6. Callum #2
“Two points for the obvious,” I deadpanned as I studied the newly-emerged wings, wondering why they came in gray.
Was it the lack of prayer and sacrilege involved in their ceremony?
Was it the lack of belief in Aeternus? And could their wings ever turn to the pure gold of those who followed Aeternus?
I had never thought to ask our contacts with the Remnant about their markings. At least, not until today.
“Other than the black ink, his markings seemed fine, based on the report added to the Astra Tech System,” Axel stated as he analyzed the male’s report on the screen before us. “Nothing seems remotely out of the ordinary here.”
“You mean nothing seems out of the ordinary, other than the fact that his stars-damned markings are onyx black,” I ground out as I studied the male’s arm with curiosity. Their high priestesses had to have left once his markings had appeared on his arm, and they’d recorded them in the system.
I couldn’t understand it, though, beyond the fact that the unmarked were put into a state of unconsciousness before their markings appeared. I couldn’t figure out what was done differently.
Every citizen we’d seen in Solis Quarter had the same black markings on their forearms. In contrast, ours shimmered in a golden hue, blessed by the Eternal himself after we spent the Two Suns Solstice in prayer.
It just didn’t make sense.
The markings shouldn’t be coming in black.
We had to be missing something.
“None of this makes any sense,” Axel bit out as he tapped furiously at the screens next to the male. “Black markings. Black wings. It’s as if corruption is somehow just deeply ingrained in their very nature.”
I rubbed at the back of my neck as I stared down at the male before me once more.
They should have been gold.
And now the bigger question was, what was happening in the depths of Solis Quarter to turn everyone’s markings and wings black?
Was it merely the difference in the gods they chose to follow, or was there something else at play? Something else we needed to uncover before Elion could move forward with the commands he’d received from the Eternal?
“Fuck.” The curse was a muffled noise as Axel stared at the displays. “I can’t figure this out,” Axel muttered under his breath in resignation as he fiercely tapped across a few more of the windows on the report, combing through the available data.
“You don’t say,” I sarcastically bit out as I glanced at my second. “Let’s go and take a look at another one of the unmarked. Perhaps we can get a bit more insight if we’re there for the entire marking process rather than just the end result.”
Axel sighed as he tapped out of the screen. We slowly slipped out, heading down the halls before entering the closest unoccupied testing room, waiting deep in the shadows of the room for the next unmarked angel to come in.
The second room we walked into was identical to the first, except that this time, the chair in the center was unoccupied.
My eyes narrowed as we stood in the darkness of the storage closet, watching through the slight crack as the door opened.
A lithe female was led into the room, nervously taking a seat in the chair she had been instructed to sit in.
A priestess followed her into the room, her oversaturated perfume filling the air with an overpowering vanilla scent as she spoke to the young female while tapping calmly against the screen beside her.
I studied the young female closely, wondering why she looked so familiar, as I took in her dark brown waves of hair and light sea-glass hazel eyes, framed by high cheekbones.
I wondered again at why Solis Quarter chose to do their Marking Day in such a manner.
It was standard practice in Aurum Quarter to hold true to the origins of the day, the way the Eternal had instructed.
Each unmarked angel was awake during their marking, praying and worshipping Aeternus before receiving the marks of their affinities from him.
We stayed in the shadows, silent and hidden from sight as another priestess walked into the room, consulting with the priestess who had led the young female in just a few moments earlier.
We could only watch as the second priestess, her face covered with a thin black veil from her nose down, stopped beside the female strapped in the chair and injected something into her veins. The substance in the syringe was clear.
We watched in silence, undetected, as the female was instructed to close her eyes and a mask was settled against her nose and mouth. We heard the deep inhales of her steady breaths, and when I pushed out my affinity, I could detect the moment her breathing shifted.
Within seconds, she was out cold.
I felt Axel twitch beside me, his fist clenching at his side as anger swept through us both.
This wasn’t right.
Even if the syringe was just an injection to protect against the pain of your wings emerging, they shouldn’t be tampering with the process.
Your Marking Day was meant to be a memorable experience, one between the creator and creation of the world. One where your affinities, gifted specifically by the Eternal, emerged so that you could live life the way he intended for you.
Whatever Lucanus was doing in his Quarter, it appeared he was also behind the scenes, stripping the sacrilege of Marking Day.
The priestesses left just as quickly as they came, not even bothering to look at the screens before they departed.
We watched, waiting as the female occasionally jerked on the table, nothing out of the ordinary occurring. The minutes ticked by slowly, and over time, her markings began to emerge faintly on her arm.
Axel and I were just about to step out of the shadows, intending to look at the screens and see what was listed in her charts as her affinities, when the door silently slipped open.
We both froze, watching as an older male moved silently into the room, shutting the door behind him. Turning, we both looked at each other, wondering who this new male was, seeing as in the previous room we’d been in, no one else had entered while we’d been there.
“Come on. Come on. Come on,” the male muttered as he tapped against the screen before him.
What was he looking for?
Better yet, what was he doing?
We watched as his fingers tapped urgently across the screen, and then the machine glowed a bright blue light.
Stars be damned, was he tampering with her results?
Was he making a change in the system?
We knew that all angels in Aurelia were registered through the Astra Tech System upon marking.
However, it didn’t make sense.
There was no logical explanation for what he was doing.
I looked closely at the girl’s arm as her markings began to appear, the ink now more vivid than before. The male frantically altered the system as her markings flickered to life beneath her skin.
I narrowed my eyes, taking in the symbol for a water affinity that showed up across her arm.
Elemental. And by the looks of it, there was only one mark.
I breathed a sigh of relief as the male finally slipped from the room.
Axel sprang into action as he hurried over, tapping into the system with urgency as he began to scan the results.
“We should have done something. We should have stopped him.”
I ground my teeth as I stared at my second. “And what would we have done, Axel?” I bit back, even as regret flickered through me. “He wasn’t supposed to be here either. At least now we can see what is being altered.
Axel didn’t reply, his lips drawing tight as he looked through the coding to see what had been altered while the male had been here.
“Nothing seems out of the ordinary. I’m not quite sure what he actually changed while he was here.”
“What do you mean?” I huffed out as I paced around the room, looking for anything unusual.
“I mean,” he bit back, tension rising in the small space. “Nothing seems out of the ordinary in her report.”
“Something has to have been changed,” I answered in annoyance. “Otherwise, why was he going through the Astra Tech System in the first place?”
“I don’t know, Cal. And if I did know, we wouldn’t still be here. I really can’t tell what would have been changed. Everything looks the same. On this end, the coding is impeccable. If something was altered or misplaced, there’s not a single trace of it left behind.”