Feather (Angels of Elysium Book 1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  There were openings between the shops and restaurants that led to winding streets. I stopped next to one and took in the strip of sky that ran the length of it even though solid rock covered the passage.

  “The sky is an illusion, the stone magicked to mirror the elysian firmament, just like in the guilds.”

  Mirror? It hadn’t been a real sky I’d spent my childhood watching? Real stars I’d wished on? “The Ophanim lied to us, Seraph. They told us it was real.”

  “They told you what they were taught to say.”

  “They are taught to lie? What an example that sets for us.”

  He ground his teeth but didn’t dispute my claim. I sensed his patience wearing thin, but I took my time exploring this new world. He’d forced me inside of it, so it was only fair he paid the price of my curiosity.

  There were no street plaques or numbers. How was I supposed to find my way back if I wandered?

  As we passed beneath one of the waterfalls, I reached out and glided my hand through the ayim. It slid through my fingers like Jarod’s hair in the mornings when the gel relinquished its hold on his soft locks. “Are there no addresses?”

  “How did you find your way to your dorm room in the guilds?”

  I snatched my hand and dried it on my flowy black pants even though my fingers weren’t wet. “With all due respect, Seraph, Elysium isn’t the size of a guild.”

  “You have a century to map out the capital and surrounding cities and learn each street by heart.” His boots lifted off the ground and he hovered. “Your floor is the next one up. There are no stairs.”

  I sensed he was waiting for me to flap my angel-given gift, but I didn’t. “Will you help me up, Seraph?”

  “How will you get down later?”

  “I’ll figure out some way.” I’d probably have no choice but to fly and dreaded the prospect, but I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.

  He offered a stiff hand, which I took. My fingers tightened around his as he yanked me up. As soon as we landed, he let go and booked it down a road that was much wider than all the others we’d passed. “Behind each waterfall, you’ll find the arteries of the Lev—our version of avenues.”

  I studied the curtain of ayim a moment longer, then the street below—far below—before gulping and trotting to catch up with him. Bronze doors and sparkling panes of glass lined the quartz walls, along which crawled vines heavy with blooms that fragranced the glowing white street.

  I craned my neck to stare at the angelic trickery of sky, attempting to find fault in the illusion, but there was none, the same way there had been none in the guilds.

  Oomph. Distracted by the fake sky, I bumped into Asher’s coppery-turquoise feathers. He gripped my shoulders to keep me from flopping backward, then tucked his wings in, and let go.

  Behind him, the glittery sea foamed and puffed. “Is that also an illusion?”

  “No, the sea is real. And so are the Nirvana Mountains in the distance.”

  Tall peaks covered in glow-in-the-dark blooms crenellated the cobalt sky. I remembered Ophan Mira telling us the fluffy flowers were slippery like snow but warm like desert sand.

  “Because you’re a Verity, you have a sea view,” he explained.

  “I shouldn’t get special treatment because of my origin.”

  “I didn’t make the rules, Leigh.”

  “Perhaps not, but you’re one of the Seven, so you have the power to change them.”

  He narrowed his eyes that glowed like the stars over my street.

  “Just like you unblocked Jarod’s score.” My fingers curled into my palms. “Just like you signed me off from my mission.”

  His eyes hardened along with his voice. “Completing your wings was Jarod’s idea, Leigh. Not mine.”

  “Leigh?”

  The flow of blood in my veins stilled at the familiar sounding of my name. Slowly I spun, coming face to face with my past.

  My present.

  And I supposed, since both our wings were now complete, my future.

  Chapter 63

  Eve landed on the edge of the avenue, her body haloed by her yellow-gold wings and the puffing sea at her back. “Good evening, Seraph.”

  Too stunned to utter a word, I simply stared. At her oval face, her hazel eyes, and the long swoop of dark hair that fell over a dress made of several layers of red chiffon accented with a gold leather belt.

  “I just dined with Mother who told me you were ascending, Leigh.” Eve was slightly flushed, as though she’d flown at wind speed to arrive before I did. “I didn’t believe her, but here you are.”

  “Here I am,” I said drily.

  Asher cleared his throat. “You two are actually neighbors. We thought you’d appreciate having a friend close by.”

  Oh, the sweet torture. I supposed he hadn’t been informed of our little spat back in Paris. Unless he had but deemed our bond too solid to be destroyed by barbed words.

  Eve plucked a small bloom from the wall and twirled it beneath her nose. “Mother wanted a word with you, Seraph. At your convenience, of course. You can find her at Great Oak.”

  As he began retreating down the avenue, I called out, “Will I see you tomorrow, Seraph?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at me. “If you want to.”

  What I wanted was to return to Earth and see Jarod, but that was impossible. Seconds ticked by as he waited for my response. One that never came, because I didn’t want to give Asher the impression I desired anything more than his friendship. Until he got betrothed or Jarod arrived—whichever happened first—I’d keep my distance.

  “Good night,” he said in a tight voice that rumbled through the street, garnering more than a little attention from the angels passing by or watching from their windows.

  Once he was gone, Eve said, “I didn’t request this living arrangement.”

  “I imagined as much.”

  She dropped her hand to her side, bruising the small flower in her fist. “I apologized. What more do you want from me?”

  “I’m not angry about Jarod. I was at first, but Jarod’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, so thank you for him.”

  Her long, arched brows dipped low. “Then why did you blow up at me in Paris?”

  “You mean, when you insulted Celeste?”

  “She insulted me back.”

  “Eve, you think you’re better than everyone else, and in many ways, you are, but don’t expect to have real friends if you belittle them at every opportunity.”

  She gasped, the flower sliding from her fingers and drifting like a feather toward the buffed stone. “Belittle them? Who did I belittle?”

  “Me.” Even though I kept my voice low, the heat of it seared the air. “You’ve always disparaged me—my weight, my proclivity for romance novels, my deliberate slowness to accomplish missions. I’m far from perfect, and considering all that’s happened to me in the last few days, this”—I gestured between us—“feels ridiculous, not to mention petty. I don’t want to fight with you. I’m tired of fighting. I’m plain tired.”

  “You look exhausted.”

  I shut my eyes, annoyance threatening to boil over.

  “But most of all, you look depressed.”

  My gummy lids opened. “Wow. Thanks. Criticism was exactly what I needed.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that—” She squared her shoulders. “Forget it. I’m the bad guy, and that’s all I’ll ever be to you.” Her wings unfolded, and her sandaled feet lifted off the ground.

  Before she could take off, I said, “I didn’t want to ascend. Jarod and Asher took the choice away from me. The Seraphim signed me off so I could start earning feathers again. I’m trying not to be angry at either of them . . . or at you. I don’t want this anger. I hate anger. It’s toxic.”

  Eve turned toward me, eyes flashing with pity. “I’m sorry. What they did wasn’t fair or right.”

  I lowered my gaze to the flower whose petals fluttered like ladybug wings. In so many w
ays, we shared the same fate—plucked, taken, and tossed, but where it would wither, I would live forever. Unless cut flowers didn’t wilt here?

  “I don’t understand how he made it into the system in the first place,” she said. “It ranks souls, and he has none.”

  The roots of my hair felt like they’d caught fire. “Just because he’s done some bad things, it doesn’t make him soulless.”

  “He’s a Nephilim, and you know, as well as I do, that they don’t have souls. That’s why no Malakim goes to them upon their deaths.”

  My heart started to bang. “If that were true, he wouldn’t be in the system.”

  “The Ophanim explained—”

  “They also explained the sky in the guilds was real, so forgive me if I don’t give a crap about what they’ve told us! If Jarod’s in the system, then he has a soul!”

  The street turned ghoulishly silent.

  “His father was human,” I added, voice shaking, “and all humans have souls.”

  Eve’s pointy chin seemed to become pointier. “Nephilim blood poisons souls. Even if he’s a hybrid—”

  “He’s the first of his kind!”

  “My mother told me she knew another Nephilim hybrid—soulless like your Triple.”

  “Jarod’s not a Triple. Not anymore!”

  “It doesn’t change—”

  “Stop it!” I pressed my palms against my ears, and my aching heart stuttered to a halt, braking the flow of blood beneath my skin.

  Eve’s eyebrows pinched together as though in genuine regret.

  Slowly, so very slowly, I lowered my hands. “I need—I need to talk—to talk to Asher. Where’s—where’s Great Oak?” My throat was so dry the words were brittle and hurt to push out.

  Eve sighed. “Come. I’ll take you.” She started down the avenue, past wide-eyed angels.

  When I didn’t follow, she returned to my side and took my limp hand. I stumbled after her. She jumped off the ledge behind the waterfall, and I plummeted down with her, her spread wings decelerating our fall, then she tugged me past the waterfall and farther around the Lev, past groups of angels sharing laughs and drinks beside the fountain and couples dining by angel-fire.

  I bumped into someone. “S-Sorry.” If it weren’t for Eve’s firm grasp, I would’ve keeled right over from the impact.

  The angel I’d collided with—a man with broad shoulders and an even broader smile—stared down at me, then at my wings. “You can bump into me whenever you want, Silver.”

  Eve rolled her eyes. “You’re wasting your breath, not to mention your extraordinarily original pickup line, Jax.”

  I gaped dumbly up at him as Eve dragged me farther around the arc, stopping sometime after the fourth waterfall. Three angels dressed in white tunics stood shoulder to shoulder. As we approached, one of them raised a palm. “This restaurant is closed until further notice.”

  “Erelim aren’t reputed for their intelligence,” Eve muttered to me. Then to them, she said, “I was just here. Have you already forgotten who I am?”

  One of them elbowed the other, then tipped his head toward the mirrored façade behind them. In perfect synchronicity, they parted, sanctioning our entry. Eve released me as she traipsed past them, head held high and gilded wingtips extended as though she were one of the Seven.

  The inside of the restaurant—was it a restaurant?—was entirely made of copper from the mosaic floor to the hammered slabs paneling the wall to the copper-toned mirrored ceiling looming the equivalent of two stories high. The only thing not made of copper was the fat tree rooted at the center of the restaurant whose branches either supported slices of green marble or had been whittled into stumps to perch on.

  A set of fuchsia wings tipped in platinum swayed from one of the uppermost branches where a wingless waiter deposited two slender flutes filled with something clear and bubbly.

  “Do you want me to stay?” Eve asked quietly.

  Before I could answer, my name rung out. Seraph Claire broke into a smile statelier than the circlet ringing her black hair. “What a splendid surprise. Seraph Asher was just informing me of your arrival. Join us for a drink. Now that you’ve ascended, you may finally sample something a little more grown-up than Angel Bubbles.”

  I had no desire to drink. Besides, I’d sampled plenty of grown-up drinks before my forced ascension. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a pressing matter to discuss with Seraph Asher.”

  Claire tilted her head to the side. “If this concerns your sinner, then speak freely.”

  I ground my stilettos into the mosaic floor. “Will he ascend?”

  Seraph Claire’s eyebrows pinched. “He’s a Nephilim, Leigh. Nephilim don’t ascend.”

  I gripped my elbows. “He’s only part Nephilim.”

  “His Nephilim half cancels his human half.”

  “Seraph Asher said his rank was dropping, which means he has a soul.”

  She pursed her lips.

  “Right?” My question quivered through the air like the feathers at my back.

  “We do not allow Nephilim souls to be harvested.”

  “They’re not soulless, Mother?” Eve sputtered.

  Claire fixed her emerald eyes on her daughter. “Every living creature possesses a soul, but Nephilim souls are toxic to our kind, and, thus, cannot be reaped.”

  Tears pricked my eyes, turned the tree into a gnarled giant. “That’s not fair.”

  “What isn’t fair? That we choose not to poison our realm with their noxious souls?” Claire’s tone was as cold as the layer of ice enveloping my skin.

  “Why did you tell Jarod he was going to ascend, Seraph Asher?”

  His turquoise wings tensed at his back. “I didn’t, Leigh. Jarod knows he cannot enter our world.”

  “But he said—he said . . .” That he’d be right behind me. His promise rang through my throbbing skull, turning the pounding at my temples agonizing.

  Smears of yellow and red coagulated before me. I blinked to find Eve moving closer to me. She didn’t reach out, just stood there, her arm touching mine, lending me a wisp of solidarity.

  It was my turn to save you.

  He’d tricked me so that I wouldn’t sacrifice my wings.

  “He’s nobler than I gave him credit for,” Claire admitted.

  I swallowed, and it left a trail of fire inside my clenching throat.

  Eve’s arm slid around my hunched shoulders. “Mother, he saved Leigh, a Verity no less. That should grant his soul access to Elysium.”

  “The law is the law,” Claire said.

  Eve’s jaw clenched. “You’d be dooming a deserving soul.”

  “A deserving soul? He is a Nephilim, Eve!”

  “But he has a soul, Mother. At least, bring his case up with the Council.”

  “You may be my daughter, but this does not permit your tongue to run wild. Besides, Seraph Asher brought his case up already, and we voted. End of story.”

  I touched Eve’s forearm, appreciating her unexpected support. “I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me.”

  Her lips pressed into a hard line. “It’s not right,” she murmured.

  “Seraph Asher,” I said tonelessly, “please burn away my wings.”

  Color leached out of Asher’s skin.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Claire said. “No one’s burning anyone’s wings off.”

  I gripped my elbows tighter, my palms molding around the sharp bones. “They are mine to do as I wish, and I want them gone.”

  Eve’s lids pulled up so high white surrounded her hazel irises. “Leigh, no!”

  Asher pumped his great wings. A heartbeat later, he landed in front of me. “Jarod sent you away to protect you.”

  “It wasn’t his decision to make. Or yours. It was mine!”

  Claire flew down from her perch, her bright pink wings dappling the copper mosaic. “You are behaving like a petulant child.”

  My blood boiled in my veins as though angel-fire now irrigated my bod
y. But it didn’t. Not yet. Not ever. I turned toward Asher. “Burn. Them. Away.”

  Raking his hand through his long hair, Asher hissed, “He wouldn’t want this.”

  “Again, they are my wings. Mine to keep or discard, and I choose to discard them.”

  I didn’t think Asher could grow any paler but his skin turned alabaster. “Leigh, please take some time to reflect on this.”

  I stretched them out so his fire could have unobstructed access to each silvery barb. “Now.”

  “Fletching manners are deplorable,” Claire huffed. “If we’d talked like this to our predecessors, they would’ve burned more than our wings.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I apologize for being such a terrible disappointment to our race.” I released my elbows. “On the upside, as soon as your fellow archangel removes my wings, you will be rid of me and my deplorable manners.”

  All of Claire’s features tautened. “If she doesn’t appreciate her gift, then by all means, remove them, Seraph.”

  Eve’s arm stiffened around my shoulders.

  “Leigh, please,” Asher murmured raucously. “It’ll break your parents’ heart.”

  “My parents? You mean those angels who gave birth to me but never visited because they were too worried I would fail? Excuse me if I sound ungrateful, but I favor my heart over theirs.”

  “Leigh.” My name fell from his lips, a hollow murmur.

  Eve’s wide eyes glistened. “Give yourself a few days to think about this. Please,” she added in a tremulous whisper.

  “Your heart may be broken,” Asher said, “but it’ll heal, and one day, you’ll thank Jarod for the gift he gave you.”

  “I understand the consequences of my choice. I understand the pain will terminate my immortality and scar my mind, but my wish remains unchanged. I want to return to Earth and be with the man I love. Now, will you do it here, or must it be done in the Shevaya?”

  “Have you even used your wings?” Asher asked.

  I clamped my molars. “Here, or in the Shevaya?”

  “Fly once, Leigh. Circle Elysium. Look our world in its face before you decide to forsake it.” Did he really think that a gravity-free stroll would miraculously alter my will? “Once. And if after that, you still desire to renounce your heritage, I will strip you of it.”