Wings

30: Fight For The Sinners, Fight For The Saints

WPOV

Track: Sinner & Saint, Tommy Profitt

The first sign that something is dreadfully wrong is that the stars disappear from the sky. The big black dome of a sky which used to be dotted with thousands of little beacons now reigns darkly, consuming the night and providing no starlight at all.

The night is sickeningly quiet—the kind of quiet that happens in a deer's mind right before the arrow pierces its heart. The kind of quiet that only fear can feed.

The king sent us to surround his castle, and there are professional guards up in the turrets of the castle who shoot anyone who tries to run. The message is clear: we will die here no matter what we do, but one death has honor and the other is nothing but a lonely and cowardly death as everyone realizes you tried to abandon ship.

I told them I won't be of any use as a warrior, so they got me a medical kit, at least. That is the only fact that calms my drumming heart as I stare up at the unnaturally dark sky. At least I'll be saving lives. It's not much, but if I can prevent even just one death in the massacre that is about to ensue, then perhaps my place here has meaning.

I try to find Bianca's star in the sky, hoping that at least she might still be up there.

She's gone.

What have we done?

The second sign that something is dreadfully wrong is that a stream of light burns through the sky like a shooting star heading straight for our kingdom. I'm one of the first to see it because I was already staring up at the sky—it starts out as a tiny pinprick of light, and for a second, I hope that maybe it's Nico coming to make peace. Or perhaps he's coming to grab me and run away to safety together. Or to tell us that Hades has written a new treaty, but there needs not be war over it.

Unfortunately, the light in the sky isn't like the one Hades pulled from the sky, and it's not Nico—at least, it's not just Nico.

The light streaks across the sky only slightly—mostly, it just becomes brighter and brighter until the tiny circle of light burns with the brightness of all the stars in the sky combined, and its getting closer—closer and closer until it hurts to look at; it's as large as the sun, burning and burning brighter and brighter.

People in the army are starting to panic—assuming it's a message from God or something, some sort of serious natural disaster not yet seen by this segment of humanity. As the burning light sets the sky on fire, soldiers begin to shout and scream about needing to take cover, but the archers in the turrets remain resolute: running means death.

A young girl near me—maybe around twelve or thirteen—looks sick, and my stomach roils. She's too young for this. So many of these "soldiers" are just children—they shouldn't be here.

I mean, Jesus Christ, this is a war, and our front lines are prisoners and children. We're all going to get killed, and Hermes will not hesitate to send more after us, and the Guardians will never stop tearing through our ranks. I've seen how strong Nico is—with no treaty to stop the Guardians who have been tormented by humanity, there is nothing holding them back from killing us all.

I kneel down next to the girl so I can set my medical kit on the ground to rifle through it. I hear an archer shout, maybe warning me to stand back up and prepare myself for battle, but I ignore it. This girl is scared and this war should never have been put on her shoulders.

I don't have much in my kit that can help. It feels cruel to try to calm her down when I know her emotions are more than reasonable given the bloodbath we're facing, but there's nothing else for me to do.