Chapter 20
Electric light exploded into the charged air, setting the tower alight with destructive energy. Quazar snarled at me, rearing back on his legs as he spread all six wing pairs. Then he launched himself forward, tackling me.
I was ready for him, bracing my wings in front of myself as I tried to shield myself against the brunt of his weight. Through slitted eyes, I watched him lick the golden blood trickling from his lips. His eyes were ablaze.
Daelun laughed, darkly. “It was about time things got fun around here.”
His skin had shed itself, becoming the very tendrils of wind and air.
All that remained were his dark eyes as he tackled Ivyana.
His body slammed into hers, throwing her across the great room.
As Daelun charged again, Ivyana’s emerald eyes glowed.
Daelun thrust out his arms. A sky quake began trembling the tower, shaking the edifice.
I dodged Quazar’s incoming blow, as Daelun exploded with a strong gust of wind, throwing Ivyana into its loop.
I grinned.
Then Daelun started screaming.
I narrowed my eyes, searching through the thickness of his air affinity. To find Ivyana with her hands out, bending them. Every direction she bent her hands, Daelun’s limbs also bent.
Holy stars.
She was a Limb Bender.
A heavy blow to the side of my head sent me reeling. I crashed into a pillar. A bone popped. I wheezed in agony. Head swimming, I blinked and watched my shadow grow. My shadowy limbs stretched, becoming abnormally long. Then they contorted. Every muscle in my body twisted, spasming all at once.
I shrieked. Starfire burst out of me, cutting through the shadow tendrils clinging to my body.
But the pain refused to let up. Drawing on starfire, I turned my arms to swords, shooting straight for Quazar’s chest. He dodged the first several blows.
I huffed, striking again and again, but the shadowed demon kept evading being struck.
Think, Safah. I chided.
So you’ve been winging it this entire time? Quazar’s voice slipped into my head, full of ridicule. No wonder this feels like dancing with a child.
Angrily I swung.
And missed.
I fumed, ditching the swords for bolts. I began to throw bolt after bolt. And I hit true each time.
Quazar snarled, ducking as a flash of earthen spikes flew past his head.
Omarion met blow for blow against another brown-skinned Mortent with Omarion’s same green-hazel eyes, and dreads tied up in a clasp with his head shaved on either side.
I couldn’t tell the Mortent’s Bending abilities, but he was making Omarion and his earthen elements work hard for his victory.
These Talons were extremely skilled in combat. I swallowed nervously as I shot for Quazar again. This time, he left my shadow alone. He flexed his hands and let a dark mass of black shadows pour out, trapping me in a dome of darkness.
“What in the stars is going on?” a voice I wasn’t familiar with called out.
“Xadariens…attacked…one of us…so we’re striking…back,” Daelun said through gritted teeth. “Ella…Beth…is missing.”
I threw a star shield around myself, glittering like the galactic stars, refusing to let Quazar strike me again.
“Over-confident temple brat,” he spat. “Let’s see how well you do in the dark.”
“I don’t think so,” I raged. “Let’s see how you handle the light!”
I shot out a canopy of starlight so bright, the sight burned my own eyes as it filled every crevice of the dark dome he’d put around me.
Before I could defend against it, a large form rushed through the darkness, ancient script writhing along the columns of his bare skin, as he slammed into my shield, nearly disintegrating it.
“If you think I’m afraid of the light, Starling,” Quazar whispered, “You underestimate my relentless odyssey to claw my way out of the dark.”
I paused, stunned.
A mistake.
Quazar took advantage of it, punching through my starry shield, shoving his chest into mine, pushing against me until my back slammed into a wall. He gripped both my hands, pinning them above my head with one of his wings, while he glowered into my face.
I wriggled in his grasp, fighting to be free. The movement rubbed my shredded wings the wrong way, making me wince with pain.
“Release me.”
“No.”
I twitched, trying to break free. I drew on starfire, but I was growing weak from fatigue. Tendrils of thick shadow wrapped around my neck. And squeezed.
Tears filled my eyes as Quazar sneered, his full lips curling with hatred. I was consumed by those jade eyes, glittering like jewels.
“Your Granmanmi is the reason I have to suffer like a dog through your temple’s hellish Blood Rites.” His deep voice curled around my ears. Seeped into my chest, and began choking out my hearts. “Your Manmi is why we die like cattle—”
“If you all weren’t murderous Fallen trying to bathe the empyrean in blood—”
“Are you always this stupid?” he snapped. “For starters, we are not Fallen—”
“Not Fallen? Yeah?” I cut in. “And I’m a Celestial. Didn’t you know?”
“Cut the bullrot,” he snarled, pressing me harder into the wall. “Since your Manmi loved seeing our blood shed so much, we’ll see how they like it when the golden teardrops that fall are yours.”
In the back and forth, I hadn’t noticed Quazar’s talons curling around his wide frame. Hadn’t seen them lengthen, sharpen, curl. When I did, my eyes widened in horror. I looked back at him, our faces so close our noses could touch.
“No,” I breathed.
He grinned, cruelly. The shadows around us pressed in forcing my star shield to wink out. We were in total darkness except for my starry silhouette shimmering beneath Quazar’s shadows.
“Say hello to your Manmi from the Hèls for me.”
Quazar raised a talon to run me through. I panicked, terrified of the bloody way he’d end my life. Then Quazar stilled. His eyes were glued to my neck. I remained trapped in his grip, breathing heavily.
“Well, you asheating coward,” I spat. “Get on with it!”
“How long have you had those?” he said, his voice suddenly husky, barely a whisper.
“Had what, ashrat?”
“These inscriptions?”
Rot.
It was then I realized he’d landed a blow I hadn’t felt. And I was bleeding.
Tired and hurting everywhere, I didn’t even realize it so I could heal myself before what lay beneath my skin began to surface and expose me.
I looked into Quazar’s glittering eyes, my entire being consumed with fear. No one could see this. No one could know. And now, here was the one angel I’d hated for as long as I could remember, who’d already spotted the one thing Manmi warned me to hide with my life.
I didn’t answer, working to pull whatever scraps of starfire I could to heal wherever I’d been bleeding.
I held Quazar’s gaze as I felt my ethèr—the warm, deep, wells of my angelic power—traveling though my body and blood, knitting open wounds that were bleeding, until they stopped.
As they did, I could feel the inscriptions seeping back into my skin, disappearing.
Quazar’s eyes widened. “How in the rot did you just do that?” he breathed, his wings squeezing my trapped wrists.
He pressed closer, his chest against mine, his lips just a small lean away from mine. The heady scent of sandalwood and mint overwhelmed my senses, flooding me with a strange feeling I refused to entertain. I got a bit lightheaded, lost in those demanding eyes.
“I…” I stammered. “I’ve just always done it.”
What in the stars was I doing answering him? I was an idiot for responding. But I couldn’t stop.
“Manmi taught me how to…to keep from bleeding.”
Quazar opened his mouth to respond when something behind him collided. Then exploded. He turned his head, searching through the dark. I wasn’t sure what in the stars he was looking at. I couldn’t see squat.
“Ascendants!”
“Rot,” Quazar cursed quietly. He looked back at me, staring at where my inscriptions had been moments ago. “This isn’t over, Starling.”
Quazar dropped me, floating away as if he didn’t want me to contaminate him. Then he dropped the shadows. I immediately drew on my waning starfire, drawing starry daggers.
“What in the Infinite’s name is going on here?”