STATE OF GRACE
“There’s no easier way to say this,
but I’m the best, not because I say so,
but because your fears tell me so.”
Melody Manful
In the distance, the Grandinian palace looked like a forsaken fortress, its tall towers shrouded in shadows. As I flew toward it, the only illumination I saw was cast from two wooden torches flanking the main entrance.
I flew until I reached the tower, and I landed at full-speed in front of the immense turret, creating a hole approximately three feet deep in the dirt and filling the air with dust. With my dark wings spread behind me, I lifted myself and emerged from the hole.
The moment my feet touched ground again, heat emanated from my body. I stepped forward, leaving a trail of burning footprints.
“Gideon,” a shaken voice called from behind me.
I turned around, catching the eyes of a girl robed in a hooded gown staring at me. Apparently, the circus was in town.
“Can I help you?” I asked, folding my dark wings into my back.
“No, I—” the girl started saying, but stopped.
I heard her heart racing in fear.
“I’m…my name…I’m Princess Sela. Daughter of King Daligo. My father requests an audience in the Great Hall.”
Daligo sent his daughter to welcome me? He sure as hell knew how to appoint a welcoming committee.
“You’re her? The princess?” I asked. Sela was said to be the angel around, but looking at her, all I saw was another pathetic angel on the verge of collapsing from her own fear. “Well then, your Highness.” I bowed. “My greetings.” I stretched out my hand to greet her properly, but the very moment I did, Sela zoomed into the sky. I couldn’t help but smile. “Relax, I’m not here to hurt you. Well, now that I’m thinking about it, I just might do that.”
I turned and walked over to the main gate. I pushed it, and immediately it crumbled into a heap of dust. I stepped onto the palace grounds and glanced up at Sela, who hovered in the sky.
“You coming, Princess?”
I walked toward a transparent door that led into the palace. Even though I was always at the palace, I had never been inside the Great Hall because that area was private. I always met the king in the Assignment Hall, which was another fancy name for an office. The first thing I saw when I entered the Great Hall was a black grand piano that stood at the far left end of the hall between two vast, golden marble arches, with statues of ornamented creatures beneath them. Gold-tinted walls were adorned with intricate, golden carvings and antique paintings.
The yellow-and-brown marble floor glittered with gilded flourishes and a black-and-brown design of the Grandinian coat of arms. Our coat of arms was a golden shield with a pair of angel wings extending from each side. A diamond located in the center was segmented into four pieces, each piece representing one of the four neighboring worlds. The northern most section represented Lumens, the eastern section Earth, the southern section Grands, and the western section was for the Underworld.
The vividness and orderliness of the interior of the palace took me by surprise because Grandinians were supposed to be evil. In the middle of the hall, an oversize golden table surrounded by ten ornamented granite chairs hovered in mid-air. Carvings of lions holding swords in their teeth adorned the tops of the chairs.
Huge chandeliers floated in the air beneath an enchanted red sunset. There was no ceiling, but when I looked skyward, it appeared as if the heavens were close enough to touch. The inside of the palace reminded me of an ancient Greek palace, particularly Mt. Olympus’ architecture. Somewhere, a symphony played, and angels sung sweet olden melodies.
Everything I looked at seemed to be laden with gold. It was ostentatious, and I hated it. I had no idea why a smoggy and cold place like Grands would have a beautiful hall when the rest of the palace looked nothing like this room.
“Where am I?” I asked, thinking the door had been a portal to another realm. Like Lumens.
Lumens was a kingdom located between Earth and Heaven. I had heard that Lumens was an enchantingly beautiful kingdom. The sky was always blue, and there was laughter everywhere. I had never been to Lumens because I couldn’t stand to be around people who were selfless and good. There, King Babylon and his wife Queen Charmeine ruled. They had a son, what’s-his-face.
“This is the Great Hall.” Sela landed, puffing out her gown.
I laughed. “Nice try, Princess.” This couldn’t be the inside of our palace, because Grandinians were evil, and nothing beautiful came from us. “Okay, where’s the catch?”
“Humph…I’m not sure what—”
“This is a joke, right?” I explored the room, walking over to one of the statues and pacing around it. “Is this a reality show host?” I pointed at the statue. “Because his face looks familiar, and it’s not Alexander the Great.”
“This is the great…great…” Sela murmured.
“What?” I was confused. “This is really the inside of the Grandinian Great Hall? What the hell?” When I first entered, I had thought it was a cover-up, but then I thought someone was trying to make fun of me. “What the hell happened? Did you rent it out to Aphrodite as a camp?” I’d have understood if they did because Aphrodite was, after all, the goddess of love and beauty. The moment I asked this, I heard Sela’s heart pound violently.
I appeared right beside her and smirked when her heart stopped altogether. “Are you scared of me?” I leaned into her and gently placed one of my hands on the back of her neck. “Is this really the inside of the Grandinian palace?”
“This is the…” Sela paused. I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t.
“Well, then.” I moved my hand from her neck to her shoulder. “How about this?” Before Sela even blinked, the hall looked like a bomb had exploded. The chairs were wrecked, the piano and pillars lay shattered on the ground, and smoke and dirt filled the air. Now if I’d entered and seen the Great Hall like this, I’d have been right at home. “It looks much better now, don’t you think?” I leaned closer into Sela.
“We should—”
I bent and whispered in her ear. “We should have dessert.”
The moment I said this, a male voice called out from behind.
“Father,” Sela gushed and quickly flew away from me. When I turned around, King Daligo stood with two guards behind him. The guards froze in fear the moment they saw me.
“I think we’ll hold off that dessert for later,” I said with a forced smile.
“My lord.” Sela bowed to her father. With a wave of the king’s hand, the hall returned to its original beauty.
I walked over and sat on one of the chairs, propping my black army boots on the table.
“You may leave, my Princess,” Daligo said, and with a bow of Sela’s head, she disappeared.
“Hai chiesto per me?” I asked the king.
“Yes, I did call for you.”
“Well, I haven’t got all day.”
“You’re here because of the énas you killed this morning after you Shifted,” the king explained.
“Shocker! I didn’t see that one coming.”
The angels from Lumens were guardian angels who were sent to Earth to guide the humans. The human of a Lumenian was called énas—meaning “one,” because the guardian angels became one with the humans they were assigned to.
Grandinian angels, in contrast, went to Earth and tried to harm the humans the Lumenians protected. The whole point of this, of course, was to keep life balanced. Good versus evil, the living versus the dead, right versus wrong.
To keep the balance fair between our two kingdoms, King Daligo’s job was to make sure that he assigned each Grandinian to an énas, but we didn’t have to stay with the énas we were first appointed to; we could move to another énas if we wanted, and this was called the Shift. Some angels chose to Shift when they became bored with their assigned énas or just wanted to have fun with another énas.
“As if killing that énas wasn’t enough, I learned that you killed four Grandinians after that,” the king continued, turning to the paintings on the wall.
“Well done, Captain Obvious.” I stood and walked toward the artwork, seemingly to admire them. “So tell me, who did these paintings? Was it someone blind?” Daligo glanced at me in surprise. “Or was it you?” This time he laughed.
“Gideon, the Elders are not happy,” he said after his laughter died out.
Although Lumens and Grands were different, we were still connected because a powerful immortal family who lived in Guardian Paradise, a domain which was said to be located between Lumens and Grands, ruled both our kingdoms. These powerful immortals were known as the Elders.
They were said to have descended from the first king of Grands and first Queen of Lumens. Their purpose was to make sure the two kingdoms flourished and did the jobs they were born to do. Since the family was immortal, the parents would cross over to the land of the dead when they thought they had served their purpose as rulers and they were sure their children could take over their ruling duties. This happened from generation to generation. Personally, I found it incredibly stupid that someone would knowingly give up immortality.
The current Elders had a daughter, and her name was Madalong. She was said to be the heart of our kingdoms, she could foresee the future, read minds, and travel through time. There were also two princes—twins—called Sun and Moon, who were the very reason why our worlds were balanced. I had never seen the Elders or their children, nor had I ever stumbled across Guardian Paradise.
“The Elders have asked me to inform you that killing the humans is against our laws,” King Daligo continued.
Did he just say laws? People still made those? I didn’t understand why the king would expect me to follow anyone’s laws but my own.
“You move from one énas to another, killing each one, and this isn’t how things work,” he explained. “You are only supposed to harm them, not kill them. This behavior of yours…”
I spaced out. I saw the king’s lips moving up and down, but all I heard him saying was, “Blah-blah-blah…I like talking…blah-blah-blah…humans.”
“Wow,” I said, stopping the king from continuing his monologue. “Seriously, are you trying to talk me to death?”
“Maybe it’s time we paired you with a Lumenian whose human would be impossible to kill.” What was that supposed to mean?
“Dreaming again, I see,” I said with a smile, thinking the king was out of his mind if he thought I couldn’t kill a guardian angel’s énas.
“I assume you know who Tristan is,” he said, choosing to ignore the fact that I was mocking him.
When I heard the name, I guessed where his speech was going. Of course I knew what’s-his-face, everyone knew Tristan.
Tristan was the prince of Lumens and was well-known as the most powerful Lumenian alive. He was caring, selfless, compassionate, and hosts of other qualities I didn’t have, which I considered a good thing.
At the age of five, I was named the most powerful and evil Grandinian angel alive because everyone was scared of me and because I hurt all the angel children I played with. Tristan was named the opposite because even at the age of five, he was powerful enough to heal all the children I hurt. Basically, he was Mr. Save the Universe, and I was Mr. Destroy the Universe. Like sweet and sour. And that was one of the reasons why I didn’t like him. He was everything I loathed.
“Tristan?” I asked. “Never heard of him,” I said, flashing the king another mocking smile.
“Tristan is the guardian angel all the Grandinians want me to appoint them to,” Daligo said. “Because they see him as a challenge, and those I appoint to him see themselves as worthy. Here in Grands, it has become a race for all the Grandinian angels to Shift to Tristan and his human so they can try and defeat him. They find it to be the ultimate challenge because no one has ever defeated Tristan,” Daligo continued. “The angels always Shift to him just to get a chance with him. Many have tried to harm the humans he guides, but they all have failed.”
“You didn’t summon me here to tell me how awesome he is, did you?” I asked. I knew about Tristan’s power. I had never Shifted to him, because for some reason, I could never find him on Earth. Some angels I could sense, but never Tristan. It was as though he didn’t exist.
“The Elders and I have decided that you should Shift to Tristan and his human because he’d be difficult to defeat,” the king said, a smile playing on his lips.
“Really?” Was this the king’s idea of a challenge? “You want to pair me with the prince?”
“Last month, we assigned Tristan to a human named Abigail Cells. She is seventeen. It’s her final year of high school. She lives with her mother in San Francisco. She’s a very caring and loving girl, volunteers for a lot of charity work, and we consider her one of the more unselfish young people on Earth.”
I nearly gawked at him, but I stopped myself short of looking ridiculous. Really, I didn’t understand. Tristan was guiding Miss I-Care-About-the-Freaking-World-More-Than-My-Life?
“Her mother is famous and consequently very busy,” said Daligo, looking out the open window as he spoke. “And she barely has time for her daughter.” He paused. “Not that Abigail needs the guidance. She is guarded twenty-four seven by human bodyguards. But like all humans, she needs a guardian angel.”
In other words, Tristan wasted his time guiding a spoiled, rich girl who was constantly surrounded by people.
“Here’s all you need to know about her. I think a little challenge would be good for you.” The king snapped his fingers, and a notebook materialized out of thin air and flew to me.
I caught the notebook and placed it on the table in front of me “I’m honored and all, but I don’t—”
The king cut me off. “I thought you’d be up for it, but it seems even you don’t think that someone as powerful as Tristan can be—”
“Your kingship,” I interrupted. What the hell was wrong with him? Did he seriously think I was afraid of what’s-his-face? “I’m up for the challenge. I just don’t like being told what to do. And it seems as if you’re telling me what to do with this particular assignment.”
“I’m merely doing my job by pairing you with the prince, but of course…if Tristan becomes too challenging and you can’t handle him, you—”
Daligo didn’t finish what he wanted to say because the flames I threw hit one of the nearby guards squarely in the chest, and he instantly burned to ashes. I didn’t wait for the second guard to panic. I appeared in front of him and ripped his heart straight out of his chest. The angel fell, twitching at my feet.
“No!” the king shouted in horror and disbelief.
At the sound of Daligo’s scream, someone rushed into the room.
“My lord,” the angel said, clearly shaken.
I turned around, and there he stood.
Tristan.