a forging hammer was in my right hand, and a spear in the other, but it wasn’t formed yet. It was still the rough, moldable mound of burning hot material. I was still crafting it. There was a mirror in front of me. It was smudged and dirtied, but I could still see my image clearly.
It was my face, and it was my hair. It was my same coffee brown eyes and my same honey colored skin, and it was my same dark, curly hair, but it was much longer, and instead of having just one red triangle on my face, there were two; one under each eye. I flexed my back unintentionally, rolling my muscles out, and I saw two wings flutter from behind me. I stopped for a moment and splayed them out wide, wanting to see their full glory. They were twice as wide as I was tall, and they were beautiful. Along the ridge of my wings, they were a light crème, that faded to gold, and then suddenly turned black and red on my inner feathers. These were my wings, both of them, when I was complete, and this was the weapon I was crafting, the Glasia IX. I was crafting it specifically for the Ninth Branch of my followers, but I couldn’t let Omnis know. I would have to “lose” it again, and then I would be reprimanded by my brothers for being irresponsible, and Azrael—
I blinked once, and then I was back in my own body, looking at Glasia IX, and I knew exactly how to wield it, and I looked back at Agatha and Eleanor, and I said, “I’m the real one.”
Agatha looked at me, bewilderment in her eyes. Eleanor sank to her knees and began to pray silently.
Looking down at the weapon in awe, I could vaguely feel the pride Azazel had felt when she’d finished crafting it. There was a faint memory of teaching a man, the first Moderator of the Ninth Branch, how to wield the weapon, how not to give in to it. Carefully, I placed the weapon back on its display and looked down to Agatha, asked, “What now?”
Agatha shook herself out of her own thoughts and said, “I guess it’s time you know the truth?”
“What do you mean the truth?” I asked, sitting down in front of her.
Agatha looked past me to Eleanor and said, “Can we have the room, Eleanor?”
“Of course,” she responded, quickly shuffling back out.
Agatha turned back to me as soon as Eleanor was out of the door, and she looked deep into my eyes and said, “You are special. You are very, very special indeed.”
“How do you mean?”
“You are special in the sense that you are not just yourself. You are yourself, and you are Azazel, and you are the many people that came before you.”
“I’m not quite understanding.”
She looked up and off for a second, trying to arrange the words, and then she said, “Amor, you are like the end product of years and years and years of trial and error. Just like how humans have come a very long way in the whole lifespan of humanity to become who and what we are today: more evolved, higher thinking animals. You have come a very long way to become the person you are today. All the people before you have been the result of trying to become something better and more evolved, too, but you have an opportunity that other humans don’t. You can actually trace where you came from to be where you are today.”
I sat and thought for a second, and then I asked slowly, “Like how I can talk to Madison Grier?”
“I don’t know who that is,” she said simply. In the back of my head, I could hear Madison saying, I’ve never met her, but even further than her voice, somewhere in the long line of people who died trying to get to this point, I heard someone chime in, Yes, I remember.
“Um, she’s the person that came before me, I guess,” I responded. “My past incarnation?”
“Yes. Incarnations. You can actually communicate with your incarnations, and I bet you’ve seen their lives, too.”
“And their deaths.” She nodded at me and continued, “None of you have made it quite this far. Not to the point where you can actually get all the answers you need to continue.”
“How do you know this?”
“As a Grand Mod, a seer kind of, I have it in me to see the lives I lived before this, too, or at least be able to see what the other Grand Mods have seen. It doesn’t come naturally to me, like I’m sure it does you, but that’s what it takes to be a Grand Mod. I had to go through a lot of self-sacrifice to learn the truth,” she answered with a lopsided, aged smile.
“What if I hadn’t made it to this point, though? What if I had died trying to get here, like the others?”
“I knew you wouldn’t. It was written in the Ways. I didn’t know you would come to me, but even if you hadn’t, even if by some diabolic intervention by the Fallen or chance, I would have been prepared to take that sacrifice with me to the grave. It is the Way of the Azelian Moderators. We live and die by the prophecy of Azazel.”
“But, why, though? And how does this all tie in to her?”
“Azazel is truly the reason humanity has come this far, Amor. You need to understand that. Without her intervention, we would have died out many, many years ago. As Azelians who know the truth, we owe it to her to serve her while she roams the world, in any way possible. If that means dedicating our lives to her, so be it. She deserves at least that much.”
“But how?” I asked, still confused. She shook her head gently and said, “It would be easier to show you,” and she scooted a closer to me to where our knees were just barely grazing each other. She placed her hands, palm up, on her knees and said in a serene tone, “Do as I do. Think as I think. See what I see, and you will understand the truth of who you are.”
I looked at her a second longer, but then mimicked her movements. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I followed her movements, and she continued to take deep breaths until I picked up on a pattern. Breathe in for four, breathe out for five. Breathe in for four, breathe out for five. Breathe in for four, breathe out for five. Once I’d picked up on the pattern, she spoke softly, almost to herself, “Feel the world around you. See it with what you cannot see with. Find you, and how you are sitting, and feel your legs, and your hands, and your arms, and your feet. Feel you neck, and your head, and your spine. Feel your heart, and find your soul.”
And I did. Slowly and deliberately, I became vividly aware of every sensation of my body. I could feel how my legs sat in my pants, how my hands rested upon my knees, how my spine was straight, but not rigid. The weight of my world at hand shifted from my head to my body, and I could feel every sensation from how I felt in my own skin, right down to every single beat of my heart and every single breath in my lungs, and she continued, “Feel the floor. Find it, and find me. Feel my image, how I am sitting, how I look, how the world feels when I am present, and how the Ways bend around my presence, just as they bend and curve around yours. Feel the steady vibration of the air and what lays between the air. Find it, feel it, and understand that you are not separate from it, but just another part operating, existing alongside and within. Find and feel that we are of the same.”
And oddly enough, I did. There was a certain humming that slowly came to attention, diving itself and distinguishing itself from the countless sounds and music of the world. Latching on to the tiny note, snatching it from the calliope of sound, I could feel it surrounding me tenderly, tethering me to the world and holding me in that place. It was as if I could feel the humming and vibrations around me, and not just encircling my body, but traveling through me, extending far past me to the walls of the cabin, and outside to the trees, and even further. It was as if I was on a spider’s web, and I could feel each of the individual movements.
Nothing was more evident to me than Agatha’s presence, though, which was directly in front of me and reverberating back against my own physical existence. The more I became aware of her place and mine in the world, the less distinguished she and I became from one another. Her existence in the world slowly began to mirror mine, as mine began to mirror hers, and the walls began to melt away. For a moment, I thought I was spinning, sinking away into the world, but rather what I found was not that I was sinking, but instead melting back into the world, finding my place again and assuming perfect position.
“Find your soul, find the point of which the world moves aside to allow you to perfectly and absolutely exist. You are not a disturbance. You are exactly where you need to be at all points in time,” she seemed to whisper, her voice fading quietly into the background of the world. There was Agatha and there was me, present within the Ways, existing and belonging in perfect design and observing the course of the Ways. The more I paid attention to the threads of the Ways that ran through me and through Agatha, the more I seemed to zero in and focus on them, against my own will. Agatha’s voice was a quiet reminder, telling me to surrender and relinquish this idea of control, and to allow my will to be synonymous with that of the Ways. I took a deep breath, feeling that weight pressing down on me and almost giving in to it.
In an instant, as if everything snapped into place, the world suddenly made perfect and absolute sense. I could feel the truth of everything, the reality of what I was and who I was and what I was doing, and all at once, I was plummeting far, far down into a place within myself that I had only just realized. It was that place that all my primal feelings came from, but I understood now what it really was, and it seemed to glow with a silent iridescence in a place that was at first dark, but now brightly shining with the memories of not just my life, but all the lives I’d lived before, and the life I was continuing to live.
“I see you’ve found the truth,” a voice mused softly in my mind as I fearlessly plunged down deep into the hole. “Don’t look away.”