The Angel Caste series - Book 5 - Angel Blessed
The Story
When Viv is offered a home with the child she loves, she thinks that Lady Luck has smiled on her at last, but then disaster strikes. To save the child’s life, Viv must battle those who love the child as well as the child’s enemies.
In the catastrophe that follows, Viv finds herself in Erath Fold, home to female-aspected angels, where she is offered the chance of a new life, but one that involves terrible new risks.
She returns to Wheel Fold but is pursued by those who believe she holds the key to their deepest desires and, as their threats turn to violence, tragedy strikes and Viv is rocked by unsuspected truths.
Thris reappears but Viv’s joy gives way to dread as he reveals a threat to the child’s world as well as his own. As the threat escalates, Ky and Ash search desperately to discover the fate of their predecessors; a trinity that included the a blue angel but it seems that records of the three have been deliberately destroyed.
As events build to a terrifying climax, Viv must choose between the past and the future and between all of those she loves.
The Idea
Angel Blessed shifts the focus to healing; starting with Viv's ability to heal herself. Her early life is marked by trauma and even after she leaves, she suffers terrible injuries. Her physical injuries are healed in human caste folds; in folds of male-aspected angels; and in Erath Fold, home to the Iahhel: female-aspected angels. The Iahhel also begin her spiritual and psychological healing where Viv learns she has the power to choose between love and hate, and the consequences of those choices. She thinks more seriously about the future she wants for herself too.
She is welcome to stay in Erath Fold but her love for the child draws her back to The Wheel. Thris began her understanding of her dual angel and human parts but now she develops a fuller understanding of the conflict they create. She also realises the damage that hatred inflicts and struggles to curb her antagonism for Ataghan. When she finally realises what he is, she commits an act of selflessness that has on-going and powerful consequences.
Viv is both the healer and the healed through her relationship with the child and Ataghan and, despite the impediments Viv and Ataghan face in their journeys to wholeness, they are bound by their love for the child.
The Secondary World
Angel Blessed takes place in The Wheel, Ezam, and Erath. The sacred city of Astraal, with its deep aqua lake, and eight mighty rivers coursing down eight perfectly spaced valleys, mimics Ezam's symmetry and gives explanation for the Angellus's attraction to the fold. The city's fine architecture also reflects the Angellus/angels' love of beauty, which Ataghan shares and replicates in his carving, and in his new sett. Erath is clad in the green and growing which symbolises the Iahhels' connection to wholeness and fertility. The Iahhel are wingless, for they aspire to oneness with the earth, in contrast to Ezam's Host, who aspire to oneness with the Great Beyond.
The Music
Dami Im's Sound of Silence fits both Viv’s and Ataghan's loneliness and the male dancer in the clip reflects Ataghan's isolation until his healing journey begins.
Deep Fantasy
I had believed the Angel Caste series told the stories of Viv, Thris, Ky and Ash until I began Angel Blessed, then I realised the series told Ataghan's story too. The brutality of Viv's life is more explicit than Ataghan's, which is revealed through a series of incidents, but the effects are similar. Viv comes to understand how her self-hatred resulted in her suicide attempt and her seeking of violent lovers, and she recognises the same self-hatred in Ataghan, which drives his self-mutilation and which makes him a ruthless warrior and tournament champion.
The Iahhel start Viv on the road to true healing and she returns to The Wheel both more human and more angelic, a reflection of her increasing wholeness. The Iahhel also bring her to understand her power to choose and the consequences of past choices. When Viv realises what Ataghan is, she opens herself to him in an act of extraordinary vulnerability; exposing her breasts, wings, heart and spirit by embracing him and the cold metal of his knives. The knives show a barrier still exists between them but he does not turn them on her. He allows the embrace and when he collapses, she cradles him like a child. This is love on many levels. When she tells him to 'let it go', she refers to his self-hatred, knowing from her own experience, that only then, can healing begin.
Covers: these show Viv, Thris, Ash, Ataghan, and an angel feather - an important motif in the series. Feathers are related to flight which symbolises transcendence. In this sense, angels and dragons are the same: a mix of earth-bound and transcendent elements. Viv keeps Thris's only undamaged feather after he is torn apart by the beastman but Ataghan destroys it.
His hatred robs them both of the chance of being something better (transcendent), and the act is one of many that builds Viv's hatred of him. When Ataghan finds Viv's feather on the feed-store floor, he initially thrusts it into his pocket, rather than destroys it, and despite later breaking it and letting the Vorash's rain wash it away, in the end, he cannot let it go.
The Vorash is 'the time between' (the liminal) and it is relevant that this is when Ataghan chooses to keep the feather (keep the door open to something better). It is Tormis (Ataghan’s servant) who notes that children born during Vorash 'can be anything'. We later discover the feather joins the most precious things in his life (locks of Sehereden and Fariye's hair) in his amè (a pendant worn to provide guidance in death) , and it is this revelation that finally convinces Viv to trust him. Viv also gifts a feather to the child (Fariye) which helps maintain their connection. Its presence reminds Ataghan of the chance of something better she offers and, of course, Fariye has a feather collection, which gives the motif a more playful aspect.
Ataghan is pulled towards healing by Ithreya as well. After Sehereden's death, he is prepared to abandon Fariye, but Ithreya offers him Sehereden's daughter on condition he lein-trysts with Viv. This forces Ataghan to seek Viv out, but there is a point at which she becomes more important to him than Sehereden's child. Fariye, Viv and Ithreya all represent the female/love/nurturing elements Ataghan must embrace to become whole.
Happy reading.