Page 160 of Architecti
“You misunderstand.I am not here to hurt you.I am here to explain.”
“Wh—what?”I say, unable to stop my face scrunching.
“I could not let Interitus kill you.”
Interitus?She continues talking.
“There is one more rune you must unlock.”
“How do you know about the runes?”
She glances at the floor, her tone soft as she says, “A contract as powerful as ours needed a sturdier vessel.Parchment can be torn, broken, destroyed.The clauses overwritten as simply as spilled ink.”
My head swims as I parse out what she’s saying.I don’t… No.It’s not true, it can’t be.
“Who am I?”I breathe.
“Not who, what.”
“Wh-what am I?”
“You are everything.A promise.A beloved.You are our words and our meaning.Once upon a time, a demon made a deal with an angel… You are the product of that.The binding of a celestial’s power to a demon’s.You, my blessed child, are the manifestation of my attempt to save us all.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
She nods, her wings ruffling as she speaks.“That’s okay, there is still one more rune.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it says?”
She smiles softly.“Do you care for her?”
“Midnight?”
She nods.
“With all my heart.But if I tell her, if I give myself to her, I’ll lose my power, my security, my identity.”
“My sister is going to bring about the end of days.She is determined to eradicate fate.You are the key to stopping that.Ignatius thought he was clever putting me inside this prison.But I knew what he was doing.I agreed to the entrapment because it was the only way to render my sister powerless.”
The beautiful moth flutters off her shoulder as Architecti opens her hand and a second moth, one with dark serrated wings appears.They flutter in tandem, spiralling and twisting as they dance around each other.
The ground rumbles, the tower shakes, the translucent skeleton of Finis trembling all around us.
“There isn’t time for me to explain.You must go.This isn’t how you die.You have another destiny…”
“I don’t believe in fate.We make our own futures.”
Her eyes soften as she gazes at me.“Does it give you comfort to believe that?”
“I know it to be true.”
“For some, that may be so.But you and I… we serve a greater purpose.Our destinies were sealed long ago.”
“Then what is it?My fate?”
She cups my chin with her palm, tipping my head up to her.
“My child, you already know.The question is, what is Midnight’s?”
