Chapter 3 #2
Two days later we reached a neighborhood at the edge of Lownden City.
My eyes scanned the edge of the teeming, smoky town.
It was a foul, dirty place, full of poor masses and a few wealthy families who pulled the strings in the city.
But I was glad to see it. Two days of travel at a cart’s pace almost made me lose my mind.
I found myself thinking wistfully of the great wooden platforms we used to transport goods in Aerie.
We had magical energy created and stored to keep them afloat, hundreds of feet off the earth, but still had mighty beasts pull and push them from peak to peak.
Every warrior had hated cloudstore duty.
But somehow I missed it, after being tied to the walking pace of an old horse pulling a decrepit cart across Anglian moors and farmland.
A small cluster of gray stone terraced houses and brown-shingled roofs sat beneath me at the very edge of the city.
Amidst several oak trees a church stood, one gray belltower reaching upward.
Behind the church was a strange glass structure I couldn’t make sense of.
Shadows rolled across the ground, casting the church in darkness. A faint scent of rot wafted up to me.
People milled about, some women coming out of their homes and peering as the cart rattled to a stop outside the front of the church.
I glided to the belltower, caught a grip in between stone and cracked mortar, and sat on the edge of the stone parapet, letting my bare feet dangle over. I watched the display below.
Tomes got down from the cart and turned to three men dressed in black suits, stiff-necked and somber. The other elders, likely. While he conversed with them, Lilith climbed down from her perch of the cart, her movements ginger and careful, as if she was sore from the journey.
My hands twitched, nearly reaching out to assist her down. I stilled myself. Heralds probably didn’t do things like that.
Several women approached, most of them middle-aged. One had graying blond hair and wore a dress similar to Lilith’s. Her mother, I presumed. I expected the woman to embrace her daughter, but instead she crossed her arms and spoke to her a foot or two away.
Lilith crossed her arms and huddled, mirroring the woman’s posture, then pointed to the cart.
The older woman turned and tripped over her skirts running to the cart.
A wail went up, and then all the women were crowding around, removing the straw and melting ice blocks.
More came out of their homes until there was a crowd.
Men arrived, too, though not as many. The elders in black shoved their way to the cart, pushing and snapping at the women.
I took in the scene. Movement flickered at the corner of my eyes.
I glanced over and saw a young woman standing beneath one of the bare oak trees, a shawl wrapped around her.
She alone did not surge around the cart.
Her face was like pale limestone, and her grip on her shawl turned her fingers to claws.
She wavered in the wind, as thin as a sapling, and her black hair was drawn tightly back from her face.
Lilith, on the edge of the mayhem, turned and caught sight of the other woman. She said something, beckoning. “Silence.”
The woman shook her head, refusing to budge from the tree.
Interesting.
A noise rose up from the cart, drawing my attention back to the people. Tomes stood there, hat in hand, pointing up at me.
The people, more than twenty, went immediately silent. They stared up at me, all different shapes and sizes and skin tones, eyes wide and expectant.
I took a breath, extended my wings, and stepped off the belltower parapet.
The women gasped, and the few children in their midst cried out.
My wings snapped open, and I hovered above them for a few heartbeats.
It was a cloudy, cold winter day, so I didn’t have the sunlight streaming through my wings to make an impact, but I didn’t let it bother me.
These people had never seen seraphim, even though their entire cult seemed to revolve around them.
“Brown wings,” someone murmured. “Not white?”
That wasn’t going to bother me. What did I care about some small-minded human’s opinion? Nothing. I wasn’t going to let it bother me. I had proved myself many times over.
With powerful, dramatic wingbeats, I slowly lowered myself to the ground. When my bare feet hit the hard-packed earth I snapped them wide, flaring the primary feathers, then folded them in.
The awed, dumbstruck looks on their faces made clear I’d succeeded in giving them a show. I held back my smug smile.
“Herald!” The oldest elder, a man with white tufts of hair on the sides of his head and a shiny pocketwatch dangling from his waistcoat, stepped forward. “We are honored you’ve come to our humble place of worship.”
I arched one brow and set my fists on my hips. He did not sound humble at all.
“I am Elder Nelson. You’ve met Elder Tomes.” He gestured vaguely behind him. “And here are Elders Dalton and White.” All men gave short bows, eyes gleaming as if they couldn’t quite believe they’d gotten what they wanted and now didn’t know what to do with it.
“Herald!” A woman’s voice this time. I scanned the small crowd, looking for her.
The woman with graying blond hair stumbled forward, elbowing people to get to the front. She dropped to her knees. “I am Mrs. Meadows, the mother of Elder Absalom.” Her voice caught on a sob. “Please. What happened to my son?”
“Be quiet, Martha,” Tomes hissed at her. “You cannot make demands of Erlik’s Herald. I’ll answer your questions later.”
But she wouldn’t be deterred. “Please, Herald, at least tell me he is safe in Lord Erlik’s arms.”
I nodded stiffly, looking around for any sort of hint as to how I should act.
Lilith skirted the edge of the crowd, sidling toward her mother and close to me. I watched her face, completely blank although her body moved with purpose.
She was all juxtaposition—curvy body, sharp mind, blank eyes, hard tongue, beautiful and cold. She was a mystery, and I’d always loved mysteries.
“With your leave, Herald,” Nelson said, his voice quivering with age, “we shall take the bodies and prepare them for a funeral. After we have laid to rest our reverend and elder, we can meet with you about how we can best worship your presence and follow Lord Erlik’s precepts.”
The people sucked in a collective breath, as if they’d remembered it was not only an elder who had died, but their beloved Reverend Grimshaw as well.
They were a sedge without a captain now, for it was a Grimshaw who saw us Fall, a Grimshaw who gathered their faithful together, and a final Grimshaw who found Gabriel.
“A blessing, Herald,” Mrs. Meadows called out, getting to her feet as Lilith pulled on her arm. “Speak a blessing over my son, over the holy men we have lost this day.”
Elder Dalton, the youngest of the elders, had sandy blond hair and a heavyset frame.
He glowered at Mrs. Meadows. “Yes, Herald.” He turned a properly devout look on me.
“These men were the bravest and best among us. They died fulfilling the will of our god. They sought out Lord Erlik’s messengers and now surely are rejoicing in the splendor of our god’s glory in the Afterworld.
Would you speak a blessing on their passage, Herald?
For we know it is you who guide souls to their resting place in the Beyond and it is you who whispered the sacred precepts of Erlik down to the reverends through the ages. ”
Inwardly, I grimaced. I really need a look at these sacred precepts.
I nodded gravely.
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Meadows suggested, suddenly bashful and flushed, “may I suggest the Blessing Psalm 106? It has always brought me great comfort.”
I hesitated, my pulse spiking. Well, fuck, how was I going to handle this without revealing my ignorance and disappointing a grieving mother?
Lilith stared at me, her eyes sharp and assessing, though her face was still slack and her mouth impassive. I felt stripped bare by her gaze. My chest ached after the endless days of flying, and I didn’t like what she might be seeing.
I opened my mouth, ready to see what came out, when Lilith began to speak.