Of Light And Shadows
Chapter Forty Eight...

Meeting God was surreal. Jia expected a man with a big white beard, or a woman with long blonde locks, anything other than what was in front of her. Before her was light, a bright, shining, brilliant light that almost hurt to look at.

In the centre of that light was a vaguely person shaped silhouette, barely visible against the radiant glow. She could just make out the hazy edge of six feathered wings sprouting from their back, the tips of which stretched far enough to reach the edges of the light and reveal their dazzling white colour.

But the most startling part of the meeting was the sheer sense of power and presence emanating from the figure, dwarfing the auras of both Lucifer and Michael without difficulty. The pair of them dropped to one knee and bowed their heads respectfully, their true forms manifesting involuntarily under the crackling gaze of their deity.

“Lucifer Morningstar,” a voice both whispered and purred, echoing around the inside of Jia’s mind like a caress from a gentle breeze. When God spoke it was as though all the voices of the Angels spoke with them. “It has been a long time.”

“Yes it has, Holy One.” Lucifer kept his head bowed, his black wings shifting closer to his body as though they wanted to protect him.

“I have missed you. Stand, child.” The Demon Prince did as he was told, daring to raise eyes brimming with tears of hellfire to the burning aura filling the study in front of him. “I feared sending you here might destroy you. I am glad to see that instead you flourish.”

It seemed like they wanted to say more, but then their eyes fell on Jia and she got the sense her soul was being searched. As the oppressing presence touched her mind, the intricate mate bond on her arm lit up like a beacon, coaxed to life by the probing tendrils of light.

“This is Jia, my wife,” Lucifer said softly. “I brought her to you so that you could see what the joining of our realms can create.”

“The Angelic and Demonic realms should never touch, they are separate,” God replied, though they didn’t stop probing Jia’s soul.

“Jia has access to power we’ve never seen. She can physically interact with the ley lines.”

“Impossible.”

“I stopped Jezebeth from corrupting a moon gate and its ley line by sending my consciousness through a moon gate of my own,” Jia mumbled, feeling inexplicably ashamed of her blood. She never asked to exist, but this all-seeing God made her squirm with guilt as though the whole thing was her fault.

“How exactly did you do that?” The thousand voices of the deity caressed her skin, the tinge of doubt barely perceptible in their tone.

“I used the ley line under Lanthia’s moon gate.”

“I see.” The deity paused for a moment, scrutinising her with eyes she couldn’t see. “Nobody in the history of all creation has been able to manipulate my power. The ley lines are my essence, the tendrils of my soul that underpin all three realms.”

“I used one of them to cross over to Jezebeth’s ley line and break her hold on the moon gate. She was doing something to it.”

“She was corrupting it with her ill intentions,” Michael replied when the deity didn’t respond. “That was the first time we sensed what they were really doing.”

“And what do you think it is that they want?” Lucifer asked the Archangel.

“Satan wants a lot more than we originally thought. He doesn’t just want to control the three realms. He wants to combine them.”

“Satan was my triumph once,” God said softly, a hint of pain in the many murmuring voices. “Had I known what his wrath would lead to, I may have acted differently. I know all. I see all, but somehow I did not foresee this.”

“Could you not feel them tainting the ley lines?” Jia asked gently.

“I did not.”

“We only knew what was happening when you accessed your power for the first time,” Michael explained as God seemed to sink inwards in misery, the light retracting closer to the silhouette at the centre and becoming ever so slightly dimmer. “We could only sense anything when you used the same power that sustains the realms to help us.”

“I felt you connect with my soul, and so the Angels felt it too,” God almost whispered. “My demons are disconnected from the Angelic light, but they sense something is amiss. All of the realms grow restless and now we know why. Power that has remained untouchable, incorruptible for millennia, can suddenly be both tainted and manipulated.”

“Jia would never manipulate your energy for personal gain,” Lucifer replied quickly, moving to stand beside her and lay a hand on her arm. Jia wasn’t sure if he was trying to comfort her or himself. “What she did helped an entire city in the human world. It slowed whatever Jezebeth and Satan were doing to you.”

“I cannot trust that a creature I do not understand would ever act with pure intentions, Lucifer.” God straightened up and the light brightened again. “It is too dangerous to allow someone with such power to exist.” Jia gasped and took a step back, her heart leaping into her throat as Lucifer positioned himself between her and the creator of everything she knew.

“You can’t do this, Holy One,” Michael said softly, moving forward to hold out an imploring hand. “You have searched her soul. You can see that she’s Lauviah’s child, daughter of the purest of us all.”

“Seraph Lauviah is no longer pure.”

“She is!” Jia retorted, pushing past Lucifer and replaceing her voice. God regarded her with a sense of surprise as she clenched her fists and squared her shoulders. “My mother endured thousands of years of torture and confinement. If you see all then you knew she was there! You knew she needed help. She endured the waiting and the knowing that you weren’t coming for her. She endured it in silence and she survived it and even though I was forced on her, she loves me with everything she is. I can feel it when she speaks to me! I can see it when she looks at me!”

“Jia-”

“No!” she yelled, tugging her arm away as Lucifer tried to calm her down. “You can say whatever you want about me. You can call me a half breed and you can tell I’m evil or tainted or whatever you want, but you can never say that about my mother. She loves you even after you abandoned her. She returned home to you and she got strong and she continues to follow your rules and worship you like she was never taken away.” She took another step forwards on shaking legs, hot tears pricking at her eyes. “You don’t deserve the love you command if you’re not capable of returning it. No God does!”

Silence settled on them like a weighted blanket when she finally ground to a halt, staring at the celestial ruler despite the urge to shield her eyes. They looked back in neutral silence, sizing her up for a moment. Nobody moved, and then the light retracted and God held out one burning hand. Even with the surrounding glow muted, their body still burned like the sun, seemingly made of nothing but energy.

“If you are so pure, you will take my hand.”

“You’ll kill her!” Michael and Lucifer yelled at the same time.

“Not if she is as pure as you believe.” Gods’ gaze shifted back to her. “Jia Morningstar, child of dark and light, take my hand and prove yourself.”

Before anyone could stop her, she reached out. Her fingers closed around pure power and suddenly her body was filled with crackling, sizzling energy. It raced through her veins, cooking her nerves until every single one of the screamed in pain. She buckled but didn’t let go, keeping hold of that hand even when she was on her knees with tears streaming down her face and no air left in her lungs.

A white hot band of excruciating agony concentrated itself in the centre of her chest, spreading out across her back and over her shoulders, stopping her from sucking in a breath she desperately needed. Despite the torture her body was put through, she clung to the fingers wrapped around hers until she was sure her body was going to burst into flames. The pressure inside her kept building and climbing, making her bones creak. She opened her mouth in a silent scream as the agony reached its crescendo, bursting outwards at its peak in a furious, violent wave that felt like her spine was torn through her skin.

All at once everything was quiet and Jia huddled in a quivering ball, only vaguely aware that God still held her hand.

“Jia,” said that whispering voice of a thousand people, and something brushed against her cheeks gently. “Jia Morningstar. Open your eyes.”

She cracked one eyelid, flinching at the light that poked through, but forced them open slowly. Everything looked the same and yet somehow it was all different.

The lush carpet beneath her was still a rich shade of dark navy, but suddenly she could see every fibre in minute detail. It was soft under the hand that wasn’t clutching the deity, tickling her palm gently.

She was also hyper aware of the clothes touching her skin, even the slightest slide of her cotton shirt across her collar bones as she breathed. Her sense of touch seemed to have increased a thousand fold from a single brush with God.

Someone shifted their feet and it sounded like it came from next to her head, but when Jia turned to look she realised Lucifer and Michael were still at the other side of the room.

She focussed on her husband, taking in every inch of him like she was seeing him for the first time. He’d always been beautiful but seeing him with her strange new vision was something else entirely. His red eyes smouldered, hellfire flickering and ebbing in them as his emotions battled inside him, sending small sparks crackling across his cheeks.

The light of his eyes cast a faint illumination across his creamy skin, and even with her new vision it still looked poreless and perfectly even. Everything about him was astonishing, from the perfect Cupid’s bow of his open lips to the high cheekbones framing his face. His hair was raven black and shining lusciously in the light cast from God’s physical form.

Jia didn’t dare to keep looking as tears of wonder pricked her eyes, so she cast her gaze back to the carpet and focussed on bringing her legs under her. As she moved she felt a heavy weight across her back and a strange twitching sensation in her shoulders.

“What...?” Lucifer breathed, clearly astonished, but Jia couldn’t lift herself to look at what had surprised him.

“Here, child. Let me help you.” God’s many voices spoke tenderly, and the hand still clasped in hers dimmed its glow enough for her to look at the deity. Inside all that light she saw clearly a six-winged Angel with long silver hair flowing past their knees, swirling around them like it was blown by a light breeze. They were tall and slender, and their face held no features except for two pure white orbs where their eyes should be. Light spilled from them like waterfalls, cascading down their cheeks and dissipating to join the now muted glow surrounding the deity.

They stooped and reached out with their free hand, and Jia felt a strange tug in a place she should have felt nothing. A second later the weight was lifted enough for her to stand on shaking legs. She leaned on God’s other hand still clasped in hers, allowing them to support her. She felt like something was sitting on her shoulders and dragging her down.

“I don’t believe it,” Archangel Michael whispered, and when Jia looked at him she was shocked at the sheer beauty of him. Both he and his demonic counterpart were utterly glorious. They were wide eyed and staring at her, their eyes fixed on a point just behind her head.

“What?” Her voice trembled but she tried a smile to show she was okay. “I’m alright, really. Just a little shocked.” She raised a hand to place it on her chest and a scrap of material from her shirt fluttered from her shoulder down to the floor. She frowned, tracking its descent with a puzzled expression.

When it landed she reached up to touch the torn fabric and found the entire back of her shirt had been shredded. She tried to reach further and her fingers touched something soft, sending a shock of sensation down her spine as though a muscle had twitched. The heavy weight behind her seemed to shift in response as well.

“Your true form has been revealed.” God turned her to face the tall window set into the study wall. With their radiant form backlighting her she could see her silhouette clearly in the glass.

Sprouting unmistakably from between her shoulder blades were two large feathered wings.