I am so weary, and worried. I would not have left Freya at all if Orison had not ordered me back to heaven. I do need rest, and many of you have expressed a wish for news, so here I am. But the moment Perrine will let me, I will be back at her side.
I am beginning in the middle. Just a few days ago, we realized that another attack of Asoharith’s had succeeded in getting through our defenses to Freya. This one was much more subtle and pernicious, for the Fallen in question did not even need to get close to Freya.
She began to feel ill on Sunday and immediately called Sarah to let her know that she’d be working from home. By Monday, though, she was feverish and breathless, so she lingered in bed rather than do anything productive. I was worried, of course, but Freya brushed it off—“I’ve always been healthy, Ace, so stop worrying.”
But what was growing in her body was no ordinary illness. It had been strengthened by cruel hands and planted in an acquaintance of hers, just hours before she shook hands with him, and we learned this too late to stop the worst of the sickness. She has been very sick indeed, and I have been beside myself.
Brid, of course, came straight away the moment we knew that it was more than a passing illness, and she and Zaman have been working together to help her. I was with her constantly, though it was so painful to watch her struggling to breathe, her face white, her lips blue. Her aura has been so dim it was nearly invisible.
She was not hospitalized—Orison thought that to be surrounded by so many other people would give the Fallen a chance to weaken her still further. In any case, the care of Brid and the other healers—for Zaman and two others of his peers, Radshel and Naomi, have been assisting her—is just as good if not better than the care she would have received at human hands.
Thankfully she is doing better now, although she has been slower to regain her strength than Brid likes. Considering, however, that we feared for her life just a few days ago, I am very glad at her progress.
Through it all she has been in remarkably good spirits—when she was awake, of course, which wasn’t often before today. She knew that I was with her, and it seemed that my voice kept her calm. I have been telling her stories, histories, singing hymns, anything to soothe her. It seemed that she understood me better in her half-aware state.
She came to recognize Brid, too, which surprised me, rather. Freya didn’t think it was very remarkable, though.
“She’s your best friend, so of course she feels like you,” she told me just today. “And I knew you’d bring her. She’s the person you trust most.”
For Brid, the experience has given her an understanding of Freya that she never had before. “She’s one of the strongest spirits I’ve ever known,” she said. “And she loves you almost as much as I do, which shows how very wise she is. I always knew that you loved her and that she was worthy of that love, but now I feel it, too. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get her on her feet again.”
Her determination and ceaseless energy has been such a comfort to me. More, I am so glad that the two people I love most are coming to love one another. Mind, I would rather not have seen Freya deathly ill in order for that to happen, but I will take what blessings I can.
Anathalie tells me that they captured the Pestilence who sent this sickness on Freya. It had of course tried to spread the tainted strain of the illness it had been given for Freya, but the Cherubs stopped it before it could get too far, and Healers have been sent to look after those infected. None have died, but Brid told me—reluctantly, when I made her—that at least one person will have long-term consequences. Another way that I have left an ugly mark on the world in this feud with Asoharith.
I should not feel sorry for myself—it’s the fatigue talking. The blame lies with Asoharith, and I will force it down her throat when I find her at last.
We are getting closer, or she is getting bolder—Anathalie captured a Violence just yesterday who had seen Asoharith in person just a few hours before. Of course she was long gone by the time Cherubs arrived there, but they caught a trace of an aura that we believe is hers. This trace has been shared among all of us, so that we may recognize it if we feel it again.
I know I have felt it before. The hand that touched me when Ananiah was taken—well, of course I knew that Asoharith was there. That was the first time that we heard her name. Was it then that her antipathy for me was forged? Was it on that night that she saw me and decided, once and for all, to make me the object of her hate?
Well, now she is the object of mine. Can an angel hate? I have certainly become acquainted with the feeling from my encounters with the Fallen. Some of that sick, damaging feeling seems to be growing in my soul, a little bigger every time Asoharith strikes out at someone I love. I will keep it locked away where it cannot hurt me, but when I find Asoharith, then it will break from me in great waves of wrath. And I almost don’t care what it will cost me, if it means that she won’t hurt anyone else ever again.