Chapter 57

We sleep safely at night because rough men

Stand ready to visit violence

On those who would harm us.

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—Winston Churchill

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MIKHAIL

"Bishamonten, grant me clear-thinking and distance from my pain."

That sense of frantic helplessness recedes into a stream of dispassionate information. The ability to focus; to assess the best path to success, free from the entanglement of emotion, is the gift of the Cherubim god. Jingu taught me feeling can be a weakness. I must learn to suppress it. A Cherubim should feel nothing but duty to the Emperor.

I drop from the sky and flatten my wings against the ground.

"Olly olly oxenfree…" I whisper to the childhood friend who visits my nightmares, for not even the Cherubim were able to wipe her completely from my mind.

I hide in the shadows so the lizard……