Above the Ashen Clouds (Twisted Worlds #2)

17. Cat

Chapter seventeen

Cat

A fter we quickly left the … ceremony room? We silently rushed back to Zariel’s chambers. For once, I was glad that none of the angels spared me a passing glance—it spared them from seeing the fear that I was sure was plain on my face. Did someone see us? Would we be stopped? If they knew what I saw, would they let me leave? Not soon enough, the familiar surroundings of his rooms embraced us, settling my racing heart.

We hadn’t gone anywhere strictly forbidden, but it still felt illicit. There was an altar, for fuck’s sake. With gashes. In an ominous dark room made of stone, perfect to muffle screams. I didn’t have to be a crime scene investigator to know what happened. Silv was right—the angels were dangerous, their magic possessing layers no one expected. And I was now solidly within their grasp .

I could still leave. Zariel had said that he’d take me home. But … I didn’t want to go. I was staying for my research. My dissertation. Not for Zariel himself.

No, not Zariel at all.

Zariel couldn’t be like them. I lived with him, saw him nearly every waking moment. He’d never do whatever brutal things I was imagining …. would he?

We didn’t speak in the sitting room, and instead we stayed silent until we went deeper into his apartment. Not a word was spoken until we were in Zariel’s bedroom, the door shut quietly behind him. Whatever he was about to say, he wanted that extra layer of privacy. My mouth went dry. If I hadn’t been nervous before, I certainly was now.

I spoke first, settling myself on his familiar bed and its blue comforter, with him remaining standing and taking his place a respectable distance from me. Even in here, the ash covered the walls like snow, a permanent winter. Though its beauty did nothing to make me feel better now. “Don’t tell me anything you’re not supposed to,” I said. It was obvious that the angels had many secrets, and would likely do anything to protect them. Even kill me.

Zariel let out a curt, mirthless laugh. “That’s the thing—no one has given me any guidance for what they do and do not want me to tell you. And at this point I’m wondering if it’s on purpose.”

“Zariel—”

“You wish to stay here, right? ”

“Yes. I don’t want to go now.”

Relief passed over his features, an expression quickly buried in sadness. “You’re not in immediate danger, Cat. I wouldn’t allow you to be here if that were the case. The angels know better than to have anything happen to you when negotiations with the humans are so new, and the humans surely figured out by now that you might be here. But there’s no denying that my family’s name has been … compromised. And I cannot explain it, but something doesn’t feel right .”

“But why would they treat you like this?”

“Our pride and our families are everything. Our reputation. Where one acts, we all act. I am now tainted, considered a traitor in the making.”

“I’m the one who is putting you in danger,” I said. Would they bring Zariel into that prison, to live in the darkness? It was likely that there was more that Zariel wasn’t telling me, either on purpose or because it involved the intricacies of being an angel. It felt like I swallowed ice, the awareness of his situation painfully boring into me inch by painful inch. If not for me, he’d still be a scribe, transcribing whatever records that they sent his way, with no other concerns than getting ink stains out of his clothes. He would’ve been ignored. I never should have come here.

“Stop,” he said. “I never want to see that look on your face again.”

“What look?”

“Regret. Not me, Cat. Please. Never regret me.”

“Never,” I said. “Never regret.” Our eyes locked, and my worries faded. Zariel was a friend. Over the last couple of weeks, we had spent every moment together, talking about everything. Well, mostly everything. Under the surface lingered the truth that brought us together in the first place—we were mates. It explained the initial pull we had to each other, but didn’t explain that I didn’t just want him. I liked him. A lot.

Maybe … maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we just did what the bond wanted. Would it?

But first, I needed to understand why Zariel acted as if he was about to tell me that he had murdered a village.

Seemingly buying himself time, he made himself comfortable on the bed, wings splayed around him. The mattress bent under his weight, and for the first time I saw him at home in his own bedroom. I glanced at the rumpled comforter and pillow, the spot that had been clearly mine all these nights. And only mine.

Without taking his eyes off me, he undid the front of his robes, revealing the toned muscles that lay underneath. Heat throbbed through my body. Could I touch him? Would he stop me? But that wasn’t why we were here—it was to see the runes on his skin. The magic that granted the angels their powers.

“Oh my god,” I said.

There they were, again, the magic so intense that it was literally burning in him. The row of runes lay at the bottom of Zariel’s stomach, each one glowing like embers under his skin, pulsating as if each had its own heart. They were nearly as tall as my fingers and a couple inches wide, and they circled him from hip to hip, a belt of pained and burning flesh.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes. But it’s a side effect from the magic. You can touch them, if you like. The pain they can cause is internal.” When I grimaced, he continued, “It feels like a fire under my skin, when it hurts. It isn’t bothered by touching. And most of the time I never feel them at all.”

Touch them, he said. Touch him .

Before I knew what I was doing, I reached out a finger and slowly traced the unfamiliar designs. His breath came out in short gasps and the muscles of his abdomen clenched, firm and supple. “Am I hurting you?”

“Not directly,” he said with a hint of a growl. “But it’s taking everything I have to resist touching you.”

I met his piercing gaze. “That sounds like the opposite of what we want to do.”

“Want to do?” He shook his head. “Never. What my body wants and what my mind thinks is right aren’t the same. As I said that first night—I’ll pursue nothing. Until or unless you want something more.”

It didn’t pass my notice that his phrasing changed since that first night. He wanted me. And seemed to be struggling with resisting the mate bond, too.

Again, why were we bothering to resist it ?

Damn, he was exquisite. His muscles tightened with each movement, his skin glistening in the lamplight. For a librarian, he was uncommonly fit, likely due to flying. I tried to pretend that I didn’t notice how he stared at me, like he wanted to devour me. The deep heat coiled within me, settling low in my abdomen, begging to be allowed to grow. A pleasure and a torment, he was both the poison and the cure.

He wanted me.

No. I couldn’t think like that. I had my goal—my research. And to try to get Zariel out of whatever mess I had brought him into. Eventually I’d have to leave the mountain—whatever we would have would be painful and fleeting. I didn’t know what the answer to our “situation” was, but I wouldn’t find the answer in his perfect abs.

“Can you tell me about your runes?” I asked, swallowing hard. “How they work?”

“Of course.” Zariel shifted, sending a new series of muscles in motion, my eyes glued to their every movement. He pointed at the rune on the furthest right side, an angular shape with circles at the ends of the lines. “This is how we can survive in the ashen clouds. A volcano was here, thousands of years ago, and formed many of the same tunnels and halls that we use, but it spilled a substance into the air that will likely never leave. It is caustic to everyone, except us.”

“Making it the perfect place to defend.”

“Indeed. ”

I shifted. “You said that your magic doesn’t work when carved in stone—but how does the interior of the mountain work? The ash is … neutralized. I can touch it.” It left everything appearing as if in perpetual winter.

“Part of that is the mountain itself—the same stone that causes the ashen clouds to stay here forever, no matter the wind.” He took a deep breath. “But part of it is our magic. The High Artists maintain the mountain and keep the volcano and the ash dormant.”

“High Artist s ?” I asked.

Zariel’s lip curled in that way that meant he didn’t have a complete answer. “Somewhere in the mountain, there are three prior High Artists who aren’t exactly alive but they are … maintained. They’re hosting the magic.”

“How—”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you more—because I don’t know. It’s a secret guarded by a select few Artists, and they’re the only ones who know who they are.”

Fair.

So we had sacrificial altars, burning runes, and zombie angels. This couldn’t get any worse.

“How do you get one?” I asked, deciding it was time to focus on why we were here, and what Zariel didn’t seem to want to tell me. “A rune.”

“How we obtain each rune is different, but they all have one thing in common—blood. From a fresh source.” He flinched. “And a lot of it. ”

“Oh no.”

He had murdered a village.

My gentle scholar, my protector—a murderer?

Zariel bobbed his head, a matter-of-fact expression on his face. “Blood carries the essence of a being, and their magic. With the right conduction of that essence into us, we can form it into a sequence that will enable our natural magic to react—”

“Can you use normal words?”

“Sorry.” Zariel coughed. “As I was saying, blood carries magic, or at the very least, it carries the ability to manipulate it. Thus, when we drink the blood of an angel who has been exposed to the clouds and who died from it, their blood is contaminated with the ash. And then that blood can be used to create a protection magic from the ash.”

“Oh, it becomes a sort of … ash vaccine?”

“I don’t know.” After I quickly explained what vaccines did, Zariel agreed that it wasn’t an awful analogy.

And then it hit me.

“Where does the blood come from? The dead angel.”

Zariel squirmed. “ Dying angel. They’re prisoners sentenced to die. After they’re left on the mountain to the point of nearly expiring, their blood is harvested. The ritual performed to fuse the magic is gifted to the mountain’s new initiates. Their actual death occurs on the altar, in the room you were just in. And as part of the ceremony—we drink. ”

The blood left my face. Whatever I learned about the angels, cannibalistic blood drinking was not what I had in mind. The grotesque art was starting to make horrifying sense. Angels drank prisoners’ blood for their magic? I studied Zariel’s stomach—he had four other runes. What else had he done? Who had died for him?

“How many … deaths for each rune?”

“It takes at least one life for a single rune, with exceptions. Some magics can support a rune on two or three different angels. It depends on the strength of the … dying. And the magic at issue.”

“How many … for yours?”

“… Four. Four sacrifices, and I will have their magic for the rest of my life.”

Slowly, I shook my head. This couldn’t be real. The angels did this , and saw nothing wrong with it? “This is horrible. You know that, right?”

“Cat—”

“Angels are murdering people, for magic.”

“Condemned prisoners.”

“And can you say for certain that each one deserves death? Fuck, you’re murdering other creatures too, aren’t you? Not just angels.” That was why the prison was here—easy access for their magic supply.

Zariel didn’t answer my question. He didn’t need to. Instead, he took a moment before speaking, the pause punctured by the thudding in my heart. “There are things I’d change, Cat, if I could. But here is the truth of our kind—you comply, or you die. You’ve seen only scholars in a library—in truth, our society is like any other, with murderers and such that certainly deserve death. You come from a world where the only creatures who are punished are the same, and despite your differences, you have a relatively similar moral code.”

“That’s not true.”

Zariel leveled a heavy gaze at me. “Your idea of justice is a luxury of peace, of knowing that, at their core, humans abhor the same conduct. Like murder.”

“There’s sociological differences for sure—”

“Is there a part of humanity that collectively hunts and eats each other’s young? That painfully murders their elders because the pain strengthens the magic released upon their death? That would gladly herd every member of your family into a pen and eat you, taking no mind of the pain you would suffer?”

“Well … no.” I frowned. Maybe there were exceptions, but that was his point—they were exceptions . “Creatures from your world do this?”

“All of this, and more. Some pixies are particularly brutal. They will swarm and consume children if allowed to do so, little bite by bite.” He took a deep breath. “My point, Cat, is that while I wish things were different, our world will not allow it. We need to use every advantage we can get, or mark me—they will destroy us. ”

“But surely some of these brutal creatures have come into our world. Why haven’t we heard of them doing something like this?”

The corner of his lip quirked up in a sad smile. “Many of us have learned to hide from each other, or at the very least, the darker parts. Don’t assume that everything between each of us is as quiet as it seems.” He paused. “Know that I don’t take the cost of my magic lightly. I was there at their deaths, that of the angel and the others, and I remember every moment. I wish there was another way for us to have our magic, but there isn’t.”

No one could fake the grief on his face. No wonder he didn’t want to tell me this, and how Silv himself had heard only whispers. The fact that they murdered wasn’t something the angels would want as common knowledge. This wasn’t something that they’d want analyzed in a dissertation. Zariel had mentioned that his family was overbearing, but overbearing family forced you to attend family dinners—not drink blood. What did I really know about the angels? Nothing. Nothing at all.

“What are your other magics?” I asked.

“Illusion,” he said. “And another is for my memory, as I’ve mentioned before. But my ability for illusions isn’t strong, as you saw, and angels are normally immune. To obtain that one I drank the blood of a condemned siren.”

“A condemned. Siren. ”

His eyes met mine. “As you heard, there are more than angels in our dungeons, and only the absolute worst are sentenced to this fate. And I assure you, most of them are there for valid reasons.” I scoffed, but he continued, “Our society may be harsh and imperfect, but everyone is entitled to the process of law. That siren had invaded our beach and lured a groom off a boat on his wedding day. Only his hands were found—tossed at the bride who ran into the water in grief. She was barely saved. As I said, our world is beauty coating base brutality. None of us are far from the feral animals we used to be. As much as we like to pretend otherwise.”

He was right—I was in no position to understand the justice of their world when I had never even been there. Yet from what I saw of the angels, how sensitive they were to both real and imagined slights, I had questions. Was everyone in the prison like that siren—a murderer? Or were there some who ended up angering the wrong angel at the wrong time? I had met Artists—I wouldn’t be surprised if some creatures ended up in the dungeons on a whim.

“And this one?” I pointed at the one rune at the center of his abdomen, just below his navel.

His face softened. “That one is the only one I was given from my family—and this is one where no one had to die. These runic magics are difficult to enact, and costly, and my having more than two is due to my status here in the mountain. There are many angels who have none.”

“Why? ”

“Not many angels have the ability to impart them, and they leave the angels that can far too drained to do more than one a week.”

“Ah.” So for angels, magic was for the well-connected. No, Zariel didn’t say that, but I had some common sense.

“This one”?Zariel tapped at the rune?“was a gift to me before I left for the Mountain—to obtain it I had to drink the blood of my mother, father, sister, brothers, and a couple extended relatives. They’re all living,” he quickly reassured me. “If the subject absolutely consents to the magic, they can be alive while doing it.”

“So there you have the option. There’s another option for your magic.”

“… Yes.”

I frowned. “Wouldn’t someone agree to have their life spared?”

“The magic can detect duress, a pressure to submit.” He shifted on the bed, giving me another glimpse of his perfect form. “And thus, the blood has to be freely given, or the taking has to exterminate the source. There is no in-between. If it’s not freely given, then it is a risk for the taker. It will kill.”

Sure, the killing was for the magic, but this was also about witnesses, I realized. Asking for blood from other creatures and gaining their blessing would mean sharing the knowledge of the magic, and leaving them alive to speak of it. But did Zariel understand this? My chest clenched. If the Artists knew he had told me all of this, there was a very real chance they would never let me off the mountain, no matter the consequences.

“But the blood from my family was freely given,” Zariel continued. “And because of their gift, I can find them, no matter where they are. If I think of them, I know where I need to go.”

“Oh, that’s sweet.”

“It is. They wanted to assure me that no matter where I went, I’d always be able to find my way home. Obviously, I can’t use the magic to the same extent since we’re no longer in the same world, but I can find Aniela. I know where she is, and that she is alive.”

Zariel’s eyes met mine, seemingly deep in thought. He opened his mouth, hesitated for a moment, and then said, “You’re my mate. There is a magic we can do for each other, if you ever wanted to.”

“I could find you?”

“Anyone in my family, technically,” he said. “But you’d absolutely be able to find me.”

“But you just said it’s hard to do.”

“No. Not for mates. If we … get to that point, our souls will be paired so that it wouldn’t be much work for the magic to transfer. For that rune, at least. And … I heard there may be a way for me to share some of the magic in the others. That is, you could share in my magic, if you like.”

He spoke, but my mind focused only on one word. Mates. God, I wanted to touch him. And he said— he did say he was interested. I’d have to leave, eventually, but would it be so bad if we gave in and enjoyed this while we could?

“Cat,” Zariel said reverently, moving next to me. His body towered, his head threatening to rest on mine. If he wanted to be a warrior instead of a scholar, I had zero doubt that he would’ve been able to do so. He must’ve done some physical training, with his body as honed as it was—flying didn’t explain all of it. White wings splayed around him, tipped with the silver edge, encasing me. Sheltering me.

Slowly, I reached out a hand and touched the feathers, a delicate finger dancing on the tips. They were surprisingly hard, covered in a texture not dissimilar to glitter. I bit back a laugh. Glittery blood-drinking angels—who would’ve thought? I glanced to see if Zariel noticed, but his eyes were closed, trembling from my touch. I took back my hand and rested it on my lap. The warmth from his body reached me, his scent covering me entirely. That slick heat was again gathering deeper in me, a throbbing that was becoming impossible to ignore.

“Do all angels have this?” I managed to ask. “On their wings.”

He opened his eyes, noting what I was talking about. “No. Just the ones who have become immune to the ashen clouds,” he said. “The magic from that isn’t contained to my soul—it’s on my body. Well, it shows on the wings.”

“Oh. ”

The runes on his stomach glowed, casting us in a dim orange light. What did the last rune do? There was one for illusions, one for his knowledge, one for his family, and one for the mountain.

“What is the final one? The last rune.” I asked.

“Yes, there is one.”

“… What does it do?”

“You will tease me.”

“Never.”

“Do you promise?”

“… Yes.”

He pointed to the final rune. “This was from a condemned nidhogg.”

“A what?”

“A dragon. That eats corpses. And sometimes isn’t picky about how they get to that state. This one was caught feeding on the human settlement in our lands.”

“You brought a whole dragon into the mountain?”

He cocked his head. “Not all of them are large. We managed. And his death gave me and others a sense of direction. For flying.”

“Ohhh ….”

“You promised you wouldn’t tease me.”

“I’m not.” I smiled and shook my head. “Never.”

“Your face is saying otherwise.”

“Never. It just wasn’t what I expected.”

“And what did you expect? ”

His question wasn’t about his magic. The way he looked at me, devouring me with his gaze, the way his mouth opened just a tiny bit, changed the air between us in an instant. His chest was still exposed, muscular and sleek under his robes. My heart and breath raced, and that now-familiar ache came impossible to ignore any longer.

Maybe we should give in. What could it hurt?

“Cat …” he leaned towards me, slowly. He wanted me. If I ever doubted that he didn’t, that doubt was gone, banished by the blatant yearning in his gaze.

“Zariel—”

A knock sounded at the door, shattering the moment. This was a knock that wasn’t going to wait.