Twilight of the Gods ✔️

Chapter 31: Gods vs. Angels

Uriel nuzzled his face into Daeva's neck. "Wake up," he said softly. He dug his fingers into the furs, gently nudging her shoulder.

Daeva made an incomprehensible noise, moving away from him. "Let me sleep," she whispered. She pulled the furs toward her, snuggling against a nearby cushion.

Uriel sighed in frustration, shaking her awake once more. "I need your blood for the angels, remember? I can't revive them without it."

"One more minute," she mumbled, briefly turning to face him. Her red eyes sparkled with mischief before shutting close.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes in annoyance. Getting her blood was hardly as easy as Ezra said it would be. Daeva was a person, not an endless fountain of ichor that he could pump whenever he pleased. Although his life would be trouble-free if that were actually the case ...

Nonsense! He was lucky that she was his master. His memories of the old days under the Pantheon were coming back, soaked in blood and constant violence. Daeva was a saint compared to those Gods.

He gathered the fur blankets in his hands, draping them over her body. Loose, gold feathers fell out, littering the ground like autumn leaves. Ordinarily, Uriel wouldn't have cared about their presence. Shedding was natural for angels, a way to make room for stronger wings. But the feathers were gathering in clumps, making little gold piles on the floor.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, freezing at the sight of his reflection. It can't be, he thought. Surely, I'm dreaming.

There, in the glass, right before his eyes, was a vision of his wings falling apart.

A feather floated to the ground, joining the pool of gold at his feet. He walked closer to the mirror, pressing his fingers to the reflection. He gingerly touched his wings, unaccustomed to seeing the bare muscle beneath. He flexed his normally feathery appendages, testing to see if he felt any pain.

Luckily, there was no sting or burn in his wings, but he felt the beginnings of an ache in his jaw. He parted his lips, half-expecting to see bloody gums. Instead, he was greeted with two sharp teeth sprouting at the sides of his mouth which was far stranger than anything he could've imagined.

The rest of his metamorphosis followed. His skin lost its bronze glow, fading to a rusty shade. His eyes briefly flickered blue as they slowly morphed from gold to something that resembled the shade of the sky. More feathers fell from his wings as they lost their soft curves and sharpened to a bat-like shape.

At the end of his transformation, he hardly recognized himself. Who was that creature in the mirror?

He had only seen something like that once since his arrival in Otherworld and once more in the long, distant past. He walked through the halls of the palace in a daze, trying to find the place where he saw the image. His feet took him to the stone facades of angels at the center of a large hall that led into a gallery of angel statues. He remembered the anger he felt staring at them when he first returned, but he understood why Ezra kept the pieces around. It was all he had left of the angels after his terrible wish killed them off. But that was all going to change with the revival. Even sinners like him could repent if they tried hard enough.

The stone angels, etched and sculpted, shifted before his eyes. They gained horns and sharp wings, sprouting fangs as he did. Yes, he had seen them before. They had been in cages when he first served Anhel, but they remained dead for most of his servitude.

Demons, Infernal creatures that inhabited the most hostile areas of Underworld, had returned from extinction. And he just became one of them.

He found himself in front of the mirror again, convinced that he was hallucinating. Maybe crazy visions were a side effect of Mnemosyne's roots, but his sharp teeth and blue eyes remained along with his new, fleshy wings no matter how many times he blinked.