Hallowed Ground

Chapter Thirty-Five

The angel Remliel felt a shift in the essence that bound him to the Heavens. He reached out, as he had reached out countless times, for the silver thread that tied him to his Lord. It was the conduit of purpose, the beginning and end of thought.

He carried light to the world below. His was the task of bringing the divine to the corporeal, the essence of God to the flesh of man. He awoke the spark inside them that helped them divine their true nature…that was his purpose.

The flow of energy to the divine was a cool wash of strength, the thread that bound him to those below was tenuous, a glittering shimmer of light so weak - so frail - that it took all of his concentration and all of his will to maintain it. His was a sacred duty.

Now something had changed. He stretched out toward the shift with his will, intending to close the growing rift and set things right. The change was not subtle. It tore at the fabric separating the Heavens and the Earth - a veil protecting one from the other. The veil was so vital to the essence of creation that Remliel would gladly have divided his essence and healed the rift through eternity if his immortal flesh could protect it.

He reached back for the strength he needed, but again, something had changed. Instead of growing wider and flooding him with energy and power, the conduit to his Lord shriveled. Beneath him, a bright funnel of light descended. He clutched at its walls. He drew back and spread his spirit, blending it with his surroundings and weaving it into the fabric of heaven, but each time he made contact, that contact was ripped free, and the pressure from below - the remorseless drag where there had been no more than the most tenuous leak of light - yanked him downward into a soaring, diving spiral. Behind him, the thread that bound him to his maker thinned and stretched and thinned some more. It did not break, but it felt as though a blade of black ice had pierced his heart.

And then…it was dark.