My face paled. As Flora’s eyelids drifted shut, her body sagged against me, limp and motionless. There she lay, my bloodstained sister, wilting away like a flower, each petal detaching one by one right before my eyes. Frantically, I channeled Divinity, trying to heal her with all the fervor I could muster, but it was as if her body were decaying faster than my powers could repair. Divinity—wasn’t it supposed to be this omnipotent force, an answer to all my prayers? If so, why was it failing now? Confronted with the apparent limits of a force I had once deemed infinite, panic began to claw its way into my heart.
I laid Flora down on the floor as gently as I could and moved my hand to her neck, searching for a pulse. It was there, faint but perceptible. Her chest rose and fell weakly—signs of life, but such faint ones. Her skin felt clammy with the creeping chill of impending death. All my senses whispered to me that her end was near.
“Why?” I muttered weakly. “Have I lost my faith? Has God forsaken me? Or—” My mind raced to a dark, unbearable thought. “In my heart of hearts, do I truly not desire to save her?”
A shiver traced its way down my spine, halting my breath. The revelation shook me to my core, and my hands trembled as the weight of this knowledge settled over me. Could I truly claim that I wanted to save Flora? She had rejected my existence from birth, belittled me as a disgrace, scorned me, and torn me down to elevate herself. She was the reason for a childhood devoid of friendship, a life steeped in misery. Was I now expected to cast aside all that bitterness and save her?
Deep within, I couldn’t deny that there had been times when I’d wished that Flora would simply vanish from my life. I had imagined her being married off, abducted—anything that would remove her from my sight forever. She was the root of all my pain, my trauma made manifest, and I had harbored the darkest wishes against her—until Ed had entered my life.
Ed, who had shown me what love was, who’d promised to stand by and protect me, had transformed me with his kindness and compassion. I was no longer the bitter girl I once had been. I had a husband now, an irreplaceable part of my being who imbued me with strength and courage. At the mere thought of him, my chaotic mind began to calm, the inky venom that had blackened my heart receding, overwhelmed by the powerful force of my love for Ed.
My true heart of hearts emerged clearly now: I don’t want Flora to die.
Not yet. Not until she acknowledged her wrongs. I refused to grant her the release she sought without making her atone for all the pain she had caused.
Ruby-colored determination blazed in my eyes as I withdrew my hands from Flora’s rapidly fading form. She lay motionless, her platinum-blonde hair spreading out like a pale veil on the stage beneath her. I clasped her icy, rigid hand. A heavy silence enveloped the venue, the audience holding its collective breath, awaiting my next move.
Taking a deep breath of my own, I composed my plea.
“O Heavenly Guardian, spare my sister’s life—so that I may be granted my wish!”
This was the crucial distinction. I knew now that my wish, as it was in my heart of hearts, wasn’t to save Flora for her own sake—it was to save Flora for my sake. I knew that this seemingly minor change in syntax—morphing my prayer from a selfless entreaty to a selfish desire—fundamentally altered the nature of it. But I didn’t falter. I sent that prayer up to the heavens with all my might.
Suddenly, the outflow of power within me ceased. The endless font of divine energy that had been surging from me since birth stopped abruptly, as if the roaring waters of a surging river had been dammed up. Despite this, the energy within me didn’t dissipate; denied an outward path, it began to accumulate inside of my body, and the pain was instant. My insides boiled, an intense internal blaze consuming me as the amassed energy threatened to rend me apart from within. “Gah!” I instinctively voiced my agony. What is...happening to me?!
My scream was stifled by the sheer intensity of the pain. As I collapsed onto all fours, writhing in torment, I scrambled for a shred of control over the energies that threatened to tear me asunder. But all of my hard-won abilities eluded me; I was entirely at the mercy of the holy power at the center of my being. As the pain intensified, I realized it was converging towards my spine, which burned as though aflame. Despite the excruciating anguish, a desperate curiosity gripped me—I needed to understand what was transpiring, but the pain clouded my thoughts.
Amid my suffering, I heard Ed’s voice—a mixture of panic and awe—as he called out to me. Galvanized by his voice, I summoned all my strength to lift my head. Just then, I felt an extraordinary sensation of release, as if something were erupting from between my shoulder blades.
As suddenly as it had begun, the pain ceased. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if I had somehow emptied myself of all of the pent-up energy, but the power still thrummed through me, only calmer and less chaotic.
What had happened? Confusion overtook me, replacing the pain. As I tilted my head and blinked in astonishment, I could hear awed whispers begin to percolate through the crowd.
“Is that...what I think it is?” One voice tentatively broke the silence.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” another added in disbelief.
“What does it mean...?” A third trailed off into silence.
I could see heads slowly shaking in disbelief, every eye fixed upon me, no—fixed behind me. Curious, I craned my neck around, and the sight that met my eyes was nothing short of miraculous—three pairs of pristine, white wings unfurled behind me.