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He stepped off the balcony with those words to come to a graceful landing in the courtyard, wings spread. Surprised, she followed in silence. What’s wrong?
I don’t trust Neha not to shoot us down from the skies.
Mahiya had the same fear—the roof of the fort was spiked with an increasing number of ground-to-air weapons in preparation for Nivriti’s return. It would only take a single “accident” to get rid of an inconvenient angel and the spymaster who protected her. The tunnels, she said. Did Venom give you a map?
Yes. Stay as close to me as you can without entangling my wings.
She discovered the reason for his order a few moments later, when two guards heading in the direction of their palace passed by without so much as a nod, though Mahiya and Jason stood exposed in an alcove just off the path. Guessing they had seen only a smudged pool of darkness, she became Jason’s shadow as they made their way through the fort, their pace cautious but steady.
Rather than crossing the courtyards, Jason took an internal path, going down otherwise deserted corridors and through heavy doors until they exited into a small garden lit only by a spare number of tea candles. It was, she remembered, an adjunct to a disused palace. As evidenced by the candles, the garden was utilized by the odd pair seeking privacy, but no one sat on the benches tonight.
Jason halted in the darkness outside the door through which they’d come, and she saw shadows swirl around the candles a moment later, eclipsing even that muted light. Can you see?
Not well.
A warm hand gripped hers.
Moving with the feline grace of a man at home in the moonless night, Jason led her to the center of the garden and to the pedestal on which stood a statue of an unnamed angel, her wings spread in readiness for flight. A twist of the statue’s right wrist, followed by a hard pull on her opposing wing, and one side of the pedestal slid open. The doorway was narrow, this entrance not meant for a being with wings, but Mahiya bit back her incipient claustrophobia and walked in, Jason’s body heat a subtle reassurance as he entered right behind her.
A second later, the door slid shut again.
Stygian, the darkness hissed with ghosts of terror, and she thought she might panic—until a soft, glowing light filled the space, the ball of warmth floating just in front of her. It wasn’t something she’d have expected from a man whose power expressed itself in shades of midnight, but she was beyond grateful. Thank you, she said, able to breathe again now that she could see the tiny box held no serpents.
His arm came around her. Stairs into the tunnels will open beneath your feet. Soon as they do, head down. He pressed something on the wall and half the floor gave away. Fast as possible, princess.
Mahiya didn’t need him to explain why. Neha might regret it later if she caused them harm, might consider it a stain on her honor, but they’d be just as dead. Using the light that hovered in front of her as a beacon, wings scraping the edges of the narrow staircase, she pushed forward to enter a tunnel as narrow.
It was maybe two minutes later that she finally stumbled into a much wider tunnel.
Turn left. Jason swept around to walk beside her with that instruction, both of them now able to stand fully upright. A single set of footprints preceded theirs in the dust.
Venom?
He says he knows these tunnels like a snake knows its den.
As if he’d called them up, two snakes slid sinuously into their path. Mahiya halted, examined the color of their leathery skin and breathed out a sigh. They’re not poisonous. Neha didn’t tamper with nature except when she had a specific reason.
Jason gave her a searching look. You’re not afraid.
Not in the light, she answered honestly.
Those weren’t the only slithery creatures they saw, but for the most part, the snakes just wanted to be left alone or were curious. Only one acted aggressive, and it died a quick death under the obsidian blade of Jason’s sword, its body turned to ash between one breath and the next.
“Is it the sword?” she asked aloud, sensing they were deep enough that sound wouldn’t carry. “The black fire?”
“No. However, it’s a useful conduit. ”
His answer was no surprise, not when she’d felt the midnight flame of him more than once.
“The tunnels—”
“I sent Rhys a message just before we left. ”
“Good. ” She didn’t want to handicap her mother, but as Jason had known about the tunnels’ possible tactical use before the blood vow was deemed complete, remaining silent would’ve blemished his honor and put his life in danger.
“Faster, Mahiya. ”
Calf muscles straining as the tunnels began to slope steadily upward, she saved her breath and her strength until they exited at last . . . from a trapdoor in the floor of the broken-down temple where she’d found the teddy bear. “Why didn’t Venom use this before?” The exit was cunningly concealed in a dark alcove.
“Chance the door would be stiff with disuse, give him away. He oiled the hinges for us prior to leaving. ” He went into another alcove, came out with a bag she assumed Venom had stashed. “Weapons, should we need them. ”
Rubbing at the fine grit on her face, cobwebs no doubt dusted over her hair, she dropped her bag in the corner and entered the open space in the center of the unbroken part of the temple. “I can’t leave. ” The unvarnished words simply spilled out, before she was even aware of making a choice.
“I know. ”
A terrible ache blossomed in her chest at his simple acceptance.
“If the world suddenly changed and she stood in front of me, I would run into her arms just like that little boy. ”
It would’ve been smarter to stay silent, to not push at his boundaries, but a life of walls and secrets was not what she wanted with her spymaster. “Will you tell me?” she said, asking him to share a piece of his history with her, even if he could not share his heart. “How she died?”
* * *
Jason leaned against the wall at the back of the ruined temple, his ears cocked to the wind. It brought a single word.
Nivriti.
Not long to wait, he thought, guessing the vengeance-driven angel had a spy in the fort who’d informed her the instant her daughter was out of Neha’s reach and no longer at risk of being used as a hostage.
His eyes lingered on the woman who stood with her back to a column that had survived the vagaries of time, her face a study in strength and vulnerability intertwined. Waiting for his answer, waiting for him to tell her of a nightmare he’d shared with no person on this earth. But this princess had nightmares of her own.
It could be that that was why he spoke. Or perhaps it was because of the luminous warmth at the back of his mind that was Mahiya’s presence. He should’ve blocked her out, was certain she didn’t realize she’d maintained the connection since he first allowed her through his shields. But he was loathe to cut her off—it felt as if she’d tucked herself into him. Not prying, not in any way aggressive, just curled up against him as she liked to be in bed, her hand on his heart.
“My mother’s life,” he began, taking strength from that gentle radiance, “was stolen when I was a boy whose wings were yet too big for his body. ”
* * *
Trembling, Jason made himself stop looking at the rust that wasn’t rust, and pulled himself out of the hole, closing the trapdoor with careful hands—and averted eyes—so it wouldn’t make a noise. And then he stood staring at the wall. He didn’t want to turn and see what lay on the other side, what he’d pushed off the top of the trapdoor. But the wall was splattered with the rust that wasn’t rust, too. Tiny bits of it had begun to flake off, baked by the hot sun pouring in through the sky-window.
Stomach all twisted and his heart a lump, he looked away from the wall and to the floor, but it was streaked with pale brown, his feet having made small prints on the polished wood. The dirt inside the hole hadn’t been wet. Not until after.
After the screams went quiet.
He closed his eyes, but he could still smell the rust that wasn’t rust.
And he knew he had to turn around.
Had to see.
She was looking at him from the other side of the room, her pretty dark brown eyes filmed over with a whiteness that was wrong. The stump of her neck was crusted with blood where it sat on the table in the corner, as if placed there for just this purpose.
He didn’t scream.
He knew never to scream.
Instead, he looked at the chunk of meat that had been blocking the trapdoor. It wore a silk sheath of brilliant amethyst.
Amethyst. That’s what his mother always called her favorite color. Amethyst.
It had taken him a long time to say it right, and she’d always laughed in delight when he used the word, her shining black hair dancing in the sunshine.
The mat crackled under his feet, and he realized he’d moved, realized he was dragging the meat wearing the amethyst top to the other part that matched, that he was adding her arms and legs, the ripped and bloodied feathers of her silvery-white wings, his chest straining with the effort, the pieces too heavy for his small body. But he had to do it.
The sun hadn’t dried out the bits in the shade and hidden from direct light, and his hands became slippery with dark red once more. When her head slid out of his hands and thumped on the floor, he bit hard on his lip and picked it up again, stroking back the hair that had gotten in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mama. ” He had his mother’s hair, her skin, her eyes, she always said so. But today her eyes weren’t right, weren’t smiling as they always did when they turned his way.
Finally settling her head where it should be on her body, he knelt down on the mat that always made crisscross patterns on his knees and said, “Wake up now. ”
His mother was an immortal, just like him. Only four hundred and sixty-five years old, but that was old enough.
Angels lived forever.
That’s what his mother said the mortals said, but she said angels simply lived a very long time.
He shook her shoulders, her brown skin cold instead of glowing with warmth. “Wake up. ” He tried not to remember what else his mother had said, but her words whispered into his mind, spoken in the lyrical language of the island where she’d been born and lived until she was taken to school in a place she called the Refuge.
“Angels can die. It is a difficult thing but not impossible. Especially for younger angels. ”
Now he looked at the chunk of meat wearing the amethyst silk, and he knew what that hole in her chest meant. Her heart was gone, ripped out. Her stomach, too, had a hole. And her head . . . it hadn’t been too heavy for him to lift. Because there was a hole in it, too.
All his mother’s insides were gone.
An angel of her age and power could not reawaken without her insides, could not reform. Still he shook her, telling her to “Wake up, wake up, wake up!” Until he realized he was screaming, when he was supposed to never, ever scream.
Shutting himself up by biting down on his lip again until it bled, he patted his mother’s hair back into place and rose, putting one bloody hand on the doorknob to open it. Silence greeted him on the other side. He followed the trail of dried blood, determined to find his mother’s insides. If he put them back, she would wake up, he knew she would.