The last clear memory Canrie has is the screech of an officer’s whistle and her company emerging from the forward trench to follow the angels. From there, a blur of white and red. A cacophony of gunfire and screams. When did she become separated from the others? When had she lost her rifle, or her helmet? As she flees now, gasping for breath, she can’t puzzle it together.
There’s no time to. Behind her, damp leaves rustle.
Is it still morning? The sky above is grey with the threat of rain- please, not more fucking rain- and the air is cool and so thick with sick-sweet decay that she almost gags on it. All around her, thin white trees, damp crimson flesh-growth creeping up their trunks. There’s still rifles cracking somewhere but the sound has become intermittent, only a shot or two every so often. The attack on the forest has failed. It must have.
That’s all become abstract to Canrie now. She is lost. There’s movement all through the forest now. She can’t bear to look but she can hear it, surrounding, closing in. Will some part of her survive, if the Host feed her body into one of their Factories? If they make her into one of their thralls, will her mind or soul still live to feel it, trapped in one of those lurching shells? She hopes not. She hopes she’s going to wake up in the bedroom she shares with her sister back on the farm and realize she never actually enlisted, it was all just a dream, and—
The sound of flowing water reaches her ears. It’s not a relief at first. Not until she notices the trees thinning ahead and spots the river, its waters brackish and dark, and the stone bridge going over it.
Canrie presses all her remaining strength into her legs. How clearly can the Host see her through the thicket? She tries not to dwell as she breaks out of the trees and throws herself down at the side of the bridge to crawl under it. It’s a tight fit, the damp stone and meat rubbing her skin through her uniform, but she manages. Then, heaving for breath, wincing as her short brown hair falls into her eyes, she waits. Either for a miracle, or for the Host to find her.
As she does, Canrie wonders if her prayer a few days ago will help her. Maybe it already did. Maybe the Silver Goddess has already interceded to save her earlier, and it’s the only reason she’s still alive. It’s a comforting thought, even if these miracles feel insufficient.
Even if she’d done it before the angels, though? Their faces had been fading in and out of her mind ever since. Every detail, from their peaceful expressions, to their beautiful hair, to their shining golden eyes. She has a meager coin collection back home, mostly just pre-Fall change. A friend of hers is part of the Reclaimant Corps, patrolling the area just outside Cratavn’s outer walls. Occasionally she finds something to bring back for Canrie, who polishes those coins almost weekly. Makes them shine as much as they can. Some are even gold. She’s never gotten one as bright as the angels’ eyes.
Yet there was something off in those eyes, as well. She’d felt it even at the time. The more she dwelt on them, the more off it felt. Their gazes had been... Distant. No, that wasn’t the right word. It implied something normal, like they’d merely been distracted. They were needle focused on Canrie. She’d never seen that look in a human face before. “Empty” didn’t seem right either, but it’s the word that keeps coming to her. There should have been something there, but it wasn’t. In its place was an animal kind of focus. Like a cat creeping up on a bird.
From there, the rest of the encounter began to feel more wrong. Why didn’t the angels speak? Why did they wear those masks over their mouths? Where were their wings? Why did they kneel like that, all lined up for their strange, severe officer? Who was that woman, with her porcelain features and cutting glare? No, whatever the angels are doing here, it doesn’t involve answering Canrie’s prayers.
Her chest tightens. She’s alone out here, then. Really alone.
Save for the Host.
Soft, damp footsteps approach.
With a trembling hand, Canrie draws her side arm. Then she cradles the pistol in her body, and does her best to stifle the sobs starting to build in her throat.
The steps are upon her now, with more closing in. Just outside, a small patch of meat growth, like a child’s hand, presses down as an invisible foot falls on it. A seraphim. She blinks hard, a pair of fat hot tears running down her cheeks, and fumbles the pistol’s safety off. Maybe she can kill one before the others get her.
Then they all stop. Utter stillness, save for the river softly lapping at the fetid bank.
Canrie swallows the lump in her throat. They’re taunting her. The Host have a sense of fun, it seems. Why shouldn’t they? In a world where angels are trained dogs and humanity is reduced to a single city, why shouldn’t death pause to savor another lost girl before it claims her?
A loud thrum rises in the air, then sweeps over the river with a rush of wind, like a sudden storm, sending the water on either side of the bridge rushing up onto the bank before rolling back down. After a moment, the seraphim’s thin legs fade into view, little more than raw tendons wrapped around metal struts. Canrie blinks. Then she flinches as the monster’s upper body flops into view and she finds herself looking into in its eyeless face.
It’s dead.
It’s... dead? And she isn’t?
Gunfire perforates the air. None of the bullets are coming Canrie’s way, however. Suddenly they’re cut off by a roar like a field gun, the impact trembling through the ground, she hears the chunks of wet earth slapping down. Then that thrumming again, rhythmic and strong, like...
She feels like she’s gone mad.
Like the beat of massive wings.
More rifles, answered by another cannon blast, then the unmistakable sound of metal hewing flesh. Bodies fall and fall, until silence returns.
Canrie waits a moment. Unsure she believes the sudden quiet. Finally, she decides she can’t stand being crammed under the cold, damp stone of the bridge anymore. Wiping her eyes, she crawls to the edge of her hiding place and peers out.
Then Canrie is sure she’s gone mad.
An angel stands on the bank. A real one. Six luminous silver wings spread from the towering figure’s back, matching the mirror sheen of the ornate armor which covers them head to toe. Even the spatters of dark blood do nothing to dull its shine. It almost hurts to look at, it’s so bright. They wipe oily gore from the head of their spear, no less than half a dozen dead thralls littering the earth around them. Their helmet has no eye slits, a pair of sculpted wings wrapped over where eyes should be. The closest thing they have is a single spot of golden light on their forehead, the vivid glow emanating from within a small opening.
This doesn’t stop the angel’s head from turning to her. She flinches away at first. But then she meets that false golden eye- or was that their real eye? Canrie’s gaze is drawn to it, finding its warm glow soothing.
Suddenly the angel raises their head. In a single smooth motion they whip around and draw some kind of rifle from a holster at their hip, and shoots once into the trees. Several of the thin trunks splinter and fall, Canrie can see the air ripple around the barrel as it fires. She also sees the explosion of dark gore amidst the falling trees, a seraphim’s bat-like wing just intact enough to recognize as it’s blown off of its body.
The spear ripples into a mercurial steam and fades from the angel’s hand, freeing it to open the breach of their- no, not a rifle. More like a two-barrelled shotgun. A pair of shell casings, shimmering in the dim sun, leap from the breach before they too phase into mist. Reloading and returning the gun to its holster, the angel turns back to Canrie. Just as their spear vanished, their wings dissipate next, lingering like a billowing cloak for a moment, and the glow of their golden eye fades. Even their armor seems to lose its radiance and become earthly steel.
The angel comes to where she lays and kneels with her. “Come out, little one.” A woman’s voice. Velvety and resonant, firm but gentle. “I’ll take you to safety.”
Canrie stares up at her, eyes once on the verge of weeping now wide with awe. “Y-You’re...”
A musical chuckle, warm as a fireplace on a winter night. “Yes,” says the angel. “I am.” She reaches an armored hand down to Canrie.
Canrie can’t turn her down. This is a real angel. She saw her wings, heard her speak. Accepting her hand, she lets the angel pull her to her feet. From there, her saviour leads her up the ramp of the bridge.
“My lines are back that way,” says Canrie, pointing back into the trees.
“Your lines are still under attack.” The angel redraws her shotgun, holding it at an easy angle which could be raised to action in a heartbeat. “It isn’t safe to return yet. There’s an old temple nearby, you can stay there until then.”
Canrie won’t argue with that. Crossing the bridge, however, the girl feels she should say something. “Th-Thank you,” she begins. She’d say more but she chokes on the words. Her throat tightens as her eyes sting with fresh tears. The relief is crashing down onto her now. She’s not going to die. Not here and now, at least. Maybe there’s still a future where she returns to the farm. Gets back to helping Pa with the cows and going to the shops with her sister and growing her coin collection. She tries to swallow a sob but it comes out anyway.
The angel pulls Canrie up beside her and wraps a comforting arm around the girl’s shoulder. “I know,” whispers the angel with a mother’s softness. Her armour is pleasantly warm against Canrie’s skin. She must have almost a foot in height on Canrie but it only adds to the sense of safety, of utter protection. “I know, little one.”
Canrie weeps into the warm metal of the angel’s arm. The shadows of the forest close in around them again but she trusts the angel to guide her. After some time trudging through the uneven terrain, the angel rubs her shoulder. “We’re here.”
Canrie blinks away the last lingering tears blurring her vision. Ahead of them is an old and modest temple, dusty windows high up on its walls. The flesh growth hasn’t overgrown it, instead staying clumped around the base of its walls and porch. Inside, dusty benches encircle a long-dead hearth, and the mural of the Silver Goddess on the back wall is cracked and faded. Even so, Canrie takes the place’s relative good shape as a positive omen.
Still sniffling, Canrie perches on a bench as her savior closes the doors behind them. That done, the angel finally removes her helmet. The visage beneath it isn’t so different from those false angels in the dugout. Her face is so flawlessly proportioned between softness and strength it could have been sculpted, her tan skin without blemish. She unties her immaculate auburn hair to spill down her back. Unlike the false angels, she wears no mask over her lower face, and her eyes are a pleasant hazel.
The angel sets her helmet on the edge of the hearth and sits next to Canrie. “Are you hurt?”
Other than every muscle in her body being sore, Canrie thinks she’s fine. “No,” she replies, managing an unsteady smile. She stumbles there. What does one say to an angel? She’s never been especially pious but the Silver Goddess and Her servants have showered Cratavn with blessings, leading the remnants of humanity to the city and sheltering it from the Host until mankind had recovered enough to fend for itself. Even since then, the Goddess has continued to guide Cratavn through the Queen-Minister Charith. It’s rumored that Charith is so blessed by the Goddess that she’d been granted immortality, becoming humanity’s eternal guiding star. Canrie used to wonder if this rumor is just a roundabout way of explaining why Charith has been in power for decades, but that doesn’t feel like a boat she should rock. So, she just kept doing her tiny part for humanity on the farm, and didn’t dwell too much on rumors.
At least, not until the angels joined the war effort.
Canrie doesn’t realize how long she’s let the quiet linger until the angel cocks a brow and asks, “What’s your name?”
“Oh. Sorry, it’s...” The girl blinks, focusing. “It’s, um, Private Ul—”
“Just your first name,” the angel interjects, with a smile so serene it could soothe burns.
“C-Canrie.” A hot blush rises in her cheeks. She is a little surprised- pleasantly so- by her saviour’s casual tone. From what she has read, angels arrange themselves into various flights and orders. Half the time, they sound more like some sort of military organization than a sisterhood. No, focus. “It’s Canrie, miss, um...?”
“Canrie.” Warmth flutters in the girl’s chest, hearing the angel speak her name. “Little Hound in Old Scodian. In the distant past, they might have given you that as a title, if you were a proficient hunter or scout.” There’s such good-natured amusement in her tone, like a fond little joke shared between friends, that Canrie can’t bring herself to pester the angel for her own name. Who is she to demand that divinity explain itself?
Hoping she isn’t too obviously flustered, Canrie says, “I didn’t know it meant anything.”
The angel’s smile gains a sad cast. “Yes, much has been lost.” The air inside the temple is no warmer than that outside, and stinks of mildew and ash.
Lost. That word sticks in Canrie’s mind. Around it are radiant, empty eyes. “Do you...” She hesitates, but then her savior’s beautiful eyes are on her. The girl continues, “Do you know about the other angels?”
Her saviour’s smile fades entirely. In its place is sorrow, heartrending to see on the angel’s immaculate face. “Yes,” she replies. “My wayward sisters.”
Canrie can’t not ask, “What’s happened to them?”
For a moment the angel’s stare wanders somewhere distant. Somewhere dark. When she does refocus on Canrie, her expression is hard to read. “We came here on Her orders,” she begins, gesturing to the mural of the Goddess. “To help humanity survive and rebuild. But some of us have been led astray.” She says this last part slowly. Choosing the words with care.
Canrie studies the mural. Tries to piece together the Goddess’s face in her mind, but the silver of Her hair and porcelain of Her face are fading together with the blue and yellow of the sky behind Her. She asks, “Was it the Host?” Now she imagines daring raids to rescue the angels from the noxious bowels of a Bone Factory, then a long and gentle process of trying to piece them back together. It would be an imperfect process, however, with incomplete results. Mortal hands can surely only do so much to heal the divine.
The angel leans towards her, sets a hand on her shoulder. “Canrie,” she says. “Take care. You may not like the answers to these questions.”
Canrie blinks. She should stop here. The angel practically just told her to stop. Who is she to argue? A helpless girl snatched at the last moment from death’s jaws, now demanding answers of her rescuer. But if the Silver Goddess Herself sent the angels to aide humanity, and something is stopping them, shouldn’t she try to help? In whatever tiny way she can?
“I want to know,” Canrie says. “If I’m... allowed to? But I’ve seen your sisters up close, angel. I could tell there was something wrong with them.” She shifts on the bench to better face the angel. “I know I probably can’t do much, but if I can help, I want to.”
The angel studies her a moment, that perfect face difficult to read. Canrie can feel her scrutiny, though, like a beam of afternoon sunlight focused through a window. The angel can read her just fine. “Are you sure?” she asks at last. “It will not be easy. You will not be ready.”
A nervous chuckle escapes Canrie. “I wasn’t ready for any of this. I might as well keep going, right?”
The angel gives no hint of amusement. “As you wish.” They stand, and the angel turns her around to face the hearth, placing her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Close your eyes. Do not open them for any reason.” The gentleness isn’t entirely gone from the angel’s voice, but it takes a second place now to the firmness. A kind but stern teacher, about to deliver what may be a harsh but needed lesson. Canrie, stomach twisting into knots, closes her eyes as instructed.
For a moment, nothing. Then a plume of heat and wind washes over Canrie from behind, joined by a light so intense it beams through her eyelids. Even as the wind dies and the light fades to a comfortable, pleasant glow, the warmth remains against her back. Next something wraps around her. It feels almost like a pair of heavy blankets, soft on the outside but dense with strength within. A thrill shoots through Canrie. The angel’s wings, embracing her.
The angel asks, “Are you familiar with the Goddess’s hymns?”
“No?” Canrie feels rather embarrassed to admit that here. “I go to congregation most weeks, but—”
“That’s alright,” says the angel. “I’ll lead you through one.”
The angel begins to sing, her voice low and sweet and reverberating with power. Canrie feels it sweep through the fine hairs of her body. Feels it vibrate through the air around her. The girl’s breath hitches, taken off guard by both its beauty and its arresting strength. What the angel sings is indeed a hymn, though not one Canrie knows. She listens along at first, trying to get her mind around the words. It’s Highsong, she knows, the near-dead tongue rarely used outside of temples and prayers. Rolling and lilting until it crashes into hard, sudden consonants, at turns soothing and jarring. It flows better when the angel sings it, of course. Highsong was, after all, another gift from the Goddess Herself.
Perhaps it’s the angel’s presence which makes it easier for Canrie to follow along. The girl is a rudimentary singer, only singing at congregation, yet she finds herself able to fall in with the first verses as the angel repeats them. Timing, key, lyrics, all of it comes to her like instinct. Behind her, that comforting warm seeps deeper into her body.
They sing together, the farm girl and her divine saviour. Canrie wishes she could open her eyes. She wishes she could behold that light shining around her in its full glory. Her mind, at ease now, is drawn deeper into this desire. She imagines a vision of the Silver Goddess’s Heaven itself within the light. Mercurial clouds swirling around her with warm comforting winds, spiralling up, up into the shocking gold-and-blue of divinity. Other angels hover above, each mantled with her six radiant wings, beckoning Canrie up to join them in paradise. She swears she can feel the holy atmosphere tingle electric and hot against her skin. A smile comes to her face. It’s so peaceful, the Hymn in her mouth and in her ears, the angel’s wings cradling her, these resplendent visions in her mind. Nothing could trouble her in this moment, sinking into this tingling bliss. Letting this reverence fill her.
Until she notices something warm around her throat. Too warm. Hot. Enough to make her wince a little. She reaches for her neck, and loses the music as she yelps when something there burns her fingertips.
LEAVE IT, CANRIE. The angel’s voice. It sounds like she’s whispering right in her ear but it echoes all around her, thrumming with a power Canrie feels in her chest, like the thunder of the artillery back at the front.
“Wh—” Canrie can’t leave it. It’s hurting her. She keeps trying to grab at it and it keeps stinging her fingers. She feels enough of it to get an idea of its shape, however. A circle. Like a halo.
Or a collar.
Her serenity cracks apart as new fear pushes up beneath it. “Angel, wh-what’s happening?”
OH, MY LITTLE HOUND. The angel sounds faintly sorrowful. THAT WAS THE HYMN OF SUBMISSION.
Canrie’s eyes bug open, only to see another pair of the angel’s wings folding over her from the chest up, drowning her sight in shining silver feathers. Panic bolts through her heart. She starts to struggle, but those six wide, powerful wings hug her tighter. Within a heartbeat she is cocooned. The angel’s heat suffuses her now, she feels like she’s cooking alive. “N—” In her growing terror she chokes on her own words. “N-No. Stop!”
YOU HAVE OFFERED YOUR SERVICES TO ME. I HAVE ACCEPTED.
“Let me go!” Canrie thrashes but her thin body is nothing against divine strength. Her world is now sweltering heat and stinging light and shimmering feathers and horror coiling even tighter around her throat than her new collar. “Stop, I take it back! Please!”
SILENCE.
Canrie feels her protests stop up in her chest. What has she done? Does she feel more betrayed that the angel didn’t tell her what she was agreeing to? Or more stupid for offering herself up? Tears of fear and useless anger swell in her eyes. She wants to sob but cannot, it would make sound. She wants to grab for her side arm for whatever little good it would do but the wings hold her too tightly. She wants to go home. She wants to go home, she wants to go home, she wants to see her father and sister again, she wants to keep her head down and just work the farm and have a happy little life, she wants to—
BE NOT AFRAID.
Canrie is calm. Her tears and her struggles stop. The Angel has told her not to fear. Who is she to argue?
YOU ARE MINE NOW.
“I am yours now.” Canrie almost doesn’t recognize her own voice, it’s so flat and soft. It doesn’t surprise her, though. That’s how she feels. A malleable shape now flattened and softened to suit Her Angel’s needs. Her collar is so warm around her neck. It’s pleasant, now that her panic has passed and she can just feel it.
MY LITTLE HOUND. DEVOTED TO THE SILVER HEAVEN. DEVOTED TO ME.
“Your Little Hound.” Euphoria washes through Canrie. An Angel has accepted her. An Angel! Her! Some farm girl who jumped feet first into the trenches and found herself overwhelmed at once. And somehow, Her Angel has accepted her as a worthy tool! Suddenly she feels stupid for ever having been scared, for having questioned this. This is her place, collared and cradled in silver wings. Perhaps it was all planned. Perhaps this was always her fate, ordained in the Heavens. Her name means “dog”, after all.
Her Angel plants a light kiss atop her head, Her lips tingling like static in Canrie’s hair. GOOD GIRL.
Canrie smiles wide. She’s good! Obedient for Her Angel! Has she ever been so happy? Vaguely she recalls an evening she and another girl snuck away from the Harvest Festival to hide out in the loft of Pa’s barnhouse. Cuddled together in the hay, watching the moon and listening to the distant celebrations, each trying to gather the courage to make the first move. Who was that girl? Canrie tries to picture her but sees only hazel eyes and auburn hair. She tries to recall a name but hears only ANGEL, ANGEL.
No matter. That was another life.
I MUST FIND MY LOST SISTERS. I CANNOT DO IT ALONE. YOU WILL HELP ME, LITTLE HOUND.
“Yes.” Canrie nods, abuzz with excitement at the thought of helping Her Angel. She’ll be so good, she’ll be so devoted! “Yes, I’ll find them.”
A moment passes in silence then. Canrie waits, heart racing in anticipation of Her Angel’s next instructions. When Her Angel finally does speak, it leaves the girl confused for a moment.
I’M SORRY, CANRIE.
Canrie blinks, the puppy smile not leaving her face. What is there to be sorry for? This is the greatest gift she’s ever received. Everything is so simple now. Help Her Angel. Submit to Her Angel. Keep faith in Her Angel’s guidance, and let it fill her with this radiant bliss. If only she’d understood what holy obedience meant sooner, she’d have offered herself to the Silver Heaven long before now. What else could she need? Her family and the farm, and even the trenches and her comrades there, are all fading from her mind. Vestigial organs being excised. She has all she could want now, here within this warm shell of luminous wings, the Hymn still rumbling within her head.
