** Dear Readers, your first choice in Azrael’s story appears at the bottom of this chapter. You will see it in bold. Choose wisely, some choices are small, but others have the butterfly effect and will change the course of the story for other characters across the Sonder books as well…
Once your choice is made, comment your selection. The choice with the most votes will dictate the next chapter - other choices will ALSO be written for minor choices, with enough votes, so you will be able to follow your path with the numbering of the chapter. The Prologue here is numbered 0.# (this section is 0.3), Part One will be 1.# etc. Your choice’s path will be 0.#.A. For example, after this section, 0.3, if you choose path B, you will proceed to 0.3.B to see your choice on the page. Once the next part is ready to begin, for example, once we leave the Prologue and move to Part One, the major choices will be locked and change the plot going forward, and minor choices will affect the relationships between Azrael and everyone around him… **
The sunlight tickled lazy fingers through his hair. A soft lover, the sun, one who came every morning. Morning was something to count on, a loyalty so fierce it burned.
Azrael wasn’t sure how he made it to a soft, warm bed as he cracked open his eyes. One eye was ginger, difficult to open fully, almost swollen shut. He tried to push himself up, but his arm didn’t respond. Out of one ear, he could hear the chirping of birds outside.
He had to turn to one side to use his good arm to get up, his head pounding like he was hung over: that sure was a feeling from a lifetime before. He groaned, getting to his feet and almost keeling right back down.
He had lost a lot of blood, but when he turned to look at his shoulder he could only see bright, white bandages. There was a pink bloom seeping from his traps’. Clearly, he was still bleeding, but not enough yet to soak through. His eye caught the, ‘soft,’ bed— the mattress was dry straw, the pillow— if it could be called a pillow— flat. He chuckled to himself: it was quite funny, of course, that a bed at all, even one of straw, had him sleeping like a King! He was an easy man to please.
Azrael shuffled to the adjoining powder room, lacking his usual grace. He peered at himself in the mirror there. His face was pretty bad. His ear was caked in blood and his shoulder… He tore the bandages off to look.
A gaping hole greeted his gaze. No wonder he couldn’t move it— with what muscle was he supposed to? Linens were stuffed into the hole and his stomach coiled with disgust. But he had to. He had to see it. Would he ever hold a sword again? He ripped out linen after linen, like plucking bloodied rose petals off a flower, as his heart thudded out, will he, or won’t he hold a sword.
His brow furrowed. The wound was ugly— the beast had indeed taken its ‘pound of flesh’ as payment for his rashness. Purple and white edges, like a carnation fed ink, as some flesh bruised and other bits… Died. The base of the wound was what caught his eye. It was black, where it should have been the reddest.
Hurriedly he tore off more of the bandaging in horror, revealing his chest and bicep. The black snaked through his veins, the infested branches bulging out of his skin like overgrown roots. “No…” He scratched at himself, pulling his skin to see where they went, how deep. Their inky fingers coiled all the way down his arm, but the other branches…
His knees buckled, but he caught himself. They were stretching, reaching, trying to burrow their way to his heart…
With a start Azrael knew what the beast was, the one that had come from no where to tear out his shoulder.
Now he did drop to his knees, gaze vacant. It was a death sentence. The black march would press on, hunting, until he was gone. There was no stopping it. The door creaked open, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore. If someone wanted his head, at this point, take it. With how deep and gaping the wound was, he didn’t have long.
“Az, you’ll bleed out,” the voice was gentle. Luke’s voice.
His lips worked, moving, but nothing came out.
Luke stood behind him, gaze meeting his in the mirror. He looked grim, tired. His arms had a stack of fresh linens. Wordlessly his friend got to work, re-dressing the wound as Azrael knelt, stunned. A sliver of him crawled to the surface and whispered: it was almost over. A sense of relief splashed over him like a pail of cold water, but just as quickly he shook it off, ashamed and angry. How could he be relieved of his burden when so many lives depended on him?
Finally his heart shivered to life in his chest, thumping deeply, drumming with his sudden fervour. He had to prepare his people. There was so much left to do, so much they needed to know to win this war. Azrael did not share his long-term tactics with anyone, nor did he write them down. He couldn’t trust anyone with his plans, just in case. The Priedae turned coats like a revolving door. He was alive now, he had time to remedy that. Not much, but some. His people had to know what they needed to do. He had to tell them everything. The past he kept, his darker secrets, the horrors he could not repeat…
Now he had no choice. His days were literally numbered.
With each determined heartbeat in his chest, the inky sickness in him thrummed forward with its own determination to reach its coiling fingers around his heart.
As Luke tied the last strip in place, Azrael stood, tall, proud. In his final moments on this earth he needed to inspire his people. His death would cripple them. He couldn’t let their spirits die with his. How dare he think of giving up. Disgusting.
He turned, looking down at Luke, “we need to get back. Immediately.”
Luke hesitated, “Sir, I barely got you here.”
“It’s not a choice. I said we need to. Roll me, if you have to,” he smirked. “You did call your commanding officer a muffintop, did you not?” Those red eyes glinted evilly as Luke gulped, stepping back. Azrael pinned him down with his gaze. Boy did he love watching his men squirm… He barked out a brief laugh, clapping Luke on the shoulder and stepping past him.
Azrael cast his gaze about the room. They didn’t have much to pack. “Luke.”
“Yes, Sir?”
”Good work. And… Thank you.”
“We need ointment, for your inf-”
“There’s no use.”
“But-” Luke stopped as Azrael turned his grave countenance to him. He only nodded. They packed up in silence, stuffing the extra linens in a bag Luke had found, along with a pile of apples on the bedside table. Luke pulled a few coins from his belt bag, leaving them in place of the fruit.
When they stepped outside, Azrael inhaled one of his final breaths of fresh air, feeling the rays of sun on his face. His heart panged, thinking of how much he had left undone. How little he had accomplished of his goals. They were still a small group. How could he leave them now? How could all his years of fighting have such little meaning?
An intrusive thought pushed its way through as soft as a whisper, but with a condescending edge: was it worth it?
Just as quickly as the sorrow rose, he crushed it down. He would lead with dignity and pride. He would lead with conviction. He would leave them better than he had first found them. He would build them as high as he could.
He would fight for them until his last breath. He closed his eyes, turning his face up to the warmth of the sun as she caressed him.
Many of them did not know what they truly fought for: to simply feel the sun on their faces. If the Priedae won, there would be no more… Anything. And that yawning abyss was hard to imagine without experiencing it firsthand. This world, this life, its beauty lay in consciousness.
So, he would tell them everything. He would paint for them the sunless world he had been born into. Maybe they would understand what they were fighting for. Maybe it would be too fathomless without experiencing it themselves. Maybe it would backfire, they would give up, and he would fail them before his final breath.
A stirring broke him from his thoughts and he turned, spotting a purple skirt dart into an alley. Curiousity took him and he lingered. He didn’t have time, anymore, for curiousity.
From the corner of his eye he noted a hulking man follow. He smirked. A tryst?
“Luke, we need a horse.”
“Isn’t it cheaper to roll you, Sir?”
Azrael scowled and shoved his own coin purse into Luke’s arms. His officer was smart. The bear had been poked, and he scampered off with a smirk before it decided to trouble itself with the deer.
As he stretched his good arm, he heard it: “stop, please, don’t do this-”
He whirled on his toes, stalking to that alley without another thought. At the end he saw that hulking man caging the skirt between his arms, palms on the alley’s wall. The girl herself was barely visible under him, her back on the wall. She was tiny. A child?
His blood boiled in fury and he stalked forward, pulling his boot knife free once again without missing a beat.
But then he almost dropped it.
The man leaned into her, reaching to her face. She flinched from his touch, but when he grasped her chin he howled in pain, falling to his knees.
She trembled, brow knitting her forehead. Azrael’s heart pounded in his chest. She was so beautiful, her face delicate. His gaze dipped— that was no child. His jaw slackened. He forgot his fury. He barely heard her mutter in a vacant whisper, “I asked you not to… Now I have no choice…”
She leaned forward, placing a feather-light brush of her lips onto his, one hand turning his chin up. The man’s eyes bulged, his body stiffened, black veins shooting from his lips to the edges of his face. He shuddered, turning white in moments.
Azrael was rooted to the spot. Now his knife did clatter to the ground.
She paused, releasing the man’s lips and looking at Azrael, her eyes flickering from a misty aqua to black. Her lips were a matching black, parted. The man dropped to her feet in a crumpled mess.
After a moment of staring at each other, their hearts still, something stirred in him as he witnessed the odd exchange. His gaze dipped again over her face, and lower, over her petite frame, her slim waist, her round hips.
Her eyes slowly widened and she held her arms around herself as though he had walked in on her changing and she backed up into the wall. When his gaze returned to her face, her lips were now rose petal pink, parted in shock and fear.
He tilted his head, stepping closer.
He knew what she was.
She was his answer to everything.
Azrael approached the delicate and deadly creature, a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips in triumph.
** Azrael’s choices:
A : He stepped closer, leaning his elbow above her head against the wall, his voice sultry. He would seduce her. He knew how to play the game, even wounded, “care to try that fancy trick on me? It might not work the same way…”
B : “Don’t worry,” he showed her his empty hand— the one that he could move— and closed the distance slowly, her eyes darting as her chest heaved with rapid breaths. “I won’t hurt you. But I need your help. Will you come with me? Just to talk?” (Proceed to part 0, section 3.B for this choice!)
C : He lunged forward, grabbing her arm and pulling her into his chest as she yelped, pushing back against him. He would take her by force and ask her to comply later. He bent, pushing his shoulder into her waist until she folded over his good shoulder and Azrael hoisted her up as she kicked, shrieking.
Choose wisely, dear readers… **
