My recovery was painfully slow as it dragged on for several more months. At least by the sixth month since I woke up, I was able to walk for short periods of time, but I still couldn’t fly or use any of my angelic abilities. Even walking was felt like it took all my energy if I spent more than a few minutes before resting.

I was starting to regret calling Beryl to visit me. The images of Beryl and my sister fighting were still fresh in my mind and caused a sickening feeling to wash over the pit of my stomach. I had never seen Selena hurt anyone, but she was truly afraid and, somehow, it was unsettling to see her have to resort to violence.

She felt bad and kept apologizing to me for hurting Beryl. It was like she didn’t even understand the concept of self-defense and just wanted everyone to be happy and get along, like a perfect family. She had no idea what Beryl was becoming and what she was capable of.

Beryl had long known a spell for recovering her hair and healing the burns from her own fire. She bragged about it to me and how she framed Selena at the ball. Sure enough, her hair and skin were fully restored, good as new, as soon as she used the spell the day after the ball.

Beryl and I had been married for thousands of years. Was she always like this?

“Lulu!” Selena called to me as I stumbled from downstairs into the throne room on foot. Staying in bed was ridiculously boring. I didn’t care if I still felt sick anymore.

“Lulu, you should be resting,” she complained.

“Don’t tell me what to do! I’m the eldest,” I responded. “And I’m going to get that crown position back, so don’t underestimate me, either.”

I wasn’t sure why I still liked to pick on her so much. There was something strange about her that made it difficult to understand the way she thought, even when I used telepathy. Of course, Swarovksy shielded her mind, so I could only access her motives once in a blue moon, but something told me that she wasn’t motivated by positions or power.

A hurt expression flashed across Selena’s face, but she quickly hid it with a smile as she turned her back to me to rush towards a blue haired stranger with a unicorn horn.

“Who are you?” I looked him up and down. He was obviously royalty from a distant planet. At least his clothing gave him away. He wore blue pants with a matching blue and white shirt of silk. The shirt had a high collar and gold buttons typical of rich clothing worn in Plue’s heaven.

“I am Prince Sapphire of the Blue Moon heavens,” he answered. “I was invited here by Prince Swarovsky and Michael the Archangel.”

“I figured that, but why?” I said.

“Prince Sapphire is my betrothed fiancé,” Selena answered. Her lips spread into a wide smile and her eyes filled with daydreams about a wedding and marriage. I guess my telepathy was coming back.

Sapphire reached out and took Selena’s hand. They both blushed.

“You’re too young to have a betrothed fiancé,” I told her. “I didn’t get married until I was at least a hundred.”

“That’s not true, Lulu,” Selena remarked. “Michael said you got married when you were about nineteen!”

“Don’t call me Lulu!” I gritted my teeth.

“Lulu Lulu Lulu!” Selena sang, swinging side to side in mockery. Ugh, and she was one of the rare angels who could sing too.

“Stop that!” I said.

“You must be afraid that I will marry and leave you here at home and you will hardly ever see me again,” she then said.

“Ha! You wish!” So that’s what this was about. She wanted me to care. Yeah right.

“Unicorn angels are special because we know how to make others happy and we have pretty sparkly skin,” she teased. I wondered if this was a coping mechanism for thinking I never cared about her. “So, if you try to keep me from leaving, that must mean…” she waved her hips from side to side in mockery and broke out in the most annoying song ever, “Lulu likes sparkles, Lulu likes sparkles, Lulu likes….”

Sapphire started to giggle.

“SHUT UP!” I screamed. Why was she doing this in front of company?

“There’s no need to be so loud, Diamond,” I heard Beryl’s voice from behind me and felt a strange dark feeling sink into my heart. Sapphire shifted awkwardly and Selena looked afraid, so I figured they must have sensed it as well. I turned to see Beryl making her way toward the center of the room. But where did she come from? Beryl could not cross the Solarian barrier, a fiery wall that only angels from Solaria and other star worlds could cross without using a safe portal. The archangel had withdrawn her ability to access any safe portal to Solaria after the day of the ball.

“Beryl?” Selena said. “How did you…?”

“Teleport?” she answered. “It’s easy. I found the power to do so and I took it.”

“But we’re not allowed to teleport,” Sapphire said. “That is only the archangel’s right. And it’s unsafe for others.”

“Well, as the archangel’s first love, I’m powerful enough to resist scattering to pieces,” she side-eyed me with a haughty look as her lips curled into a grin.

“What do you want, Beryl?” I questioned.

Beryl made a face, pretending to be hurt. “Such a hostile tone from my dearest, darling husband. And I just wanted to take you out on one of our sweet honeymoons. We haven’t had a date in over a year, darling. Don’t tell me you’re getting tired of me.”

“Yeah, about that,” I answered. “I don’t feel like going out with you and I’m still recovering from my injuries.”

“Interesting,” Beryl remarked as she put a finger to her lips, as if in deep thought. “I suppose nothing would keep me from dragging you along with me as I teleport back to Azuria?”

“Leave my brother alone!” Selena cried.

Big mistake. Beryl’s eyes glowed with an ominous orange aura as she glared savagely at my sister. Her lips curled into a deranged smile and she began to utter strange arcane words that even I had never heard in my life. An obscure spell?

Sapphire jumped in front of my sister and called out a word that sounded like he said, “Katana!” A long, curved sword appeared in his hands. On the blade were four symbols written in calligraphy that I could not discern the meaning of, but they looked like they were made of a strange blue crystal-like ink. “Honor, respect, integrity, and courage, protect the one I love!” Each symbol lit up brilliantly as he named a principle that paired with the meaning of the symbol.

A cobalt-colored stream of light was sent in Beryl’s direction, but she evaded it with a flying maneuver and continued reciting demonic-sounding words that made my head spin. But I had no idea what kind of spell she was using. My only hope was to distract her.

Beryl, what are you doing? I flooded her mind with telepathic signals. Beryl, I loved you. Why are you trying to hurt my family?

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!!” Beryl screamed.

My ears almost bled as Beryl then let out a high-pitched shriek. Selena clapped her hands over her ears, turning white as all the color drained from her face. Sapphire grabbed her and shielded her from Beryl with his own body while still pointing his sword towards my wife.

I sensed the presence of the archangel. He said Selena’s name and whispered something I couldn’t discern telepathically to her and she nodded.

Her face shifted to a determined expression. She focused on Beryl and made a quick maneuver around Sapphire, pivoting on the balls of her feet. Pointing at Beryl, she shouted, “hydrochloric acid rain!”

Hot pink clouds formed over Beryl’s head and rained down something that looked like water but had a distinctly sterile smell. Beryl cried out again as the bleach burned her eyes and entire spirit.

A dark void formed around Beryl and she vanished, teleporting away as it sucked her into it’s center.

Selena breathed heavily, her face appearing traumatized from what she had to do. She dropped to her knees, overwhelmed, and crying. Sapphire sheathed his sword by making it invisible again and put his arms around her as tears streamed down his face as well.

I had always taken self-defense for granted as a necessity when attacked, but it finally hit me how young, innocent angels reacted to violence. As I watched Sapphire try to comfort my sister, I felt a heaviness bear into my soul. They were just teenagers, having never dealt with monsters, war, or violence before. Unlike me, they were not adopted and recreated by God from the other realm, sent to be reborn in the angels just to create the illusion of always having been one. They had always been angels, from their first life onward. Unlike me, they never existed before God thought of them. They didn’t know what it was like in the other realm, like I did, and they never should have been touched by pain or trauma.

But the other angels blamed me for Beryl’s fall, somehow thinking that another husband would have changed the course of her heart. And yet, she was far more corrupt from birth than I ever became.