Finding himself as the object of intense scrutiny from the five elders, Alex felt his certainty of being able to convince them slip.
Richard hadn’t spoken yet. He was the leader, the owner of Lighthaven, the descendent of a long line of Beacons. He roused himself now. “We would be best served washing our hands of Alex and Zara. The risks of keeping them here are just too high. I don’t believe judging them will work, and we aren’t murderers, so that is our only choice.”
Alex was frozen, his mind working frantically to uncover an avenue of persuasion he hadn’t considered yet. He cursed his clumsy mortal mind—it was so much more limited than his angelic form, barely able to hold onto more than one thread of thought at one time.
If he were in his angelic form, he could have passed himself off as a Light mage without too much trouble, much the same way Draconel had.
He should be here right now. Where the hell has he been?
Alex hadn’t seen him since the day they arrived at the enclave. Maybe he thought he’d fulfilled his duty in ensuring Alex and Zara were safe and didn’t think he was needed any longer. He’d only involved himself out of curiosity over Zara. If his examination of her had answered all of his questions, he may have washed his hands of the situation.
As he stood there, unable to summon another argument to save himself and Zara, the rest of the elders rallied behind their leader’s decision.
Richard was in the middle of pronouncing his verdict when Alex interrupted him.
“Wait.” He gritted his teeth. He would break a cardinal rule of Heaven if he did this, but there wasn’t another way out. If they were expelled from Lighthaven, Zara would be put in too much danger, and he couldn’t allow that. “I’m not what I seem, it’s true. But you couldn’t be more wrong in your guess.”
His words were not comforting to the elders. They braced themselves, hands coming up to ward him off as if he was about to call down a blast of Darkness that would swallow their souls.
If the consequences of the next few moments weren’t so important, he would have laughed.
Alex took a deep breath, his decision crystallizing within him. It was the only way.
“My real name is Alexandriel. I’m an angel, of the order of Guardians, and a former Attendant of the Light.”
Silence met his proclamation.
The elders stared at him, then looked at each other.
“I was reprimanded for interfering with mortal affairs when I saved Zara from the first Dark mages who attempted to kidnap her. As judgment, I was sentenced to live a full life in a mortal body without access to my angelic abilities and powers. That’s how I know so much about the Light and Darkness despite having no powers of my own.”
Again, he could have laughed at the looks on their faces if it wouldn’t ruin his chances of being taken seriously.
“That’s preposterous,” Geoffrey said. “Everyone knows angels are a myth.”
Niels and Lance nodded in agreement.
Alex was dumbfounded. “Where do you think your magical powers come from?”
More than a few of the elders shifted uncomfortably.
“That is a legend,” Richard said. “Magic is something that some people just have and pass down to their children.”
These fools.
“Your most powerful adversaries in the Darkness are literally called Angel Killers. Do you think that was just some cute name they brainstormed at a meeting one day?”
Geoffrey shook his head. “Just because you’re delusional and know some things about magic doesn’t mean that we’ll trust your outlandish claims, angel.”
He said the last with a sneer.
His momentary destabilization of their united front had come to an end. Even Catalina, who’d appeared most open to breaking from the others’ opinions, lined up behind the rest.
“Now,” Richard said. “As I was saying—”
The door opened behind Alex with enough force to slam against the wall. Draconel walked in.
Richard trailed off. He looked like a child who’d been caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t. The others had similar looks on their faces.
Despite Draconel’s youthful visage, he held a gravitas and wisdom about him that none of the others carried. Millennia as an archangel gave him unmatched experience and confidence, and it made the elders uncomfortable to feel so insignificant next to someone who looked so young.
“Am I interrupting anything?” he asked in a soft voice at odds with his entrance.
None of the elders said anything, squirming in their seats.
Alex spoke his piece. “They were in the process of kicking Zara and me out because she called the Darkness during her training.”
Draconel barely reacted, eyebrow lifting in an elegant arch. “That’s an interesting ability. What an opportunity.”
Filled with some regret, Alex filled him in on the other development. “They were being obstinate and there was no sign of you, so I told them that I am an angel as a last-ditch effort to convince them to be reasonable.”
That cracked Draconel’s calm shell. His voice wasn’t measurably different, but Alex could read the shades of anger within. “Why would you do such a damn fool thing?”
Alex wouldn’t apologize in front of the elders. It wasn’t the time for it. “It’s done now, and I can’t take it back.”
Richard shifted forward in his seat. “Drake, do you believe Alex is an angel?”
Geoffrey butted in. “Who cares? Why do we trust everything Drake says, anyway? We owe him nothing.”
Draconel gave Alex a suffering look and rolled his eyes. Then he turned to the elders, and as though taking off a cloak, he revealed his true form.
His human clothes faded away, revealing the simple white trousers favored by male angels. Light shone from him in a heavy glow, golden and pure. Magnificent wings appeared behind him, so large that they extended into the wall behind him and up through the ceiling, fading into insubstantiality so they wouldn’t knock against them.
“My proper name is Draconel,” he said. “Although you may continue to call me Drake.”
Catalina fell out of her chair onto the floor, kneeling in front of the archangel. The others followed a moment later, prostrating themselves.
“Oh, get up, you idiots. Don’t embarrass yourselves.”
Chapter 9
Zara passed a trio of mages in the hall, but none of them met her eyes. They lowered their gazes and paused their conversation, speeding their steps to get past her more quickly.
She sighed and continued, making her way to the east wing stairwell to get to the dining hall.
As she rounded the corner from the south wing, she saw Ethan approaching from the opposite end of the hall. He took one look at her, turned on his heel, and walked back the way he came.
Good riddance, she thought, but even though she had always been annoyed by Ethan, the blatant rejection hurt.
When she entered the dining room, conversation hushed as the gathered mages noticed her. She set her jaw and strode to the hutch holding the trays of food, loading her plate and sitting at the table she usually shared with Sophie and Grace.
I guess I’ll be sitting by myself from now on.
She’d only been held in the special room—it couldn’t really be termed a cell even though she wanted to call it one—for a few hours before she was let go. No one wanted to talk to her, as though she could spread contagion by her very presence, so it took some time before she found out why she was released.
A few mages in the courtyard below her window had been expressing their disbelief over the appearance of angels at Lighthaven. She’d dropped the book she’d been holding when they said Alex and Drake had revealed themselves to the elders to prevent them from expelling her from the enclave.
She was glad she wasn’t being kicked out, but the ostracizing wasn’t much better. The reason for it was fantastical and hard for her to grasp.
Zara let the notes of her calming tune rise
to her lips under her breath as she tried to shrug off the stares she could feel from the other mages in the dining hall.
A plate thumped next to her shocked her out of her thoughts. Grace clambered into the seat, nearly falling off but instead sliding into place with a twist that almost looked graceful.
“What about them angels?” she said with no preamble. “That’s crazy, no?”
Zara blinked. That Grace would even sit next to her was surprising, but the girl completely ignored Zara’s own big revelation.
“Um, yeah,” Zara said, stumbling through her answer. She’d been so absorbed in her own issues that she hadn’t thought it through fully.
Alex is an angel.
For some reason, it almost didn’t surprise her.
She talked through her thoughts. “I’d always known he was different from other men. It feels right. He’d always been so good. And that face. If there’s all this magic and craziness floating around in the world, it never made sense that Alex could be so normal.”
Grace nodded her head. “If it were going to be any man, he was the one.”
It had already been hard enough imagining herself with Alex. Now he was even further away, on a pedestal. A fucking angel.
At least I know he’s trustworthy.
Men may be the worst, but her mother had never warned her to stay away from angels. She could trust an angel. Couldn’t she?
Sophie rounded the table and sat on the other side. “Are you guys talking about the angels?”
“Of course,” Grace said. “What else?”
Zara raised an eyebrow at the question. Like there wasn’t any other big news they needed to talk about. For a moment, she wondered if she was being too self-centered. Maybe it was less big of a deal than she thought. Was it common for mages to touch both the Light and the Dark?
“I wonder if they can do extra stuff Light mages can’t,” Sophie said. “And if that means the legends about the source of Light magic in the first place are true.”
That caught Zara’s attention. She’d been wondering about that since she was evidently more powerful than she had any right to be. “What do the legends say?”
Grace leaned toward her, glancing around as she spoke in a low voice. “They say magic comes from angels, don’t they?”
Zara frowned. “What do you mean? Like they choose which people get to use magic?”
Sophie smiled. “No, Zara. That some people back in the day got it on with angels, and their kids were the first Beacons.”
Her jaw dropped. She’d assumed that Alex being an angel put him out of reach. If angels could be with humans…
“That’s possible?”
Sophie shrugged. “They’re legends for a reason, so old that no one knows if they’re true or not. Until this afternoon, angels themselves were legends. There have been no reliable reports of them for at least two thousand years. And nothing that old can be trusted, anyway.”
The girls stopped talking and concentrated on their meal for a few minutes, mulling over the discussion.
“Hey, Zara,” Grace said. “That song you were humming when you were sitting by yourself, what is it? I hear you singing it all the time.”
“Song?” It took Zara a few moments to figure out what Grace was talking about. “Oh, that. I don’t actually know. It’s just a little tune I picked up from somewhere when I was a kid. Ever since before I can remember, I would hum it whenever I was trying to think or relax. Sometimes it felt like it sang itself.”
“That’s so nice,” Sophie said. “What a cute story!”
Cute, but necessary. There had been times in her life when she may have tried to end it all if it weren’t for the way that song always seemed to put her at ease.
Silence fell again, this time lasting until the end of the meal. Once she finished her plate, Zara couldn’t take the elephant in the room any longer.
“Why aren’t you two avoiding me like everyone else is?”
The anxiety that had risen to a fever pitch inside her softened, and Sophie’s knowing look suggested the source of that much welcome calm.
“Aw, we know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt us,” Grace said. “And I know if it had been me to accidentally call the Darkness, I’d be scared shitless and in need of a friend.”
Sophie took Zara’s hand in hers. “We told you we’d be there for you, whatever you need. You didn’t become a different person overnight, Zara.”
Her center grew warm, and it had nothing to do with Sophie. At least, not her magic.
“Why didn’t you say anything until I asked you? Weren’t you dying to ask about it?”
Grace shrugged. “We already talked about it. Didn’t want to bring it up until you were ready to talk. Luckily those angels provided a good distraction.”
What had she done to deserve these girls?
Not much.
Was this what being lucky felt like?
I will never touch the Darkness again. It’s not worth jeopardizing my friendships. I get bad thoughts sometimes, and it has to be the Dark inside me.
She vowed to fight it tooth and nail for the rest of her life. She could choose to be good, and she would.
“Why don’t you join me for my lessons today?” Sophie asked. “I have them after dinner, and you’ll need training in your other abilities at some point. Learning how to project calm helped me balance my own emotions—you can’t project anything you aren’t experiencing yourself. It’s why the Dark mages who project fear and terror and anger are always psychotic wrecks.”
Zara didn’t know if she could handle facing Reginald again. He could only call Light, but he was the magic instructor for all the youths at Lighthaven.
“I don’t know. I might just go to bed early,” Zara said. She yearned to learn more, but the day had already been filled with enough excitement. Besides, she needed to find Alex—there was so much to discuss with him.
Sophie shook her head and stood. “I don’t think so.” She pointed a finger at Zara. “You want to sit and mope by yourself, and I won’t have it. You’re coming with me.”
Zara blinked. Sophie was always so reserved that it was surreal having her be so assertive.
And she’s doing it because she cares about me.
How could Zara let her down?
“Okay, you caught me. Let’s do this.”
“You put me in a corner I very much do not like being in,” Draconel hissed. “You’ve ruined many years of work at building this persona.”
Alex felt the burn of shame, but he stood his ground. “Where in the Light have you been? If you hadn’t been absent and we’d faced them together, we might have gotten the elders to see reason without resorting to revealing our natures.”
They’d ducked into a side room after leaving the elders. Alex had no doubt that Draconel was using his talents to shield their discussion from any eavesdropping.
“I can’t babysit you every step of the way, Alexandriel. You may not have your true form, but you are an angel. You’ve disappointed me too much since your judgment.”
Alex bristled at the scolding. He was as ancient as Draconel, and he’d once been ranked almost as high, a mere step below archangel before he left Heaven to spend more time on Earth.
“I’ve disappointed you? Why didn’t you sense that Zara was part Dark mage? You tested her, and you didn’t think to check the other side of the balance? This explains her aura—deep and rich and balanced between the Light and the Dark.”
The archangel paused.
“I wasn’t looking for the Darkness in her,” Draconel admitted. He scratched his head—a strange gesture from the archangel. “Who’s ever heard of a human—or any other creature, for that matter—able to work both sides of the balance? It’s unprecedented.”
They fell silent, stockpiled accusations spent.
Even knowing what he knew, Alex felt a draw toward Zara, a need to be around her. She had so much of the Darkness in her. Did that make him a bad angel?
“What do we do now?” Alex asked.
Draconel sighed. “The same thing we were doing before. Make sure that Zara is safe and trained. In all of her abilities. We’ll take the rest as it comes. I have the feeling she may give us the opportunity to tip the balance back in favor of the Light, so long as we don’t screw it up.”
“The Dark mages will still be after her,” Alex pointed out. “Considering what we know now, it makes sense. One big question that remains is how they knew before we did.”
Whoever controlled Zara would possess a powerful asset in the fight to tip the balance of power. Lucifer must be salivating over the opportunity to corrupt a half-Beacon, half-Dark mage.
Another thought occurred to Alex. “Do you think she’s only able to call the Darkness, or is she a full-fledged Angel Killer?”
The archangel showed no fear, but his answer gave Alex chills. “Her aura is in near perfect balance. What do you think?”
Waves of calm washed through Zara, gentle pulsations in a rhythm that settled her thoughts into a stillness she couldn’t possibly achieve on her own.
Sophie sat beside her, eyes closed as she concentrated on her magic and the deft manipulation of the Light that spawned it.
Zara looked at her friend, trying to ignore Reginald across the table glaring at her. Even with the help of the calming magic, his ire threatened to push her into raging anger.
“Good work, Sophie,” Reginald said. “That’s enough.”
The external influence faded with a final pop that felt like a farewell tap on the shoulder.
Reginald turned to Zara.
“I doubt you have the finesse for such a skilled display of magic, but you may as well try,” he said.
He’d blustered when Sophie had brought Zara along, turned pale and tensed as though fighting the urge for his legs to carry him away.
She wondered why he even consented to her sitting in on the lesson, but she had to set the thought aside as he continued.
“Touch your reservoir of Light, but don’t do anything with it. No pulling, no squeezing, no pushing. Just touch it as lightly as you can manage.”
Fallen: An Angel Romance Page 13
