Eternal Instant

Sammy saw it happen too late. She stretched out her hand and turned from Munkar, heedless to what it might cost her to disengage, but Cassiel was already plunging for the kill.

A new terror filled her, and an old shame – was there nothing she could do? Had she once again led someone she cared about to their death?

“Stop!” Sammy screamed, a desperate plea, half for Cassiel who stood ready to plunge her blade into Eita's heart and half simply for the world, for everything going wrong that was all Sammy's fault.

At that instant, it was as though a dam burst, and a great wave of spiritual energy burst from Sammy. White-hot it burned, crashing through channels inside her that had long been dry, all the massive force that her past as a Seraph entitled her to going from stagnant potential to kinetic reality in an instant, setting itself ablaze as Sammy's whole self was pulled taut like a piano wire, playing the note that was uniquely hers

That was the miracle – Sammy commanded the world to stop, and the world obliged.

Frantic still, she scrambled down to the stage. The frozen Munkar, whose knife would have been firmly lodged into her back a heartbeat later left behind, forgotten. Ethereal blue light marked Sammy's trail as she ran, the dregs of the impossibility that had been made manifest, until at last she stood in the way of the latest tragedy. This one, at least, she would do something about.

Sammy put her hands over Cassiel's, and the stalled world allowed itself to yield to Sammy's touch as she pulled the regalia blade free. Her arms trembled, and she could feel the tempest howling inside her, the rage and motion that were needed to keep everything else stopped.

Then, with that blade, Sammy swung, and struck Cassiel's halo. At first, it didn't yield, and the impact echoed through the static silence of the timeless world.

As Sammy realized her purpose, regret nagged at her. You've done close to as much before, and look how it has ended. How badly had such striving gone?

She was still here. So were Penny and Gadot. So was Azalea. So was Yomi, who had been forced to turn aside, Chazz wherever he was, and Sara who Sammy swore would walk free. They were all still here.

Sammy's hopes hadn't ended badly, because they had not ended yet.

She struck again, and again, the blows chipping a wedge into the halo's ring. Then Sammy stepped up. She cast the sword aside to hang in the still air and grasped her sister's halo in both hands, twisting and straining both against the hardiness of the Weaver's mark of control and the stillness of the world.

Sammy closed her eyes and gritted her teeth in the effort, but this was how she'd done it for herself. This was how she would make it real. Her knuckles turned white and her arms trembled. The world around Sammy trembled with her exertion as well, forcing her will against the miracle's own solid reality.

Please, Sammy thought, let me have this much. Please, let me save one more.

The halo yielded. It shattered front and back, splitting into two as she pulled her hands apart, that otherworldly light sparking at the breach and hanging in air as the Halo blackened from its sundering even in the frozen instant.

The tempest that had been in Sammy, that had made the miracle, was dying down. Even as a former Seraph, with worlds of power beyond any other sort of human or angel, Sammy only had so much to give.

She let it happen. The ethereal light faded and, as Sammy blinked, the miracle collapsed and the world returned. High among the seats, Munkar stumbled, his prey vanished. Cassiel's sword clattered to the floor of the stage, and Cassiel herself fell into her sister's waiting arms as the shards of her halo flew apart. Her eyes, unveiled as soft hazel, were filled with shock.

The pearl-white light that suffused Cassiel began to flake away from pale peach skin with freckles. The golden glory that suffused her hair drained as though washed away from a dark walnut brown while her white wings became stained, first with whorls of color and then entirely, turning ashen gray, and her regalia dress lost its luster and tattered, like a mass of silver cobwebs.

Sammy held her sister tight, finally seeing the person beneath the Weaver's lies

“I hope, some day, you'll forgive me,” she said.

As she said that, Sammy sank to her knees. She heard Eita scramble up behind her, and felt him try to support her, but she was too tired to do anything else, her body heavy as lead.

Her eyelids were the heaviest of all.

“But for now,” Sammy said, “I've got a selfish request. Can you take it from here?”

She closed her eyes. Drained and dazed, Sammy slipped into something like sleep for the first time in her existence, wondering idly if it would also be the last.