Chapter 19 Feather
Feather
By the time I was certain the strange dark currents inside me had settled, the Guides were long gone, probably returned to the Assembly Hall.
But the two Protectors lay crumpled and moaning in agony.
I didn’t know them, or at least I didn’t think we’d met.
I couldn’t see their faces; all I could make out was tangled, dark hair, bent feathers, and the stained fabric of their robes.
I tiptoed close, and called out softly, “Let me help you, please.”
One of them looked up, and I staggered to a halt at the abject despair in her reddened eyes. Her robe had been torn down the front, and her neck had a long gaping wound on it that oozed ichor and blood, where her lover’s feather had been cut away. I fought the urge to vomit.
“They took it,” she muttered, her eyes unfocused. She wasn’t glowing at all, as if her inner spark had been extinguished. “They took Glory’s feather from me.”
The other woman, Glory, folded her wings tighter around her body, her shaking hands holding on to her lover’s arm, and I noted the space in her wing where her feather had been.
“If you want to help us,” Glory said, her voice rough as if she’d screamed it raw, “then you’ll unmake us.
” Her dark eyes shot to me, and I saw pure rage and grief swimming in the deep brown there.
“I don’t want to live with this pain.” Her gaze went to her crying ex-mate. “I won’t live without you in my soul.”
I closed my eyes, calling out for Rumple. I felt like I heard an answer, but his voice was almost as filled with agony as these two. I opened my eyes and moved closer, sitting on the floor in front of them. Singer of All Songs, help me find a way to fix this. A way to heal them.
And somehow, heal the greater wound that’s killing all of us.
I opened my mouth to speak but something else happened: a song.
It was one of the first Rumple had sung to me, when I was in the most pain, when I was a child.
The words were dark poetry, images that had made no sense at the time.
But singing it had made me feel less alone, even when I’d been carrying the burden of dozens of murders on my heart.
Like I was singing not only to myself, but to the whole universe.
Calling every soul who might hear me to answer the call.
“Ancient stories, endless rhymes.
Candles flicker, sputter, die.
Who will right the cruelest wrongs?
Could you do it, or could I?
Flicker, shimmer, fiery spark; burn and rage, sweet little heart.
Pearls are pain with robes of light,
Broken pieces, dying spark.
You are called to braver work:
Be the flicker in the dark. Flicker, shimmer, little spark.”
The woman with the bleeding neck whispered, “That’s an ancient song. They told us we weren’t to sing those anymore.”
I let a little of the shadowed power that still simmered under my skin leak into my voice when I said, “They can suck monkey balls. I’ll sing what I want. And if you two want to mate? Then I will protect you.”
I saw a strange, mottled light flashing around the room, and realized it was coming from me. My eyes.
I wasn’t sure what was there, but both Protectors stood on wobbling legs, and then, at the same time, bowed. “High Angelus, I am Heart of Sacrifice,” the bleeding one said, though I noticed that her wound was healing freakishly fast. “My partner is Glory, Glory of Love. Help us, please.”
“I will,” I replied, ignoring the title she’d given me. “First thing to do is get that cut taken care of.”
They both looked at me with pity. “It won’t fully heal,” Glory said slowly. “And neither will I. They unmade a part of my soul as well, High Angelus. I am… bleeding, inside my being. We need you to help us. To unmake us fully, before we die and our soul energy is wasted.”
Heart leaned against her lover, close to collapsing again. “We want to be unmade together.”
Every curse word I’d ever heard sprang to mind, and I took a shaky breath, forcing my rage back down.
“No. I refuse to believe that’s the only solution.
Come with me to the Maker Hall.” They followed me without a single question, only gasping once when I said the word to open the secret passageway to Mikhail’s lair.
“Don’t tell anyone,” I instructed, though more to make conversation. These two wouldn’t reveal this secret.
In the Hall, they settled onto Mikhail’s large cot, still holding each other. I made sure they were comfortable, then ran to get Sunny.
She was in my room, fuming. “Are they all right? Heart and Glory?”
“They’re friends of yours?”
She grimaced. “More like mentors. Heart of Sacrifice used to teach the Redemption and Sacrifice seminars. I wish she’d never quit, but she was needed for Earth missions.”
“They’re in the Maker Hall. Sunny…” I grabbed at my hair, tempted to pull it out in frustration. “The Guides cut out the feather with the soul knife. They broke their bond somehow. Heart and Glory want me to unmake them.”
I expected her to protest, but instead, she nodded slowly. “I can help them; High Angelus Mikhail taught me how to use the cauldron. I can return their energy to Sanctuary.”
“What. The Actual. Fudge?” I yelled. “No, Sunny. Unacceptable! We are not unmaking those gorgeous women. We are going to fix this shit!” I felt a freckle of smut pop out on my nose, and rubbed it off with a little of the moisture that would not stop seeping out of my eyes.
She patted the bed, and I sat, trying for patience.
“Feather, you know when you left Sanctuary, as a Great Sacrifice, Mikhail’s mating feather returned to him.
It wasn’t unmade; I saw it on his wing again when I was taking care of him.
But the agony he felt in his soul was so excruciating that his physical form was trying to die, just to make it stop. ”
I fought back tears. “I know. But these two are still here together.”
She shook her dark curls over her eyes. “They’re together, but it sounds like the Guides already unmade a part of Glory, and wounded Heart with the knife. Remember when Righteous cut himself too deeply, and he was poisoned?”
“I saved him,” I said, wiping my nose with my toga skirt. “I can save them, too.”
Sunny blinked. “You… You mean you’d take on their suffering? Can you do that? Do you know how?”
“When has ignorance and the possibility of excruciating pain ever stopped me? I once entered a ghost pepper-eating contest in Albuquerque to win fifty dollars. I did that, and I can do this. And you will help me.”
“Help you do what?”
“Heal those two, get them food and beds and a decent hiding place, and then start the resistance.”
“The resistance?” She wrinkled her nose. “Like in World War Two France?’
I wobbled my hand in a more-or-less motion. “I was thinking like the Rebel Alliance and droids, but it’s all the same. We’re going to need weapons, training, and—wait, is Righteous okay?”
She shook her head. “No one has seen him. No one knows where he is.”
I tried to open my mind to listen for his mental voice, but all I heard was panic and anger from the Protectors closest to me.
I shut it off and breathed deeply, pushing down a surge of what felt like the world’s worst indigestion.
I needed to ask Mikhail to teach me how to use my mind powers without wanting to hurl.
“Right, then. Weapons, gathering our forces, and recruiting help to rescue our commander.”
She blinked. “Weapons?” I smiled, remembering what Rumple had said in the Abyss. Music was once our greatest weapon as well as pleasure. They’ve forgotten. You must remind them.
“Sort of,” I answered. “Find out who’s singing at the gate, if it’s not Righteous.
Whoever it is, they obviously understand what’s at stake if it falls.
” She nodded, tucking her kazoo into her pocket.
“Tell anyone you trust what’s going on. I’m heading back to the Maker Hall to heal those two mates.
” We hugged briefly, and she smacked a kiss in the center of my forehead.
“Don’t, you’ll get all dirty!” I complained.
She laughed. “Feather, being a rebel is obviously great for smut removal. You have almost none left.” I peered down at my arm. The rivers of silver-gray inside me still flowed, but the exterior was as shiny as it had ever been, except for right before I’d been unmade.
“Huh, would you look at that? Right. Off to save the realm.” I blew her a kiss and raced away, glad for once that no one besides me used the floors in this place.
But right outside the Maker Hall, I paused, feeling an odd, new sensation under my feet. Not like the earthquakes at the gate, but something similar. An almost subliminal humming, like a swarm of bees approaching from far away. And it wasn’t coming from the Great Gate.
What else in Sanctuary was making that sort of sound?
Then a larger tremor began, one that I recognized. The gate was weakening again. I prayed that whoever was singing for it had the energy to keep going. At least until I could find Righteous, or someone, to help me hold the realm together.
Though I suspected a falling gate might not be as damaging as the rot that already lay, unseen, at the core of Sanctuary itself.