I

Sam didn’t believe angels existed for the longest time, because if angels existed then that meant a great Creator probably did too, and what kind of creator would subject him to a life like this one? Toiling away near the heat of roaring furnaces and flames as soon as the sun rose to well after the pearly moon was high in the sky; hammering down and shaping iron, steel, gold, or silver under the instruction of an old, retired knight named Sir Orwyn, who often stayed stuck in his head reliving his glory days from when he fought in The Chrysanthemum Conflicts. Sam’s friends at the smithy comprised a pair of dwarf brothers, Keiflin and Leiflan (he often stumbled on their names due to how similar they sounded), and Sir Orwyn’s only son, Barker, who did nothing but manage whatever gold coin they received for business, and who sometimes pocketed too much for himself.

The dwarf brothers weren’t awful company; they were wonderful drinking companions after a long days’ work. Keiflin often tended to the quality of the gems he ended up encasing into silver or gold jewelry; cleaning and cutting them into the desired shapes. Leiflan’s skill was engraving, carving intricacies into armored plates that would likely pool with little rivulets of blood, or fashioning the custom cuffs and collars noblemen often gifted the refined young women they intended to marry if they ever came back from battle.

Cykaria was a kingdom that prided itself on warfare, and most of the men, royalty or not, were bred for battle. Sam only found great shame in it. Cykaria had no business in involving itself into half the things it did shove its nose in, yet somehow they’d gained great acclaim throughout history for doing so. And somehow the battle-hungry men found the time to act genteel enough to attend grand soirees and find themselves a wife.

Sam, who was constantly working for as long as he could remember, had no such time for himself. If he wasn’t at the smithy, he too was training for battle, should he be needed. All men knew of war; not all of them were fortunate enough to experience love.

Sam was driven from his thoughts by Keiflin excitedly opening his dirty palm to reveal five finely-cut amethysts, practically shoving the gems in his face.

“Aren’t they just lovely?” he exclaimed with a wild look in his eyes. “Leiflan and I mined these ourselves up on Mount Vesirain. I knew how precious they were going to be as soon as I saw them.”

“Who are you cutting them up for?” Sam asked, gently pushing the dwarf’s hand out of his face so he could resume his own work, which involved hammering and shaping some silver bands for Leiflan to carve into later.

Keiflin’s icy blue eyes glinted with mischief.

“Keiflin, no.”

“Why not, boy? As far as we know you’re well past the age most other humans find someone to settle down with. You’ve seen what? Twenty-five winters?”

“Yes, but —”

“It’s bound to happen soon, then.”

“You and Leiflan don’t have wives.”

“Not that you know of. We’ve been around a lot longer than you think.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “How old are you two?”

Keiflin feigned offense. “How rude of you to ask. But all you need to know is that somewhere far away from Cykaria I have five wee ones snuggled up for bed, with their mother baking tomorrow’s bread for breakfast. Leiflan has seven, split between two mothers. The point is, we don’t need pretty amethyst rings to woo women with, but you most definitely do.”

“And what eligible woman in this village alone would pick a blacksmith over a nobleman who has seen at least one battle? Who would choose me over someone that can legitimately provide and protect?”

Keiflin shrugged. “There are women out there who don’t want any of that. My Maribelle for example wields the biggest axe you’ve ever seen, so I know my family is perfectly safe while I work so far from them.”

“No one has even caught my eye,” Sam muttered as a final excuse, and the dwarf, defeated, silently walked away.

But that quickly proved to be untrue, too.

II

Sam was stoking one of the furnace’s flames when he caught a glimpse of her. Actually, it was quite hard not to see her at all; she was literally radiant.

The blacksmith had only heard stories of angels, but he had never seen one until now. Elves were real, of course, as they were about as commonly seen around the kingdom as common men were. Fairies stuck to the towering protection of the forests, but Sam had seen them, too, at least three times in his life so far. But angels? Angels weren’t real until she arrived.

The smithy had no glass-paned windows, but rather wide rectangular openings in the walls to let all the smoke produced during the day out, and it was through one of these openings that her graceful beauty passed by.

The angel had reddish-orange hair, as fiery as the smithy’s furnaces themselves, and she looked around the village with eyes as dark and warm as burnt-through coals. She was clad in loose, lavender silks, which flowed about her, and her massive wings draped around her frame like a majestic cloak of silvery feathers, the tips of each outlined in black like an inca dove’s.

“Angels don’t come around to these parts,” Keiflin breathed, startling Sam. “This could either be very good, or very, very bad.”

“How do I talk to her?” Sam blurted out, barely registering the dwarf’s grimness.

Keiflin raised his eyebrows. “You want to talk to her?”

Sam only nodded desperately, now at a loss for words.

Keiflin grinned and Leiflan, who was far off in a different corner, and assumed to be completely engrossed in his engraving work, yelled, “She’s caught his eye, and now he’s bumbling like an idiot!”

Both dwarves laughed boisterously, up until Sir Orwyn’s voice boomed from the upstairs loft, imploring them all to get back to work.

“Join us tonight for some drinks,” Keiflin said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “We’ll tell you how to capture the heart of an angel.”

Sam’s eyebrows knit together with worry. “What if she leaves and I never see her again?” His heart cracked at the thought.

The dwarf’s expression darkened then. “Don’t worry. If she’s here for the reasons I suspect, that angel won’t be leaving Cykaria any time soon.”

Sam flinched as the dwarf brothers practically slammed down three pints of ale on their table. The village pub was as raucous as usual, but the dwarves, through their own small magic, could make their voices sound as clear and thunderous as they needed them to be, but only Sam could hear them as such. To the rest of the pub, their conversation was nothing significant, only more chatter.

“Now, according to most stories, angels do not visit human places unless they are told to do so by the Creator. So it’s likely that while she isn’t doing her job during the daytime, she is spending her nights in the forest among the favored creatures the Creator has bestowed magic upon,” Keiflin explained.

“The fairies, the witches, the trees that walk, the animals that talk,” Leiflan elaborated unnecessarily. “You have to find her at night, when her guard is down. Disguise yourself as an elf perhaps, since they are the same height as the common man, and she’ll talk to you.”

“What would I say?” Sam asked. “I don’t even know her name.”

“Legend says you can trap an angel and make her do your bidding if you know their real name,” Keiflin said. “I doubt she’s actually walking around Cykaria telling people what it is. She’s likely called something else.” The dwarf smiled slowly and looked at his brother, who mirrored his expression.

Sam narrowed his eyes. “Something tells me you know what the angel is calling herself.”

“‘Safya’ is the rumor we’ve been hearing,” Leiflan offered. “And we know that’s the false name, as most angels’ names have particular endings.”

“Wait a few days and find her in the forest at night, Sam,” Keiflin advised. “Call to her, tell her you’re an elf lord — we’ll help you dress the part — and give her gifts. Perhaps if you’re lucky, she’ll tell you her real name.”

“I have no gifts to bring her,” Sam said, frowning into his ale. He took a big gulp, wanting nothing more than to scrap this plan and feel dizzy. He was losing hope. What would be beautiful enough for someone who held all the beauty of heaven itself?

Angels favored magical creatures, and dwarves were no exception. With sheer delight and excitement, Keiflin and Leiflan grabbed Sam’s palm and pressed something small and cold into it. Sam looked at the little treasure and smiled. Keiflin had set one of the amethyst gems he had polished and cut into a florid silver ring band that Leiflan undoubtedly engraved with precious little flowers.

“It’s perfect,” Sam said, his eyes sparkling with excitement, his hope almost fully restored.

“I look stupid,” Sam grumbled. “There’s no way she’ll believe I’m elf royalty.”

“It’s the effort that counts,” Keiflin said, reassuringly. “All of this at the very least says you’re trying.”

Sam stood in front of the least soot-covered looking glass wearing earth-toned clothes elvish nobility would wear, with wax shaped and stuck to his ears to make them appear pointed. Sam was grateful he was doing this at night; his plans would absolutely fall apart should he try to court Safya in the daylight.

“Go now,” Leiflan urged, after placing the ring in a small velvet box with silk lining inside. “Barker says this is coming straight from our paychecks, by the way, so you better make it worth it.”

Sam smiled gratefully at the brothers. “I’ll try my best.”

III

Safyriel was sitting at the edge of a lake with her wings splayed about her as she dipped her toes into the cold water. Shivers ran down her spine as she watched the surface of the lake ripple, blurring the reflection of little lights emitted from not only the stars, but the little pixie fairies that waltzed in the air above the water. Being among magical creatures much like herself took away the unease she always felt around the humans; she knew at any moment they could enslave her, or, knowing Cykarians, simply kill her for being an aberration to their “natural order.” It did not matter that she was an agent of their great Creator; Cykarians were straying from the “old beliefs” and embracing a new egotistical one. One that puts common man above everything else.

Of course, that was why she was sent down here in the first place, to see how awful things had really gotten…

Safyriel didn’t hear him coming. She startled when he said her false name.

“I’ve brought you a gift, angel,” was all he said when she turned to face the man. She immediately took flight and perched herself in the nearest tree. She wasn’t hiding from him, they both knew that. She was just curious enough to see what this mortal wanted, but wary enough to do so at a distance.

Yes, she knew he was mortal. The poorly assembled elf lord costume wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Who are you?” she asked from the treetops, her voice reverberating throughout the clearing. “No lies, human.”

She watched as his form shrank at her calling out his deception.

“Sam,” was his short reply. “I work in the smithy in the village. That’s where I saw you first.”

Safyriel rolled her eyes.

“I’ve brought you a gift,” he restated, holding out a small box in his palm.

Flying faster than the mortal eye could perceive, Safyriel flew down from her perch, snatched the box from his hand, nearly knocking Sam down in the process, and flew up into the safety of a new tree.

She opened up the box, and her heart began to beat faster. It was a beautiful ring, dwarvish by design. She tested its magic: she slipped it on each finger, and felt the chilliing metal adjust to wrap around the different sizes of each finger perfectly. She absolutely adored the dwarves.

“Your earthly gift pleases me,” she managed to say, trying to keep her voice cool.

“I know it’s simple compared to what you are used to, but it’s the only thing of beauty that I have to offer,” Sam acknowledged, scanning the treetops for her, but she was too well-hidden. “Believe me, I would bring heaven down for you if I could.”

Safyriel’s heart fluttered at that, as no one had ever said such a thing before. The mortal wasn’t horrible to look at. He still had a full head of dark hair, one that wasn’t matted down by the weight of a warrior’s helmet. And if he was brave enough to seek her out here…

The angel flew down from her hiding spot and landed in front of Sam, examining him thoroughly now that he was much closer to her. He was young, but so was she, in angel years. His eyes were as green as the grass they stood on, and they looked upon her with a yearning she had never seen before.

Safyriel closed the distance between them, gazing up into his eyes.

“Thank you, Sam,” she whispered and smiled slowly. “I think I’ll spare you.”

Whatever spell Sam was under before seemed to shatter in an instant.

“Spare me?”

She searched his eyes with worry. “Oh Sam,” she murmured. “Don’t you know by now? I was sent here to raze Cykaria. It’s a kingdom of war-obsessed sinners, I have commands to burn it to the ground.”

IV

Months passed, and Safyriel continued to let Sam visit her when night fell. She told him what heaven was like, at least for her, and she liked hearing his whispers of how he’d try, until the end of his days, to make life here as wonderful as it is in heaven.

But that only made Safyriel sad. It was the most beautiful empty promise she’d ever heard. There would be no life for them here, at least not in Cykaria. And yet, she had not found a way to save Sam from its dark fate. Each month she prolonged the destruction, the more pressure she felt from the Creator to carry out her mission; pressure in the form of building innate rage.

One day, she couldn’t take it anymore.

She had gone to a cliffside at the edge of the kingdom, overlooking the sea, intent on flying away and never turning back. She’d live as one of the Disgraced, the angels who were banished and merely walked the earth as if they were human. Some, she’d heard, even cut off their wings to avoid enslavement.

Unfortunately, Safyriel wasn’t that courageous. In her hesitation, Sam had found her with the aid of the walking trees that she only knew would become pulverized soon.

“Don’t go,” Sam begged. “The fairies told me you were leaving.”

“I have to,” said Safyriel, with tears threatening to spill out. “It’s not safe for you if I stay.”

“Then take me with you,” Sam pleaded.

“Don’t be foolish,” snapped the angel, as much as it hurt her to do so. But divine rage that she could not control swelled within her, along with anger at the unfairness of it all. “You won’t be allowed in until you’re dead.”

The clouds darkened above them, above the whole of Cykaria, and Safyriel knew what was coming. She couldn’t stop it now. The angel stepped off the edge of the cliff only to use her wings to hover slightly away from the edge. Sam took the spot she’d left, which alarmed her.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“You said I could join you if I were to die.”

“Not like this!”

Sam shook his head. “You don’t understand. You’ve haunted me ever since I saw you. You’re as much of a ghost as an angel sometimes; some days I can’t believe that you’re real.”

The fool took another step closer to the edge of the cliff.

“Sam, stop.”

“I would never stop looking for you as long as I lived. It was to be this way.”

He jumped. She dove, and caught him in her arms.

“You foolish man,” she admonished, and thunder boomed overhead.

Sam was slightly frightened now. The angel’s irises were scorching orange now, as if they were coals ignited. The dark clouds above broke, only to send down flaming rain from the heavens. It couldn’t be bottled up anymore; there was no stopping it.

This was Safyriel’s wrath.

Cykaria was going to go up in flames.

“You’re as much of a fool as I am,” Sam dared to whisper. “You’ve fallen for me too, haven’t you?”

The angel said nothing.

“It’s the truth, if you ever want to hear it,” he pushed. “And I’ll tell you mine now: I love you.”

“You only think that. You’re human, you’re bound to love me. You’d kneel before any celestial being you don’t truly understand.”

Sam looked hurt. “Safyriel —”

“How dare you?” Safyriel cried. “You mean to enslave me? Who told you my name?”

Sam said nothing of the dwarves’ mischief and spying the past few months, but he shook his head. “I could never bind you to me like that.”

“Liar! All this pretense of love, just to control me! No doubt to save your spineless kin from the wrath they deserve.”

“You don’t mean that,” Sam insisted tearfully.

“Stupid mortal, of course I do.”

That was the last thing Sam heard before Safyriel dropped him into the sea, which was just as cold and unforgiving as her voice, one he was sure he’d never hear again.