Chapter 27

A Bruising Blow

Trying to figure out what had disturbed me, I dragged myself out of my deep slumber. Light was streaming in through my window, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted.

Voices. It was sharp voices in the living area.

I sat up in a rush, looking around, but Nier was no longer in my bed.

Shadows parted in the corner, and he was there, crouching like a silent, brooding sentinel. He brought his finger up to his lips in a shushing motion. I darted a glance at the closed door as I scooted to the edge of the bed, then glanced back at him again as I wondered if he’d slept or watched over me all night. He didn’t look tired though; he looked alert and refreshed.

The memory of last night rose with a blush I could feel heating my face. What we had shared changed everything and nothing. He was still forbidden, and I was still caught in a snare. There was no future for us without one, or both, of us dying.

Nier raised his eyebrow at me, as if wondering what I was doing, half in and half out of bed with the sheet clutched to me.

I’d intended to talk to Nier this morning about what we’d learned yesterday, but it looked like time wasn’t something we had; not that we ever did. I could hear Haniel arguing with my brother, and their voices were escalating.

I slid fully out of bed and moved over to my wardrobe, then grabbed one of my acolyte robes before I paused—sensing eyes on me. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught Nier’s heated gaze sweeping across what he could see of my body beyond my wings. It had goosebumps chasing across my skin like a physical caress, reminding me of the way his hands and his shadows had slid over me last night.

One thing for sure had changed. He was no longer turning away from me.

The thought made me smile, yet more shouting had me moving again. The world had no intention of letting us prolong our night together. The knowledge we may not get another had my smile dimming. My memories would have to be enough.

I pulled on my robe and turned for the door, but a hand spun me back around and Nier was in my space. He kissed me roughly, holding my whole body against him as if he needed to feel me as badly as I needed to feel him this morning. The pull toward him hadn’t diminished after last night, if anything, it had sunk its roots deeper into me.

“Do what you have to do,” he whispered. “I’ll keep you in sight.”

Then he was gone. Only this time, I knew he wasn’t going far—at least, not yet. The knowledge made it easier to face whatever the fates were throwing at me this morning.

A loud crash had me hustling toward the door. Sparing a glance at the shadows to make sure Nier was concealed, I opened it and stepped through into chaos.

“What in the darkness is going on out here?” I demanded, forgetting any semblance of my acolyte training. Kiran had Haniel pushed up against a wall, and there was a broken vase at their feet. It looked like it had been knocked off a side table by an errant wing in a scuffle. Mara was hovering on the other side of the room, her eyes wide, trying to keep out of the way.

As soon as she saw me, she dashed over and stood at my side.

It wasn’t like me to raise my voice, or curse, and it stopped both males in their tracks. Their heads swiveled toward me, but Kiran made no move to release my friend. I knew, in theory, my brother was well trained and knew how to fight, but I’d never seen it before. He’d always been so gentle with me. Right now, though, anger blazed in his blue eyes like the hottest flame, and he was holding Haniel high against the wall with brute strength.

“Kiran?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady and not betray my shock. I couldn’t imagine what would provoke a response like this from Kiran. He wasn’t as close to Haniel as I was, but they’d known each other a long time, and Haniel was under his command.

“I got back late and slept in front of your bedroom door last night. I woke up as he was trying to push past me to get into your room.”

Oh. Yeah, that would do it. No wonder Nier had been up and dressed, poised for action.

Haniel looked rough. His clothes were in disarray and Kiran’s bulging forearm at his throat had his face turning blue. “I just wanted to know you were okay,” he rasped.

The sight should have scared the life out of me—would have days ago—but today, an odd calmness had settled over my surging emotions. I felt more centered now, a little more in control of myself.

“Okay. Well, I’m out of my room now and I’m fine, so maybe you can both calm down? You’re scaring Mara.”

Kiran released him with an angry glare. Something had my brother riled, and it was more than just Haniel. His thunderous expression looked like a fireworks fuse that had already been lit.

“Where’s Mother?” She was the only other person I could think of that might make Kiran so angry.

He glanced at Mara, then Haniel, who was righting his clothes with a sullen look on his face, before he spoke. “She went to visit an old friend last night. In the town.”

Kiran shot me a loaded glance, laced with silent warning. She’d gone to see our father.

“Oh, that’s right. Yeah. I forgot she mentioned something about that.” It was a bumbling, fumbled response, but tensions were too high in the room for anyone to pay much attention to my mother’s whereabouts.

“Where were you last night?” Haniel demanded. He sounded sulky, yet his fists were clenched in anger, making my brother’s glare deepen. “Mara and I came to check on you when you didn’t come to dinner. We haven’t seen you since you were presented. We’ve been worried.”

“Oh.” I sighed. I was an awful friend. Mara and Haniel had stood up for me after the potentiate presentation, at significant risk to themselves. So much was happening so quickly, though. that I hadn’t thought of them since.

An apology was on my lips as I turned to Mara, but she cut me off with a strangely blank look on her face. “What’s this?”

She held her hand up, and there was a long, black feather in it. Fear gripped me as I grabbed for it, but she yanked it out of my reach.

“Where did you get that?” I demanded.

She arched an imperious eyebrow at me and put her hand on her hip. “I don’t have many robes, so I came back earlier yesterday to get mine from your room. I left it here after we got dressed together. I didn’t think you’d mind. Only, I picked yours up by mistake. This was in the pocket.”

Now she was showing some backbone. Perfect timing.

Glancing toward Kiran and Haniel, I noticed Kiran was staring at the feather with an intense focus, while Haniel wasn’t looking at it at all—he was still staring at me with an angry red flush across his cheeks. He’d seen it already.

“What is it, Alula?” Mara repeated, drawing my attention back to her. Her stare was resolute. She wasn’t letting this go.

Sweat formed along my spine as my body heated further, and a sharp pain jabbed my palms as my fingernails dug into my fist. We hadn’t been close lately—I knew that—but I couldn’t help feeling betrayed that she had showed Haniel before coming to me. Then again, hadn’t I betrayed her first by keeping all this a secret? The easy friendship of our youth had become so complicated.

The idea of telling them all the truth now briefly crossed my mind, but I wasn’t sure they were ready. The owner of that feather was also hovering just inside my bedroom while listening to every word. I remembered the look on that little boy’s face when he laid eyes on Nier, and how unfair it had been considering Nier had just saved him.

So I attempted to school my features, and I lied to the people who meant the most to me in the world. “How the hell do I know, Mara? I found it.”

The words felt thick on my tongue, corrupted and wrong.

She didn’t reply, but her nose wrinkled as if she could smell my falsehood on the breeze. My brother took cautious steps toward us and held out his hand slowly, as if stepping between two arguing females was a danger he’d learned not to underestimate. Mara hesitated before she handed it to him with a wary glance. Haniel wouldn’t take his eyes off me. He watched me like he thought I was going to turn into a snake right in front of him and strike him. Did he trust me so little?

Granted, I was currently lying through my teeth, and apparently, every emotion I had showed on my face, so their mistrust was probably justified. I refused to bow my head, though, or hide my face. Not in front of my only friends. I was done with that.

“Where did you find it, Lulu?” my brother asked.

“The night of the guardian dinner, I went for a walk to get some air before I went back to my room. It was in the orchard along the edge of the promenade, wedged in the bark of a tree. I found it not long before Haniel showed up.” Keeping as close to the truth as possible was my best option, considering my lack of skill in lying.

“Why didn’t you show me then?” Haniel’s tone was challenging and brusque as he gave me a slow, disbelieving head shake. He paced the room behind Kiran, a caged animal waiting to pounce.

“Because I’d already pocketed it, and you distracted me when you arrived. If you recall, it wasn’t an easy conversation we had. You were already frothing with anger when you landed.”

Haniel’s eyebrows lowered until his eyes were mere slits. “I don’t froth,” he said, pointedly. “Besides, are you really going to blame this on me?”

“Enough,” my brother intervened with a gruff command. “I understand you not giving it to him .” He held up his hand to silence Haniel when he opened his mouth to argue. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t give it to me , as the commander of your wing, if not your brother. This is no…animal feather.” He winced and stumbled at the words, hesitating to speak the name of its rightful owner.

“It belongs to a Fallen,” Haniel said, spitting out the word. “Do you have any idea what could have happened if someone else found this on you, Lulu? Or what it means for the defense of this citadel? That was days ago. Who knows how long they’ve been here, or what the traitorous vipers have been up to. They could be defiling women all over the town.”

Oh, I knew exactly what Nier had been up to; only, I wasn’t telling anyone in this room that right now, given the anger and suspicion being directed at me. I grit my teeth at Haniel’s hypocritical words. He’d defiled plenty of women in town from the rumors I’d heard. Both Kiran and I ignored him as we faced each other.

“I intended to give it to you, Kiran, which is why I kept it. I didn’t want to leave it where a fruit picker would find it in the morning and start a panic. Then a lot happened when I saw you next, and I forgot. It’s as simple as that. My life has been turned upside down over the last few days.” I stared at my brother, willing him to hear the words I wasn’t saying and let it go for now.

His posture tensed even further, he knew I was lying but didn’t know why. He didn’t like it though. His eyes flicked to my hand as I gave him the wait signal. He subtly nodded at me but narrowed his eyes, and I knew I’d have to reveal everything to him later. I had no choice now. He would not let this go, but he’d wait until we were alone.

“Are you kidding me? You’re going to blatantly lie to us right now? This is not something you just forget,” Haniel ranted. A wild, angry disdain I’d never heard burst from him before crashing between us as he stepped into my space and jabbed his finger in my direction. “You need to grow up, Alula. Not everything is about you. It’s high time you stopped running around the citadel like life doesn’t have consequences. You have no idea how closely you are being watched, and have been watched for some time. They’re just waiting to catch you out, and I’ve protected you as much as I can. I won’t do it anymore. I have to think about Mara and me now.”

My shocked breath was mirrored by Mara’s. Haniel had never spoken to either of us with anything other than affection and had always been the first to tempt us into escapades in our youth. I struggled to recognize the male in front of me. It felt like he’d doused our friendship in oil and put a match to it. I was so rattled by the vitriol in his first words, the later ones barely registered.

My brother didn’t miss them.

“How exactly do you know how closely she is being watched, Haniel?” Kiran’s voice was ice-cold as he turned on his wing member.

Haniel blanched, and his anger petered out like a sudden squall, fading as fast as it had flared. He blinked rapidly and looked around the room as if processing his own words while he calculated his escape.

“Haniel,” my brother warned, his voice cracking dangerously as he shifted to angle himself in front of the open window and block him.

Haniel backed away but lifted his chin and threw his arms out wide in defiance. “I can’t tell you, and it doesn’t involve our wing, so you can’t force me. This goes above you, Kiran.”

I’d left the door to my room open and shadows started to thicken unnaturally through it, wisps spilling out in my direction. My heart raced, worried that Nier might step out at any moment. I was the only one who seemed to notice, though. I forced myself to look away lest I draw attention to it.

Kiran straightened to his full height and took a menacing step forward, forcing Haniel to retreat a few steps. “Talk, or darkness take me, I’ll make you. What have you gotten yourself into now, you light-blasted, sniveling little worm?”

This conversation had gotten out of hand, and we couldn’t risk anyone overhearing us shouting accusations at each other or secrets spilling out. I had to do something fast to show Nier I had this under control. Putting my hand on the wall alongside my door, I wielded the protective barrier that was coming in increasingly handy.

Haniel blanched even further as his eyes followed the shimmer, his face draining of blood. “Since when can you wield so easily?”

All my attention was on Mara in that moment, though. She watched me with far too much intelligence. She’d always had an ability to fade into the background and make people forget she was there, as both males seemed to have done.

“You figured something out about your light,” she stated, “or you figured out a more permanent escape, which is why you were so calm before the potentiate presentation. I couldn’t understand it at the time.”

Nothing much had ever gotten past Mara.

“Figured out what?” Haniel demanded, but he was no longer in control of this conversation—not that he ever had been.

“It’s not about her, remember?” My brother angrily mocked him as he advanced on him. Something had changed with their dynamic since Haniel had joined the guardians. At the very least, Haniel seemed to have lost Kiran’s trust well before tonight. I wondered why he’d hadn’t told me.

Haniel backed up until he hit the wall again. He had nowhere to go. All the fight left him in the face of Kiran’s rage, and he slumped against the wall. “Aeron caught me sneaking around one night. Instead of reporting me, he said he was impressed with my skills and would consider me for a place within his flight. I was never going to advance further in this wing, not with all your friends in line before me, so I took the opportunity. All I had to do to prove myself was watch Alula and report back to him. I swear on the goddess, I never gave him anything important, and I threw him off whenever I could.”

Kiran punched him in the face, making Haniel slide sideways with a pained grunt, as bright-red blood spurted from his nose. It splattered like spilled paint all over his tunic. “I never should have trusted you with her safety. You can’t even tell when you’re being played. He didn’t catch you—he laid a trap for you.”

Haniel tried to shake his head in denial but had to grab his face with a groan. “You’re wrong. He trusts me. He’s let me into his inner circle. They’ve shown me things they would never show you because you’re too proudly rigid in your morality. You would never get your hands dirty. They make the tough decisions and do the hard things so the rest of us can live in peace, away from the clutches of the wraiths. You can’t fight them. Their circle is too strong, too bright.”

“What things?” Kiran asked as he raised his fist again, ignoring the taunt.

I winced, waiting for the hammer of his fist to fall, but Mara dashed forward with more courage than she’d ever shown and grabbed Kiran’s arm before he could cause more damage that would be hard to explain.

“There are other ways to make someone talk to you, Kiran,” she said, gently, before she turned to her friend and now uncontested consort. “Haniel, we’ve been friends all our lives. I can’t help but think we’re in this situation right now because none of us have been trusting each other like we used to. Please, talk to us. We need to know what you’ve learned.”

“I can’t, Mara,” he whispered. “I keep it a secret to keep you safe.”

“You have to tell us. Alula’s life may depend on it. Have we fallen so far apart? Do you want that on your conscience? My fate is tied with yours now, and I know I don’t want it on mine.” He’d always had a soft spot for Mara. I’d thought it was because of her family’s difficulties, but maybe I’d missed something all along, which only made him ending their secret relationship all the more confusing.

His face crumpled. “I only ever wanted to protect you both, but it was impossible. Nothing I ever did seemed enough. Trouble always circled Alula anyway. But none of that matters now. You don’t understand.”

“Help us understand,” she begged.

That angry, impulsive fire flared in his eyes again. “You really want to know that they keep our city afloat by sacrificing humans, Mara? And not just humans, but vessels too?”

“What?” She gasped, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

Shadows thickened further behind me. I could sense them, like they were trying to reach for me. I felt one wrap around my ankle, but I didn’t dare look down.

“Explain,” Kiran demanded, his entire body pulled taut and all his years of leadership training poured into that one barked word.

Haniel looked at Kiran over Mara’s shoulder and sneered. “I don’t know how, but the Apex Flight rounds up humans from the ground when they need them. Humans don’t give them as much light as vessels, though, but they can’t sacrifice too many vessels without raising suspicion. That’s why I offered for you—because if nobody else did and you ended up back in town with your family, you would have disappeared, permanently. The moment you failed to become a vessel, you would have been more valuable to them as a sacrifice.”

Mara’s hands shook at how close she’d come to a fate she hadn’t even seen coming. His face softened as he looked back at her. “You’re safe now, Mara. So is Alula. I made sure of it.”

I was stunned, but my mind raced, connecting the dots. “You spread a rumor I secretly had power, didn’t you?!”

The look he gave me was cold and left chills in its wake.

“You refused to let me offer for you. You left me with no choice. I had to make sure someone did.” He dismissed me as he turned back to Mara again. “I know you care about Alula and have grieved the distance between you, but everything is going to be okay now, Mara. I’ve made sure of it.”

“Okay?” Mara asked, her voice sounding way too loud to my ears. “How is sacrificing humans and vessels okay?”

Haniel shook his head, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “They only take humans who are already dying, or vessels who are no longer useful. As sacrifices, they serve a higher purpose for our goddess and our people in keeping this citadel safe. I didn’t like it at first either, but now I can see everything they’ve done has been to serve the light and keep us safe from the Fallen.”

When she didn’t answer, he reluctantly turned back to me but his taut anger wouldn’t allow him to meet my eyes. His gaze kept sliding away. “Don’t you see? That’s why I’m so mad. You risked everything I’ve done to keep you both safe by keeping that feather. You need to lie low now and let your contested consorts court you.”

I looked at him in astonishment, unable to believe what I was hearing. He sounded so confident and earnest, as if he truly believed it was all going to be okay now. I felt like I was going to throw up. “It’s easy to decide it’s okay when it’s not you potentially being sacrificed. What happens when Mara and I are no longer useful?”

“That’s why you need to become a stronger vessel, and make sure you stay useful. If they knew you had the power to do this”—he grinned wide, making fresh blood seep from his nose, as he waved his hand at the wielding shimmering faintly at the edges of the room—“they’d never sacrifice you. You just need to teach Mara too. She’s already strong, but you can make her stronger. Don’t you see?”

I didn’t.

“Can I hit him again?” Kiran asked, tightening his fists as he glowered at Haniel.

Haniel shook his head as he huffed in frustration. “How am I the only one who is getting this? You understand, don’t you, Mara? You were always the smart one of us all.”

Her shock made her face slack as she looked between us all, yet her eyes lingered on Haniel and on the seeping blood he tried to stem by pinching his nose. A flash of pain darkened her eyes before she straightened her spine and a sense of certainty seemed to settle over her.

“I understand, Haniel.” Mara moved toward him and cupped his face gently as she pulled a cloth from her pocket and cleaned some of the blood away. “You need to go and report for duty now. You’re already late. Tell them you were chaperoning me and were rushing back when you collided with someone, or tripped. Get your face checked by the wing medic and make sure nothing’s broken. I’ll talk to them both, get them to see. It’ll be okay.”

The relief on his face was palpable, and he reached up to clasp her hand. “I knew you’d understand, Mara. Make them see. They always listened to you.”

He glanced at Kiran and me as if disgusted with us, then he turned and walked to the door. He stopped and stared at the slight shimmer of the wielding, reaching out to touch it—but before he could connect the wielding pulsed a warning.

“Stop,” I demanded. “I don’t know how it will react to you. Let me remove it.”

Taking a deep breath, I recalled what Adrita had said about light never dying, that it just flowed into a new form when we wielded it. I reached out and held my hand to the wall again, closing my eyes to block everyone out, as I asked the light for what I needed. The illume orbs in the room all grew subtly brighter as they absorbed the light within the wielding, strengthening them.

When I opened my eyes again, Haniel was staring at me as if he’d never seen me before. “I don’t know why you’ve been hiding how strong your light-wielding is, Alula. Despite how angry I am with you right now, I won’t say anything about it until you’re ready to reveal yourself. If you ever cared about Mara, though, you’ll stop thinking only about yourself and help her too. And we’ll be talking about that feather, Kiran. You need to plant it back in the orchard and make sure someone else finds it so we can hunt the Fallen hiding amongst us.”

Then he was gone, shutting the door harder than necessary behind him and taking his righteous anger with him.

Mara leaned her head against the door briefly, then turned to face us with a heavy sigh. My heart ached, as if preparing for the final rupture about to come. It was only now I was realizing that blocking my light and my emotions for so long had contributed to our friendship fading as much as her pulling away had. Had possibly even caused, or hastened, her pulling away. It was as much my fault as anyone’s that I’d been so alone.

Now that our friendship had breathed to life again, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing it for good. I braced myself for her reasonings, but when they came, they were unexpected.

“We can’t trust him anymore. He’s too blinded by his own ambition. I never saw it before.”

“Agreed,” Kiran said, his tone abrupt and urgent. “Can we trust you?”

“Kiran—” I wanted to defend her, but she held up her hand, ready and willing to defend herself.

“If you have a way out for Alula, I want in. You can trust that, if nothing else.” Her eyes flicked to him briefly before flicking away again without meeting his gaze. Despite the tough stance within her words, her years of acolyte training were as much of a struggle for her to overcome as they were for me.

“What about your family?” I asked, shocked to my core. She had sacrificed so much for them over the years. Even me. “All their dreams are pinned on you.”

“My family will be fine.” Now it was my gaze she couldn’t meet as she stepped away to look out the window and down at the town. “My mother bribed a chaperone and visited me secretly a month ago, knowing I was about to face my final tests. She told me if I failed to become a vessel and was sent back to town, I would be in danger—that girls disappearing from town was nothing new, but that it had escalated recently, especially amongst those who had light-wielding abilities but failed to become a vessel.”

“You already knew?” Kiran asked. “You seemed so shocked.”

“Only that Haniel was involved, and I didn’t know how high the betrayal of our people went amongst the elders. If Aeron is involved, it’s sanctioned by Elder Welkin at least.”

“And you didn’t think to warn Alula?” Kiran probed, an edge to his voice.

“I tried, but Alula is watched so closely, and I didn’t know if she would trust me anymore.”

So that was why she’d risked questioning me about why I’d stayed when we found ourselves alone on our last night as acolytes. I walked to her side, drawn by memories of all we’d once shared. As children we used to sit on this window ledge and talk for hours, our feet dangling over the edge as we let the breeze flutter our wings. “Is that why you were so afraid during the final test Elder Welkin made us do together?”

I’d wanted to ask her about it. She’d seemed so troubled when we’d talked that night, but had held back. The time for keeping secrets amongst us had passed, though. Both our lives were in danger now.

She nodded, and tears welled as she reached out and twined my pinkie finger with her own, the gesture a relic of our childhood. I figured it had been her mother who had revealed the truth about how vessels shared their light too, not gossiping chaperones.

“My mother warned me if I didn’t think I could do it, I should quit before the final tests, but she also told me that her biggest regret in life is abandoning your mother to her fate and not doing more over the years to help her. She said whatever I did with what she’d told me was ultimately my decision. I chose to stay. I couldn’t leave you alone, even if we never spoke anymore.”

“Mara, you shouldn’t have put yourself in danger for me.” The very thought horrified me.

“I wouldn’t have been any safer at my parents. I no longer want to be a vessel, though. Not anymore. I’ve never been interested in power or prestige. Plus, this path already lost me you for far too long. I don’t want to make that mistake again. If you have another path, I want to walk it with you, with my parents’ blessing. Even if it means we have to leave. My dad became wary of Haniel when he came to visit as my uncontested consort. He told me he believes there’s something seriously off with this whole citadel, and if there was any way out, I should take it.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” I said, as I pulled her into a hug. She returned it, holding me tightly as her tears dampened my skin. My heart ached for a whole different reason—I was glad to have my friend back, even if I’d lost another. “There’s no guarantee of another path, or that we can get out now. There’s not even a plan yet. Only a vague hope.”

She cocked her head to the side and looked me up and down. I found myself standing straighter under her scrutiny and meeting her eyes in a way I rarely met anyone’s—fighting through the memory of our shared history, letting everything I couldn’t yet say shine through.

“Vague hope looks good on you,” she said, with a small smile. “I choose hope.”