Chapter One

46 3 1
                                    

Anastasia played with the heart-shaped locket around her neck while she sat on the edge of the Great Wall, looking out to her beautiful city of Elysium

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.


Anastasia played with the heart-shaped locket around her neck while she sat on the edge of the Great Wall, looking out to her beautiful city of Elysium. She was too high up to see anything clearly, so everything melded together to form a beautiful canvas of colours and lights. She was imagining all the Angels down there going about their business, collecting food from the shops while the younger ones played with themselves and the animals. Her heart panged with wanting as she thought of Pesca, who was probably patiently waiting for her back home. A soft breeze picked up and tousled her short brown hair.

She could see the Six Rivers that neatly divided Elysium into its six districts and followed their trails backwards, from the edge of the city where they fell through caverns into Asphodel below, up to Yggdrasil, the great golden oak tree that stood in the centre of Elysium. It was large enough to easily match and surpass the height of the Great Wall, continuing further while its branches extended outwards, far enough to reach the wall. Anastasia felt that if she jumped high enough she could reach the green leaves that were only a few metres above her and shone. Every part of the tree shone with light for Angels to see, a soft white light that kept their great city illuminated.

The roots of the tree were thick and even from her place on the wall she could see them clearly, golden and contorted, easily matching the size of the houses built around it. But she was too far to see those houses, which were buried in the vast wilderness that completely covered the centre of Elysium, before slowly thinning out the farther it spread.

"Ana?" Dorian called out, and she turned to see his friendly face softly smiling, with him down on his knee. "What're you doing?"

"I'm upset," she sighed. "At least looking at the city makes me feel better." She looked back to the golden scenery and smiled. "It's so beautiful."

"It is. It really is. But we're supposed to be on lookout. Sargeant Hamilton would not be happy if he caught us slacking."

She groaned and laid on her back, looking up at the dark expanse of blackness that blanketed far beyond Yggdrasil and Elysium.

" He's not going to catch us slacking, Dorian, because nobody ever comes to the ninety-sixth section. It is boring hours of nothingness, with nobody around." She threw her arms around to express her frustrations before crossing them with a final harumph.

Two piercing blue eyes peeked into view, and Anastasia watched Dorian try to give her a reassuring smile." I'm around. You're not completely alone."

She rolled away from his gaze, hiding her blush as she sat up. "I know that. But even you have to admit that this sucks."

He sat down next to her and shrugged. "I can comfort myself in knowing that we're doing our jobs as Lookouts. Speaking of..."

She groaned and rolled her eyes, but couldn't help the small smile that came over her. "Fine, I guess we can go back inside."

When Angels LieWhere stories live. Discover now