The Rise and Fall

7 - A Corrupted Soul

"What?!" Both Emiliana and Isaac yelled this word in unison as though they'd rehearsed it beforehand. Tension and confusion hung in the air like a bad odour that refused to go away despite the large number of air fresheners used. 

"That's crazy!" Emiliana's voice had risen an octave with worry. "I'm not a Fallen Angel!"

"No," Mica's face remained soft and benevolent. "But you are ours." She tried to reach for Emiliana's hand but Emiliana flinched away, never taking her eyes off of Angelo who looked distant and utterly absent. 

"This is crazy!" She repeated, walking around in a circle, not believing what she was hearing as she plastered her hands to her head. "You're all crazy." 

"You're tired, dear Emiliana, you must rest, then when you wake we can talk some more." Mica whispered, reaching for her long lost child. She could see the disbelief in her daughter's eyes, but she'd been absent for so long that she was determined not to let go of her until she believed in her true heritage. "Leo." She signalled him to escort Emiliana to her room and Leo obliged and tried to guide her away up the stairs but she shook him away and stepped back. 

"No!" She yelled, looking around at the onlooking crowd with frustration marked all over her face. "We'll talk now!" 

-     -     -     -     -

The main dining room was huge. There was an enormous table that sat about twenty people around it. Leo had been sent away as he was now off duty, Emiliana had learned that he was a highly trusted bodyguard because of his immense fighting and defense skills for such a young angel, but apart from him, everyone was present. Isaac constantly shot glances over at Emiliana who was ever waiting to return them with her cold smirk. Only Mica seemed content about the situation as Angelo refused to say a word until Emiliana accepted who she truly was. 

"Come on then," Emiliana sighed, lifting her legs up and resting them on the seat next to her, her fingers entwined in her icy hair. "Why am I here?"

Mica sat forward in her chair and pushed her hair back from her shoulders. 

"Your name is Emiliana Nightbeam. Before the War, we were a content family, just the four of us, Angelo, myself, Isaac and you. Your father was the leader of the Darkshade Movement. It was a group of angels who believed in a democratic system as we were living under a dictatorship of the Highest, Gabriel."

"Yes, he's the one who found me on the battlefield where you'd abandoned me." Emiliana interrupted, sitting forward and wagging her finger at Mica. 

"No! No, no, Emiliana, we never abandoned you! Did you not see the vision? Gabriel had assassins sent to our home just as we'd begun to succeed in the War. It was just you and I at home then. Your father was on his way home when they attacked us. They rendered me unconcious  but made sure that you were unharmed. Emiliana, they took you from us that night. They stole you." Mica was now standing, her knees had pushed the chair back away from her body and she had her palms flat on the table. "We were threatened with you. If we didn't surrender, you would die. Gabriel told us that we'd get you back as long as we surrendered. For almost a thousand years, we've been trying to infiltrate The Cloud to try and find you; we had no idea that you'd be the White Feathers, though it does make sense. Gabriel's mind was always twisted and sick." 

Emiliana stood up to now, not liking what she was hearing. 

"How do you explain my white wings, or my white hair, mother," she mocked, slamming her palms down on the table making Isaac flinch in surprise. Emiliana shot a smug look at him before referring her eyes back to Mica. 

"Have you never looked in a mirror at your back?" Mica said this as though it should have been a given. Emiliana never really need to look at her wings in the mirror - why not, she could just admire them from the front? She shook her head ferociously one or twice. 

Mica smiled a little and walked around the table and offered her hand to Emiliana. 

"Come with me, child," she whispered as Emiliana let her hand rest in hers. She led Emiliana out into the corridor outside the dining room where a large mirror stretched up the width of the entire wall. Mica's fingers danced on Emiliana bare shoulders guiding her until her back was facing the mirror. Slowly, she twisted her head and pulled down the back of her tank top a little to reveal two scars about ten centimetres in length, just on the inside of where her wings would usually appear from. 

"I saw them when they ripped off your jacket at the execution." Mica whispers as a few tears welled in Emiliana's eyes. They weren't tears of happiness or sadness, they were tears of pure hatred and anger. The tears of pining for revenge. The tears of a murderer. 

"How?" Emiliana voice was about to crack and her throat had become dry and scratchy. 

"Your wings were cut away. Like they would have been today. But you survived. How you managed to grow new wings, white wings. That's a mystery, but you did nonetheless. You're a miracle child!" She muttered, her voice high and her eyes watery. Emiliana recognised herself in the angel. She saw the dark eyes and even the tight ringlets that Mica retained were present in her hair too. The strength of her jaw and her high cheekbones belonged to Angelo and Emiliana couldn't help but see a reflection of herself in Isaac. 

"I never had a mother," Emiliana whispered, still staring at her scars, wanting to touch them though she knew she was unable to do this. She'd been lied to her entire life and she'd spent the majority of it killing her own race because of what her guardian taught her. She was a corrupted soul that could never be fully replenished no matter how hard she would ever try. 

Mica drew her daughter into a tight embrace, never wanting to let go as an attempt to steal back the hundreds of years that had been stolen from her though she knew that this was as impossible as it was to free her daughter of the weight of guilt that she was to carry for the rest of her existence.