Page 34 of Death of the Glass Angel (Apotheosis #1)

Talon/Janus

I would not call myself a good man, nor my life’s work a boon. The extraordinary and the unforeseen far outstrip the righteous path. And here’s one place I’ve yet to see.

-Alfaris’ personal journal

“We have to go back!” Janus insisted as she trudged after Talon.

“There’s nothing to go back to.” Talon retorted.

Tucking his injured arm beneath his shoulder, Talon ignored the pain by focusing on choosing his steps. Rocky, sloped mountain paths stretched between them and the city gates. All he wanted was to lie down. But Janus needed to be returned to safety.

“There was another entrance out here.” Janus continued, stumbling. “Where?”

“All you’ll find down there is rubble. The entire tunnel system was collapsing.” Talon said. “It might have taken parts of the city with it.”

“I don’t care. We have to find the others.”

“I can’t let you. You need to be escorted to safety.”

Without a word, Janus spun on her heel and marched north instead of south. Chasing after her, Talon grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She stared at him defiantly. “I’m going after them.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Talon reiterated firmly. “Your safety is more important to me.”

“And why does a songbird even care?”

“Do you even know what a songbird is?”

Janus ground her teeth together, a sheepish look in her eyes. “No.”

“We keep the peace in the Thruinc alliance. And one great way to destabilize that peace is allowing a noble to die in foreign territory.” Talon explained, tugging her arm.

A sandstone block appeared behind Talon, and his heel slammed into it. In his fight to keep from tumbling backward, he released Janus’s arm, and she backed away. Cursing under his breath, Talon righted himself. She had evoked that.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Janus demanded. “Why did you lie?”

“I had to.” Talon was growing tired of this conversation. “And you didn’t need to know.”

“I thought. . .” Janus’s voice warbled before her face hardened, and she swiveled, intent on her chosen course.

Why could she not have remained Des? The other woman was sensible.

Scowling, Talon grabbed at Janus’s collar, intending to forcefully direct her this time.

As his hand connected with her tunic, she spun around and slapped him.

The force of the blow pushed his head to the side and left a red mark on his cheek.

When her hand left his face, Janus pressed it to her mouth in horror. Talon touched his tender cheek, attempting to determine his feelings. It was not quite anger that brewed in him.

She hates him. A voice whispered.

Rightfully so. A deep voice declared.

He ruins everything.

“I’m. . .” Janus stuttered the beginning of an apology.

“Fine,” Talon articulated, dropping his hand. “We’ll go look for the others.” Striding around Janus, he took the lead, though he had no idea where he was going.

Silence draped the remainder of their journey. Talon held his injured arm tightly, mind blank. If he felt anything, he ignored it. His emotions had been repressed for years, locked in a glass bottle, and cast into the Clodian harbor.

Janus sounded like she was preparing to apologize again, but chose otherwise. Talon preferred the silence.

“We’re back where we started.” He spun around. “What now?”

Janus drew something in the air and wandered east. “This way.” She mumbled.

“Be careful,” Talon warned.

Counting her steps, Janus weaved through the mountains, eventually stopping at a dead end; the rise of a cliff blocked their path on all sides.

“The entrance was here,” Janus said, tapping the ground with her feet and drawing a line through the air. “It probably connected to the tunnel we didn’t explore. If we just follow this east. . .” She trailed off, turning around.

“Wait.” Talon followed her. “You remember that? I thought you couldn’t remember Des.”

“I do now. I’ll. . .explain later.”

The mountainscape became more familiar as Janus led them closer to the city. After a few minutes of walking, she turned abruptly and jogged down a narrow pass.

Awaiting them in the middle of nowhere, almost camouflaged in the dirt, was the hatch he and Des had emerged from days before.

Evoker’s memories were something else.

Hand shaking, Janus evoked a small torch and pulled the hatch open. Talon stepped in front of her. “Let me go first.”

Wincing, he climbed down the ladder into darkness. Everything appeared intact, with no signs of cracks or any rubble. Strange.

Janus dropped beside him, flushing the tunnel with fire light. Holding a hand out to stop her, Talon narrowed his eyes and listened. Faint thuds sounded in the distance.

“Stay behind me.” He ordered, unsheathing his dagger as he crept forward.

The thuds grew louder. Footsteps. Multiple people running, if he had to guess.

A light appeared in the darkness as a woman clutching fire in her palm approached. Red hair peeked from beneath her hood, though she ran with a limp. Valkyrie.

“Lady Janus.” She exclaimed, relieved. “How did you escape?”

Valkyrie limped past Talon to check on Janus. Felsin emerged from the shadows behind her, torn up and bleeding in a few places.

“You’re alive,” Talon said. “Can’t say I expected that.”

“Isn’t that my line?” Felsin retorted, watching Valkyrie fuss over Janus. A white cat poked its head from his bag, beady black eyes watching Talon closely. “You could act more concerned.”

“Would you like me to pretend?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Talon almost smiled. Felsin returned the expression.

“We need to get out of here,” Valkyrie said. “The whole place might be coming down.”

At least Janus seemed willing to listen to Valkyrie. She heeded the other songbird’s orders and trailed her back towards the hatch. Felsin paused to ensure Talon was alright, and he nodded.

Talon leaned against the wall, lingering behind. He listened, eyes closed, for reverberations in the distance, a sign the world would soon swallow him in its embrace.

All was quiet, save for the retreating footsteps of the others. Unfurling his injured hand, he tried to understand what that woman had done to him. It hurt like hell. It was raw and bloody. He gleaned little else.

Swathed in complete darkness, Talon retreated into his mind. Terror had brewed in his heart during their capture. At first, he’d presumed it had been a rational fear: a princess was in danger, and his duty was to protect her.

Now, he admitted the fear had been something else. Des could have been a nameless pauper, and terror would have plagued him all the same.

Songbirds could not court royals. They could seduce as a means to gain information or a needed closeness, but upon duty’s end, were expected to disappear. Through shared memories, the leaders kept rapt watch over the other songbirds. Every step of their lives was governed by others.

Talon’s memories, desires, and emotions had been bottled up and cast into the sea. These growing feelings for Des need be placed in that bottle, and locked away.

Exhausted, he finally rose and followed the others, pressing his uninjured hand to his cheek, where heat still lingered.

* * *

Valkyrie had suggested making a brief camp; the city was still miles away, and they were all injured. Janus sank gratefully onto a flat rock. She needed time to process everything before being thrust into a nest of worried, hovering guards.

Across the fire, Valkyrie finished binding her ankle before unwrapping Talon’s rough bandaging to examine his wound. Bloody rags unwound to expose a section of cutaway skin, and Janus felt nausea brimming in her throat. Turning away, she tried not to look back.

“Ash and cinder.” Valkyrie quietly cursed. “How did this happen?”

“Ah.” Talon sounded remarkably calm despite his horrific injury. “So that’s what she was doing.”

Pulling a roll of gauze from her bag, Valkyrie quickly re-bandaged the wound before it bled him dry.

After a few seconds, Janus allowed herself to look at Talon again, met his eye, and stared at the ground.

She had not meant to hit him. She did not know what had come over her.

Anger, betrayal, and something she couldn’t place.

Usually, she was the opposite of assertive. The slap had surprised her, too.

“That thing.” Valkyrie finished binding the wound and turned to Janus. “That’s what attacked you at the inn. Is it. . . human?”

“I think so.” Felsin mused, pacing around the fire. “It gestured for me to watch it.” He mimicked the motion, drawing two fingers from Janus to his own eyes. “And the way it acted. . . It’s not a monster.”

“If it is a monster,” Valkyrie said. “It’s one nobody’s ever heard of. So, let’s assume it’s a skilled evoker. Why didn’t it follow us?”

Janus reflected on the mirage evoker, remembering its mirrors and phantom hands. How strange, simply trying to imagine a memory. Was this how non-evokers recalled events?

Water, ghostly tendrils, collapsing stone. All effortless. Perhaps this evoker was even more talented than Gemellus.

“I don’t know.” Janus finally answered.

“What about the men?” Valkyrie said. “You said one interrogated you. What did he want to know?”

“He. . .” Janus trailed off, sifting through her mind. Des had been interrogated, and her answers had been quite different from what Janus would have said. “He wanted to know about Eros.”

“Eros?” Valkyrie’s eyes narrowed, and she looked at Talon, who frowned. “What else?”

“Um. . .” Janus swallowed. “He asked about Gemellus. About my father.”

Valkyrie’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say much else and dodged all my questions.”

Talon cleared his throat. “The evoker. The man. I’ve seen him before. He works for Heras.”

Upon hearing his mother’s name, Felsin froze in his tracks. “What makes you say that?”

“I, um. . .” Talon rolled his tongue in his mouth. “I peered into your maevruthan, watched some of-”

“You what?” Felsin said, appalled. “You’re a cefra; shouldn’t you know the sanctity of-”