Chapter 10
Ten
Lilith
The midwinter wind cut through my shawl. I shivered and hunched my shoulders. I needed to hurry home with the jar of kerosene I begged from Silence’s parents.
I hated asking for help. We should be able to afford kerosene.
But Absalom had never made much after Father died, and when he married most of that money went to his new home with Silence.
Mother’s eyesight wasn’t good anymore, which meant it took longer to finish the piecework a seamstress hired us to do.
Eve’s parents lived on the very edge of the neighborhood. Her mother was a generous woman, but Eve’s father had been ill for a long time, and I knew they’d spent almost all their savings on doctors. So instead of asking them, I went to Silence’s home.
Silence, not her mother, had opened the door.
She always had a half-vacant look in her eyes.
For most of our teen years I’d assumed she wasn’t bright, but then I saw her retreat even further after marrying my brother.
And I knew that she had fled the world, taking comfort in her own mind.
She gave me the kerosene I requested, and as I looked at her, I realized her eyes weren’t quite so vacant anymore. She was not a grieving widow.
I wasn’t much of a grieving sister.
While I hurried through the winter cold, my mother was currently locked in her room, crying herself to sleep. She hadn’t looked at me since the funeral this morning.
I was all alone. I didn’t even miss the family members who’d died, because I’d felt almost as alone while they lived. My knees buckled as jagged pain shot through my chest, and I sank onto a nearby stone bench before I hit the ground.
How did it come to this? Years ago I thought I had everything.
When I was sixteen, I thought I’d be the beauty of the community, surrounded by people who loved me and who wanted to be me.
I’d had parents who gave me attention through discipline when I was rebellious, two siblings, admirers, and a few friends.
And now here I was. My beauty had grown just as my mother promised, but what had that got me?
No loving husband. Reverend Grimshaw had kept me single, even at my age, as sort of a prize for whichever men were most devout and obedient.
Both siblings were dead now. My father was dead also, and my mother broken and absent.
My looks made older women suspicious and harsh, and the women my age copied their mentors even if they weren’t sure why, so now I had no friends.
A sob tore out of my throat, harsh and painful. I covered my face with my hands against the stinging wind. I had followed the rules as best I could, serving where asked, subduing my looks when I could, pleasing those in power even when the elders and the elders’ wives contradicted one another.
I’d done it because it was true, even if complicated. And yet…the entire foundation of our church, that the fallen seraphim were Heralds of Death, come to bring healing or passing to Erlik’s chosen, was all a misunderstanding. I began to think maybe it wasn’t a misunderstanding, but a lie.
My mind flashed to Eve Lovejoy, when I’d seen her happy and naked in her lover’s bed—before I’d learned my brother and reverend were dead.
How had she found happiness? Hot and bitter envy surged through me.
She hadn’t followed the rules in the end.
Turned out, she had pretended to believe every teaching for years until she got away and found a seraph to love and protect her.
What did she do that I hadn’t? What did she have that I didn’t?
It wasn’t beauty. It wasn’t wealth. It wasn’t the favor of the elders. Had she just been lucky?
I ground my teeth at the thought. Where could I get such luck? I’d prayed to Erlik for years, and all he’d done was take more and more from me.
How had she found the courage to defy the reverend? Had she been fighting them in her mind all the time I’d focused on pleasing them, so their eyes wouldn’t fall on me for too long?
My chest felt like a stone lay upon it, pressing down, down, down, until it would crush me. All I wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep for a hundred years. I never wanted to smile or refill a pitcher of water again for as long as I lived.
A soft whirring sound broke through my gasping, dry sobs. My body tensed and I pulled my hands down. I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of catching me cry.
Brown caught the corner of my eye.
My heart sank. Castiel. I sniffed and wiped my cheeks, relieved to find I’d shed no tears.
The warrior angel landed on the cold, brittle grass, his gaze trained on my face. Those gorgeous wings slowly folded in, disappearing from view, and a little piece of me wanted to cry at the loss.
“Lilith,” he said gently. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
Castiel took a step toward me, and brown leaves crackled under his bare feet.
I jerked backward.
He paused, wings tight against his back and hands up, as if he was soothing a wild animal. “Lilith?”
My heart sank. I couldn’t do this right now. I didn’t want to perform for this fake Herald who tore apart my beliefs. I wasn’t in the mood for teasing. I sniffed again and wiped my face with the back of my hand. “What do you need?”
He stepped closer, moving slowly, until he eased onto the backless bench beside me. Heat radiated from his body, and I wished I didn’t like it so much.
I watched him from the corner of my eye as I stared ahead at the side of my house. Brown vines crawled up the the stone wall, and I studied it as if it held the secret to life.
Castiel, surprisingly, also faced forward. He sighed, making his wings rise and fall. “Lilith, why have you been crying?”
I stretched my lips into a smile and turned my head to look at him. “I haven’t been crying. What can I assist you with?”
He glowered. “Stop that. Stop doing that thing you do with the people here. I prefer your sharp temper over this bland sweetness. Your temper is honest. It might be the only honest thing in this godforsaken neighborhood.”
The smile fell off my face. I didn’t have the energy to keep it anyway. I turned to continue staring at the wintering ivy. “I don’t think I have a sharp temper today,” I mumbled, my voice thick from the unshed tears.
“Your brother,” Castiel began. “I had assumed you weren’t close, but—”
“We weren’t,” I said quickly, shivering as a gust of wind blew past. The bare branches in the tree above us groaned.
Castiel unfurled one wing behind us, then wrapped it around my back.
He didn’t touch me with his feathers, but I was still sheltered from the wind.
The warmth of his body and wing made me shiver.
It was like the perfectly warmed quilt you snuggled up with at bedtime.
My body relaxed by the second, and I feared I might lean against his shoulder if he kept the wing up.
It was so…comfortable. No, not just comfortable. Safe.
“Your brother’s funeral was today,” he remarked. “Even if you weren’t close, I imagine it’s difficult.”
I nodded, throat tight and eyes burning.
“It feels like it’s just me now. Long ago there were three of us.
” My words spilled out before I could stop them.
“But she left. There were so many arguments, so much yelling with my parents. It was miserable. But I loved her and she loved me. Until she left.”
“Where is she now?” Castiel asked.
I folded my hands together, squeezing them against the cold. “Dead, most likely. Women, especially very young ones, can’t survive by themselves out in the world.”
Castiel made a humming noise deep in his chest. “Why do you think that?”
I blinked at him. “Because—because it’s dangerous, especially for girls by themselves. We don’t have the skills to survive when half the city are cutpurses and fraudsters.”
“I am not well versed in the human world, particularly cities,” Castiel said. “But have you considered the elders might be exaggerating the dangers of the outside world to keep intelligent women like you under their control?”
“I…” I trailed off. “I have wondered,” I whispered.
It felt wrong to admit it aloud. “But why?” At some point my belief in the Church of the Love of His Divine Saints had weakened, but I hadn’t noticed.
Whether I believed the elders made little difference in my life—they still had the most power in the community. They still decided my fate.
I was lucky they appreciated my face. It was easy to please men when I smiled and kept my mouth shut. I learned quickly, for after one visit to the prayer closet I decided I’d never return.
“I wasn’t close with my brother, either,” Castiel admitted.
I looked at him in surprise.
“What?” He smiled. “Shocked? You do realize I’m not actually a Herald for Erlik, right?”
I rolled my eyes, the weight in my chest lessening at the sight of his smirk. “I didn’t think about seraphim families.”
Castiel tilted his head. “My parents are farmers, like over half the seraphim in my echelon. My brother will inherit the farm. As the second child I joined the army and ended up enjoying it, for the most part. I wanted to win favor with the royal family so they would grant me the gift of joining the echelon above us. And the only way to do that was to go far above and beyond expectations for warriors.”
Shock rippled through me. “That’s so…limiting.
” I flushed at the stupid comment. But I hadn’t really believed Castiel earlier when he’d complained of his echelon.
It was unfathomable that someone as majestic as he could be looked down upon, merely because of some ridiculous, ancient rule about families and social order.
Castiel stiffened, his face going blank. “Yes, some would say so.” His voice was neutral, but I understood now what that meant.
I hesitated, then plunged forward. “Castiel, you know that doesn’t matter, right? Your echelon has no bearing on your value.”
He gave me a tight smile.