Page 62 of The Simurgh

Silas reached out, searching in the dark. Coughing as the churning dust forced itself up his nostrils. The slope of the ground sharpened. Another wrench forward, and the ground suddenly dipped away.

The fall was terrifying– a headfirst plummet down a narrow corridor that wove itself into a spiral. Silas shaped the scythe into a small rounded shield, one he held ahead, a battering ram against any obstacle that may appear in his way. He wound around and around, on a downward trajectory that seemed set to never end. He found himself in the midst of a dirt storm, rumbling earth all around, stones and debris coming at him with ferocious accuracy. It was beneath his shirt, down the legs of his trousers. He tugged at the hem of the cloak and gathered in the hood, trying to protect himself. .

Silas feared there would be no tunnel left before long. He ducked his chin, spitting as dirt stuck to his lips, but unwilling to lift his head for fear of being blinded by the rain of earth. His plough forward slowed, the pile of dirt ahead of the shield spilling around its edges.

Silas’s pulse thumped hard. He could not stop here. This was no better than a tomb. A coffin.

‘No, no, no.’ He wriggled his hips, let one hand fall from the shield to drag himself along. The earth pressed in on him, the weight of mountains on his back. Silas’s panted breath blew up fine dust, his fingernails stung with dirt, packed too deep. His coat had opened, his shirt ridden up and his belly cut at by all that lay in the burrow. He dragged himself another few inches, and still the weight of the land came down on him. A burden that bowed his spine.

It would be so very easy to become mindless here. Buried alive as he was.

But of all the things that frightened Silas Mercer, this was the least of them right now.

Silas returned the scythe to its ring form so he had both hands free; to grab, and haul and pummel his way ahead. Silas punched at the earth that had fallen to block his way. He dug in his toes, and anchored his elbows, and propelled himself forward.

Inch by laborious inch.

Breaking his way through Palatyne’s wards, through the madness of this entranceway. And when he was very nearly done, exhausted by the effort and his mouth filled with grit, the way ahead opened. The ground sloped away once more and he slid without any hindrance, out of the darkness, and into the light.

Silas came down hard upon soft mud, the pink cloak splaying wide around him.

He had reached a great wide marshland, where a violet mist rested just above the surface. He dragged himself to his knees, no mean feat when so drenched in mud. But he cared little for dirty clothing.

There, upon the crisp air, was a melody.

The sweetest he’d known.

The bandalore, calling to him at last.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LUCIFER WASunfamiliar with the UnSeelie Court, never having reason or desire to visit, but if this cockaigne, with its vast marshlands, was a reflection that place, the Faelands were none too beautiful.

Odd, considering the Seelie Court was rumoured to be a marvel, a splendid feast for the eyes. It’s queen, the Maiden Tsar, decided upon a whim what each day would look like: one with snowflakes made of diamonds, or rain drops of satin, autumn leaves that shimmered like true flames, or a day lit by a topaz sun. Suitably theatrical, as the fae tended towards.

But this land felt vacuous, and stagnant in the unpleasant way of water too long in a gutter.

Lucifer carried on through the marshlands, allowing a curious, innate sense of direction to guide him. The very same pull that had plagued him night after night in White Mountain, soon after Seraphiel’s death. The compulsion that had brought the pendant watch into his possession.

‘I am done with this subterfuge, Raph,’ Lucifer muttered. ‘Mourning has made me a fool enough.’

He’d admit to no one but himself that he grieved at all. To do so would betray the depths of a relationship hidden from everyone. Not Lord Enoch, of course. But all the rest.

Lucifer jerked at the length of the cloak where it caught on something poking from the mud, scowling not for the first time at the pale pink hue. Truly, could the half-breed not have brought a colour more suitable? Not that any who looked at him would see it. They would see a fae. Between the cloak’s magick, and his own immensely powerful enchantments, he likely could pretend to be the Erlking himself and none would bat an eye. They certainly wouldn’t see this insipidly coloured cloak, in a shade of blush that did nothing for his pallor, and a trim of fur that was totally unnecessary.

Vassago would have embraced the lavishness with embarrassing relish.

Lucifer scowled anew. He deplored the sentimentality, and the irritating compulsion, that had led him to secret the prince from the abaddon. His rivals would howl for his dethronement if it were known he’d freed Seraphiel’s grand, failed experiment. Why Enoch had not annihilated Vassago at once, Lucifer did not understand, but it had enabled him to go on to compound one poor decision with another. The compulsion bid Lucifer take the pendant watch to the broken prince, and though he’d fought it valiantly at first, his heart was not truly defiant. He’d wanted to believe, so badly, that Seraphiel still lingered in the compulsions somehow. Still needed him.

But even if his intentions were noble, Lucifer’s interference was treasonous, and he knew it well. Despite what he knew of Seraphiel’s death, the guilt was mountainous. Were it not for the serendipity of the discovery of the sorcerers, that guilt would have buried him alive. He would have confessed before long, he knew it.

But when it became evident there may be another traitorous angel in White Mountain, all time for playing secretive games came to an abrupt end.

The guilt hung heavy upon Lucifer’s shoulders when he finally knelt before the Ophanim Throne, several days hence, and made his confessions to the Lord Enoch. He told him of the children of maleficium. He told him of what the Valkyrie had said of the maker of her terrible injuries. That it was an angel with power far greater than any the Watchers, Iblis, Harut or Zaquiel, possessed.

That Lucifer had meddled where he ought not.

That he had freed a murderous prince.