Chapter Eleven
Eve
Unease made my stomach hurt and my fingernails dig into my palms. Gabriel would never consent to being worshipped—he’d consider it a humiliating spectacle, humans using him as a prop for their own religious desires.
He wanted space to lick his wounds. Space to keep his seraphim safe, to find a bit of peace.
Zorababel’s mission would get in the way of all of that.
Why couldn’t I cut my losses, grab my belongings, and flee? My mission would fail. Why couldn’t I walk away before Zorababel realized and tried to call me home for punishment?
It was foolish to fall headlong into feelings for someone like Gabriel. I couldn’t let that consume me, not when I wasn’t yet free of the church’s long reach.
I’d followed all their rules, I’d believed all their lies.
Until I was twenty years old, and my father became ill.
He could scarcely work, and medical bills piled high on the kitchen table.
We prayed to Erlik for healing, though I saw my mother secretly leave offerings at shrines for Saras twice.
We had faith that Reverend Grimshaw would heal my father through the power of Erlik and our community would rally around us and support us through the hardship.
My father had surrendered almost all his earthly and financial possessions when we joined the Church of the Love of His Divine Saints, with the promise that the church looked after their own, under Erlik’s benevolent gaze.
They did not. Zorababel’s father stopped by twice for prayers in a year, and the elders never dropped off the proceeds from the offering plate.
A priest from a different church, the primary worship for Erlik, saw me praying on their steps one day and he paid for my father’s medicine for six months. A priestess of Termus found my father a new, less strenuous job when he recovered.
That’s when I began to doubt the Grimshaws, their elders, and the way the church treated us. When I began to wonder if most churches didn’t function like ours.
I’ll leave when the oriel’s clean, I told myself. I’ll work on it every day, even if it’s just a panel at a time. And when it’s done, inside and out, I’ll leave.
For three days I scoured old pots and pans, beat the dust out of ancient carpets and mildewy tapestries, and polished the wood in the Great Hall. I fell asleep every night exhausted, hoping I wouldn’t dream of Gabriel’s lips on mine. And every night, I did anyway.
During the day I tried to search the old manor for maps.
I counted my coins, now that Gabriel had paid me my first wages, and imagined how much better off I’d be if I waited a little longer, just until the next time I was paid.
I put aside little bits of preserved food to pack when it was time.
And each time I prepared, my heart cracked a little more.
One day, when I searched for Gabriel to give him his lunch tray, I couldn’t find him. I went upstairs and downstairs through the east wing, calling his name.
He poked his head out of the gallery, a room I hadn’t spent time in. I’d seen all the dust coating the gilt frames and sun-bleached portraits and immediately turned tail.
“Eve?” My name in his mouth never failed to send a shiver down my spine. And yet he seemed so unaffected, as if we’d never kissed.
I smiled, hoping I looked professional and casual. “Your meal?”
He glanced behind him, back into the long room. “I’m not hungry.”
My heart sank. “Oh.”
“But…you could come in? Eat it yourself. There’s no need for food to go to waste.”
I hesitated after one step. “If…that’s what you want.”
“Yes!” He cleared his throat. “Certainly.”
I followed Gabriel inside and my mouth dropped open.
I’d been expecting the same long, white walls and dusty wooden floor with sour-faced old people staring down at me from gold frames.
Instead it had been swept clean, scrubbed within an inch of its life, and the paintings were all piled face-down in a corner.
In their place, Gabriel had strung a net across the gallery and had accumulated staves, balls, old mattresses, and more I didn’t recognize.
It looked like an obstacle course, complete with a rack of weapons in one corner and heavy weights hanging from exposed beams.
“Did you turn it into a gymnasium?” I gawked.
Gabriel stood with his hands on his hips, wings stretched behind him, with a proud look on his face. “Yes. It’s not done yet, but I hope it will be a training area for seraphim when they visit.”
I smiled, impressed. “How long have you been working on this?” I had a hard time imagining my morose, noble angel breaking a sweat by doing manual labor.
“A few days.” He blushed. One wing crooked to the side and the other folded against his spine. “It’s…it’s nothing.”
“It’s wonderful!” I spun in a slow circle, taking it in. “I’m sure your friends will love it.” I hesitated. “If they visit, I’ll need staff. I don’t think I can take care of all of them by myself.”
He let out a bark of laughter. “I promise I’ll consider my housekeeper as I make plans. Better yet, we’ll make plans together.”
Warmth grew in my chest. To distract myself from it before I said or did something stupid, I pointed to the net. “Is this like what they have back in, um Seraph Land?”
His eyes sparkled, and somehow he was even more handsome.
I couldn’t bear it. “Something similar. Our home world is called Rundis, and we call our confederation of lands Aerie. Our ruler is the king of Aerie.” He gestured toward a chair in the center of the room with a low back, easy for his wings to fit. “Sit, eat.”
I obeyed, taking a bite of the warm bread.
“And yes, this is similar to a training room we’d use.” He paused, glancing around. “More for adolescents. Or those recovering from injury.”
I laughed, mouth full of bread. I couldn’t help it, not with the chagrined expression on his face. “Because it’s indoors and small?” I pointed at his wings as an example.
Gabriel nodded. Then he smirked. “When I was a little thing, only fifty years or so, I sneaked into one of these. My parents employ guards to keep the family and the estate safe, and the barracks has one. I knew I’d be a warrior one day.
All second children in Aerie do. I crept in and decided to try some of the models.
I could actually fly into the air because of how little I was, and do ducks and twists as I beat the mannequin.
It spun on a cranked wheel,” he explained, twirling a finger to demonstrate.
“And I thought I was doing well until my uncle, who was visiting, appeared out of nowhere. Nearly made my heart burst.”
I laughed, happy to see him happy and remembering pleasant things from long ago.
He shook his head. “Made me get on the floor, put my bare feet on the wood. And then made me run everything again. I did, ah, much worse that time. But I didn’t give up, and by the end my uncle—who was a general—clapped me on the back and told me to keep learning, and that when it was my time to go to the academy he’d personally escort me.
” His smile faded. “He died in the war while I was still in school.”
“I’m so sorry, Gabriel.”
He shook it off, feathers rustling. “It was a long time ago. It was war. It would’ve happened to me eventually if the sky hadn’t split.”
A sour taste crept up the back of my throat. I hated imagining this fierce, proud man hurt. “I’m glad to have met you,” I said impulsively.
He had turned to fidget with one end of the net and turned back to me now in surprise. “Truly?”
I nodded. “And I’m sorry for your family.” I thought of his parents, his older brother. Gabriel was a man in his prime. A horrible thought came to me. “Wait. You—do you have a wife? Are you married back home?”
He stared. “No.”
I sagged with relief. Then embarrassment flooded me.
How could I have asked such a personal question?
It was now obvious I thought of him romantically.
Blast this stupid mouth of mine. “Forgive me.” I tried to salvage my mistake.
“I wondered…what a seraph family is like. Are you allowed to marry while in the military?”
Heat flashed in his eyes, then he glanced away.
“We can marry while in the military, yes. We have a rigid social structure, so there are many rules. For example, we’ve had to serve at least a decade before getting permission.
I am not married. I never formed an attachment to anyone strong enough for me to pursue marriage. ”
I took a bite of stewed carrot to hide my smile. “Is that common even among your nobility, then? Love matches?”
Gabriel raised his brows, as if to ask, you truly find this interesting? “It depends on many factors, I suppose,” he said slowly. “The war with the Gar had something to do with that, in a way.”
I perked up. “Do tell.”
He shrugged, as if trying to take back his words. “Not recently, I mean. Just…there’s a few ideas of how our enmity began with the Gar, thousands of years ago, and one of them is a love story.”
“Oh, can you tell me?” I breathed.
“If I can remember it.” He cleared his throat.
“Far across a hundred thousand spires, above one hundred and one valleys, there were two peoples: the Seraphim and the Gar.” His voice had taken on a sing-song quality to it, and it reminded me of the time before we joined the church, when my mother would put me to sleep with once upon a time.
“High in the tallest spire of the Aerie lived the nephew of the king.
Engiel was handsome and skilled. His arrows could pierce the clouds and his black wings spanned many arm lengths.
He was a mighty hunter. One day he went out to hunt wild game.
He took his spear and his bow and arrows.
He went only by himself, and he flew to an area near the shared border with the Gar.
Engiel landed in a small, wooded flat space on a spire and intended to hunt wild goats.