Chapter Twenty
Chapter
Twenty
Hawkyn’s heart was heavy as he stepped out of the
light and into a completely empty room. There was literally nothing but white
nothingness. White nothingness and his mother, dressed in more
white. At least her ruby wings added some color.
“Hello, my son.”
She really wanted to play the family card right now? Okay, he could do that. “Hey, Mom. So
you drew the short straw, huh?”
“Short straw? Is that a humanism?”
And in those two short sentences, he truly understood why,
until recently, Memitim had been raised by humans. Angels who rarely left the
luxury of Heaven could never understand them.
“Yes, it’s a humanism,” he said as he looked around,
marveling at all the nothing. “This isn’t the Ascension chamber, is it? So I’m guessing I’m here for punishment, and you are the one
who gets to deliver the sentence.”
“This is most difficult,” she said softly, and the
first thread of oh-shit ran through his system.
What if he didn’t make it back to Aurora? What if she really
was left by herself to raise a half-angel child? And as much as he liked
Maddox, the guy wasn’t the most responsible angel who had ever existed.
“Tell me, Hawkyn. What rules have you broken?”
He snorted. There was no sense in lying, so at this point,
he might as well go all in. “All of them, probably. So
if I’m here to lose my Memitim status, can we just get it over with? I have
somewhere to be.”
“Yes,” she mused. “With the mother of your child. How
sweet.”
“Says the person who tossed me away like garbage in a
rainstorm.”
Yeah, there was a little resentment there. It was stupid,
probably, given that centuries had passed. But now that he had made a child, he couldn’t understand how anyone could
intentionally make a child to be given over, intentionally and knowingly, into
harsh conditions.
He would protect his child—and its mother—with his life.
Centuries of anger spilled over at the thought, his
abandonment issues rising to the surface like lake pollution after a storm.
“You know,” he continued, because what the hell—if he was
going to lose his angel status, he was going to make sure the Council knew
exactly why it was bullshit. “Memitim deserve better than the kind of crap
we’ve had to endure for eons, starting with the day we’re born and abandoned in
the worst conditions imaginable. We suffer only to be rescued from our
situations and used as pawns in a game we aren’t allowed to understand.”
Ulnara’s blond brows arched, but if she was annoyed by his
tirade, it didn’t show. “And what don’t you understand?”
He nearly laughed. Where to even start…
“I want to know why we can’t be told the reasons why the
people we protect are Primori.”
“And if you knew?”
“If we knew there was a good reason to protect evil people,
then maybe it would be a little less soul-withering to watch them slaughter and
torture and cause pain.”
Clasping her delicate hands in front of her, she studied him
with something he might have thought was affection if he didn’t know any
better.
“Thousands of years ago, the very first Memitim were given
that information.” She sighed. “But we discovered that when they knew the
future, they sometimes tried to change it. They always believed they could make
bad things better. They didn’t understand that real change comes from tragedy.
It’s how humans grow.”
Okay, Hawkyn didn’t like the rule, but he at least
understood it. They could, however, make it more palatable and less “do it
because I said so.”
“Couldn’t the same be said about angels?” he countered. “You
people are stuck in the human dark ages, your rules and laws barely changing,
while Memitim are moving forward because of human advancements in technology
and science and social norms.” He shook his head in frustration. “Can’t you see
what you’re doing to us? We don’t want to follow your rules anymore.”
She tucked her hands behind her back and started to pace.
Reminded him of himself, actually.
“We’re starting to see that.” She looked over at him. “What
would Memitim like to see changed?”
He stared. Was she serious? And was this why he’d been
summoned? To brainstorm options to raise Memitim morale?
“Well?” she prompted.
Right. He ticked shit off his fingers. “First off, we’d love
to have sex. Like, we’d really love it. Second, we need access to Primori
records. Even if we can’t know why our charges are special, it would be helpful
to know their histories, especially if we’re their first guardians or if their
previous guardian didn’t keep detailed notes.” He’d
been lucky with Drayger that Atticus had been so obsessive about
record-keeping, much like himself. Some Memitim, like Journey, half-assed their
notes while others took none at all. “It would be
especially helpful if we can see, in real time, if our Primori have gone off
track. Third, why the hell can’t we have an occasional margarita? That’s some
serious bullshit right there. Fourth—”
“Okay.” She held up her hand to cut him off. “I think that’s
enough.”
Now that he was on a roll, he didn’t want to stop. “It’s not
nearly enough,” he said, more harshly than he intended. “But hey, I can submit
the rest to you in writing.” He snorted. “Except you guys never acknowledge
anything we send you. That’s another thing; maybe you could actually
respond to our summons? Reza waited at the Summoning Stone for three
full days after sending a request, and she never did hear from you. That’s
unacceptable. If this were a human business, you’d go under within a year.”
Suddenly, his tongue froze and his lips stopped moving.
Ulnara smiled. “That’s better. When I tell you enough, it means enough.” She
flicked her fingers, and his oral bits started functioning again. “Perhaps
you’d like to know why you’re here?”
No shit. “That’d be great.”
She ruffled her wings, the sound whispering through the
great empty space. “You impregnated a Wytch.”
Here we go. Now they were getting down to it.
“Yeah, and I don’t know how it even happened. I mean, aside from the obvious. I
shouldn’t be fertile.”
“I have no idea why you are fertile,” she said. “My job
doesn’t usually focus on how things happen. I’m more concerned with the
results.” She studied him with hawklike eyes. “But it is curious. Did
you eat or drink anything that could have altered your physiology? Has anyone
cast a spell—or a curse—on you?”
“Of course not. I—” Oh, shit. The day with Darien. He’d
spilled a drop of his mystery potion into Hawkyn’s wound. That had to have been
it. Darien had said the elixir had unpredictable results, but holy shitmonkeys,
fertility was one hell of a side effect. “Yeah, I think I figured it out.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said with a dismissive wave of her
hand. “It was meant to be. All of it. That’s why your Primori’s Fate Line
didn’t change when you tried to interfere with Aurora’s abduction or when you
rescued her. It was supposed to happen.” Shockwaves pummeled him in almost
physical blows. He had been part of the historical grand plan? “That said, we have to punish you even though
everything you did was according to plan.”
What kind of bullshit was that? “I don’t understand,” he
ground out.
“Well, how could you? You’re a mere earthbound Memitim.” She
adjusted her robes. Why, he didn’t know. They looked the same as they had
before she adjusted the folds. Still fold-y. “You’re not going to Ascend. But
you’re not remaining as you were. We’ve created a position just for you.”
“A...position?” He swallowed the
lump of disbelief in his throat. They weren’t going to expel him from the
Memitim Order? He was getting promoted?
“In part, you can thank your father for that. He’s been a
supreme pain in the ass, and it’s become clear that we need a closer
relationship. So you are going to be the liaison
between the Council and Sheoul-gra. You’ll make the Council more accessible to
Azagoth and your siblings, and you’ll help advise us to make policy based on
Memitim needs.”
Holy shit. Holy shit! All his life, all he’d wanted
was to be on the Council so he could be a leader for his un-Ascended brethren,
making life easier for them, supporting them, making sure they were happy and
functional. A job as a liaison would be even better, allowing him to still be
with his earthbound siblings while advising the Council.
“We’ve heard you, Hawkyn.” She smiled wryly. “How could we
not? You send missives on a weekly basis.”
“So you really do get those?” he
asked, incredulous. “I assumed they get tossed out with the Heavenly trash.”
“We got every one of them. Including the ones in which you
call us doddering fools who are out of touch with reality.” She sniffed
haughtily. “We’re not doddering or fools, but we are, perhaps, a little out of
touch with reality.”
“A little?”
“Watch it,” she warned. “The other Council members were
skeptical of this plan. I stood up for you. I can stand down.” She flapped her
wings in irritation, and he wondered how close he was to losing this. He should
probably be a little more respectful.
Nah.
“When does this become effective?”
“Right now.”
Powerful waves of tingly energy rolled over him, rushing
through his veins like a drug, filling him with new knowledge, new abilities,
and, he was thrilled to find out, new wings. Cranking his head, he took them
in, shocked to see that they resembled his old ones. Like his shadow wings,
these were transparent, smoke-colored. But they were
bigger, and they glittered, catching the white light like a disco ball.
“There are no feathers,” he said thickly, his voice heavy
with emotion. “But they’re beautiful.”
“They are as unique as you are, my son.”
She smiled, and in that moment, he felt her affection
surround him. Suddenly, hundreds of years of feeling as if he hadn’t mattered
at all to the people who conceived him vanished, and he got it. He truly got
it. He’d been raised by humans, so he’d applied human values to his situation
and had been unable to fully understand angelic ways. That didn’t mean he liked
the way angels did things, but he was at peace with it now.
And it was all because of Aurora.
He flapped his wings, closing his eyes as the breeze they
made ruffled his hair and caressed his skin. He couldn’t wait to show her.
“What does this all of this mean for me now?”
When he opened his eyes, Ulnara was still smiling. “As an
Un-Ascended Memitim, you don’t have access to all of Heaven, but you will be
able to move around the Memitim compound and embassy freely. You can reside in
Sheoul-gra or the earthly realm for now. When the time for the Final Battle
comes, you’ll be granted full Ascension.”
“What about Aurora? I won’t give her up, even if she’s
Primori.”
She shrugged. “She won’t be Primori for long. Her status
will shift to the child she carries once it’s born. Be with her, Hawkyn. Should
you choose to mate her, your eternal lifespan will be
hers. Either way, I should like to meet my grandchild one day.”
Stunned, he barely managed a raspy, “Of course.”
“I hope you aren’t too disappointed in our decision.”
Disappointed? This...this was more than he’d ever hoped for.
This was far better than Ascending, but he couldn’t let them know that. The
Memitim Council thought this was a compromise between punishment and Ascension,
and if they knew this was the ultimate reward, he’d lose some bargaining power.
Bargaining power he was going to
use right now.
“Well, you’re saying I have to spend the next nine-plus
centuries working as an Ascended angel but without all the benefits, right?” He
affected a troubled expression. “Can we at least start this off with an olive
branch between Azagoth and the Council? He’s pretty pissed off at me, and if I
can negotiate a deal, it’ll go a long way toward making my position legitimate
in the eyes of my siblings and my father.”
She appeared to consider his BS, and he was shocked when she
nodded. “What is this olive branch you want us to extend to the bastard?”
He grinned. “You’re not going to like it.”
She didn’t. But he got it anyway.