Winter's War (Her Guardians series Book 4)(5)
“I will save her,” Atti promises, his words strong, and I know he will.
“I should go and see the angels; see if they will come here to be safe. I have a feeling the demons will attack them next,” I say, but it’s more than a feeling. I haven’t had any visions; the future seems blocked to me. The last one I had was just a storm. A tornado in a storm, and there was so much fire. I don’t know what I was seeing, but I don’t want to be around to see that in real life. I still hold on to the vision of Winter and all of us by that lake in the future, but it seems so far away, and I know the future can change in a second, making my visions useless.
“They won’t come,” Wyatt warns, knowing my race are stubborn, and nothing will make them leave their precious home. They wouldn’t want to live with other races, as they see them as inferior.
“Well, at least, I can get some of the healing herbs and bring them here as I can’t keep healing everyone,” I say, knowing that my old room there has a wall full of jars of herbs laced with my magic.
“Go, brother, and we will plan the attack for tomorrow morning,” Jaxson says and pats my shoulder.
“A lift, Atti?” I ask, holding out a hand as Milo flies off my shoulder and goes to sit on top of Winter’s bed. Atti grabs my arm and moves us instantly, and when I open my eyes I’m outside the council. The large, white building is so different from the normal houses that line the streets of the village. No humans live in this village, but they do drive past it, believing it’s just a field thanks to a witch’s ward.
“I’ll wait,” Atti says and goes to sit on the seats outside as everyone stops moving to stare at us. I’m sure we look a sight with our burnt clothes, and both of us covered in blood and blue dust. I don’t care what they think, this is their future if they don’t leave. There aren’t many angels left to begin with, being that the war with the witches killed so many of us. The idea of even asking the angels to now come and live with those very same witches, seems like a disaster, but I won’t let them die because I don’t want to ask.
“How dare you bring a witch into the council?” Zadkiel says as he walks down the stairs and smirks at us. Zadkiel’s hair is completely shaved off now, and he has decided to wear a royal cloak that I believe our father used to wear. I don’t even know where he got it from. At least, he isn’t wearing the royal crown, I don’t think I would hesitate to kill him if he was.
“I suggest you shut up, brother, before I lose what little control I have and kill you,” I tell him. He doesn’t move or speak as I open the doors to the council and walk in. My brother was always the coward. My marks appear on my skin without me calling them, because I’ve been awake so long, and I’m tired. I want my mate safe and need to rest. I don’t know how many witches I’ve healed, or demons I’ve killed, in the last day. The council is speaking to each other when I walk in, and only one of them is missing. They might actually listen to me when there are so many of them here.
“The witches’ city has fallen. Queen Winter of the witches, wolves, and vampires has been kidnapped, and I’m begging you to move our people to the Goddess’ castle. It’s the only place that is safe and our only chance,” I say loudly, and the room goes silent. I look around at the aged angels, seeing the sympathetic look on Lucifer’s and Gabriel’s faces but not many others seem that upset about the loss. Thousands of witches and people have died, and they almost look pleased.
“Dabriel, I am sorry for your loss and the loss of the witches’ city,” Veja says; a dark angel who is old but one of the kinder ones.
“How many died?” Gabriel asks me.
“Thousands, there aren’t any more than two thousand witches who escaped,” I say, and there’s silence around the room. They know how many witches were on that island, they know how a loss like this would be told in history, and that what they say here will be remembered. If the demons killed that many witches, who are powerful, in their own city, the angels will struggle. We don’t have the numbers that the witches did, and at least twenty percent of our population are old. We lost a lot of our younger generation in the war.
“Then, many demons would have died, and the demon king’s army will be smaller. I feel we are safe here,” Gabriel says, and dread fills me. They can’t be serious. The demon army will be bigger than ever, because he wouldn’t have just killed the witches, he would have taken some of them back to the castle and turned them.
“No,” I reply, and there’s a hushed silence around the room.
“You are thinking with your emotions for your lost mate and not what is best for our people. We have four thousand angels that would not be easy to move without a reason.”
“Isn’t the death of an entire city reason enough? The witches had ten thousand!” I shout, and it’s Melan who speaks.
“Not our city,” he says. He must be the oldest angel here, a light angel who has scars from the war, from losing his four sons when the witches killed them. I understand why he would never feel sympathetic to the witches, but this isn’t about him and his own desires, this is about the fate of the angels. I don’t want my entire race to be destroyed.
“You are all fools,” I spit out.
Lucifer stands up. “I side with Dabriel, and I’m taking my family to the Goddess’ castle. I suggest you do the same and stop being fools,” he says and walks around the council and out the doors, nodding at me before he walks out.