An Angel’s Road to Hell

Cassandra Pendragon

My vision wavered, the splendour of a billion stars, a million worlds, a thousand galaxies swallowed my reality until the cavern, the arches, even Greta’s voice vanished like a forgotten dream. The howling of the abyss, the song of the void filled my ears, the promise of creation tickled my nostrils as my chest expanded and the unbound power of my existence thundered through my veins. I was being challenged and I smiled.

Nestled between the waning lights and dancing shadows of dying worlds a set of smouldering eyes, filled with the determination of lost eternity, blinked and darkness swallowed my vision as wings, the size of planets, fanned out in utter silence. Some lessons had to be taught to every generation. Being able to devour a world doesn’t make you immortal was one dragons tended to forget. There’s always someone stronger was another. No matter. I was in a good mood and happy to teach. Usually I wouldn’t have been prepared to overlook several extinguished stars, but she hadn’t snuffed them out completely, she had only taken their light and that much I could fix easily enough. After I had made sure that she had learned her lesson.

“What are you?” The voice was soft, rich and entirely unexpected, coming from the towering amalgamation of magic and grace, spanning my entire field of vision.

“One of the reasons why you could grow up in peace. Do you honestly believe you’re the first dragon who’s reached an age and size where they become a spacefaring civilisation in their own right? If so, let me be the first to disabuse you of the notion. There are more, many more. If you want, I can introduce you to some of the more lively ones. Most have a tendency to sleep through the ages, though.” Her form shimmered, sparks seemed to gnaw away at her aura until they collapsed into a humanoid form, made of star light and moonshine. An unworldly beautiful woman hovered before me in the infinite expanse of space, the rekindled light of the stars she had touched setting her hair ablaze.

“That’s not an answer.” Her full, silvery lips were drawn into a pinched smile. “Maybe I should’ve asked who you are.” I sighed.

“That’s a much more interesting question and one I’m not going to answer. If you want to know, you’ll have to find out for yourself. For now, it should suffice that I’m stronger than you and here to explain the rules. One rule, actually. We don’t feed on creatures who can’t even perceive us. If the growth you gain from basking in radiation isn’t enough for you, go and look for someone who can fight back. I won’t care if you devour another star dragon and I’ll even applaud your courage if you’re going to challenge a nova dragon, even though I do think it might be a tad suicidal, at least for the next few hundred millennia.”

“There are others like me?”

“How old are you? No, scratch that, how long has it been since your carbuncle became the equivalent of a star?” As an explanation, once a dragon surpassed the confines of its home world, we classified them by the strength of their carbuncles. The first stage, when it generated the output of a star, was, consequentially, called a star dragon, followed by a nova dragon, who could unsurprisingly produce the same amount of power as an exploding star. After that… well, there hadn’t been that many that it had become necessary to think about classifications and almost all of them had been crystallines to begin with.

“It’s hard to tell. Days, weeks… they’re measured in relation to a fixed point. I don’t have one, not anymore. The world of my birth is far away,” a shadow of grief or maybe anger stirred behind her pitch black eyes, filled with scintillating sparks, but she pressed on quickly before I could decipher the emotion, “but I think it’s not been more than a few days.” I just about managed to suppress an incredulous snort. After her ascension she shouldn’t have done anything for years, except stare at the newly revealed secrets of a much larger world that had now become her own. Unless…

“It’s gone, isn’t it,” I asked, as the realisation, that her home must have been destroyed in a battle, scarring enough to facilitate her change, struck. A single, luminous tear ran down her alabaster cheeks as she inclined her head ever so slightly.

“I’m sorry. I know how lost you must feel…”

“It’s not gone,” she snarled, with enough venom to make my wings bristle. “But it could as well be. I… I failed, I wasn’t strong enough and I thought…”

“If you could just get enough power you might be able to wrestle it back from whoever took it, before it’s too late. Well, on the one hand I can’t very well let you devour the light that keeps uncounted beings like yourself alive, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help. Why don’t you tell me what happened? I might not look like it but, as you very well know, I’m pretty capable.”

She eyed me warily for a few heartbeats, her thoughts clearly written all over her pristine features. I could almost hear them as they thundered towards a simple conclusion. She really didn’t have that much of a choice. This was her chance and even if I was lying, there wouldn’t be much she’d be able to do.

“Years ago, more than I care to admit, we were a clutch of five. In the beginning…”

“Power is never an excuse,” I thundered, “it’s a burden and you failed to carry it. Be grateful, for if I had found you on my own, your end wouldn’t have been quick.” Even though they weren’t close to the size of their sister, yet, the four of them still measured several miles in length each. Probably on the cusp of ascension but not quite there. If they hadn’t hid behind everything she held dear, she would have annihilated them in the blink of an eye.

“If you kill us, the planet will burn,” the red monstrosity rumbled, hills and mountains cracking under the power of his voice. Dust and flickering discharges obscured my vision until it seemed like I was stuck at the centre of an arcane sandstorm. “If you’re here on her behalf, there’s nothing you can do. This is our world, not hers, and we can do with it as we please.”

“Nothing,” I echoed softly, my voice cutting through the chaos he had unleashed like a hot knife through butter. “Let’s see.” My wings fanned out, latching onto every stream of magic I could feel. “Burn, you said? I’ve always adored fireworks. What kind of kindling will you make?”

The flash in the pan kind. Four explosions, that put his pathetic display to shame, shook the planet, the heavens burned silver and blue, the earth trembled under the onslaught of my transcendent wrath and silence returned. At the centre of a glassy desert, four unfathomable craters smoked and the sweltering sun vanished behind a pair of wings, large enough to embrace the planet. A heartbeat later the warm light ignited again and a graceful figure appeared next to me. Sadness and satisfaction pulled her lips into a mixture of a snarl and a smile as her gaze traveled over the last remains of her family.

“You didn’t exaggerate,” she finally said. “Is this how all things end? Snuffed out like a dream when the morning sun beckons?”

“Only those nightmares that are stupid enough to cross me and mine. If you stay well away from us I don’t see why you shouldn’t protect this place for aeons to come. There isn’t much left in the universe that can challenge you, Stella. In case you ever find yourself at odds with my family, especially the crowned variety… call for me. I can’t promise I’ll take your side, but I’ll listen… I’ll make them listen. But that’s for another time. Now, you need to heal, this world needs to heal.”

“Didn’t you say you and yours don’t meddle? Why did you… why do you help me?”

“Because I’m a hypocrite and I wanted to? Because you contented yourself with light and didn’t touch a single life? Honestly, I don’t know. Why does it matter?” Her grimace turned into a playful smile when she replied:

“Because I’d quite like to know what I’ve got to do the next time I want to see you.”

“That’s not difficult,” I laughed. “Call my name. I’ll hear you. Do you want me to stay for a while?”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Sure, but a day, a week, even a decade doesn’t make much of a difference. You’ll know what I mean when you’re older. Time… loses much of its allure when you don’t feel its passage.”

“Is that why your wound hasn’t healed?” I frowned.

“What wound? They didn’t even manage to singe a single hair on my head.”

“I know,” she almost smirked. “Don’t tell me… can’t you feel it? It’s almost like… you seem whole but when your powers stir it feels like… they’re incomplete. As if they’re forced through a hole where something else should be.”

“Right. None of my family ever realised but you did?”

“Maybe they don’t look at you the same way? Finding faults in something you admire is much easier than finding them in something mundane…”

“Why do you look like you’ve swallowed a bucket of manure,” Greta asked curiously, her violet eyes glowing in the dim light only a handspan away from my face. Oh boy, where to start? I craned my neck until the vertebrae popped and the last, hazy image of Stella smiling at me disappeared.

“Because I might have, figuratively,” I mumbled. Chucking it off to a galactic coincidence was entirely possible, but that particular memory resurfacing when Greta had just told me that I might be linked to Amazeroth much more… intimately than I had believed was a bitter pill to swallow. “I just remembered a friend who told me that I might be… wounded, incomplete.”

“What a surprise,” she cackled. “Looks like I still know you better than you know yourself.”

“I don’t think that’s a reason to celebrate. Have you any idea what it might mean?”

“No, but I don’t have to. I know you, Cassandra. You and Lucifer. Whatever your link to the Lord of Mirrors is, you’re still you and I’m not worried about your future. Only what it might bring.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Not by a long shot. If anyone’s going to ask I’ll deny ever having said it, but I trust you, you and your judgement. Implicitly. Always have since you carried me from the ruins of a burning world. Whoever… no, whatever you are, you’ll always be an angel to me. Even if you should wear a crown. Quite the metaphor, isn’t it? Everyone around you is so determined to see one on your brow and now you even have one. I’m simply curious if it’s going to grow. But, whether it’s going to wither or flourish, you will always be the same, at least to me. You’re… how did you put it, you’re the light that allows the shadows to thrive. Why do you care so much? It doesn’t matter where the power in your veins stems from, only what you do with it. And that, my dear, will always be your choice. Have a little trust in yourself. You’ve earned it. I’ve seen you challenge your past, don’t shrink away from your future.”

“And if you’re right? If I am really… even more? No one should have that kind of power.”

“Cassy, I hate to break it to you, but every immortal shouldn’t be. It’s not fair and it’s definitely not healthy, as we’ve learned, as you’ve learned at the point of a katana. But… that’s life. Maybe it’s just creation’s way to return balance. The immortals are led astray so it needs something to fight them. In this case you. If that’s true… I won’t complain about its choice.” A strangled laugh escaped me.

“You put way too much stock in creation… and me. I’m so young, stupid even, and…” the soft, smooth hand on my cheek was a surprise but the spirit behind it hadn’t changed one bit.

“Not alone. Cassandra, we don’t know what you are. It’s as simple as that. But we know who you are. Ahri does, I do, so does your mother, Reia, Viyara, even Mephisto… you’ve always been… different. You know that. Live your life to the fullest, to the best of your abilities and whatever comes next… well, all we can do is try, can’t we. And, in all honesty, I can’t wait for the moment when your family realises whom they have been messing with. You shouldn’t be scared. Michael should be.”

“And if I lose my way,” I all but whispered.

“Then your mother and I will set you straight and if we can’t, Ahri will. Trust us. Just as much as we trust you. You’re not alone. You never were. Please, don’t blind yourself again and think you have to shoulder the weight of the cosmos alone. As long as you don’t cut us off, we’ll be there.” I leaned into her almost reflexively and with a content hum she began stroking my hair.

“Now, enough self pity,” she demanded after a few moments. “There’s enough to do and idle speculation isn’t worth the dirt under your boots. What will be will be and we’ll face it when the time comes. Together. Until then, show me those arches. Now that I’m here, I’m sure I can force some of them under my control, but I might need your help.” Pragmatic to a fault and something I would have told myself if I hadn’t been reeling internally. Having your own convictions thrown back into your face every few days was one of the downside of being surrounded by people you had taught yourself. Still, she was right. Very much so. Wisdom was the conviction and strength to change the things we can influence, accept those we can’t and differentiate one from the other.

“And I’ll gladly give it. Alright, let’s see how much we can accomplish. Would you do me a favour and keep your suspicions to yourself? I’m going to tell Ahri… no, I’m not, she already knows, but I don’t want the others to worry needlessly.”

“You mean fret like you did? I won’t. As far as I’m concerned it’s an interesting piece of the puzzle but nothing more. One day, though, I fear they’ll have to know.”

“And they will… one day. Until then I’ll do everything I can to keep them away from anything immortal, especially my sister.”

“That’s your prerogative but I don’t think it’s wise. They’re stronger than you give them credit for.”

“It’s not their strength I’m worried about but their innocence. The world we live in is cruel enough. It’s enough for them to be forced to fight and kill or watch others do the same. I don’t mean to undermine their courage and show them how insignificant our struggles are, compared to what’s coming.” She sighed.

“You’re lying to me, which I don’t mind, but you’re also lying to yourself and that’s something only a fool would do. Cassy, you’re hiding behind your words. The only reason why you can go on, why you can kill and torture is because you believe it’s only a shadow of the atrocities to come. It is not… every life, every death is the same. To face your future you have to face your present. Allow yourself to grieve for the girl you were forced to hang, for the men you couldn’t save. Yes, there will be many more but that doesn’t make the pain any less real and if you deny yourself the chance to feel it, you’ll only deny yourself the opportunity to accept it and grow.”

“Thanks for the lecture, but what has it got to do with my family?”

“You have to decide if you want to keep them by your side. If you do, you’ll have to allow them to get hurt, you’ll have to show them what kind of world awaits them on the other side.”