Cyrona preferred the warm and vibrant waters of the south to the frigid and stagnant ones to the north, but it was duty that caused her to swim the currents to the northern reaches of the Methrangian Empire. Duty to Forynda. Omonrel needed to be sent a message and the weak voices of Vorlan and Simel simply would not suffice. Forynda had said so herself.

“They mean well to maintain the peace, but the peace will not be maintained through frail prattling. You must deliver this message to Omonrel with the strength of the mightiest tempest,” Forynda had commanded her.

The patron angel of the world’s waters would have been happy to deliver the message without the High Angel’s command. Omonrel’s intransigence annoyed her to no end. She had long been convinced that the noble house he maintained was a depravity that threatened the world. Vorlan and his cohort had protected Omonrel’s right to do so. Forynda, aimed solely at keeping the peace in Ceuna, chose to acquiesce for centuries. No longer.

Cyrona coursed through the rivers, shooting past the various river creatures she had helped to create. Vorlan, notwithstanding his silliness in other regards, had helped as well. So had Jagreth, though Jagreth’s hulking monstrosities were peculiar denizens of the water. Still, Cyrona appreciated all efforts to make her rivers and lakes vibrant with all manner of life.

Reaching the northern branch of the Uklad River, she turned toward the seat of the House of Kedholn, Omonrel’s adopted noble house. The manor bore an obnoxious name: Omonrelia. That very offense had caused Cyrona to plead with Forynda to expel Omonrel from the mortal world. The High Angel had agreed with the sentiment, but not the punishment.

The full extent of the manor’s grandeur was an insult to any who prized humility. Omonrel, the great builder and sculptor among the angels, had spared nothing in providing the House of Kedholn with far and away the grandest and most ostentatious manor in all of Vorlanys. Of the various great structures in the world, only Solnaht Citadel itself surpassed its splendor. Its outer walls had been hewn from a beautiful verdant stone that reflected both daylight and moonlight gorgeously. Its towers were elegant undulating spires that stretched two hundred feet skyward. The doors leading into its great hall stood at least one hundred feet tall and the hall itself matched that grandeur.

Its floor was a splendid array of vibrantly colored rocks blended and swirled in patterns as delicate as they were striking. Its walls had lifelike marble carvings of the various lovers Omonrel had kept in the Kedholn family at the foot of every window. The ceilings were cavernous vaults that inspired wonder and dread at the same time. Truly, Omonrel had acted on his every whim in constructing it.

For Cyrona, however, the wonder most mortals felt for it was lost on her. Garishness, rather that beauty, defined the place for her. Omonrel had always lacked a sense of subtlety that Cyrona felt lay at the heart of true beauty. She had seen more than a few kings adorn everything with gold to bring their subjects to their knees in the face of such an expression of “power.”

She leapt out of the minor tributary that branched in front of the manor and walked up to the estate with her hands folded behind her back. As it was a bright day, she could see the sunlight sparkle on the ground through her watery body. Observing that peculiar phenomenon had never grown tedious for her in all of the years she had seen it.

Omonrel’s guards had appropriately extravagant armor, with the colorful ceremonial plates crafted from the rarest of metals, capes spun from materials far more delicate than silk, and weapons forged in fires only Gorondos could have stoked before his imprisonment. Having enjoyed so much favor from the angels, these guards only paid Cyrona the slightest of glances before presenting a perfunctory honor guard for her arrival.

“Why have you traveled so far?” Omonrel’s voice cut through the clamor of his soldiers redeploying. It was a resounding booming echo that heralded his arrival. He walked at the head of a retinue of simpering sycophants the likes of which Cyrona had only rarely seen before.

“You need so many to accompany you? I only brought myself,” Cyrona quipped back.

Omonrel’s face of ivory skin and crystal blue eyes smirked and he motioned for all of his followers to leave them. They stood astride a hillock overlooking his vast estate and silently glared at one another for some time.

“What exactly is Forynda’s complaint?” Omonrel at last asked, breaking the silence.

“It is not only her and you know that. She is giving voice to those whose lands you have violated here, in this region, on behalf of your so-called house. This is an intolerable interference in the mortals’ ordinary affairs. We were to live alongside them if we chose, not to rule them,” Cyrona scolded.

“I will grant you that those do sound like Forynda’s words,” Omonrel smirked. “You have always been a loyal servant to her, but if she wishes to reprimand me, she can come here herself.”

Cyrona knew that this was only meant to stall matters further. Forynda would never respond to a demand that she appear on Vorlanys on principle, much less over a matter as minor as this one.

“You know that will never happen. My voice is hers on this point and you know that,” the water angel declared. “Be sensible!”

Omonrel approached her, gliding instead of walking. He motioned out to the river behind her.

“I have never understood how it is that you can lay claim to all of the rivers of this world. All of them have some mortal or another declaring their ownership over those waters,” he said. “Why should you be able to do that?”

“You have spent far too much time listening to your little pets here,” Cyrona scoffed. “I do not own the rivers. I flow with them and enjoy them, but they are not mine. Oh, yes. The mortals lay all manner of claims to the waters and they do their nasty things to them, but it is not my place, nor yours, to interfere.”

“Perhaps it should be,” Omonrel said plainly.

“Sometimes I am not sure if you want to live down here or rule down here,” Cyrona quipped back.

“One thing that has become obvious to me from living ‘down here’ is that there is a wonderful ability to question that which is happening and morph to the new circumstances. We would do well to think in the same way,” he declared. “You have contempt for these creatures we have created in this realm, but you are wrong to ignore everything they have to say.”

“I can see this is not a useful conversation,” she replied. “Back to the original point of my visit, stop these incursions into the neighboring lands or find yourself without your own lands. Is that understood?”

Omonrel smirked and his crystal blue eyes flashed.

“Tell me, is this simply because the new Queen of Karmand happens to control some of these lands? If that is the case, there is a foul stench of hypocrisy to all of this. I am not to interfere on behalf of my house, but you can interfere fully on behalf of those of your choosing.”

Having parried with Omonrel before on similar topics, she wondered why it was that he could still cause her temper to flash with such silly arguments. Truly, the mortals had taught him something with which the angels had previously been unfamiliar.

“You seem to be missing the point. Forynda’s edict is not a matter for negotiation. She has warned you in the past. Heed the warning now or this time there will be reckoning.”

“I will take it under advisement. Enjoy your voyages, Cyrona.”

She did not even bother addressing him. After that absurdity, what would be the point? Cyrona felt Simel’s voice echoing in her head and could not help but feel that his warnings of destruction and death were indeed inevitable.

~~~

The old man’s knees cracked and ached as he stood from his prayer to the High Angel. Twenty-seven years as mayor of the village of Gulnholn and he had never broken from his tradition of the fervent morning prayer. Others had mocked Cesord Etelet for his constancy and piety. He maintained that the prayers had forestalled any famines or even disappointing crops for his farmers. For such prosperity and good health, he dared not break with tradition.

Gulnholn’s central village, where Cesord lived with his family, consisted of only a dozen small stone buildings. Though well-maintained, they were all modest, even the mayor’s residence. With barely enough room for his four daughters and his wife, he devoted an entire chamber to the High Angel. Stark, austere, without even the slightest ornamentation, it best reflected Cesord’s interpretation of the High Angel’s wishes.

Nelrie, his wife, had urged him to build a more opulent shrine. She said he would never draw the High Angel’s attention with a “farmhouse storeroom.” He dismissed her worries. His daughters had sided with him, which told him that he must have raised them right. Never had he seen purer souls than his progeny.

He was equally thankful they had not taken after him physically. Short, stocky, with a perpetual modest gut no matter his abstemiousness, he was also constantly plagued with various pains and infirmities. He endured those only through prayer and reflection. As mayor of the quaint little village, he was not only the Emperor’s representative, but he was also the village’s cleric and judge. With such duties, he relied on what help he could find and the High Angel was one of the few sources he could turn to.

“Forynda be praised for her bountiful blessings,” he murmured as he reached for the door. “I pledge my utmost to live as you have wanted for us. May you hear my family’s prayers.”

Light filled the chamber over his shoulder. His blood turned cold. He closed his eyes in the vain hope that if he didn’t acknowledge the disturbance, it couldn’t be a threat.

“My faithful and devoted servant,” an echoing woman’s voice sounded out behind him, “your prayers are always heard.”

Cesord’s heart stopped. It can’t be. With his eyes closed, he turned about again, feeling the warmth of the light’s presence. As he opened them, he saw an amorphous glowing light, not a defined entity.

“Are… are you…” his raspy voice struggled.

“Your prayers are always heard,” the voice interrupted. “Be assured of that.”

Impossible. Never had Cesord ever thought for a moment that Forynda’s presence, or even her voice, would come to him in his own home.

“But… have you come to answer them?” he asked.

“No,” Forynda’s voice replied curtly. “It is through your own deeds that your prayers will be answered.”

“Why…”

“I come to provide counsel, and a warning.”

At once, a long-suppressed dream flashed in his vision. This moment felt distressingly familiar. Panic set in. He knew what words would follow even though he had discounted them earlier.

“A warning… But why me?”

“The truly faithful, few that they are, are owed guidance and protection. You shall need it.”

That assurance at once soothed Cesord and caused overwhelming terror. The High Angel was the greatest of allies and protectors, but if she felt the need to appear, then the danger must be overwhelming. He prepared to listen intently.