Chapter 4
FOUR
Unsent correspondence, translated to English, and addressed only to My Truth:
I don’t ask for your forgiveness, only for your understanding. I barely remember a time when I didn’t love you, and everything in me tells me I can’t be by your side unless I remove him from your back first.
MALACH
Chained to the ceiling from a hook, I exist in a constant loop of never-ending pain. It’s hard to keep track of time in here. The walls are too white, the lights too bright, and the agony carves the sense from my thoughts. I float in and out of consciousness.
There’s food. I don’t know how it got here, but I can’t reach it.
S’lach hasn’t come back, and it’s all I can think about.
It’s hard to kill someone while locked up. It’s even harder when they never show their face.
When the door opens, I find it difficult to lift my head.
“Malach.” I recognize the voice but barely trap the groan that tries to betray me. Why is he here? Wait, why am I here? Kill. Kill S’lach. Wake up and kill S’lach.
I blink, forcing my eyes to focus on Lyklan.
He looks the same, his face etched in a permanent non-expression.
I always wondered how S’lach got to me the first time, but I was sure I’d identified the mole among my guardians. My stomach twists. I never even considered Lyklan, and he was working against me. I was wrong about so many things.
How deep does the rot go? Right now, it’s in my veins, my brain, my heart, and my very soul, but I must focus.
There are few people alive who can answer my questions, and I’m currently facing one of them.
I want to know how many of the others were in on the plot, but there’s one thing I need to hear more.
“Why?” I croak. My mouth is too dry to speak properly, but I hold my chin as high as I can. I’ll keep it aloft with pride alone if I must.
Lyklan meets my gaze, and his eyes don’t stray to the litany of injuries on my body. Once, I would have classified his avoidance of my weaknesses as honorable. Now, I suspect he doesn’t care.
“Sometimes there’s no choice, Malach.”
“Bullshit,” I snarl, blinking away the black spots dotting my vision. “I paid you well; you didn’t need the money—”
His eyes flash. “It wasn’t about money.” He glances over his shoulder at the sterile door to my cell. It’s closed, and we’re alone for now, but we both know that could change at any time. “He threatened my family, Malach.”
All my anger abandons me—much like my guardians did—leaving me to sag against the chains once again, defenseless. “You could have come to me,” I whisper. I once thought the man in front of me was my friend, but he never trusted me as I trusted him.
“And what would you have done?” Lyklan demands. “There’s no defeating him. His lack of scruples combined with the weight of his word . . . No one stands against him long and lives to tell the tale.”
“Certainly not after they’re betrayed by their own guardians,” I mutter bitterly. “Why are you here, Lyklan?”
“S’lach wants to use your word to separate his political opponents from his allies. If you judge them on his behalf, he’ll release you from this cell.”
He wants me to betray my magic? I scoff. “No thank you.”
Lyklan steps closer, his eyes cruelly cataloging every cut, bruise, and burn on my exposed arms and legs. “Think past your pride. How long can you survive this?”
After Celine vanished through the portal, S’lach brought me back from the monster realm and spent days taking his frustration out on my battered body. I endured it with dignity, promising myself it would all be worth it when I kill him.
That time hasn’t come yet, but it will. I must believe that.
I swallow around the lump in my throat and meet Lyklan’s stare. “As long as it takes.”
I dream of Celine—a mixture of memory and fantasy—my time asleep better spent than my time awake. I focus on her smile, her laugh, and the flash of triumph in her brown eyes when she bested me in a fight.
She’s safe now, back in the Fringes, but I can’t know how she’s doing. Did she return to the Fang? Has the heat of her fury over my betrayal burned away everything she once felt for me? We were close to the future I dreamed of, yet so far away. Too far, the distance too great for me to bridge.
An urgent voice pulls me away from the recollection of her soft lips on mine—my most cherished memory snatched from me in a second.
“Malach, wake up!”
I tell my eyes to open, but they don’t obey.
“Open your eyes.” Can’t he see I’m trying? Fingers press against my neck, searching for my pulse. Absurd. I’m only dreaming.
“Gods, your stubbornness will be your downfall. You must take S’lach’s deal.”
Lyklan. That’s who the voice belongs to. My traitorous lead guardian. I frown and stop trying to open my eyes. I’ve already seen him, and I have no desire to repeat the experience. I’d rather see Celine.
My cheek stings, or I think it does. The pain has been replaced with a strange numbness.
“You’ll never avenge her if you’re locked up in here or dead,” Lyklan whispers. “Be smart, Malach, you know what I say is true.”
Do I? Lyklan is a proven liar.
I suppose I am, too.
“Nod your head, wiggle your fingers—anything, and I’ll get you out of here.”
He sounds worried. It’s unsettling, like hearing someone sing for the first time and realizing they sound like a different person entirely. I don’t care about Lyklan, though, I was dreaming of Celine. Worry or no worry, I want him to shut up so I can be with her again.
A weightless sensation hits me.
The pressure on my wrists eases.
Then pain returns. Gods, the pain is inescapable. Someone makes a strangled noise. I suppose that’s me, but the whine sounds as unusual leaving my mouth as Lyklan’s worry. I try and fail to order him to leave me alone. My lips and tongue don’t cooperate.
“You’re dying.” Lyklan’s voice is brisk. “If you won’t let me help you, you’ll have done nothing for Celine but cause her more pain. Come now.” He slaps my cheek. “Surely you can’t want that. Think, Malach, think hard.”
I don’t want to die and let Celine down, but the alternative is too despicable.
I’m not sure I’m capable of aligning myself with S’lach publicly and meeting the other thatshas’ eyes afterward. To do so would be to betray all seven nish. An angel without honor is an angel who doesn’t deserve their radiant word; the teachings are clear.
Today it’s an innocuous choice. Tomorrow my wings could be as stained as S’lach’s.
Lyklan tries to move me. Stabbing pain runs through my joints, centered in my left shoulder. My thoughts grow muddier.
“Your finger twitched, I saw it.” What? Is Lyklan hallucinating? I didn’t twitch my damn finger, my muscles spasmed, and he ought to know the difference. No honor. He’s taking another choice away from you.
I try to rouse myself and fail. My mouth is glued shut, unable or unwilling to tell him I would rather die than do S’lach’s bidding.
This body is the latest in a long line of betrayers. The unconsciousness I longed for minutes ago rolls over me, a heavy, black sheet pushing me under. Then I’m back with Celine, her perfect lips moving against mine.
If only it were real.