Heart of the Gemini

Guardians

The Boros Legion, the only legitimate standing army under the Guildpact, was in effect a military force matching a third of the Guilds combined. Today, their ranks swelled with the forces of the Selesnya forest-kind and the Azorius judicators. Humans and goblins marched side-by-side with centaurs and tree-elementals. Elven archers rode wolves as tall as men while law-mages flew on the backs of giant rocs with the power to crush stone between their beaks. All the while the angels of the Legion led the charge. Together, the newly formed Alliance of Light made up an army the likes of which Ravnica had never before known, shining like the rising sun itself as they crossed the horizon. When they arrived, it would be as a hammer falling on the marble star that for ten thousand years had been the holy seat of the religion of Ravnica.

The first rays of sunlight mixed with fire burning off Razia’s blade the first volley crashed into the walls of Orzhova. As stone and debris fell away, it was all Sorin could do to keep his footing on the battlement as the roar of a thousand voices filled the air and the ground shook beneath the stampede of heavy boots. The massive army move like a single entity made of a thousand tiny parts, gliding over the courtyards towards the towering portcullis.
“Shields!” Gideon’s order was like thunder, cutting through the tempest of the approaching army. A hundred mages stood ready, a great line stretching across the wall that ran in a great arc around Orzhova. In front of each of them appeared a brilliant shield of White mana, restoring the protective strength of the wall with the power of pure magic. To a man, the advancing troops slowed, and finally stopped. None were foolish enough to attack a magical barrier with steel.
The sky itself seemed to split with the voice of Razia, the angel Guildmaster of the Boros, commanding the main assault to begin – an assault which took the form of catapults. Fire elementals, each as tall as two or three men, with limbs made of flame and eyes made of embers, breathed their infernos into the great boulders loaded onto the backs of the siege weapons. The squad captains give the signals, and the conflagrated rocks were loosed, crashing into the White barrier with enough force to shake the Cathedral-city to its foundations.
Sorin watched as fire and stone erupted across the face of the shield, bringing its strength to bear and already threatening to undo it. Below them he could see the army reloading – this particular defence would not last long.

In the deepest vaults, beneath countless layers of stone, Sorin could still hear the battle raging above his head. When he had left, the shield was weakening, and the first cracks had appeared where the mages tending it were younger and less experienced. Something had to be done quickly, and Teysa had said she knew just the thing.
Ahead of him in the long corridor, flanked on either side by motionless, towering statues, the Scion walked silently, her footsteps barely disturbing the thick layer of tomb-like dust. In the distance, enchanted torches were coming to life in anticipation of their arrival.
Teysa start to talk, shattering the silence that until now had been absolute. There was a distance to her voice, as though she wasn’t quite talking to him.
“The Angels of Despair,” she said, her voice haunting through they length the hallway. “The twelve guardians of the Inner Sanctum of Orzhova: magical beings capable of commanding armies of thrulls and casting spells greater than the most skilled human magi...” It was as though she was addressing a great audience, or delivering some well-rehearsed speech. Sorin said nothing, letting the Scion continue unbidden.
“Of all the devices the Church of Deals possesses to inflict fear into the hearts and minds of its subjects, and enemies, the Angels are by far the most effective. But for all their strength, they are still puppets. Magic has given them the ability to imitate life, while greed has willed them the desire to gain power, but they are not alive.”
For all their supposed power, Sorin wondered how long such constructs would last against the true angels of the Boros legion, the same ones that at this moment were trying to bring the Church to ruins. The corridor ended in a set of towering, ornate double doors, complete with designs in gold and silver and weighing far too much to be pushed open with just the two of them. Fortunately, such crude attempts were altogether unnecessary in Orzhova, the doors responding to the very presence of the Scion by moving themselves cleanly from her path.
The pair entered a cavernous room, lit by dozens of torches and yet still half hidden in shadow. Twelve statues stood, six to a side, in two long rows along the length of the room. Each bore the like of a woman, with a bald, tattooed head and large wings folded behind her back. These were the Angels of Despair. Each carried a sword as tall as a Boros legionnaire, except these swords featured the Orzhov star in a wide circle around the hilt and handle.
Teysa had almost reached the altar at the end of the room. She waited to talk until she sensed Sorin’s approach.
“It takes significant mana to call even a single angel to life. To call forth all 12 at once is unheard of, not in ten thousand years of Orzhov history.”
“Is it even possible?” Sorin asked. His voice sounded strange to him in the vast hall. Teysa didn’t change her focus, but stood staring at the altar.
“This place is tied into the heart of the Church. It can draw on the very basis of its magic, to call upon however much mana is needed to defend our walls…” her voice trailed off, as though some private thought had taken hold. Then, with the soft voice of one who is lost in a deep memory, she began to sing.

“Don’t liken my face to an angel,
My hair to a halo or crown,
Hear only my voice in the darkness,
Taste only my tears as you drown,

“Beware the life and death angel,
Guardian of greed in the night,
Wish not for her magic unbroken,
Return once again to the light…”

As she finished, Teysa Karlov stood silent in front of the altar, seeming to forget entirely about Sorin, the war, or the vital mission they had yet to perform. Not daring to reach out to her, he half-whispered her name, and watched as the Scion snapped to attention, balancing between shame and anger at her lapse in concentration.
Clearing her throat, she put a slender hand on the star carved into the marble of the pedestal and began to chant in a language Sorin vaguely recognised. It was one that predated even his ascension into the ranks of the Planeswalkers.
Mana poured from the altar like a river rushing through a broken dam, travelling across the magical leylines in the floor towards the sleeping angels. Great bursts of light engulfed each one in turn as the raging mana reached them, freeing them from their stone prisons and rousing them to life. The twelve angels spread their great wings, filling the spaces in the empty cavern, and turned their swords over in their hands, feeling their weight anew after their centuries-old sleep. It wasn’t until Teysa turned to face them that they came to attention.
“Angels of Orzhova!” Teysa’s voice was the match of any field-marshal, and every bit as commanding. “Our city is under siege! You’re strength has never been more needed than in this hour! Go now, and fight for your Guild!”
The roof of the great cavern, which until now had been lost to the shadows that had escaped the reach of the torch-light, began to split, and consequently separated along four great axes corresponding to the largest points of the Orzhov insignia. Above, Sorin could recognise the spires of the Dark Temple. He realised the room they were standing in lay beneath the central courtyard that on the holiest days filled with pilgrims from all over Ravnica. He could hear the battle clearly now, and the terrible crash of the shield failing.
The angels cheered, a terrifying choir that could strike fear in the hearts of one’s allies as easily as one’s enemies. One by one they vaulted from their eternal resting places with a rush a wind that left Sorin and Teysa fighting to stand. Only after the last angel had passed through the parted courtyard into the burning sky did he take her hand and teleport them both to the surface.