by Sharon Shinn
He was so high that he had to drop sharply to get on a level with the fortress. Until this moment, he had not given a single thought to how to breach the hold—whether to fly to Raphael’s public landing space and announce his arrival, or try to land on one of the spiky turrets and make his entry in secret. Now, with the castle in view only a few hundred yards away, he decided to circle once or twice and see if any good ideas presented themselves.
It was then that he noticed the hard pressure building in his right arm. Merciful Jovah, what was happening to Rachel now?
He circled once, as slowly as he dared, eyeing each narrow window and grilled doorway with mounting frustration. Even if he set down on the roof of the highest corner tower, there seemed to be no easy way into the castle; and even if he was able to creep in with no one seeing him, how would he find Rachel?
On his second circuit, he saw a sight that stopped his heart.
A lone figure stood on the very last inch of a narrow, unpromising promontory that jutted over the ravine on the western face of Raphael’s mountain. Wind whipped at her hair, and her skirts flew wildly about her legs; by those features he knew the figure was a woman. By the way the faded light of the sun clung lovingly to the golden hair, he knew just which woman this was… .
“Rachel!” he shouted, but the wind was against him; it carried his voice away from her. He dove forward madly through the turbulent air, fanning his wings as furiously as they would go. She stood there, on one of the highest peaks in Jordana, immobile, looking down at a sight guaranteed to make her ill. And then, as he watched, as he strained every feather and muscle to reach her, she closed her eyes and stepped off.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The plummet, the swoop, the shock of being snatched from the air. Crazed, tangled moments of falling and rising simultaneously, as great white wings lashed desperately to fight the hungry pull of gravity, Rachel had no breath to scream or speak. She was crushed to a wide bare chest, she felt the effort of every labored wingbeat, she felt the angel’s will overcome the earth’s. Slowly the angel’s strength lifted them back toward the mountaintop, back to safety and sure ground.
And they cleared the mountaintop without pausing and flew on, into the red heart of sunset; and flew on, and flew on.
Rachel did not know how long it was that she lay mindlessly in the angel’s arms, her eyes closed, her hands curled inward, aware of nothing except the speed of his movement and the heat of his body. It took her some time to sort out the fact that she was not dead, that she was no longer a prisoner, that she had been rescued. It was even longer before she realized that she was actually flying, at a great height over the earth, and that she did not care—she felt neither nausea nor terror. In fact, she felt almost nothing at all.
But she knew—had known, without even seeing his face, without hearing a word (for he spoke none)—who held her in his arms. Gabriel. Wherever they were going, however long the flight lasted, she was safe. Gabriel had come for her.
Hours passed; she knew by the changing colors against her closed eyelids. First gold, then scarlet, then indigo, and finally no color at all, She felt the snowy play of starlight across her face, down the whole length of her body. Except where the angel’s arms passed around her shoulders and under her knees, except where she was pressed against his chest, she was frozen, she was no warmer than the stars. If he released her, dropped her to the earth, she would shatter into so many fragments of ice.
But he would not drop her. That was the only thing she was sure of.
It occurred to her more than once that she had been mistaken—she had not been rescued; she had plunged the whole distance to the stony ground, and now she was dreaming the strange, wistful dreams of the dead. For surely nothing could be less real than this, traveling changelessly, ceaselessly, on a windy plane between the moonlight and the earth, without fear, without thought, without feeling.
And then the steady forward motion altered; they slanted downward, slowing, almost seeming to reverse. Rachel shook her head and tried to focus. She opened her eyes and gazed below her at the dark patterns of the unlit ground, coming closer, growing larger with alarming speed. She watched almost idly as shadows resolved themselves into hillsides, trees and boulders, as perspective shortened and grew more familiar. Still, she was unprepared for the abruptness of the landing, the sudden cessation of motion, the dull heaviness of the stubborn earth.
Gabriel caught his balance first, and then he set her on her feet. His hands still gripped her shoulders or she would have fallen, pitched forward straight into him or backward onto the hard ground. She tried to collect her thoughts. Surely she must say something.
He spoke first—in a strange hoarse voice, accentuating each word by giving her a quick shake.
“What in the god’s name were you doing there?” he cried. “How could you be at Windy Point—how could you be so careless—and how could you, how could you, throw yourself off the mountain—”
She jerked her head from side to side, trying to force some sense into her mind, trying to remember, trying to think. “Gabriel—stop it—Gabriel—”
He visibly calmed himself, fighting for control. “Tell me what happened,” he commanded. “I know you left with Matthew and turned back for the Edori camp. What happened then?”
She took a deep breath. Even under the imperfect illumination of moonlight and starlight, she was afraid to look directly at him. He was too furious. He was too beautiful. “I was a few miles from where I’d left Matthew,” she said, speaking carefully, remembering as she said them how words were formed in a person’s mouth. “I heard—wingbeats. I looked up.” She shrugged against his grip. “There was nowhere to run to escape them. They carried me to Windy Point.”
His hands tightened on her shoulders; he knew how gruesome that flight had been for her. “And then?”
She felt some of her own strength coming back to her, or maybe it was feeding into her directly from his body, poured into her veins from his palms and fingertips. “And then they put me in a room where the wind blew all day. All night. You never heard anything like that wind.”
“I’ve been there. I’ve heard it. So—what happened? What did Raphael say? Why did he take you?”
“I didn’t see him for days. And then he—there was this dinner he had me come to. It was—” She glanced at him, fleetingly, sideways. Even in this nonexistent light, his eyes were so blue they astonished her. She looked away. “He’s crazy,” she said, in a voice only slightly above a whisper. “Gabriel—that whole place. It was a scene of madness. Drunken and drugged and—and—terrible—”
“What? What do you mean?”
“The angels lay around, sleeping in their wine. There were women—angel-seekers, maybe, but some of them didn’t seem to want to be there—and it smelted like the incense the Jansai use when they’re trying for hallucinations—”
“Sweet Jovah,” Gabriel murmured. “I know he’s—but I hadn’t thought—So what did he say to you?”
“He says there is no god,” she whispered. “But Gabriel, that’s not true, is it?”
“No,” was the instant response. “It’s not true. But he’s said it to enough other people that some of them are beginning to wonder. He’s trying to—I don’t know what he’s trying to do! Destroy Samaria, I think. He does not want me to become Archangel, and he has done what he can to stop me. But taking you—it makes no sense to me. Why does he want you? What good could it do him to kill you?”
“He didn’t want to kill me,” she said in a low voice. “At least, not right away. Not this time.”
“This time?”
“He tried. When I was little. Raphael and his angels destroyed my parents’ village.” She glanced at Gabriel again, to see what expression of disbelief or outrage crossed his face, but he was merely watching her, grim and unsurprised. “There was so much fire. There was so much noise. And in the air—hundreds of bodies, wings, arms, hands, flinging things, grabbing at people. We ran, those who had
n’t been killed already—we tried to run. I saw angels swoop down on fleeing men and lift them and hurl them back down to the earth. I saw them toss children into the river, I saw them throw stones at women screaming on the ground … My father had grabbed me. He was a huge man and he could carry me, I was not so big. He had grabbed me and he was running, and I could see the shadow of angel wings form around us on the ground … I don’t know what weapon they killed my father with. He fell forward, and I was hidden under his body. I heard the screaming and the killing go on for hours and hours after that, but nobody came for us again. When it was quiet, I … pushed my father’s arms aside. I crawled out into the night. Everyone around me was dead. I ran away, and ran and ran until I came upon the Edori—”
“It was Raphael?” Gabriel asked quietly. “You’re sure of that? He led the angels who attacked you?”
“I saw him. All gold and beautiful. The sun fell on his face and on his wings, and I thought I had never seen anything so terrifying in my life. He knows I saw him. He looked straight at me and laughed. But my father grabbed me and ran before Raphael could even stretch out his arms and take me—”
“The god protect us,” Gabriel whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Who would believe such a story? Not even Naomi believed me. But it’s true. And he has tried to take me, or kill me, ever since.”
“But you said, this time he didn’t want to kill you. This time—”
“Yes. This time he just wanted to keep me prisoner in Windy Point.”
“Then why, Rachel?” he demanded, and his voice was suddenly harsh. He shook her again, once, hard. “Why would you try to jump off the mountain? Didn’t you know I would come for you? You know what you mean to us—to all of Samaria! How could you try to kill yourself, throw your life away, when so much depends on you? What were you thinking?”
She wrenched herself free of him, at once blazingly furious. “I thought to kill myself to save all of you!” she cried. “He said he would keep me till the Gloria passed—so the Gloria could not be sung! I knew that as long as I was alive, no other angelica could sing beside you. But if I was dead, you could choose whomever you pleased and carry her to the Plain of Sharon—”
“Sweet god of mercy,” he breathed. He reached out a hand to her but she struck it aside.
“And you must have realized it, too!” she shouted at him, backing away. “You must have realized it, when you saw me leaping from the cliff! You could have let me fall, you could have been free of me—All the trouble and all the turmoil could have died with me at the foot of the mountain—”
Too quickly for her, he moved forward; he disregarded her flailing arms and gathered her into a smothering embrace. She struggled futilely against his tight hold, unwilling to be comforted, unwilling to be soothed, but her muffled cries and her beating fists had no impact on him. He merely pressed her closer, murmuring soft words into her tangled hair, warming her with his own body, supporting her with his own strength. She was so tired. She was so cold. She could not speak, or fight, or stand. She began crying helplessly and bitterly against his chest. His arms were the only thing in the world that were real.
His arms, his voice. “Hush,” he whispered, over and over again. “Hush, now, Rachel, precious Rachel, don’t cry. How could I let you fall? Hush, Rachel. Who would I have beside me but you? No one. No one. I would let the world be rent in half before I would sing with any woman but you.”
She was only half-aware of it when he scooped her up in his arms again and then knelt, bringing both of them to the ground. He wrapped her in something soft and warm, then laid her with amazing tenderness on the thick grass.
“I have to build a fire,” he said, still in that sweet, murmurous voice. “Stay here. I won’t go far from you.”
“Gabriel,” she said, but she said it so softly she was not sure he heard her. She heard his footsteps move away, but she was not afraid. She knew he would come back. She closed her eyes and, even before he returned, she slept.
Upon waking, Rachel lay for a long time with her eyes shut, luxuriating in a sense of well-being. It was late morning; she could tell by the thickness of the light across her closed lids. She had never felt so rested, so warm, so secure, so content.
She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, willing the sensations to last. No thought, no memory; no truth. She knew better than to open her eyes, look about her, and discover the perils of reality.
If only she could live in this moment forever.
She lay motionless, afraid that any abrupt movement might shatter the illusion, bring her sharply into some dark, cold present. Yet her arms felt loose and relaxed, her long legs stretched out instead of curling inward as they usually were when she woke. So often she slept cramped with cold, huddled under some insufficient blanket, but now she was suffused with a glorious heat. She was enveloped in softness, a silken texture against her face, her throat, the flesh of her arms and legs. She turned her head cautiously from side to side, risking the destruction of the illusion, just to feel the play of that downy weight against her cheeks, her chin, the tip of her ear. She had never felt anything so incredibly soft, velvet-rich, feather-light, blood-warm—
Feather-light—
Very, very slowly she opened one eye. The world was fiercely bright; half-blinded, she clenched her eye shut again. Too bright; as if full sunlight filtered down through something immaculately white … She opened both eyes this time.
She was in a tent of white feathers, covered from head to toe by their snowy expanse. Below her was a white blanket, offering what padding it could against the hard ground. Outside, mid-morning sun beat down, adding its own iridescence. But she was inside, in a cocoon of mist and feathers—
She was sleeping under the quilt of Gabriel’s wing.
Which must mean that Gabriel was sleeping beside her.
Even more slowly, with infinite care, she reversed her position, inch by inch, until she was facing inward. Gabriel’s wing was draped so completely over her, touching the ground on either side of her body, that it was hard to orient herself in relation to him. But surely that was his back, solid against the feathered white wall, and the shadow so near her head his own mane of tousled black hair.
Sweet Jovah singing, he had slept beside her all night, and kept her warm with his wings; and perhaps he did not hate her after all.
She did not move again, fearful of waking him up. She lay there and considered the events of the night before.
Well, he had saved her life. Surely he had been under some compulsion to do that, even if he hated her. She was, after all, a woman marked by the god, and as such, valuable by divine decree. He had been angry, actually furious—had spoken harshly to her, as he had more than once in the past—but she knew all about using anger to camouflage other emotions. And it was the reason for his anger that was intriguing—he had been afraid for her, distraught that she planned to take her own life.
Had he really said he would sing with no angelica but her? Had she dreamed that? And if he had really said it, had he meant it—?
Dearest Jovah, he would be flying her back to the Eyrie today, carrying her in his arms. He was so strong; he would not falter once, would not think of setting her down so that he could rest. Her face burned. Her whole body clamped together in one wave of embarrassment. How could she let him carry her all that way for all those hours—
Her unwary movement had caused her wrists to brush against the sensitive feathers. There was a quick, seemingly involuntary tightening of his wing upon her, and she felt his whole body shift. She froze, but the feathers twitched and lifted. Gabriel had rolled over and was peering in at her. Instantly the white light under the feathered tent took on a sapphire cast.
“You’re awake,” he said gravely. “How do you feel?”
“Lucid,” she said, surprising herself by being able to talk quite normally. “Better than last night.”
A quick smile passed across his face. “You were lucid
last night,” he said. “Are you hungry? Naomi sent a few provisions with me, but there’s not much to choose from.”
“Naomi?” she repeated, sitting up. Instantly his wing fell away from her. The sun-warmed air suddenly seemed cool against her bare skin. “When did you speak to Naomi?”
“Yesterday—no, the day before. I went looking for you when Matthew said you were returning with the Edori. She helped me figure out where you were.”
“Then she’s at Velora?”
“Everyone is. Waiting for us.” He laughed softly. “At least, I imagine they’re waiting for us. Since I told no one—except Naomi—where I was going, everyone may be frantically searching for my body along the roads and mountains of Bethel.”
“So nobody knows where you are?”
“Or where you are. I’m glad I’m not one of the poor bewildered fools left behind to wonder what’s happened.” He had risen and gone to fetch the leather pouch that held their meager supplies. “We had best make haste back.”
She was ravenous. He gave her first choice of the food, and she ate more than her fair share, but he did not seem to begrudge her. He watched her with shadowed eyes. “Sometime you’ll have to tell me everything that happened to you at Windy Point.”
She thought of the long night barricading the door with her own body, the sessions of near-madness brought on by the ceaseless wind. “Maybe,” she said. “But one thing I do need to tell you. Leah—”
“She was there?”
“I didn’t see her. Raphael told me—” Rachel took a deep breath. “She’s not really the woman he was supposed to marry. Some Jansai princess. He killed that woman and put an angel-seeker in her place.”
Gabriel opened his mouth to refute the possibility, then slowly compressed his lips again. “It could be true,” he admitted after a moment’s stunned thought. “Jansai women are kept closely under wraps—none of us had met her before the wedding. But Rachel, that means—”
