Above the Ashen Clouds (Twisted Worlds #2)

36. Cat

Chapter thirty-six

Cat

T his wasn’t going to work. We were interrupting an angelic ritual, saving someone marked for death. Even I could feel the magic thrumming through the air, like lightning about to strike. It was two of us against a horde. A weakened angel and me. This was insane. This was—

“Calm,” Aniela said in my ear as we walked across the upper rampart of the room. We were alone, a relief. But that didn’t change that the one angel we needed was below, in the center of the magical chaos.

“How can you say that?” I hissed, confident that I wouldn’t be heard over the chanting. No one was staring up at us since there was too much going on in front of them.

“Easy,” Aniela said grimly, “either we will prevail, or we will not. And if we managed everything thus far, I like our odds.” She cocked her head. “Don’t you? ”

No. I didn’t like our odds at all. Because this plan depended entirely on angelic pride, ego, and ignorance. I would’ve preferred a plan relying on strategy, strength, and muscular armed men, but I wasn’t going to get what I wanted. I nodded, giving her the agreement she expected.

Yep, we were going to die. All of us. There was no possibility that the angels would let me leave after crashing this .

Zariel was bound and sitting on the ground in a marked circle, next to a leshi who was bleeding out amidst the chanting crowd. His face was unreadable, watching with a casual indifference that I knew better than to believe. Surrounded by all these angels, and not a single one offered to help him. They were all willing to see him die, to cheer for it. I pursed my lips. How dare they do this to him?

How much time did we have? Not long. He’d be next—the way the High Artist kept glancing at him told me that he wouldn’t be saving Zariel much longer. More pragmatically, Zariel was right next to the leshi in the circle of doomed creatures. I didn’t have it in me to stop and wonder at who was set to be murdered right after Zariel. There was him, and only him. He was the only one that mattered.

And Gadriel—that cretin—smugly stood behind him, running his bony fingers through Zariel’s long hair like he was a pet.

Stop. He needed to stop.

That was Zariel. My mate. My …

What exactly was he to me? I didn’t know, but I wanted a chance to find out.

No, I needed it.

Together, Aniela and I had already escaped the prison using one of the mountainous doors, glided to another set of doors on her weakened wings, were embraced by a horde of spider webs in a dark corridor, and had to crawl behind a wall of potted plants on a ledge in the atrium to avoid notice. But we did it. We made it this far. She was right—we had to go the rest of the way.

And for Zariel, there was nothing I wouldn’t do.

Fire gleamed in Aniela’s eyes, and her fists were clenched at her side. “It’s jealousy,” she said.

“What?”

“Why they’re doing this. Why no one cares.” She sighed. “Zariel was the best of us, or he could be, if the High Artist didn’t stop him.”

“He did seem good at his job,” I said, recalling the angel who had asked him for help with her task.

“ Good ?” She looked at me incredulously. “They were wasting him. On purpose. All because they hated that he was someone with both the birthright and intelligence necessary to be here. They want to be him, and they never will be. But he never said such things to you, did he?”

I shook my head.

She huffed. “That’s Zariel. Too modest for his own good. And to his detriment. ”

Then Zariel’s head turned, no longer staring at the leshi. Was he looking at us? Oh, shit, he was.

“He saw us,” I whispered.

“He saw us a couple minutes ago,” she said. “He’s going to kill me for bringing you here.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” I said and she hummed in agreement.

Yep, the time to worry was definitely later. Apparently done with the dead leshi, the angels moved and were now circling around Zariel like crows hovering over a corpse. The High Artist, his mouth and chest covered with blood, took his position behind Zariel. An angel who had feasted on a creature’s spent lifeforce, his wings splayed behind him. A beautiful nightmare.

The High Artist moved Zariel’s hair to expose his neck. An angel stood next to the High Artist as he prepared, holding the still-bloody knife, offering it to his master when it was needed.

Zariel didn’t fight—what would be the point? I knew him better than to expect him to beg and plead. But … his hands were moving rather oddly under his robes, for someone about to have their throat slit.

There was no time to wonder. Voices rose in a steady chorus, and the energy in the room changed once more. The angels were chanting, all sound and focus tugged into their words. The High Artist took the offered knife and faced Zariel .

“Now,” Aniela hissed.

I turned and clung to her, wrapping my arms frantically around her neck and praising whatever made the angels have abnormal strength. Silently, we glided over the hall, falling. Falling—

And crashing into the angels, right as they noticed us.

Screaming broke out, from both the angels and their victims. Aniela all but dropped me and I landed with a thud, the wind knocked out of me. Aniela was gone—I was alone.

What was I going to do?

Zariel. I had to find Zariel.

Suddenly the High Artist had a knife in his thigh, blood pooling through his garments in a red circle.

A knife? How did … ? It was a odd-shaped knife, with a long narrow point where the handle was supposed to be—and covered with blood. What was that? It didn’t matter. Where was Zariel?

Zariel? I frantically searched until my eyes landed on him.

Blood dripped from Zariel’s hands, and there was leather still tied around his left hand as he struggled against the other angels. Fighting. Expertly, he met each encounter with a deftness I didn’t expect for a scholar. He ducked and twisted the other angels’ blows, using their weight and wings against them, slamming them to the ground, one after another. Even without a weapon, he was dangerous. So he had learned how to fight at some point. He was a noble’s son, and one that had been trained, whether it was at home or here in the library.

I smiled. If this kept up, he was going to win. Angels were fleeing, not wanting to be part of this chaos. The ritual had quickly become more than they had bargained for. We could do it—we could escape.

“I should’ve known better.” Gadriel said with a growl. He strode up to Zariel, uninjured—and pissed. He wasn’t running. We weren’t going to be that lucky.

“Yes, you should’ve.”

For a moment they stared at each other, taking their measure, and then Zariel lunged. The two of them became a dance of limbs and wings, no less deadly for lack of weapons. Gadriel landed a blow on Zariel’s face, which was instantly returned when Zariel twisted, whacking Gadriel with his wings, sending him careening to the ground. Blood streaked down Gadriel’s face, cut from the metal on Zariel’s feathers, hate flaming in his eyes. Neither of them was going to give up—this fight would go all the way through, to whatever end.

Sudden screams pulled me from my fixation on their fight. Angels panicked—there was no order. No one cared about me. Some angels ran out of the room, others stood back and watched. Others still tried to keep the ritual markings from being disturbed by those fleeing, and focused on keeping their prisoners in one place. Too late for that. Some lines were already smudged. I knew little about magic, but they’d have to start everything over.

I grinned. With all this chaos, the rest of the mountain would know what was happening—the High Artist wouldn’t be able to act in secret any longer. We may have actually stopped him. Even if we died, we might have stopped this.

Aniela shook off an angel who tried to grab her, twisting with the same practiced movements as her brother, and rushed towards Zariel. She’d help him fight—my goal was the High Artist.

The High Artist surveyed the wreckage of his ritual with an iron expression, the bloody knife still in his hand. His hair was a mess, strands scattered. The implement in his thigh was gone, and though injured, he stood straight, arms raised. “Stop them,” he cried out. “Summon the guards!”

I lunged towards him, reached for his wings—and was caught in his grip. The High Artist clenched his hand around my neck, squeezing precious air from my throat with all the unnatural strength of an angel. The knife dropped next to us in a clang. I heard my name being called in the distance. Screams and thuds.

“You meddlesome little bitch,” the High Artist sneered. “You should’ve left when you had the chance.”

And he shouldn’t have taken so long to try to kill me.

Using my free hand, ignoring the stars forming in my vision and the pulsating in my head, I pulled the rusalki’s barb from my tunic and thrashed at the High Artist’s arm. Shit, I missed. Again—

Thank fuck—I broke his skin’s surface. That was enough.

Right?

His eyes barely had time to widen in surprise before he dropped me and fell over. Paralyzed. I landed on the stone ground, slamming my knee. Damn, that barb worked faster than expected.

Wasting no time, I stumbled towards the High Artist, reached for his wings, tugged—and plucked. Fistfuls of bloody feathers came out of his wings with each grunt, showering me in a nightmare snowstorm of red feathery down. I didn’t care that the silver on his wings cut my hand, adding my blood to his own. I didn’t care that each pull took all my strength. Again. And again. And again. His wings became exposed skin and bone, pocketed, and marked with red. Wings were the source of an angel’s pride—and shame. And me, a human, stripped him in front of his acolytes.

The High Artist didn’t cry out. He couldn’t. He was frozen by the poison as I plucked, yanking every feather I could get my hands on until Gadriel called out, “You’ve proven your point, human. Stop!”

I raised my head, the feathers still floating around me. Some were stuck to my fingers, mixed in with sticky blood. Angels stared at me and at the High Artist’s patchy, bloody wings—horrified. Good. Did they still want him to be a god, plucked like a chicken ready for the pot ?

And then my heart dropped into my stomach. Gadriel had Aniela pressed against him, his hands perfectly placed to crack her neck with one sick twist. “Surrender,” Gadriel said, gasping for breath, “or I will not hesitate to end her.” He looked down at Aniela. “You care for this one, no? Family and all.”

Where was Zariel? I looked to the ground, and there he was, where he had likely been knocked unconscious, his black hair strewn around him.