Grace and Glory (The Harbinger #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,6

just lost it. All the pain, the fear, the grief and even the joy of seeing Zayne again crashed through me. “You spoke in my head, didn’t you? You told me to come to you.”

Silence.

“Can you not hear me? Did your own scream burst your eardrums? Or is this amusing to you? Is that it? Is Gabriel trying to end this world and Heaven not enough entertainment for you? Damn you!” I yelled, scratching my throat raw. “Fine. You just want to stand here and stare at me? I can do the same thing. Better yet, how about I go outside and start telling every person I come across that angels are real. I can prove it. I’ll just whip out my grace. Then I can introduce them to a few demons and when I’m done with—”

“That won’t be necessary.” He spoke in a voice that was richly musical, infinitely kind without a trace of humanity. It was so at odds with itself that I winced. “You’re here for him, the one who died protecting you.”

I flinched then. “Yes. But he’s alive.”

“I know.”

“He’s not right.”

“Of course not.”

I shook—every part of me shook. “What happened to him? How is he here?”

The Throne tipped his head to the side. “He committed an act of selflessness and sacrifice by coming to your aid. He did so out of the purest love. He was restored to his Former Glory.”

“Former Glory?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

The Throne nodded. “But he chose you. He chose to Fall.”

2

The room seemed to spin as what the Throne was saying began to sink in. It didn’t make sense, but I knew what the angel had meant by saying Zayne Fell. I knew what Zayne had meant when he said he was Fallen.

What I didn’t understand was how it was possible.

I had to take several deep, calming breaths before I spoke again. “Zayne was a Warden and my Protector. How did he Fall when he was never an angel?”

His wings rose and then settled. “What do you think the Wardens were before they were cast unto stone? Did you believe the Creator snapped them into existence out of boredom?”

I started to frown. Yeah, that was exactly what I believed.

“No. God was not simply bored. What you call Wardens were once the guardians of man, great ones, but they failed. They caved to the lure of sin and vice. They Fell.”

“I don’t understand. I was told—”

“That the Fallen were wiped clean from this Earth by the Wardens?” He smiled faintly. “They rewrote their histories. Can you blame them for wanting to hide their shame?” He stepped down from the altar, causing me to tense. “They buried their deeds so deep that many generations have been born and gone to the Heavens, never knowing their true past. Some who Fell were stripped of their wings and their grace by the archangels and Alphas. Others escaped into Hell. But those who did not run, and recognized their sin, took their punishment. They were entombed in stone.”

“Alive?” I whispered.

“They became the warning that evil was all around and no one, not even God’s angels, were immune to it.”

“They became the first stone gargoyles.” I sucked in a small breath, horrified to think that anyone had been trapped in stone. “How long?”

“Centuries,” the Throne answered with a shrug.

My mouth dropped open. Centuries trapped in stone? How did any of them come out of that with their minds intact?

“But with the demon populace increasing, God intervened, and the Alphas gave some of those entombed a choice—to be free to fight the demons and protect man or to remain entombed.”

That didn’t sound a whole lot like freedom or a choice to me, but what did I know?

“Those who accepted the choice became the first Wardens, their true stone form designed to serve as a reminder, and the human form given back so that they could blend in with humans. Their grace was still removed so that there was no risk of a rebellion and they were able to create a lineage who would continue to protect man and serve God’s will,” he explained. “That is who the Wardens truly are.”

I suddenly thought of what the demon prince had said to me the day I’d gone to the coven to get Bambi, his familiar, back. Good thing the Wardens wiped out the Fallen eons ago, eh? Then Roth had chuckled as if he’d known something I hadn’t. Roth knew! That was why he was