2. Nahomie
Nahomie
A sea of ivory priestly robes filled my vision in every corner. I’d been so focused on ridding the garden of the dead bloodhound, I hadn’t heard when the Farasees slipped onto the property to ambush me.
Dead.
I was so dead.
I remained crouched, blinking through my shock.
The empyrean priests looked down on me. Too many of their eyes lingered on the pool of my braids that tumbled to the garden floor.
Even more lingered on the curves of my breasts.
The narrowness of my waist. The glow of my skin through the lace of my long gown.
I was covered from neck to toe. But the way they stared, ogled, you would’ve sworn I’d shed every inch of clothing and laid myself bare before them.
“Now what’s a beautiful, exquisite, little thing like you,” spoke the same Farasee, his glittering hazel eyes lazily looking around the calm, empty garden. “Doing all alone out here?”
Another Farasee smirked, his dark eyes promising violence of a kind I knew I wouldn’t survive. He opened his mouth. When he spoke, my shoulders trembled.
“Josephièn Namarielle. Chief Elder of Okapi Village, capital of Edenael Island, couldn’t possibly be responsible for you living out here alone...” A dark flash across his eyes. “Unprotected,” he slipped closer. A knot tightened in the back of my throat. “Defenseless... could he?”
The Farasee’s grin stretched.
The priests chuckled.
Fear. That was unfettered fear freezing my blood over with ice.
“How do you know Papi?” I asked coolly, fighting to keep my voice even. “And why in all of Elledelle are you here?”
The Farasees didn’t answer.
Their unified silence terrified me more than their presence.
Papi was the one who sat me down when I had just crossed my third century to tell me the dark, hideous truth. I had to have been three hundred and fifty. So young.
So na?ve.
Such a fool.
He’d told me about the Farasee Order. How it was predominantly males. How the Farasees were crueler than they were holy. More vicious than they were pious. And that if I’d ever been found by one alone, I needed to fight like the Six Hèls to be free.
Papi’s warning was for one Farasee finding me unawares.
As I shifted on the heels of my sandaled feet, I counted seventy.
“Nahomie Emélie Namarielle,” the first Farasee spoke again.
I hated my name on his tongue. Hated how he said it with such possession.
Like he owned me.
Like I was his dog.
The priest stood with his chin lifted, his seven wing pairs spread open behind him, the sandy feathers flapping in the soft wind.
Like all the Farasees, his perfectly white robes covered him from neck to sandaled feet.
Arrogance sharpened his jawline. Pride burned in those hazel eyes. Cruelty curled his lips.
“I’ll admit you’ve done well. What with evading us for...” He looked to the gigantic brute floating to his right. The one who looked like the image of every female angel’s personal Hèls. “How long has Asarah Anathelle had us searching for this one, Tavaziah?”
The bald-headed idiot grinned, tilting his head as if he were actually thinking about it. While Tavaziah pondered, I subtly dropped my left hand to the ground, letting my fingers sink into the small layer of dirt.
“Too long, Nunèzu. Seven centuries too long.” His dark eyes flickered to me. “Although...” Those pools of horror slid down my frame. “I can’t say it wasn’t worth the chase.”
My nostrils flared. Disgusting ogres.
Panic flooded my bloodstream. Stars, I needed Papi so badly.
How was I going to get out of this?
“I am glad,” Farasee Tavaziah said. “We won’t be bringing her. Isn’t that right, Dyabèssa?”
Dyabèssa.
No, it couldn’t be.
They didn’t mean...
A reed of an angel slithered forward. Tall as a tree, lithe as a feline, the angel slipped through the folds of air as quiet, and undisturbing, as the fall of feathers.
Shrouded from head to foot in endless layers of velvet red, the angel looked as if clothed in a veil of blood.
A gilded faceplate covered the length of their face.
A narrow slit revealed pools of umber that writhed with a hatred that made my skin burn.
Long, golden chains hung from the angel’s neck to its chest, and others to its knees.
Over the gilded faceplate and chains lay another layer of satin in the brightest red, covering their head and hanging down to the ends of their robes.
Dyabèssa.
The Demonèss of the Ouanaviel Empyrean.
Tracker.
Hunter.
Executioner.
The Farasees hadn’t come for me alone. They’d brought the Dyabèssa.
If she was here, then so was the Ivory Rain, the elite legionnaires employed by the Empràr to hunt down everyone they deemed a great danger to the empyrean. Papi once said I would have to fight my way out if I ever faced a situation like this.
I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin.
The Dyabèssa watched me from that small slit that barely showed her eyes. She looked amused.
Slowly, oh so slowly, I pushed to stand on my feet. The Farasees took a better look at me. Pious pigs. I took the chance to see my staunch opponent.
I found exactly what I’d feared.
Behind the seventy Farasees floated a sea of scarlet and gold.
The Ivory Rain.
And behind them all was one enormous golden cage.
My seven hearts stuttered.
A scuffle through the trees of the forest made my ears twitch, but I wasn’t dumb enough to take my eyes off the army of angels who had me surrounded. A furry head shoved into my side as a familiar growl slipped into the air. Leave it to Bones to show himself at the wrong time.
Eyes still on the Dyabèssa, the Ivory Rain, and the Farasees, I reached with my hand and rubbed the top of my cinderwolf’s head. The dog was bigger than bloodhounds, reaching higher than my hips, with blood-red eyes, smooth obsidian fur, and teeth made to shred flesh and bone.
“What is this?“ Bones asked.
Cinderwolves could bond to angels through blood oaths. Once bound, both angel and wolf could communicate telepathically. A matter of convenience, especially in moments like this.
“A burial ground if I don’t escape.”
The cinderwolf snarled viciously, lowering his head when he looked at the Dyabèssa. The Demonèss didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Hèls. I don’t even think she breathed.
“Why are they here, Emie?”
“Remember when Papi came a few weeks back and told us that funny little story about the Farasees hunting for Nebulari across the Empyrean? How they launched the Starfellien Ascent and brought in a new order of Disciples into their Temple to start their hunt?”
Bones glowered at the angels, but his tail swished, hinting at his confusion.
“But Nebulari are myth and legend, my Emie.”
“Not to these Farasees, they aren’t.”
“Bring her to High Farasee, Asarah.” A beat. “And burn all of this to the ground.”
A deep, sinister voice slithered into the air. Old. Malevolent.
Wicked.
A Farasee with eyes as ivory as his coily, neatly trimmed hair, floated forward. He looked at me with a sneer before turning away, dismissing me with a wave. It seemed his command was for the Dyabèssa.
“As for the rest of you, let’s go. There are more. She is our second of seven. Dyabèssa,” he snapped, tongue laced with venom. “You will join us once you’ve turned over the target.”
“Farasee Azariah, surely you’ll allow us to?—”
Farasee Tavaziah screamed, his body suddenly contorting painfully.
Farasee Azariah simply looked at him, ivory eyes unmoving.
Without another word, the elder Farasee turned away, spread his wings, and began flying off.
It was then that I saw the endless lines of chariots floating above, hidden in the clouds.
Without a word, one by one, every Farasee spread their wings and flew up to their chariots. Nunèzu was the last to leave.
“You’ll be brought to Prizòn Noir.” He grinned. “I’ll come find you there.”
He turned to the Dyabèssa, sneering with such disgust I flinched at his expression on her behalf. “Make this quick, Demonèss,” he spat.
Then the Farasee flew away.
“We can take her,” Bones snarled down our bond.
I almost wanted to laugh. My cinderwolf was always so confident in my abilities.
If only he knew, even with my blackfire, I was no match for the Dyabèssa.
“Bring that mutt with her, too,” Nunèzu tossed over his shoulder.
Rot.
I was hoping they’d leave Bones out of this.
The Dyabèssa glared at me.
And I glared back.
I took a breath. Steeled myself.
Then I wrenched my arms upward. A vortex of blackfire poured out from the ground like angry vines, snaking towards the huntress, snapping at her robes and wings. I launched into the air, pulling my wings open. The Ivory Rain launched into the sky, encircling me. But none of them attacked.
The Dyabèssa never moved.
She only tilted her head up and watched me.
The sea of scarlet surrounded me on all sides. I summoned a whirlwind of impenetrable black flame that swarmed me, lifting my hair in the wind. Lavender stars glittered in the black as I thought of how to fight my way through. Fight my way out.
I lifted my hands to unleash my ethèr when I heard my prodigious cinderwolf yelp like a newborn pup. I looked down. And found him contorted, bleeding from several gashes. Stars! When had he been struck?
“BONES.” The bloodcurdling scream ripped from my throat.
Before my blood burned like acid. Like poison.
I screeched, losing my grip on the blackfire, before flinging to the ground in excruciating pain.
My body contorted. Convulsed. Twisted and turned, utterly out of my control.
Tears burned my eyes, staining my cheeks.
I looked up through blurred vision and found the Dyabèssa staring down at me like I was a pathetic worm.
She’d disabled me. Brought me down to nothing.
She still hadn’t moved.
“Wont anfinité.”
Eternal embarrassment.
Those were the only words the Dyabèssa spoke. Then she turned away from me without another word. A tendril of blood, coiled with scarlet fire, seeped out from her robes.
Burning stars.
Her ethèr was bloodfire.
I screamed as cords of fiery blood wrapped around my body and that of Bones, who had fallen unconscious.
The tendrils of bloodfire drug us through the air.
Then we were dumped into the gilded cage before the Ivory Rain turned to my beloved Nahomie Manor, my beautiful, palatial home for nearly one thousand cycles, and set every inch of precious stone on fire.