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With that unbreakable promise softening the edges of unconsciousness and tethering me to him, I let darkness take me.

Part Three

Zelos

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Damien

The Angelglass flashed an array of dark clouds and the girl’s tear-streaked face, frozen in an anguished scream.

Bant’s torture had ceased days before, but as the image faded, our master lashed out one final time. A roar of power struck the Angelglass, and shards rained to the floor, chiming against rock.

Then, it whipped directly between Bant’s wings, the most sensitive place on an Angel, next to the extremities themselves.

Our master raised a large slice of glass and dragged it down Bant’s wing. Crimson erupted from the wound. It once would have been gold, I realized. Another reminder of the vital pieces of himself he sacrificed centuries ago on a foolish whim.

Bant would not scream.

He knew better.

The others averted their stares, but I watched. Perhaps it was for my own selfish vendetta, perhaps a piece of solidarity as someone who had once failed. I could not be sure until I was restored.

Everyone else lingered before the Angelglass, debating what we had seen, but I could not look away from Bant. History was pouring through my mind, worries of the past beginning to surface.

Of a man on his knees cursing our kind.

Of a spirit ripped from eternal existence.

Of hope tunneling from our grasp.

The Angel tensed, jaw clenching. His dark hair was sopping with sweat, sticking to the back of his neck and forehead. Pieces curled at the ends, reaching out like fingers needy for saving.

None of us could, though.

We had all been there at one time or another. You did not bow to our master for eternity without stepping out of his bounds at least once. And when you did, you felt the force of his wrath on feathers and flesh. Those strikes seared my own memories as the jagged pieces of glass ripped through his other wing, slow and torturous.

Bant’s eyes met mine. Silently, I forced myself to look back.

Brother, what have you done? A distant voice echoed.

I was not sure.

I watched in jaw-grinding silence as a feather fell from the Angel’s wings. Only one at first, drifting slowly to the ground. It landed in a pool of blood, weighed down and sodden.

This was what happened when Angels shed their power. It was a rare phenomenon. Magic was so scarcely given up and even harder to take. But a second feather fell, and there was only one other time I had seen it done. One other time Bant had, too.

Then, the room gave an almighty shiver. Ptholenix cried out, alarmed, not pained, and fire burst along his wings.

Beastly roars made of creatures long sleeping echoed against the walls of our chamber.

“Ptholenix?” our master asked, milky eyes wide. He spun the bloody shard between his fingers.

Ptholenix looked in wonder at the fiery wings surrounding him, a light in his gaze I had not seen in millennia. The Bodymelder’s eyes fell shut, and he breathed in for a moment. The flames along the tips of his burnished feathers flickered.

“Partially,” he confirmed. His skin remained the same tawny hue, no light emitted.

“Why only partially?” I wondered.