Chapter 32
Ifroze in place, unable to hear a thing beyond the galloping hooves of my hearts. My ears rung like bells. Everything I’d just eaten threatened to come back up.
“Bullrot,” Ellabeth spat, shooting out of her seat. “No!”
She pulled at my chin, turning my face to hers.
“He’s lying. Tati would never. She would never! He’s lying. It’s his way of getting even. Don’t fall for it.”
“She seems pretty convinced. But tell me, Starling,” Quazar said down our bond. “Am I lying?”
I thought back to Titombwe. I wouldn’t have believed Granmanmi would bleed out an angel as an act from the Farasee Order in front of the empyrean. Yet she had. And she’d done so until he was just within an inch of completely losing his life.
What about Manmi?
I’d asked her many questions she wouldn’t answer. What did she know?
Better yet.
What had she done?
“Safah.” Ellabeth snapped her fingers before my eyes. “You’re not going to believe him. Him. Over Tati Amaryss’s honor?”
I took a deep breath. Once again I found myself in a place where all of the angels were staring at me and seeing what I would do.
I thought about Granmanmi. I thought about Manmi. I thought long and hard of how celebrated all the females in my family were. The list of accolades for all they’d done for the empyrean was a long one.
Would they receive all the praise if it had nothing to do with crushing the Fallenspawn? It was no secret the Fallenspawn were the bane of the empyrean, but they couldn’t simply be killed off or else the Fallen High King would invade with his Shadowlords and raise Hèls.
Azarath Academy was a way of culling the Fallenspawn.
Papi made it clear, Azarath was a blood factory.
Many angels went in, few came out. The majority were Fallenspawn.
I didn’t put it past the Order to do what they could to slowly wipe the Fallenspawn out.
I didn’t put it past the females of my lineage, either.
What was the real reason only Anathelle females were accepted into the Order?
I leaned back in my seat, taking a deep breath.
“Safah?” Ellabeth questioned, her eyes narrowing.
“Enough,” I snapped.
She flinched back, those eyes turning to thin slits.
“I…I need to think.”
I rose from my seat. Seventh Choir watched me intensely. I looked at Quazar, ignoring his table of Talons who continued studying me. How could I blame them, considering it was my Granmanmi that publicly drained their Prince like some rabid animal.
“I’m forced to be your temple-mate. Your bonded.”
I watched his face for any trace of lies. Of mockery. I had to see if he was playing with my mind. Or if I really had been lied to all my cycles of growing up, preparing to join this stars-forsaken temple.
“I must work with you, Prince Quazar.” I tilted my head. His eyes flashed. “But can I trust you? Trust your word?”
Shadows immediately slipped into my mind. Quazar shoved open the door to his side of the bond, bearing his shadows, his soul, to me. No one could see it, or feel it. But I did.
His gentle caress caused me to visibly sigh with relief. Somehow, I knew in my heart of hearts. Quazar was telling the truth.
Dakairi flicked a look at Quazar, as if trying to piece together what had just transpired between us. Dakairi wasn’t the only one who’d caught the shift. Ellabeth had, too. And so had Ivyana, who was now watching Quazar with fascinating curiosity, plainly written all over her face.
“Starling,” Quazar purred. The pet name dripped from his tongue like honey, making my toes curl in my sandals. “I’ll always tell you a joke. But I won’t ever waste my breath telling you a lie.”
I took a shuttering breath. Checked my hearts, my gut, once again to make sure what I felt was true. Was real.
Something deep inside me, something that refused to be lied to just knew. Quazar really was telling the truth. I couldn’t say how I knew, but there was something in his eyes. And something deep within myself. And the vulnerability of our bond.
Quazar Valoryen had not lied to me.
Which meant Manmi had.
Manmi was behind the birth of the Empràr’s Pass for the Fallenspawn to do annual crossings. Just like Granmanmi was behind the creation of the Blood Rites.
“Ellie, he isn’t lying,” I whispered.
It was hard to stand. The closest tables to us heard my words, and gasped. Others scoffed, as if they didn’t care. As if it was a good thing for the Fallenspawn to go through an annual culling they were more than guaranteed to not survive.
“Sazu—”
I looked at her, my eyes blazing with fury.
“He. Is. Not. Lying,” I bit out. “You can lie to a face but you can never lie to a bond. Manmi…she…she’s the one who did it.”
We are Anathelle’s Safah, Manmi told me often, dawn in and dawn out, as I trained for the inevitable dawn I would Ascend. We are holy, to whatever end.
To whatever end.
How far did that end go?
My mind was reeling. I placed my hand at my temple. A splitting headache exploded at the front of my head. I forced a breath through my lungs as my thoughts clouded until they were thick walls I couldn’t pierce through. My mind suffocated on slow unraveling truths I wasn’t sure I was ready to face.
“Your Granmanmi gave us Blood Rites,” Quazar said in the quiet. The angels around our table leaned in, hanging to every word. “Your Manmi gave us the Empràr’s Pass and made it mandatory, or else we’d die. And don’t get me started on what your Great-Granmanmi did.”
Quazar tilted his head, studying me. “What will you create, spawn of Anathelles?”
I refused to answer. Refused to look at him. To look at anyone. A thought occurred to me. I met Quazar’s gaze.
“If you graduated but are still at Azarath, do you have to keep going back to the Pass?”
“She is brilliant,” Quazar mused. “If this is going where I think it is.”
He smiled at me. Seventh Choir leaned in, trying to piece out what I wasn’t saying. Ellabeth most of all.
“Yes, my Starling. If we stay at Azarath, we must continue going through the Pass.”
“Why would you stay at Azarath?” I asked.
“If Dakairi and I leave, who would train Ivyana? Who would protect her? Who would defend my angels? I, we, stay so we can help those after us. Permission we’ve attained because it’s been told the…Hallowed get nervous when I am loose.”
He grinned wide this time. He didn’t have one dimple. The gorgeous Prince had two.
Rot, rot, rot me.
That smile would unravel me thread by thread. I tried looking away, but there wasn’t a chance in the Hèls I could. He smiled as if he’d sat at my kitchen table and heard Papi warn again and again about the Fallen Prince running loose and causing Hèls across the empyrean.
“Do you ever go to the Seal Gate?”
Quazar blinked at me. He watched me a long time. Ellabeth visibly leaned forward. I had a feeling she caught on to where my thoughts were going.
“I do. Usually with the Legionnaires when they’re on defense. Always during the wintrien season. The gate is messed with often when it’s cold and most islanders are bogged down in their homes.”
There’s no way.
There was absolutely no way.
I couldn’t have been lied to.
Not to this magnitude.
“During…wintrien,” I repeated.
He nodded.
Quazar’s Talons looked between him and me. They hadn’t caught on to where I was going with my questioning. But Quazar had. And so had Dakairi and Ellabeth.
“Blessed lights,” Ellabeth hissed.
Dakairi’s jeweled, royal blue eyes were dancing.
“When does the Empràr’s Pass take place?”
Quazar tilted his head, pretending as if he was thinking about it. My hearts raced at lightning speed, tightening with every second that ticked by.
“Hmm, end of springtari as we enter the sumyrin season. And in fallari we learn, train, and rest.”
The gate had been attacked during sumyrin. At the same time Quazar would have been at the Empràr’s Pass. Not at the Seal Gate. When Manmi died, Quazar wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere close.
The Farasee Order of Temple Efysis had lied.
Which meant Granmanmi… Granmanmi!
My knees buckled, and I fell back into my seat. The revelation was too much. I blinked at nothing, unable to face the hard truth that had been dancing in my face all along.
“What in the Six Hèls just happened?” Daelun asked, head swinging between the shocked expressions on mine and Ellabeth faces, and the sympathetic ones on Quazar and Dakairi’s.
“Looks like your princess is starting to wake up.” Dakairi winked at Daelun.
Seventh Choir stared at me wide-eyed, waiting for me to say something. If Quazar wasn’t responsible for Manmi’s death, then who was? Who else had any motive to kill…
No. Kaelthos Zamarien would never stoop so low to betray his own. Would he?
For the first time since Ascending, I looked around the temple walls and felt anything but safe.
I’d spent cycles hating Quazar. Hating the Fallenspawn.
I idolized the temple, believing I would come here and make a difference for the empyrean and get revenge for Manmi.
I’d been taught to hate the one angel who had nothing to do with the source of my greatest pain.
And the temple…
I lifted my eyes to Ellabeth who’d also sat back down. Her sun-kissed cheeks were red. Her eyes churned like a tempest. I knew that bright-eyed, wild look she had. Rage. Ellabeth was furious.
“Sazu,” she whispered, reaching for my hand.
I let her take it. Because what else could I do right now? Everything I thought was true was a burning pile of rot.
But I had no clue how to make sense of anything else. I had to speak to someone. But who? Could I write a letter to Papi that wouldn’t be meddled with? My head throbbed. I needed to know more. I needed to know the truth.
I shoved away from the table, pushing back my cloudchair. “I’m going to the biblarien. For research purposes.”
If anywhere in this temple had the truth, it would be the library.
“Don’t follow me,” I said, as Seventh Choir started gathering their belongings. Everyone stopped and looked at me. “I’m going alone.”
I yanked up my belongings, discarding my half-eaten plate, spread my wings, and rushed out of the food hall headed straight for the biblarien. As I raced out of the doors, a familiar trail of shadow followed me all the way to the library and never left my side.