By the Angels' Wings

By Gillian Rhodes

The war that ended the world has been over for a hundred years, but nobody knows it.

The League, a powerful organization of wizards, have rewritten history, claiming that the ruined earth is exactly the way it should be. For the struggling ordinary people beyond its gilded gates, every day is a battle for survival, and the Black Roses, the feared vampire police, stalk in the shadows in search of the mysterious “Old Soul” and the rumors of angels. But deep in the blackened hills, there are whispers, and a few have learned the most dangerous secret of all: the secret of the blue sky. Part fantasy, part dystopia, part post-apocalyptic fiction, By The Angels’ Wings is separated into three parts, each following a generation of the family that will change the course of history forever.

Written over a decade as the author grew up in an increasingly fearful and chaotic world, By The Angels’ Wings is at once a plea for sanity and a manifesto of hope: for the power of love, the vitality of resistance, the endurance of the stories we tell, and the strength of our choices to influence it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gillian Rhodes
• Release date: Feb 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370598359

Gillian Rhodes

Gillian Rhodes is a multi-dimensional artist working primarily as a dancer and choreographer. She has performed and dance professionally in the US, France, Cambodia, and South Korea. As a writer, she has co-authored books with her sister, novelist Hilary Rhodes, and her father, Kevin. She lives and works globally.

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BY THE ANGELS’ WING

A Trilogy of Novellas by

Gillian Rhodes

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2018 Gillian Rhodes

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For my sister Hilary, one of the strongest and most brilliant people I’ve ever met;

For my sister Darcy, whose dogged determination is unmatched;

For my mother, who bravely and humbly struggles with the chains of her mind;

And for my father, from whom I learned all I know of courage.

CONTENTS

One: The Old Soul

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Epilogue

Two: The Last Angel

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

Three: The Angel’s Daughter

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Author’s Note

ONE:

THE OLD SOUL

PROLOGUE

There are only two things I remember my father telling me. I was only a small child when he left, so in my memory he was never more than a shadow with violent blue eyes and cold hands. His words, when he chose to share them with me, were biting.

The first thing was that I must bring down the League. I didn’t know what the League actually was besides the group of wizards somehow responsible for ending the world. I did know that they were the reason we were always hiding, and that they must never find us.

When I asked my father what the League was, he only said, Death. It was the same answer he gave when I asked what would happen if they found us.

The second was that I must never fall in love. Again, what love was or what it meant to fall into it made absolutely no sense to me. I only asked once what he meant, and got a simple, snarling answer: It’s too dangerous. As such, I assumed it was just another trap of the land.

He was not a man of words, my father. He didn’t like questions or talking of any kind, so I quickly learned not to ask. I just followed. I wonder sometimes if he was ever planning to explain to me, or if he just expected I – or he – would die before that. Either way, one morning he was gone, and I was alone. If I had to guess, I would say I was no more than seven years old.

We had no ages in that world, and no one was a child.

ONE

The world had ended over a hundred years before, but very few people knew it.

The radiation that had choked the world now hung in the skies in a madman’s palette of red and orange, filling the earth with a constant humming glow. Most everything on the ground was burned, and town was a liberal term for the settlements of barely standing concrete husks, patrolled by the vampire police and populated by the sullen, silent survivors.

The war that ended the world had not raged in a long time. Nevertheless, it was not over.

For vast majority of the survivors, there was nothing amiss in this strangely colored world. For all those born after the world’s ending, the black hills were just how hills looked. The sky’s natural color was red. There was nothing beyond the husks, and if humanity had once known how to build, it had either forgotten or lost the desire.

There was only one place in this world that stood as witness to the one that had ended, and that was where eight-year-old Adela lived.

The town was nestled (or shoved, depending on how one looked at it) into a sharp valley, with rocky, black cliffs jutting up on all sides. One side rose slightly less steeply, and so the gilded gates faced that direction.

Inside, a single street led up to a hulking stone building with a tower in the center. Houses as one might have seen in the old world lined the street in two neat rows. They had wood doors and glass windows. Adela, a willful girl with a fine head of curling auburn hair and earnest green eyes, walked on clean concrete and wore shoes, a great privilege only granted to those in the most central circle of power – the League.

Indeed, Adela was lucky simply to be alive. Children in that world were rare and often deformed. Adela however was quite unaware of the privilege of both her shoes and her wholeness. To her, the lack of playmates was merely annoying, and six-year-old Darius-with-a-twitch, who followed her adoringly, was dreadfully boring.

Despite having everything she might need in this comfortable town, the world beyond the gates called to Adela. Part of that – really, a large part of that – was because it was forbidden. Whenever she asked her quiet mother or stern father about it, she was shushed, ignored, or punished.

"But why can’t I go out there?" she complained often to her tutor, a frowning elderly woman she only knew as Nanny.

"You know why, her tutor would sigh. It’s dangerous. The commoners are unruly savages."

For a long time, this argument had been more than enough to keep Adela’s fear greater than her curiosity. One day, though, she found a logical flaw and pointed it out.

I thought, she said proudly, "the League made the commoners stop fighting, and they made the evil dark wizards extinct. So now there’s peace, and that means I would be safe. That’s what my father says and he should know," she added, with all the self-assuredness her station provided. It was true; her father was on the high council.

Nanny was ready with another counter-argument. The League has done great work to keep the peace, that is true, and yes, there are no more dark wizards. Nevertheless, the commoners cannot learn peace, and the fighting goes on despite the League’s efforts. For you – a young girl – they would eat you alive.

Adela frowned at her blue dress, her favorite. She’d have to find another excuse for the next time. She turned her attention to dodging the rest of her lessons. Nanny, tell me the story about the angels!

Her tutor shook her head. Again? You’ve heard it at least –

"Please, Nanny?" Adela asked, widening her eyes and quivering her lower lip.

Nanny sighed. Still, telling stories was safer than trying to convince the girl to stay inside the gates, so she conceded. Immediately she was the object of Adela’s full attention, something she never reserved for lessons.

The world before the League was chaos, Nanny began, eyes slightly unfocused as they always were when she told this story. "The commoners made war, the only thing they know how to do. They knew nothing of the wizards then, for the wizards remained in secret. They had enough trouble on their hands, always at war with their age-old enemy, the vampires known as the Black Roses. For a long time, there was no change. But then something happened.

The twisted dark wizards had always sought power. At last, one of them succeeded. He started by taking over the wizarding world, ruling them all in his crushing fist. It was not enough for him, though. He wanted more. So he broke the age-old law of secrecy, took over the commoner world, and called himself God of Earth.

No matter how many times she heard it, Adela never failed to thrill at the story, and gasped. But what did the commoners think?

Commoners are weak, Nanny responded flatly. They worshipped him like he demanded, him and his council. God and his Angels, they called themselves. Nobody could oppose them or their terrible rule. Nobody, except a group of pure, good light wizards who called themselves the League.

At great risk to their lives, the League began to rebel. They knew they alone held the hope of the whole world, and so one by one, they brought down the angels, a feat of magic never before seen. In doing so, they finally found the evil dark wizard’s weakness.

What was it? Adela asked, as she always did, sitting on the edge of her chair.

He was only so powerful by sucking life and power from his angels. When they were gone, he withered and died. The League thought that was the end of it, but without anyone to worship the commoners immediately turned on each other once again. The League’s dreams of the first peaceful world seemed hopeless.

After waiting to see if Nanny continued – she never did – Adela burst out, That’s not the end! What happened next?

You know very well. It was the League’s magical brilliance and leadership that finally showed the world that they were the true angels, and for the first time ever, there was peace.

"Nanny, how did they stop the commoners from fighting?" Adela pressed, a question she’d only recently started asking and one Nanny very much wanted to avoid.

That’s enough questions, Nanny replied, a little sharply. The League brought order to a chaotic world. They made sure all wizards were only pure light wizards and none of the other corrupted elements, to ensure that the peace will be everlasting. They are so powerful even the Black Roses submit to them.

Adela sat for a long moment, chewing her lip. Nanny, when I asked Father to tell me this story, he said the first angels, the council of the evil dark wizard, didn’t exist and I shouldn’t ask about them, she said, voicing a new observation. Why would he say that?

Because they were no angels, Nanny replied, true annoyance now in her voice. "The League was right to hunt them and all their descendants. Now, that’s quite enough of that for today. Get out your books."

Adela dutifully brought out her books, but the story remained in her head. It had always intrigued her, and now even more as she sensed there may be something forbidden inside it. While she bent her head to her lessons, her thoughts remained with the shadowy angels, who may or may not have ever truly existed.

I don’t know how they found me.

It had been some time, maybe half a fortnight, since my father left. I had long since finished the last of our meager food rations. Leaving the shelter we’d been hiding in was out of the question, however. One of the few things I knew of the world was that if I was found by the tall, pale creatures with the black eyes, I was dead. Whenever they were anywhere close, the black design on my lower back seared red hot, my father cursed, and we moved. Quickly.

I did not know how I got the design on my back, and nor did my father tell me. He said only that if it burned I should run, and nothing else. He had one too. I saw it, the skin black and puckered to make the outline. The shape was oddly beautiful though. My father called it rose.

In any case, I was curled into the corner of the shelter, which was nothing more than the basement of an old broken building, when the two of them arrived with quiet steps and eyes in the shadows.

"There’s someone here, one of them whispered suddenly, and I froze. Underneath his words, I heard the same hissing voice I heard from my father as well. I thought of them as second voices." I didn’t usually understand them.

"Who’s there?" the same voice asked. Not loudly, but enough to reach me. I didn’t answer, too frightened to speak.

"It’s a child, the other said, his own whispering words accompanying the phrase. Look. He’s just a kid."

"A child? The first man was dumbfounded. Alone? That’s not possible."

It was around dusk, and light was filtering in through the broken ceiling. Still, I could barely see them across the room, as if the shadows themselves were wrapping around their bodies. I was far too weak to run even if I had wanted, and besides, rose was not burning. I just huddled, watching them approach. It was only when they were right in front of me that I could see them clearly. Their faces were strangely similar, like two versions of the same person, olive skin and dark eyes.

"Hells, you’re right, he’s just a boy, one said to the other. Both were looking at me with shocked faces, their second voices clamoring louder and louder in the empty room. The one squatted down to look at me. What in the angels’ name are you doing here, boy?" he asked.

"He’s on the edge of death. Look at him, he’s just a skeleton," the other said.

Something about that word, death, made me decide to speak. I’m hiding from the men with black eyes.

Startled to hear my voice, high and piercing against their deep ones, the men stared at me with open mouths, then at each other. Their second voices banged loudly in the room and made my head hurt.

"The men with black eyes?" the first repeated dumbly.

"Yes. If rose burns, then I have to run," I explained.

"Rose burns? What the hell is he talking about?" the second asked.

"He’s probably delusional, the first said, standing up. We should just leave him. It’d be kinder that way."

At this, I stood. Rose, I insisted, turning around to show them the design on my back. Both their first and second voices went silent. I turned back to find them there, staring.

"Gods," the first breathed.

"Could he –" the second added.

"Impossible," the first said, shaking his head.

"Look at his eyes, Jos!"

The first knelt down in front of me. Tell me, he said, what is your name?

I just stared in reply, not understanding the word.

"What are you called? he clarified. Did your father or mother call you anything?"

"I don’t have a mother, I responded. My father didn’t call me anything. He’s gone."

The two exchanged a long look. Their second voices had started clanging again.

"Very well, the first asked, very slowly. Tell me, can you see what I’m thinking?"

I frowned. I can hear what you say, I said. And you talk a lot.

"But in my eyes, boy. What do you see in my eyes?"

I looked. I saw brown, and behind the color, endless rooms. Rooms and a voice, shocked and swirling. The only thing the voice said was, James Richard.

This made no sense to me. But it was there in his eyes, so I answered his question. I see rooms. And James Richard.

The man coiled away, with a sharp intake of breath. My gods, the second breathed, it is him.

"He must carry it, the first agreed. He turned back to look at me. Your father is gone?"

"For days," I confirmed.

"Is he coming back?"

I shrugged.

"We should take him with us, the second man muttered. He’s just a kid, no match for the Roses. He’ll be eaten alive."

"True, the first agreed. Then, to me, Come. We are going underground."

TWO

Adela’s favorite part of the day was when lessons finished and she was allowed to play outside. Even though Nanny always insisted that stupid Darius join, Adela’s enthusiasm never dimmed.

The only space to play in that small town was a single empty lot, a square space just large enough for a young girl to run and play with a ball.

On that particular day, though, Adela found she had no interest in throwing a ball, especially to Darius, who was eager but terribly unskilled. What she wanted to do was go beyond the gates. Despite Nanny’s worries, she couldn’t possibly imagine what could be a danger to her, a daughter of the League.

She snuck a peek at Nanny. The older woman was thoroughly engrossed in a sewing project, her lips pursed.

Adela considered, then turned back to Darius.

Psst. Dari.

The younger boy startled so badly he batted the ball to the other side of the square. Before he could go after it, Adela caught him by the arm and leaned in close. Forget the ball. Let’s go explore, she whispered.

Explore? Darius’s eyes went wide. Where?

Out There, Adela said, delighting in Darius’s awed expression. She pointed to the black hills.

We’re not allowed to! Darius protested. Nanny’ll stop us.

She won’t see us, Adela countered. Come on, if you won’t go I’ll go by myself. She began to walk confidently across the square towards the ball.

It’s dangerous!

Despite his protests, Darius ran after her. On the other side of the square, the ball had rolled next to the gate that led to a narrow passage behind the houses, barely an arm’s length from the black cliffs that rose immediately behind the fences. To Adela, it seemed to be leading the way.

Coward, Adela threatened.

Am not!

Are too!

Darius quailed under the fierce green eyes of his terrifying older friend. Am not, he muttered.

Adela checked once more to see that Nanny was well and truly absorbed in her work, then grabbed Darius’s hand and pulled them out the gate and out of sight behind the nearest house.

From there, they ran with all their might, dodging from shadow to shadow, until they reached the gilded gates. There had never been guards as long as Adela could remember, and the spaces between the bars were plenty wide enough to let a skinny girl through. Adela marched up to them with great confidence. Once there, however, she found herself feeling very afraid, and very small.

She could not go back though, because then Darius would call her a coward, and that was unacceptable. So she turned to him, put on her best brave face, and said, Come on then.

Are you sure? Darius asked, in a very small voice. There are vampires out there.

The Roses? Adela scoffed. They work for the League, stupid.

What about dark wizards? Darius asked, remaining stubbornly in place.

They’re all gone. Fine, if you’re going to stay there, I’m going. Adela stuck a foot through the opening, her heart beating through her chest, and Darius scuttled closer.

With a step and a lurch in her stomach almost too much to bear, Adela found herself outside her prison. The valley in front of them extended a hundred paces or so, then inclined steeply upwards to a saddle between the surrounding hills. With wobbling knees, the two children struck forward.

Within the first few steps, Adela learned her first thing about the outside world: the ground was sharp. Some of the chunks dissolved into a finer black powder when she stepped on them. Many more didn’t, and poked painfully into the soles of the shoes she had never liked to wear. She was suddenly grateful for them.

They had only been walking for a short time when the ground began to slope upwards. They had to go around large rocks now, the path winding up and through. The gates glinted below, sometimes vanishing between the rocks, which both thrilled and terrified Adela. The path was starting to get truly steep, the children struggling for balance, when Adela heard movement to her right.

She froze in her tracks. Darius stopped too, his face going white. What – he began, but Adela shushed him fiercely. She looked around, and found the path extended in a fairly straight line to one side before vanishing into a certain cluster of stones that made a small circle.

I think it came from there, she whispered, pointing. There was no sound now, and before she could think the better of it, she walked towards it.

Darius blanched. What are you doing?! he hissed, his voice squeaking. Adela didn’t pay attention. Just next to the place where the path turned the corner into the stone circle, she paused to imagine what might wait inside. It occurred to her she should be afraid. Her curiosity was greater, though, so she took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

Whatever she had been expecting, it was not this. Crouching inside was a boy only slightly older than she. He was frozen in place, the pale skin of his naked chest and face smeared with black, his blue eyes wide and staring.

Adela recovered herself remarkably quickly. Who are you? she asked, almost disappointed that it wasn’t a monster. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, he was a commoner savage.

The boy clearly hadn’t been expecting a girl either. He straightened very slowly. His muscles, surprisingly wiry over the clear outlines of his bones, were tense. "Who are you?" he asked.

Adela drew herself up. I am from the League, and my father is on the high council. He rules this world.

The blue-eyed youth spat at her feet. Adela leapt back in surprise and disgust, a little shout ready on her lips. Before she could even make the beginning of the sound, the youth leapt at her and covered her mouth tightly to muffle the sound. She was too surprised to fight.

"Quiet," he hissed in her ear. Something about his tone made Adela, who hated following orders, obey.

Before she had time to get her wits back, the boy let go and backed away, eyeing her. Despite everything she wanted to believe about him, he looked neither savage nor young.

You’ve never been out here before, so I’ll tell you, he said. If you shout, you’re dead.

Adela gathered herself. I have too been out there, she announced with bravado, but the boy was already shaking his head.

"Out here," he corrected. "You should go back now. To. . . them." He choked on the last word, and Adela frowned.

The League is good, she protested.

No, the boy answered, The League is death.

Always one to debate, Adela glowered at him. They saved the world.

They destroyed it.

They brought peace!

By ending the world.

"You’re a liar!" Adela reached out to push the boy’s thin shoulders, and he must not have expected her temper, because her shove knocked him several steps backwards. His shoulders felt thin and frail, and as he struggled to regain his balance, Adela noticed that his feet were bare. They were ugly and calloused, still showing signs of scabbed cuts. Seeing this, she felt ashamed about her temper, and took a step towards him.

But where are your shoes? she asked as kindly as she could. The boy’s confused eyes met hers briefly before understanding flicked across his face.

I have none.

Why not? Didn’t your parents give you any?

The boy’s face was torn between outrage and pity. I have none, he repeated. Adela was opening her mouth to ask another question when the boy froze in place, a wince of pain flashing across his face. Please go, he said, his voice strained. Don’t tell them about me.

With that cryptic message, he was gone, darting past her to the entrance of the stone circle and scurrying into the cliffs. Despite his bare, scarred feet, he moved quickly and was soon gone from sight.

Too confused to do anything but follow the boy’s last instructions, Adela grabbed a stunned Darius by the hand and dragged him back the way they’d come, slipping and sliding on the slope. Just as they reached the edge of the hills, Adela saw a large group of people coming out the gates. Nanny, apoplectic with rage and worry, her father furious like a storm cloud, her white-faced mother, at least five other people, and a few pale forms of the vampire police. She swallowed, suddenly realizing how much trouble she was in.

There was no turning back, though, and so she and Darius descended the last hundred paces into a clamor of shouting. It was all quite confusing, and when Adela found she could think again, everyone was looking curiously at her.

Where were you? her father asked. His tone betrayed a wealth of anger, but he was keeping it strangely kind. It made Adela feel much more ashamed somehow.

Just there, she said in a small voice, waving a hand at the cliffs. It was hard to see from here where the circle was, the rocks just fading into more rocks.

Tell me. Was there anyone else there? With you?

There was a pause. Adela thought of the boy with his haunted eyes and bare feet, and his spit. No, she said.

That’s odd, her father said, still in the same, falsely kind tone, because the Roses tell me they smelled someone. He nodded to the vampires next to him. Adela had never seen them so close before, and now found herself cowering under their empty black eyes. Although she knew they were not enemies, she couldn’t help a shiver of fear from passing down her back.

No.

But there was! Darius protested, at last finding his voice. Adela winced, furiously wishing he hadn’t come along. There was a boy!

A boy? Her father turned with great interest to the younger boy. What was he like?

He was mean, Darius pouted, his courage returned now that he was surrounded by the League again. He spit on Adela.

"He spat next to me," Adela clarified quickly, feeling strangely defensive for the wild boy.

Really? A boy, you say. How old was he?

Adela, ashamed and guilty, was forced to answer. Maybe a little older than me.

Do you remember what he looked like?

More embarrassed by the minute, Adela muttered to her shoes, He had blue eyes.

And which way did he go, this blue-eyed boy? her father asked. The kind tone had left his voice, leaving only ice.

Darius opened his mouth. That way, Adela said loudly, pointing in a different direction as he’d gone. He went that way.

Darius gaped, fortunately too surprised to counter her. The Roses shifted. Her father nodded, and they moved in the direction Adela had pointed, their forms fading into little more than shadows.

Nothing to be worried about. It could have been much, much worse. Adela’s father ushered the other council members back into the gates. When he turned back to face Adela, his words rained down all the wrath he