Chapter 14 #4
A broken sob escaped her full lips as she shifted, the beauty of her features growing impossibly sharper, more alluring to the point of fantasy.
She looked like an ethereal being, not meant for this world but destined for something far greater.
It was a beauty which was painful to behold, striking a chord in the echoing recesses of my chest, but that wasn’t the biggest change which her body underwent.
I pulled my eyes from hers to look at her spine, at the two broken stumps where her wings should have been, the ends of them long since healed over, the black, leathery skin encircling the place where the fullness of her wings should have spread wide from her back.
I’d suspected this but it still stole the breath from my lungs, words thickening in my throat and stalling there.
In the silence, I released my grip on her wrists but she didn’t move away from the wall, her eyes moving to the floor as tears slipped down her cheeks.
My hand was still pressed to her spine and I slowly moved it across her skin, caressing the ridge of her destroyed wing and stroking the silken smoothness of the flesh there.
She shivered at my touch and I caressed the other stump too, feeling the heartbreak of this loss in my core.
I’d gone hundreds of years without the use of my wings, one of them broken and mangled.
But I’d had hope to cling to in the dark.
They hadn’t been taken from me entirely.
The brutality which had resulted in this…
“Did your prince do this to you?” I snarled, fury rising up in me at the thought of her enduring this agony at the hands of another but to my surprise she shook her head.
“When I first joined the Sinfair at fourteen, I was assigned to the barracks with the other recruits. They hated me for my birth. They were all highborn and simply working off some shame their families had earned. So when I started to outshine them all they took it as a personal affront. I ignored their threats and took the beatings when they came – I could outmatch any of them anyway. At least, I could when they were alone…”
My fingers shook with fury as her voice cracked at the words, the truth of what she’d suffered for nothing more than being crossborn making my hatred of this endless war expand tenfold.
“One night they all came for me at once. The entire squadron – nineteen of them. They said…they said I didn’t deserve to fly because I wasn’t really air-born and they…”
She shifted again as a heavy sob escaped her, the ruined legacy of her wings fading from sight, her features settling into their usual beauty. She didn’t turn to face me but I drew her around, cupping her face in my hand and making her look at me.
“I’ll burn them all,” I promised her and the edge of a smile tugged at her tear-stained lips before she shook her head.
“I ended them myself,” she admitted and of course she had.
“They left me lying in the street, bleeding and beaten, probably hoping I’d die as they stole my wings away as trophies.
It started to rain and I watched my blood mix with the muck of the street as it created little rivers between the cobblestones.
I felt the ether then for the first time.
I didn’t know what it was, or how to call on it really but it took my blood in payment, it accepted my sacrifice and it gave me the strength to get back on my feet.
There was a broken bottle lying in the alleyway where they’d done it to me so I picked it up and I went seeking revenge. ”
“I hope they died screaming,” I growled and again, that beautiful, broken smile confirmed it.
“Earned myself my first lashing for the privilege,” she told me. “Five for each life I took. Ninety-five in total. It almost killed me. And if truth be told I would have welcomed death then.”
Dragon fire burned hot against the back of my tongue, my fury on her behalf rising so high that my fingers shook with it. But before I could lose control of the beast inside me, she took my hand in hers and gripped me tightly.
“What of your wings?” I asked her. “The Reapers could reattach them if you kept them – I can find one and make them do it. I’ll–”
“They burned them,” she admitted bitterly.
“I dragged a single bone from the fire but it was broken and blackened with soot after their abuse of it. I begged to be healed but the Reapers themselves told me there was nothing they could do without having the wings to hand and even then it wouldn’t have been likely.
Then they placed me with a new legion as I was the only remnant of mine and that was where I met Dalia and Moraine.
They hated me of course and I hated them in turn.
But then one day…I don’t know, I guess we just forgot to hate one another and found something else. ”
“Family,” I told her firmly. “You found your family.”
More tears pooled in her eyes as she nodded and I cursed the stars themselves for the cruelty of the fate they’d dealt her.
I lifted her into my arms, the sweet scent of her skin enveloping me, the blazing rage in my chest dimming despite all the promises I’d made myself.
She leaned her head against my chest as I cradled her there and I carried her to her bed, placing her beneath the sheets.
Her fingers curled around my wrist for half a heartbeat as I made to withdraw and something twisted in my chest at the sharp sting of her truth.
She was alone. And that was a feeling I knew all too well.
She tugged her hand away sharply as if realising what she’d just admitted to with the gesture and my resolve shattered at the thought of her replacing those walls around herself. I said nothing as I gave in to the ache in my chest and followed her into the bed.
Vesper sucked in a sharp breath but said nothing as I wrapped her in my arms, my own rage at her fading to a lingering bitterness in the face of all she’d endured.
She curled in on herself, her cheek on my chest. I ran my fingers back and forth over her shoulder blades, precisely where her wings resided, as if my touch could soothe the lingering pain there.
Silence wrapped us in that moment, the seconds dragging into minutes, our pulses finding a rhythm with one another, two broken souls seeking refuge in a shared embrace.
“The ether still calls to me,” she admitted as the darkness curled in around us, the fire dying away. “That’s why I wanted you to come here. I thought… Tell me what vow binds you to Dragor.”
I sighed, knowing I’d been a fool to accept the deal of the air kingdom’s prince. But if anyone could understand the deep longing I’d harboured to return to the sky on my wings then it was her. She knew why I’d agreed to his terms.
“I swore to obey the commands of Stormfell in aid of its survival until such time as the war is done or death releases me from my oath.”
“Of Stormfell?” she asked, lifting her head to look up at me in the darkness and I nodded. “Not his commands specifically?”
“I believe he wished for my compliance to be a gift to his father – proof that he was the most worthy of the crown. Not that I imagine he intends to let any other Fae command me regardless.”
“I could command you,” she said slowly. “I’m a General of Stormfell. I could command you to run–”
“How would that aid Stormfell?” I asked, shaking my head, though I hadn’t considered that she might be able to command me as she suggested and I wasn’t at all certain that was a good thing.
“Then I’ll command you to help me follow the voices in my head. The disruption to the ether is a threat to us all – Stormfell included. Whatever is summoning me is close at hand – I can feel it.”
“What of your own oaths?” I asked.
“I cannot hunt the man I need to kill until my prince releases me to do so. But he never forbade me from seeking out the faults in the ether and I have free access to the lands of our people. So I wouldn’t be breaking the terms of my agreement by following the voices that call to me.”
My lips tugged into the hint of a smile as I considered her suggestion. It was a small rebellion but I was hungering for a mutiny of any design.
“Alright,” I agreed, drawing her close and letting my eyes fall closed.
She shifted in my hold and I wondered if she was going to protest my presence in her bed. But she only adjusted her head on my chest so that her ear was pressed to the steady pounding of my heartbeat and the two of us let the darkness claim this truce.