Chapter 12 Feather #2
“Shizz is right.” I blushed, unsure why hearing him say one of my curse words felt so intimate. My chest throbbed, and I shook the weird feeling away.
“So we need to arm the singers.” His eyes fell on the young Protectors, and I watched the realization hit him. The only ones who could bear the weight of the language were the ones Mikhail had carved from his flesh.
And the older ones didn’t know the songs. Although that seemed odd. The Guides were all older; some of them should remember. I tilted my head at two golden-robed figures sitting on the floor, wiping at their exposed faces.
“Can you sing?” Gavriel demanded. “You’re both over a thousand.”
“We know the songs,” the Guide said, wiping blood from their cheek. “But the angelic language… We can’t hold the sounds in our minds.”
Another Guide, who had cuts all over their bald scalp, pointed at their colleague. “You know why, Tranquility. We stopped singing centuries ago. And when we tried again, we were too tainted to even read the old tongue aloud to the students. We did this to ourselves.”
I wasn’t sure if Gavriel’s expression of disgust was for them or himself, for allowing the Guides to grow so weak. “What have you been teaching… Never mind. You know the way to the storage room?”
The bald Guide stood, stammering, “We’ll take them to get instruments, but… we haven’t played in so long.”
“We’ve never played anything,” one of the Protectors said, his voice quivering.
I sighed. Thank goodness I’d once been a foster child for a motivational speaker back on Earth.
“Never was then!” I announced, grinning so wide that my cheeks hurt.
“We’re living in the now!” I ignored Gavriel’s startled expression.
Watch and learn, bucko. “I can teach you to play the kazoo in thirty seconds, or your money back!” The Guides’ eyes popped, but the scared Protectors giggled.
“I’m not kidding; it’s really easy. And the lap harp—well, you won’t be good at it.
But everyone starts somewhere. And these shadows aren’t classical music connoisseurs. ”
Truth nodded. “I’ll go with you. I know where we’ve stashed all the instruments that don’t need repairs.”
The two Guides, surrounded by the Protectors with weapons who were humming in four-part harmony, ran down the hallway to the supply closet. For a moment, at least, everything was quiet, save Arabella’s faint singing. Her flickering glow lit up the planes of Gavriel’s face, as he stared down at me.
“You’re alive,” he said, his voice raw. He reached to brush back my hair with a trembling hand, but dropped it. “I never thought… I never knew.” The unspoken words that we were soulmates hung in the air.
“Yeah, kinda shocked me, too.” I scuffed my bare foot on the ground and suddenly remembered my nakedness. “We should talk. Um, after I get some clothing?” A toga landed on top of my head.
“Stop staring at my little sister,” Arabella called. “I swear this place is full of degenerates.”
“That’s exactly what I said when I got here!” I groused, pulling the toga on. It was too long, but the belt worked to keep it from dragging too much. I almost tripped putting it on as a sudden wave of lethargy swept over me, a familiar, dull pain. Was this what Mikhail and Ry were feeling?
At the slightest thought of them, an ache began in both my nape and—dang you, Righteous!—my right boob. I felt a burst of panic, and tried to sense them at the end of those bonds, but all I got was the pools of power they had imbued the marks with. A very finite energy.
How long would it last? How long had I been in the void? I needed to know that my mates were okay, but there was no way for me to tell. “How long was I gone?” I mumbled.
“Two days,” Gavriel rasped. “The longest days of my life.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I focused on adjusting the stupid toga, which had gotten stuck on my mini-wings. Tears pricked my eyes as I struggled to pull my hair free of the neckline.
Suddenly, hands were there, tying it back with a piece of golden string. Arabella smiled down at me. “Better get to this Merge place while we can. What is it? By the name, I would think—”
“A sex club,” I finished. “Yep. It’s awesome.”
She muttered, “I thought that was just a rumor. Seraphiel needs a keeper.” She cleared her throat and glanced at Gavriel. His eyes had never left me. I wasn’t sure he’d even blinked.
“Um, are you coming with us, Gavriel?”
He just kept staring. I waved one hand in front of his face, and he startled. “Oh. Come with… No. I’m going to help Rafe. He’s fighting in the lower level, trying to close off the gap. If we can get that sealed—”
“Rumple’s here?” I shouted, all my tiredness evaporating in an instant. “He’s in Sanctuary?” My heart felt like a butterfly caught in a tornado. I actually clutched one hand to my chest, wondering if Celestial children-High Angelus hybrids could have heart attacks. “Is he…”
Gavriel’s eyes were grief-stricken, and Arabella answered for him. “He’s not what he once was.” Then she added in my mind, But you and I share more than memories, Feather. We see with the eyes of love. And I know it won’t matter to you.
“What won’t?” I asked, but neither one responded. “I have to go to him. I need a weapon or something. Gavriel, where’s your sword?” I shook off his offer of the soul knife at his belt; I wasn’t going to take his only blade.
“We had to melt it to seal a rift in the Well of Souls,” he answered, turning away. His wings flared out slightly, and that was when I saw the missing patches of feathers.
“Cheesy shizzgrits, Grumpy. Did someone pluck you to stuff a pillow?”
He threw an annoyed glance over one shoulder—I was glad to see he hadn’t gotten all soppy and weird, what with knowing I was his forgotten soulmate. But then he said, “I plucked myself. For the seal, and for the nursery.”
“The nursery?” Arabella and I both asked at the same time.
Gavriel ran a hand over his face. “There’s no time now. Let’s just… Rafe will need me soon.”
“He needs me, too,” I argued, already heading in the direction of the basement. “We’ll both go.”
Gavriel’s hand around my wrist stopped me. “No, he said he has it contained for now. He… he asked me not to bring you there. He needs to know you’re safe.”
“He will. I’ll show him I’m safe. And fight at his side, like he would for me.”
“Please, Feather. He’ll be distracted. He promised to come to you when he’s finished this task.
” He could tell I was going to argue, so he went on, “I’m begging you as well.
I need you to go to The Merge, to help protect the others.
Besides the soul knife I gave Perception, they have no effective weapons.
We have no…” He didn’t say the word hope, but it was there in the silence.
“I can feel the Abyss trying to break in. It’s so hungry…
” His brow furrowed. “Can’t you feel it, Feather? Can’t you hear it?”
I blinked twice, amazed I hadn’t heard it before.
Or at least, understood what was there, like the drone of a bagpipe, constantly vibrating underfoot.
“That sound is the Abyss?” I’d thought it was a crowd of Protectors in the distance.
It was a similar sort of rumbling, the sound of thousands upon thousands of people shouting. Excited.
But not happy. Starving.
I reached down and let my mind touch the cords of energy that I’d started learning how to manipulate the last time I was here—and dropped them as fast as I could, as the realm leaped to meet me, clawing at the wells of power I carried. Desperate for my support. Sanctuary was screaming. Dying.
“They’re killing the realm,” I whispered, dizziness assaulting me. “They’re eating its power.”
“Yes, Rafe showed me a moment ago what’s happening down there. He made a rift to get inside, and hoped they wouldn’t find it. At least not so soon.”
He’d reached out to Gavriel, but not me? A new pain, entirely centered in my heart, stabbed me. Rumple? I sent a thought toward the basement… and hit what felt like an imaginary brick wall. Rumple was locking me out of his thoughts?
He’d never done that before. “Is he angry with me?”
Gavriel shook his head. “Not at all. I told him you’d arrived, but he already knew. He’d come to greet you, but he’s completely focused on holding the rift, re-weaving the strands.”
My mind spun. How had he torn through Sanctuary like that? Maybe the more important question was, “Why did he come inside?”
Gavriel barked a short, bitter laugh. “To kill me. He thought you were dead. When you left for the Celestial Realm, he felt it.”
“How? How did he feel me go?” I looked down at the swirling gray under my skin. “This?”
Gavriel sighed and lifted one hand, laying it on my chest. His skin was warm, his fingers calloused from centuries of holding a blade. A thought flickered in my mind. His fingers should be calloused from playing a harp, or a guitar. I’d heard him sing. He was a musician.
His lips turned up; he’d caught that thought.
I was a musician, until I lost heart. Lost hope.
I never wanted this, Feather. But I should have done more when I held the position as leader.
I should have done better by the realm. And much better by you.
I swallowed hard at the flood of emotion, his regret, that washed through me.
Rafe is tethered to this feather. My feather, inside you. He has been since before you were born.
I don’t understand. He pulled his hand away and shuttered his thoughts. Are you locking me out, too?
Our eyes met, and he reluctantly opened his thoughts to me.
His soul was almost as hungry as the Abyss, but filled with remorse and anguish.
Oceans of shame and regret, and yawning canyons of heartbreak.
I gasped at the pain, and he closed his thoughts off with an apology.
“I don’t want to burden you while we’re fighting.
Rafe feels the same… and he needs to do his work with no distraction.
We’ll share all you want to know as soon as you’re—we’re safe. ”
He turned to the gathered crowd, projecting his voice. “I need you all to go to The Merge. Gather everyone you can. Fill that space with music, and wait for news.”
“News?” one of the Guides squawked. “We’re just going to… sit there?” I almost rolled my eyes. Sitting was what the Guides had been doing pretty much twenty-four-seven for years. They ought to be experts at bench warming.
“You have two High Angeli and two Celestial Messengers here, Guide. Use your brain. I’ll send word to Feather.”
The Guide tilted their nose high enough that I could see up their nostrils. “Why her?”
Arabella stepped forward, fists raised. Gavriel’s face turned into something from a horror movie.
“Watch your tone when you speak about the leader of Sanctuary, Guide. Respect her, or leave the realm.” Everyone’s eyes landed on me, some filled with shock, some abject horror, and a few with amusement.
My voice sounded like I’d been sucking helium for days when I asked, “The leader of what now?”