Chapter 32 Sunny
Sunny
Iwasn’t sure how I’d gotten so lucky and unlucky all in the space of a few months.
I’d been a nobody in Sanctuary, a run-of-the-mill, slightly dirty, unremarkable Protector.
Then Feather had arrived in a shower of smut and glitter and kindness, and made me into something more.
She’d befriended me, and helped me understand what it meant to have a great soul, even if the outside package didn’t match.
She’d shown so many of us in Sanctuary that, but for some reason, most of them hadn’t been able to see. Or hadn’t wanted to. It broke my heart the way they’d looked at her, judged her. Condemned her for being tainted, when all along it was really Valor spreading corruption throughout the realm.
I stared at the blackened spot on the floor where Valor’s corpse had lain, and slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from being sick, feeling Feather and Hope’s eyes on me.
I had killed a man.
And now I couldn’t stop crying.
“You did it to protect Feather,” Hope said gently, her hands warm on my shoulders.
“Sunny, think about it. She’d literally taken every bit of smut from the entire realm that she could, balanced us all.
And he still chose to attack her. He’d lost more than his sense of balance—he’d lost his mind. You need to forgive yourself.”
I heard her words, but as I stared through burning tears at the gray stains on my hands, I knew these wouldn’t come off. Not for a very, very long time. I didn’t want them to. I needed a reminder of the cost of doing what was right.
Feather grabbed my hands, and I ignored the squelching of her smut between my fingers.
“I can take that, too,” she said. “It’s not like I can get much dirtier.
I mean, not without the Internet.” She winked one smut-covered eyelid, and a caked-on piece fell from her lashes and hit the floor, exploding into a small glitter bomb.
“That’s true,” I managed to say, even managing to smile, though my tears fell unchecked.
For some reason, she appeared both horrifically stained and brilliant at the same time.
Like the Feather underneath was just one bubble bath away from shining like the sun.
“The scary thing is…” I heard an animalistic growl and glanced away, distracted.
Righteous was backing around a chair, trying to keep Mikhail from punching him in the face again. Mikhail stalked Ry like some sort of feral beast, but he wasn’t really trying to kill him. I didn’t think. He was the one growling, though.
“Ugh, why is that so hot?” Feather sighed, then shook her head like she was dislodging a fly. She squeezed my hand tighter, and gray filth oozed out on the sides of our fingers, like wet clay. But where it dripped to the floor, it turned into what looked like a cow patty of dark gray glitter.
“The scary thing is almost always the right thing—isn’t that what you said to Ashtad?”
“Yeah, I said that. But I’m not scared. I promise. You want to be clean all the way? Say the word, birch.”
I shook my head and pulled my hand away, wiping it off on my toga. “I want to keep this smut, Feather. I need a reminder that the right thing is the scary thing… even if it means I pay a price. It’s my price to pay. Please don’t take any more from me.”
She frowned, or I thought she did. Her face was hard to see under the clay. She was going to say something else, when the demon baby—who had called Feather Mama—slipped under Feather’s arm, whimpering at whoever was approaching.
I stepped in front of them both and turned with stained fists raised, wondering if Tradition was coming back for another swing at my girl. He’d have to go through me. But it wasn’t Tradition. It was High Angelus Gavriel.
“Get out of my way,” he ordered. “I have to take care of that demon.” I stared first at the Celestial sword he held in one hand, then at the grim expression on his chiseled face, and thought very hard about the wisdom of doing this scary thing.
What would Feather do? I wondered, but I already knew.
“No,” I said firmly, as Feather let out a soft, “Shizz.” On the far side of the stage, just out of sight, I could hear Mikhail still growling while Righteous stammered explanations.
A few yards away, Perception let out a short, surprised, “Uh-oh,” as he watched us. Tradition was somewhere nearby, hiding like the chickenship he was, but I felt a hint of smug triumph arising from his direction.
Hope stepped up beside me, making an even firmer barrier between the baby and Gavriel, whose eyes were filled with sadness, determination, and more than a hint of despair.
“Give me the child,” he demanded. His fingers tightened on the grip of the Celestial sword, and I knew nothing I could say to defend the baby would stop him from going through me.
“Leave it alone,” I pleaded. “She called Feather Mama. You can’t…”
“I know. The child is charming. But I must take responsibility for it,” he said, his voice cracking.
“It can’t run loose in Sanctuary. The realm is so weakened.
I… I swore a sacred vow to never allow a demon to taint these Halls.
I must protect my realm. Even if it means making the hard choices.
” He lost the thread of his words, and I saw something I’d never seen.
Tears coursing down Gavriel’s face.
I saw the truth in him, at that moment, as if an invisible sun had come out just to shine on his tangled soul and his broken heart.
He was so conflicted. Agonizing over some decision he’d made.
He didn’t know if whatever he planned was the right thing, but he felt he had no other choice.
I opened my heart, prayed for inspiration, and landed on a very unlikely solution.
I held out a hand toward the sword. “You have suffered enough, Gavriel. And you need to go to the gate to sing. To keep it strong. Feather taught some of the ancient songs to a few Protectors who can bear the High Angelic words…” He jolted at that, and a glimmer of curiosity flared in his blue eyes.
“But you’ll be better for it. Go. I vow this, on my wings: if you give me the sword, I will take care of the demon for you. For all of us.”
I felt his mind brush against my thoughts, and hoped he couldn’t see what I had hidden beneath my words. He stared at me, a peculiar expression dawning that he immediately tried to mask. Like he felt ill, but was trying to conceal it.
“You’ll… take care of it for me.” His voice was thick with some unnamable mix of emotions.
I nodded. “I know you can’t leave it alive here.”
Feather cried out, cursing me in her inventive way. Perception just watched, silently.
“Why, Sunny?” It seemed like Gavriel was asking me more than one question, but I chose to answer the one that I felt lay closest to the hidden truth in his heart.
“If you destroy this baby,” I whispered, “she’ll never forgive you. Let me take care of it instead. Give me the sword.”
To one side, I heard Mikhail and Righteous stop their fighting, and Mikhail called out, “Gavriel, you can’t!”
Gavriel nodded at me brusquely, and leveled a glance at Mikhail, filled with immeasurable sorrow, pain, and…
disappointment? But he didn’t answer his friend.
He simply handed me the sword and turned on his heel, his great wings flaring out on both sides, painting the Hall with golden blades of light.
“Tradition, come with me. You need to learn to sing to the gate as well. And do some real explaining.”
Tradition jumped and ran behind Gavriel, glancing back as if wolves were running after him.
I turned, holding the Celestial sword to one side.
Sword lessons had never been my favorite, but I knew how to hold one.
I just didn’t want the baby to get— “Ah! Get her away from it!” I shouted, as the baby slipped through the gooey muck that was covering Feather, and flew at the blade.
I pulled it back as quickly as I could, but the baby was faster than any Protector—or even any High Angelus—I’d ever seen.
In seconds, she had grabbed the blade with both arms, wrapped herself around it, and was gnawing on the side of it. Not bleeding. Not cut. The blade seemed to have no effect on her at all.
Thank the Light of All Lights. My heart was racing so fast, I felt like I might pass out.
“Sunny?” Hope murmured, while Feather watched the little demon with hearts in her eyes. “You were never going to kill this baby. Why did you vow on your wings?”
I didn’t answer, since I was still trying to get the baby off the sword in case the thing had some sort of delayed effect on her.
“She never said she’d kill it,” Perception answered for me, with an undercurrent of reproach in his voice.
“She said she’d take care of it. She vowed it.
” He sighed and patted the top of the little creature’s head.
She snarled at him, exposing two shining white teeth poking through pink flesh, and he stumbled over his own feet in his haste to back away.
“She’s teething,” Mikhail said, joining us in watching her gnaw. “Let her chew it. It feels good on her little gums.”
Feather looked up at him through muck-encrusted eyes. “I’d kiss you, Growly, but I’m afraid I’d get you dirty.”
“If you don’t kiss me, I’ll be spanking my way through that smut later on.” He narrowed his eyes when she shivered. I was pretty sure he was kidding. Ugh, I hoped so. Even thinking about High Angelus Mikhail that way made me feel nauseous.
Perception must have been on the same wavelength, since he started coughing, and excused himself. “I’ll go check on Gavriel, and make sure he knows that our friends are in the cells below. I’m sure he’ll have me release them immediately.”