Gabriel hadn’t said the full truth. Azrael knew that he’d meant she couldn’t endure a trial of Light while infected with the Dark.
When trained hands massaged salve into the tight knots of her neck, she didn’t fight it. Rosemary and Thyme masked its putrid scent, and she forced herself to relax. The wave of her nausea eased and the thunder of her headache retreated to a dull throb.
“What is that stuff?” Azrael murmured.
“Unicorn tears, m’lady.”
Azrael didn’t ask if that was a joke.
“They’re called Healers for a reason,” Gabriel said with a wry smile.
Azrael returned a smile, but couldn’t look at him longer than a second before the images came flooding back. His foreign, violet eyes and his lips touching Alexandria’s. The way she’d looked at him, such unadulterated joy. What had happened after that day? Did he still love her, even after three thousand years?
Guilt tugged at her heart. She shouldn’t be worrying about Gabriel’s past. Meretta’s future was what was really important. Even now, she was still in bed, all because she’d failed to protect her. She deserved better.
“Well, since we’re here, do you think it’d be okay to check on Meretta?” Azrael asked.
Gabriel hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose that’d be all right, as long as you keep to bed rest soon. Do you feel up to moving around? Don’t let the salve give you a false sense of health.”
“Yes. I just want to check on her.”
He rose, picking up his thin-backed chair and leaning it against himself. “Come along then, you can sit in my chair so that the Healers won’t fuss at me for letting you exert yourself.”
Walking around the corner to Meretta’s room, Gabriel sighed before squeezing through the narrow halls. It was even more difficult as he dragged the chair behind him, his wings bent awkwardly, nearly grazing the ceiling. But finally Gabriel situated himself and placed the chair next to Meretta’s bed. Motioning for Azrael to sit, he remained standing within arm’s reach.
Azrael sat gingerly, but the back of the chair grazed her tender skin. Even through the thin robes it felt like hot coals. She hissed and lurched forward, nearly oversetting the unbalanced chair. Meretta’s eyes flickered at the noise.
“Meretta?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
Relief flooded her when Meretta’s eyes fluttered open and the golden film had nearly vanished.
Meretta squinted as if she couldn’t quite make Azrael out. “Why’s it so bright in here?” she murmured.
“It’s the effects of overexposure to Light,” Gabriel supplied.
Her gaze flicked to him nervously, and she relaxed when he rustled his wings. “What happened?”
Azrael felt the tears pricking at the edges of her eyes and tried to hold them back. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Azrael saved your life,” Gabriel interrupted. “Mehmet tried to kill you both.”
Meretta’s eyes fluttered and she arched her neck stiffly. “You saved us.”
Azrael shook her head. “I hurt you.”
Meretta gave a small laugh. “No, you saved me.” She held her arms wide.
Azrael waved her hands. “Oh no no, I don’t want to hurt you, Meretta. You’re wounded.”
She wobbled her arms awkwardly. “Oh nonsense, I’m fine. Hug me, my sister.”
The brimming tears rolled down her cheeks. Azrael gave in and hugged Meretta as gently as she could.
After a few shaky breaths, Azrael released the embrace. “You’ll be back on your feet before you know it!” She squeezed Meretta’s hand. “You’ll see. And then you can help me talk to Mita, just like you wanted. It’ll be great. I’m sure we’ll all turn out to be best of friends. You always know how to bring people together.”
Meretta smiled. “That sounds wonderful. I can’t wait.” Her words faltered as her eyes drooped.
“I think it’s time to let her sleep,” Gabriel whispered.
Azrael patted Meretta’s hand one last time. “Goodbye, Meretta,” she whispered.
A glimmer of a smile lit Meretta’s plump lips, and Azrael could just barely make out her farewell before her chest slowed to the rise and fall of sleep.
Azrael looked to Gabriel as they retreated to her own room. “Thanks for letting me see her. She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?” Azrael dared to hope that Meretta would make it through this. They both would.
Gabriel chuckled. “Yes, she’ll be fine. Like I’ve been saying, you did the right thing.”
Finally, Azrael’s guilt melted away. Ignoring the stings and throbs, she laid down in her own bed with a sigh. It was as if an enormous weight had been lifted from her chest.
Gabriel placed his chair next to the bed. “I’ll stay with you until Queen Ceres returns. She might be a while, so try to get some rest. You’ll be safe, I promise.”
Azrael snuggled into the herb-scented sheets and her own eyelids drooped. “Thank you, Gabriel,” she whispered before drifting off to sleep.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Traitor
MITA cowered in the corner of her room. She trembled amidst the wooden practice tools and scattered papers. When she’d seen Meretta’s broken body whisked away to the Healing Ward, she was sure that they’d find the footprints leading away from the Manor. Or perhaps a servant had spotted her sneaking into Azrael’s room. But no one came to drag her away. No one even gave her a second glance; she remained undiscovered in her act of treason. But still, she trembled.
She’d failed.
How could she have failed? The task was simple: place the orb in Azrael’s room. The demon hadn’t specified where, or how close to her bed, so she’d placed it on the floor next to the sleeping girl. But that sleeping girl had not been Azrael. It’d been Meretta. Had that been her fatal mistake? Had it given Azrael enough time to react?
It didn’t matter. Azrael still lived. She wrapped her hands over her face and sobbed into them.
Why do you cry, sweet Mita?
Mita shot her head up. The voice was smooth as silk and echoed in her tiny chambers, but no one was there.
“Demon?” she whispered. “Is that you?”
Yes, it is I. I can feel your sorrow. I can feel your pain. Do you regret what you have done?
She pushed herself flat against the wall. He didn’t know? Should she lie?
Why are you silent? Are you afraid?
“Show yourself.” Her voice trembled and she didn’t dare say another word lest he smell her fear.
But I’m not here, not in the room. You have let me into your heart. I’m your ally now. But I will accommodate your request as best I can.
Mita froze as a dark silhouette formed and loomed over her. Her palms went sweaty as she grasped onto her ankles and pulled her legs into her chest.
Shhh. Relax, sweet Mita. I will keep my promise. You have done as I asked?
She gulped down the lump in her throat. “Yes.”
Then why does your little heart thunder in your ears?
Mita lowered her head in-between her knees. “Because, Azrael lives. I’ve failed. They’ll find out it was me, and I’ll be executed. It was all for nothing.”
There was a moment of silence, and Mita swore she could feel frost on her nose.
She’s strong, sweet Mita. Stronger than either of us anticipated. You have done only as was asked. It is I who has failed you.
Mita managed to peek over the edge of her knee. The dark form had kneeled, as if to look into her face with its masked head. It didn’t make her feel afraid, but comforted. She wasn’t alone.
“What do I do now?”
The voice chuckled. It was deep and sweet, bringing a cautious smile to Mita’s lips.
You will take a risk. You’ll do what my own magic cannot. You’ll achieve what I could not. In this act, you will become the most powerful member of my clan.
Mita’s Light-brightened eyes opened wide and cast the furniture’s shadows across the room. “How?”
Y
ou are Hallowed. Only you can perform the ritual that will change a body beyond recognition. Only you can embed Divine Material into the skin.
“Divine Material?”
Yes. Embed it into yourself. Kill those who are closest to Azrael’s heart. Bring her suffering and pain.
Mita crawled across the floor and reached to the shadow. It was only a dark wisp in her hands. “Gabriel said I would go mad if I did that. Why do you ask me to kill them? How will this help us?”
Learn to trust me, sweet Mita. Tattoo yourself. We have others among us who have done this very act. They are the most powerful creatures in Mhakdar. Become one of them. Kill. Seal the suffering that will play an integral part in your change. We are Fallen, sweet Mita. We don’t thrive on the Light, but the pain and suffering of the Dark. Mutate it. Manipulate it. Become one of us.
Mita remained still on her hands and knees, contemplating the demon’s request. His hold on her was strong. Even stronger was her desire for what should have always been hers. She would take what Azrael had taken from her. Then...she would go to her true home.
AWAKING to a nagging headache, Azrael stretched and rubbed her head. She looked around and discovered a small grey bottle. She popped it open, contemplating again if unicorns really existed before snorting a laugh and dabbing the bottle against her palm. A sticky liquid trickled out and she rubbed it across the back of her neck. Her stiffness eased, and the stings on her lower back dulled. She appreciated the reprieve, especially since she would be completing the next part of her Acceptance soon, perhaps even today.
When her gaze drifted to Gabriel, still sleeping and his wings splayed behind him like a casually tossed cape, she realized it was still late at night. But something had woken her, something that had felt like a spark of pain, and she realized it was still there. A strange ache that wasn’t in her body, but without.
Rising slowly and rubbing her eyes, Azrael tottered over to Gabriel’s still form. She gently shook his shoulder.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, “Gabriel, wake up.”
Slowly opening his sea-blue eyes he handsomely brushed back his white hair. He blinked at her for a moment, his brow furrowing. “Is it morning?” His words came out fumbled and soft.
Azrael shrugged. There were no windows to speak of in the Healing Chambers, so she couldn’t be absolutely sure.
When he saw her unease he instantly was awake. “What is it?”
Azrael waved at the air. “It’s probably nothing. I just—”
Gabriel hissed and rushed to his feet.
That’s when Azrael really felt it. A lingering scent had drifted into her room and hit her in the chest, and she realized it was an emotion. Someone else’s emotion, and it was terror.
Azrael broke into a run until she reached Meretta’s room. She flung the drapes aside and froze when she saw a large form slumped over Meretta’s bed.
She trembled, approaching it. Then she saw the soft curls of hair mingling with Meretta’s. It was the Queen.
“Majesty?” Azrael ventured.
As she got closer she saw the Queen had placed her hand over Meretta’s face. It should have been a stifling position, and neither moved.
Azrael’s heart clenched when she forced herself to roll the Queen over. A scream lodged itself deep in her throat at the sight of the Queen’s eyes dark as pitch as if her pupils had overtaken her irises completely. Her face was aged, contorted with agony.
The Queen was dead.
Azrael desperately peeled the Queen’s fingers from Meretta’s face as her heart broke into a thousand pieces.
She pleaded with the Divine. There had always been the sinking possibility that the Queen’s time was soon coming to an end, but not Meretta. Please, not dear Meretta.
Azrael screamed, drawn into the void of Meretta’s lifeless eyes.
“Not my Meretta, not her too,” Azrael cried.
“Blessed Divine,” Gabriel said breathlessly, having finally squeezed his way through the corridors.
Azrael collapsed as shock seized her lungs. She covered her silently screaming mouth with a shaking hand. Pain beyond her comprehension swept in like flames. It was a thousandfold worse than the Acceptance had ever been. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the lifeless bodies frozen in agony, her mother and her sister torn from her life.
Finally, her lungs unhinged and the sobs came. They took over her body like a massive force, ripping ragged breaths through her chest. Then a new pain came, a spear that snapped through her spine and sent flashes of red sparking across her vision.
“Gabriel!” Azrael cried as another blinding snap thundered through her shoulders. Had she been stabbed? Had the demon found another way in and was now tearing the flesh from her bones with its teeth?
They’re dead, her thoughts reminded her. Nothing mattered. No pain could punish her enough for letting them die.
Her soul filled with agony, the Darkness squelching the Light. A battle ensued, the Light retaliating and sending blazing scars through her soul.
Azrael felt blinded by the loss. She was truly alone, for the first time in her life. She had no one.
“Azrael!” Gabriel’s voice shouted through the fog of her grief. “Don’t do this! I can’t lose you. I can’t do this. Not again.”
His words struck a cord and Azrael stilled in that place between life and death. It was just long enough for her to survive the next wave of agony that speared through her chest.
The raw stab of reality tore through her mind as the muscles in her back stretched and contracted in an unnatural way. A new scream erupted from her mouth as her spine loosened and made an audible crack. An unbelievable pain spread, sending shards through her shoulders and black discs dancing across her vision. Her body rejected oblivion and she endured the pain.
“Blessed Divine. It’s happening,” Gabriel whispered, as he stared in disbelief.
Azrael screamed again, a sob catching in her throat. “What’s happening...to me?” She cried out. The pain shook her body to the core as a hot sticky stream of blood slipped down the ridge of her spine. She held herself up on the floor, her elbows buckling under the intensity of pain. I must endure. I must outlast this. The floor became slippery as sweat and blood trickled over her knuckles.
Azrael’s eyes shot open and blood spat out of her mouth with a gurgle. A muffled scream swelled in her throat as two knives sliced through her back. She screamed and wailed with each tear of her skin. The patterns on her lower back sizzled her flesh in the effort to keep her alive. The world spun as she convulsed with seizure.
What’s happening?
Her grief felt like it had transformed to pieces of glass slowly slicing through her body; a pain a hundred times greater than the searing burns cascading down her shoulders and back.
Separate voices were calling now. They’d made it past the demon that’d done this. They were now here for her.
“We must complete the Acceptance, now!” Gabriel shouted.
Azrael clawed at the ground, writhing on the floor as her voice growled and gurgled, spitting out blood and curses.
Azrael slipped to the ground and the cool marble tiles stuck against her cheek. I’m going to die here. Just like the hybrids before me... I will join the Queen... Meretta...
A hand reached to pick her up. She helplessly whimpered as she was dropped back onto the ground, the hand unable to keep its grip through the slick blood.
Azrael’s back was alive with fire. Spasms shot up and down her spine and two distorted welts were trying to squeeze out of the slits that had been made in her flesh. No, she hadn’t been stabbed. Something’s ripping me up from the inside.
“Her body can’t handle this! She needs all of the Divine Material in her body to survive! Help me take her! Now!” Gabriel’s voice boomed. Hands rushed at Azrael and pulled her along with them. She screamed and protested. Couldn’t they just let her die? Why would they be so cruel as to keep her in a world without Meretta or the Queen?
Azrael lur
ched forward as the welts in her back grew with a thrust, ripping her skin further apart. Hot blood spurt onto her neck and ran down her arms. She fell to the ground again, the pools of blood making it impossible to keep ahold by her arms. Finally, she was pulled along by her robes, no one seeming to care as they ripped and shredded.
A gruff voice rumbled in anger. “How do you expect me to work like this? There’s blood everywhere!”
Azrael was thrown onto a table and she writhed and cried out hoarsely as hands held her down.
“She’s Turning! You must complete the Acceptance! Now!”
Azrael scarcely understood what was going on as pain cascaded across her vision in heaving waves. The sight of her dead Queen and Meretta flashed in her mind.
She coughed and gagged as blood continued to trickle across her lips, tasting bitter and metallic. Cascading stabs of a hot poker rippled down her spine.
Azrael didn’t know how to survive. Without them, she was dead. There was no reason to live. She weakly cried out as fire ran down her back, and then her shoulder blades heaved and broke like twigs. Blood ran out of her mouth like a river as she coughed and gagged until she felt as if she wasn’t even breathing anymore. Darkness slowly promised to give refuge.
“We need you, Azrael! I need you...”
Who was that? Gabriel? Does it matter... Azrael wanted to welcome the darkness. Seek its cold embrace. Anything to be free of this torment. Go anywhere other than this nightmare. She let herself be taken away by the shrouds of blackness. Death? That couldn’t scare her, not now. She welcomed it gratefully.
Somewhere, there was a sound. Or maybe she heard nothing, perhaps it was a feeling. But there was a presence, somewhere close. Azrael lifted her eyes, and searched. Have the Divine come for me at last? There, barely visible in the darkness, an approaching figure. Eyes, golden and strange, but captivating, manifested and stared back at her. They beckoned. They called.
“Don’t leave me... I need you...”
Someone...needs me... Azrael reluctantly resisted the hope of refuge inside of the blackness. She turned away from the unknown presence. Her heart mourned for Meretta and the Queen. But she resisted the darkness. He... needs me... With a heavy heart, she let the Light take over, let the Light sear away the Darkness. Those promising eyes closed with resign.
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