Ascension

Chapter 3

The midday prayer was more populated than normal, though it wasn't surprising with the only yesterdays payer ending with the naming of the chosen. 

I silently note the others who as well have been chosen for Ascention as they file silently into prayer, and continue to look still harder for Lael. I was thankful now, more than ever, for Falak's presence. 

Falak wasn't one to attend every prayer, such as Lael and myself, instead spontaneously rotating the daily prayer she decided to attend, yet still preforming her movement and singing her hymns without difficulty. Even better than the most devout. 

I do not deny that I was always astonished at her natural talent.

 Falak  joined me in attending the public meal at the circle after we left The Church, an open area eatery that housed various stalls made up of white tents, ivory slabs, and chalky colored wood, allowing for the angels in attendance to choose from different meals available to them, a glorious feast after a morning spent fasting. 

We did as all in Heaven would during the time of meal, and would walk about the streets while slowly nibbling away at the meal in our hands- mine a pale bready like wrap, thick in texture with a milky paste in the middle- a personal favorite and quite filling. Falak drank some sort of thick substance from an orb that, when empty, shriveled before dissipating moments later into the air. 

Falak had stayed with me as we rounded the eatery heading to the various white streets lined with mirroring unpigmented apartments, chatting away about one thing or another as I nodded and tried not to show that I was growing more concerned Lael was not anywhere to be seen. 

"Ah!" Falak looked to the sky as the high ringing bells chimed through the open clean air," and just in time we have finished! Come. We are near the the Chariots. Let us go."

 I nodded to her, giving one final sweep of the streets behind before pressing ahead to the large oval opaque glass and marble white building. 

The house of The Chariots. 

We funneled in line, the glass and marble dome structure a maze of circles all leading to a middle that housed 4 large round Chariots, at the entrance of this room and of every Chariot entrance was a power.  

Here the air was cooler, an odd experience since Heaven was always of comfortable temperature, weather never deviating from an agreeable and moist air, always smelling fresh and wet. In the Chariots house, it was not frigid, but the chill was uncomfortable, the air crisper. 

Falak and I proceeded forward when motioned by a Power, along with a handful of other Virtues, a couple more Principalities and, the purple standing out starkly among the yellow and orange swaths, a hand full of Dominos, their faces as stone and unmoving as their decisions always were, all of us herded forward when the Green swathed Powers gave allowance. 

I force my gaze to the floor, away from the Dominos and continue in line to the Chariot ahead- the white oval would house up to nine and I mentally was ticking how many Angels were between myself and the nearest Domino. 

Falak and I, along with several other Virtue women and one other female Principality, all stood on the white pad.

A sigh of relief caught in my throat as I realized we numbered 9.

I kept my gaze downcast as the hiss of air sounded bellowing our robes, and the usual cold gust brushed encircled me as the glass dome sealed around us.

I contained a shiver. 

The flesh of my arms and the back of my neck prickled, and had I not undergone many years conditioning my body as every angel, I would have allowed my teeth to chatter. Instead my jaw tightened, and I gave a long steady breath in through my nose, then out through barely parted lips.