2. Leah
Leah
Iwas totally right about the ephilium and architecture. When we get to the Seraph Seat, it’s clear the pale-bloods don’t have a single subtle feather in their wings.
A palatial building rises up in front of us, decked out in marble pillars and gold domes. The entrance is a circular arch that takes up almost one whole side of the building, carved from more of the pale stone I’ve seen everywhere and wide enough to fly half a battalion through it.
Below it, steps from the building lead down into a series of cascading terraces bordering the largest tree I’ve ever seen.
A rare exception to Aradis’s sparse plant life.
Its trunk—which must be at least fifty feet wide—stretches up and over the building, huge boughs shading it like an ancient guardian.
We start to descend, gliding through the archway into a vast hall full of ephilium. As we touch down, a few of those milling around cast interested looks in our direction. Most, though, seem to be busy at work, cutting across the tiled floor of the hall with a scroll underarm or a stack of papers.
I’m reminded of Viz, and I try to ignore the light pang in my chest at the thought of Syrus’s disheveled chamberlain. By contrast, the ephilium here all look incredibly put together, polished and shiny in sets of golden armor or flowing, elegant clothes.
“Come,” Pellery says, leading us toward the back of the hall, where a grand set of doors sits half open, watched over by more soldiers.
Pellery doesn’t even need to exchange a word with them.
As soon as they catch sight of her, they salute, letting me and my escort pass without comment.
She’s clearly important around here. I’m starting to wonder why she was ever stationed on the trade rift to begin with. It kind of seems like grunt work to me.
There are maybe fifty ephilium in the room beyond, the crowd easily parting to let us through.
Despite the size of the gathering, there’s a distinct lack of seats.
Maybe the pale-bloods think they’re too strong and mighty to sit down?
Or maybe it’s a status thing; at the front of the room two ephilium sit in throne-like chairs, and there’s no doubting they’re the most powerful people in the room.
I shiver, my newly awakened magic responding to the aura rolling off the pair. Both have black hair peeking out beneath the close-fitting golden cowls that swathe their heads. The woman is as pale as me, minus the freckles, while the skin of the man beside her is a deep, rich brown.
But as I lean closer to get a better look at them, I feel a touch against my mind—Syrus, testing my walls a little more firmly this time.
My first reaction is panic. I’m surrounded by powerful ephilium here; it would be disastrous if even a hint of his presence slipped through right now.
I quickly check the barriers I’ve built, slamming down what extra protections I can—only to be hit by that uncomfortable wave of emptiness again.
I push it down, trying to focus on what’s happening in front of me.
The seraphim are listening intently to a woman kneeling before them.
Her voice is low and rough, like she’s on the verge of crying but is trying hard to rein in her emotions.
I don’t think I’m imagining the strange atmosphere, the ephilium around us shifting restlessly as I catch the tail end of her words.
“…and then I hesitated, which led to further casualties.” She ducks her head, but from this angle I can see the shame she carries. “I was weak, your honors, and for that I can only beg for forgiveness from the ancestors.”
The seraphim exchange a look, then the female seraph speaks, her voice cool and commanding. “You were weak, Miseia Charis. You indulged in cowardice and dishonored your family.”
The kneeling woman looks like she’s been slapped.
“However…” the female seraph continues, and the woman’s eyes glimmer with hope. “Your bloodline is old and strong, and this is the first time you have brought disgrace to it. Seraph Orelle and I believe it would be unwise to condemn you now without giving you a chance to redeem yourself.”
The woman jerks her head up. “Please, your honors,” she says, almost excited. “I will prove myself, I swear it.”
“Very well,” says the male seraph—Orelle—as his companion rises and draws a long, shining sword from a sheath at her belt. “Show us that you can overcome your weakness, and you will bring glory to your family once more.”
The woman nods eagerly, even as the female seraph steps up to her. Fear prickles across my skin, not for myself but for her, and yet I’ve never seen someone look so pleased to be approached by someone with a drawn weapon.
I watch, every muscle tense, as the seraph lowers her sword slowly to the woman’s shoulder. For a moment, nothing happens. Then a frisson of power crackles across the seraph’s knuckles, igniting and rolling down her wrist onto the metal of the sword in a storm of white-hot lightning.
It shoots down the blade, hitting the woman and pulsing through her.
Her whole body goes rigid, an animal groan escaping from between her clenched teeth as her eyes bulge in their sockets.
I can’t look away, even as my stomach turns when the scent of burning flesh fills the air.
The lightning is searing through her. Any human subjected to this would instantly be dead.
Ephilium must have some resistance to their own magic—but not enough to keep it from being agonizing.
I cringe back, horrified as the woman’s body starts to seize, hitting the ground and twitching violently.
What must be seconds later—though it feels like much longer than that—the lightning dissipates. The seraph steps back, sheathing her sword as she looks down expectantly at the woman lying crumpled on the floor, her head twisted away from my view.
It’s silent in the room. I have to bite down on my tongue not to demand answers from Pellery. Did they just execute that woman? I thought they said were going to give her a chance to prove herself?
The seraph hasn’t moved, still looking down at the disgraced woman. Watching. Waiting.
Raw burns crisscross the exposed arm flung out across the floor, more silver than red, given the color of ephilium blood. I follow the route of the lightning back up across the woman’s singed clothes, onto her neck, where the burn spreads outward, scorched flesh feathering its way up to her face.
Then she starts to move. With another awful groan, her arm shifts into a less awkward position, and she draws her legs up underneath her. Slowly—so slowly it hurts to watch—she pulls herself up off the floor, shuddering with the effort.
“Th-thank you, your honors,” she says thickly. Her chin is bloody, and I realize she must have bitten her tongue.
There’s a ghost of a smile playing on the male seraph’s lips. “Leave this place with your head held high, Miseia, and consider your honor restored,” he says.
A ripple of relief travels through the crowd as the woman turns and starts to limp toward the exit.
Her face betrays the excruciating pain that must cut through her with every step, but there’s a lightness to her that only grows stronger as the ephilium she passes on the way out give her proud smiles and respectful nods.
Their leaders nearly burned that woman to death, and everyone seems…happy about it? Even the woman herself?
Goddess, what crazy shit have I gotten myself into?
For a moment, I expect Syrus to second my thoughts—waiting for his sardonic voice in my mind to offer some wry commentary on pale-bloods and their insanity. When it doesn’t come, I want to shake myself. I’m spending all this effort shutting him out. I have no business missing him.
“Captain Pellery, I didn’t expect to see you at today’s muster.”
I whip my head back toward the seraphim, where I see the male seraph’s eyes on the captain.
“Neither did I, Seraph Orelle,” Pellery replies. “But there is a matter I think requires your attention.”
One of my escorts nudges me, and I reluctantly edge forward to stand beside Pellery.
My mouth is dry as I straighten my shoulders, trying to look strong and confident under the scrutiny of everyone in the room.
My mask falls apart, however, when the seraph stretches his huge wings out, and I discover—there, nestled in among the feathers, one on each wing—there’s another set of eyes watching me.
That’s something you don’t see every day.
I’d heard rumors that the most powerful ephilium develop eyes on their wings over time.
I kind of thought it might be some stupidly literal Stratan interpretation of their “second sight,” but nope, there they are.
At first glance, you might think they were part of the feather pattern, like an albino peacock, but a closer inspection makes it clear the pale, small-pupiled orbs are definitely real.
And they move.
The eyes shift in my direction as the white feathers around them ruffle like they’ve been caught in a breeze. Seraph Orelle raises an eyebrow.
“She’s nephilim,” he says, a note of interest in his voice as he examines me. I suppress another shiver.
“She is,” Pellery says. “She has recently come into her powers and wishes to be claimed as a child of Aradis.”
“She’s been in the Mire this whole time?” the female seraph asks.
“Yes, Seraph Wyvier. She claims she didn’t know she had ephilium blood until her power began to show,” Pellery says. I can’t help but throw her an accusing look at her use of the word claims. It makes me sound like a liar.
Which I am, admittedly, but not about this.
The seraphim pick up on it too. “You think she cannot be trusted for some reason,” Seraph Orelle says as he steeples his fingers. A statement of fact rather than a question.
“Today is not the first time I have met this woman,” Captain Pellery explains. “I first encountered her a few weeks ago trespassing near the rift. At the time, I suspected she may have had contact with the demons.”
Shit. So this is the case against me Pellery didn’t want to get into before. She still suspects I’m working for Infernum. She’s not wrong, except about the timing. Me turning up and revealing I’m nephilim must look very convenient. I need to get ahead of this before she digs my grave for me.
“She found a knife on me, that’s all,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady and clear.
Several of the ephilium standing around us look surprised, like they hadn’t realized I could speak for myself.
Or maybe they just thought I wouldn’t be brave enough to try it.
“It was carved with Cyrax runes, but I found it on the plains.”
It’s possible telling them about my scavenging will piss them off—certainly there was more than one demon in Infernum with an opinion about it—but if I have to choose between that and actually admitting to working with the demons, I figure they’ll consider this the lesser crime.
“There may be some reasonable explanation as to why she had a knife so recently touched with demon shadow,” Pellery says, probably assuming I stole it off a demon or got it by some other crime I don’t want to admit to.
“But there’s also the issue of her magic.
” Pellery offers me an oddly apologetic look—I can’t help but feel she doesn’t really want to be throwing me under the carriage like this, and yet she continues on.
“If it developed this late, then something triggered it. I don’t know a lot about nephilim, but they need to be in regular contact with us to fully develop their powers, correct? ”
“That’s correct, Captain,” Seraph Wyvier says. “Though there’s a lot most of us don’t know about nephilim. They are so rare, after all.” She fixes her bright blue eyes on me, intrigued. “If she’s a scavenger, then proximity to the bodies and magic on the plains may have been enough to awaken her.”
It wasn’t, as it happens. It took being pumped full of ephilium blood and living around demons to trigger my magic, but I probably shouldn’t mention that.
Seraph Orelle rises from his chair, wings still open.
There must be some unspoken understanding between him and Wyvier, because she stands and opens hers too.
The uncanny sets of pale eyes stare out at me from the feathers, and I take a step back, only to end up brushing against the armor of the soldiers still standing behind me.
There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide from those eyes that I sense see far too much.
And just as I’m trying to stay calm under their scrutiny, I feel him again.
No. Not now.
His touches have been gentle up to now—careful and probing rather than aggressive.
But I’ve been braced for this, the moment he realizes I’ve taken away from him the body and mind he was so happy to puppet.
The moment he’s forced to accept that I’m far beyond his reach.
I can sense him shoving at the barriers I’ve built up around me now, trying to push the whole thing down.
The ephilium examine me closely, and I fight to keep my face blank, all while desperately shoring up my defenses. I can’t let him break through. If he finds a way inside, the seraphim will surely notice—and unlike that ephilium woman, I don’t think I’ll survive a dose of lightning.
The force of Syrus’s presence grows stronger, bearing down on me like a weight. He’s pushing hard, I can feel it, a surge of intense power rattling at the gates of my mind. I hold strong, the back of my neck going clammy with effort as I try to hide the war raging inside of me.
And maybe there’s a desperate, tiny part of me who wants to give in—wants to pull down the walls and let him flood into me. Goddess, that fullness, the feel of him beneath my skin isn’t something I should crave. But even here and now, there’s a whisper of temptation in my heart.
Then Orelle and Wyvier exchange a look, and fear whisks that temptation clean away. They close their wings—folding away those unnerving eyes—and step back. Almost at exactly the same moment, the force outside my mental wards disappears.
I exhale, trying to ignore that treacherous grief that rises up inside me.
It’s good that Syrus is gone, but watching the seraphim bend their heads together and mutter, I don’t feel much safer.
Could they sense the demonic energy that spent months making itself comfortable under my skin?
Has it left some kind of mark on me that their second sight can detect?
“What can you tell us of your heritage?” Seraph Wyvier asks, and I barely keep myself from sighing in relief. I can be honest about this.
“My name is Leah Polaris,” I say, licking my lips. “I think my ephilium blood comes from my mother’s side. Her name was Cerys. I’m named after my grandmother, who was a midwife. Leah Velanah was her name before she was married, and her husband, my grandfather—”
“He was not your grandfather,” comes a voice from near the front of the crowd. “I am.”