all of time and space, all the possibilities, all of the unknown. that's what she was in the doctor's eyes. every possibility, every unknown. she was an enigma, carrying a weight that only he could understand.
maybe that's why he started praying to...
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author's note: keep in mind, this chapter is written completely unedited and finished at 4:00 am lol, but i wanted to get it out there to finish up this episode. feel free to comment down below. . . it gives me motivation haha. i love hearing from you all! enjoy.
( xliii. betrayal runs deep )
none of this is right, she morbidly reminded herself. rielle observed the angels as they moved about the cavern preparing for what looked to be some type of ritual. she had isolated herself from them and from the beast as much as possible by finding a far corner and sitting against one of the walls, pressing her back firmly into the stone.
as insane as gabriel seemed, she knew he was of his right mind. as she watched the celestials pass her, her eyes were drawn to the dark lines forming along their jugular just atop their veins. she felt so sick when they passed, she was sure that the dark veins meant that they too had been blighted, just as the beast was, but gabriel wasn't. the darkened veins along the celestials necks didn't appear on gabriel, and he moved much differently than they did. unlike gabriel, who strutted around as if he owned the place, directing the celestials, the celestials just listened and obeyed, without so much as uttering a word. they were too far gone, and had been for some time, which meant they had remained in this cavern far longer than rielle had been on the planet.
gabriel was different though. if the blight was simply just dark magic twistedly imbued, gabriel wouldn't be susceptible to that. his abilities as the ethereal of purity would protect him from the infection. if he was serving the beast now, she could understand why too and it wasn't because of the blight.
it was because gabriel recognized the beast as the highest authority now that michael was dead.
much like her, gabriel had to have felt lost after the war and the destruction of the aether. michael led the archangels as much as he led the angels, and the ethereal were born with the desire to serve, just as much as the angels had been. the only difference was that rielle hadn't been blinded by that need to submit, and gabriel had clung to it.
lucifer showed her very early on that there was more to her life than serving michael's agenda. he broke her from that spell, but gabriel obviously hadn't been so lucky.
whatever gabriel was doing now, she was sure that the beast was behind it, which meant she needed to stop it.
rielle leaned her head against the stone of the wall, straightening her back and narrowing her eyes as the angel holding knife in their grasp approached gabriel. it was sharp and doubled edged with an handle coated in gold and inscriptions written in old high ethereal. from her spot in the furthest corner of the room, the girl coated make out what was written, but she knew where it was from.
