Excerpt: To Defy Angels by Sonia Nkera

September 10, 2026

The greatest evil resides in a sanctuary of goodness.

_Unknown

The Doubler

I feel hatred all the time. It is the very substance that burns through my veins.

It is the pulse beating in my ears as I hold this flag while the emblem on my collar catches the light. Above my head, the angel wings on the flag fly in the breeze, while the lynx on my collar bares its teeth.

My two identities.

The words of the funeral hymn bounce around in the corners of my mind.

It is pathetic, the importance that is attached to death.

“Don’t frown too much. You are not a soldier today; we mourn a pitiful life.” The whisper comes from my right, Orderly Damascus.

The only reason why I do not fight the decision to have me as the Imperial crusade commander is because I can now escape the spew of empathetic garbage he loves to speak over the poor lost souls.

“We are honoured to have representation from the Imperium, the house of the Vylone in our midst,” he continues, his enthusiastic tone making me long for the blade at my chest.

I can already imagine the feel of the scales on its hilt in my hand. They are supposed to mimic the texture of a dragon fish. The blade would glide so smoothly, peeling his skin. It brings me so much peace thinking these thoughts about him.

“You think one of these days you will step into the confessional and talk to me about the dark stains on your soul? It would be a shame to lose a Kardinal’s soul to the dark. The poor girl’s flesh was fraying off her bones.” He leans in to whisper, throwing a meaningful glance behind us as if I might not know what he is talking about.

The body was not preserved well. No one wants to touch a nobody after all. The exposed flesh falling off her bones has been reeking the entire time. I swear on the sevens that I do not want to be delighted by it, but it is a curious thing; decay.

“The human flesh, completely used up,” I recite one of his favourite lines from the letters of the Kardinal Loyeus.

I step away when he opens his mouth to speak again, and immediately, I breathe easier. I can only take so much of his undiluted barrage.

Now, if only I could also have the pleasure of killing him. He is not terrible; some might even call him a good man, but anyone given in to bouts of gushing unsolicited advice deserves it.

One dead body feels like an obscene waste against the punishing heat we are standing under. Two funerals would be a better justification.

I take a deliberate deep breath, but almost choke on it when I look to my left. Curse me for wanting another death at a funeral because it might just be mine.

I blink, wondering if the lazy sun is burning mirages all over the place to confuse me, but the figure is still there.

When the Imperial Vylone first called me and gave me the annoying talk about being ordained to lead his cru-saders, he named me The Doubler.

“I have watched you train,” he had said in that infuriating grand but slow way of his, throwing his arm out.

Around that time, I had been stilli fighting the urge and the thoughts in my mind which wept for blood. Hearing him speak was the first time I let myself fantasize about killing.

I would start with extracting his large ears, which seemed to lean back when he got too excited, like he was then.They looked so strange, like they kept his comparatively small head in place. He had a head that was not meant for a bald hair-cut, yet he insisted on it.

“You don’t just see the human form, you see a person’s full essence… spirit. I was told you caught those Continentals sneaking into our docks.

It hadn’t been my intention.

The academy walls had become too stifling with that witch hovering, but I didn’t tell him that. Nor did I remind him that capturing The Continentals went against the treaty.

His words had mostly seemed foolish to me at the time, but as my eyes trace the form standing on the ledge of the vine-yard collector’s shed, his words echo in my mind. Doubler.

The apparition -because that must be what it is – is a form I recognize from another lifetime. From the time everything started.

I have always thought about her as the beginning of the curse. I have spent years trying to come to terms with the idea – which became a possibility every passing day-that I might never see her again.

I can hear the crowd behind me parting to begin the burial ritual, but my eyes remain on the girl as she climbs down. Not an apparition then.

I reach for my dagger. Weapons are not allowed in the academy, except for my unique case, and I have never been gladder for it than I am now.

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