16. Leah
Leah
“They’re really something,” Filippa says, examining my wings for a third time since I dragged myself back to the academy, trying to ignore the whispers and pointing from every ephilium I passed.
Of course, when I got my wings, I couldn’t just thank my good luck and start putting them to use in training like everyone else. No, they had to come with strings attached.
Well, I don’t want this model. Send them back please. What do you mean you don’t do exchanges?
“Do you think Captain Hasteed’s right?” I ask, testing the waters. “That the color’s just a rare mutation from mixing my human and ephilium blood?” Filippa made me report this development to our instructor right away, but now we’re holed up in her room, away from staring eyes.
“That’s got to be it,” she says, straightening up. “I mean, nephilim aren’t very common, so I guess it makes sense we’re learning new stuff about you all the time.”
I tilt my wings forward so the primary feathers are in reach. It’s amazing how naturally it comes to me. Just like moving any other limb, I don’t so much think about doing it as it just happens. I thumb the tip of a feather, staring at the dark sheen of it.
I keep to myself my growing certainty that the mutation isn’t from my human blood but from my demonic bond.
These feathers aren’t just black as night—they’re black as demon wings.
I’m wearing my bond to Syrus out in the open for everyone to see.
Except, thank the ancestors, it seems no one’s made that connection.
As uneasy as my black wings in a sea of ivory might make them, no one’s calling for me to be locked up yet.
“And no one else has wings that aren’t white?” I ask.
She frowns. “Sometimes when people are sick their wings can change, but you’re feeling all right, aren’t you?”
“Sure,” I say, massaging the base of my skull. “Apart from this nasty lump where Keros tried to brain me.” I’m lucky I don’t have a full-blown concussion right now. “I can’t believe you didn’t let me name him to Hasteed.”
Filippa crosses her arms. “Could you say with absolute certainty it was him?”
“Yes,” I say. “It happened fast, but I saw his face, Filippa, I swear.”
“But do you have any proof? Could anyone else have seen him?”
Yes, actually. I have the Lord of Malice willing to testify to the fact, I think snarkily.
“No,” I grit my teeth as I lie through them. “I was alone.”
“He’s the nephew of a seraphim, Leah. There’s no way they’ll just take your word over his.” She grimaces, reluctant to say this next part. “It’s not even that they won’t believe you—they just won’t much care.”
“Because even murder is fine if the murderer’s got a seraph in the family?” I gape. “I thought you guys are all about honor?”
Filippa shakes her head. “They won’t care because whoever pushed you ultimately did you a favor.
They forced your wings to fully develop ahead of schedule, drastically increasing your chances of surviving the trials.
Lots of people will see that as tough love—it made you step up and get stronger.
That’s basically what the whole fledgling trials thing is about anyway.
And don’t look at me like that,” she says at my disgusted expression.
“Don’t you think I know how fucked up it is? But it’s just the way things are.”
“Well, how are things ever going to get better if no one is willing to actually talk about how fucked up it currently is?”
Filippa gives me a dry smile. “Sure. And I wonder how that would work out for someone like me. Forging our own paths isn’t an option for most of us.”
Her eyes flicker again over my black wings, and I can’t tell if there’s jealousy or pride there.
Maybe a bit of both. Filippa’s spent so long on the fringes of her family, barely tolerated, but then here I am, breaking the norms and still being welcomed by Garion with open arms—at least, that’s how it must seem to her.
It plucks at that old tension between us, and I decide to change the subject.
“Well, Keros better watch his back from now on,” I say. Filippa doesn’t look very impressed by my threat, but I’ve already made up my mind. I might not be able to use my star witness against my attacker, but I’ll bide my time and take my revenge on that blond bastard when the moment comes.
“You’re better off just avoiding him from now on. I bet he won’t have the nerve to try anything again now you’ve survived. Especially if you just walk into the Fledgling Ball tomorrow with your wings out and head held high like nothing happened.”
I groan. “That’s tomorrow night? That’s all I need right now, parading my weird wings in front of the seraphim and every other important ephilium in Luminis.”
She rolls her eyes. “Suck it up. It’s just a few stares.
And the ball means that we’ll be getting a break from trials and training.
There’s never any trials in the few days around the ball, so we can all relax a little.
People might find your feathers a little strange at first, but they’ll get over that fast. The general and the seraphim will all just be pleased you’ve gotten your wings like a good little ephilium. ”
I hope she’s right. It’s not like I can tell her the real reason I’m worried—that they might figure out my tie to Infernum. I’d ask Syrus how realistic that fear is, except…
He hasn’t spoken to me since the fall.
It’s weird. I felt his horror course through me as I went over the wall, mingling with my own.
I’d have expected him to come charging through the bond the first second he could, desperate to find out my condition.
Sure, it always takes him a while to find his way back to me when he’s thrown out of my head, but it’s been hours.
There was a moment, when I was talking to Hasteed, that I thought I sensed him: the prickle up the back of my neck and the shivery slip of something moving into my mind.
But I was distracted by the captain asking me a question, and when I had a chance to check for him again, he was gone. No word. Nothing.
Maybe once he knew I was alive he had nothing else to say to me. Maybe he’s angry after I told him we had to break the bond—basically forced him into accepting it.
But I had to be forceful. He can’t know there’s a part of me that wants to keep the connection between us, because if he knew that, Syrus would definitely take advantage of it. We both have to remember that breaking the connection could be the only way for me to stay alive.
If the connection can even be broken.
Something Syrus said right before I fell made me unsure about that, though I can’t remember exactly what.
The panic of plummeting to my death makes it kind of fuzzy.
But he could clear things right up if he’d just show up already.
For him to just ignore me after what happened feels uncharacteristically cruel.
And maybe he has a good reason, but if he never explains himself, then we’re still stuck in the same exhausting loop of distrust and dishonesty. Which is so fucking painful because it puts this distance between us when I need him most—and when I’m sure he feels he needs me too.
It’s worse when I get back to my room and don’t have someone to distract me anymore. When I close my eyes, I’m still falling, still watching the ground hurtle up toward me, anticipating being ripped from this world. It makes my hands shake and my chest tighten.
If Syrus was here, he’d still my tremoring fingers and run his soothing presence through my body until I felt like I could breathe again.
Maybe it’s selfish of me, weak and hypocritical to want that after spending so much time pushing him away.
But I’ve tried to let him go, haven’t I? It’s him who won’t allow it.
I’m only human—well, only nephilim—and there’s only so long I can resist him. Or resist the pull of my own heart.
He doesn’t come find me during the night. I don’t sleep well, my head still aching from Keros’s attack, and in the end, I rise early and head to the training fields.
Then, with the pale sun only just peeking over the academy roofs, I go flying.
It’s exhilarating, to rise up and see the world from a new perspective.
The movement of my wings comes as naturally as before, throwing up a breeze around my face as I ride an air current upward.
I’m not as fast or graceful as the other fledglings—not yet—but at least I’m up here, coasting in the turquoise blue at last.
It works to clear my head a little, chasing away some of the horror of falling yesterday. In fact, I get so swept up in my new ability that before I know it, it’s nearly noon, and I have to eat and start getting ready for the ball.
I head back to my room after I’ve grabbed some food from the dining hall.
Filippa’s lent me some makeup, and Garion organized for someone to send me a dress that won’t shame the Illidore family.
I take my time getting ready, twisting small braids into my hair.
But the positive effects of flying practice are fading fast. I’m halfheartedly applying rouge when there’s a knock at my door.
I open it to see Rowan standing there in a very sharp outfit, part armor, part tailored uniform, all gold and white. For today, fledglings aren’t required to wear bronze, apparently. He leans against the doorframe, smiling.
“So, I hear you had an eventful day yesterday,” he says, staring over my head at my wings.
“Very boring actually,” I say. “A total snooze.”
He laughs, a little too hard for such a mediocre joke.
“They look great.” He gestures to my feathers. “Unusual but…er…interesting.”
“Thanks,” I say slowly. Interesting is not exactly the highest of praise.
“I came to make sure you’re still coming to the ball,” he says. “Filippa seemed to think you might make some excuse and pull out last minute.”
“I have no idea where she’d get that theory,” I deadpan, crossing my arms. Rowan’s smile widens.
“Come on, it won’t be terrible. You might even end up enjoying yourself,” he says.