Cyrona rode the currents from the Nehal River to the various tributaries feeding into the Zarmand River outside its eponymous city. She ordinarily would have taken her time to enjoy the comforting embrace of the currents she had created, but this was a moment that could not wait. Forynda had been clear about that.

“Tell those betrayers in Zarmand that their only hope of survival is to renounce Nethron,” Forynda ordered just outside Methrangia. “Should they see reason, I will grant my forgiveness. If not, they shall meet Nethron’s fate.”

In the earlier days of the crisis, Cyrona would have dealt with Forynda’s warning as being merely a vague threat as opposed to an imminent promise of retribution. Now, there was no doubt. Cyrona had never sensed from the High Angel the seething rage that now dwelled from her.

Speeding through the rivers’ currents at her fastest possible pace, she could sense the fish and other aquatic beasts’ concerns. Their patron angel’s ferocious velocity left a deep and unsettled wake. Cyrona felt guilt at this inconvenience. If only Forynda had given me more time.

In mere moments, she felt that she was near Zarmand. Its waters were sufficiently polluted with waste from the multitudes of mortals in the sprawling city. Only a handful of places in the entirety of the mortal world were so befouled. Not wishing to swim amidst that filth, she sprang from the river atop a pillar of water that she rode into the endless expanse that was the former capital of Methrangia’s eastern reaches.

Vaulting over the walls, she sailed past lackadaisical guards who merely gawked at her and then landed amidst a fish market. The citizens gathered there looked upon her in astonishment. They were ordinary folk, clad in plain clothes, often speckled in dirt and bits of food.

“You… you are…” a middle-aged woman spluttered out.

“Cyrona, yes,” the angel said. “Where in this city would I find your leaders? I have an ultimatum from the High Angel they must hear.”

That set off a cascade of murmurs, whispers, and gasps among the dozens who looked on and the hundreds more who poured toward her through the narrow city streets.

“We’ve rejected her,” an arrogant young man with flowing blue green hair announced. “No one in this city wants to hear a word she has to say.”

Even though she had expected something like this, Cyrona was still irritated. She could feel the waters forming her body roiling in response to that foolish impudence.

“Forynda destroyed Nethron with scarcely a flick of her wrist,” Cyrona boomed, her voice carrying well beyond the small fish market. She was satisfied that the castle in central Zarmand must have heard what her terrifying bellow. “Stand with your fallen idol and fall with him. That is the warning I deliver to you and your leaders!”

Stunned silence ruled around her before a chorus of deafening jeers started from the rear ranks of those gathered.

“Bring him back! Bring him back!” they demanded. “Nethron! Nethron! Nethron!”

Are they mad?! Cyrona fumed. Who are they t make these demands?

“Please be sane for just one moment,” the angel scolded the crowd. “There is not the slightest chance that the High Angel will comply with your wishes.”

“Tyrant!” a crazed man screamed from the teeming masses.

“Call me what you will. Call Forynda what will you. Those are your decisions,” Cyrona said with a halting laugh. “None of that changes what I have told you.”

Some minutes of shouts and jeers continued. Cyrona simply stood and absorbed it all. It was nothing she had not already expected. For the occasional object thrown her way by a particularly foolish mortal, she blocked its approach with a shield of water she summoned from the air’s moisture. This pointless madness was interrupted, however, by the blasts of horns from the castle. Cyrona knew that it would only take a few minutes for the news of her arrival to reach the city leaders and was content to wait for their arrival.

She closed her eyes and meditated while she waited for them. The random nothings uttered by these ordinary citizens did not interest her in the slightest. One of the reasons she was not at all concerned about leaving that world was that she would be parted from the idiocies of the common mortal. At least that would bring her some peace as she rested in her waters in Ceuna.

From a distance, she heard a party of horses charging down the city streets toward here. Cyrona broke her meditative trance to greet this group of dignitaries with only the most perfunctory of courtesies. The group’s leader was a small fat man with a bald head and a broad nose. His fine robes and ostentatious pins and medals, however made clear that he was someone these foolish mortals had chosen as their leader.

“So, you are Cyrona?” the lead rider asked, causing the crowd to subside in its jeers for at least a moment.

“And to whom am I speaking?” Cyrona replied.

“I am Lord Feradnor and I am leading this city on behalf of a council of adherents to Nethron,” he declared with nauseating pride. “In fact, we are prepared to rename this city in his honor. Nethromand seems an appropriate name for our devotion.”

Approving mumbles swept through the throngs gathered around Cyrona, especially among the gaudily dressed noble lords behind Feradnor. Cyrona shook her head wearily at the absurdity.

“You are aware that the High Angel cast that traitor into the void of oblivion, correct?” the angel sighed.

“And we demand that she release him!” Feradnor spat back.

“I am not sure that you understand the situation, so I will make it plain for you. Either you renounce this stupidity and seek Forynda’s forgiveness, or she will come to this city, whatever you choose to call it, and blast it down to its foundations!” Cyrona boomed, once again raising her voice so that it could be heard all over the city.

“You’re threatening us as you always have, but we know that—” Feradnor started, but Cyrona swiftly interjected, rapidly lunging toward him to hover right in front of his horse, which squirmed in response.

“You know nothing,” she rumbled. “You mean to say that our kind has sworn off harming yours. Forynda has already slain Nethron’s followers in the west when she descended to destroy him. And you have no friends at all among the angels anymore. When she comes for you, you will stand alone.”

Feradnor scowled, sweat beginning to bead up on his shiny forehead.

“She wouldn’t dare destroy one of the world’s greatest cities,” he uneasily tried to parry Cyrona’s warning.

“I shall not waste my time bargaining with fools,” she angrily rejoined while turning to the crowd on all sides. “You have heard my warning. You will only hear it once.”

Without waiting for a reply from any of those around her, she swiftly summoned the waters out of various buckets in the market square and brought them to her along serpentine paths to avoid striking any of the mortals. She used those waters to spring up into the air and out of the city in a single swift and spectacular motion to gently remind the fools of what they faced.

On her return voyage to Methrangia, she feared that none of her warnings or displays had made the slightest impact.

~~~

Cesord Etelet had managed to procure two messengers to go back and forth to his home village of Gulnholn while he was away with Emperor Rohmhelt’s army. It was a favor by the Emperor to Cesord and his daughter Lyfress for their service in bringing knowledge of the Ceunan Aura and its healing powers to the army. With these messengers, he gained word that, at last, matters were stabilizing in the village and the surrounding communities in favor of those loyal to the Emperor and the High Angel. Evidently, the vanquishing of Nethron and the descent of Forynda had both convinced some of those with wobbling loyalties that their affections were misplaced.

When he happily relayed this news to his daughter, Lyfress, she responded with palpable relief, not so much for the peace it brought to their region, but because it was such a burden lifted from Cesord’s shoulders.

“This will allow us to focus on our work here,” she said with a smile across her plain face, which was partially obscured by the hood of her white robes. She then glanced toward the healers’ tents from which she was taking a much-needed rest. “There’s certainly plenty of it to do.”

“Armies get sick on their own even when there are not battles to fight,” Cesord lamented. “And then on top of that all, there are training accidents, insect bites, wild animal attacks, and all manner of things I can’t even get my head around. Taking to the mending mortals is, I’ve got to say, a bottomless task.”

“A rewarding one, though,” Lyfress nodded and rose, stretching her arms. A shocked look then came over her face and she looked toward the edge of camp. “I think the High Angel is calling us.”

Cesord was wondering how she could be so sure, but then he heard the gentle ringing noise himself. He looked at his daughter in amazement as he knew what the command meant even though it did not manifest in words. Silently, they walked toward a small grove of trees that had begun losing their leaves as autumn’s march continued. Beyond the camp’s edge, it was relatively quiet.

A soft white glow manifested between them. Cesord immediately knew it to be the High Angel’s presence as she had evidently decided to keep her appearance more discrete than her descent to the world had been.

“I sense you wish to speak with me,” Forynda’s voice said quietly.

“Mighty Forynda,” Lyfress started weakly, “I wanted to thank you for the great gift you gave to us and to others, this healing power that I never imagined existed.”

“Had Nethron and the others not forced my hand, I would not have done so,” the High Angel responded distantly. “You will find in time that this power is not merely for healing, but that it contains great destructive force and for that I have misgivings in releasing it to this world. I fear that time will reveal that it is as much a curse as a blessing.”

Cesord and his daughter exchanged surprised glances.

“I had no idea,” Lyfress mumbled aloud. A brief silent pause followed before Lyfress continued. “Might I ask why we and some others from distant and humble places have been approached in such a way by you?”

The white glow intensified slightly at that inquiry.

“Mortals of high birth and great station have already attracted far too much affection from denizens of Ceuna,” Forynda said sternly. “As we speak, Vorlan and others spend their time with the powerful. It is that very unfortunate tendency they have that convinced me that the continued presence of my kind in your world would make it more unjust than it already is. For what brief time I hope to be here, I shall endeavor to ensure that I never intercede but on behalf of those who need it.”

Neither Cesord nor Lyfress had anything to say to that before commotion sounded through the camp.

“Cyrona has returned,” Forynda’s voice announced. “I must go to her.”

With that, the High Angel’s presence dissipated and moved toward the southeast near the Nehal River. Cesord and his daughter looked at one another in both bafflement and enlightenment at what they had just heard from Forynda, the Serene Mother.

“If you had told me this ten years ago…” Cesord mumbled at last.

“I would’ve been more scared than anything,” Lyfress awkwardly chuckled.

“I think I still am.”

~~~

Emperor Rohmhelt watched as Cyrona’s grand entrance, surging forth on a pillar of water from the Nehal River, drew the delighted cheers and applause from thousands of soldiers gathered near the riverbanks. His mind had a difficult time even accepting what he observed as he had never seen water move in such an unnatural way, not even when Cyrona had previously intervened before the battle.

As the angel, with her blue watery body, glided up toward the camp, her brethren Vorlan, Tathyk, and Simel all approached her. Striking as each of them were, they were all overwhelmed by the sudden burst of golden and white light as the High Angel appeared between them all. Rohmhelt scurried to be near their gathering to hear what was said. He had found, much to his irritation, that the angels did not always reliably keep him informed of their own dealings.

“So, they mean to keep their embrace of Nethron’s vileness,” Forynda seethed as Rohmhelt approached. “My judgment will be swift and total. I will go to that city and offer them one last chance to embrace righteousness. Should they fail that test, I will annihilate them as an example to the whole of this world.”

Vorlan’s mossy beard sagged in grief at hearing Forynda’s declaration.

“Such an act would be an unparalleled atrocity,” Vorlan desperately warned. “The reaction to it will be far different than you hope.”

Forynda’s burning golden gaze shot at Vorlan.

“On what matter during this whole crisis have you been right, Vorlan?” she excoriated him. The Earth Angel could not summon a ready response to Forynda’s insult. “For far too long have I dithered in the face of spreading calamity. For far too long have I tolerated depravities without bound. No more. It is clear that I waited beyond when I should have to bring justice upon Nethron. I will not so delay righteous judgment again.”

Not waiting for a single other word to be uttered, the High Angel vaulted skyward and sailed toward the southeast in a shimmering golden streak that lit up even the daytime sky.

Simel floated near Rohmhelt as all assembled watched her swift advance toward the traitorous city hundreds of miles away.

“I can only hope that the citizens of that city will see how hopeless their cause is as she approaches,” the angel murmured. “For if they do not, a doom beyond anything they have ever seen will be upon them.”