Chapter 26 #2
The door opened, but Rafe was nowhere to be seen.
Who had… I saw a tiny lick of Sanctuary’s power vanish into the floor.
He was using the realm to open a door? I peered around the dimly lit front room.
There were dozens of bottles of brandy and mead, empty or half-empty and lying on their sides.
The floor was sticky with spilled liquor…
and other things. A brilliant light shone from the crack at the bottom of his bedroom door.
“Disgusting,” I muttered as I pushed inside. “Fuck, Rafe, tone it down!” I shielded my eyes. He wasn’t covering up his glow right now, and I hoped I hadn’t blinded myself. I felt around for a sheet and threw it over him, which diffused the light just enough.
He was curled into a ball, as still as death, in the very center of the massive bed.
His bed was the largest in Sanctuary, with an enormous bolstered headboard, enough pillows to provide for five cohorts of Novices, and beautifully sculpted metal rings at intervals along the base and sides—which I never asked about.
I had done a bit of merging in my thousand years, but nothing like Rafe.
Rafe had joked once he’d had a vision that he would need a large bed.
That he would be mated to four other souls, and he would need the space for all the games they would play.
But when he’d said it, his voice rang with truth.
I could never tell what was true and what was a grand joke when it came to the man who had become my best friend. My brother.
“How drunk were you?” I demanded, tossing a velvety cushion at him. He moaned, curling into a tighter ball. “Rafe, how drunk were you last night at The Merge? The healers have sixteen Protectors and two Guides in the ward getting treatment for energy dehydration.”
“Didn’t take their energy,” he mumbled. “Swear.”
“No, they didn’t report that you took their energy.
And no one actually complained. Apparently, they all staggered into the healing rooms with smiles on their faces, hair so knotted they had to cut out chunks of it, swelling in their nether regions, and corneas that resemble those of humans who’ve stared at the sun for a week.
Luckily, they’re all completely healed, though the healers have demanded a week off. What did you do?”
There was silence, then he rolled over, muting his Celestial glow as he removed the sheet. “Had a vision in the middle of it all. Two visions.”
“Shit,” I said, perching on the bed. He frowned slightly at my cursing. He had no room to talk; he’d taught me how to remove smut for cursing with happy thoughts. I quickly imagined meeting my soulmate, and the freckle on my hand vanished. “What prompted the visions this time?”
We’d figured out his prophecies these days—most of which were dire—were triggered by the strangest things.
He’d had one about a year before, when some particularly muscular Protectors had emerged from the baths with scented oils rubbed all over their bodies.
It had been after dinner, and Rafe had asked the chefs to make raspberry sauce with custard.
Something about the combination had spurred a particularly violent vision about him being mired in the Abyss.
“It was fondue,” he slurred up at the ceiling. “It was fondue Friday. And you were there, and the others. Your wings were gone, Gavriel. And I’d cut them off.”
I gasped, sickened by the thought of it.
If I had one vanity, it was my wings. They were bright gold, almost too long for my frame.
I could fly faster, and farther, than any of my cohort.
Than most of the High Angeli, in fact. I’d won the annual Realm Rooftop Races for two centuries now.
“You would never. Rafe, I know you would never do that to me.”
“I saw it happen in my next vision,” he rasped. “I was monstrous, with claws like daggers of filth. You kneeled in front of me, and I sliced them away from you like I was slaughtering a bird.”
I climbed up on the bed next to him, and pushed the dark hair from his eyes, stroking it over one ear.
We hadn’t ever been intimate with each other physically—which made me one of a very select few, as Rafe’s exploits were legendary.
But we were more than intimate in another way, in that we cared for each other as brothers, and friends, and…
Something else that I didn’t understand.
Maybe it was that he was my teacher. But it felt like, someday, we would be something even more significant than lovers.
“Could they have been bad dreams, brought on by too much booze and too many merges?”
He let loose a desperate laugh. “The visions came first, Gav.” He rolled toward me and gazed at my face. “You kissed me, for the first time.”
“Well, shit, I’ll do that now,” I interrupted, leaning forward. “We’ll nip this prophecy in the bud.”
His smile was sad as he denied me. “You kissed me on the mouth, called me your brother, and asked me to take your wings. Begged me. And I did.”
My heart lurched. There was too much truth in the ringing finality of his words for it to be anything other than a real prophecy.
“I hope it doesn’t happen,” I said at last, my voice trembling with fear and what I hoped was courage.
“But if it does, if I do ask for that? I will forgive you. But I only need one thing.”
“Anything.”
I kissed his brow as he wept a bright, golden tear. “I need you to forgive me for asking you to.”
“You fucker,” he said now. “I can’t even be angry. I can’t hate you for it. Because you already have my forgiveness.”
My heart ached at the pain in his voice. “I may not be the smartest of all the High Angeli, but I had my moments.”
His eyes flashed. “Have your moments, Gav. Not had. You know I will have to be the sacrifice at the gate,” he said after a long, quiet moment. “You may lose your wings, but you cannot lose your life. I need her to live. The balance needs her to live.”
“Of course, my brother,” I told him, and he grasped my forearms in his corrupted hands.
I pulled him toward me and kissed him, singing my love into his soul. His soul tried to answer, but the voice that sang back to me was an echo of a cry from far away, buried under a mountain of evil. His breath tasted of ash and hopelessness. He really did have the void inside him, or a part of it.
Then we readied the cauldron, and stoked the fire. I gathered cloth for bandages, while Rafe heated an iron to cauterize the wounds he would make. I watched my soulmate sleep under the golden net, glad she wouldn’t hear my cries.
Rumple sang as he did what I’d asked of him. It was more excruciating than anything I’d imagined a soul could live through.
It was the most beautiful pain I’d ever felt. It was for her. To keep her safe.
I slumped into darkness with the pounds of a ringing forge in my ears, as my brother hammered my wings into Celestial swords.