Chapter 97: Count Your Blessings

“Wardens are trying to kill you?” Sabira gaped.

“I’ve never heard of this,” Derrick said, mystified. “Why would they do that?”

“I have no clue,” Ennanis said, but everyone was speculating, and no one was listening anymore.

“We shouldn’t be collaborating with someone who could be an enemy to the state.” Agnar stood up. “Come on, Lys, let’s go.”

Sabira stood up too. “If that’s true,” she countered, “then why hasn’t Ennanis’ supposed treason been made known to the rest of us? Why is it that only the Wardens know about it, but not us?”

“If Emperor Prometheus has a good reason to want to get rid of her, then why should any of us question it?”

“Because… because…” Sabira stammered. Angels were taught from their birth not to question the orders of superiors, so she had no good answer to that.

“With all due respect, Brigadier Beneste, you’re just defending Zoleil because she’s your friend,” Agnar accused stormily.

“No, it’s because I know her to be a respectable leader whose only ever fought for our good. She’s never done anything that I know of that wasn’t for the benefit of our kingdom,” Sabira’s face was red. “Well! You yourself are so fond of questioning superiors, so why can’t you apply the same logic to this?”

Ennanis stared. She knew that Sabira, even as she said that, was lying through her teeth. Sabira knew that she had been working together with Beasts ever since the Ball. Ennanis had told her they were defected Beasts, but Sabira was a smart woman; she had probably figured out more than that since Kanch. Yet Sabira continued to defend Ennanis, believing in her virtue, even though there was nothing in it for the brigadier herself.

…This must be what was called friendship.

Meanwhile, Ulysses watched from the back, arms folded. He said nothing, merely watching with icy slitted eyes. Chaos continued to explode through the room. Some goldbelts were already on their feet, aiming weapons at her, charging up Soleki beams.

…Ennanis closed her eyes.

“I died once,” she said loudly.

And the murmuring ground to a halt.

“It was not the kind of death that an angel can come back from,” Ennanis continued, into this silence. “On one of many dark nights in the Graveyard, I depleted my Soleki until I withered. It was there that I died, cold and alone. The only reason I stand here today is because fate decided to give me a second chance.” She inhaled deeply. “And thing is, you see… most angels in the Graveyard Division don’t get such a chance.”

The greybelts of the squadron sat silent, but something in them stirred. The goldbelts looked between themselves uneasily.

“From the moment an angel is cast into the Graveyard Division, they are treated like the dirt below our boots,” Ennanis stated. “A sore on the eyes, something to be washed off as soon as possible. They can’t earn their way out of there. They can’t reach Paradise. Nightly, the Wardens posted on the top pretend to help, but really, the Graveyard soldiers fight alone. No sun, no help, no recognition. Do you think these angels are a part of the kingdom of Casca, still? Does Casca still consider them its angels? Because even though Casca would have fallen a thousand years ago without them, the greybelts are treated as if they would be better off dead. From that point of view, can I still be considered a traitor, if I was no longer treated as part of that kingdom to begin with?”

Silence.

“Still, I am trying to protect Mount Casca, and Prometheus’ sun. Not because I particularly adore our kingdom, but because this is bigger than us all. This is bigger than Loukoumades, bigger than the undercloud. It has to do with the Kraken, and thus the world. That is why I will be asking this in return. I ask of you…” her eyes swept the room, “to work together with a few Beasts.”

Surprise rippled through the crowd, but they managed to keep from interrupting her.

“Four Beasts have been helping me uncover the secrets of the Kraken. I believe them to be good people, and to save the world it is them we have to work with. I understand that that’s a tall order. That is why you are free to leave, if you wish.” She gestured to the door.

Nobody moved. It was probably not loyalty, but more like confusion, shock, and a morbid curiosity about what would be the next batshit insane thing to come out from the angel commander’s mouth.

In the end, it was a certain impertinent young boy who spoke first.

“You’re a terrible leader, you know,” Agnar said, folding his arms. “Why should we follow you?”

“Agnar-” Lys said warningly, but Ennanis shook her head at her gently.

Really, Ennanis didn’t mind Agnar so much. Precocious, brutally honest, disdainful of authority. Had she been so different, when she was younger?

“He’s right,” said the former Graveyard Commander. “I have been a poor leader.”

She wanted to be the superior that someone like him could respect. Someone that her younger self would’ve respected.

The table watched her with bated breath.

“For that, I apologise,” Ennanis’s slit-gold eyes swept the table. “I’m sorry to Brigadier Beneste and Commander Truwing, too. I’ve not been fair to them, when I walked away at the beginning, unloading onto them what should’ve been my responsibility. Neither have I been fair to all of you, who so bravely volunteered for this mission.”

Agnar’s mouth hung agape. The angels looked similarly stunned.

“......” Ennanis inhaled. She felt eighteen again, when she’d sat at that table with Lila, Sabira and Ulysses, asking for their friendship. Putting down her sense of pride had never come easily to her, and it wasn’t easy now. And yet, she knew what had to be done.

“...I met someone again, recently,” she said. “Someone who I had known for a long time. She’s a leader, too. She cared for each and every one who answered to her, and in return she fought hard to protect them all. …Only, her life led her down a cruel path, for the cause that she had sworn her loyalty to was a lost one. Soon she found herself mired too deep to turn back. Or rather, she could have turned back… only that, she loved her people too much. Even when not all of them loved her back.

“It was so that I thought teammates an unnecessary burden. People are volatile, uncontrollable beings. But in spite of being betrayed over and over again, this person that I know—she never stopped protecting her friends. Right now, she walks into the Cretan Labryinth to save two who—despite being wonderful people—had proved they could not do the same for her.

“But the point is… as foolish as her actions were, I found it inspiring, too. Because she might not have been the most effective leader, but she was a great one, because of how much she cared. And during my time in the undercloud, I also met so many others, humans who cared for who they cared about, deeply…”

Tia Vabolt, the noblewoman in a small Wataronese town, who did everything she could so that her unmagical son would have a good future. Capri Colton, who trespassed into the heart of a volcano to just have one look at her brother. Her brother, Moru, who risked his safety to fight for his compatriots’ futures. Pelia Vesuvio, who went against her own powerful father to fulfill a favour for her dearest companion.

Even the simplest acts of kindness: when Tia invited her in from the storm, when Walden read with her in his library, when Garnet Lapice showed her to light a lantern; Capri and Pelia, who’d stuck with her through her entire crazy plan to free the Kraken; Leo from the chocolate shop, the Tionn family’s warm reception. They were all proof of people’s care, care they extended to even those they hardly knew.

“Forgive this, Commander, but what does all of this have to do with anything?” interrupted someone. The angels in the room shot him looks of admonishment, but several others, too, were impatient to know what all this talk was leading up to.

So Ennanis continued.

“For a long time, a certain betrayal made me closed off. I didn’t think I could believe again, after that.” The soldiers murmured between themselves. “But eight years is a long time. And after I saw what I’ve seen, I realised that… even when people can be cruel, even when life is merciless, it’s still important to care. To believe. Because it’s what makes us have a heart.”

She put a hand over her own left breast. She felt it thump below her palm, slow and steady. The skin below her wrist had thumped the same way. A pulse, it was called. An indication that a person was still alive. She was alive.

“I need you to remember that. Because in my squadron, I want us all care to for each other. Mount Casca’s system has numbed us. We’re so used to climbing over each other for promotions, putting on performances for our superiors, playing games to get ahead. But we’re not just chess pieces that can be freely expended for the end goal. We’re not just soldiers, but people too.

“So, once again, please leave if you wish. I swear I will bear no grudges. But for those who stay… This time, I promise that I will stick by the members of this squadron till the end.”

At the back of the room, a blue-haired angel shifted. Ulysses had his arms folded. Ennanis made eye contact with him:

“I will not abandon you again,” she spoke.

Ulysses stiffened. Ennanis moved on, addressing the room: “So?”

Two or three angels got up and left.

There was a silence.

From the other end of the table, Ulysses put up his hand.

“Commander Zoleil, if I may.” His slitted eyes were razor-sharp.

Ennanis looked at her former disciple. Then nodded.

“So, to clarify,” said the blue-haired brigadier. “The mission of yours, is stopping the World-Ender Kraken. You say that working with those Beasts like you mentioned will lead us there? Have you figured out how to do it yet? Something that even Emperor Prometheus barely managed to do?”

“Right, about that,” Ennanis smiled thinly. “It’s still a work in progress, but we’ve got something of a plan.”

For, as it turned out…

…you just had to know the right people.

~~~