Thirteen centuries. The history of the Minors had evolved, going through a vast number of changes, advances, and set-backs during that period. This was exactly the amount of time Vyns had been assigned to Earth, and from the first moment his greatest desire had been to return to the Nest.

  The mortals’ world had changed to the point it was practically unrecognizable. The different generations had molded and shaped their environment through scientific advancements and ideological leaps forward that had resulted in a new and modern panorama. One thousand three hundred years spent watching them was not an excessive period of time for an immortal, and Vyns knew of angels that had spent a lot more time than that here. Even so, it was more than enough time to convince him that the Minors lacked the kind of inner strength required to bring about any real changes. This new world, which humanity as a whole was so very proud of, was nothing more than a monumental mask with which they disguised their despicable nature. The wars that had gone on among them were never-ending, and social inequalities allowed a select few to swim in abundance while millions of children starved to death. And these were just a few of the examples that had led Vyns to conclude the Minors would always be guided by personal, selfish motives. It was true there were exceptions here and there, but not enough to make a significant impact on the whole of humanity. They would never learn.

  What most infuriated Vyns about the Minors was the new destructive tendencies they had acquired. It was no longer enough for them to kill one another, but they had now refined their powers of devastation so much that even the plants and animals were no longer safe. They had evolved to such a level that they’d begun to commit crimes against the entire planet. Vyns bet that, without direct intervention from the angels, the Minors would destroy their own planet in less than a century.

  And then the Wave made its appearance. The Minors suffered much more tragically from it than the angels had but, seeing how it had put the brakes on their destructive practices on a global level, Vyns thought in this case it had been good for them. He had, of course, refrained from voicing that opinion aloud.

  Finally he was on his way back to the Nest. He would have preferred for his return to be because he was handing Raven over and not because Diago was dying and he urgently needed to take him to the Sanctuary.

  “Hang on, Diago,” he said, running beside him. The Guardian was lying, mangled, on a canvas tarp that the rest of his companions were carrying, holding it in the air. Four angels on each side were holding the makeshift stretcher as they ran as fast as they could. Vyns was leading the pack. “It’s not far now.”

  The battered body bobbed up and down on the canvas in rhythm with the bumpy, frenetic running. Diago occasionally would moan, and blood continued to stream from his countless wounds. The canvas was almost completely covered with dark red blood stains.

  Looking at Lyam’s horribly pale face, Vyns knew he felt responsible for not having been able to heal Diago. He was the group’s Healer, and he hadn’t been able to fulfill his commitment. The poison Nilia had injected Diago with must have been unbelievably potent.

  “He’ll be all right,” Vyns assured him. “We won’t let him die. Before you know it, Diago will be back on his feet and we’ll stuff those daggers down that bitch’s throat.”

  Lyam nodded, but his face was blank. He never took his eyes off Diago as he continued running at top speed. Vyns looked ahead and finally saw the silhouette of the Citadel against the mountains. He silently cursed the Wave; if they could still fly, they would have arrived in the blink of an eye. He’d never gotten used to losing such a useful gift. They didn’t use vehicles of any kind, so flying was their best—their only—way to get around. Even though it had only been ten years that they’d been unable to fly, whenever Vyns recalled the last time he’d flown it was like a memory from long ago and far away.

  And that thought always brought him to Wyn. She’d loved flying, too. The two of them would often fly around the Minors’ plane, watching them from above. Thinking about her, he was awash in sadness. She was the only angel that had disappeared before the Wave, and she’d been so special to him. He hated himself for not having been able to find her, and he hated Diago even more for having given the order to abandon the search and capture Raven. No one talked about Wyn anymore, but he hadn’t forgotten her. Someday he’d resume what he’d started and would find her, wherever she was . . . someday.

  The Threshold was the first and smallest sphere of the Nest. It had only one city in its territory: the Citadel. A dense layer of Fog surrounded the First Sphere, and crossing it was the only way to travel to Earth and, before the Wave, to the Hole. From the Citadel you could travel to the other six spheres of the Nest. So the function of both the Threshold and the Citadel was to control admittance to and departure from the Nest. There was no other way to travel between the three planes.

  The last time Vyns was there was long before the Wave and he had flown from one end to the other in a small fraction of the time it was taking to run to the Citadel this time. It seemed strange to see the sky so clear and no one flying over their heads, and it seemed even stranger to realize he was using a road. Things had really changed since the Wave. He wondered how long this path had been there, and if there were other ones in the rest of the spheres. He supposed so. This was the first time he’d seen a trail in the Nest. To Vyns, these were concepts that only made sense in the world of the Minors. Angels had always flown and the Nest had never needed any kind of roads on the ground to guide them. How many other things might be different now? He’d been kept up-to-date on the changes the Wave had brought on his home, but it was one thing to hear about them by word of mouth and quite a different thing to see them with your own eyes.

  Vyns looked to his right when he passed near a terrace that was levitating one hundred feet off the ground. It was quite small, barely enough for twenty angels to stand on. He recalled how once he and Edmon had wrestled until one of them had managed to throw the other one off and would then declare himself “master of the rock.” But he couldn’t fly up to it anymore . . . Someone could be up there, lying on its surface, and Vyns wouldn’t see him. He was forced now to look up at it from below.

  Finally they arrived at the Citadel. Vyns was glad the gleaming outer wall was just as he remembered it . About a half-mile long and one hundred feet high, the silvery wall cut into the terrain like a giant knife. Along with the highest mountain range of the Threshold, it marked off the boundaries of the Citadel. Its surface was so well-polished it was smooth to the touch. Not a single imperfection could be seen in its simple design; no streaks, stripes, or lines of any kind altered the uniformity of its resplendent color. It didn’t matter from what angle or distance you looked at it; the wall’s tone was constant all the way down its facade, which was partly due to the fact that it was a single slab of stone. It was situated between two steep mountains, one on each side, that joined imperceptibly with the stone of the Citadel. The transition from the brilliant silver color of the wall to the smooth, metallic tone of the rock formations was so seamless it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

  Where the wall emerged from the mountain, it flowed forward from each side with a curved line that led to two circular towers that gracefully rose up some one hundred and fifty feet from the ground and appeared to curve ever so slightly toward the interior of the Citadel. The two watchtowers, each topped off with a pointed apex, were one hundred fifty feet apart. Between them was the only access gate, its appearance in stark contrast to the shiny surface of the wall. The impregnable gate was formed by a large number of stone blocks, each carved with a different symbol. The blocks appeared to be held together by a faint light in place of mortar.

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  When they were close enough, the runes on the gate illuminated with the same light that held the stone blocks together. Vyns went up to the base of one of the towers, comforted by the feeling of security he’d longed for—being in front of the most inviolable barrier ever conceived of. He stopped in front of a circular platform that went out from the base of the tower.

  “We urgently need to enter the Citadel!” announced Vyns. “We’ve bringing in someone who is gravely wounded.”

  Ribbons of red smoke emerged from the base of the platform and snaked their way upward until coming together in the shape of a Guardian. Vyns knew it was the image of the sentinel who was inside the watchtower. The Guardian had his immense wings spread; Guardians were the only ones who never kept their wings concealed, at least not in the Nest.

  “Identify yourself,” demanded the sentinel sternly.

  “I am Vyns, an Observer, and I’m bringing in Diago. He’s in critical condition,” he answered, unfolding his wings to make it easier to identify him. “We need to enter immediately.”

  The smoky image of the sentinel reached out its hand and consulted a crystal. He frowned.

  “This entrance has not been authorized for anyone,” he announced in a droning voice. “Your identity has been verified and it appears that you should not even be in the Nest.”

  “This is an emergency, damn it! We didn’t have time to notify you we were coming. Diago is dying.” Vyns impatiently pointed at the shredded, mangled mass of flesh, bones, and blood that was his leader. “Look for yourself and then open the gate!”

  “I cannot identify him from here,” replied the Guardian.

  “Brilliant observation!” bellowed Vyns. “It’s Diago, a Guardian like you, though obviously much more intelligent. And if you don’t let us in, he’ll die at the gates of the Citadel on your watch.”

  “Wait a moment.” The sentinel flapped his wings. He finally seemed to have understood the gravity of the situation. “I’ll check him out.” The image of the sentinel vanished.

  “Hurry!” Vyns shouted at the last traces of smoke. He turned back toward Diago and the others with a look of disgust. “Can you do anything more for him, Lyam? I don’t know how long we’ll be held up here with protocol.”

  “His injuries go beyond my abilities to heal.” The Healer never took his eyes off Diago, as if doing so might mean his condition would worsen. “I’ve stabilized him; that’s all I could do,” he added despondently.

  “He’ll come out of this, I promise you.” Vyns put his hand on Lyam’s shoulder. “You did great, my friend. Without you we wouldn’t have made it here.”

  They heard a quick, low buzzing. The light disappeared from the runes and from between the stone blocks of the gate, leaving them suspended in air without touching one another.

  “Get ready,” ordered Vyns. “As soon as they open it, go straight to the Sanctuary.”

  The stones began to lose their definition. A few seconds later they faded, and the city could be seen through them. Vyns motioned to the others and they all crossed the veil of the gate, not wasting a moment. Two Guardians were waiting on the other side.

  “The Sanctuary is on the third level,” one of the Guardians informed them. “The fastest way is to go up through the Main Channel. We’ll show you the way.”

  Vyns had never seen the Channels. They had been created after the Wave for accessing the city’s floating zones they used to be able to fly to. The Channels were ascending air currents that continuously flowed toward the higher levels. The angels extended their wings and had only to keep their balance as the currents lifted them to the five levels of the Citadel.

  The Guardians rushed on through the curious onlookers. Their wings were fully spread and they moved forward in a formation that looked like a huge chevron. Upon their rigid wings were pointed shields, and their thick feathers hung through the slots in the shields. Their strong feet carried their powerful bodies along with constant, rhythmic steps. Vyns admired the perfect synchronization of their movements.

  And that was not the only thing Vyns admired. In spite of the anxiety that gripped him due to Diago’s condition, he couldn’t help but steal a few furtive glances at the heights of the city, driven by his feelings of nostalgia. It had been so long since he’d gazed upon these buildings that rose to different heights yet cast no shadows on the lower levels. When he looked up, a part of him wanted to stop and spend a few moments basking in the splendor of the Citadel. From the ground, the bases upon which various structures rested could be seen suspended in midair. They were satiny smooth, and under each one shone an enormous rune indicating the name and function performed by the building resting upon it. There were five levels at five different heights, not counting the lower level. They were an assortment of sizes and shapes and, from below, Vyns’s eyes got lost trying to follow the corridors that united them. He’d never before seen anything that joined together the blocks from different levels. This was clearly something that had been constructed after the Wave—just like the Channels—to facilitate movement between the different levels since they could no longer resort to using their wings. The scene seemed empty to him without angels soaring through the air from building to building.

  They got to the Main Channel the Guardian had mentioned. It was in the center of the city. On the ground burned four lines, each one fifteen feet long, forming a square. The blue flames rose no more than four inches off the ground. On each corner of the square was a twenty-foot high wing sculpted from marble that curved inward while its feathers stretched outward. The surface of the square faintly shimmered as the air rose perpendicular to it, rising in bands of blue smoke that occasionally swirled together into elaborate shapes.

  “Follow me,” said one of the Guardians as he went into the square. He spread his wings and rose up effortlessly.

  At first Vyns was afraid to take Diago this way since the ascending air currents pushing them upward could destabilize the canvas they were carrying him on. But when the Guardian got into the Current he immediately saw it wouldn’t be a problem. The Guardian’s hair and clothing weren’t moving at all. Only the feathers on the angel’s wings showed the effects of the air. The canvas carrying Diago would stay steady.

  Vyns entered the square and unfolded his wings. He instantly felt his body rising up. He moved a little closer to the edge of the Current, and a quick adjustment to his right wing immediately steadied him. It was almost like flying used to be. Though he couldn’t control his speed as he did before, he reveled in the feeling of the wind once again brushing against his face as his weightless body came off the ground.

  He was almost to the third level. All the way up he’d been looking at the base of the building suspended farther above him in the middle of the Citadel. It was the tallest building in the city and the only one that was on the fifth level. No road led up to it due to its strategic importance. It not only was the best place from which to monitor the whole city, but inside it was where they kept the sphere that activated the Shield—the energy barrier that went down from there to the wall, protecting the Citadel like a gigantic dome.

  Now on the third level, Vyns looked down and saw Diago coming up, surrounded by a safety net of wings that were gently holding him up. They followed the Guardian down a hallway with no walls or ceiling to the Sanctuary. A tall, bald, angel was waiting for them inside.

  “Please, you have to help him,” pleaded Vyns, out of breath. “It’s poison . . . the bitch cut his wings . . . she stabbed him with her dagger . . .”

  “Try to calm down,” encouraged the bald angel. “I can’t help if I don’t understand. I need to know exactly what happened.”

  Vyns didn’t know what to say. He opened his mouth, aware that he needed to explain succinctly, but before he could get a single word out, Lyam stepped forward and clearly and concisely explained every detail relative to Diago’s condition. In all the rush, Vyns had forgotten they had a Healer on the team; there was no one better to explain to another Healer the wounded angel’s exact condition. He relaxed a little as he listened to Lyam’s firm, confident voice, and forced himself to accept there was nothing more he could do at this point. Diago was in the hands of the Healers; they would take care of him.

  He separated himself a bit from the group and dropped into a chair. He should have been able to explain what happened since, even though he was second in command, with Diago’s outlook so uncertain the responsibility fell to him. This sense of duty brought Asius to mind; he was the Counselor who’d been supervising their hunt of Raven. He’d been plagued by a tangled mess of bad news cobbled together by a series of flat-out failures culminating with the worst of all possible outcomes: Raven had died, gobbled up by the Fog. Vyns vowed to himself that, as soon as he got the diagnosis on how much harm Nilia had inflicted on Diago, he would fulfill his obligations. He must not fail.

  “He’ll be all right,” Lyam said as he sat down beside him, exhausted.

  “Do we know what’s the prognosis is for him?”

  “No, but Laro is one of the best Healers I know. Give him time; he’ll save Diago.”

  Vyns held onto the hope in Lyam’s words and waited in silence for Laro’s confirmation.