Grace and Glory

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  I didn’t know, but I felt that fiery blade as if it had been shoved deep in my own chest, piercing through my heart and my soul. Panic fluttered through me, mixing with soul-deep grief. I wanted to rewind time. I wanted to go back and to have never done this, because if it didn’t work, I wasn’t sure...I wasn’t sure I could survive this even if it was the right thing to do. I’d been foolish to think I could weather this—that I was strong enough, brave enough. I wasn’t. I wasn’t inhuman, and I was sure my father would be disappointed to realize that, but it was true. If this didn’t work, the look in his eyes, the shock and disbelief, would haunt me long after my body was nothing more than dust. It would kill me. Maybe not in the physical sense, but it would devastate every part of me that made me who I was. I wouldn’t be the same, and in a moment of startling certainty, I realized that this was what Gabriel had meant by my rage being my ruin. I would become something as cold and terrible as Sulien.

  And then...then time was no longer frozen.

  Zayne’s eyes closed as he threw his arms back, a terrible scream splitting the night air. His wings lifted, each beautiful, lush wing spreading wide. His head kicked back, causing those tendons in his neck to stand out even further.

  From the center of his chest, where the sword was buried deep, a pulse of energy rippled out, washing over his shoulders and arms in streaks of rolling, golden light. There was a brief second where he was awash in the heavenly fire, his body and features completely lost in the blaze. I could no longer see him.

  Terror seized me as a tremor coursed through my body. Fearing the fire would swallow him whole, I tried to pull the sword free. It wouldn’t budge, and the sound—oh God, the sound that was coming from Zayne... It was animalistic and raw, shredding through me. My heart lurched as I stepped back with my right leg, bracing myself and tugging. There was no give. The sword seemed lodged, as if it were now a part of his body as it was an extension of mine, and nothing like that had ever happened before.

  The whirling, whipping fire suddenly retracted, sucking back to where the blade was embedded deep.

  Silence.

  No screams.

  No calls from nearby birds or insects.

  Nothing.

  Where the sword met his chest, divine energy built and throbbed. Zayne’s arms fell to his sides, his wings lowered and the mass of golden-white light stretched out, wrapping itself around the length of the blade, churning and twisting its way back to me. Instinct screamed that I let go of the sword, but I couldn’t, because the grace was mine—a part of me—and it wouldn’t allow it. But there was something else in there that didn’t belong to me. The first tendrils reached the hilt and then whatever it was licked over my fingers, obliterating every thought on contact.

  The heavenly power hit the center of my chest, and it was like a bomb detonating. It washed over my entire body, drenching my skin and soaking into my muscles, entrenching itself deep in my bones and entwining itself around my organs. The divine energy stole my breath, curling itself around my heart and then settling in my back, rooting in my shoulders. There was no ability to process if what I was feeling was pain, a pleasure so acute that it became pain or both as it swept me off my feet. I was falling before I could even realize what was happening.

  I didn’t feel the impact with the ground. I didn’t see when the Sword of Michael collapsed or feel the exact moment my grace retracted. I didn’t even realize that my eyes were closed or that there was a high likelihood that I’d been knocked unconscious, and that had to have happened, because when I managed to open my eyes, there was a sense that time had passed and an immeasurable confusion, loss.

  Drawing in each short, shallow breath as my senses slowly, painstakingly pieced themselves back together, I stared up at a dark sea full...full of dazzling, twinkling lights. And there were so many of them. Thousands. Millions. Numerous and countless constellations of luminous, celestial bodies, and I could see them. All of them. I saw them in a way I had long since forgotten, with a clarity that proved my memories of them hadn’t done them justice. They were so beautiful, so endless. Tears filled my eyes as I lay there, overcome by the simple splendor of a night sky full of stars, each one representing infinite wishes and boundless dreams. I didn’t dare blink, not even as each and every one of the lights dimmed until they were nothing but blurred specks of distant light, until that, too, faded beyond my sight. I closed my eyes then, instinctually knowing that I’d been given a gift greater than I could probably ever realize. One last clear memory that would never fade, and I suspected I would never see the stars again.

  Zayne.

  That was the first rational, coherent thought that took form and made sense to me.

  Opening my eyes, I didn’t look at the sky as I forced my sore body to move, to respond to the commands my brain was firing off. My muscles and nerves were slow to act, but once they seemed to get with the program, I clambered to my knees and hands. Every fiber of my being focused on the shadowy shape several feet from me.

  Zayne.

  He was on his hands and knees, like me, his head bowed. I could still make out the shape of wings draped along his shoulders, resting against the ground.

  He was alive.

  Trembling, I almost broke down right there, but somehow I managed to keep it together. He was still alive and breathing, but I had no idea what kind of state he was in.

  I inched forward, squinting. His hair had fallen forward, shielding his face. I opened my mouth to say his name, but a childish sort of fear silenced my tongue.

  What if it didn’t work? What if it somehow did something worse?

  He moved then, his large body shuddering. Slowly, he lifted his head. Strands of hair slid back from his face. His eyes were closed, and his features still seemed clearer to me, even with the limited light, but this time I knew it was the luminous glow to his skin, the grace that hummed under the surface. Those wings twitched and heaved, lifting. Grace still streaked the feathers like currents of electricity. His eyes opened, hazy and unfocused, but they were still that unreal shade of blue as they focused on me. Cleared. I couldn’t breathe as I tensed, desperately trying to prepare myself for...for anything.

  “Trin?” he whispered hoarsely, and a ragged breath punched out of me. “Trin.”

  I started to move, to crawl forward, but somehow I ended up scuttling back a foot or more. “Are you...?” I cleared my throat. “Are you Zayne?”

  Those beautiful wings rose slightly and then lowered, and his eyes closed briefly. “It’s me.”

  Pressure clamped down on my chest, twisting and squeezing as a hundred different emotions erupted inside me, flooding me. Hope and yearning crashed into uncertainty and even fear. What if this was some kind of trick? He hadn’t sounded like that when he said my name before. In the back of my mind, I recognized that, but I realized then I hadn’t really prepared myself for this actually working. I was afraid that this wasn’t real. Sorrow tangled with joy, and my body felt weak.

  “I’m—” He straightened as if to rise.

  I jerked back, falling onto my butt. It seemed like I had no control over my movements. A conflicting mess of emotions ruled me, and I was too afraid of the crushing disappointment if I allowed hope to seize me.

  Zayne had halted, and in the chaos of my mind, I knew that meant something. “I’m not going to hurt you. I could never hurt you—” He cut himself off, his shoulders tensing. “But I did. I hurt you. I had...” He rocked back, still on his knees as he looked down at his hands. “I hurt you—”

  “No. You didn’t hurt me,” I whispered, thinking that it actually sounded like him. There was inflection in his tone. Warmth.

  “I didn’t?” His hands closed. “I remember.” Those wings lifted again, startling me as they stretched high and away. He tore his gaze from his hands then and looked over his shoulder. There was a curse under his breath as the breeze ruffled some of the sm
aller feathers, exposing the streaks of grace. “I...I keep forgetting that they’re there. They don’t feel like my old ones. Neither does shifting. Most things don’t feel the same.”

  He looked at me again, and the glow of his skin pulsed intently, causing me to flinch. His feathered wings folded back, tucking inward, and then they were...they were simply gone, as if they’d seeped into his skin—into his back—or vanished. The luminous golden shine faded, and he looked more like...well, more like Zayne and not the psychotic Fallen.

  “Is this real?” I heard myself ask. The disappearing wings sort of made me think that I was still lying on my back with a head injury. “Did it really work? This is you, really you? You remember me? And you aren’t about to...well, call me ‘little nephilim’?”

  “This is real. I’m real.” His voice was rough. “I hate that you have to ask that. I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry, Trin. I couldn’t stop myself...” His gaze dropped to his hands again, to where they hung by his thighs, palms up. “That’s not true. I could stop myself. I did, but it was...it was too late.” He shook his head as he continued to stare at his hands. “It was like something was missing in me. Memories. Access to them—to what they felt like and meant. They warned me, and I thought I could handle it.” His gaze returned to mine. “But it’s me. I promise you, Trin. It’s really me. Ask me something only I would remember.”

  I stared blankly at him. “I can’t think of anything right now. My brain is too full and too empty.”

  He smiled then, and my heart jumped. It was his smile, one that was warm and open, and I never thought I’d see that smile again. “Okay. Let me think of something.” He sucked his lower lip in between his teeth, and if I had been standing, I knew my legs would’ve given out on me. Zayne...he did that all the time, but he’d only done that once after the Fall. “I got it. You have a constellation on your ceiling.”

  I truly stopped breathing then. Honest to God, my lungs seized right up as I stumbled to my feet.

  “I put it there,” he continued, slowly standing. “I called it the Constellation of Zayne, and what happened after I showed you that ceiling has to be one of my fondest memories of all time.” His voice deepened as he bit down on that lip again. “You showed me just how much you loved me. You gave me everything—your body, your heart, your trust.”

  For the second time, the world slammed to another halt. I wasn’t aware of moving. The achy protest of muscles and bones didn’t stop me as I threw myself at him. Or attempted to. My balance was off, my movements too jerky and stiff, and it was more like falling at him—

  He was a blur of speed as he snapped forward, moving so fast that I didn’t even have a chance to be startled. He caught me, his arms sweeping around me, and the moment my hands connected with the bare skin of his chest, I knew.

  This was him. It was his skin against my palms, and it was warm, no longer cool to the touch, his breath coasting over my cheek. It was him holding me.

  It was Zayne.

  16

  Somehow, we ended up on the ground again, but this time with Zayne sitting upright and me in his lap. I turned into a total octopus, wrapping my legs around his hips and clamping my arms around his shoulders.

  “You really remember,” I whispered, burying my face in his neck. Each breath I took was full of him.

  “I remember the first time I saw you,” he said, and I shuddered as I felt his hand curl around the back of my head. “You were hiding behind a curtain, where you weren’t supposed to be. You were eavesdropping.”

  “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” I denied, my words mostly muffled by his skin.

  He chuckled, and even though it sounded hoarse and shaky, it did strange and wonderful things to my heart. It wasn’t that cold, apathetic laugh of a Fallen. “You were totally eavesdropping.”

  I totally had been.

  “I also remember that you took a swing at me when I tried to introduce myself.”

  I frowned against his neck. “That’s because you snuck up on me at night, in the middle of the woods.”

  “You meant to say that you weren’t being very observant, and correct me if I’m wrong, I wasn’t the one sneaking around,” he teased.

  “You’re wrong.” I squeezed him tighter.

  He responded by dropping a kiss to the crown of my head. “I remember the first time you revealed yourself. We were in Thierry’s office, and I think Nicolai might’ve choked on his own breath. I remember the first time you gave me a heart attack. It was after you told me about your vision.”

  The corners of my lips turned up. Not wanting him to think that I wasn’t, well, capable after dropping the whole going blind bomb, I’d taken off and jumped from one rooftop to the next. He’d acted as if he hadn’t been all that happy with it, but I knew he’d been secretly pleased—excited and challenged.

  “And I remember the night you helped get the imp’s claw out of me.” His voice deepened, and this time, my shiver had everything to do with the memory of him and I, in his bathroom and in his bed. “I remember it all now—those feelings and memories are a part of me.”

  I couldn’t speak as I squeezed my eyes shut against the flood of emotion. All my senses concentrated on the feel of his skin under my fingers. His body temperature was as warm as before, running hotter than a normal human’s. Hands shaking, I drew them down, over his chest, stopping over his heart.

  His heart beat strongly against my palm.

  It really did work.

  The Throne hadn’t been lying. The Crone hadn’t given me some kind of bunk spell. I hadn’t messed up. It really worked.

  Tears slipped free, and there was no stopping them. I broke wide open, and all the hopelessness and despair, the sorrow and grief, crashed into the relief and pounding joy spilling out of me. I tried to rein it all back in. This was a happy moment, a good one, and I didn’t need to spend it drowning Zayne in my tears, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  Zayne pressed his cheek to the side of my head. He spoke as my body shook, releasing all the pent-up emotion that I’d barely been able to keep leashed from the moment I’d lost him. I had no idea what he said. He could’ve been telling me that he was part-platypus at this point, and I wouldn’t have cared. I lifted my hands, sinking my fingers into the soft strands of his hair.

  “Your tears are killing me,” he said, and that I understood fully. “Killing me.”

  It was Zayne.

  It was Zayne.

  It was Zayne.

  That was all I could think as I soaked in the feel of him. Zayne was alive, he was back and it was really him. I don’t know how much time passed while Zayne continued to whisper to me, gently rocking us while I cried enough to sink the entire city of Washington, DC. Eventually, after what felt like an absurd amount of time, the tears lessened, and the tremors that coursed through me every couple of seconds ceased. I could breathe. I could finally breathe.

  Zayne carefully guided my face out of his neck. Blinking until his features cleared, I shuddered as I reached up, wrapping my fingers around his wrists. “I’m sorry. I just—you’re alive and it’s you, and I’m so happy, and I can’t stop crying, because what if this is some kind of superdetailed dream? That seems more plausible. I lost you, and when you came back, I thought—” As close as we were, I could see his eyes—really see them since I didn’t have to worry about him throwing me somewhere. “Your eyes.” I leaned in until our noses almost touched. I squinted. “Wow.”

  His hands dropped to my hips. “What? I haven’t seen them.”

  Did Heaven not have mirrors? Better yet, had he not looked in the mirror since he...since he Fell? I touched his cheek. “They’re really blue. Like very, very blue,” I told him, at an utter loss when it came to using descriptive words. “But there’s a...white-gold behind your pupils. I can see just the edges of it. It’s grace. I noticed it before, but to really see it like this? I’ve just nev
er seen anything like that.”

  Thick lashes swept down, shielding his eyes as he turned his head, pressing his cheek into my palm. “How noticeable is it?”

  “Have you really not looked at yourself recently?”

  “No. I...”

  “What?” When he didn’t answer, I guided his face toward mine. “What, Zayne?”

  “I think I was avoiding my reflection.” His eyes opened, but his gaze was focused beyond me. “I don’t know why. I don’t even know if it was a conscious choice or if it was me, but what I became...even then I didn’t want to see myself. That probably doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does.” A pang tore at my heart as I smoothed my thumb along his jaw. “Do you remember what the last couple of days were like?”

  Zayne didn’t answer for a long moment. “There was a lot of confusion. A lot of feelings and thoughts I didn’t understand, but it was all very consuming. That’s the only way I can describe it, and what I felt...” His jaw tensed against my palm. “It was so much anger and arrogance and this, I don’t know...sense of twisted righteousness? Like I suddenly had all this hate toward angels and anything with grace in it, but I also hated demons—all demons. I believed I was better than demons and more... I don’t know. More aware than those who hadn’t Fallen? I just hated everything and everyone, and it was like...like being aware of what I was doing and saying, and either not connecting with it or not understanding it.”

  Zayne’s entire body had tensed against mine as he continued. “They warned me it could happen, but I thought I could handle it. I guess I already had a healthy dose of arrogance going into it, but I can’t even describe what it was like being bombarded with all these...powerful, violent emotions that suddenly felt right, like they had always been a part of me. This belief that I was judge and jury, and could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.”