The Darkangel

The Darkangel is a fantasy novel by Meredith Ann Pierce, published in 1982. Its heroine, Aeriel, is taken by the Darkangel, who sweeps her up in his dozens of black wings and carries her to his distant keep.

Her work there is to serve his brides, thirteen creatures who were beautiful once and are not any longer, because the Darkangel has drained away their souls. What Aeriel wants is to set them free.

Because she is now a captive herself, she has no choice but to obey him, and at the same time she knows that she has to destroy him. The urgency is that he will come fully into his sinister powers once he has found his final bride. and she has to find a way to do it while she is still his servant.

The novel is the first of a sequence about Aeriel, and it sets her service to the brides against the single act she is not able to perform while she is still doing what he tells her to do.