Archive of Our Own ^beta

The comings and goings of the High Heavens are not her purview, save perhaps in her gardens. All the same, when angels go down to Sanctuary, word travels. If they go by way of Pandemonium, though, well. Soldiers go missing quite often in that realm. If they are very lucky, they return swiftly to the Silver City.

Anarael comes often to the Gardens of Hope to walk with Auriel. They have spent many hours in conversation together, the Aspect of Hope and her lieutenant. He is high enough in her councils to be granted the secrets of the lesser echoes of Al’maiesh. High enough to be missed when he vanishes in the wild places of Pandemonium. He is not found, and another takes command of his company when they go to battle in the middle-realm. (Not on Sanctuary. Not again. The Council swore this.) None take his place in the gardens, though, and though Auriel waits and attends the Arch each time Lightsong comes again, none emerge to take Anarael’s place.

“He has gone somewhere beyond my sight,” Itherael says when Auriel comes to his library in search of answers. “If he is dead, I have not yet seen his successor within Talus’ar. If he is not… he is well-hidden, if he indeed survives.”

“Well-hidden he is, then,” Auriel says. “We will await his return in the gardens.” Itherael’s regard is heavy.

“Auriel-”

“Yes?”

“...it is nothing.” Auriel lifts her wings in acknowledgement and departs.

Oh, she knows as well as any who have endured the Eternal Conflict what things might keep an angel from the heavens, but not for nothing is she the Aspect of Hope.

She waits, and time rolls on, and one day, Anarael returns.

The battles in Pandemonium are only shadows of what they were in earlier years, before Inarius’s departure, before the discovery of Sanctuary, but they have not stopped entirely. She is not sure what they would do if it ever truly did end. They know little else, even those who do not go down to the battlefields. Anarael returns to the Silver City in a quiet time, coming light-winged into the gardens when only Auriel is there.

They walk together as they used to, but Anarael is not at ease among the shining gardens any longer. His raiment doesn’t so much as brush the silver walkways, his wings quivering as if he means to take to the skies at a moment’s notice. His attention lingers on the braided-light cord of Al’maiesh. Auriel stops beside a luminous fountain.

“You were not held captive by the Burning Hells,” she says. Many had begun to fear he shared Izual’s fate- or worse, in some minds, Inarius’s.

“Pandemonium is a wild, untamed place,” he says. His gaze goes again to Al’maiesh. Almost Auriel is affronted that he thinks she needs it. He stiffens as she uncoils it from her arms, rising uneasily in the air, but she lays the Cord of Hope aside and moves on from the fountain. Some think trust comes too easily to her, too eager to see the best in others, but though she chooses to give it it comes as slowly as it might for any other.

“I will not compel you, my friend,” she says. “But I feared for you. Are you well?”

“I am,” he says after a time. “I was no captive.” And she judges that in this at least he is truthful. “I learned much in my time away, but it is good to be home.”

“We are glad to have you returned to us.”

She waits, but even when she asks outright he answers only: “I laid preparations against some future need. I can only hope it will be enough.” They depart the gardens, and the worlds move on.

Anarael still goes alone to places he does not reveal even to Auriel. His absences are not so long nor so worrying as Malthael’s unquiet wanderings and he does not shirk his duties, and so Auriel presses no farther when he says only that he is tending to his own hopes. She watches, though, and in time finds his hideaway at the edge of the battlefields of Pandemonium, far from the fortress.

The battles in Pandemonium are less than they were, but they have not stopped. Years pass, and Anarael dies in truth, and at the next Lightsong his successor is turned out of the Arch and knows nothing of his secret projects in Sanctuary. Only then does Auriel go to her lieutenant’s secret place, his lair at the edge of the world. There she finds shards of enchanted things, and the records of the enchanter-smiths who built the time-traps scattered through Pandemonium, and a scrap of paper that sings of Sanctuary to her senses.

If Anarael knew other ways to the renegades’ world, no trace of it remains, and so she steals through the gate near the fortress and comes for the first time in many, many years to the world of Sanctuary.

Her absence will be noticed far too quickly. Her presence here at all pushes at the edges of the almost-truce, and so she passes like a breath of wind across the deserts, seeking the last traces of Anarael’s magic in the places marked on the faded map left in his sanctuary.

She finds young women, sealed in tombs and bound up with magic, asleep and deep in dreams. One is wound up tighter than the rest, so far removed from her world even dreams cannot reach her. This is one who will survive, Auriel thinks, and the thought echoes with her old friend’s voice. There is a chance for the others, but here Anarael had spent the greatest part of his strength, enough to ensure this girl will see the next age. Enough he would not have had the power to do the same for the others.

“He has put a great deal of faith in you, child,” Auriel says in the silent tomb. The girl does not move. Auriel reaches down to her, but Anarael’s protections are enough to drive back even an archangel. “He risked much to protect you, even from me. I hope it is enough to forestall whatever it was he feared.” His foresight had been such that many thought him better suited to Itherael’s train than hers, but he had come to Auriel instead.

Her time is running short. She can feel it in the aether and in her own body, pulling her back to the Silver Spire.

“I can only ask for your trust,” he had said once in the gardens. “I do what I can, even if I fear it will not be enough. I must keep it hidden as long as I may.” And he had laid his hand on Al’maiesh, and it had shown nothing but clarity of purpose.

“We are no strangers to being kept in the dark,” Auriel says now, “but we continue all the same. Even Itherael cannot see all ends. There is a chance yet.” To the sleeping woman she says: “Few can understand what you have left behind. Rest well, until your strength is needed. We will meet again, I think.”

Imperius is not best pleased with her when she returns, no matter how serenely she insists she did not interfere as they are forbidden to do. Even Malthael, cold and distant as he has grown, breaks his silence to side with Imperius.

“I observed only,” Auriel says, “and have broken no compact.” And they go away unhappy, all of them, but Anarael’s secrets are preserved.

Centuries pass, as mortals reckon time. The Diamond Gates shatter, and war comes to the heart of the Silver City.

“Go,” Auriel commands Itherael as Diablo’s servants hammer at the doors of the library. “Find Imperius and rally the Host. If you cannot, go to Sanctuary. Tyrael may be our last hope.” She wishes she could bid him find Malthael as well, but their brother has not been seen in too long.

“Auriel-”

“Go!” Al’maiesh cracks as it uncoils, burning with white fire. Itherael flees, and the doors splinter before the Lord of Despair.

Rakanoth has not come alone. Even Hope can be overcome.

When her prison crumbles around her, Auriel’s gaze is drawn not to the Nephalem, fairly incandescent with power to her sight, but to the young woman in the rear, familiar and still shining faintly with Anarael’s power. It would be enough to make her ache for an old friend were her heart not still throbbing with the echoes of Rakanoth’s blades.

“I know your voice,” Eirena says, lingering as her friends depart the Library of Fate. “The Prophet said we were not to dream, but…”

“He was as good as his word,” Auriel says. Itherael’s wings lift in curiosity, but Auriel lowers herself to the ground before Eirena. “You must be on your way, young one. We will speak later.” So tenuous a later, but it is not gone yet.