the twelve powers - the angel city: the Shield
Running, ever running toward the center of the city, to the rough towers at its heart, all made from the same blue stone as the rest, but here darker, unpolished: not carved into elaborate facets and windows, but left to stand in their unchallenged aspect.
The chamber was enormous: surely filling the center of this tower. The structure within, like a white lotus bud, nearly touched the ceiling, left barely enough space between itself and the walls for a child to squeeze through.
I touched it, and it began to slide open: shell after pointed shell, purest white rimed with blue, layer after layer. It seemed to take forever. It seemed to be both utterly silent, and the loudest grinding my heart had ever heard.
The angel, Daphne, floated in the center, his blue-steel wings pierced with rivets, folded around him in a perfect shell. They unlocked slowly, and he uncurled.
The angel Daphne was the Shield, and he alone of the angels still looked the most human: the most like flesh. He wore nothing except loose pants, a thin black harness across his chest, and an air of vulnerability: dark hair mussed, limbs still half-folded as if in sleep.
He wanted to ask who had come, and why. I wanted to ask what purpose he served here: why he was locked away, why no one knew he remained in the city. But neither of us spoke.
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