“That was fast. I wonder what that says about our chances of being punished.”
“We shall soon see,” he said practically, his face that of a seasoned soldier.
When we entered the audience chamber, everyone’s eyes were on the gods. If anyone had noticed our tardy arrival, they didn’t comment on it.
“As soldiers in the Legion of Angels, you are given many gifts of magic. In exchange, you are all sworn to serve the gods for the eternity of your immortal lives,” Valora said. “Any personal sacrifices you make are for the greater good, so that the Earth and its people remain safe and happy under our rule. You must often put your personal feelings aside, ignoring the discomfort of working with colleagues you don’t like. To be a Legion soldier is to sacrifice personal ambition and vanity.”
It was a very rehearsed speech, one the gods had given countless times before. And I wasn’t a fan of it. I was a firm believer that you could hold on to personal choice while serving the greater good. The two ideas didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. As I’d told the gods the first time I’d stood in their hall, I had every intention of having my cake and eating it too. Otherwise, what was the point of having a cake at all? What was the point of life if it wasn’t enjoyable?
Besides, Valora’s speech rang very ironic after all the gods’ personal drama and secrets we’d just seen play out.
“We have selected the Legion’s next angel,” Faris said, rising from his throne. “Jace Fireswift performed consistently throughout this training, demonstrating the qualities of an angel.”
I wasn’t surprised that the gods had chosen Jace. He’d won the key in the last challenge. Also, as far as most of the gods knew, he’d wielded an immortal weapon to kill a demon.
Logically, I couldn’t really be disappointed anyway. Even in the unlikely event that the gods had picked me, it would have put me in a bind. Nectar alone didn’t level me up anymore. Everyone would definitely notice when I didn’t sprout wings as an angel should.
But I wasn’t feeling particularly logical right now. The competitive side of me bucked at the idea that I’d been passed up. Yeah, I was definitely disappointed and annoyed—and all for foolishly vain reasons. I felt the sting of not being picked, of my talents not being recognized, and it quite honestly sucked.
The Legion soldiers gathered in front of Jace. Their lips offered him congratulations on his promotion, but their eyes burned with jealous fury. I was suddenly embarrassed that I’d ever felt anything but happiness for my friend. I didn’t want to be like the others, who’d let hate into their hearts.
“So, you won our little contest,” I said to Jace. The Legion brats had all already uttered their false congratulations and rushed off to other parts of the room. “You will be an angel first.”
“If I survive,” Jace replied, paling. He looked genuinely worried.
I patted him on the back. “You will survive. Of all of us, the gods chose you because they thought you would make the best angel.”
“They should have chosen you. The magic-blocking potion was your idea.”
“Their decision wasn’t about the potion alone. It was about everything that’s happened since the training began. I am too renegade, too wild for them to reward me.”
“I saw you drink the potion, Leda,” he whispered. “It was a good potion. It worked immediately on me. But it didn’t work on you.”
A question burned in his eyes. He was trying to figure out how a potion could affect me and him differently. In many ways, Jace really was his father’s son, ever the Interrogator.
“The potion did work on me,” I told him. “It just worked too slowly. It works differently on everyone—for some people faster, for others slower.” I shrugged. “I don’t think I made it potent enough.”
“There was nothing wrong with the potion.” He looked at me, a crinkle forming between his brows. “There’s something wrong with you.”
“People have been telling me that all my life,” I laughed.
“Your magic isn’t like ours,” Jace pressed on, unamused. “That’s why the potion didn’t really work on you. And that’s why you can’t heal yourself. You never leveled up. The Nectar didn’t work on you because your magic is different. But why is it different?”
He was too clever, too observant. All this time, I’d been worrying about Colonel Fireswift figuring out something was off about my magic, but I should have been worrying about Jace. Colonel Fireswift didn’t know me, and he didn’t understand me. Jace did. He knew how I thought and how I acted. Since he understood me, he knew when something was wrong.
I couldn’t tell Jace the whole truth, that I was half god and half demon. That secret was dangerous to both me and him. I had to settle for a half truth.
“When Sonja held me prisoner, she did things to me,” I said.
“What kinds of things?”
“She injected me with Venom. She mixed dark magic into my light magic.”
Jace blinked in surprise. “Then you should be dead—or have gone insane like General Wardbreaker did.”
“Yeah, I know. But I’m not dead. And I’m not any crazier than I’ve ever been.” I winked at him.
“Leda—”
“Sonja injected me with Venom several times. The pain was…almost unbearable.” I winced at the memory. “But she managed to balance my light and dark magics.”
“So when you used magic against Nyx back in Ronan’s castle…”
“It was dark magic,” I said. “The magic-blocking potion worked, just as I’d made it. It blocked all my light magic, but only my light magic.”
Jace didn’t say anything. He just watched me like I was a ticking time bomb.
“You can’t tell anyone,” I said quietly.
“Who would I tell?” he laughed helplessly.
“Your father.” I shrugged. “The gods.”
“I meant what I said earlier, Leda. You are my friend. And it’s not your fault that Sonja did this to you.”
I wondered what he would say if he knew the full truth, that my magic was both light and dark at my core. I should tell him—and yet I shouldn’t tell him. I shouldn’t burden him. As an angel, he would have new responsibilities, many more things to worry about than keeping my overflowing cup of secrets.
Jace set his hand on my shoulder. “I have your back, Pierce. Always. Just remember that.”
As he walked off, I got the feeling that he realized there was more to my story—and he was inviting me to share it. If only I could.
I looked across the room. The dynamics had changed considerably since I’d first arrived in the gods’ hall. Nyx and Ronan weren’t even speaking to each other anymore. Neither were Maya and Meda. Valora was mad at Zarion. Everyone was mad at Faris. A lot of strife had been sown during these challenges. Only Aleris still looked completely comfortable.
The gods’ bell toned, then Faris declared. “The gods have decided that, based on his performance in the challenges, the angel Colonel Fireswift will be gifted new magic. He will be promoted to an archangel.”
It seemed Faris was rewarding Colonel Fireswift’s loyalty—and securing it further. His promotion would have been an easy sell to the gods. Colonel Fireswift acted as an angel should. He was obedient, efficient, and dignified. Not to mention brutal. He embodied everything Valora’s speech had praised in an angel, in a soldier of the Legion.
Like Jace, everyone lined up to offer Colonel Fireswift their congratulations. Even Nero said the words, but his eyes screamed his true feelings about the head of the Interrogators.
“Congratulations on your promotion,” I told Colonel Fireswift when I reached him.
“You are partly responsible for my promotion.” He said it like he was accusing me of a crime, and yet…
“Was that an olive branch, Colonel?”
After all, gruffness was just his way. Gratitude was not in his vocabulary.
“I don’t believe in olive branches,” he declared.
“Just grenades.”
He grunted. “Indeed.”
“Well, I will take your olive branch masquerading as a grenade.”
“You are incorrigible.”
“Some people would call that sticking to my guns,” I pointed out.
“This isn’t thanks. I cannot thank you for your inappropriate, undignified, and often downright dirty behavior. But I do recognize that there is a place in the Legion for you, a way your bizarre methods can be used.”
“Well, I do just love being used.”
“I can give your purposeless existence meaning, purpose. Direction,” he told me.
I sighed. “I think I preferred it when you were trying to kill me, not recruit me.”
“I will be watching you closely, Leda Pierce.”
“Join the club,” I muttered as he walked away.
I joined Nero by the buffet table. Platters of food had appeared on it sometime during my conversation with Colonel Fireswift.
“What a week,” I commented, grabbing a plate and filling it with cupcakes. You knew the end was in sight when sweets had replaced performance-enhancing shakes on the gods’ buffet table. “It seems like no one’s getting along anymore.”
Nero opened his mouth to speak, but the gods’ bell rang before he could say anything. When we got out of here, that damn bell was one of many things I would definitely not be missing.
“Jace Fireswift, step forward,” Ronan declared.
He held a glass-and-gold goblet in his hands. Pale silver liquid, almost white, sparkled inside of it. That was the Nectar that would make Jace an angel.
Ronan didn’t bother with the usual flowery speeches heard at Legion promotion ceremonies. By now, we all knew the lines by heart anyway. He merely handed Jace the Nectar goblet and waited. We all waited. His face hard, determined, Jace lifted the goblet to his lips and drank.
He fell to the ground. For one terrifying moment, I thought my friend was dead, but he rose again. Wings spread from his back, a beautiful tapestry of bright blue and white feathers with a dusting of silver swirls. His wings were so light, so bright.
Jace stepped forward, looking both weaker and stronger at the same time. The Nectar had drained and rejuvenated him. A silver halo shone around his body, lighting him up as though a spotlight shone on him. Magic uncurled from him, bursting and snapping. It was the volatile magic of a new angel.
“I present to you our newest angel, Jace Angelblood,” Ronan declared.
The gods’ servants came around with champagne glasses. One of the glasses was pushed into my hand. It seemed toasting to the Legion’s new angel was not optional. In this case, I didn’t mind. Jace was my friend, and I would have toasted to him even of my own free will.
After we’d all drunk, Faris said, “And lift your glasses to Colonel Fireswift, who will soon be facing the trials to become an archangel.”
A new glass appeared in my hand. The second drink went down a bit harder. Even after all we’d been through together, I still wasn’t the biggest fan of Colonel Fireswift. The liquid even burned a little. I suspected they’d laced the fruity alcoholic drinks with Nectar.
“Have the gods changed the archangel trials since your promotion?” I whispered to Nero as Colonel Fireswift pretended to look gracious and humble.
“Unlikely,” replied Nero. “The gods bask in tradition. The archangel trials have been this way for too long. The location shifts, but the driving purpose remains the same.”
“To sacrifice what is most important to you, to weaken your ties to your loved ones and strengthen them to the Legion,” I said softly. “To prove your unfailing loyalty. But which person is most important to Colonel Fireswift? Jace?”
“His wife,” Nero told me. “Despite the man Fireswift is, he does love his wife, perhaps even more than he loves his legacy.”
“That’s almost romantic.”
“And the gods wouldn’t make Jace an angel just to immediately kill him off,” Nero said.
“We have to warn Jace,” I told him. “His mother will die. This doesn’t just affect Colonel Fireswift. It will hurt Jace too.”
“We can’t warn either of them. It’s forbidden. The gods weren’t happy we tricked our way out of my trials. We survived only because Faris was trying to use us to expose his brother’s secret. If we warn Colonel Fireswift or his son, the consequences will be dire for both us and them.”
“We can’t just do nothing.” My voice shook. “What the gods are doing is wrong. It’s barbaric.”
Emotion choked up my throat. My mind was swimming, floating. I didn’t even hear what Nero replied. I started walking. Something was drawing me forward, something important.
I was running now. I had to get there. I had to help her.
I slammed into Athan. “Sorry,” I muttered, stumbling back.
He set something in my hands. Aleris’s glasses.
I blinked. “Didn’t I give those back to the gods?” My mind was foggy. I couldn’t quite remember anymore.
“Put them over your eyes,” Athan told me.
“No, I’m sure I gave back the glasses. Aleris took them.”
“Put them over your eyes,” Athan said again.
I drunkenly lifted up the glasses. Something was compelling me to look through them. No, not compelling. This was not Siren’s Song. It was something else entirely, something I couldn’t resist. It pulled at my heart, not at my magic.
Out of control, my mind scrambling for answers, I moved the glasses closer to my eyes. When they were mere inches from my face, I just stopped.
“Look,” Athan said. “And see.”
I looked at my hands. They were blurry, moving.
No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t my hands that were shaking. It was everything. My vision had gone weird. Everything shifted in front of my eyes, rewinding. I was seeing time in reverse.
I stood in the gods’ audience chamber. We were all drinking to Colonel Fireswift.
Rewind a few seconds.
Athan was standing beside me. He’d handed me the glass.
Rewind again.
I drank at Jace’s promotion ceremony. Athan had handed me that glass too.
I snapped back to the present. “You drugged me,” I said groggily to Athan.
Athan held the glasses in front of my eyes. I didn’t even try to stop him. For some reason, I didn’t want to. I had to help her. Her? Her who?
Visions crashed into me, bombarding my mind. Everything was flashing past so fast.
A woman pounded on the bars of her prison cell. I knew that woman. One of the gods was holding her, hurting her.
The nightmare that had been plaguing me for days now solidified, the holes in the vision closing, forming a complete picture at last.
I felt everything the woman felt—her pain and shock and absolute terror. Her feelings and senses and memories seemed to live inside the glasses, like they were part of them. And my magic had awakened them.
The glasses had sat on Aleris desk the day his warriors had brought the woman to him in chains. Aleris! He was the one who’d captured her. He was the one holding her prisoner even now.
I ran, not seeing anything, only sensing the trail of magic that pulled me toward the woman.
She was close. I could feel it.
Magic splashed against my skin. I vaguely remembered the feeling. It happened whenever I passed through a magic mirror.
I was in a different world? The thought barely processed. I had to keep moving. I had to save her. She was screaming. She was in pain.
I kept running, following the twisting hallways.
People were shouting. Arguing.
My hands clutched prison bars, ripping them open. A woman was crouched in the corner, covered in filth, shaking. Fear rocked her body.
The bubble popped. Blurred outlines grew solid once more. I was standing in a dungeon, just outside a prison cell. The woman from my nightmares was there.
So were all the gods. They had me surrounded. And they didn’t look happy.
&n
bsp; “How did you break into my realm?” Aleris demanded of me. “The way was warded.”
My head was spinning. I tried to talk, but the words fizzled out on my tongue.
“So this is your secret, Aleris. Your sin,” Zarion hissed.
A cool smile twisted Faris’s lips. “You are not above reproach after all, it would seem.”
“I have not invited you here,” Aleris said, his composure cracking. “Any of you.”
“She is an Everlasting,” Meda said, gazing upon the woman in the cell. “You have been holding an Everlasting woman prisoner, Aleris.” Her voice shook with anger. “There are lines even we do not cross.”
Athan was in the prison cell, helping the woman to her feet.
“Who is she?” Valora asked.
“My sister,” Athan said.
Faris’s eyes hardened. “Aleris, I’d wondered how an Everlasting could owe you a favor. They are so reclusive,” he said. “But Athan didn’t owe you anything. You captured his sister and held her ransom.”
That was why Athan had spent the whole training trying to help me, to lead me along the way to finding his sister. He’d needed me. He hadn’t known where she was being held. Only Aleris’s glasses did. And only I could read that memory.
But why me? What made this memory different from all the others we’d seen exposed?
“You used her to force Athan to reveal the artifacts imprinted with the memories of our biggest secrets,” Valora said, her lips drawing together in disgust. “She is of Immortal blood, Aleris. Sacred blood. You didn’t just cross the line; you defiled it.”
“It is a terrible crime to harm someone of holy blood. Especially this woman, someone with great magic but no offensive spells, no way to protect herself,” Faris told Aleris, clearly enjoying his unexpected revenge. “She and Athan are at the same time greatly powerful and completely powerless.”
That explained why she’d been unable to escape Aleris’s warriors or free herself.
The gods continued to lay their reprimands thickly on Aleris, but their voices were fading out. Dizziness was dragging me under. Something was happening. Everything had gone very crisp, so crisp that I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It was all too sharp, too bright, too much.
Fairy’s Touch: Legion of Angels: Book 7 Page 28
