SAINT (Age of the GodEater #2)

Chapter 1

WARNING: Contains spoilers for book 1

The God was growing quickly. In only a week, he had gone from a newborn, unable to do anything but gurgle and flail, to a toddler able to stand and walk, albeit clumsily. Armstar watched him constantly, both when he slept and while he was awake. He was certain if he stared closely enough, he could actually see the God growing second by second. Words had already come to the child. They were stunted things at first, mangled by a mouth too young to properly form them, but he could make his desires known well enough.

The midwife, Hazel, called it a miracle. A crude term for something so glorious, but close enough for her limited mortal understanding that Armstar didn’t bother to correct her. She claimed the boy had grown a year in only a week and was in awe of him. She, at least, rightly understood him to be no mere babe, but something greater. Her eyes shone with the beginnings of worship every time she looked at the child.

The mother, Urin, cared nothing for miracles, oddities, or abnormalities. She loved the boy beyond any condition. He was her son. Urin had carried the child and brought him to term, squeezing him out into the world, but he was not really hers. He was the God. Older than the ages and any concept of civilisation. And yet, when she cradled him in her arms and sang him to sleep with lullabies taught to her when she was a child only a handful of years ago, Armstar could almost believe they were mother and child in truth.

The father, Garand, was not so understanding. Suspicion warred within him, and how could it not? Both mother and father were pale as snow with the blue eyes of those who lived on the northern islands of ice, but the child had mahogany skin and eyes like cooling coals. Yet the father did not suspect divinity, so much as cuckoldry. He brooded apart from mother and child, gaze sullen and jaw clenched. But he did not leave; none of them did. 

For reasons they couldn’t understand, even a week after the birth of the child, none of them had left the cabin, even to visit the nearby village. There would be a time soon when that was not possible, when more firewood and food was needed. Armstar wondered how the mortals would react when they stepped outside the cabin at last and saw the creatures gathering in the nearby forest. Monsters the world had not seen in hundreds of years, awakened and summoned by the rebirth of their master.

Armstar stared out the cabin window. The snow had stopped, and a cloudless blue sky proclaimed change had come. A powdery blue like a field of hydrangeas in bloom. He had not realised how much he had missed that sky and how intensely the seething red had angered him. Another miracle. Witnessing this virgin sky would be the first step many mortals took on their new path of faith.

Hazel tended a pot of stew at the hearth, occasionally adding a pinch of dried herbs or a dash of salt. Cooking was an art form in itself. 

In the Third Age, the Golden Age, chefs were held in high regard. Competitions were staged regularly to find those with the greatest talent for flavour and ingenuity. Those who could turn even the most humble of ingredients into a culinary delight received lofty positions within households and were showered with gifts and praise. It was unique among all the art forms, as it was an entirely human endeavour. No angel had taught humanity how to cook, as angels rarely required food. Their link to the divine sustained them. Food and the art surrounding its preparation had been overlooked by the God. 

In the Third Age, an age of culture, it was just like humanity to find their own unique form of expression.

Garand brooded in the corner of the cabin, in a plush chair of faded red leather upon the fur of a slain beast many times his size. The creature might have been a bear once, but it was hard to tell from the stretched-out patch of skin and hair. The man was oiling his unstrung bow, cloth moving methodically down the length of it on one side, and then up the length on the other side. It was a daily ritual for him.

Urin dozed in a rocking chair near the fire. A fur was draped across her legs and she snored softly, the God cradled in her lap, secure in her arms. Almost like a real family. Almost. Except for Armstar, the intruder. A Fallen angel with wings of charred bone. The mother accepted his presence as best she could, though it was clear she thought him a charlatan. Despite the proof in front of her, she still refused to believe in the divine. That was Emrik’s doing. The result of the Godless King’s thousand years of dogmatic suppression and dissemination of lies. 

The father treated Armstar with outright hostility, which at least once a day flared into the potential for violence. Yet Armstar did not react in kind. Instead, he used his command over the emotions of others to enforce peace upon the man’s mind. Mortals were so difficult to understand; it was often easier to manipulate them.

The God’s eyes flew open. He slept more than Armstar thought a child should, but always woke with none of the grogginess. The God gazed around the cabin, drinking in every detail. The boy’s mouth worked open and closed a few times, as though tasting something he couldn’t quite place. When he spoke, his words were clearer than they had been since his rebirth, unmangled by his physical youth for the first time.

“Armstar, my son,” the boy said, a smile gracing them all. “I remember you now. So full of passion, a mind of angles and foundations. My builder of wonders. But oh, your beautiful wings.”

Armstar’s ruined wings twitched, sending a spasm of pain coursing through his body. The pain was a constant background ache he had long since gotten used to, but occasionally it flared into indescribable agony.

“I’m sorry, Father,” Armstar said. “I sinned.”

The God’s brow creased in deep thought. Urin was awake now, though groggy from sleep. Her hand brushed the boy’s hair gently, motherly, and she smiled at him. Hazel watched from the hearth, her ageing face full of wrinkles and curiosity both. 

Garand snorted and shook his head. “He’s not your son, boy. He’s an intruder, living off our generosity.”

The God turned his murky orange eyes on Garand. “Armstar is my son, Father.” That final word was weighted like a rock around a drowning man’s ankles. “You are all my sons, and my daughters. Blessed or not, you are all mine. How did I die?”

“You didn’t die, my love,” said Urin as she held him. “You were born.”

“Quiet,” God said, not harshly, but not kindly either.

Urin closed her mouth and frowned. She still stroked at the boy’s hair, but her hand started to tremble.

“You don’t remember, Father?” Armstar asked.

The God frowned, peculiar on a face so young. “My memories are returning to me slowly. It is like…” He closed his eyes. “Waking from a dream so real you cannot tell which reality is the dream.”

“Do you remember anything about Ertide’s Crusade?”

The boy nodded slowly. “The Godless Kings broke open the gate and poured their strength into Heaven. Was it they who slew me?”

“Yes,” Armstar said. “Though you killed most of them. I wasn’t there. None of us were. Only Ertide, Rikkan, and Emrik emerged from Heaven’s Gate after the sky turned red.”

“Emrik…” The God smiled. “The drive of the Hostains was always something I admired. Does the bloodline survive still?”

“Of course the king is still alive,” said Hazel as she stirred the stew with an iron ladle. “He’s immortal.”

The boy stared at the woman for a while, and she shrunk under the scrutiny, as though the mere weight of the God’s gaze was enough to crush her. Eventually, he turned back to Armstar, and the midwife breathed a sigh of relief, rubbing her arms and rocking back and forth. 

“Is it true?” the God asked. “Does Ertide still live? Has he consumed that much of my children’s blood?”

Armstar wings twitched with pain. This was going to be more difficult than he’d imagined. He would have preferred waiting for the God’s memories to return to him, but what if they never did? They were treading virgin ground. By now Emrik would know the God was reborn; he would be searching for them. They could not afford ignorance.

“Ertide is dead,” Armstar said. “Emrik is king of Helesia. His brother, Arandon, king of Dien. And Karna now calls herself queen of Ashvold.”

“Helesia? Ashvold?” the God asked. “How long was I dead, Son?”

Armstar hesitated. The tension in the room had grown thick with the God’s displeasure. It radiated from the boy and turned the chill air into a stuffy heat. Garand fidgeted in his chair, his hands wrenching on the wood of his bow. Hazel had drawn her knees up close and hugged them to her chest. Even Urin seemed to sink back into her rocking chair, as though desperate to be away from the toddler nestled in her lap.

“Almost a thousand years,” Armstar said. The tension spreading from the God grew tighter still, and Armstar forged on. “Ertide, Rikkan, and Emrik murdered you and feasted on your corpse. They stole your immortality.”

The God scoffed, such a strange noise from one so young. “No. That is not what happened. Go on.”

“Ertide died eight hundred years ago. Emrik now rules the land that has been named Helesia. The empire was torn in three. To the east is Dien, now ruled by Arandon, and further east, past the Burning Lands, is where Karna claimed her own crown.”

“My Forgemistress still lives,” the God said with a smile.

Armstar winced. “Karna is Fallen, Father. She feasts on other angels and feeds humans her blood and flesh in sinful rituals. She had no part in ringing in the Fifth Age, and I believe she would have stopped us if given the chance.” He thought about stopping there; the evidence against his Fallen sister was already more than damning, yet the God would want to know it all, and there was no sense in trying to hide anything from a creature as old as the world itself. 

“I also believe she was complicit in your death, Father. The weapons the Godless Kings used against you, those they have named the Godslayer Arms, were forged by Karna. And they are not like the Heavenly Arsenal. They do not use divine runes. I believe she trapped… something inside them.” He gestured to the door of the cabin, and beside it, leaning against the wall, rested Perel Hostain’s halberd. “When I touch it, I can feel something inside it. Something that wants to get out.”

The boy’s face screwed tight with something like pain, and if Armstar hadn’t known there was a God inside the flesh, he would have been sure a tantrum was on the way. Urin stroked his hair again, almost urgently, and made soft cooing noises, trying to calm the God. It seemed to work. He was silent for a while, eyelids drooping with tiredness. He was vulnerable in this state. Vulnerable enough that they could not afford to leave the cabin and risk exposure.

“Why did it take so long to bring me back?” the God asked.

“We thought time was on our side. We did not count on Emrik’s determination to see your defeat complete. He hunted us, murdered us, fed us to his children. He was relentless. When the last of the angels of the Fourth Age fell, we thought it was over. Orphus himself gave up hope, with no way left to ring in the Fifth Age and no way to resurrect you. We tried to preserve your faith, I think more out of grief than actual belief you could one day return. I am sorry, Father. We faltered. Then Orphus changed. Hope returned to him, and with him, so to us all.”

“Emrik,” the God said slowly. “I told him my name.”

“Yes,” Armstar said. “And he devoured your flesh, drank your blood, feasted on your heart. He devoured a spark of your divinity. Both our greatest threat and our only hope.” Armstar couldn’t stop the bitterness from creeping into his voice. Emrik had taken everything from him: the God, his tower, Lusa. Everything Armstar had ever loved, Emrik had torn down.

“Mortals break so easily. How did you convince him?” the God asked.

Armstar ground his teeth against the river of guilt that threatened to burst its banks. What he had done to Lusa and their daughter was probably the greatest shame he had ever committed, yet he would do it again without hesitation. 

“We tricked him,” Armstar said. “We found a girl, someone who suited our purposes, and convinced her that she was the Herald. We convinced Emrik she was the Herald. We convinced everyone. Then we put her in position and relied on Emrik to do what he must.” Armstar’s throat closed, and he had to swallow down the lump. “He killed her, but Emrik has always been one to overcommit, and in his fervour to kill the Herald, he struck the bell.”

“She meant something to you?” the God asked. “This false Herald.”

“No. She was… convenient.” Desperation gave the lie a faltering heartbeat of its own. Sacrificing Renira had almost broken him.

The God’s orange eyes narrowed. “What of my first son? What of Orphus?”

“If all went to plan, and by the outcome I assume it did, Orphus sacrificed himself to convince Emrik of the lie.” Armstar sighed. “I think he wanted it that way. He was never the same after your death, Father. Something shattered inside of Orphus. I think he wanted an end to it.”

The God frowned, a small hand rubbing at his eyes. “My poor eldest son. I made him with a conscience, thinking all warriors should feel the lives they take.” He pinned Armstar with a stare from his murky eyes. “That was a mistake, I think. My other Heralds?”

Armstar shook his head. “All dead. Edaine died in Ertide’s Crusade, captured and put to death. Mathaniel and Eleseth also gave their lives for the ruse.”

“So many of my children lost. How many of my blessed remain?”

“A handful. Five, I think. Including me. There are… I am not the only Fallen, Father. There is Karna and Selitha, also.” 

The air grew pregnant with his displeasure. “The Star Hammer Fell?”

Armstar rushed to explain. “We have been hunted, Father. Humanity has become more savage than the demons ever were. Ertide taught them how to steal our strength. Your children are on the verge of extinction. We… some of us had to do sinful things to survive.”

“Excuses,” the boy snarled. He sighed, and the frown softened from his smooth skin. “You are forgiven, Son.”

The God clambered down from Urin’s lap and wobbled before Armstar. “We have no time to waste. The ranks of the blessed must swell.” He looked to each of them in turn, first his father, then his mother, and then the old midwife. “Starting with all of you. You will become the four pillars of my faith. Father, hand me your knife.”

Garand grunted and drew the knife from his belt, stalking towards the God. There was pain in his eyes; hatred and love mixing often did that. For a terrifying moment, Armstar thought the father would attack the son, but then he flipped the knife over in his hand and went down onto one knee, presenting it. The boy took the knife and turned to Hazel.

“Come here,” the boy said. 

Hazel left the pot of stew immediately, crawling on hands and knees to bow before the God. 

“I wish to give you a gift. To make you stronger. To free you from your sins and from your weakness. I wish to make you mine. To make you whole and to make you loved. I see you. Inside, the real you. The you that is stronger and more worthy than you think possible. I can bring that hidden you out, take away the pain of your loss. So many lost. Never once brought to term.”

Hazel’s eyes flicked up to meet the God’s gaze, tears streaking her cheeks. “How did you know?”

The God cupped a small hand against the woman’s cheek. “I heard your prayers, whispered in the dark. You are not cursed. You are not wrong inside or barren. You are perfect.”

“Then why?” Hazel asked through her sobs. “Why can’t I have a littleun of my own?”

The God reached out and took one of Hazel’s wrinkled hands, the knife held in his other seeming so large. “Mortals are broken things. You start whole, but the world breaks you again and again. The wounds heal, but you are weaker each time, and the scars those breaks leave behind never fade. You wear them for any with the love to see. I know the pain of your loss. I have felt it. I have lost more children than anyone should bear. It is unfair, but it is not your fault.”

Hazel opened her mouth and a great racking sob broke free. “Then why does it hurt so?”

The God smiled sadly. “Because life is pain. But I can take it away. I can free you from your pain. Heal the scars. The world may have broken you, but I can make you whole again. All I need from you is to ask for it.”

Hazel nodded feverishly. “Please,” she said, sniffing and sobbing. “Take it. Take my pain.”

The God took his hand from Hazel’s and nicked it with the knife. He squeezed a fat drop of blood from the wound. “Open your mouth,” the God said, and Hazel did so. He placed his tiny thumb in her mouth. “Swallow.” She did, and the God smiled and pulled his thumb from between her lips.

“I’ll have no part in this perversion,” Garand said and stormed towards the door. He reached for the handle and froze, his hand a whisper from it. Then he sighed and his shoulders slumped. He pulled his hand back and turned, a sour grimace on his face. He still didn’t understand why he couldn’t leave.

“This is going to hurt,” said the God. “But I promise the pain will pass, and you will not remember it.”

Hazel collapsed as the spasms took her. Armstar pulled the God back to protect him. Hazel writhed in silence upon the cabin floor. Her fingers twitched, gouging strips of wood out of the floorboards, and her feet kicked out with such force a nearby chair burst into kindling against the far wall. Her eyes were open, terror and agony filling them as she stared not at Armstar, but at the boy. Then she began to change. 

Her bones stretched and grew, distorting her skin, then broke and knitted back together in a series of sickening snaps. Her shift ripped at the seams to accommodate the growth. Her skin, stretched taut by the lengthening bones, began to bubble, almost seeming to turn fluid, extending across her new, larger form, then solidifying once more, no longer aged and wrinkled but smooth with new youth. Wounds opened up on her back, blood spraying against the remnants of her shift, and new bones thrust forth. Hazel’s mouth opened into a silent scream. Even her teeth were changing, pulling closer together, new teeth growing to fill the gaps. Her eyes swirled with colour, the dull brown igniting into a warm amber lit from within. She rocked onto her hands and knees as the last shreds of her shift fell away, her back arched, and the bones that had grown out of them flexed upwards. Feathers pushed out of the newly formed wings, each one a glossy silver grey that caught the firelight and threw it back with a dazzling shine. 

Eventually, Hazel collapsed, her wings falling, feathers blanketing her.

“Blessed are the reborn,” Armstar said quietly.

The God pushed past Armstar. He reached down and cupped Hazel’s chin with his tiny hands, lifting her blank stare to meet his. He smiled. “You are the first Pillar of Faith. Rise, my newest daughter. Rise, Worship.”

Worship flexed her fingers, and her wings rippled as she learned how to use them, folding them up to rest furled at her back. She rose unsteadily to her feet, naked and bloody and entirely transformed. There was little left of the diminutive midwife. Worship stood taller than Armstar by another head at least, and she was brawny with new muscle. Her skin had taken on a bronzed hue, as if tanned by years in the sun, and her hair had turned black as a raven with only a few silvery strands throughout. Her face had lost much of its flesh yet had grown in proportions to suit her new body, and though there were still traces of the woman she had once been in her nose and cheeks, there was no doubt that it was no longer Hazel who stood before him, but Worship. She had subtle crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and a face made for smiling. She gave off the impression of wisdom beyond any years.

The first angel of the Fifth Age went down on one knee in front of the God. “Father,” she said and her voice had changed, too. Stronger than before, but deep within it the creak of old, familiar leather. Comforting and reassuring.

Armstar glanced down at his own hands and wondered if he had once been through the same rebirth? Of course he had. That meant all angels had once been mortal, remade upon receiving the blessing of the God. Who had he once been? 

“Do you know who you are?” Armstar asked his new sister.

“Of course,” she said with a beaming smile. “I am Worship.” She stood and stretched, her hands almost touching the rafters. “And I am… hungry.” The angel approached the stew cooking over the hearth. Unused to her body, her wings knocked over one of the chairs. She plucked the ladle from the pot and sipped from it. 

“Oh, this is wonderful.” She turned to Armstar with a grin. “Brother, have you tried this?”

“What is this?” Garand asked, voice quavering. “What did you do to her?”

The boy gazed languidly at his father. “Your opportunity will come, should you wish it.” Then he turned to Urin. “I know your pain too, Mother. The pain of exile, driven away by those you love. Your family turned on you, hated you for the life you stole.”

“What’s he talking about, Wife?” Garand said.

Urin’s gaze flicked to her husband, full of fear, then back to God.

The boy nodded. “I can take it away. I can heal you.”

There was never any question in the mother’s eyes. She accepted the offer without a word and drank of the God’s blood. Her transformation was no less violent than Worship’s, and her rocking chair did not survive the ordeal. When it was done, she had not grown as much as Worship but stood as tall as Armstar. Her skin was ivory and her hair white as snow; her eyes shone with a blue that reminded Armstar of the sky. She had a mother’s curves, and an air about her that screamed fertility. She moved with such grace that even Armstar found himself staring.

“You are the second Pillar of Faith,” said the God. “Prosperity.”

“Oh, a sister,” Worship said, clapping her hands. “I’ve always wanted a sister.”

Prosperity flexing slender fingers. She had auburn wings that reminded Armstar of autumn, and she smelled of the earth after rain.

“Do you remember who you were?” Armstar asked.

A kindly smile graced Prosperity’s lips. Even Armstar could not fight the tug of emotion that smile wrought within him. It promised comfort and safety, a warm welcome in her embrace, and maybe even more. 

“My poor broken brother,” Prosperity said. “I have always been me. Come.” She held out her arms, and Armstar took a step, yearning for the embrace and the love she offered. He caught himself and stopped, turning to stare at his father.

The God sagged in exhaustion, his skin unhealthily sallow. “Rebirth is more costly than it appears. For us both.” 

“What did you do to my wife?” Garand asked, his voice trembling. He was pressed against the far wall, his unstrung bow held before him as a poor shield.

“I took away her pain, Father,” the boy said. “I made her strong. She can be a mother to all her siblings now, to all humanity also, providing stability and comfort that all life needs. But there is something else life needs. Conflict. Triumph. 

“Let me take away your pain, Father. I see it in you. The need to be strong even when you feel weak. Of pretending to know the correct path, even when you are the most lost. The pain of holding it inside, refusing your own fear and joy. And the betrayal of those you loved most. I see your pain. I feel it. Now let me take it away.”

Garand dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. He stared at the angel who had so recently been his wife. Then he broke. Garand nodded his head in silence and opened his mouth to receive the God’s blood. Garand did not go through his transformation silently. He screamed out his agony as his body was remade and thrashed about so wildly Armstar thought he would bring the cabin down around their heads. When it was done, he stood a giant, his head almost to the rafters of the cabin, and he was packed with muscle. His skin had darkened to the colour of old tree bark and had an almost metallic sheen to it, and his eyes shone an angry vermillion.

The God beamed a waxen smile up at his newest son. “The third Pillar of Faith, Glory.”

Glory flexed his muscles and laughed, a savage noise that promised violence and victory. His wings were black as coal, and Armstar wanted to shrink away from his newest brother. He had known angels from the First Age his whole life, and their power had always been tempered by a measured control. But Glory seemed unrestrained, on the edge of real violence and more than willing to test the limits of his strength.

“Hello, little brother,” Worship said with a giggle from beside the stew pot. “You look rather eager.”

“I am ready,” Glory said. He spread his onyx wings wide, knocking over the nearby table and spanning the entire cabin. “Point me at our enemies, Father. I will tear them limb from limb and make an offering of their blood.”

Armstar glanced down at the God, but the boy was smiling at his newest son’s rampant enthusiasm for violence. All was as the God wished it. They would need those capable of terrible violence in order to defeat Emrik, though the thought of it scared Armstar.

“You have the most pain of them all, Son,” the God said, gazing at Armstar. “I feel it so keenly as it resonates with my own. The Godless King has taken everything from you. He has torn down what you built, twisted it into perverse versions of itself. He has killed those you love. There is no need to deny it anymore; I see it. You loved a mortal. That is how you Fell. And Emrik took her from you. And…” God squinted as if peering through Armstar. “There is more. There is something else.”

Armstar shrank back, trying desperately to hold it inside. She was the one thing he didn’t want to share. His father could take everything else. But not Renira.

“Give it to me,” the God said, his voice stern.

Armstar held out as long as he could. But his will was nothing to the command of the divine. A single tree standing before a tsunami, washed away. He crumbled.

“A daughter,” God said. The air grew heavy again, and even his new children went still and quiet. “Impossible.”

Armstar fell to his knees, tears in his eyes. “She’s dead.”

Armstar glanced at each of his new siblings. The first angels of the Fifth Age, the first three Pillars of Faith. They didn’t remember who they once had been. They were new, remade, rewritten. Reborn. Could he do that? Could he let go of everything he had ever been? Would he remember what it was like to build? To plan out a structure from its foundation to its pinnacle, to raise it up piece by piece, seeing his own design made manifest. Could he really let that go? 

He thought about Lusa and the pain of her leaving. An old injury that refused to heal, it twisted inside like a dagger in his guts. Their love for one another had caused them both so much pain, and none more so than when she left. She had not told him she was pregnant, and he wouldn’t have understood if she had. It would only have made the betrayal that much more unbearable.

And Renira. The daughter he’d never known existed, and never realised how much he wanted. She had her mother’s strength and compassion; he had seen that so clearly. But her resolve, her iron, and her imagination, those she had gotten from him. And he had sacrificed her for the cause. He had killed his own daughter.

“Take it away,” Armstar said, letting the tears fall. “Please, Father. I give you it all. I can’t take it anymore.” His wings twitched, and a spasm of agony ran through him, physical pain to echo the heartache.

The God placed a tiny palm against Armstar’s cheek. “You’ve borne it long enough, Son.” He squeezed his thumb, welling a fat drop of blood to the surface, and Armstar opened his mouth. He swallowed the God’s blood, wondering if this is how he had been made the first time. 

God stared into his eyes and smiled. “Your daughter yet lives.”

The pain hit Armstar, and he screamed as the world turned white.

* * *

He woke from a dream of pain. A turmoil so strong it was tearing him apart at the seams. And like a dream, it faded quickly, leaving only a vague impression behind. There had once been the memory of pain, sorrow beyond maddening. Gone now. Like smoke before a gale.

A cabin lay before him, warm though surrounded by cold. His brother and sisters were there, their eyes upon him. Glory frowned, as though he had tasted something foul. Prosperity smiled, and there was compassion there, a welcome that went beyond the need for words. Worship had her hand clapped over her mouth, but her eyes were full of wonder and mirth.

He looked down at his arms. His skin was pale and sunken, barely any flesh on him, and his bones showed through. Black runes snaked up his arms in strange patterns, and he could not grasp their meaning. He stretched his wings, no feathers, only bony digits, each ending in a talon. Then the cabin window shattered and a mass of dark wings flew through the falling glass. They were crows, hundreds of them, and they swirled around him like a cyclone of cawing, clawing flesh. They engulfed him, and one by one they perched on his wings until he was feathered once more, a shifting, peering mass of dark-eyed birds.

“Hello, Son,” said God. “Welcome back to the world. My Archangel. The fourth Pillar of Faith. You are Sacrifice.”