Page 54 of Grave Revelations (Prophecies of Angels and Demons #3)

Chapter 53

Rebecca

Rebecca blew a dark curl from her face as she lifted both hands high overhead.

Perfect, Azazel said in her mind. Now, focus on the way the air is of the world and not encapsulating it. You must understand how things are connected. Otherwise, you’re fighting against the elements instead of bending with them.

She focused all her attention on the bubble she’d created overhead. Okay, focus, Rebecca, she reminded herself. It’s part of the air overhead.

The bubble expanded a fraction, stretching the limits of its confinement.

It’s not confined, Azazel reminded her.

Right. She took a deep, steadying breath, trying to see the world the way he did—to envision the air bending with nature, moving through it. Her bubble lost its shape and expanded.

It stretched, draping itself over the treetops, covering them like a blanket. The world outside went silent.

“I did it!” she squealed.

“Now focus on the things you want to let in.”

She bit her lip .

A bird landed on a tree branch just outside her bubble. She imagined the bird was part of their sphere, and when it lifted from the branches, she gasped as it flew through her shield to perch on a protected branch.

Rebecca beamed at Azazel, who stepped closer. “Now for the true test. Let’s see if you can keep it up while you’re distracted.”

She swallowed as he lifted a hand, trailing soft fingers over her cheek.

A shudder rolled through her, but she tried to ignore the heat radiating from her chest as the strange bond they shared flared to life, reaching for him.

Good, he purred inside her mind.

His fingers trailed down her neck, tracing the line of her collarbone.

The bubble shimmered, and she closed her eyes, trying to drown out the feel of his fingers dancing along her skin.

Very good.

The deep rumble of his voice and his praise brushed over the invisible ember in her chest, now full to bursting with a soul she never knew was missing.

The sounds of the world around them crashed in as her bubble burst.

“That wasn’t fair,” she said, batting his hand away and stepping back. That tug at her center, always urging her toward him, protested the movement, but she refused to give in to it. She wanted answers, and that meant she had to stay focused.

“Your efforts deserve an answer,” Azazel conceded. “Ask.”

Rebecca crossed her arms over her chest. “How has my soul been in so many people? How did I share it?”

“The same way a part of my soul resides in you,” Azazel began. “A human body is merely a vessel. It carries the soul through existence until the vessel is no longer capable of life. But a soul is boundless—eternal—and transcends time and space.

“Our Father made souls to live with Him forever, but we are not like Him. We need a form. He made seraphim first, His imperfect creatures, and bound us eternally to these forms. But when He made humans, He found a better way.

“They were bound upon creation but could leave those forms behind when they were ready .

“They were His perfect creatures. But humans and seraphim were not always so separate. When Samael, Father’s favored, met the humans, he was jealous. He sought to prove to Father that they were imperfect, as the seraphim are.

“He was right, of course, for no one is perfect but God.

“And when he fell, he took Eve with him, sharing her bed and the truth of immortality with her. Once her eyes were opened, she could not forget it.

“For a human’s soul to rest in Alaxia, their mortal form must part with their soul in a selfless act. Intention is everything. When she learned she had eternity, if only she let her mortal form expire, the act became a selfish one and in it, she was doomed to an eternity in Hell.”

Rebecca opened her mouth, but Azazel went on.

“I know I haven’t answered your question, but I promised you detailed answers. So let me get to my point.

“Eve wasn’t the only one to share her bed with the seraphim, and another of my brethren’s couplings led to the birth of a child. Neither human nor seraph, it was a bit of both. But these new creations did not possess souls of their own, and without a soul, they could not survive.

“Children are innocent no matter how they were made, and though He had not created the half-human, half-seraphim beings, our Father took pity on them, offering to share the seraphim’s souls with them.

“That day, He tore every seraph’s soul in two, and as each Naphil was made throughout the centuries that followed, their soul found its new home.”

Rebecca rubbed absently at the place in her chest where Azazel’s soul rested.

“So… God is responsible for my soul living in so many bodies?” she asked. “ Our soul.”

“Yes and no.”

She pursed her lips, prepared to ask another question when a vibrant parade of images exploded in her mind. She stumbled back. Strong arms came around her, catching her as she sank into them and watched the pictures dance through her mind.

It was her, but not—forged of different circumstances and at different times. In this vision, she wielded a sword, the same one Allie had and used to fight demons and night-creatures alike, but her hair was much longer, pulled into an intricate braid behind her back.

The images shifted, and she pressed a hand against his mud-streaked cheek. “You look dreadful,” she said in an English accent.

You’re a sparkling star in the darkest night’s sky, Light, he said into her mind, but it wasn’t Azazel. It was Gabriel, and the image crackled, tainted by his own self-loathing.

The scene changed, and they sat together on a bed in a strange home, her arms wrapped around him. You needed this hug more than I did , she thought, and he squeezed her tightly.

Then Gabriel was inside ancient ruins in what looked like Greece, standing before a man whose skin appeared stretched too thin.

“Your sweet Adalaide gave herself a little too willingly when she colluded to trap my mate in Sheol. The magic demands more.” The strange man raised an eyebrow at the angel. “One life to seal the fate of my mate for eternity from her other half. Did you think it would be enough?”

Gabriel fell to the floor in supplication.

“Stand, brother. You make yourself appear weak. I offer a solution.”

The scene evaporated, replaced by one so bright it burned the backs of Rebecca’s eyelids. In it, Gabriel sat across from another angel.

“I tried to protect her,” he confessed. “I tried to do what was right, but she will die. When she does, she may not choose me a second time.”

When the scene changed, he was still in Alaxia, but this place she recognized. Standing beside the gates she’d seen each time she went there, Gabriel was surrounded by more angels than she ever dreamed existed.

Raphael landed beside him.

Gabriel turned, facing him. “Where is she? Why is she not at the gates?”

Rebecca sat forward, gasping. An object shifted under her, and she realized she was cradled in Azazel’s arms. She looked up.

“But… What happened to her?”

Sanura trapped your half of our soul in Sheol for over a century.

Rebecca touched her breastbone .

“How?” she asked. But Gabriel replied in her mind just as she realized: “Necromancer.”

“But I thought necromancers could only create night-beings,” Rebecca continued. “How did she put my soul in a new body?”

Azazel’s brow dipped as he set Rebecca down on the ground. She stumbled into him, still unsteady as she processed all the new information he’d shared.

“I have theories, but no answers.”

“Azazel, Rebecca, come inside. You need to see this.” Jophiel’s words cut through the air, bringing a strong sense of foreboding with them.