Chapter 6
KORMAC/TITUS
As night fell once again, the Sky Palace’s ballroom became a riot of activity.
Crystals hanging from strings were strewn everywhere, constantly changing color. Occasionally they would pulse and open like flowers, releasing clouds of gold and silver glitter.
The glass floors were covered in it, a twinkling carpet under my feet. Angelus scooped it up, threw it in the air, danced under the crystals, singing my praises.
A gathering of crystals, resembling a bunch of pretty grapes glued to the wall, filled the room with music from various realms. Heavy on bass, sometimes shrill, often frenetic, designed to move the body.
I played my part, dancing with old friends, pretending to enjoy myself.
Even performed a few classic dance moves from decades ago—moves that’d made me popular.
My friends erupted into applause, relieved to see me being Titus.
“This is amazing!” Olivia declared, grabbing me by the forearms. “It’s been so long since we had a party. Do you remember my last one?”
How could I forget? There were parties for everything, all of the time. The one she was talking about had been to celebrate her return from a job.
Marcus danced past us, twirling and laughing. He reached for our hands, and we joined him. Hopped together in a ring, our brethren clapping along.
Many Hands might have fixed my body, but my soul remained Kormac. Titus was there, but not strong enough to reclaim this glass shell as his own.
How hellpissing strange to talk about myself like that.
How strange to think hellpiss in this body.
As the night wore on, I began to plan my escape. The unrelenting music provided plenty of distraction. Every angelus was packed into the ballroom now, locked in euphoria.
Meter by meter, I wove through them, stopping to hug or dance, making my way closer to the door and freedom.
Eventually, I made it, hurrying down a corridor. My first stop would be Room 289, one of three hundred key rooms within the palace.
Two crystals exploded glitter over my head when I reached the first set of stairs. I jumped back, startled.
“Easy there!” an angelus said, running past me.
At least she didn’t ask me where I was going.
Visiting key rooms required Marcus’s permission because it was polite to always tell your leader things. Secrets were terrible things that didn’t exist here in our Sky Palace.
Titus always obeyed that rule, agreed wholeheartedly with it. Respected Marcus so much, admired an angelus who could command such love, such order without resorting to any terrible methods.
Like a king’s tyranny.
Three more crystals released glitter—they really were hung in every corner of the palace—before I reached Room 289.
To enter, a tapping pattern had to be performed on the handle. I knew it because Marcus trusted me with it.
Misplaced…
Poor Marcus.
Poor Olivia.
Ignoring my Titus guilt, I tapped the pattern, humming it in my head until the lock clicked open. I hurried inside, taking the green key off the hook. It was the only thing in the cramped, bare room.
With it in hand, I hurried to the east of the palace, acclimatized to the glitter explosions, not encountering another angelus on my way.
Thank the gods!
Gods…
I reached Whisper Room 3 in the tallest tower of the palace’s east wing, pausing by the door. One of five rooms to observe the realms from, this was the only one to offer the whispering crystals to help with destiny without going into the world.
I had to see him, to try and speak with him before I made my final move to escape.
Thinking about leaving terrified me. It wouldn’t be as easy as this, requiring breaking into Marcus’s room and the chest containing the key to the Depart Room, which sat in the lowest part of Sky Palace.
Marcus had to give his approval, open the exit door for all called angelus. Not one of us had run away, or jumped into the sea of stars without a call.
I’d be the first to do it.
The first to break the rules.
The first to…
…to fall.
Whispering Room 3 was covered in crystals, each one a cylinder sticking out of the walls and ceiling. Like organ pipes after an explosion, haphazard and of different lengths, each one shimmering with iridescent light.
At the back of the room, nestled within crystals, was a glass desk and chair, a huge screen above it. A touchpad sat on the desk, ready to be directed.
Closing the door behind me—locking it with the key—I hurried to the chair and immediately started to work the pad. I traced a finger across the glass surface, scrolling through the file icons on the screen, searching for Faerie.
“Where are you?” I said to the glaring screen.
Faerie wasn’t the only Faerie. Close to it, within another reality, sat a different version.
There were still the lands of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, but they circled one enormous ocean.
The realm pressed against a version of Earth, and a realm healing itself, closed off from everyone and everything—including angelus.
But it whispered a word to me, and I was sure it said siren.
As fascinating as that might be, I moved on, eventually finding the Faerie I’d lived in as Kormac.
Me…
I looked down on a world of four continents and a splattering of islands. Summer to the east, Spring in the south, Autumn to the west, and Winter to the North.
How small it looked from here.
A realm of war and danger.
I couldn’t wait to go back.
To the far east, beyond the vast ocean, the realm shifted into a place without fae.
The human realm—the one where Kormac’s kind drifted into Faerie from. My ancestral home.
Kormac’s…
Mine…
I opened more files connected to this realm, finding the occupants section. Names of humans and fae in alphabetical order by surname, their destinies locked. Marcus had the passcode to access them. I wasn’t interested in any of it, only finding him. In changing things.
Destiny wasn’t set in stone, often changeable. Sometimes we failed to push our charges correctly toward fate, or they simply resisted it and found a different path. When that happened, an angelus must step aside unless the new path called them to walk it.
Rosestar, Valance. Prince of Summer, heir of the Faerie Throne. Third-born son of King Oberon and Queen Shavon. Twenty-six years of age.
I tapped his name, leaned in to speak into a shard of crystal rising out of the desk. It curved toward me, waiting.
“Show him to me.”
The screen flickered, the map of Faerie coming closer and closer, zooming into the Winter continent. The southern part. Snow and trees, a cold place, a pin prick of light manifesting.
Him.
The screen zoomed in closer, showing more detail until it revealed a forest clearing and a dying campfire.
I saw him, my heart fluttering.
Strange. Hearts do not flutter in angelus chests.
Changed…
Broken…
The head of the old woman sat beside him, talking. Head? How was she a head?
He looked down at her, his silver hair tied back, listening intently. I ordered the screen to focus in closer.
Flawless, not one mark on that pale complexion.
Look at those lips.
Look at those obsidian eyes.
Look at that beauty.
I reached out toward the screen, wishing it was a portal for me to slip through. It looked so cold there. Although he didn’t so much as shiver, I wanted to hold him and shield him against the freezing wind and snow, have his body on mine.
When the old woman’s head finally floated away, I angled my mouth closer to the desk crystal and tried my luck.