Chapter 28 #2
Is this a trap? I haven’t seen Lyklan since before the ambush where Malach’s guardians disappeared. He could be trying to lure me home for execution, except he says he was the one who locked the gateways to keep me out. Under Malach’s orders.
My fingers spasm, and the paper crackles in my hands as the final line of the letter burrows into my brain.
I failed him, Celine. Don’t make the same mistake.
I flip the page over. On the back, there are coordinates to a gateway I’ve never heard of before. It’s not one the guys managed to uncover. Is it new? Did Lyklan open it for me? How will I tell if it’s a door home or a funnel leading me directly into my father’s crosshairs?
The mix of anticipation and dread makes it hard to breathe. The guys are waiting for me to explain but I can’t find the words. I open my mouth, then swallow. My throat is bone dry.
I set the paper aside. The coordinates are already burned into my brain.
Beneath it, there’s a notebook, lined with gold filigree and radiant runes.
A chill runs down my spine.
I recognize this journal. I gave it to Malach as a betrothal gift.
Seeing it again pulls me back in time.
“Only you can open it,” I whisper to Malach, pointing to the judgment runes etched into the border of the journal. He runs his fingers over the marks, and the journal flips open, revealing thick, blank pages.
He glances up at me, his green eyes earnest. “What if you want to read it?”
“It’s a journal, Malach. It’s private, for all the thoughts you don’t want to share with me.”
He shuts the book. “I don’t have any of those, my truth.”
I roll my eyes and shove his shoulder, but he doesn’t budge. “If you ever do, you can write them here.” I’m not sure if I’m annoyed that he doesn’t plan to use my gift or pleased by his devotion.
He tucks the journal into his pocket, and I blink, pulling myself back to the present.
I wondered two things about Malach for the first time that day: one, whether he could actually be as pure as he seemed.
My experience with male nish thatsha angels was rarely positive.
Father kept me secluded on the estate, and each year I saw less good in him. Could Malach be playing the same game?
The second thing I wondered was what I truly feared. Because if Malach was as good as he seemed, I could never meet his expectations. I would live to see myself become the bad one—the failure.
He might grow to regret his vows.
At the time, I was young and desperate for escape, but I knew losing Malach’s love would hurt worse than anything my father could ever do.
My fingers run across the face of the journal, the familiar lines of Malach’s judgment rune as bright as the day I handed it to him.
The leather shows signs of wear. It’s scuffed on the spine and curling around the edges.
I can picture his big hands cradling the book, scrawling his innermost thoughts on the pages.
I’m surprised he kept the journal and shocked that he wrote in it, but the change he made to the cover is both utterly predictable and devastating. Because between each of his runes, there’s one of mine: truth.
Whatever Malach wrote in this journal, he wanted me to read—there’s no mistaking that. I’ll respect his wishes, even if they’re painful for me, which means no one else hears his words. They’re for us alone, exactly as he intended.
“Can I get some time?” I ask. “I-I need to read this by myself.”
For a second, they don’t answer, then they file out together.
The door closes behind them with a gentle thud that’s drowned out by my pounding heart. Once I open this journal, I’ll know how Malach feels about me, and I’m fucking terrified. Don’t be a coward.
Determined, I activate my runes and trace the cover. It becomes pliant in my hands, and I open it with shaking fingers.
My truth,
I don’t know how to journal, but there are many things I long to tell you.
For both our sakes, pretend that I wrote and sent these letters long ago.
Imagine I was strong enough to tell you this story when it would have mattered.
Braver, cleverer. The partner you deserved.
But whatever you do, Celine, I beg you, cling tight to this—the truth that remains as unchanging as the eternal beyond:
I love you.
More than our homeland.
More than my radiant word.
I love you more than life itself.
I’ve failed us in many ways. In knowing who to trust. How to fight back. When to follow the old ways and when to forge my own path.
But gods alive and dead, my truth—I have loved you every day since we met, and I will love you when no more days remain. After the stars burn out, when our names are long forgotten, and when time itself disappears—I will love you still.
And because of that, I must tell you this: the story of the only lie I ever told you.
“Damn you, Malach.” I brush my tears away and turn the page, my heart and mind racing.
There’s a drop of blood on the bottom right corner. It seeped through the paper, staining the next sheet, too. Holding my place with my finger, I flip through the rest of the journal quickly, a sinking terror settling within me.
The deeper I go, the more bloodstains I find.
Gritting my teeth, I return to the beginning and read, noting everything Malach wrote down and everything he didn’t have to. The drops of blood, the way some words are carved so deeply into the page that they almost tore through the paper.
A chilling rage builds inside me.
My wings burst from my back, and I stand, pulling them away from the upholstery before I can repay Sheena’s hospitality by setting her home on fire.
Malach is absurd. He’s more than brave enough. More than clever enough.
As I feared, my second worry is the one that came true: I’m not good enough for him. But I’ll be damned if he ends up like my mother and becomes another casualty to my father’s brutality.
I reach the end of the journal, place it carefully on the end of the bed, and charge toward the door. I no longer care about Lyklan’s intentions; all that matters are mine. My purpose is unchanged. I finally have the means to get it done, and I won’t waste another second.
I find them in the hall, waiting for me.
“Well?” Alistair asks, the blue of his eyes replaced by boiling red as he tracks the tearstains on my cheeks.
“I need weapons and a ride,” I say. “And I need them now.”