Before the trial
As the hours passed, she grew especially fond of the white-speckled doe, who possessed a certain mocking humour when she looked at Lucifer, like a sister would roll her eyes at a younger brother’s silly faces. She found herself developing a sort of kinship with the deer, and leaned her arm along the top of her back as they shared private smiles over his soft side.
Lucifer was sat on the corner of the altar, one of the rabbits nestled into the crook of his elbow, when, out of nowhere, a small, pulsing dot of green light shot in over the balustrade and stopped dead between them, hovering in the air like a firefly, though it would take hundreds of them to burn as brightly as the little, apple-green star. It zoomed around Lucifer’s head, then circled Audrey somewhat leisurely in contrast, before darting back off into the garden and disappearing over the trees.
“What was that?” Audrey gaped, unable to tear her eyes from the spot where it had vanished, and the animals seemed just as captivated. It was quite certainly one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
“A soul,” her companion replied in an equally awed whisper.
He, too, stared long after the tiny light had gone, with the same strange, haunted look Gabriel had worn when he’d seen Jenny’s sketch of the tree. She never got time to think any more about it, however, as she noticed something moving in the distance.
The sun was almost at its highest point and Gabriel beat his obsidian wings over the bridge, soaring towards them. It was time.
As he landed about a metre short of the gazebo and made his way towards them, Audrey was sure she could see a smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth at the sight of all the animals. The doe lifted her slender neck to look up at her with her glittering black eyes, as though imbuing her with confidence for what lay ahead. After leaning over to kiss between her eyes, Audrey wrapped the abandoned blanket around her shoulders like a shawl, got up and joined Lucifer by the entrance, waiting to be released.
The tension rolled off him in tangible waves; his fingers splayed and contracted in a nervous, continuous pattern by his sides. She threaded her own between his to stop them and gave them a gentle, encouraging squeeze.
Gabriel stopped with his toes to the marble step and extended a hand to each of them. The barrier was still there - she could feel the static running over her skin like slowly submerging herself in water as his hand guided her through it. Once they were free, he let go of his brother and silently moved to Audrey’s side as they set off across the grass.
The narrow, elaborately-wrought bridge was only wide enough for one, and Gabriel stepped up to take the lead. He grasped her hand loosely, as if he expected her to pull away at any moment and had no intention of stopping her. Irritated that he seemed to have learned nothing from her words the day before, she tightened her grip. She could tell he’d noticed the change by the way his brow relaxed a little, and guilt redoubled over her heart. I’d be the same, where he’s concerned, she realised.
She couldn’t believe she’d fallen so hard in four and a half days, but to her it just made it that much more real. She’d never been in love before, despite her numerous ex-boyfriends and countless liaisons, because she’d never trusted anyone enough to let them get that close. Her parents had always fought so often that she’d developed a severe lack of faith in love from a very early age. Now, in under a week, her life had changed so radically; she had changed. She’d used to value silly things like popularity, though she’d never have admitted it, and she’d always demanded respect from people but had never really earned it. She looked back on her former self and the archangel’s hand she held onto made it feel like years ago.
She’d never known it could be so strong; the compulsion to be near him and make him happy was overwhelming. Since that first meal they’d shared, when he’d returned to her as nobody else ever had, and dismissed her tainted past as inconsequential, even though he was undoubtedly more aware of the weight of sin than anyone she’d ever encountered, she’d known. There’d been no stopping the crumbling of her shields once she’d dared to hope, and his promise had been their final ruin.
A squeeze to her other hand halted her reverie as they journeyed through the towering, verdant forest. She glanced up at Lucifer, whose eyes flickered across towards Gabriel and back down at her.
The irony wasn’t lost on her; the Devil is encouraging me to apologise, she thought with a wry smile that she had to bow her head to hide. He’s right though.
“I’m sorry,” she professed, looking up at her love as he held some ferns aside for them to pass.
He fell back into line with them on the other side and regarded her with a heart-piercingly blank expression.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” he replied.
“I knew it would hurt you and I said it anyway.”
“You never said anything untrue.”
Audrey blanched; with nothing left to say, and no real comfort in return, she allowed herself to be led on in silence. Her eyes stung as she worried she’d pushed him too far this time, and the skyscraping trees began to thin out without her notice.
It was, therefore, easy for Lucifer to surreptitiously snag his brother’s attention, too, giving him the same pointer as he had to Audrey. Gabriel looked down as a hot, anxious tear rolled down her cheek, her gaze fixed, unseeing, on the ground a few steps ahead.
He stopped her among the bluebells at the edge of the forest, and Lucifer leaned against a tree as he beheld the view beyond the forest, trying to make himself scarce with a smug, internal grin.
“Audrey, I mean it,” Gabriel implored, brushing her tear away with his thumb as he took her face in his hands; “Never be sorry for telling me the truth. I beg that you do, always.” He was close enough that his gaze skipped between her aquamarine eyes, but still too far for Audrey’s preference.
She stepped forward in relief to wrap her arms around his middle, and with her ear pressed to his beating chest, she felt balanced again.
Her vision settled upon the assembly ahead, and the balance was gone.
End of chapter. Night! :)