Chapter 40: The Great War
It was the first time that I came to study his face thoroughly. His sharp eyes held a dreadful glow, directly saying that he wasn't threatened by the look I was giving him.
Cupid stood there with a mask of the man he was. Or maybe this was his true form and I just wasn't familiar with it. This entire "simulation" was turning out to be more real than I expected.
"Why are you stalling?" Elisabetta and I, us being one, asked tersely. "Just stop wasting time and turn me in to Angelo. Isn't that the reason why you've agreed to partner up with Mikael?" I could feel her anxiety and it was concerning how scared someone could be by the thought of Angelo. I hadn't thought of him as mildly intimidatingâat least not to meâuntil recently. It appeared that wasn't a foreign thing to her though.
"You've gotten it all wrong."
"I don't think so." I mused, shifting in the seat I sat in the moving carriage. My hands and feet were bound by his magic so I wouldn't escape. He had known me too well to know that it wasn't against my character to throw myself out of a moving vehicle. "I think you two have it all figured out. Poor Mikael thinks that he's making the right decision to save me, but doesn't know he's sending me to the devil himself."
He slammed on the brakes hard and gave me a cold look.
"Can you honestly stop being so stuck in your own head and full of yourself? It's becoming dreadful to the point that I just wanna wring your pretty little neck."
I continued to glower at him in the dim light.
He only continued.
"If I wanted to turn you into Angelo he would've been with me the moment I opened that door back there to meet Mikael. Seeing the way the two of you are at each other's throats after this war has been declared, why on Earth would I think it to be a good idea to have him have his way with you again?"
"At least you have a conscience," I said, swallowing as a dark memory of three nights before resurfaced in my mind.
It was fleeting but it held two people screaming and crying. The image enveloped an enraged, dark angel that resembled Angelo and a heartbroken Elisabetta. Both of them would not succumb to the other until what looked like a tragic ending of her being forced into submission in the cruelest way.
He had silenced her.
She was stunned when she tried to speak but nothing came out.
While holding her throat she looked up, horror-stricken.
Angelo's face showed no remorse.
Using the power he had, he had made her a mute.
Elisabetta felt like a bucket of ice water was splashed in her face.
She didn't quite know how to explain it but feeling powerless, no, being rendered powerless by the one you loved felt like the biggest betrayal of them all.
The woman was certain now that whatever had been broken between the two of them was beyond repair. Not when he could go to heights like this without batting an eyelash.
And she was right.
After stooping so low, Angelo went even further as to lock her in her bedroom with no one to attend to her personally but himself. He didn't care that she couldn't utter a word to him and made sure not to make eye contact. A shell of a person he had made her in the name of protection. It felt like time was moving slowly during those two days. Elisabetta felt like she would never escape until their enemies were confirmed to have breached the borders of the heavens.
She remembered the look in his eyes as Cupid had delivered that news.
It appeared despite not wanting to take things into his own hands, Angelo had no choice but to. Especially since his tokens of affection were seen by not giving Elisabetta up in the first place when the war had been declared. He had fought with the Council of higher level angels, including the Lord himself. He had meant that there would be nothing coming in between him and his love. A love that had become so selfish, the flames of it had spreaded and was burning everyone around them without him even realizing.
Or maybe he didn't care.
This entire thing has started because of him and so it shall end because of him as well.
However, it did in a way neither he nor Elisabetta ever saw coming.
I was dragged out of Elisabetta's recollection as Cupid's gaze flickered away in shame. "I never thought he would do something like that," his response was raw and honest. "No, I didn't know he was capable of something like that...at least when it comes to you."
She wrapped her arms around herself defensively. It felt like that coldness was seeping in on her again.
"Neither did I."
He sighed.
"I know it sounds ridiculous for me to even try and defend him right now, but try putting yourself in his shoes for once. He has fought through hell and heavens to be with you. Served a punishment of a lifetime that other higher level angels might not have even survived. Only for it all to be ruined by a war brewed out of one person's infectious jealousy."
The woman scoffed. "And whose fault is that? Maybe you shouldn't be thinking in his shoes and instead step outside of them. Think about how much he had humored Evie to begin with. If he had taken a second to look around him and not be obsessed with Mikael and I, he would've noticed his own entanglements and the disasters they would cause."
"Evie is nothing but a low level Angel. She is nothing for Angelo to even be bothered by. Unfortunately, his kindness is not partial and she misinterpreted that."
"Oh for Christ's sake, Cupid!" she yelled, her frustrations becoming clearer. "The whole world knew that she wanted to bed him for centuries. Way before I even came into the picture. That's one of the first things I heard the handmaidens gossiping about. Oh, how poor Evie is. The girl couldn't break the celibacy of the high lord despite him being so kind to her yet an undeserving mortal managed to have him in her bed within the first week of residing here."
His lips thinned as she went on.
"You think because I didn't say anything that means I don't know it all. A woman always knows. We just choose whether or not it's worth bringing it up in an argument."
"Well, I hope you also know that a lower level angel and a higher one being together is simply impossible."
"Almost as impossible as being with a human?"
The silence was deafening.
"Yet that happened, didn't it?"
Cupid sat idle on purpose, not seeming to have the ability to drive anymore. They were embraced by the shadows of the woods and the eerie calmness of the night while an incoming storm searched for them. Nonetheless, this conversation needed to happen right then and there. Neither of them could hold it in anymore.
His knuckles paled from gripping the wheel before him tightly.
"Angelo never was interested in her. He made that much clear. To everyone. I don't know if you're aware but angels don't have to engage in intercourse at all. Even if they wanted to, it's much more complicated for a higher level one to do so. Depending on their partner's strength, a worse case scenario could happen and they might even...kill them. For angels not on par with each other it is even more difficult and less satisfying to try. Humans are sometimes used as vessels to make it work and it's too much of a hassle as well."
"So what you're saying is that he not only didn't want to sleep with her but it was too much work to do so? But for a human like me it's fine? Huh, I wonder how easy he thought of me."
She swore she heard a twig snap in the distance or maybe it was just her patience.
"Elisabetta..." Cupid pleaded.
"What?" She batted her eyelashes innocently despite her aggression. "Am I wrong yet again?"
"You are. For higher level angels to even be intimate with another being much less an angel, they would need an immeasurable amount of respect and love for that person. Not only physically, but spiritually as well. You see, there's a reason why you are susceptible to him. For example, he can even penetrate your dreams. It's because you have bonded on a subconscious level. It would be the same for you if you were at that level. You would be able to reach him in that way. However, based on him it seems strangely enough you already can. He says there are moments where with one glance it feels like you are almost reading him, which both excites and terrifies him."
"Because he can no longer lie to me." She growled.
"No, because he can no longer protect you. Knowing too much is exposing yourself to danger as much as you think it's saving you from it."
"I don't need protection. I'm not scared of death either. It's inevitable. For us humans at least."
His face told her how much he hated the reality of that. As much as they tried to avoid the topic as Angelo had done many times in the past, nothing would change the fact that she was not immortal like they were. "That being as true as it is, Angelo doesn't want you to shake hands with death earlier than expected."
"That's not up to him to decide."
"When you're his wife, it is."
The air was knocked out of her chest at the matrimonial reminder.
They had indeed gotten married, hadn't they?
She looked down at the simple silver band that started as a promise but lasted as a threat. It was an example of his perfidy.
"I did that thinking he solemnly swore to love me for the rest of his life. Obsession is not love. It is an excuse for it. And I shall no longer sit by and watch as he ruins the both of us with it. I would rather be called a cheater and a mistress of Mikael than live a life like that."
"Then what does that make of you?"
She didn't falter at the disgusted look he threw her way.
"You are no better than he is for taking that route to solve your problems. Not only are you hurting him, but also yourself in the process."
"It is a pain I can withstand." She gritted out. "I would rather writhe and scream from the brutality of it. I would endure anything but being made into a soundless mute. That is who I, Elisabetta, am."
It was more certain than ever that there wouldn't come a day where things would ever go back to how they were. Based on Elisabetta's feelings, it was clear that as much as she wanted to hate Angelo for everything he had done to herâto themâshe still loved him. Just the same, I could feel that she was no longer in love with him. I felt mortified as I compared the feelings she had in front of Mikael in that darkened room versus now.
The great war looming upon them seemed like it was already lost. How could they even think of winning when they couldn't even survive the one waged against each other?
They had vowed to always be together but all of that went up in flames.
Cupid receded from his stance and gave up fighting with her.
"I can see why Evie has done so many underhanded deeds to show how wrong the two of you are for each other. You just proved that she was right all along."
Her eyes met his with emptiness.
"I wish she had done it sooner. It would have saved us from all the trouble."
He chuckled humorlessly. "You really are an ice queen like they say."
"You've known me for the longest since I've been here. Whatever gave you the impression of something else?"
"I don't know," he mumbled, brown eyes seeping into a pool of regret. "I thought you'd actually changed but now I see you still won't ever mind anyone else's feelings but your own."
"Sorry that I'm not a sunshine, people-pleaser. Midnight mayhem suits me better. If you have a problem with that then there's nothing I can do."
"Mayhem..." he pondered, "I guess you'd better prepare yourself then." He said, eyes narrowing outside the space they were in. "Quick, duck!" He yelled and she instantly did.
There was an explosion as the window beside her went up in flames.
She was gasping for air as Cupid moved quickly and out the medium they were in. The entire ride was caught on fire, burning from the inside out as he practically teleported to her side.
Elisabetta tried to look around for the attacker but couldn't see anything but shadows moving swiftly.
She cursed her mortal eyes.
"Who are they?" She asked him, knowing he could see them even with the moonlight turned off.
"They are rogues."
She had heard of rogues before. They were supernatural beings casted out for being rebellious and following their own rules. They belonged to nowhere and no one. That said, the reason being why they were so dangerous.
They had nothing to lose.
"From heaven or hell?"
He looked her dead in the eyes. "Both."
Her jaw dropped.
H-How is that possible? Her disbelief echoed inside my head.
Cupid was looking at her with such an off-guarded and serious expression it scared her into muttering his birth name.
"Eros..."
Her words were immediately cut off by his trembling ones.
"They are here for you, Elisabetta." He informed her in a low voice. "The war has begun."