Page 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CASSIEL

Silence blankets the library at this time of day. Only a few students are deep in their homework. So, it’s just me and centuries of accumulated knowledge.

One of the few benefits of my fallen state is that I don’t require sleep. My uncelestial essence sustains me without rest. While Isolde, William, and CJ recuperate from today’s brutal training session, I hunt for answers.

I approach the librarian, a nervous wraith named Ms Verne. She looks up as I approach her desk, her eyes widening slightly.

“Mr Cassiel,” she says. “What can I help you with today?”

I meet her gaze directly, allowing a hint of my uncelestial grace to flow into my voice. “You want to help me, Ms Verne. You want to show me the celestial texts in the eastern archive.”

Her pupils dilate as my compulsion takes hold. “The eastern archive,” she repeats dreamily. “Yes, I should show you those texts.”

She rises from her desk, keys jingling softly as she leads me through the darkened stacks.

I follow, a familiar guilt mingling with satisfaction.

This ability is unprecedented, but a perk of being fallen.

I was startled when I unintentionally used it on Isolde, but it proves useful in situations like these.

I know that I will never use it on Isolde again.

I would rather she go against me than force her to do something against her will.

Ms Verne stops before an unmarked door at the far end of the library’s eastern wing. Her key slides into the lock, the mechanism clicking open with a sound that seems unnaturally loud in the silence. “The texts you seek are inside,” she murmurs, stepping aside.

“Thank you,” I say. “You should return to your desk now. Forget I was here.”

She blinks, confusion flashing across her features before her expression smooths. Without a word, she turns and walks away, already forgetting our interaction.

The eastern archive smells of dust, old parchment, and ozone.

Shelves tower to the ceiling, packed with texts that would send most theology departments into ecstasies of academic fervour.

These are not the sanitised scriptures taught in the usual institutions but the real records: the chronicles of celestial warfare, the taxonomies of angelic hierarchies, and the forgotten prophecies too dangerous for most supernatural understanding.

I stumbled upon them unintentionally, uncovering a section that Blackridge intentionally keeps hidden.

I run my fingers along the spines, feeling the dormant power. They all contain knowledge that could destroy minds less equipped than mine to handle it.

My wings manifest involuntarily as I move deeper into the archive, the black feathers rustling with suppressed excitement.

This is what I ultimately fell for. It wasn’t rebellion, it wasn’t lust, and it wasn’t even my own free will.

Knowledge. The insatiable hunger to know what I wasn’t meant to know. What they didn’t want me to know.

The section on Blood Magic is smaller than I’d hoped, tucked between treatises on Nephilim breeding programmes and the annotated history of the Second Celestial War.

The bindings of five volumes are crafted from a material that is neither leather nor cloth, but rather a blend of organic and unsettling elements.

I select the oldest, a massive tome titled Sanguinem Vitae et Mortis, written in a script that shifts between languages. The cover is warm to the touch, like living tissue. When I open it, the pages emit a faint coppery scent, reminiscent of fresh blood.

Settling down to read, I absorb the text, my fallen mind processing information at impossible speeds.

The book contains the earliest known history of Sanguinarchs, predating even the term itself.

It speaks of “blood lords” emerging after the first celestial war, when fallen angels’ blood mingled with human bloodlines to create hybrids of unprecedented power.

A passage catches my attention:

The first blood lord arose from the mingling of the fallen Seraph Azrael’s essence with a human woman of royal lineage.

Their offspring manifested abilities beyond comprehension, capable of manipulating the very essence of life through blood.

The celestial host, fearing this new creation, sought to destroy it, but the child’s power proved resistant to angelic smiting.

I sit back, wings folding tightly against my spine as the words sink in. Sanguinarchs aren’t just powerful blood manipulators; they’re part celestial. Distant cousins to Nephilim, but with fallen angel blood expressed differently, concentrating in blood manipulation rather than size and strength.

I return the volume to its shelf and select another, this one bound in blackened feathers. Its title, Coronam Sanguinis, sends a chill through me. The Blood Crown.

The Blood Crown is a ritual of terrifying potency, designed specifically for creatures like Isolde.

“The Ritual of the Blood Crown requires seven bloods of power, each freely given by a different supernatural species,” I read, translating the shifting text.

“When consumed by a Sovereign Sanguinarch in the correct sequence, these bloods form a metaphysical crown that amplifies their natural abilities a hundredfold. The crowning ritual can only be performed at a nexus of power, where the veils between realms are thinnest.”

SilverGate . A nexus of power. None of this can be a coincidence.

I read on, my wings spreading wider as the text reveals increasingly disturbing details, “The first ingredient required is the blood of a fallen angel, freshly drawn during the dark of the moon. This serves as the foundation, the bridge between mortal and divine that allows the Sanguinarch to transcend normal limitations.”

I scan through the remaining ingredients: dragon blood, freely given; vampire essence, extracted during feeding; ghost ectoplasm, condensed and purified; werewolf blood, taken during transformation; witch’s blood, drawn during spellcasting; and finally, the blood of another Sanguinarch, willingly surrendered.

CJ. Isolde. William. Me. But also a dragon? Plus, Benz and the witches who tortured her, part of a coven here. The ingredients are already assembled, walking around SilverGate, converging around Isolde.

I continue reading. “The Collectors, an order founded by the first successfully crowned Sanguinarch, seek others of their kind to either perform the ritual upon them or eliminate them as threats. They believe only the worthy should wear the Blood Crown, and they alone determine worthiness.”

I purse my lips. We’ve got this all wrong. The Collectors aren’t hunting Sanguinarchs to make them into displays or grimoires, although maybe that is a side effect of failure. They’re seeking candidates for the Blood Crown.

I turn the page and find detailed accounts of previous rituals.

Most failed catastrophically, the would-be monarchs writhing in agony as their bodies rejected the transformation, until they were…

I gulp at the word, saved by being held in stasis for the grimoires or displays, depending on the power levels of each individual creature.

Only one, the founder of The Collectors, achieved the full crowning. A female twin vampire called Damadere. The description of her transformation sends shudders through my wings.

“Damadere emerged from the ritual chamber transformed beyond recognition, her mortal form barely containing the power surging within. Reality itself bent around her, responding to her will like clay to a sculptor. She could manipulate blood at distances of miles, could sense the life force of every creature within her domain, and could kill with a thought or heal with a touch. But the power extracted a terrible price—her morality, her empathy, her connection to the world she sought to rule. She became a creature of pure will and hunger, neither alive nor dead, neither mortal nor divine, but something wholly other.”

Is this what awaits Isolde? Could this twisted transcendence, this apotheosis, strip away everything supernatural?

I continue reading, seeking any information about The Collectors’ methods. One passage catches my eye:

“The Collectors maintain their extended lifespans through regular infusions of fallen angel blood, harvested from captives kept in a state between life and death. This practice, forbidden by both celestial and infernal authorities, grants them not only longevity but also resistance to celestial intervention.”

My wings snap fully open, knocking books from nearby shelves. They’ve been harvesting fallen angels, keeping them as blood cattle to extend The Collectors’ unnatural lives. This explains my deep connection to Isolde.

It is the entire reason I fell in the first place.

It has to be.

To be here. To be near her. To mate with her, to have her drink from me and for me to be willing to be her slave, to do anything she asks. A dark fate has descended upon all of us without any of us even knowing.

The temperature in the archive drops precipitously, frost forming on the shelves around me as my uncelestial grace manifests physically.

I force myself to calm down, to think rationally. I need to understand everything about The Collectors, about the Blood Crown ritual, and about the connection between Sanguinarchs and fallen angels, if I’m to help her and all of us, survive what’s coming.

I gather the texts, five volumes in total, and leave the archive. Ms Verne doesn’t look up as I pass her desk, my earlier compulsion ensuring my visit remains forgotten.

Night is falling as I make my way to Isolde’s room. The corridors are still humming with activity.

When I reach her door, I knock softly.

The door opens to reveal CJ, naked and scowling. The markings on his skin have changed. They are bolder now. A latticework of power beneath the surface.

“What you got there, feathers?” He eyes up the tomes with interest.