Chapter 5 Mikhail
Mikhail
With one word, one sound, my world shifted, the edges of what I knew to be true crumbling.
To be fair, the devastation had begun moments before.
When the Novice had entered my workshop, I’d felt a tremor in the walls themselves, one that seemed to ripple from somewhere outside and extend to where she stood near Arabella’s dais.
More than just the all-too-common trembling from the failing gate, this felt like a portent.
Who was this muddy urchin, to fill my workshop with such a sense of unease? To steal away my usual composure? When she’d read Arabella’s name, I’d almost struck her for speaking aloud the name of my lost, broken masterpiece.
Embarrassment and grief had been constant companions ever since my great failure.
But this Novice—who blithely insulted her superiors with nicknames, knew less than nothing about her calling, and was marked by more shadows than any soul I’d ever seen—had inspired anger, and something far more unusual. She’d roused my curiosity.
She’d nearly made me laugh.
How long had it been since I’d felt anything other than numb despair?
A sense of vague emptiness and sorrow, as if a part of me had been carved out and was lost to me forever, though the wound had healed over long ago.
In the hours since I’d met this Novice, I’d felt anger, confusion, amusement, a strange pride at her ability to speak up for herself, and a hint of curiosity at the heat in her gaze when she looked at me.
Now all of that had been displaced by shock. And a fresh wave of shame.
Names had weight, meaning. They were more than syllables; they were thought made purpose with breath.
Before their first mission, I made certain each Novice was given a significant, individual name to help them with their purpose, to allow them to shine as brightly as possible and restore as much balance as they could in the time allotted.
I cared about names more than anyone else in Sanctuary, since I’d either named every Protector created in the last millennia myself, or approved of the ones my Apprentice had chosen.
In fact, every important trait they possessed was one I had pressed into their soul’s core along with their naming mark, even if their physical forms were created out of my sight on Earth, when they were born as human.
I named her Inutilia. I named her Useless.
“Useless.” I breathed the word, and the small bell chimed again, in agreement. In approbation. I set it down quickly. Suddenly, the soul smut on her repulsed me even more. Because it was my responsibility.
Somehow, I’d sent a Novice to Earth with a name so unsuited that any tiny misstep would have resulted in her soul being tarnished. I’d sent her unarmed into battle. Worse, I’d burdened her with a name that predicted failure.
The mistakes she had made were mine to bear. Even if there was no way for me to take the consequences onto my own skin.
Before that moment, I would have claimed only one gross error of craftsmanship in my long lifetime, although that one was more than enough. The loss of Arabella had destroyed my best friend’s future and happiness. This new, flawed creation shook me to my core.
“So can you see why I’d actually prefer Feather?” The sharp, sweet voice tore me from my stunned horror.
“Feather?” What was she saying?
“Um, yeah, Growly Bear. My nickname. I’d like to keep it. I get the thing about names, but mine really stinks.” She sniffed at her arm. “Possibly as much as I do.”
“Nothing could stink that much,” I said absently, then felt something sting my side. A slap. I glanced at my robe. A smear of gray marked it. “Did you… Did you strike me?” I reared back. “You dared?”
Did she not understand who I was? Who she was? Gavriel had mentioned the Guides and Protectors were beginning to test their limits, bordering on disrespect when he met with the leaders, but this was unbelievable.
“Apparently.” She sat up and sniffed. “Come on, it was just a little love tap. You don’t go around telling a woman she stinks.”
“But you do stink.” For some reason, her eyes seemed almost green. Lighter, as if her name had brought some of her soul’s energy to the surface. Or maybe it had been the tears that had seeped out. A line of brightness marked their pathway down her face.
For reasons that eluded me, I itched to see what lay beneath the clumps of filth. Something about her called to me. She was as far from enticing as a creature could get, but I had to grip my hands into fists to keep from reaching out to comfort her. Caress her.
I shook the ridiculous thought away. “You must be purified.”
Those smut-gray and green eyes narrowed. “How? Sunny said the bath didn’t work.” She held out her fouled arms. “Obviously, the soap you have here isn’t up to the task.”
“If you aren’t purified, you will be—”
“Unmade, yeah, I heard you before. So, better soap? Or what?” She seemed unconcerned, but her eyes darted to the rim of the table, and the groove there. She might be dirty and brazen, but she wasn’t completely na?ve.
“Or what.” I forced the words out, picking up a small knife.
The blade wasn’t metal, it was smoke: an ever-moving, twisting, blade-shaped tendril taken from the Abyss itself.
The only blade in the workshop that could cut deep enough to purge soul-deep stain, one of only two in Sanctuary.
Gavriel possessed the other one. “You can’t be sent back until most of your smut has been removed physically.
If the baths don’t work, I’m afraid the only thing I can offer.
..” My heart ached at the thought of what lay ahead.
Long ago, I’d had to show some young Protectors what was required to remove the sort of smut this young soul carried.
Many of them had been unable to undertake the process…
and almost all had begged to be unmade, rather than suffer such excruciating pain for so long.
They had asked me instead to unmake them and use their energy to help protect Sanctuary.
I had resisted at first, but when their efforts proved futile, when their pleading had scraped my eardrums raw, I had eventually agreed.
My thoughts grew bleak as I remembered their sorrow, and mine, when we said our final farewells.
Before I was required to return them to the Creator of All Things.
As if drawn by a magnet, my gaze darted to the crucible at the rear of my workshop, the vessel for unmaking, that I hadn’t used in many centuries.
Even looking at it now filled me with foreboding.
I prayed this small Novice would find the strength to complete the task that lay ahead.
I didn’t know if I was strong enough to survive the guilt of ruining her chance at a long life.
Strong enough to place her in that vessel and lose her as I had lost those others.
Especially now that I knew her weakness was of my making.
The Novice—Inutilia—sat up, smiling nervously, though fear shone from her gaze. “So, what are we trying? Really expensive soap? Goat milk and olive oil?”
“No,” I grunted, ignoring the way my guts churned as those unusual, expressive eyes focused on the knife in my hand. “Pain.”