Chapter 27
Feather
He was beautiful. Or they were. It was hard to think of this Guide as gender neutral when his hood was down.
He was a study in masculine perfection, maybe more so than even Gavriel.
His skin was almost as fair as mine, but with a gorgeous milky sheen.
His thick hair was steel gray and his matching eyes fringed by long, dark lashes.
His neck was corded with muscle. Tradition worked out.
“Show yourself.”
I fought to do the opposite, but when Tradition stepped toward us, Percy let out a shocked gasp.
All eyes landed on the space where he stood, and a wave of exhaustion swept through me.
I lost my grip on both the cords of energy and my focus on staying invisible, and fell to the floor.
Righteous barely caught me before I bashed my head on the marble. I had no strength left.
A wicked smile covered Valor’s flushed face as he stepped around the Guide. “Not only Righteous, but Perception and the trash Novice.” His gaze raked my body, then moved to Righteous.
And stopped on Righteous’s hand.
“Will you look at that? An unsanctioned mating feather. That’s not yours, Perception. Not with that coloration.” Valor sneered at me. “Is it yours?”
“Yes,” I said, baring my teeth. “But it’s not Righteous’s fault. When I got down here, he was dying. Unconscious, from you beating him almost to death. I had to save him, and I’d do it again if it meant he would live.”
Valor made a disgusted face. “What will Mikhail think when he returns? When he discovers his mate is a little whore.”
Righteous growled and stumbled to his feet, still weak.
But Perception planted himself in front of us, and spoke in a voice that shook the walls.
“No.” He extended his wings, and a light flared out in front of us.
I leaned to one side to peek around him and noticed that when his light fell on Valor, the Protector’s skin appeared pitted and pockmarked.
There was no visible smut on Valor, but in the light Percy was giving off, it was apparent that the jerk was rotting from the inside.
Valor hissed and ducked his face, as if the light burned him. It might have hurt his eyes; Percy was that bright.
Tradition glided around the room smoothly.
I turned to keep my eyes on him, as did Righteous.
“You’ve ascended, Perception?” He tsked.
“This saddens me greatly. High Angelus Gavriel signed a new statute only weeks ago. No one can ascend without the permission of the acting leader of Sanctuary, a position Valor holds. You’ve broken our law.
” His eyes moved across the room, snagging on me.
“All of you have transgressed, it seems. Some in more… significant ways than others.”
The room buzzed with a heavy silence, as if ears we couldn’t see were listening, weighing each moment. Each word. I peered at the others to see if they were aware of it, but only Perception was reacting, shaking his head like he was brushing off a persistent fly.
The corners of Tradition’s mouth twitched downward. “Don’t worry. You won’t languish in a cell, waiting for a decision to come down. It will be convenient to fold you all into the judgment we have planned for today.”
Percy went pale. Righteous cursed at Valor, who was yelling for the Guides to grab us. I let my eyes meet Tradition’s, and asked a question before my own arms were held roughly. “Whose judgment?”
He didn’t answer, his eyes moving over me like I was nothing. Like I was a useless scrap he could throw away. For a moment, it seemed like he wasn’t going to answer at all. But then he replied, with genuine sadness throbbing in his deep voice and a tear in his eye, “Sunny, the Light of Truth.”
We were led directly into the largest Assembly Hall, where what had to be every Protector and Guide in Sanctuary was already present.
And they were all sitting in the dark, or close to it.
Sanctuary still had almost no power, the ribbons of its energy appearing frayed and scattered, glittering in my mind’s eye.
I had done that, healing Righteous. How was I going to fix this?
The only light, besides burning oil lamps spaced out evenly around the Hall, emanated from those of us who had ascended: me, Percy, someone sitting in the center of the Hall… and a little light was seeping out of Ry’s wings, too.
When the assembled Protectors noticed a resistant but glowing Perception being pulled down the risers, his hands cuffed in front of him, a discontented murmuring began. Then, when Perception moved ahead and they saw me there, unbound but with a hulking Guide on both sides, the murmurs got louder.
To be fair, the new murmurs had a note of approval in them.
I bit my lip to keep it from wobbling. I knew I didn’t have very many friends in Sanctuary, but I wouldn’t have believed so many of them hated me.
Maybe they had thought well of me after I walked into the gate, but now?
Now they saw me as a convenient scapegoat for all that was going wrong in the realm. I bit my lip harder, tasting blood.
Then Valor breached the door behind us, he and three other Guides dragging a struggling, freshly-bruised Righteous behind them, and a huge outcry started from the back of the Hall.
They didn’t hate Ry. They admired him, desired him. Coveted his power a bit. Yet no one seemed willing to speak up against Valor’s treatment of him.
Cowards. I felt a prickling of agitated energy run over my skin, and felt that odd hum in the floor beneath my feet once more. No one else did, it seemed—or at least, no one reacted to it. When the prickling stopped, a surge of exhaustion crept up on me.
“What’s going on?!” My eyes flew to the one yelling. It was Truth, though none of his friends were there. I hoped they were singing at the gate.
Truth ran at Righteous, looking like he was going to punch him or something. But at the last minute, he tackle-hugged my new mate. Righteous whispered something in his ear, and Truth nodded. As one of the Guides pulled him loose, I noted a tiny trickle of blood flowing down from Truth’s ear.
What had Righteous done? Or said?
Then the Guides at my sides grabbed me, and all three of us were dragged to the center of the Assembly Hall. One Guide pulled me up to the top of the podium, where Sunny and Hope stood, leaning against each other. Someone had tied their hands low, behind their backs.
Sunny was the light I’d seen from the center of the room. She glowed as brightly as I did, almost like her namesake, and had no smut on her at all.
“Sunny?” I whispered when I was close enough. “You ascended?” She nodded once. “Is that what you’re on trial for? Do they really have trials in Sanctuary, or is this some made-up bullcrap?” Her eyes darted to Tradition when she answered in her thoughts.
I sucked in a sharp breath, staggered at the images I saw.
Valor dragging Hope away from the Great Gate, where she’d been singing.
Taking her into a room where he “questioned” her, juggling the soul knife in one hand as an unspoken threat, accusing her of conspiring against the leadership.
Sunny being called in to force Hope to answer truthfully…
and Sunny losing her shizz entirely, ascending in one giant burst of power and brilliance, and beating the stuffing out of Valor.
She’d grabbed the soul knife and, when Tradition walked in, it had looked like she was planning to murder Valor. He might not have been wrong. Tradition’s handsome face had been burdened with sorrow as he ordered a dozen Guides to detain Sunny and Hope.
I’ve ascended, so I should have been strong enough to fight off twenty Guides, Sunny thought. But I’m weaker than a High Angelus should be. Something’s pulling on me, draining me.
It’s Sanctuary. I wanted to curse, but didn’t. You’re a High Angelus, but that means Sanctuary sees you as a battery. Your power, your light, is being siphoned by the realm.
Her eyebrows flew high, and I could tell she’d heard me. Well, that really sucks, she joked, though her mental voice was weak.
I sent her a memory of one of the worst Regency erotica novellas I’d ever read, titled Inflation Cums for Iphigenia, which featured very little editing or historical accuracy, but a lot of interesting oral techniques.
It sucks and blows, I replied, happy when her spirit seemed to brighten a tiny bit.
Sunny pretended to throw up in her mouth, but then stared at me directly and thought, Valor has no light in him at all. Be careful, Feather. Don’t get unmade again.
I fought back tears as I felt how weak she was growing. Careful is my middle name.
A tiny smile played on her lips. No, Anaconda is your middle name.
At the rear of the Hall, someone blew a horn three times. The mellow tones held a hint of melancholy, and a demand for silence. The entire Hall obeyed. I was shocked; it was the first time I’d heard an instrument played in public here. It was probably their Angelic Execution Bugle or something.