“You’re surely famished,” he’d said as he handed over two bread rolls stuffed with cheese. “If you’re anything like me, you were too nervous to eat this morning, and it’s far past lunchtime.”
The delay also ensured Bethy would be back from the fields. As they walked down the street, Bree saw her sitting on their porch step, chin resting on her knuckles as she waited. At their approach, she stood, moving as if her entire body were made of stone.
“I don’t need you to tell me,” she said as they stopped before her. “I can see it in your faces.”
“Fire and ice,” Nickolas said, nodding and touching the tops of their heads each in turn. “They will do their parents proud.”
Bree had expected Aunt Bethy to protest, but instead she very calmly stepped down, dropped to her knees, and wrapped her arms around them both.
“You’ll always be my brother’s little children to me,” she whispered. “I’m scared to lose you, but it’s not right of me. It’s not fair to hold you two down.” She leaned back, smiled at them despite the tears that ran down her face. “You’re so strong, so beautiful, so brave. Nickolas is right. You’ll do your parents proud.”
Such naked emotion made Bree feel awkward and uncomfortable. She hugged back, wishing she knew what to say to calm her aunt’s fears.
“We’ll be fine,” Bree said, stepping back. She tried to force sincerity into each word, to pretend she knew it for a certainty. “Perfectly fine, I promise, won’t we, Kael?”
Kael grinned despite his own growing tears.
“Better than fine,” he said. “You’ll see.”
The two turned their attention to Nickolas, who had waited patiently during the exchange.
“This year’s class begins in three weeks,” he said, removing his left gauntlet from a hook on his harness so he might put it on. “A Weshern Seraph will come for you early that morning. Bring nothing but the clothes on your backs, and make sure those are ready for a long, difficult day.”
Nickolas reached out and brushed Breanna’s dark hair with his armored fingers.
“And do something about that,” he said. “Long hair becomes a danger when making high-speed turns and maneuvers. Better to handle it now than let one of the instructors hack it off with a sword.”
Bree nodded but kept silent. As he thumbed the switch, the mechanism of Nickolas’s wings thrummed to life. Nickolas saluted, then ran three steps before leaping into the air, soaring away on his beautiful golden wings. Bree watched, and she shivered thinking she would soon wear a set just as powerful.
“Come inside,” Aunt Bethy said, gently pulling on their shoulders. “Supper is waiting.”
Bree took her seat at the table, her brother opposite her. Bethy did not follow, instead remaining outside.
“Is… is she all right?” Kael asked, glancing nervously to the door.
Supper was a bowl of meat broth and dumplings, and Bree pulled it closer and grabbed the spoon. From the other end, she heard the first of what would be many sobs.
“Bethy will be fine,” Bree said.
“But once we leave for our training she’ll be all alone.”
She set her spoon down and shook her head. Every word made her feel like an awful human being, but they would be gone for nearly a year before they saw their aunt again. If Kael felt guilty and homesick, he might never make it through that year…
“She’ll be fine,” Bree repeated, louder so that her words would drown out Bethy’s quiet sobs. “These are the sacrifices we must make to protect our home. Aunt Bethy will be strong, just like we’ll be strong. Do you understand?”
For a long moment he said nothing, only stared at her coldly.
“Yes,” he said, clearly lying. “I do.”
Bree ate another spoonful, ignoring how cold the broth was. By the time she finished, the crying from the other side of the door had ended, but still Aunt Bethy did not come inside, and would not until the first of the midnight shadow began its crawl from the east.
At the same time as Bethy was coming inside, Bree was preparing to go outside. When she heard the front door shut below, she slid out from her bed, still wearing her outfit from earlier in the day. Not surprising in the least, Kael hadn’t fallen asleep either, and she heard his bed rustle.
“Where are you going?” he whispered.
“To take care of something,” she whispered back.
“Do you want me to come with?”
She shook her head as she grabbed a slender knife from underneath her bed and tucked it into her belt.
“Stay here,” she said. “I want to do this alone.”
Bree snuck out the window of their bedroom, hanging from the sill so she might be as close to the ground as possible before jumping. Counting to three, she let go and then dropped. The hit jarred her knees, and she promptly collapsed to her rear upon landing, but that was the worst of it. Standing up, she brushed a bit of dirt from her pants, then checked the blade at her waist. Still secure.
Glancing up and down the street to ensure no night owl might be watching, she turned left and then ran. She ran until the street ended, and she reached the stone barricade beyond. Easily climbing over, she now walked with measured steps across the grass. The dirt always felt different beyond the barricade. Softer. Looser. It should have frightened her, but instead she found it strangely comforting. Looking up to the sky, she watched the midnight fire burning across the darkness. The east was fully consumed, the west soon to be, and in the nighttime glow she walked to the very edge of her world and knelt on her knees.
The clouds were thick below her when she looked down, their white tops colored red. Below them was the Endless Ocean, and part of her wished to see what the rolling waves looked like when painted over by the midnight fire. Perhaps once she was a Seraph and had a pair of wings of her own, she might have the chance to discover for herself.
“Wings of my own,” she whispered, and she felt a chill blow through her. Lifting her right hand, she examined the pink flesh, dotted by deeper red circles where the blisters had been. As she’d eaten in Center, Nickolas had taken notice of the burn marks on her hand.
“Don’t worry too much about those,” he’d said. “It’s a funny thing, how our human bodies interact with the elements. Wounds inflicted by what you have a strong affinity for tend to heal at a much faster rate. It won’t scar, and by tomorrow, I doubt you’ll even have a blister.”
Bree had been ready to bear the scars on her hand as a badge of honor, proving her worthiness to join the Seraphim, but the knight had been correct. Not even morning, and already the burns were fading. Her right hand was a little tender, but she could easily ignore that, which was good. She needed it for what she must do.
Drawing her knife, she set it on the grass beside her, then grabbed her hair and began to straighten it with her fingers. Multiple times she combed it, then pulled it all behind her head, twisting it so it might remain in the ponytail. Keeping it together as best she could with her left hand, she grabbed the knife with her right.
It’d been years since she’d cut her hair, and she would not let some unknown instructor be the one to do it. Closing her eyes, she once again counted to three and then sawed through her hair with the knife. It took a few tries, but at last she felt the giant clump in her left hand go limp. Letting out a pained groan as she pulled errant, uncut strands from her scalp, she held the mass before her. So much hair, she saw. She’d been proud of it, of its length, its shine in the morning sun. Shaking her head, it felt weirdly light, and having air blowing against her neck was strange, to say the least.
On Weshern, all waste, no matter the type, was to be reused in some way. Most was buried in the fields, to be broken down and used by crops the following year, but not this time. Not this piece of her. As the sky burned, she rose to her feet and hurled the hundreds of loose strands into the sky, let it cast its black outline across the fire before the wind carried it away.
You have your mother’s hair.
Aunt Bethy had told her that once, before her parents’ death. Before a large hole had been torn into her heart, ripping out the happiness residing within. No, she’d not cut her hair in years, not since that terrible day, and she felt tears building in her eyes as she watched the last strands fade away. She slumped to her knees before the cliff, fists pressing into the grass.
“I miss you,” she whispered. “I miss you so much.”
Her tears fell, sobs racking her, but in the privacy beyond the homes and the barricade, she finally felt alone enough to let it all out. She sobbed much like her aunt had sobbed, kneeling before the great expanse of nothing, before fields of clouds colored red by the fire that consumed the sky. Let it burn, she thought as she hurled the knife off the side. Let it all burn if it burns away the hurt as well.
When she returned home, she was surprised to see Aunt Bethy waiting for her at the door, sitting on the step like when she and Kael came back from Center with Nickolas. Bethy did not watch her approach, only kept her eyes on the roiling sky above. Bree took tentative steps, unsure of what to do or what to say. Finally she stood before her aunt, her head bowed and her arms crossed behind her back, and waited.
“Why?” her aunt asked after a painful silence. “Your mother died in your arms that same night I lost my brother. How could you desire to risk that same fate?”
Bree wished she had a better answer, but she gave the best she could.
“I want to fly,” she said. “And not with clipped wings like the fishermen. I want to fly like Mom and Dad flew. Free. Proud. They weren’t afraid, and so I won’t be, either.”
“And when battle comes?”
Bree felt her throat tighten, and she forced out her words.
“And when battle comes, I’ll have a chance to make the people who killed Mom and Dad pay for what they did.”
Aunt Bethy’s gaze finally drifted down from the fire to look Bree in the eye.
“Your father once told me you wanted to fly ever since you took your first step. He was right, too. You were meant for the skies, Breanna, and now you have your chance. I only pray you understand what it will cost. Your peaceful life is gone, gone like the beautiful hair you’ve cut.”
She reached out a hand wrinkled and weathered by untold hours working in the fields.
“Such youth,” she said as she gently cupped Bree’s face. “Remember it, cherish it, and then say good-bye to it forever. This is the death of the child I knew. Please don’t hate me for mourning that, Bree. But when you come home a year from now, I’ll be waiting, you understand? I’ll be waiting, and I’ll be loving you, and missing you, and eager to meet the woman you’ve become.”
It was too much, too naked, too honest. Bree sank into the lap of her aunt, closed her eyes, and buried her face. She made no promises. She offered no assurances. She only enjoyed the embrace, committing it to memory and swearing that, no matter what hardships might come, she would cherish it forever.
CHAPTER 5
Some jobs Kael didn’t mind. Others, however, he would not miss in the slightest once he left his life in the fields to become a Seraph. Pulling a wheelbarrow full of pig excrement to shovel onto the cornfields was certainly one he’d be glad to never, ever have to do again.
“Two more weeks,” he said as he jammed the shovel into the stinking brown pile. “Just two more weeks.”
It’d been six days since their evaluations revealed their water and fire affinities, and Aunt Bethy had spent every one telling whomever would listen how proud she was. For Kael, it was a welcome change from the dour attitude she’d possessed whenever they’d suggested going to Center for testing in the years prior. For all her fears for their safety, and how they might suffer a similar fate as their parents, Bethy truly was proud of them.
One of the few benefits of shoveling the manure (or curses, depending on the mood he was in) was the solitude it earned him. Bree was with Aunt Bethy and a dozen other men and women, ripping out weeds that lined the entire acre of crops. Kael trailed far behind them, shoveling only when they were done and had moved on. It was tedious, tiresome, and involved multiple trips to the pigpens a quarter mile away, but at least he didn’t have to endure the endless gossip of Aunt Bethy and her friends while picking weeds. Bree insisted he was being too harsh, but seriously, did he really need to hear the weekly update on whether their neighbor Judy would marry her current boyfriend, Raphael, or instead return to that oh-so-sweet Thomas boy up the road at Glensbee?
Besides, the answer was obvious. Thomas sounded like a complete dick, what with originally dumping Judy after a single argument over…
“Kael Skyborn?”
The voice startled Kael in midshovel, causing him to spill half of it just ahead of his feet. Holding in a curse, he turned to address his surprise visitor. The man had a ratty look to him despite his carefully cut short black hair and his prim, clean robe. He looked similar to the theotechs in that regard, only the robe was brown instead of a bright scarlet.
“I am,” he said, pulling down the pale blue rag he’d tied over his face to help against the smell. “Can I help you?”
“Indeed you may,” said the stranger. “You can open your ears and mind to what I have to say.” Kael frowned, not liking the sound of that at all. “My name is Thane Ackels of Elern,” he continued, offering his hand. “Servant of God and disciple of Johan.”
Kael left the hand hanging before him in the air.
“Not interested,” he said, pointedly putting his back to the man and lifting his shovel. “Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
“I ask only for a moment,” Thane said, looping around. His leather shoes were quickly covered with dirt and pig shit, but Kael wasn’t sure he even noticed. “Just a moment, is that truly so great a sacrifice, even when your work is this… noble?”
Kael jammed the shovel into the soft earth.
“Fine,” he said. “Say whatever you’re here to say and then go.”
Thane smiled at him as if they were suddenly great friends.
“They’ve warned you about speaking to me, haven’t they?” he asked. “The knights, or perhaps one of the theotechs in Center?”
Kael thought about lying, dismissed the idea.
“Yes,” he said. “I know what lies you’d spread. Like I said, I have no interest.”
Thane chuckled.
“Lies? No, Kael, I do not come with lies. I come to expose the lies. The knight who escorted you to the tests, he told you all about Center’s grandeur, didn’t he? About the noble role of the theotechs? How they serve the Speaker for the Angels, who in his humility relays the angels’ wisdom down to us low, pathetic mortals? Did he outright claim theotechs are solely responsible for our survival or merely insinuate it?”
Kael was caught off guard by the sudden barrage of questions, and he wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“And you’d what, deny it?” he asked back. “The theotechs are the ones who create the elemental prisms. Without them, our civilization crumbles.”
“Indeed, the elements,” Thane said. “Their creation is a secret, one they’ve not shared with the other islands. I wonder why? Do you think it is for our safety, or because that is a power over us they refuse to relinquish?”
Kael glanced about, wishing someone might come join him after all. He hated being alone with this man. He seemed so sure of himself, so confident. But he was a liar, Kael told himself. A careful liar spreading heresy.
“I’m not one to know,” he said.
“No, but Johan does. He has seen the truths hiding behind the lies. He has shown the bravery to ask the questions you refuse to ask. The independence of the five holy islands is a lie. We are all slaves to Center, Kael, and willfully blind to the machinations of our jailers.”
“Enough,” Kael said. “Just… enough. If Center wanted to imprison us, they would have already.”
“Not when manipulation is easier. Let a man think he is king of his own prison and he will never leave. The t
heotechs don’t need their knights stationed at every street, forcing us to obey. They just need to carefully ration out the elements. Let the five smaller islands squabble with one another. Let our best slaughter each other in carefully arranged duels and skirmishes. Should someone become too strong, well, it wouldn’t take much to cull the herd like the cattle we are.”
“They’d never do that,” Kael said. His grip on the shovel tightened. “The theotechs are holy men and women, and they serve us as equally as they serve Center. They’d never sacrifice our lives so callously. It goes against God’s word.”
“Is that so?” Thane asked, and he shook his head sadly. “Ask your aunt about the ghost plague sometime. See if you still think we are anything but animals to them. The Speaker no longer hears the word of God. The angels do not whisper in his ears. Marius Prakt seeks only power, absolute power. This peace we know is no peace at all, for it is built on the backs of demons. The time comes when the illusion will not suffice, when Center’s knights and soldiers will cross the skies amid a bloodred sunset. You’re soon to become one of Weshern’s Seraphim, which means you are one of the precious few who will have a chance to resist. When that moment arrives, promise me this, Kael. Promise me you will fight back. Promise me you will draw your blades and ready your gauntlet to unleash Hell against those who would enslave your family and friends.”
Kael wanted to hear no more. He lifted his shovel, holding it like he would a weapon.
“I think it’s time you leave,” he said. “I’m done listening to the words of a serpent.”
“You’ve listened to the words of serpents all your life,” Thane said. “Johan is the true servant of God. The Speaker once served the will of Heaven, but now he is a devil craving power. We must overthrow him. We must return to the true faith.” Thane reached into a deep pocket of his robe and pulled out a single sheet of paper with long lines of text scribbled on both sides. “Take this. Read it, cherish it, and keep it close.”
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